Post by philknj on Oct 15, 2021 4:17:40 GMT
I parked near Route 9 and walked into Galloway National GC around 9:15 AM. The plan was to leave a couple of hours later for the Seaview.
I checked out the 10th tee. Lori Rinker has a lot of mileage on her, but can still drive a ball straight, although not high or far. Jackie Gallagher Smith was supposed to be next, so I walked over to the 9th green, but she was a no-show and so was the pro after her. The next player to arrive was Liz Nagel, who stuck it close with a wedge. She has an A&W Root Beer bag, a beautifully detailed work of art.
Michelle Piyapattra arrived at #10 with her team at six-under. She advised one of the old guys in her group before his drive, saying afterward, “Ben Hogan was all about the set-up.” A woman in this group looked quite fit, mid-to-late 30s at least and was no hit-and-giggle golfer. From the women’s tees, it was like having a ringer. She had her team’s best iron approach into the green and made the putt ... change that score to seven-under.
I meandered around the carts of teams that hadn’t started yet. Three pros were chatting the politics related to Covid-19 news coverage in the South. One small, young pro who I did not recognize said, “I’m in PA and my husband has HAD IT! We’re going to Florida or Texas.”
Klara Spilkova was a no-show, but she was replaced by a better player, Gemma Dryburgh, who pummeled her drive up the hill at the 1st hole.
While walking up the left side of #1, I saw one player using the short game practice, which was behind and a little right of the driving range. I never noticed this area before. The player was Anna Nordqvist, who is too good for this pro-am (she was scheduled for the Bay course in the PM). I assume this was a professional courtesy.
I decided not to advance beyond the par-3 2nd tee, which was a forced carry over a swamp to a pin in the front-right. Dryburgh squashed her tee shot and I made a mental note on its sound. The next pro was Alexandria Jacobsen, best known for being the mystery TV commercial model during the debut of the now-defunct Coates Golf gear company. I did not see one scrap of Coates Golf equipment or apparel with her now. She had all Callaway gear and I think the same model irons as Dryburgh. This was where you could “hear” the difference between a major league touring pro and a celebrity pro. Dryburgh’s shot was a low-pitched crunch, while Jacobsen’s was a higher-pitched slap. In defense of A.J., her shot was effective ... pin-high and about 20 feet to the left.
Courtney Harter waited for her tee time and was circumspect in a chat with her lady amateurs. Circumspect is also a good term to apply to her online presence ... she hasn’t posted anything on Twitter in almost five years and her last post on Instagram was over 18 months ago. She mentioned the Shoprite/Acer being her first LPGA event ... she didn’t say what year, but I can tell you since I saw her first shot at the 10th tee. From my 2012 report:
Regarding Harter, this was her LPGA debut (Monday qualified). Holy cow...imagine a brunette, Mini-Me version of Gulbis, but with a face sort of like Jessica Korda.
I went out to one of the holes near Route 9 and departed soon afterward for the Pines course pro-am. Frankly, the pros they have assigned to Galloway have been progressively less interesting since the first time I slipped in there in 2013. The Seaview Pines course in now getting the players with more buzz and higher Q-ratings in comparison to Galloway. Of course, the pro-am at the Seaview Bay course will always be ‘The Main Room’, but the Pines course is well-regarded. I’m not going back to Galloway anymore. Yes, it’s an excellent course, but there’s nothing new to see there.
I plan to get more acquainted with the Pines course in the future ... any course partially designed by my favorite of the old masters, William Flynn, deserves a thorough exploration. Meanwhile, since every group teed off at #1, I started at #18 to catch the late groups finishing up. Paige Spirinac hit her team’s approach shot, but it finished short and right near a greenside bunker.
I continued back to the preceding holes to check out a few other familiar names on my tee sheet. The first was Genevieve Ling, who bombed out of Monday’s qualifier. She belted a pretty good drive at the par-5 18th, playing a little bit downhill at 462 yards. Her approach from 195 covered the flag, but I didn’t stick around to see if they made the eagle putt.
I was anxious to see the group with Long Drive competitor Alexis Belton. How far could she crush the ball at #18? I never found out as she was a no-show, but was replaced by an all-around golf talent, Kelly Tan. She socked a good drive and I was curious to see if she out-drove her buddy Ling, but I didn’t bother looking after it was clear that an amateur in Tan’s group had the longest drive and they’d be playing from his ball by the time I got down there.
I wanted to check out Mallory Blackwelder in the next group, but she was another no-show ... didn’t recognize her replacement who may have been from the Asian/Indian sub-continent. I began walking back to earlier holes, looking for the next familiar face, Melissa Mabanta, but struck out again, another no-show. Her replacement was an old blonde woman who didn’t look familiar at all.
The strikeouts ended when ex-Dukie Jenny Lee arrived in the next group, as scheduled. If you recall, she was barely on the LPGA tour about ten years ago. I don’t think she has been on the TaylorMade rep’s speed dial in the last five years as she was gaming TM Tour Preferred MC irons (NOT the older ones with the hexagon weight) and a TM SLDR driver with the sole weight moved two-thirds of the way towards a Draw bias.
Team Lee was the highlight of my time at the Pines course ... I wish I had been there sooner. The amateur partners did not disappoint me: two middle-aged Korean couples attired as if they had stepped out of an SBS Golf TV program or commercial. One guy had a Titleist outfit topped off with a black & white diagonal check bucket hat. Oh, and their bags! I saw clubs and head covers for Honma/Beres, Maruman/Majesty, Fourteen Golf, G III, and irons with an obscure Japanese name ... I should have written that one down. Both men were good players and one of the wives was in good shape and had a useful game ... the other wife looked older and was less athletic. They were the life of the party out there.
There were only two groups after Team Lee, but they didn’t interest me, so I made the short walk to the driving range. Unlike past years, the equipment gear van was down on the range, instead of up on the hill between the tennis courts and sand volleyball pits. A guy came out of it holding two wedges and informed Tiffany Chan that there was less than one-half of one swing weight difference between them. Normally, the van is here no later than Wednesday, but that wouldn’t be necessary as the following week’s tournament was still in New Jersey.
A Calloway rep drove onto the range and called over A Lim Kim. She had a recent putter change and they discussed the pros and cons of it ... they talked mostly about the face insert. Her English was passable to me. She could handle an interview if the questions were not complicated.
Mi Hyang Lee was wrapping up her work. I watched her hit the driver about five times and the shots were either slight pulls to the left or baby fades. They didn’t look like her stock gamer shots, but she could have been experimenting, who knows. She had Trackman set up behind her target line, and behind that was Mr. Lee sitting on his little portable folding stool.
The life of a touring pro, as expressed by Marina Alex on the phone near the practice bunker behind the range:
“Can you talk to her about my flight ... they have me on the red eye ... I’m going through Seattle ... I flew to Tampa ... I booked my own flight to L.A. ... I just can’t do another red eye ... if I book a flight on my own, will they compensate me? ... after practice, I’ll do some research on flights and call you back ... I’m a little too old to do that anymore.” (chuckles)
I dropped by the practice green near the hotel to look over a few bags. Haru Nomura is still gaming Yamaha irons (probably not the latest model) and even had Yamaha wedges, which surprised me. Pornanong Phatlum has not changed in ages ... Baldo sticks and a hot pink Volvik S3 ball. Giulia Molinaro has a curious setup ... she is all in on Callaway, except for bagging Cobra Forged Tec 7-iron thru PW. A Lim Kim plays the old Asian market Mizuno MP-66 irons that MHL made famous in 2017. Muni He is still with TaylorMade ... once played the M2 products and now plays the SIM driver and SIM irons.
By the way, I haven’t seen Mr. Honma in quite a while ... the tour rep who never seemed to be doing any work when I saw him. Now there is no need for him as the old Big Three are history (So Yeon Ryu left Honma, Hana Jang left the USA and Shan Shan Feng left the sport). I’m not counting Pines course pro-am old-timer Kim Williams, who had Honma irons in a stand bag. Muni had a Honma driver five years ago at Ridgewood CC and ditched it not long after that.
I recall an article from about two years ago saying the tour reps were abandoning the LPGA tour and I think it was accurate. I didn’t see Mr. TaylorMade, who used to run all over the range. I don’t think I saw a PXG guy there. I didn’t see much of the guys who set up bags and barrels of demos and gadgets on the range and on the practice green. The Callaway rep was the only one I noticed and he HAD to be there because Cally is the house brand of the resort.
I noticed nothing different about MHL’s bag versus what I was already aware of: Callaway driver and wedges, Mizuno JPX 921-type irons and a Bettinardi putter. A broken-open shipping case of Volvik S3 balls was next to her bag. The case was big enough to hold at least six dozen balls. Volvik used to have an LPGA tour rep named Keven as recently as four years ago, but I think he’s gone now ... I guess they don’t need a rep anymore, since its “lesser” non-Asian staffers have disappeared and they haven’t signed new ones, leaving the Big Three of MHL, Chella Choi and Porna. I assume if they’re running low, they call the Florida office and balls are overnighted to them.
I crossed Route 9 to check out the action on the Bay course. I picked up the Jenny Shin group as they were near the end of the round at the 16th green. JTibs had a story to amuse and comfort the amateurs who might have been a little down on how they played:
“This is the 11th year I’ve come to this tournament. One year they grouped me with people who had NEVER played golf before. They worked at Shoprite and were told to join me because no one was available to fill my pro-am. They swung and completely missed hitting the ball CONSTANTLY!”
I was in the rough downrange at the par-5 9th hole when Anne Van Dam hit a bazooka blast that finished in an area I was not familiar with. It was seven paces behind the 172 marker. Then I walked to the tee and saw the blocks six paces in front of the 476 chalk stripe. Okay, 470 minus 179, that’s 291! That includes 20-30 yards of roll as the fairway played like a tarmac.
I went behind the 9th tee for the next group with Christina Kim. She put a good swing on her ball, sounded solid, a medium/high draw that gently turned and finished on the left side of the fairway. I hustled out there, paced it off from the 201 marker, did some quick subtraction in my head ... and was floored: 60 yards shorter than AVD. “I must have screwed up”, was my first thought, so I re-did it, which included an accurate verification of my paces between the 172 and 201 markers. Yep, I was wrong ... 58 yards shorter than AVD. Wow, only 233 ... she used to be long on this tour back in the old days ... and I know she smacked it well, or else she would have told the whole world otherwise, right on the spot.
Could anyone out-drive AVD at #9? Maybe one player could, Maria Fassi. She had a 2:00 PM tee time starting at #10, so I was going to have a long wait before she tried. I ended my day joining her group at the short par-4 5th hole (301 yards) where I noticed her ball caught in the upslope of the left bunker just short of green ... was it all carry? I don’t know. BTW, there was a good father/teen daughter combo in the group with resort rental clubs (Cally Maverick woods/irons and Odyssey Two-Ball putters).
Fassi talked in Spanish with her looper, Ivan Galdame, at the par-4 6th tee (396 yards). All I understood was Ivan saying “dos cuarenta y cinco”. So, 245 was an important number regarding her tee shot.
We finally reached No. 9, positioned myself behind the tee ... and what the hell, she took out a 3-wood. Are you kidding me? This is a pro-am, who wants to see that?! What a huge letdown. To her credit, she nailed a 269-yard accurate high draw with that 3W. For the record, I paced off the end of the short grass at 315 ... after that, you run into the garbage dump that cuts across this hole.
While walking No. 9, a club caddie carrying two amateur bags complemented the bearded guy following the group, saying her swing looked so much better now. The savior was a new coach Fassi started working with in August ... I heard him say, “this course is a challenge for her.” It looks like she is starting to shape up into a real golfer.
I checked out the 10th tee. Lori Rinker has a lot of mileage on her, but can still drive a ball straight, although not high or far. Jackie Gallagher Smith was supposed to be next, so I walked over to the 9th green, but she was a no-show and so was the pro after her. The next player to arrive was Liz Nagel, who stuck it close with a wedge. She has an A&W Root Beer bag, a beautifully detailed work of art.
Michelle Piyapattra arrived at #10 with her team at six-under. She advised one of the old guys in her group before his drive, saying afterward, “Ben Hogan was all about the set-up.” A woman in this group looked quite fit, mid-to-late 30s at least and was no hit-and-giggle golfer. From the women’s tees, it was like having a ringer. She had her team’s best iron approach into the green and made the putt ... change that score to seven-under.
I meandered around the carts of teams that hadn’t started yet. Three pros were chatting the politics related to Covid-19 news coverage in the South. One small, young pro who I did not recognize said, “I’m in PA and my husband has HAD IT! We’re going to Florida or Texas.”
Klara Spilkova was a no-show, but she was replaced by a better player, Gemma Dryburgh, who pummeled her drive up the hill at the 1st hole.
While walking up the left side of #1, I saw one player using the short game practice, which was behind and a little right of the driving range. I never noticed this area before. The player was Anna Nordqvist, who is too good for this pro-am (she was scheduled for the Bay course in the PM). I assume this was a professional courtesy.
I decided not to advance beyond the par-3 2nd tee, which was a forced carry over a swamp to a pin in the front-right. Dryburgh squashed her tee shot and I made a mental note on its sound. The next pro was Alexandria Jacobsen, best known for being the mystery TV commercial model during the debut of the now-defunct Coates Golf gear company. I did not see one scrap of Coates Golf equipment or apparel with her now. She had all Callaway gear and I think the same model irons as Dryburgh. This was where you could “hear” the difference between a major league touring pro and a celebrity pro. Dryburgh’s shot was a low-pitched crunch, while Jacobsen’s was a higher-pitched slap. In defense of A.J., her shot was effective ... pin-high and about 20 feet to the left.
Courtney Harter waited for her tee time and was circumspect in a chat with her lady amateurs. Circumspect is also a good term to apply to her online presence ... she hasn’t posted anything on Twitter in almost five years and her last post on Instagram was over 18 months ago. She mentioned the Shoprite/Acer being her first LPGA event ... she didn’t say what year, but I can tell you since I saw her first shot at the 10th tee. From my 2012 report:
Regarding Harter, this was her LPGA debut (Monday qualified). Holy cow...imagine a brunette, Mini-Me version of Gulbis, but with a face sort of like Jessica Korda.
I went out to one of the holes near Route 9 and departed soon afterward for the Pines course pro-am. Frankly, the pros they have assigned to Galloway have been progressively less interesting since the first time I slipped in there in 2013. The Seaview Pines course in now getting the players with more buzz and higher Q-ratings in comparison to Galloway. Of course, the pro-am at the Seaview Bay course will always be ‘The Main Room’, but the Pines course is well-regarded. I’m not going back to Galloway anymore. Yes, it’s an excellent course, but there’s nothing new to see there.
I plan to get more acquainted with the Pines course in the future ... any course partially designed by my favorite of the old masters, William Flynn, deserves a thorough exploration. Meanwhile, since every group teed off at #1, I started at #18 to catch the late groups finishing up. Paige Spirinac hit her team’s approach shot, but it finished short and right near a greenside bunker.
I continued back to the preceding holes to check out a few other familiar names on my tee sheet. The first was Genevieve Ling, who bombed out of Monday’s qualifier. She belted a pretty good drive at the par-5 18th, playing a little bit downhill at 462 yards. Her approach from 195 covered the flag, but I didn’t stick around to see if they made the eagle putt.
I was anxious to see the group with Long Drive competitor Alexis Belton. How far could she crush the ball at #18? I never found out as she was a no-show, but was replaced by an all-around golf talent, Kelly Tan. She socked a good drive and I was curious to see if she out-drove her buddy Ling, but I didn’t bother looking after it was clear that an amateur in Tan’s group had the longest drive and they’d be playing from his ball by the time I got down there.
I wanted to check out Mallory Blackwelder in the next group, but she was another no-show ... didn’t recognize her replacement who may have been from the Asian/Indian sub-continent. I began walking back to earlier holes, looking for the next familiar face, Melissa Mabanta, but struck out again, another no-show. Her replacement was an old blonde woman who didn’t look familiar at all.
The strikeouts ended when ex-Dukie Jenny Lee arrived in the next group, as scheduled. If you recall, she was barely on the LPGA tour about ten years ago. I don’t think she has been on the TaylorMade rep’s speed dial in the last five years as she was gaming TM Tour Preferred MC irons (NOT the older ones with the hexagon weight) and a TM SLDR driver with the sole weight moved two-thirds of the way towards a Draw bias.
Team Lee was the highlight of my time at the Pines course ... I wish I had been there sooner. The amateur partners did not disappoint me: two middle-aged Korean couples attired as if they had stepped out of an SBS Golf TV program or commercial. One guy had a Titleist outfit topped off with a black & white diagonal check bucket hat. Oh, and their bags! I saw clubs and head covers for Honma/Beres, Maruman/Majesty, Fourteen Golf, G III, and irons with an obscure Japanese name ... I should have written that one down. Both men were good players and one of the wives was in good shape and had a useful game ... the other wife looked older and was less athletic. They were the life of the party out there.
There were only two groups after Team Lee, but they didn’t interest me, so I made the short walk to the driving range. Unlike past years, the equipment gear van was down on the range, instead of up on the hill between the tennis courts and sand volleyball pits. A guy came out of it holding two wedges and informed Tiffany Chan that there was less than one-half of one swing weight difference between them. Normally, the van is here no later than Wednesday, but that wouldn’t be necessary as the following week’s tournament was still in New Jersey.
A Calloway rep drove onto the range and called over A Lim Kim. She had a recent putter change and they discussed the pros and cons of it ... they talked mostly about the face insert. Her English was passable to me. She could handle an interview if the questions were not complicated.
Mi Hyang Lee was wrapping up her work. I watched her hit the driver about five times and the shots were either slight pulls to the left or baby fades. They didn’t look like her stock gamer shots, but she could have been experimenting, who knows. She had Trackman set up behind her target line, and behind that was Mr. Lee sitting on his little portable folding stool.
The life of a touring pro, as expressed by Marina Alex on the phone near the practice bunker behind the range:
“Can you talk to her about my flight ... they have me on the red eye ... I’m going through Seattle ... I flew to Tampa ... I booked my own flight to L.A. ... I just can’t do another red eye ... if I book a flight on my own, will they compensate me? ... after practice, I’ll do some research on flights and call you back ... I’m a little too old to do that anymore.” (chuckles)
I dropped by the practice green near the hotel to look over a few bags. Haru Nomura is still gaming Yamaha irons (probably not the latest model) and even had Yamaha wedges, which surprised me. Pornanong Phatlum has not changed in ages ... Baldo sticks and a hot pink Volvik S3 ball. Giulia Molinaro has a curious setup ... she is all in on Callaway, except for bagging Cobra Forged Tec 7-iron thru PW. A Lim Kim plays the old Asian market Mizuno MP-66 irons that MHL made famous in 2017. Muni He is still with TaylorMade ... once played the M2 products and now plays the SIM driver and SIM irons.
Speaking of Muni, she is mystified about how movies are reviewed. She was talking with Georgia Hall caddie and fiancé Prince Harry (Tyrrell) about the Korean movie that won the Oscar award, saying it was the most depressing film she ever saw.
I recall an article from about two years ago saying the tour reps were abandoning the LPGA tour and I think it was accurate. I didn’t see Mr. TaylorMade, who used to run all over the range. I don’t think I saw a PXG guy there. I didn’t see much of the guys who set up bags and barrels of demos and gadgets on the range and on the practice green. The Callaway rep was the only one I noticed and he HAD to be there because Cally is the house brand of the resort.
I noticed nothing different about MHL’s bag versus what I was already aware of: Callaway driver and wedges, Mizuno JPX 921-type irons and a Bettinardi putter. A broken-open shipping case of Volvik S3 balls was next to her bag. The case was big enough to hold at least six dozen balls. Volvik used to have an LPGA tour rep named Keven as recently as four years ago, but I think he’s gone now ... I guess they don’t need a rep anymore, since its “lesser” non-Asian staffers have disappeared and they haven’t signed new ones, leaving the Big Three of MHL, Chella Choi and Porna. I assume if they’re running low, they call the Florida office and balls are overnighted to them.
I crossed Route 9 to check out the action on the Bay course. I picked up the Jenny Shin group as they were near the end of the round at the 16th green. JTibs had a story to amuse and comfort the amateurs who might have been a little down on how they played:
“This is the 11th year I’ve come to this tournament. One year they grouped me with people who had NEVER played golf before. They worked at Shoprite and were told to join me because no one was available to fill my pro-am. They swung and completely missed hitting the ball CONSTANTLY!”
I was in the rough downrange at the par-5 9th hole when Anne Van Dam hit a bazooka blast that finished in an area I was not familiar with. It was seven paces behind the 172 marker. Then I walked to the tee and saw the blocks six paces in front of the 476 chalk stripe. Okay, 470 minus 179, that’s 291! That includes 20-30 yards of roll as the fairway played like a tarmac.
I went behind the 9th tee for the next group with Christina Kim. She put a good swing on her ball, sounded solid, a medium/high draw that gently turned and finished on the left side of the fairway. I hustled out there, paced it off from the 201 marker, did some quick subtraction in my head ... and was floored: 60 yards shorter than AVD. “I must have screwed up”, was my first thought, so I re-did it, which included an accurate verification of my paces between the 172 and 201 markers. Yep, I was wrong ... 58 yards shorter than AVD. Wow, only 233 ... she used to be long on this tour back in the old days ... and I know she smacked it well, or else she would have told the whole world otherwise, right on the spot.
Could anyone out-drive AVD at #9? Maybe one player could, Maria Fassi. She had a 2:00 PM tee time starting at #10, so I was going to have a long wait before she tried. I ended my day joining her group at the short par-4 5th hole (301 yards) where I noticed her ball caught in the upslope of the left bunker just short of green ... was it all carry? I don’t know. BTW, there was a good father/teen daughter combo in the group with resort rental clubs (Cally Maverick woods/irons and Odyssey Two-Ball putters).
Fassi talked in Spanish with her looper, Ivan Galdame, at the par-4 6th tee (396 yards). All I understood was Ivan saying “dos cuarenta y cinco”. So, 245 was an important number regarding her tee shot.
We finally reached No. 9, positioned myself behind the tee ... and what the hell, she took out a 3-wood. Are you kidding me? This is a pro-am, who wants to see that?! What a huge letdown. To her credit, she nailed a 269-yard accurate high draw with that 3W. For the record, I paced off the end of the short grass at 315 ... after that, you run into the garbage dump that cuts across this hole.
While walking No. 9, a club caddie carrying two amateur bags complemented the bearded guy following the group, saying her swing looked so much better now. The savior was a new coach Fassi started working with in August ... I heard him say, “this course is a challenge for her.” It looks like she is starting to shape up into a real golfer.