This Midwestern golfer wants to get away. After a ten hour drive or a two and a half hour flight, golf nirvana is at hand. Reasonably priced, easily accessible, and full of Southern hospitality The Trail is a golfer’s paradise.

Perhaps it was similar to the movie Field of Dreams with its catch phrase “If you build it they will come”… because come they did (and still do); to the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail located in Alabama. Whatever the reason or inspiration Dr. David Bronner came up with the novel idea of building a group of 11 championship golf courses that ran from Huntsville in the North  all the way down to Lakewood in the South end of the state. Tens of thousands of golfers have come to play the courses. For Dr. Bonner there was only one person capable of helping him realize this dream and that was Robert Trent Jones, considered the top architect of golf course builders of the time, so Mr. Jones decided to come out of semi-retirement in order to take on this project.

Originally there were seven courses: Oxmoor Valley located in Birmingham, Hampton Cove found in Huntsville, Grand National located in Opelika, the Silver Lakes found in Anniston, Highland Oaks in Dothan, Cambrian Ridge found in Greenville and Magnolia Grove located in Mobile. Added in 1999 was Capitol Hill in Montgomery and in 2005 both Ross Bridge in Birmingham and The Shoals of Florence were opened. The Trail is considered one of the greatest tests in golf; multiple tee boxes can vary the yardage with some tracks longer than 8,000 yards.

It is said that the Robert Trent Jones Trail is a fantastic experience in golfing for everyone. There is challenge enough for some of the best golfers around and yet is still a very pleasant outing for the beginner to casual golfer. Make sure you play the par three courses if you get a chance, they are a blast.

If you enjoy a little luxury after a long day of golfing then you may be interested to learn that 8 of the 10 golf courses are served by resort hotels; including Marriott at the Grand National, Marriott at Capitol Hill, the Marriott Shoals Spa and Resort and the Renaissance Ross Bridge Resort. Each of the locations has an interstate or highway nearby (Interstate 65 goes by six of them) and all of them are very easily accessed by road coming from Atlanta. Plus, the airport in Birmingham is pretty much central to all of the courses which make it easy to reach any one of them from any city throughout the U.S.

If you are looking for a real challenge along with some great scenery then the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail is a sure bet for a great golfing vacation.

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• Eisenhower Park Golf – Vets play freeo on Veterans Day, November 11 (longislandgolfnews.com)
• Cornell Gets Robert Trent Jones Collection (nytimes.com)
• The Virginia Golf Trail Announces That Terrance J. Gleason of Stafford, Virginia has Joined the Company as Chief Operations Officer (prnewswire.com)
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Ok, it hasn’t been exactly the best season in his career (no wins at all much less a championship) and his personal life could be better (the marriage ended and he is said to be in another rather rocky relationship – with Steve Williams, his caddy).  He did not even automatically qualify this time for the Ryder Cup and he needs to finish within the top 5 in the Deutsche Bank tournament to even stand a chance of playing in Atlanta during the Tour Championship, but, Corey Pavin, the Ryder Cup captain, still chose to go with experience and named him to the team.

The team obviously needs some of that experience as even the automatic qualifiers, Bubba Watson, Matt Kuchar, Jeff Overton and Dustin Johnson have not played in the Ryder Cup before and this will be Tiger’s sixth time. Some of you may be thinking that he does not have a good record at the Cup but neither does Mickelson and Woods actually does have a winning record when it comes to the singles matches.

The young golfer from Ireland, Rory Mcllroy claims that he relishes the chance to face Tiger; claiming that anyone playing for the European team said they would like their chances playing against him unless his game drastically improves by that time.

And, don’t forget Tiger Woods is pretty much the biggest story in golf and a big driver when it comes to television ratings so many will tune into the game just hoping to see him fail and others will watch hoping to see him win; either way they will watch and that’s what its all about.

From August 9th through August 15th Whistling Straits located in Kohler, Wisconsin is once again hosting one of the PGA’s four major tournaments, the Professional Golf Association Championship (also knows as “Glory’s last shot”) which is last in line after the Masters, the U.S. Open and the British Open. At the conclusion of the tournament the renowned Wanamaker Trophy will be awarded.

The course was designed, link style by the famous Pete Dye and lies along the shores of beautiful Lake Michigan. Tickets to the famed tournament start at about $30 per person for one day (this is normally for the practice rounds that begin the Monday before the tournament) and can be as much as $1300 per day with reserved seating and the hospitality offered by the Champions Club once play commences. If you prefer grounds tickets you can obtain one for the entire 7 days for about $300; however, there is an additional cost if you would like grandstand seating.

You should note that for juniors 17 years of age and younger there is free access to the event when accompanied by a paying adult. Each adult with a ticket can bring up to four juniors for admission (tickets are available the day of admission at the “Will Call” office) to the event at no extra cost.

 This course appears to be an ode to the links found in the British Isles with confounding bunkers, craggy knobs and sand dunes; completing the transformation is a group of Scottish blackface sheep. Some of the challenges that golfers will face include a sometimes pervasive fog, buffeting winds and par threes placed on some precarious bluff edges.

If you miss this year’s championship then be sure to make plans to attend when it returns in 2015.

This competition has been played every other year since it began in 1927 between golfers in Great Britain and the United States with few exceptions (it was not held in 1937 thru 1947 because of World War II and it was not held in 2001 because of the terrorist activities against the United States); both single match play and foursomes have been part of it from the beginning. However, the teams, formats and even the competition levels have done some changing over the years.

The official beginning of the Ryder Cup was in 1927 but there were informal matches between American and British teams beginning years earlier. In 1921 at Gleneagles course located in Scotland is one such match where the Britain’s won 9 to 3. The next year saw the beginning of the Walker Cup which is where amateur Brits and Americans are pitted against each other.

It was the Walker Cup that started the talk of having something similar for professional golfers and in 1925 there was a London paper that reported a gentleman named Samuel Ryder, an avid golfer himself, had proposed forming the annual competition. The following year the idea began to really take hold and Ryder had even commissioned a trophy to be awarded to the champion.

Even though there were matches played in 1926 they were still regarded as unofficial and no trophy was awarded that year; one reason for this is that there were several members of the American team that were not actually American. After this it was determined that both sides of the teams members would need to be native born in order to be eligible (this was changed to actually obtaining citizenship later).

It was in June of 1927 that the team from Britain set sail on the Aquitania for a voyage that took six days to reach the United States; most of this cost has been covered by donations from those people that read a British magazine called Golf Illustrated. This time the U.S. won the match in a 9 ½ to 2 ½ victory, the Ryder Cup was awarded and the first official competition finally went on the records.

So, you think you’re pretty good with your drivers?  Think your accuracy is top notch?

Well, before you decide to challenge Tiger or Phil, maybe you should take a look at this awesome golf shot.  And remember, if a drunken sorority girl can do this at a party…your shot probably isn’t that impressive.

Watch the video of it here!  ——>    Awesome Golf Shot

Former LPGA pro Dodie Mazzuca thinks it can. Dodie attributes yoga to extending her professional career by seven years. She enjoyed the effects of yoga so much, she has become an Ashtanga yoga instructor for the Four Seasons Resort in Scottsdale, AZ.

Instructors and videos extol the benefits that yoga can focus the mind. Because golf uses the mind, bringing this focus into your game can enhance your game as well as your overall well-being.

Breathing that is focused on in yoga can also translate to the golf course. Yoga breathing is a good way to warm up your muscles for a round of golf. Focused breath can be essential to relaxing the body, which is essential to good play.

Becoming mindful of the muscles that you use in your golf swing can lead to a better swing than just slamming into it. Taking deep and longer inhale and exhales can bring power to your swing and facilitate a good follow-through.

Yoga poses can protect core muscles and increase flexibility in golfers.

Good Poses for Yoga:

Forward folds

Back bends

Stick Pose

Triangle Pose

Basics:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQI5NbAmHjI

http://life.gaiam.com/gaiam/p/10-Essential-Yoga-Poses-HowTo-Video-with-Rodney-Yee.html#Mountain Pose

Most golfers don’t realize that the main secret to a good golf game is not to be just a big hitter off the tee, a great chipper around the green, or a great putter. These are obvious stealths to any low handicap golfer. The true secret to a predictable lower score is the tricks to golf management. Power seems to be the big attraction in golf, but pros like Tiger Woods, Phil Michelson, and Sergio Garcia rely on their golf management skills to truly shoot lower, more predictable scores. Here are the top ten golf management rules you should put in your bag before the very first swing.

1)      Find a club that you can consistently hit in your bag, regardless of lean, if it’s a 7 iron or a 5 wood or a 4 iron it doesn’t matter. For the beginning golfer these clubs are necessary because they will always allow you to advance the ball with predictability. Golfers often try to use too much club or use clubs they can’t hit to try to make shots that will only turn out with more negative results than positive. So when you’re in doubt of the club to use, pull out your most predictable club and advance the ball.

2)      Don’t try to make the miracle shot! If you possess the skills of a Tiger Woods than take a rip.  Sure, once in a while it works but most of the time it will end up costing you many more strokes than it’s worth. So do the smart thing and take an easy shot of punching out or dropping the ball for relief. You will find that at the end of the round your scores will be lower by staying disciplined and getting back into play first.

3)      When you finally reach the green there are several tricks that will help save you strokes. One is to always try to miss putts to what is called the high side of the hole. If the putt is breaking from the right to the left the ball never has a chance of going in if it misses on the low side low side of the cup. If you concentrate on making your putts, miss on the high side of the hole the ball has the highest probability of going in.

4)      Ever hear the saying “never up never in”? If, when putting, the ball doesn’t reach the hole it has a 100% chance of not going in. Concentrate on making sure your putt reaches or goes past the hole on every putt. A two foot putt coming back is the same as a two foot putt being short, except that the putt that was long had a chance to go in!

5)      Reading greens is a must in golf management. Not spending a few minutes to understand how the greens will move is a novice mistake. “Does the putt go right to left, left to right, uphill, or downhill?” are the first things to determine before addressing the ball. Not concentrating on that basic fundamental will surly add up to more three putts and needless higher scores.

6)      Chipping around the greens can be as important as putting if you’re not the Phil Michelson or Tiger Woods types that can use a variety of clubs around the green from lob wedges to hybrids. The first thing to do is find the one club that is predictable and comfortable in your hands. Try a 9, 8, 7 iron or a wedge but find the club that gives you the loft and the trajectory of the club that you can control. The more you play with a predictable club the faster you will learn to hit other shots with other clubs.

7)      If you’re in the fairway, make sure to understand the ball positioning in relationship to your feet. Is the ball above my feet or below my feet? Is it uphill or downhill from my feet? These differences will determine which way the ball will want to go naturally and help you to understand properly lining up your shot. Ball below your feet, as an example, naturally will go right. By understanding this, the correct thing to do is to aim to the left to compensate.

8)      Know your distances with both how far each of your clubs goes and how far you are on every shot. Not knowing exactly how far each club goes or how far away from the hole you are will cause you unnecessary shots and raise your scores.

9)  Stay below the hole. The easiest putt to make on any green is the straight uphill putt, but chipping and putting to remain below the hole will dramatically increase you success.

10)  Know the rules. Not knowing the rules of golf will create automatic strokes in your game unnecessarily and in some cases may cost you the game.

Golf is a difficult game to become good at, but if you want to get an edge and lower your scores without even changing your game apply these basic rules and you should see your average score drop on its own.