Dave Pelz takes a scientific approach to scoring in golf, and his general conclusion is to focus on the short game and putting. A great number of touring pros work with the Pelz Institute to analyze how they play within 100 yards.

While it is important to hit drives far and straight, it is also crucial to be able to get up and down and recover from all sorts of situations. If you can get your shot within a few feet of the hole, the chances of sinking your put are much greater than if you are over 10 feet away.

Pelz Golf - Tips

Another major tournament to be held this weekend is the Johnnie Walker Classic, this year hosted by the Alpine Golf and Sports Club in Thailand. This tournament is part of 3 tours, the European, Asian, and Australiasian professional tours. This makes for quite the competitive field.

Nick Faldo, the 1990 and 1993 champion, will be playing, and he’s our pick to win the tournament. Go Faldo Go. Current Open Champion Ben Curtis will also be playing, here’s an additional cheer for Ben!

Johnnie Walker Classic

Kevin was the youngest player to graduate from qualifying school in December of 2003, and is now the youngest regular player on the PGA tour. This rookie has a lot of determination, and positive energy towards his own career as a touring professional.

We’ve decided to make Kevin one of the tour players we will follow this year, with a link to his ESPN.com Golf Player Card and the occasional write up with an update on his performance. If you ever find us here on the net Kevin, know we’re rooting for ya!

This weekend the PGA will hold the FBR Open (o/k/a Phoenix Open) at TPC Scottsdale in Arizona. Titled the “Greatest Show on Grass” this event held in the desert has a surreal feel to it as the grass is lush, and bunkers are deep. Vijay Singh is the defending champion, and has consistently faired well at this event.

One of the features of this tournament is the 16th hole. It has a stadium atmosphere as the Par 3 tends to have a sizeable contingent of rowdy spectators. If you can track down video of a player making a hole in one on that hole, you can see just how exuberant the crowd can get. Must be a thrill to play on.

FBR Open in Phoenix

Call it the Greater Toronto Open, this year the Toronto Star is expanding their tournament that seeks to establish the year’s best golfer in the Greater Toronto Area.

There are 6 regional qualifying tournaments, held all around the region:

May 26 at National Pines Golf Club in Innisfil
June 3 at Meadowbrook Golf and Country Club in Stouffville
June 14 at Hunters Pointe Golf Club in Welland
June 16th at Toronto Board of Trade Country Club in Woodbridge
June 28 at Whitevale Golf and Country Club
July 5th at Barrie Country Club

The final 72 hole tournament will have a field of 120, and will be held July 20-21 at Weston Golf and Country Club in Toronto and July 22-23 at Devil’s Pulpit Golf Club in Caledon.

Established in 1956 Don Valley Golf Course is a public facility right in the middle of northern Toronto. Accessible via subway (York Mills station), it’s a great course for golfers of all skills.

It is however one of the busiest golf courses in Canada, and it can be difficult to get a tee time during the peaks of spring and summer. Their policy is to accept reservations up to 5 days in advance. Effectively this means you need to call first thing in the morning 5 days before you want to play.

With that in mind, it is a wonderful golf couse, owned by the City of Toronto. A challenging par 71/73, with yardages of 6109/5603/5048 for blue, white, and red ties. It has a course rating of 70.0/67.5/69.0 with a slope of 124/121/120.

You can find more at the Don Valley Golf Course website.

This January Michelle Wie became the youngest player ever to participate in a PGA tour event. Playing at the 2004 Sony Open in Honolulu, Michelle missed the cut by only one stroke.

While she did have the equivalent of a home course advantage, as well as a large following from her local high school cheering her on, she certainly demonstrated that she deserves to play in future PGA and LPGA events.

It is incredible to see someone of Michelle’s age playing so competitively. While it may be too early to speculate how far, or how well she will do, she is certain to inspire a new generation of golfers to take up the game and have fun playing.

Located in Windsor, the Roseland Golf and Curling Club is an excellent public course for both locals and tourists. Owned by the City of Windsor, the course was established in 1928.

Par 72 for the men, and par 75 for the women, the yardage for the course is 6580/6288/5914 for the blue, gold, and red tees. The course rating for the same tees are 71.6/70.3/73.1 and slope of 125/122/123.

For more info check out the website for the Roseland GCC

Established in 1895, the Van Cortlandt Park Golf Course is the oldest public golf course in the United States, if not North America. Located in the middle of Van Cortlandt park in the Bronx, it offers an urban experience, and since its recent renovation, it also provides a quality game/challenge to golfers.

A friendly atmosphere, playing at this city owned course is a great way to spend time in New York City. A long walking course, with some high hills on the last holes, you’ll definitely get a workout playing there. The course is also subway accessible, take the 1/9 train to the last stop, and a short walk though the park gets you to the course.

The course plays Par 70 with yardages of 5918/5568/4870 from the blue, white, and silver tees. The course has a rating of 68.3/66.7/67.7 with a slope of 122/119/115.

For more info see the city website for the golf course.

Ironically enough shortly after posting this site on the web, walkah pointed out that noted wordpress hacker Alex King had his own wordpress driven Golf site. Talk about co-incidence. Or maybe just intution. Now that we know of its existence, we have to link to it of course. Hey Alex, if you find us feel free to return the link!

Welcome to the Openflows Golf Journal, produced by the hackers at Openflows.org. We’ve setup this journal as a public resource and a space to discuss the game of golf.

We provide organizations with tools to help them accomplish their mission and work, often involving web collaboration, as well as other internet technologies. Our expertise lies in using software in the public domain (free and open source) to solve and address the problems and needs that these organizations face.

However we also enjoy the game of golf, and we’ve setup this site as both a showcase of some of the software we use, and a place to share our interest in golf, and offer a public platform for people to also share their own golf experiences and insight.

Please enjoy the content we publish on this site, and feel encouraged to comment and submit your own material.

Jesse Hirsh
President
Openflows Networks Ltd.