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The World’s Largest Golf Club

In spite of the ban for golf for being associated to British colonialism, golf in China is becoming immensely popular and is growing exponentially. China’s first golf course was built in 1984 and the country presently has only 600 courses – that’s 1.5M people per course (talk about a long round) – targeted mainly to the wealthy provinces such as Beijing, Jiangsu, Guangdong and Hainan. Hainan in particular has been exempted from the ban by the government and is seen as an international tourism hub. However, golf’s inclusion in the 2016 Olympics is expected to drive significant demand for more courses and greatly expand the game’s reach.

The biggest attraction in Chinese golf is the Mission Hills resort/Golf club. With twelve immaculately manicured courses and nearly 10,000 members, Mission Hills is dubbed the “World’s Largest Golf Club” by Guinness World Records. The twelve courses are designed by a number of famous pros including Jack Nicklaus, Greg Norman, Annika Sorenstam, Ernie Els, Jose Maria Olazabal, David Duval, Nick Faldo, Vijay Singh, Pete Dye, David Leadbetter, Jumbo Ozaki and China’s Zhang Lian-Wei.

As golf becomes more popular in China, Mission Hills is the center of the action. The club has already brought the world cup to China, acting as the host for Asian Amateur Championship 2009. It also hosted the first European Evergreen PGA tour event, in collaboration with the European Seniors Tour and the China Golf Association, from March 11-13 this year, with total prize money of US$ 35 million.

Playing a round at Mission Hills costs $148 US on a weekday and $200 on a weekend. The club’s features includes three world class spas, a 317 room 5-star hotel, golf academies from renowned instructors David Ledbetter and Cindy Reid, around 51 tennis courts, and of course the world’s largest club house.

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How many states have you played golf in?

We’re glad to welcome a new guest blogger at the Scratch Pad! 72strokes.com is a golf blog run by Derek Franks, where he shares thoughts on golf happenings, equipment, and the tour. We’re glad to have him with us, and will be sharing some of his best posts with you. To date we’ve written a lot about golf around the world – what about right here at home?

US Map

This past December, Michigan resident Ed Ronco completed the 50-state checklist by playing a round at the Royal Kaanapali in Maui. He came up with the idea 7 years ago after realizing that he had already played in 23 states.

Through the use of creative routing of family vacations and several golf-specific trips, Ronco was able to bag every state. Alaska and Hawaii were two of the tougher states to cross of the list, mostly due to the travel/cost involved.
Continue reading “How many states have you played golf in?”

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From the Forward Tee’s then Beyond

Shawn is a member of MyScorecard and is currently a student at the Keiser University College of Golf in Port Saint Lucie, FL. He’s undergone superb improvement in his game, dropping his index from a 19 to a 9 in just under 12 months. Below, posted from his blog Golf with Shawn, is one his lessons regarding his dramatic improvement.

PGA Master Professional Dr. Wilson has stated at school several times for us to play the forward tees, “Shoot Par there, then move back”. You can read one of his articles on Facebook titled “Learning to Play, Learning to Score” .Golf Ladies Tee

The first time I heard him say it, that is what I wanted to do. The hard part was getting the rest of my foursome to tee off with me. EVERYONE wants to play the tips and tournament tees. I had found it to be hard to be the only one to play around the middle tee ground. A lot of times the group would tee off then forget about me.

Recently with some of my closer friends at school I have been able to convince them to do this. During these “practice rounds” I have started to notice something more and more… there have been a lot of smiles, laughter, and good vibes throughout the round. With my golf game I have noticed more improvements with my swing and ball contact. Something has just clicked, and all the lessons I have had at school I am starting to feel the difference in my swing and contact with the ball. Continue reading “From the Forward Tee’s then Beyond”

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Great Swings: Seve Ballesteros

We’ve received a lot of feedback from our members about adding in more content to help improve their games. We’ll be doing just that, starting with a series of posts that highlight the swings of great professional golfers.

We’ll be starting out with a golfer who the London Times said “brought passion and risk to golf” and whom a fellow pga tour pro described as “playing golf shots I don’t even see in my dreams” – the late Seve Ballesteros.

Seve joined the tour in 1974 at age 16, and won 91 tournaments (including 50 on the European Tour) over the next 33 years. He was known for his shot-making flair, with an expert sense of feel and extreme hand control that let him shape and finesse shots that amazed the crowd and his competitors.

 

 

A great summary of his swing style is found in his obituary that ran in the Economist magazine

Luck, said some. Miraculous said others, as they sighed at his soft blasts out of bunkers on to the green, or the fluid grace of his swing. Commentators talked of natural genius, as though he was still a seven-year old whacking a pebble with a homemade club on a beach in Cambria. His impoverished family put it down to destino. Such talk annoyed him. It was all hard graft and iron discipline: hitting a ball, alone, for hours. It started in boyhood, putting into tomato cans on a bumpy two-hole piece of field on his parents’ farm, or driving into a fishing net hung in the barn. He reckoned he had hit 1,000 balls a day. Because he had only one club, a 3-iron, he learned how to do everything with it: low, powerful shots, high soft-landing shots and impossible recovery shots out of long, tangled grass. He could improvise his way out of anything.

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The Teeth of the Dog, a Jewel of the Caribbean

The Teeth of the Dog golf course in Dominican Republic designed by the world-renowned golf course designer Pete Dye is considered to be the best golf course in Caribbean and 43rd in the top 100 courses listed by the Golf Magazine. Opened in 1971, the Teeth of the Dog measures a whopping 7,350 yards from the tips. Weaving through citrus and coconut trees, the course boasts incredible views of the ocean.

Teeth of the Dog – as the name implies, is indeed one of the toughest course to play golf. There are seven holes that are set on the shore line, meaning a miss hit (or even a change in direction of the strong Caribbean breezes) will send the ball into the ocean. “The opportunity to carve our Teeth of the Dog was a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” Pete Dye wrote in his book, Bury Me In a Pot Bunker. “Without proper heavy machinery to crack the coral, the tireless Dominican crew used sledgehammers, pickaxes and chisels. The result was a true masterpiece” he adds.

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The Legend Golf & Safari Resort, South Africa

The Legend Golf & Safari Resort in South Africa – a place to combine your enthusiasm for wildlife and the majestic game – has never failed to take golf to the next level. This 18-hole course is designed by 18 different golf stars, including Padraig Harrington, Colin Montgomerie, KJ Choi, Retief Goosen, Justin Rose, Trevor Immelman and Vijay Singh. The Resort also includes privately owned homes, a golf academy, a driving range, a hotel, recreational facilities, a wellness centre, a “Field of Legends” sporting complex and a multi-functional conference centre.

The course’s main attraction, however, is its optional 19th hole which is otherwise named the “Xtreme 19th”. This 630-meter (~700 yard) par 3 is the world’s longest par 3. To play the hole, golfers must tee off from the top of the Hanglip Mountain, which is a quarter mile above the African continent shaped green. Once you tee off, it nearly takes 30 seconds for the ball to hit the ground. By the time it reaches the green, the ball is traveling at such a high velocity that your caddy will need more than a shovel to repair your ball mark.

Playing the Xtreme 19th alone will cost you US$ 385, though included in the price is the helicopter ride, a bunch of souvenirs and a DVD of your shot. But you can make that back and more, as the resort comes with a promise of an astonishing $ 1 million prize for a hole-in-one. Though no one has yet been lucky enough to win it, the ability to play a round at this beautiful resort is by itself a unique and wonderful prize.

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Your Longest Iron Ever (sort of)

If you are looking for a perfect golfing holiday, Finland must be the right place for you. Summer in Finland is the best time to play golf – literally, you can play golf the complete day. That’s because every summer Northern Finland becomes the land of the “Midnight Sun” – with non-stop sunshine for 24 hrs a day.

The Green Zone or Tornio Golf Club located in Tornio, near the artic circle and on the Swedish border, is a unique golf course in what is already an unusual environment. The club has 9 holes in Finland and the remaining 9 in Sweden (out of which 4 crosses the International border). The golf course not just combines two countries but also two different time zones with a difference of one hour. This technically means your ball remains on air for 1 hour before it actually lands on the green!

The Green Zone is one of around 100 Golf Courses in the country. And these courses are unlike those outside Scandinavia, Continue reading “Your Longest Iron Ever (sort of)”

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World’s Most Dangerous Golf Course

The golf course in Panmunjom, which lies in a demilitarized zone between North and South Korea is often called the most dangerous golf course in the world. It has earned the ‘dangerous’ monicker not for deep hazards or unplayable rough but because of the mine fields located on three sides of the course. As you first enter the course, you are welcomed by a sign that says “DANGER! DO NOT RETRIEVE BALLS FROM THE ROUGH – LIVE MINE FIELDS”.

Dangerous golf course

Continue reading “World’s Most Dangerous Golf Course”

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The 25 Cent Putting Lesson

For those of you who follow our blog, one of our guest posters is Shawn Augustson, a student at the College of Golf and writes the blog Golf with Shawn and has shared with us some of his recent lessons.

One of our favorites of his recent articles is The 25 Cent Putting Lesson, a tip he learned while working with Class A LPGA Tour Professional Donna White. We’re reposted it for you below:


I made a little image so you can view this drill, it’s not to scale but gives you an idea of what I am talking about. Donna had me place a quarter on the green, and then I put my ball on top of the quarter (later on, I moved the quarter above the ball just as a reminder to look for it).
Improve your Putting
The red lines in the diagram are for distance. So If I bring my club back two positions, I then need to take it forward five positions on the follow through.

After impact with my ball I need to look for the quarter and hold the follow through position, not immediately look up for the ball. When I see the quarter, then I can turn my head slightly and use my eyes to watch the ball roll into the cup.

To get my rhythm, I slightly hover the club (not ground it) behind the ball and count one. My backswing is a count of two and my forward swing is a three count. So when I putt, in my head I am “One, Two, Three”.

Beginners will see marked improvements in their putting, and experienced golfers will recognize the important fundamentals in this lessons. We would expect everyone to benefit from putting it into practice.

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How do you compare to the best?

MyScorecard’s You versus the Pros performance report offers you the ability to compare your skill against your favorite PGA and LPGA professional.

But how good do you have to be to graduate from Q-School?

We’ve run the numbers for the 2010 PGA and LPGA tour season in terms of 3 of the most often tracked statistics: Driving Distance, Greens in Regulation, and Putting.

Driving Distance

Averaging 315+ yards per drive, Robert Garrigus is far and away the longest driver on the PGA tour, with Bubba Watson leading the rest of the pack. But do you have to be a 300+ yard driver to be on the Men’s Tour? Not quite so. The vast majority of PGA tour players drive between 280 and 300 yards – but you’d better be at least 275 or longer if you want to play on the tour.
Top and Average Driving Distance for PGA Tour Pros

Greens in Regulation (GIR)

In contrast to the Men’s tour, it is the LPGA pros that lead in GIR accuracy. Continue reading “How do you compare to the best?”