Note In The Holes (19 April 2010)

The weather was worthy of bottles of sunscreen when the EC LUGGers made our first visit to Cottonwood GC's driving range on Monday afternoon.
After a proper warm up led by spry LUGGer Cierra, Coach Mary laid down the safety ground rules before introducing the concept of pitching using half swing and let the LUGGers loose trying to shoot their little white balls into either a blue net or a hoop 20 yards away. It is a bit tough trying to judge where half-swing is when many LUGGers are rather small compared to their clubs and haven't been swinging much aside from the previous EC LUGG events.

Pitching is quite simple once you've got some practice at it. Keep the leading arm (left arm for right-handers and right arm for lefties) straight and turn your shoulders back until the leading arm is parallel to the ground (with the club pointing straight up), then pivot your body back down and through the ball to finish with the back arm (right arm for right-handers and left arm for lefties) parallel to the ground. A few LUGGers did quite well and not only got a few balls through the net and the hoop but also knocked the latter right off its perches with their pitch, necessitating a dangerous venture by Coach Mary into the range to re-erect the gadget.

Thanks largely to our LUGGers' remarkable restraint from shooting even when unexpectedly presented with such a temptingly colorful moving target our head coach survived the trip and was able to then herd the group along to the chipping and putting greens for the day's flag event: 'Note in the Holes' obstacle course.

Nine stations were prepared with a balancing course, ball tossing stations, a swing-through station using napkin holders instead of golf balls, putting and chipping holes with a note in the cup asking about golf rules we had covered until now (i.e.; where the safe places to stand are while another golfer is playing her shot, who gets to play first (the best score from the previous hole and the person furthest away from the hole), etc.). Grandpa Doug was again on hand to help along with the coaches as the LUGGers safely navigated the course.
I hope everyone is looking forward to our next event on Monday April 26th, Best Ball of Partners! Please sign-in at the Cottonwood GC driving range between 3:30 - 4PM (event runs from 4-6PM).