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Monday, December 15, 2008
Last Minute Golf Certificates
As you searching for a last minute Christmas present for that hard to buy for golfer or a business client? Your Travel Buddy Golf has partnered with TeeBone Golf to offer golf gift certificates to our loyal readers and travelers.
TeeBone Gift Certificates can be used at over 900 courses nationwide and can pay for green fees, cart and any applicable tax. It's the perfect way to say Happy Holidays or Thank You to any golfer on your list.
Gift certificates can be customized with the name of the recipient and a personal message, or you can purchase blank certificates and give them out to anybody you know, at any time.
Our certificates can also be used to pay your portion of a group outing. Just purchase a GENERIC CERTIFICATE below in the exact amount needed and your golf is covered! Click here for more information.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Rejuvenate Your Soul With Bahamas Golf Vacation
In today's fast changing world and extremely busy schedule of an individual's life, the joy of living seems to have taken a back seat. We have such a tiring routine, that sometimes the only escape one can think of is shunning everything and dodging the usual course of things. One feels like going at some peaceful place, where isolation can bring about some natural healing to the troubled and exhausted mind. But we know very well that this kind of an attitude is not at all a positive one. Escaping or shirking responsibilities is no solution to this problem. The good alternative here is to indulge in doing what we have a passion for. People across the world are different in their culture, lifestyles, likes, dislikes and hobbies. Dancing, playing, exercising, swimming etc are fantastic stress busters. And going on a vacation is a fantastic break from a monotonous routine. So, going on the Bahamas golf vacation is a good idea.
Bahamas is a pleasurable land for those people who take pleasure in sports activities. The city holds several beautiful and challenging golf courses to entice the golf freaks. The existence of both nine holes and eighteen holes golf courses offer a variety of choices. In fact, if you are among the avid golf enthusiasts, you can also inquire about the numerous offers and plans presented by your travel agents for an unforgettable experience of Bahamas golf vacation. These packages are conveniently planned to offer an amazing deal of comfort and luxury throughout your trip to Bahamas. Indeed, all the Bahamas golf vacation packages offer the amazing opportunity of three nights stay in a lavish hotels and resorts with complementary drinks and food at times. It also has the provision for round trips, so that you can have look on the entire city in systematic manner. However, this feature is optional for the tourists as many would want to explore the city according to their timings and preferences. Bahamas is a popular tourist location among every age group.
Bahamas golf vacation is probably the best tourist destination for people, where they can spend some quality time with their family and loved ones. Moreover, the amazing facilities of intriguing water sports and golf games make the place more desirable. It is quite a possibility with Bahamas that you may want to visit the place again and again, as it is an ecstatic blend of nature beauties and avid sports options.
The very idea of going out on vacation is very thrilling and interesting. However, selecting your location could be a little confusing, but if you have an option of Bahamas then nothing can compete with this ultimate destination of pleasure. The land has great number of mesmerizing locations as it made up of 700 exotic small and big islands. One can witness the fascinating creativity of nature in this land, which they can never have in the boisterous environment of city. In fact, this is one place on earth that is synonymous to relaxation and rejuvenation in all senses. So, do not wait more and plan your Bahamas golf vacation now.
Suzane Gray has been offering Bahama travel and vacation packages advice for quite some time.To find cheap bahamas vacation,freeport bahamas,cheap bahamas vacation that best suits your needs, visit http://www.gobahama.com/
Golf Vacation Travel Tips
Golf Travel Tips
Travel Reservations: Confirm and double check all your travel reservations -- from airline tickets, hotel accommodations to rental cars -- for dates, times and any special requests.
Basic Medical Kit: Bring along basic essentials such as painkillers, antacids, antidecongestants and bandages. Depending on where you are going and the nature of the trip, you may want to include motion sickness pills and sunscreen.
Security Procedures: Check with the airport you are departing from for their current security procedures. Make sure and allow yourself enough time to get through all the security checkpoints.
Money: It is much safer to carry traveler's checks instead of cash. You may also want to consider increasing your line of credit on your credit card in case of an emergency.
Weather Check: Check the weather forecast ahead of time and pack accordingly.
Eyeglasses/Contact Lenses: If you wear either of these, bring along an extra pair in case of an emergency.
Medical Check: Visit your doctor at least one month before departure for a check-up and pre-medical advice on necessary vaccinations required if you are traveling out of the country. If you have a severe medical condition, make sure it is stable and don't forget to bring enough medication to cover you while you're away.
Passport: Don't forget this valuable document if you are traveling out of the country. Make sure it doesn't expire before you go. Leave a copy at home and take another copy with you, but store it in a different location than your original passport.
Note: On Jan. 1, 2007, federal law will require all individuals, regardless of national origin, to possess valid passports if traveling internationally by air or sea (cruises), including to and from Bermuda, Canada, Mexico, Panama and points in the Caribbean (where drivers' licenses and birth certificates had previously been sufficient). Passports will be required for all forms of international travel, including over land, beginning on Jan. 1, 2008.
A Day at the Beach
Presented by the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America
There are better places to play from than the bunkers. But should the ball come to rest in a bunker, the type of sand can make a noticeable difference in play -- especially on your scorecard.
Balls may form "plugged" or "fried-egg" lies in the bunker sand when the ball makes a crater in the sand on impact. Your golf course superintendent looks at several variables when selecting bunker sand to prevent your ball from being buried should your shot go astray.
Key points:
Your superintendent looks at several variables when selecting bunker sand to prevent your ball from being buried.
A desired bunker sand shape is angular with a low degree of roundness.
A hard, silica sand is often preferred in bunkers, since silica sand will resist weathering and retain its original shape longer.
Your superintendent may choose to have a certified soils testing laboratory help evaluate sand.
Bunker sand selection affects the condition of play as well as bunker maintenance.
When choosing a bunker surface, the varying skill levels of golfers must also be considered.
The United States Golf Association specifies particle-size criteria for selecting a bunker sand. Sand in the prescribed range provides the best all-around conditions in terms of ball lie, firmness of footing and ease of bunker maintenance.
For some golf facilities, bunker maintenance is an important aspect in sand selection. For example, a golf course that is subject to high winds would have to stay away from selecting sand that is too fine. If the sand is too fine, wind will displace the sand particles, causing a continual need for replacement.
The predominant particle shape of sand and its "sphericity," -- or roundness -- also comes into play. A desired bunker sand shape is angular with a low degree of roundness. The sharp corners of an angular sand help it resist movement after impact from a golf ball, resulting in fewer "plugged" or "fried-egg" lies. Truly round or "soft" sand requires a substantial amount of skill to play from. It's like playing a shot in a pudding-filled pit. Round sand needs to be avoided because it shifts more under the weight of the golfer and can allow golf balls to bury and disappear on impact.
A hard, silica sand is often preferred in bunkers, since silica sand will resist weathering and retain its original shape longer. Sand such as limestone sand is more subject to weathering, and the fine particles released in the process affect the playability and maintenance of the sand. Limestone sand can "set up" or become "crusted," because of the cementing action of finer silt and clay particles. Limestone sand requires more frequent raking to maintain a suitable playing surface.
Your golf course superintendent may choose to have a certified soils testing laboratory help evaluate sand when making changes at the course. The lab will check the sand's particle-size, distribution, shape, color, crusting potential, hydraulic conductivity (ability to drain water) and its resistance to buried lies.
Bunker sand selection affects the condition of play as well as bunker maintenance. Always do your part to preserve favorable playing conditions by raking the area that you disturbed after hitting from the bunker. By doing so, you can help make the game more enjoyable for other golfers unfortunate enough to hit their golf balls into the sand.
When choosing a bunker surface, the varying skill levels of golfers must also be considered. A lower handicap player typically prefers a hard, smooth bunker surface. However, the higher handicap player prefers a softer surface that allows them to get their club through the sand. As a result, superintendents will try to provide a surface that satisfies the widest range of players.
Even though a golf course management staff devotes considerable time to bunkers, it is important to remember they are still hazards. It is not realistic for golfers to expect to hit shots with the same skill and accuracy as they do from turf.
For more information regarding golf course management practices, contact your local superintendent or the GCSAA at 800-472-7878 or http://www.gcsaa.org/.
The Bunker Dilemma
Presented by the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America
Nearly everyone who plays golf knows that bunkers are supposed to be hazards. That's how the Rules of Golf, define them--"A bunker is a hazard consisting of a prepared area of ground, often a hollow, from which turf or soil has been removed or replaced with sand or the like."
For golfers, the object should be to avoid them.
But for golf course superintendents, the subject of bunker maintenance is often a subject that falls under the category of “Hazardous Duty.”
In fact, that's the title of a seminar offered by the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America. Taught by Robert M. Randquist, GCSAA board member and Certified Golf Course Superintendent at Boca Rio Golf Club in Boca Raton , Fla., the course helps GCSAA superintendents understand the complex and often contentious subject.
According to Randquist, the difficulty of bunker maintenance begins with the fact that both golfers and golf course superintendents exhibit a wide variation in how they look at bunkers.
At one extreme you hear, “A bunker is a hazard, I shouldn’t have hit the ball here.” Or, “Golf is like life, it’s not supposed to be fair.”
At the other extreme there are those who think, “I can’t believe how unfair this bunker is. Even the best golfer in the world couldn’t get on the green from here.”
With such a wide range of opinions and expectations about bunkers place in the game, and how they should be maintained, Randquist says it’s vitally important that golf course superintendents, green committees, private owners, supervisors and tournament governing bodies discuss the issue. Arriving at a consensus regarding playing conditions for the course’s bunkers is important, but it is equally important that they determine if the golf facility has the financial ability to provide those conditions on a regular basis.
The kinds of questions that must be answered include:
Should a golfer ever have a buried lie in a bunker?
Should a golf ball always roll back to the flat portion of the bunker?
Is it possible to define the difference between a “fair” bunker and an unfair one?
How often should golfers be able to get the ball out of a greenside bunker and into the hole in two shots?
How often should golfers be able to hit a shot from a fairway bunker onto the green?
Should a golfer ever have to play a shot from underneath or against the lip of a bunker?
Should the sand surface be smooth or furrowed?
Do the bunkers provide equal hazard to low and high handicap players?
The answers to these questions make it possible for the golf course superintendent to define the expected difficulty of the course’s bunkers, establish a plan for bunker maintenance that will deliver that level of difficulty and develop a budget for that level of maintenance.
GCSAA golf course superintendents are accustomed to creating these kinds of plans, and balancing the desires of golfers with the available labor and equipment assets. But golfers are often unaware of how many factors affect the condition of bunkers.
Randquist says the primary factors influencing the decisions golf course superintendents make regarding bunker maintenance include: type and depth of sand in bunkers; raking, grooming and edging methods; and, of course, bunker maintenance costs and budget.
The technical aspects of sand selection include everything from particle size and particle shape to crusting potential, infiltration rate, color, and even measuring firmness with a penetrometer. Management of all these factors to produce the desired bunker playing conditions is primarily the superintendent’s responsibility.
So, too, are the decisions about raking and grooming methods. Over the years, these have ranged from almost no grooming in the earliest days of the game, to the infamous furrowing rakes employed at Oakmont Country Club, to the modern power bunker rakes that can dramatically reduce the amount of time it takes to rake a bunker.
But if golfers want the kind of bunker conditions they see on television at championship venues they need to understand that getting there comes with a substantial cost.
That kind of maintenance demands a commitment of manpower that most courses simply aren’t able to muster. Although there are many factors that influence the cost of bunker maintenance, Randquist says that many golf facilities commit as much as 15 to 25 percent of their golf course labor hours to bunker maintenance.
In preparation for a golf championship, it is not uncommon to have a bunker maintenance crew of 10 to 20 people working full time for two to three weeks prior to and during the event.
Achieving “tournament” conditions may include packing the sand, adjusting depths, removing debris and stones, controlling moisture content, adding amendments to the sand, and hand raking—all of which are extremely labor intensive.
If a golf course sets a standard of providing those conditions on an every-day basis, labor costs for bunker maintenance alone can be $300,000 to $350,000 a year. For golf courses with annual maintenance budgets under $1 million such a commitment is obviously out of the question.
Randquist says that golfers are often surprised to learn how much strain bunkers can put on a golf course maintenance budget, but once they are aware of the balance between labor costs and bunker playing conditions they alter their expectations.
Despite a trend in recent years to maintain bunkers in a manner that provides a relatively low degree of difficulty, bunkers are still hazards. When golfers express a desire to have them be less of a hazard, they need to understand that achieving that standard comes with a significant cost.
Nearly everyone who plays golf knows that bunkers are supposed to be hazards. That's how the Rules of Golf, define them--"A bunker is a hazard consisting of a prepared area of ground, often a hollow, from which turf or soil has been removed or replaced with sand or the like."
For golfers, the object should be to avoid them.
But for golf course superintendents, the subject of bunker maintenance is often a subject that falls under the category of “Hazardous Duty.”
In fact, that's the title of a seminar offered by the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America. Taught by Robert M. Randquist, GCSAA board member and Certified Golf Course Superintendent at Boca Rio Golf Club in Boca Raton , Fla., the course helps GCSAA superintendents understand the complex and often contentious subject.
According to Randquist, the difficulty of bunker maintenance begins with the fact that both golfers and golf course superintendents exhibit a wide variation in how they look at bunkers.
At one extreme you hear, “A bunker is a hazard, I shouldn’t have hit the ball here.” Or, “Golf is like life, it’s not supposed to be fair.”
At the other extreme there are those who think, “I can’t believe how unfair this bunker is. Even the best golfer in the world couldn’t get on the green from here.”
With such a wide range of opinions and expectations about bunkers place in the game, and how they should be maintained, Randquist says it’s vitally important that golf course superintendents, green committees, private owners, supervisors and tournament governing bodies discuss the issue. Arriving at a consensus regarding playing conditions for the course’s bunkers is important, but it is equally important that they determine if the golf facility has the financial ability to provide those conditions on a regular basis.
The kinds of questions that must be answered include:
Should a golfer ever have a buried lie in a bunker?
Should a golf ball always roll back to the flat portion of the bunker?
Is it possible to define the difference between a “fair” bunker and an unfair one?
How often should golfers be able to get the ball out of a greenside bunker and into the hole in two shots?
How often should golfers be able to hit a shot from a fairway bunker onto the green?
Should a golfer ever have to play a shot from underneath or against the lip of a bunker?
Should the sand surface be smooth or furrowed?
Do the bunkers provide equal hazard to low and high handicap players?
The answers to these questions make it possible for the golf course superintendent to define the expected difficulty of the course’s bunkers, establish a plan for bunker maintenance that will deliver that level of difficulty and develop a budget for that level of maintenance.
GCSAA golf course superintendents are accustomed to creating these kinds of plans, and balancing the desires of golfers with the available labor and equipment assets. But golfers are often unaware of how many factors affect the condition of bunkers.
Randquist says the primary factors influencing the decisions golf course superintendents make regarding bunker maintenance include: type and depth of sand in bunkers; raking, grooming and edging methods; and, of course, bunker maintenance costs and budget.
The technical aspects of sand selection include everything from particle size and particle shape to crusting potential, infiltration rate, color, and even measuring firmness with a penetrometer. Management of all these factors to produce the desired bunker playing conditions is primarily the superintendent’s responsibility.
So, too, are the decisions about raking and grooming methods. Over the years, these have ranged from almost no grooming in the earliest days of the game, to the infamous furrowing rakes employed at Oakmont Country Club, to the modern power bunker rakes that can dramatically reduce the amount of time it takes to rake a bunker.
But if golfers want the kind of bunker conditions they see on television at championship venues they need to understand that getting there comes with a substantial cost.
That kind of maintenance demands a commitment of manpower that most courses simply aren’t able to muster. Although there are many factors that influence the cost of bunker maintenance, Randquist says that many golf facilities commit as much as 15 to 25 percent of their golf course labor hours to bunker maintenance.
In preparation for a golf championship, it is not uncommon to have a bunker maintenance crew of 10 to 20 people working full time for two to three weeks prior to and during the event.
Achieving “tournament” conditions may include packing the sand, adjusting depths, removing debris and stones, controlling moisture content, adding amendments to the sand, and hand raking—all of which are extremely labor intensive.
If a golf course sets a standard of providing those conditions on an every-day basis, labor costs for bunker maintenance alone can be $300,000 to $350,000 a year. For golf courses with annual maintenance budgets under $1 million such a commitment is obviously out of the question.
Randquist says that golfers are often surprised to learn how much strain bunkers can put on a golf course maintenance budget, but once they are aware of the balance between labor costs and bunker playing conditions they alter their expectations.
Despite a trend in recent years to maintain bunkers in a manner that provides a relatively low degree of difficulty, bunkers are still hazards. When golfers express a desire to have them be less of a hazard, they need to understand that achieving that standard comes with a significant cost.
Arizona Golf Schools
Learning from the professional instructors at Arizona golf schools can be a very rewarding experience. There are things that instructors can give to the students that attend Arizona golf schools that can make the experience like none other in the world. Even though students attend Arizona golf schools to improve their game of golf, they of course want to have a great time doing it. The experts at Arizona golf schools know all about what students are looking for when they are choosing a school to attend.
At Arizona golf schools, right from the start students should feel comfortable, relaxed, and excited about their time ahead at their school. Students at Arizona golf schools should never feel singled out or uncomfortable when they are being instructed, and this point has to be delicately balanced with the fact that teaching one on one and in small groups gives the best lessons. One of the easiest ways that the students at Arizona golf schools can begin their day relaxed is to warm up by hitting a few balls for about 10 minutes. This will certainly help students get in the swing of things.
A good tip for students who are attending Arizona golf schools is to always have a pile of balls in front of them. Doing this will be an invaluable time saver and it will allow the students to get the maximum amount of instruction out of the time that they have paid for. Each day at Arizona golf schools, an itinerary should be on hand and accessible for everyone to be able to look at, so that each day is mapped out nicely and in an organized fashion.
A fun exercise that students enjoy at some of the Arizona golf schools is that during the first few days into the lessons, students pick out a few specific clubs that they would like extra practice with. Instructors at Arizona golf schools can help with posture, form, timing, and lots of other key points that have to do with any specific clubs that students may feel they are having trouble with.Students at Arizona golf schools should be careful not to let themselves get overloaded with too much information too soon. Concentrating on key points that are short, sweet, and to the point is the best way to make sure that students get the most out of their instruction without ever feeling overwhelmed.
By: Kelly Renaul
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