Hua Hin Golf Gossip

Post by **PeteC** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 6:11 pm

hhfarang wrote:Tiger would be a great incentive to make this tournament very popular in the future as he is half Thai and (arguably) the best golfer in the world. The Black Mountain Organizers would be smart to offer him a big incentive next year, although I don't know how you can entice someone who is already a multi-millionaire! What the heck do you offer him?

He played a few times in some tournament they had/have in Phuket. I remember reading he did it because of a request from is Thai Mother. That all stopped for some reason quite a few years ago. I don't think he's been in-country since. His Mother used to be a regular at all his tournaments as well, no longer. I also seem to recall at the time that the Thai authorities in power wanted to present him with official Thai citizenship and he declined. Pete

JW · Post by JW » Thu Mar 26, 2009 7:58 pm

Dont think we will be seeing him in Hua Hin!!!!

Phil Mickelson is second on the PGA Tour money list with just over $2.2 million. Tiger Woods made more than that last week alone.

All he had to do was fly to Germany and collect his $2 million appearance fee. Woods earned the other $410,000 from his 38th career victory, holding off a gutsy challenge from Colin Montgomerie to win the Deutsche Bank-SAP Open in a playoff.

It was the 16th time that Woods received a large chunk of money before he could even stick a tee in the ground.

How much?

His rate shot up to the $2 million neighborhood after his historic 2000 season, when he completed the career Grand Slam and finished the year with three straight majors.

Since then, he has played in Germany twice, Dubai last year and the New Zealand Open in January. Throw in an estimated $9 million from previous overseas tournaments in Thailand, Japan, Australia, South Africa and Malaysia.

It's a safe bet that Woods' appearance money alone -- roughly $17 million -- would place him fourth on the PGA Tour career money list.

Whenever anyone says it's not about the money, that usually means one thing.

Post by **Onlyme** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 2:37 am

Loumart, take a look at this before you consider buying any second hand driver.
http://www.randa.org/index.cfm?action=r ... onfdrivers

Not sure about Huahin society but, BRGS do not allow these drivers.
Onlyme.

Post by **lomuamart** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 3:15 am

Onlyme,
Thanks for that I hacked round at about a 14 handicap a couple of days ago. That was with a bad 5th hole. Also I never hit a green in regulation but had 4 pars. The short game was good. The rest was terrible!!!
I was for once taking my driver on any hole where necessary. Not bad, but going right a bit. I normally just take a 3 iron off the tee.
I love the game.

JW · Post by JW » Fri Mar 27, 2009 10:38 am

Lomu,

Say a fond goodbye to the 3 iron! Next time your going to the range give me a shout, i can show u a few other choices that WILL help, You have game Lomu and with some time and the right gear you can get into single figs again.

Let me know mate.

Post by **lomuamart** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 11:59 am

JW,
Thanks for that. I may well take you up on the range options. As you'll suspect, distance off the tee is the major drawback at the moment with a 3 iron.
But at least the 3 iron goes straight and I've used it for years so feel confident.

Post by **bambergasgoigne** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 4:56 pm

Lets hope we get sub par from Jesper, he is a great entertainer on the course and would be sorely missed if he doesnt make the weekend.

JW - sorry to say, looks like the only place you will get to see Jesper entertain is in the Karoke bars tonight. He is currently +5 with 9 holes left. Leader is -12, he has no chance of making the cut. Shame...maybe he was in the Karoke on Wednesday and Thursday night already !!...

Post by **T.I.G.R.** » Fri Mar 27, 2009 10:36 pm

Lom -

Now you sound like a proper Thai.

First things first..........lessons. Sounds like you haven't had any for awhile and if you can play to a 14 or 18 your pro can help you with proper club selection as well as get you back on track swingwise.

My personal favorite pros are at Pai Mai. I've had good advice from Kuhn Suwhit on clubs and only one lesson so far, but I was impressed. I used to play to a ten handicap in the States but several years of intermittent health issues took care of that. After struggling for about a year over here I'm back in the high eighties and headed south I hope. If I could play anywhere but Palm Hills that would be in the low eighties.........what Godawful greens!!

But back to you, I've got a nice set of Mizuno MX-23 irons with regular lightweight steel shafts you can have if you're interested (or anyone else for that matter) 3-SW. I also left a set of MP-30s with Mick downtown because I hated the thought of them sitting in my storeroom......they are way too nice. I'm hoping Mick will find a home for them so anyone is welcome to ask him about them.

Just for the record, and I've been tempted to put this in major newspapers, I purchased a set of Burner HT irons in Bangkok a couple of weeks ago because I fell in love with their looks and was just ready for a new set.........unbelievably I have never, ever, hit irons that felt so good. Not necessarily an ad for Taylor Made but I am waiting for the used HT Driver and 3 wood I ordered from America last week. If these work as good as the irons I'm signing up for the very old people's tour. I hope you like the ones you were going to look at as well.

JW · Post by JW » Sat Mar 28, 2009 10:36 am

T.I.G.R,

Good to hear your playing some golf again! Have been using Taylor Made irons for years - got 3 sets in the house and currently on R7 TP irons - they are awesome sticks.

Lomu,

Just let me know when your going up and will meet there.

Off to Black Mountain now to watch Mr Edfors smash the living daylights out of a wee white ball!

Post by **hhfarang** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 10:51 am

First things first..........lessons.

Lessons are great, and I highly recommend them for people who are new to the game, but if you've been playing long enough to groove a swing and still play a decent game, be careful that your professional just makes small suggestions to help and does not try to remake your entire swing.

I started playing when I was 12 and by my mid twenties could reliably break 90 unless I had a bad day. I played my best round ever (shot an 83 on a par 72) one day and decided it was time to take lessons as that would surely help me break 80 and get into a single digit handicap.

I asked around and went to the guy who was reputed to be the best teaching pro in the city where I lived. Several PGA touring pros came to him for lessons every year during the week a PGA tour tournament was held there.

He took one look at my (home grown) swing and started to change everything including my stance, grip, backswing, etc. I had bought a set of twelve lessons from him and by the time I was finished, I was never able to break 90 again, let alone 80!

After struggling to get my game back for a couple of years, I gave it up for over a decade. Starting over again in my late thirties, I was able to get to bogey golf (around an 18 handicap) again with lots of play and practice, but never got back to the level of play I was able to achieve before I ever took lessons.

Post by **lomuamart** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 11:31 am

With the golf going on at Black Mountain, it reminds me of a time I went to see the British Open at Carnoustie years ago when Tom Watson won it in a 5th day 18 hole playoff.
Went with a friend and we were both playing to single figures at the time. Followed various 4 balls over the four days (we had a bus booked on the 5th day and didn't get to see the play off) and we went to the practice fairway every evening. There was Tom Watson, Tom Weiskof and Jack Nicklaus who was hitting short irons and after one bounce the caddie was catching the balls in the bucket.
After getting home, the two of us were on our home course asap. Don't reckon either of us broke 200 for a month afterwards.
Lesson number one for Lomu: Don't try and hit the ball like Jack Nicklaus.

Post by **lomuamart** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 1:33 pm

T.I.G.R,
You're correct about lessons. I havn't had one for about 4 years and even when I was playing as a kid I didn't have them very often.
There was a chap called Gavin Christie who was the pro at my home course and coached Mark James to professional status. Just as the four of us were getting "useful", Gavin Christie left the club. However, in an attempt by the Club Secretary go nurture one of us into another Mark James, we were taken to Gavin's new course for a two hour lesson.
His philosophy was simple - the further back you take your backswing, the more likely it is that something will go wrong on the downswing. So, he had us hitting 5 irons and insisting that we didn't bring our wrists up any higher than our hips. Needless to say none of us could hit a shot. Then we got a free round in the afternoon and were told to keep to the same principal. We played like idiots and after 3 or 4 holes went back to our "John Daly" swings.
So, lessons. John at Mongkol sometimes simply watches me for a few shots as he's passing by and tells me to slow down or strengthen my grip. That's it and guess what? It works. JW saw me at HH driving range years ago and said pretty much the same thing with particular emphasis on the grip.
Now, as it's pretty hot and I'm rabbiting on and I've been threatened with 27 holes tomorrow, I suppose I should put my beer down and get some rest

Post by **T.I.G.R.** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 6:29 pm

I had a friend who could have been a single digit golfer he had so much natural talent. He threatened to quit playing with me after I bugged him so much about getting lessons so I gave up. His handicap stayed at about 19. When we started playing together we were both about a 25 or worse. I joined a private club and started taking my game seriously including lots of lessons and a few thousand range balls....got to an 8.1 index.

You get what you want out of golf so we were both happy and continued to play together until I moved over here.

I agree that there are Pros who don't match up to you, or you to them. The trick to that is to recognize when you aren't getting anywhere and move on to another guy......not easy, but sometimes necessary. We never had a pro stick around at our place for more than a few years anyway so sometimes we were forced to switch just because our guy moved on.

Here's to all of us playing as well as we want to and as much as we want to!

Cheers

Post by **hhfarang** » Sun Mar 29, 2009 6:04 pm

This may belong in the suggestion area, but this is a golf thread so I'm starting it here...

I think Hua Hin After Dark should have the advertising clout to get special pricing for residents at local golf courses. I have found that it is even difficult to find out what the pricing is at any given time at any given course. If you try to google a course expecting to find the course web site with pricing and specials/promotions you get a lot of pages of golf booking sites that are geared toward tourists! Banyan's site is not ready yet and of all the others Black Mountain was the only one that I was able to find an actual home site for. Most searches for Springfield, for instance turned up hotel booking sites for tourists.

How is a local resident supposed to keep track of the pricing of all the area courses, as well as seasonal promotions and afternoon promotions.

I think HHAD would be the perfect place to have all this info available in one online location, but it isn't here unless I'm missing something.

I found several international tourist golf booking sites that seemed to offer deals aimed at tourists. Should locals use these to to get a discount or should we be able to use a local forum like this to get information and discounts.

Buksi, put on you sales hat and visit the courses and see what you can do for resident foreigners...

Post by **hhfarang** » Sun Mar 29, 2009 6:14 pm

You get what you want out of golf

If that were true I'd be a tour pro...

That should be "you get what you have time and money for out of golf"... the more time and money you have to practice, play, take lessons, buy the best equipment and balls, and belong to the best clubs, the better your game will be. Unfortunately, T.I.G.R., few of us have ever had the time and money you must have to accomplish what you have in the game (according to your posts). I'm happy for you though!