.I first noticed Kenny Perry's predilection for the plumb bob a few months ago at the Travelers Championship. It was a week after the water-logged U.S. Open, and Kenny was killing it with his Craz-E mallet. Ultimately, he won with a 258, the lowest score in the tournament's 57 year history. I've got to admit I was impressed... So I immediately adopted my own, made-up version of the technique,

5 Ways To Make Fall Golf More Fun

What to do when the warm sunny days of summer start to morph into the cool (sometimes cold) rainy days of fall and beyond? For die-hard golfers this is nothing more than a nuisance but for those of us that are more concerned about our physical comforts while on the course, this is a very serious issue.

Here are 5 things to do to take the sting out of the colder weather:

1. Pay attention to the weather forecast

…or better yet, walk outside the morning of your tee time and check things out as they really are. Is there frost on the ground? If so, plan for a delayed tee time. Course management will not let you play while there is frost on the ground to avoid damaging the turf, especially the greens. Check with your course to see if they are under a frost delay.

2. Be prepared!

Do the weather gurus predict a major temperature swing during the day? If so, dress in layers that are lightweight, loose-fitting and comfortable. You can’t swing well if you are encumbered by too much clothing. On the other hand, make sure you have enough warmth in your layering to keep you from freezing. It is very hard to swing when your body is stiff from the cold. Adding a pair of cold weather golf gloves to your bag is also a good idea. This gives a degree of warmth and gripping power for both hands while swinging. Storing a rain suit in your bag is also recommended. It’s one thing to be wet when it’s 90 degrees in the shade. When it’s in the 60’s or below, that rain might as well be snow if you don’t keep yourself dry.  You might consider changing to a ball with a softer feel to avoid feeling like you are hitting rocks all day long. Just a thought!

3. Warm-up and stretch…

before teeing off. This is true for all kinds of weather but an absolute must for those cooler days. Even with a frost delay you can still plan on arriving at your regular time and spend more time warming up and stretching. The worst thing to do is

to step up to the first tee box stiff and cold and swing away. Many a golfer has torn a muscle or at the bare minimum, strained a muscle due to an improper warm-up causing them to either quit before the round is over or play hampered by their injury. ‘No pain, no gain’ is not what we are going for here!! Give your body a break!! Ease into that first swing.

4. Keep a close eye on the flight of your ball.

In areas where the leaves start to fall as the temperatures drop, it is so easy to lose a golf ball in the piles of leaves on the course. It is amazing how a white golf ball can become virtually invisible when it is covered by or lying in the middle of hundreds of beautiful yellow, orange, red and brown leaves. Fall golf can become very costly if you don’t pay attention to where your ball comes to rest. By the way, be sure to look for some sort of ‘key’ identifier for the area where your ball stopped. All of a sudden the trees and piles of leaves you spotted from the point of your last swing all look the same as you travel towards them. Eagle Eye is the prescription for this challenge. Also keep in mind that when the air cools the ball does not travel as far as when it is hot and dry so don’t forget to adjust your ‘distance factor’ when looking for a stray ball.

5. Last but not least, enjoy the absolute beauty of nature.

You will be playing, in most areas of the country, amidst a kaleidoscope of colors that make the greens of the course stand out against the paintbrush of nature. The crispness in the air is invigorating (unless you are like me and really enjoy the hot, humid days of summer). The days are shorter so maximize the time spent outdoors chasing that little white ball around the countryside.

If you don’t buy into that load of BS, keep in mind that when all else fails just break out the hot chocolate (with peppermint schnapps, of course) and warm your hands, your body and your soul while you keep asking yourself, “Why didn’t I move south?”.

Here’s to enjoying golf in all seasons! Thanks for visiting Ladies on the Tee at www.sherrytabb.com. Come back soon and ‘sit around the fire’ with us and swap some stories.

Beginning Oct. 2, we'll be seeing more of Keri Murphy - and that is definitely a good thing. On Friday, Keri starts a new gig working with That Morning Show on E!, airing daily from 6-9 a.m. Keri will be appearing during the "Chase it" segments, helping consumers save money.

"I am excited to get started (with E!)," Keri said, but added, "My heart will always be with the golf world though ... it is where it all started for me."

A few years back, Keri began hosting an online trivia show for a tee-time reservation service. Her video clips - and especially her blooper reels - became very popular on golf blogs and on YouTube.

And the Golf Channel took notice, too, later selecting Keri to host its Highway 18 series.

While Keri is now branching out into entertainment television, she plans to stay involved in golf. One way is in her role as an "official wearer" of Fore! jewelry ("made for golf lovers"). In the smaller photo here, Keri is wearing one of Fore!'s necklaces.

She also enjoys making appearances at golf tournaments, whether as a speaker, host or presenter. "I would love to do more of that," she told me. Tournament organizers interested in booking Keri should check her Web site, kerimurphy.com, for contact info.

One last note: I can tell you that Keri has another golf project that she'll begin work on in October, and it's something that Golf Babes readers will be interested in. But that's all I can tell you right now. We'll provide more details as soon as Keri gives us the OK to reveal them.

So Keri, congratulations on your new gig with E!, and thanks for staying in the golf world, too.

More Keri Murphy pics on Golf Babes

I am going to keep this blog very simple; 9 short tips on what the Rules permit you to do. Check them out; there might be something new for you.

Under the Rules of Golf you may;

1. Have a flagstick attended even when your ball is in a bunker, or on the apron of the green - Rule 17-1.
2. Look into someone’s golf bag to identify which club they are using for their stroke - Decision 8-1/10.
3. Use the back, or the toe, of the clubhead to strike the ball - Decision 14-1/1.
4. Ask anyone the distance from any point A to any point B - Information on distance is not advice, Definition of Advice.
5. Ground your club on a bridge situated in a water hazard - Decision 13-4/30.
6. Lay a club, or clubs, in a bunker before you make a stroke at your ball lying in that bunker - Exception 1(b) to Rule 13-4.
7. Wrap a towel or handkerchief around the grip to assist in gripping your club on a wet day - Rule 14-3c.
8. Replace your ball where it was, under penalty of one stroke, when you have just putted past the hole and into a bunker - Rule 28a.
9. Use the toe of your putter to mark your ball – Decision 20-1/16.

I was going to follow this list with 9 things that you can’t do. But I don’t want to confuse, so I will leave this for a few days until my next blog.

Good golfing

Barry Rhodes

Have you got your copy of my book, ‘999 Questions on the Rules of Golf’? If you haven’t, I think that it will help you understand and remember the Rules; if you have, why not purchase another one as a gift for a golfing friend or relative?

Does it ever drive you crazy that there’s all these totally amazing golf courses in your area that are unavailable to you because you can’t (or won’t) dish out the $100k+ annual membership fee associated with the course? I know it does for me.. For those kindred spirits who feel the same gnawing ache to play [...]

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A few weeks ago I was priviledged to play one of the best courses in the US (and possibly the world) - Chambers Bay in Washington State. If you read my review on Inside Golf Magazine, you'll probably come away with the distinct impression that I was quite taken with Chambers Bay :) But I'm not the only one...I'm in good company - the USGA has chosen it to host the 2015 US Open.

That's a big deal, especially given that Chambers Bay is a muni. Yup - a govt run golf course like the "affordable" ones we played when we were learning the game. Except...Chambers costs about $160 to play it - Ouch!!!!

Anyway, golf magazine readers like me already knew about Chambers Bay and the US Open, but did you know it is also the host of next year's US Amateur Championship? Not only that, did you know that only 1/2 hour away lies another great course that will co-host those same amateurs as they compete for the prestigious Havemeyer Cup August 23-29, 2010?

Check out The Home Course, a lovely new course south of Seattle, with panoramic views of Puget Sound, The Olympic Mountains and Mount Rainier.

I was lucky to play The Home Course the day after I played Chambers Bay. And although I didn't find them all that similar in style/design (and price - The Home Course was 1/3 the price of Chambers Bay), the Home Course does have that "links" feel on a number of holes where the Sound comes into view. And yes...there is a lot of fescue.

At the beginning of our round the starter told us we could take a "free placement" in the fescue if our ball landed there (which it did - more than once). There are some rocks in that long grass and the placement rule is there to protect your clubs. I liked that rule!

I also liked the course, even if the dynamite that marked the tee boxes was a bit "telling" about some of my scores.

It is a very walkable course, but don't make the mistake of thinking this course is a cake walk. It has its challenges for sure - especially the greens. But at the same time, I didn't feel beat up either. I think The Home Course would appeal to all levels of players. Naturally, the USGA wouldn't have picked it unless it offered a serious challenge for the top US Amateurs, but even from the forward tees, there were interesting elements (hazards and such) for high handicappers to "enjoy". ;) So often you play a course where the forward tees look like they were an afterthought. But I didn't find that to be the case at The Home Course at all.

One thing I did find a little bit strange was the use of gas powered carts. Why not electric? For a new course, you would have thought they'd invest in electric (quiet and green) transportation. Hmmm...oh well. You want quiet and green? Then walk!

Also... don't be put down by the lack of facilities. What the course gives up in a fancy club house (it was under construction when we were there), they give back in quality. The course was in immaculate condition. The first cut of rough was nicer than most fairways I play. The fairways themselves rolled and meandered towards greens that would challenge even the best PGA players. Thankfully the starter gave us some very useful tips before we teed off that saved our bacon more than once.

For example on the par 4 third, whatever you do, don’t be long with your approach shot. You cannot imagine how much of a backdrop there is behind the green. Trying to come back from there is brutal because the green slopes so severly back to front.



We watched two gents behind us make this fatal mistake, landing their shots on our tee box over their green. Thank goodness they had senses of humor or we might have seen wedges fly as they tried to get up and down!

And then there's the par 4 seventh. You should drive your cart up to take a look at the green before you tee off.



You'll see that you don't really want to be any closer than about 140 yards from the pin (it's the only flat spot out there). From there it's all downhill to the water in front.

I like starters who give tips like that. It's not often I've received that kind of help. Usually starters look at me and the first thing that comes out of their mouths is where the washrooms are on the course. Haha... NOT that bathrooms aren't important, but I can usually find them when I need them. What I want to know is "local knowledge" that will help shave strokes off my game.

Now let me share some memorable holes...

The 2nd hole was lovely with the water behind the hole, a nice wide fairway and not a sound of civilization - just chirping grasshoppers and a warm breeze.

The 6th hole was beautiful to look at as well, but it eats Pro V1s. Seriously....I hit a great tee shot that unfortunately came up a bit short. My golfguy and I saw it land in the front bunker, but when I went up to hack it out, it was gone. I looked everywhere....no luck.

I even looked in the hole :). In the end, I gave up the hunt, scratched my head and watched my husband par the hole. To this day, I am convinced that my ball plugged itself into the side of the bunker and then sand rolled over it to hide it. The bunker looked like no one had touched it all day. But if I had had a shovel, that pristine sand trap would have ended up looking like "Ground under Repair".


No. 14 is a pretty par 3 with water down the right and a huge bunker on the left - lots to distract you ;). You can see that construction is already underway on a new building.

Not sure if this is the new clubhouse or not. I read that The Home Course will be the permanent home of the PNGA and WSGA, so perhaps this is an office building for them. I guess I'll find out next year when I go back.

The 17th was my favorite hole on the course. When you drive off the tee, you feel like your ball heading straight for the ocean...

And the green on 17 is a real treat - haha! NOT!!! It's sloped severely front to back, so make sure you get your ball over that ledge, or be prepared for the putt from double diamond ski slope territory! I actually got lucky on this hole and my ball trickled down close to the hole (which is why it is my favorite). Had that not happened? I might have put this under the category of beautiful but deadly. I can't wait to see where they put the pin on this hole for those Amateurs.

The Home Course is one I will definitely play again. In fact, that whole area in Washington State just south of Seattle is full of great courses I have yet to try. So I will be back next year to see the US Amateurs compete and then spend some time exploring other clubs close by.

And of course, I will also enjoy the beautiful city of Seattle, with so much to do. It's one of my favorite weekend getaways, especially when the Mariners are playing. Check out these Travel Guides and search on Seattle to discover more.

Golfgal

PS: BTW...if you are playing the 6th hole and find a Pro V1 with two "Gs" on it, play it where it lies and then tell me what I might have scored ;)

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Naturally, the humorous commercials and the great writing done for their advertisement is getting FedEx’s sponsorship budget a good ride.  But, what about GOLF?  Is Golf getting a positive image from what the golfing world is seeing played during this series of eliminations tournaments. It is understood that the ...

He wore dorky looking cool shades and whispered into his cell phone.I'm guessing it was his girlfriend on the other end, wondering how things were going in Paris. Girlfriends do tend to wonder about such things... it's part of normal girlfriend behavior... particularly if you're dating a rapidly rising star like Rory Mcilroy... and you're only 16, like Holly is.At Saint-Nom-La Breteche golf