1/22/17 - Steps for Building Your Own Yardage Book

FIND AND PRINT GOLF COURSE SCORECARD AND MAP OVERVIEW ONLINE

·         OPEN GOOGLE EARTH TO COURSE OVERHEAD VIEW, DESELECT AUTO TILT WHEN ZOOMING

·         MARK AND MEASURE YARDAGES FOR POINTS OF INTEREST (#’S FROM BACKS OF TEE BOXES AND #’S TO FRONT OF GREENS)

·         MAKE NOTE OF SIGNIFICANT SLOPES FROM TEE TO GREEN

·         PRINTSCREEN POI’S AND MAP INTO INKSCAPE ON 4.5” X 11” DOCUMENT SIZE

·         USE SOFT LINE BEZIER PEN TO TRACE TEE BOXES, BUNKERS, FAIRWAYS, HAZARDS, GREENS, AND COMPASS HEADING TO MAKE THEM INTO VECTOR SHAPES SO THEY CAN BE RESIZED WITHOUT LOSS OF QUALITY

·         USE SMALL CIRCLES OR SYMBOLS TO MARK POI’S

·         USE TREE VECTOR IMAGE TO MARK IMPORTANT TREES

·         DELETE GOOGLE EARTH IMAGE LEAVING ONLY VECTOR IMAGES AND SCALE OBJECTS INTO 4.5” X 11” DOCUMENT SIZE. (HOLD CNTRL + SHIFT TO MAINTAIN ASPECT WHILE SCALING)

·         REMEMBER TO MOVE OVER COMPASS HEADING NEAR TEE BOXES OR WHERE DESIRED

·         SELECT WATER HAZARDS, FILL AND STROKE MESH GRADIENT TO 20.6 OPACITY FOR NICE EFFECT

·         ADD HOLE DESCRIPTION TEXT AND INPUT  YARDAGES TO POI’S

·         RETURN TO GOOGLE EARTH, ZOOM INTO GREEN VIEW AND MAKE A STRAIGHT 5 YARD LINE WITH RULER TOOL FROM FRONT EDGE OF GREEN

·         PRINTSCREEN GREEN VIEW TO INKSCAPE AND MAKE 5 YARD X 5 YARD GRID OVER ENTIRE GREEN

·         ADD GREEN VIEW TO SEPARATE PAGE WITH HOLE DESCRIPTION FOR REFERENCE

·          SAVE VECTOR IMAGES AS .SVG AND .PDF

·         USE PDF MERGE SOFTWARE TO COMBINE 18 HOLES INTO ONE PDF

·         PRINT AND STAPLE AS DESIRED

·         WALK THE COURSE TO FIND OTHER POTENTIAL POI’S OR NOTES TO INCLUDE

·         MAP GREEN BY HAND AND INPUT POI’S INTO GREEN VIEW VECTOR TO SHOW SIGNIFICANT SLOPES AND NOTES

·         COMPLETE FINAL BOOK

1/22/17 - Build Your Own Yardage Book - Lantana GC

Over the past couple days, I've been trying to make my own yardage book for an upcoming event at Lantana Golf Club. Here's the finished product available for download. Hope to get more detailed on these as I do more including green contours.

Lantana Yardage Book

1/15/17 - Don't Wait to Taste Your Putts

When I was in Florida for the PGA Tournament Series in December, one of the marshals gave me the best putting lesson ever. Our group was lagging nearly two holes behind pace as we were taking turns riding the struggle bus. One of the guys in our group couldn't keep a ball in bounds, the other was having a career run on Tinder, and I was confusing trying hard with playing good golf. The marshal pulled me aside after a particularly lethargic group effort on the Par 3 13th and asked if I knew how long it took to hit my putt. I have a tendency to go into a bit of an alternate dimension while putting where time is essentially imperceptible. I think I may have minor synesthesia as occasionally I will be overcome by a metallic taste when I know a putt is going to drop or will see a physical manifestation of a faint yellow ring around the cup if I focus in the right way about the line. Yes, I am a freak. Anyways, I figured that I had taken longer than acceptable given the marsh's inquiry so I politely guessed 40 seconds or something. He showed me the stopwatch app on his phone and it had taken me nearly 2 minutes to hit a simple 8 foot putt. I was shocked, sincerely apologized as I hate slow play, and vowed to him and myself to pick up the pace. For the last 5 holes, I did not wait around to see if the magic yellow ring would materialize and I did not taste any putts. I did however 1 putt 4 of the remaining 5 holes simply by quickly reading the putt from below the hole, taking two quick practice strokes, and letting it go. In reality, the process probably still took 20 seconds or so but to me it felt like a sprint. I've carried this method over full time now and have been putting nicely.

1/15/17 - Call Your Shots Drill

Upon recommendation of "Every Shot Must Have a Purpose", a friend and I recently played nine holes where we verbalized our intentions for each shot from tee to green. The book recommends the drill as a practice of truly committing to each shot. Something about telling your playing competitor exactly what you are visualizing for each shot without hesitation seems to lead to a higher percentage of self fulfilling prophecies. There seems to be a trend of significantly better shots occurring when you call your shot in a very specific, matter of fact way as if it is a foregone conclusion(ie. I have 149 yards so I'm going to hit this 9 iron directly at the overhanging limb and cut it to the flag). Conversely It was fascinating to see my friend's and my poor shots occur in instances where we said things like, "I'm going to try and hit this 9 iron just left of the flag with a little cut". I'm excited to go further down the rabbit hole with this drill and see if I can have such conversations with myself or caddie in competition without holding up pace of play. The phenomenon reminded me of Yoda's famous, "There is no try, either do or do not". Next time you have a chance, call your shots out loud, truly believe that what you said is true, and I think you will be impressed by the results.

1/15/17 - 2 to 1 Chipping Ratio

Just wanted to share some interesting data from practice today.

Assuming you are just off the green chipping to a relatively flat target with minimal grain, it appears one can expect the following ratios of carry yards to roll yards.


LW 4 to 4.5
SW 4 to 5
GW 4 to 6
PW 4 to 8
9i 4 to 10
8i 4 to 12
7i 4 to 14

I've heard people talk about this but never tried for myself. Excited to break down more shots on course to pick better clubs and better spots to chip at. For me the PW seems to provide the most consistent contact and the 2 to 1 ratio allows for a quick breakdown. On a 10 yard flat chip if I carry a PW a little over 3 yards it should roll a little over 6 yards and in da cup. I did not come up with this but you should try it. Downhill shots and uphill shots will stretch the ratios.

1/14/17 - Gotta Start Somewhere

My name is Clay Wonnell, I'm a big dreamer with the rare opportunity to do what I love for a living. In August 2016, I began my journey from a PGA Club Professional to a PGA Tour Professional. For non-golfers this is essentially the same as your Local City Council Member seeking a seat in Congress. I draw this parallel in the most respectful way to all parties involved as my intention is not to belittle the position of a Club Professional. Club Pro's work their asses off in a staggering variety of roles for relatively little money just about every day with the exception of some Mondays or Tuesdays when the Country Club is closed and isn't hosting any outside events to supplement the bottom line. Great Club Pro's ultimately do what they do because they love the game and they want to help others find the same enthusiasm. Having worked in the industry for nearly ten years as an intern to a second assistant to a first assistant, I have nothing but respect for the PGA Club Professional, all I'm saying is your City Council Member has a long fuckin way to go to get to Congress.


Your City Council Member probably possesses a lot of the same qualities of a seasoned Senator; articulate, benevolent, charismatic, ambitious. The difference between the Senator and the Councilman is ultimately taking advantage of opportunities to employ these skills toward the desired goal. Competitive golf is similar as most seeking greatness will hit the ball about the same, with a few exceptions of freakish talent. Ultimately what an aspiring pro needs to do to be successful is use his skills at the right opportunity to achieve the end goal. Obviously a lot of hard work goes into honing the skills of a competitive golfer, but essentially all one one needs to do is take advantage of an opportunity at the right time and the dream can pretty quickly become a reality. As far as I'm aware golf is unique among professional sports when it comes to the accessibility to the highest level of competition for mere mortals via Qualifiers. Many PGA Tour Events across the world host open qualifying events on the Mondays before the actual big boy event in which the lowest two or three scores will earn a chance to literally play for millions of dollars later that week. Granted you have to put on a godlike performance in one of these qualifiers to earn this opportunity, but it's a hell of a lot better chance than you've got of showing up at Wrigley Field, hitting a beast mode home run in front of the coaching staff, and them handing you a jersey for the next game.


Thanks to some personal savings and help from friends and family, I am so grateful to have the opportunity to completely dedicate myself to the game and hopefully take advantage of the right opportunity at the right time to earn a PGA Tour Card. I am well aware of the fact that I am still the Local City Councilman with a wrinkled suit, but fuck it, you've gotta start somewhere.


I plan to write here from time to time as a sort of a journal of my odyssey. I hope to see you along the way.


Love

Clay