Ultimate springtime golf fitness tips for "real" golfers

By Tim McDonald,
National Golf Editor

For those of you unfortunate enough to live in the North, you must be salivating at the thought of the spring golf season.

Hold on, Tiger. You ain't the man you used to be. You can't just jump up and go straight to the golf course after a long winter of sloth and mold.

Now, you will find any number of charlatans willing to sell you their total golf fitness regimens. These sleazoids always assume you're a golfer interested in a cleaner, healthier way of living and golfing. I've seen you out on the course, and I know that's not the sort of thing you're "into."

So here is my total golf fitness regimen for the "real" golfer:

• For God's sake, you have to strengthen your core! This involves eating really hard food, like jawbreakers. Eat a bag of those and have your neighbor punch you in the gut to see if your core is all it can be.

Options: Month-old fudge, Purina Dog Chow, pine bark.

• You also have to really work your obliques, I mean really work the hell out of them. Here's the perfect exercise for that. Lie flat on your back with knees bent slightly wider than your hips. If you have really fat hips, you're either going to have to really stretch your knees like in a cartoon, like The Elastic Man from India, or just skip this exercise. In fact, if you have really fat hips, just skip playing golf, nobody wants to see you out on the course.

Now, you slim-hipped people reach your hands to the ceiling like you're crying out for the Lord Jesus Christ to spare you from your miserable existence. You can hold light hand-weights, or not. What do I care? Lift your head and chest toward the ceiling and rotate to reach both hands just outside of your fat, right knee. Repeat on the left side. Now, take a breather. Ask Christ for forgiveness.

• Breathing exercises: Breathing properly and deeply is critical, especially for those tense moments on the course when normally you would start crying.
This deep-breathing exercise involves attending your local adult movie house, or calling up one of those sites on your Internet browser. Follow your instincts. It's either that or follow mine, and then you're looking at jail time.
• Horizontal abduction/adduction: I can't give you much help here, because I always get "horizontal" confused with "vertical," and I have no idea what adduction is. Who came up with that word, anyway? It's a stupid word and should be eliminated from the English language, if it's even English.

• Standing hip rotation: Don't do this. It makes you look like a girl.

• Alcohol fitness: How many times have you lost $2 Nassaus because while you were getting hamboned, your playing partners were just holding up that bottle of Jack Black pretending to drink?

Well, no need to waste good liquor. You can still drink and maintain your competitive edge. You just need to build up a tolerance. Stand upright in a dark closet, with a wide stance, and suck it down. Keep drinking until your wife leaves you.

• Aerobics: Ha! Don't make me laugh. This is golf!

• Putting: Don't bother to practice putting. Putting in golf is overrated. I play golf maybe 200 times a year and I've yet to meet anyone who can putt. You either make it or you don't. If you miss, just keep putting until the ball goes in the hole. Simple.

• Seniors: As we age, our bodies react differently, so seniors must prepare for golf differently than young punks. An important thing to remember is that there is an inverse relationship of increased ear hair to laughably short drives off the tee.

So keep those ear hairs trim and neat. If you're proud of your thick mane of ear hair, don't sweat it. If you're short off the tee, you're probably small in other areas, and I think you know what I'm talking about.

• Excuses: A healthy psychological outlook is a must for Better Golf. If you can convince yourself that the snap hook you hit into the weeds over there is not your doing at all, you'll retain the confidence needed to excel in the game.

The first time you smack one of your all-too-typical lousy shots, turn to your playing partner and snarl," "Will you stop that!" Look at him, looking all hurt and everything. Who would have thought golf fitness could be so much fun?

• Torque development in the downswing: This is so important, I can barely contain myself. This is vital to any golfer who has ever wanted to improve his score. You could even say it is absolutely critical in terms of reaching your full potential as a golfer and knowing what it is to be truly human.

• Alignment and posture: Face the target squarely and stand erect, with your rump jutting out slightly. Feels a little silly, doesn't it? Can you think of another situation in life where you would position yourself in such an odd manner? I can't.

Club at Olde Stone to host Jr. Ryder Cup

n September 2008 the golf world will descend on Kentucky as Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville hosts the Ryder Cup Matches. A week after those matches, the Jr. Ryder Cup visits the Club at Olde Stone outside Bowling Green.

It could be argued the youngsters are getting the better end of the deal. The Club at Olde Stone, laid out in Alvaton by Toledo, Ohio-based Arthur Hills/Steve Forrest and Associates (AHSF), has received considerable attention since opening for member play in spring 2006. Just 18 months old, Olde Stone has landed golf's premier junior event, been named among the top courses to open nationwide over the past three years, and is ranked among the country's top 35 real estate courses, old or new.

At Olde Stone, AHSF partners Arthur Hills and Drew Rogers were charged with creating the best course in Kentucky. "To have an event of this magnitude coming to Bowling Green says a lot about Olde Stone and the potential for hosting major events in the future," said Steve Newman, Olde Stone's golf professional. The Jr. Ryder Cup is set for September 14-16, 2008.

"The course is getting rave reviews from the various raters who have played the course, and they've arrived here by the dozens. The word is clearly out. They have specifically commented on the variety of the holes, the greens and surrounds. And many of them have said this is the toughest rough they have ever played."

The raters have indeed been to Alvaton in force. This fall Golfweek ranked the Club at Olde Stone 14th on its list of the top 50 courses to open since 2004. In late October, The Wall Street Journal, in partnership with Golfweek, ranked it 33rd on its list of America's Top 100 Real Estate Golf Courses. Olde Stone's ascension in this ranking can be attributed to its golf course as well as its unique master plan: a New Urbanist approach that called for development of an actual village center filled with public space, light retail and a range of housing spiraling out from the center. This concentrated approach allowed Rogers and Hills create a "core" golf course unimpeded by home sites and road crossings.

"As a firm, we don't really design golf courses with rankings or 'best new' awards in mind - but in the case Olde Stone, it was a stated directive from our client. So this sort of attention, inside and outside of Kentucky, is extremely gratifying," said Rogers, a University of Kentucky graduate. "I think it's important to remember that the Club at Olde Stone is only 18 months old. The golf course is only going to get better with time because of all Olde Stone has going for it, the strongest element of this project was the land itself - it features a stunning diversity of terrain."
Holes 2 through 7 are located in a floodplain of Drake's Creek. The remaining holes sit higher on the property, where dramatic elevation changes, bold feature-shaping, accents of golden fescue and classic design strategies provide a different feel and challenge. The PGA of America, which administers both Ryder Cup events, has affirmed these qualities by selecting the facility to host the Jr. Ryder Cup.

Olde Stone's most significant and lasting achievement, however, may well be something far more mundane: its turfgrass. It features bentgrass greens, tees and fairways in a southerly region where wall-to-wall bent - a turf that normally thrives only in cooler climates - wasn't thought possible. Rogers worked closely with superintendent Wyatt Warfel and Oliphant Golf Construction to build each fairway in the fashion of a putting surface: creating extensive subsurface drainage, then capping each fairway with an 8- to 10-inch layer of sand. This extra measure added six weeks and $1 million to the construction process. But it enabled the wicking away of moisture that normally dooms bentgrass during steamy summer months in the infamous Transition Zone.
"I think owner Jim Scott and his team are to be congratulated for really seizing the opportunity at Olde Stone," Rogers said. "They knew they had a spectacular piece of land and, for someone else, maybe it would have been enough to build a first-rate golf course and some nice housing. But this place breaks the mold. The bentgrass sets it apart from every golf course in the South, and the land-planning methodology here allowed us to maximize use of that terrain without having to account for excessive housing lots and other trappings of traditional subdivisions, which is very rare these days."

This sort of creativity and innovation, along with national and international design laurels, routinely distinguish the recent work of Arthur Hills/Steve Forrest and Associates. Olde Stone's growing reputation is complemented by those of Sand Golf Club, just more than year old but already ranked by Golf Digest among the world's Top 100 courses outside the United States (No. 82), and Hills Golf Club, named by Travel+Leisure Golf magazine among the top 10 courses to open worldwide in 2005. Both were designed by AHSF partner Steve Forrest, current president of the American Society of Golf Course Architects. Closer to home, Wolfdancer Golf Club at the Hyatt Regency Lost Pines Resort in Austin, Texas - designed by Hills/Forrest partner Chris Wilczynski - was named to GOLF Magazine's "Top 10 New Courses You Can Play" for 2006.

"These course honors show that our partners are among the finest architects working today," said Arthur Hills, 77, founder and principal of AHSF. "I also feel strongly that each time a course of ours is praised, it vouches for the collaborative approach we bring to all our projects."

Arthur Hills/Steve Forrest & Associates now has more than 40 projects underway in Mexico, Canada, the United States and Europe. It boasts nearly 200 original designs worldwide, along with more than 130 major renovations.

"We have built Hills/Forrest into one of the top four or five course architecture firms in the world by working to together to design outstanding golf courses that amateurs and professionals alike love to play," added Hills. "My name has been out on the shingle - for 40 years now - but I didn't design 190 golf courses around the world by myself! We've always relied on the talent we've worked hard to assemble here. We've made a point of giving our partners the sort of responsibility and artistic autonomy that inspires them and keeps them here."

For more information about Arthur Hills/Steve Forrest and Associates, call 419/841-8553 or visit www.arthurhills.com.

OVC CO-MALE GOLFERS OF THE WEEK

GRANT LEAVER · AUSTIN PEAY

CENTERVILLE, TENN. · SENIOR

Captured his fifth career medalist honor by winning the Middle Tenn. Intercollegiate, played Monday and Tuesday in Murfreesboro, Tenn., at Old Fort Golf Club. He overcame difficult weather and course conditions to shoot a five-under 211 (71-69-71) to win the tournament by three strokes. Leaver now has three tournament titles in 2007-08 and added to his school record for most career tournament medalist honors.

JESSE MASSIE · EASTERN KENTUCKY

LOUISVILLE, KY. · JUNIOR

Massie claimed the individual title and led Eastern Kentucky to the team title at the Hoosier Invitational hosted by Indiana University. He shot a three-under through two rounds (74-65) before the third round was rained out. His 65 in the second round was his lowest of the season and the lowest by any Colonel this Spring. The junior now has four top-10 and six top-20 finishes in nine events this season.

Pair of BIG EAST Golfers Claim Individual Titles

Louisville senior Derek Fathauer and St. John’s senior Keegan Bradley both posted the low individual scores at their respective tournaments last week. Fathauer won the General Jim Hackler Championship with a 217. Bradley tied for first at the Palmas Del Mar Intercollegiate in Puerto Rico with a 211.

Friend of Kentucky Golf Passes Away

Salvia, a 23-year-old North Hardin High School graduate and member of Western Kentucky University’s men’s golf team who was diagnosed with T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma shortly before Christmas 2005, died Saturday at Norton Hospital in Louisville.

Hundreds of miles away, Salvia’s death had shaken the top of his college’s administration.

“It’s a tragedy. It’s a shame,” said Western Kentucky athletics director Dr. Wood Selig, who was attending the men’s basketball team’s Sun Belt Tournament game Sunday night against North Texas in Mobile, Ala. “We talk about the Western Spirit, but Jared had a spirit for life. He was a great kid and he fought a heck of a battle with his illness. He showed strength and inspiration throughout his ordeal.”

The cancer kept Salvia from attending the 2006 Sun Belt Conference Championships in Florida, but it didn’t keep his team from succeeding.

Although Salvia wasn’t there in body, his coach, Brian Tirpak, said he didn’t have to be.

“The first thing I’ll remember about Jared was his ability to pull our team together. Everyone on the team had so much love for him. He was the binding force on our team,” Tirpak said. “When we landed at the airport, we drove right to the hospital to share our trophy with him. He never left our team’s thoughts.”

The NCAA gave Salvia a medical redshirt to allow him to complete his final two seasons of eligibility. Salvia had actually practiced with the team recently and despite dropping more than 80 yards off his tee shot, was still competitive.

“Jared had game. He had the ability to go low on days where no one else had the ability to go low. Even when he was coming back, he was very weak, but he could still shoot a 72 or a 73 just because he was so determined,” Tirpak said. “He is going to be with us in spirit. He had so much courage and you never heard him complain. Even with all he went through, he was always thinking about other people first. If my team had half the courage he had, we’ll be one of the most amazing teams in the country.”

At North Hardin, Salvia qualified for State three consecutive years.

“Jared was a good kid. He came from a good family. I coached his sisters as well. He was an outstanding young person. He worked hard on the golf course and he worked hard everywhere else, too. It’s a shame. He was a young boy. It’s a real shame,” said former North Hardin coach Johnny Skaggs. “He had a lot of support (during his fight with cancer). He didn’t give up. He didn’t give up on golf or on anything. That’s just the way he was. He was a battler. On the golf course, he never left a bad shot get to him and that’s the same way he dealt with cancer, I guess.”

North Hardin plans to hold a moment of silence for Salvia prior to the Lady Trojans’ game at 5:30 tonight at Ron Bevars Gymnasium against Elizabethtown in the Girls’ 5th Region Tournament championship.

“He was a wonderful young man. He had his goals in front of him and was loved by everyone at school,” said North Hardin athletics director Alan Campbell. “I remember his smile and the way to reacted to people, which was always positive no matter who it was. The quote about ‘He was a friend of everyone’ is truly correct in his case.”

As of Sunday night, a caringbridge.org site set up for Salvia had registered more than 55,000 visits. It had 20 guestbook signatures Sunday alone.

“He was an absolute gentleman and I am so honored to say I was his coach. He was a credit to our team, our school and to the game of golf,” Tirpak said. “Just go look at how many hits that are on that Web site and you’ll be amazed. It’s a staggering number of people that he’s touched.”

Visitation is from 2-8 p.m. Wednesday and after 9 a.m. Thursday at Coffey & Chism Funeral Home in Vine Grove, where there will also be a prayer service at 7 p.m. Wednesday.

Funeral Mass will be held at 11 a.m. Thursday at St. Brigid Catholic Church in Vine Grove. Burial will follow in the St. Brigid Cemetery.

News-Enterprise sports writer Greg Crews contributed to this report. Nathaniel Bryan can be reached at 505-1758 or at nbryan@thenewsenterprise.com

The Club at Olde Stone Opens in Kentucky

The Club at Olde Stone, conceived to boldly go where no development had gone before, officially got there on June 1, when it opened for member play in Alvaton in south-central Kentucky.

"It will take time for all the course-raters and pundits to see what's been created here, but we're confident they'll be blown away by what they find," said Club at Olde Stone owner Jim Scott, who estimates that $13 million was spent on the golf course alone. "The layout Arthur Hills/Steve Forrest and Associates have designed here is second to none – not just in Kentucky but this entire region. What we've done is take that quality foundation and built on it, by daring to do what others had not."

The Club at Old Stone does indeed show what's possible when spectacular terrain is exposed to expert course architecture, cutting-edge agronomics and innovative land-planning tenets.

Designed by Toledo, Ohio-based Arthur Hills/Steve Forrest and Associates, Olde Stone's 7,372-yard layout is distinguished immediately by its playing conditions: bentgrass greens, tees and fairways in a southerly region – the infamous Transition Zone where wall-to-wall bentgrass wasn't thought possible. Working closely with Hills/Forrest and Olde Stone superintendent Wyatt Warfel, Oliphant Golf Construction built each fairway in the fashion of a putting surface: creating extensive subsurface drainage, then capping each fairway with an 8- to 10-inch layer of sand. This extraordinary measure added six weeks and $1 million to the construction process, but it enabled the wicking away of moisture that normally dooms bentgrass during steamy summer months in the Transition Zone.

"Anytime you can get the moisture out of that plant through these hot spells, you're better off," said Drew Rogers, the Hills/Forrest partner who directed the Olde Stone project. "To this point, it's been nothing short of amazing. Wyatt has had no disease. No pythium on tees and fairways because they drain so well. And little to no poa annua infestation."

Bentgrass fairways in particular also allowed Rogers to design a firm-and-fast course that emphasizes the ground game. The 15th, a 472-yard par-4 called "Symphony," illustrates the dynamic: A cross-bunker sits 20 yards short of the green, daring players to simply clear the hazard and roll the ball onto a narrow, undulating putting surface that would repel most aerial approaches. "Without the bounce and firmness provided by the bentgrass and subsurface conditions, you would not tend to arrange a green complex like that," Rogers explained. "Those types of greens are more apt to be found on some of our older, classic courses from the 1920s, or in the British Isles where the ground is inherently firm and well-drained."

The Club at Olde Stone is also unique for its overall master plan, a New Urbanist approach that called for the development of an actual village center amenitized with public space and light retail. This village is stocked with an array of smaller housing units (cottages, duplexes, even lofts located upstairs of shops) and surrounded by solely residential neighborhoods where, in transect planning fashion, lot sizes tend to get larger the farther from the village green, which spreads out before an opulent stone clubhouse. Automotive use within the community is discouraged in favor of foot and bicycle paths.

This novel development tactic allowed more lots than a traditional scheme would have (to date, 69 of the 384 lots have been sold; less than 100 of a targeted 350 golf memberships remain available). Just as important, this concentrated, New Urbanist approach allowed Rogers and Hills/Forrest to create a core golf course unimpeded by home sites and road crossings.

"The strongest element of this project was the land itself – it features a stunning diversity of terrain," Rogers explained. "The land-planning methodology here allowed us to maximize use of that terrain without having to account for excessive housing lots and other trappings of traditional subdivisions, which is very rare these days."

Holes 2 through 7 at Olde Stone are located in the expansive floodplain of Drake's Creek, allowing holes like the double-fairwayed, par-5 7th ("Wishbone"). The remaining holes sit higher on the property, where dramatic elevation change, accents of golden fescue and vintage design strategies provide a wholly different feel and challenge.

While most premium course designs today feature a driveable par-4, Olde Stone has one on each side – and they couldn't be more different. With its super-wide fairway snaking around a gaping cross-bunker at right, the level 6th, called "Oxbow," invites a half-dozen options off the tee; only when standing on the riverside green – an elegant, almost triangular plateau with a brontosaurus tail slithering back toward the fairway – does the player realize it can be driven. At "Vesuvius," the steeply downhill 14th, a question-mark fairway fairly well begs players to eschew the lay-up and drive the volcano putting surface, over a pond.

"I think Jim Scott and his team are to be congratulated for really seizing the opportunity at Olde Stone," Rogers said. "They knew they had a spectacular piece of land and, for someone else, maybe it would have been enough to build a first-rate golf course and some nice housing. But this place breaks the mold."

Arthur Hills/Steve Forrest & Associates is one of golf's most prolific and respected course architects, with more than 40 projects underway in Mexico, Canada, the United States, Europe and the Middle East. The Wolfdancer Golf Club at the Hyatt Regency Lost Pines Resort also opened for play June 1, near Austin, Texas; Hills Golf Club in Sweden, named by Travel+Leisure Golf magazine among the top 10 courses to open worldwide during 2005, will celebrate its grand opening this fall, just north of Gothenburg; and ground was just broken on the new Garden River Golf Club near Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada.

Club at Olde Stone to host Jr. Ryder Cup

In September 2008 the golf world will descend on Kentucky as Valhalla Golf Club in LouisvilleBowling Green. hosts the Ryder Cup Matches. A week after those matches, the Jr. Ryder Cup visits the Club at Olde Stone outside

It could be argued the youngsters are getting the better end of the deal. The Club at Olde Stone, laid out in Alvaton by Toledo, Ohio-based Arthur Hills/Steve Forrest and Associates (AHSF), has received considerable attention since opening for member play in spring 2006. Just 18 months old, Olde Stone has landed golf's premier junior event, been named among the top courses to open nationwide over the past three years, and is ranked among the country's top 35 real estate courses, old or new.

At Olde Stone, AHSF partners Arthur Hills and Drew Rogers were charged with creating the best course in Kentucky. "To have an event of this magnitude coming to Bowling Green says a lot about Olde Stone and the potential for hosting major events in the future," said Steve Newman, Olde Stone's golf professional. The Jr. Ryder Cup is set for September 14-16, 2008.

"The course is getting rave reviews from the various raters who have played the course, and they've arrived here by the dozens. The word is clearly out. They have specifically commented on the variety of the holes, the greens and surrounds. And many of them have said this is the toughest rough they have ever played."

The raters have indeed been to Alvaton in force. This fall Golfweek ranked the Club at Olde Stone 14th on its list of the top 50 courses to open since 2004. In late October, The Wall Street Journal, in partnership with Golfweek, ranked it 33rd on its list of America's Top 100 Real Estate Golf Courses. Olde Stone's ascension in this ranking can be attributed to its golf course as well as its unique master plan: a New Urbanist approach that called for development of an actual village center filled with public space, light retail and a range of housing spiraling out from the center. This concentrated approach allowed Rogers and Hills create a "core" golf course unimpeded by home sites and road crossings.

"As a firm, we don't really design golf courses with rankings or 'best new' awards in mind - but in the case Olde Stone, it was a stated directive from our client. So this sort of attention, inside and outside of Kentucky, is extremely gratifying," said Rogers, a University of Kentucky graduate. "I think it's important to remember that the Club at Olde Stone is only 18 months old. The golf course is only going to get better with time because of all Olde Stone has going for it, the strongest element of this project was the land itself - it features a stunning diversity of terrain."

Holes 2 through 7 are located in a floodplain of Drake's Creek. The remaining holes sit higher on the property, where dramatic elevation changes, bold feature-shaping, accents of golden fescue and classic design strategies provide a different feel and challenge. The PGA of America, which administers both Ryder Cup events, has affirmed these qualities by selecting the facility to host the Jr. Ryder Cup.

Olde Stone's most significant and lasting achievement, however, may well be something far more mundane: its turfgrass. It features bentgrass greens, tees and fairways in a southerly region where wall-to-wall bent - a turf that normally thrives only in cooler climates - wasn't thought possible. Rogers worked closely with superintendent Wyatt Warfel and Oliphant Golf Construction to build each fairway in the fashion of a putting surface: creating extensive subsurface drainage, then capping each fairway with an 8- to 10-inch layer of sand. This extra measure added six weeks and $1 million to the construction process. But it enabled the wicking away of moisture that normally dooms bentgrass during steamy summer months in the infamous Transition Zone.

"I think owner Jim Scott and his team are to be congratulated for really seizing the opportunity at Olde Stone," Rogers said. "They knew they had a spectacular piece of land and, for someone else, maybe it would have been enough to build a first-rate golf course and some nice housing. But this place breaks the mold. The bentgrass sets it apart from every golf course in the South, and the land-planning methodology here allowed us to maximize use of that terrain without having to account for excessive housing lots and other trappings of traditional subdivisions, which is very rare these days."

This sort of creativity and innovation, along with national and international design laurels, routinely distinguish the recent work of Arthur Hills/Steve Forrest and Associates. Olde Stone's growing reputation is complemented by those of Sand Golf Club, just more than year old but already ranked by Golf Digest among the world's Top 100 courses outside the United States (No. 82), and Hills Golf Club, named by Travel+Leisure Golf magazine among the top 10 courses to open worldwide in 2005. Both were designed by AHSF partner Steve Forrest, current president of the American Society of Golf Course Architects. Closer to home, Wolfdancer Golf Club at the Hyatt Regency Lost Pines Resort in Austin, Texas - designed by Hills/Forrest partner Chris Wilczynski - was named to GOLF Magazine's "Top 10 New Courses You Can Play" for 2006.

"These course honors show that our partners are among the finest architects working today," said Arthur Hills, 77, founder and principal of AHSF. "I also feel strongly that each time a course of ours is praised, it vouches for the collaborative approach we bring to all our projects."

Arthur Hills/Steve Forrest & Associates now has more than 40 projects underway in Mexico, Canada, the United States and Europe. It boasts nearly 200 original designs worldwide, along with more than 130 major renovations.

"We have built Hills/Forrest into one of the top four or five course architecture firms in the world by working to together to design outstanding golf courses that amateurs and professionals alike love to play," added Hills. "My name has been out on the shingle - for 40 years now - but I didn't design 190 golf courses around the world by myself! We've always relied on the talent we've worked hard to assemble here. We've made a point of giving our partners the sort of responsibility and artistic autonomy that inspires them and keeps them here."