Traveling Chicago Golfer.com
Interestingly, as a total aside, A.J. looks a helluva lot like the actor, John Hamm.
As a picture is worth 1000 words, look now at the videos below of Brenda and me using the RoboGolfPro. You will see we grab on to the built-in golf club attached to the robot. We take our normal grip of the club and normal stance. Moments before, A.J. Avoli inputs our details like height, weight, degree of bend in our posture, etc. The robot then takes the club back on the ideal club path up to the top, and then back down through the downswing to a beautiful finish. This was truly amazing!!!
In my case, the robot demonstrated that I was getting my right hand into a pretty lousy position at the top -- a very weak position -- which was leading to a power loss when I struck the golf ball. The difference was instantly apparent. After quite a few robot-controlled swings to ingrain some muscle memory, I stepped over a few feet to hit some actual range balls with my own 6-iron and immediately noticed a significant power addition.
I had planned to use Brenda as my "guinea pig" but she was reluctant to get involved with all the fancy technology. The night before our visit to the Teaching Center, I told her she was going to be my "video subject." She resisted. "No, no, no," she exclaimed, claiming the whole thing would make her most uncomfortable. But then I reminded her. This was a chance to take a golf lesson from a guy who looks like actor, John Hamm. As I continued my argument, she stopped me and said -- "You're right. You're right. You had me at 'John Hamm.' I'm fine to be the guinea pig!"
After the golf lessons, when we had appetizers and craft beers with Dustin Irwin, PGA Director of Golf at La Costa, we learned the robot had some other tricks. The device could be programmed to have you swing with the golf swing of your favorite PGA pro. So if you wanted to feel exactly how Tiger or Rory's swings feel, the robot could take you through that. I have to go back for that for sure.
Avoli also pointed out that the robot is an exceptional tool to use with beginning golfers and even kids, as the novice can experience the correct feel of a golf swing. Interestingly, there are not a lot of these RoboGolfPro machines around. Avoli mentioned there are only two in California, this one at La Costa and another at Pebble Beach. And my research indicated there are only about 15 or so robots throughout the United States. I did learn that there is one located in Chicago, however, so I will try to check that out.
A.J. also related a story about a young LPGA player from Korea that he has been teaching, and how the Robot has been a big help to her, leading to some greater successes on the pro tour. Plus, he now has several more Korean LPGA players coming to La Costa for similar training, using the Robot.
October 2018 -- "A Trip of a Lifetime -- Right in Your Own Backyard (Wisconsin)!"
A few months ago, I had an idea. I'm often writing about "Trips of a Lifetime," or "Bucket List Trips." Usually when I think about these, I am thinking about trips overseas -- or maybe trips like going to Bandon Dunes, or Pebble Beach, or Pinehurst. But then it dawned on me. Right in my own backyard, just north of Chicago, there exists the State of Wisconsin. And in that state, there are some extraordinary golf courses that I had never played, or played on a very limited basis. And further, I had never made playing a bunch of them a priority ---- like a six, or seven, or eight day trip as you would with a trip to Scotland or Ireland. Right now, I'm just giving my Blog Readers a little heads up about this, because I will be writing the full-blown story of what I've done in Wisconisn as an article for publication in the Spring of 2019 in one of the midwest's golf magazines. But I will tell you now about which places I visited and how fantastic it was. In addition to information about the courses and the experience, my Big Point is reminding you that as opposed to spending five, six, seven thousand bucks to go overseas (which is also well worth the expenditure if you 've got the dough), you can play some world-class golf courses in Wisconsin for probably less than half the cost of going overseas. And, of course, you may be able to just drive your own car to these destinations.
The first thing I had to do was identify the courses that would qualify this endeavor as a "Trip of a Lifetime." That was pretty easy. I knew some obvious picks -- the four Pete Dye designed courses of Kohler, Wisconsin, (the Straits course and the Irish Course at Whistling Straits; the River Course and Meadows Course at Kohler); and Erin Hills in Erin, Wisconsin, home of the 2017 U.S. Open won by Brooks Koepka. The Straits course at Whistling Straits, of course, hosted the 2004, 2010, and 2015 PGA Championships, and will host the next Ryder Cup matches in 2020.
We will talk more about those in a moment.
The next courses on the list, I was much less informed about, but they were still obvious choices. These would be Sand Valley and Mammoth Dunes, two relatively new courses created under the direction of Mike Keiser and family, the golf developers who previously gave us Bandon Dunes in Oregon, the Dunes Club in Michigan, and a couple of other courses out of the U.S. Sand Valley and Mammoth are located together in Nekoosa, Wisconsin, which is near the larger town of Wisconsin Rapids. Sand Valley was designed by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw; Mammoth Dunes by David McLay Kidd.
As an aside, let me explain that I'm just giving you a "heads up" here about the article or articles that I will be writing for publication, and I will alert you when those articles come out, and I will re-post them on this website. But there is so much to tell about all of these courses that I can't go into all that here at his time...but it will come. Of course, this is an alert, and if you cannot wait, the internet is filled with information about all of these golf gems.
Which brings me to Erin Hills. Like the others mentioned, this U.S. Open site is a masterpiece. I had played it previously, four times, early in its history (it opened in 2006), but by the time of this visit in October 2018, it had matured, been refined, and readied for a U.S. Open. Erin Hills and the Straits course are two of the very best I have played in the United States if not the world. They credit a trio of architects with the design of Erin Hills, Michael Hurdzan, Dana Fry, and Ron Whitten, and the nature of their efforts is a "whole 'nother story." (To come as well.)
I am going to take a minute here to share some random thoughts about how we judge the great golf courses of the world. There are so many opinions and ways of looking at things and rating courses. For me and many others, history and ambience are two very influential factors that affect us in the gut, and those always make it tough for me to articulate which of two courses is the best. For example, my partner Brenda will always say that her favorite course and the best U.S. course in her opinion is Pebble Beach. And I agree, but only so far. When we went to Pebble about nine years ago, I was blown away to be there, because of the location on the Pacific Ocean and the history of the place -- the fact I had seen the holes so many times on TV. I wasn't as blown away to be at the Straits course or Erin Hills, but I do believe they both are better layouts overall and when I played them the course conditions were better than Pebble. So how the heck to you weigh those kinds of factors -- being "blown away" by where you are visiting, versus seeing some of the greatest layouts in the history of golf. Oh well, good problems to have.
Now contrast that with Sand Valley and Mammoth Dunes. These are brand new babies, these places. Sand Valley opened in the fall of 2016 and Mammoth about a year later. Comparing these courses to the others is quite difficult, because they're all completely different animals.
1. Heading to San Diego January 9th -- La Costa, Torrey Pines -- here we come. (SEE BELOW)
2. San Francisco-Bay Area, February 1st.
3. Tampa Area, March 6th
4. LaQuinta, California, April 1st for the Golfweek Senior Amateur at PGA WEST (participant)
5. Hilton Head, Harbour Towne -- June
6. Great Courses of Wisconsin -- October
7. Southwestern Utah --October-Nov.
8. Kiawah Island -- December
(SEE BELOW)
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San Diego -- La Costa Resort.
Being from Chicago, San Diego is not the first place that Midwesterners think of when it comes to golf travel. But there are some great options way down there in southernmost California, and near the top of that list is Omni La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, CA. La Costa fits the definition of "hidden gem" perfectly with two outstanding 18-hole golf courses, a phenomenol and unique teaching program, and the truly beautiful resort property.
We had heard through the grapevine that La Costa was undergoing a bit of a revival of late, seeking to return to the more high profile years when the courses hosted dozens and dozens of PGA Tour events and the LPGA Tour's inaugural Kia Classic in 2010. The vast majority of the professional play has been on the Champions Course at La Costa, which underwent renovation in 2011 to add four new holes, reshaped greens, as well as bunker renovations. The Champions Course previously had been called the North Course. The second course, formerly called the South Course, was renovated in 2013 and renamed the "Legends Course." That renovation included the redesign of all 18 greens, renovation of bunkers (and removal of quite a few), and changes to the teeing areas. Both courses were changed to bentgrass greeens as well.
So Brenda and I arranaged a visit, but there was much more in store for us then we expected. Soon after arrival, we learned that the Teaching Center at the resort had recently added a RoboGolfPro robotic golf training system, a very expensive ($150,000-180,000) piece of equipment designed to guide the golfer through a more ideal golf swing, all under the tutelage of Director of Instruction A.J. Avoli.
Blog 2018 Coming Soon.