Fast, Safe & Courteous Event (3 May 2010)

The EC LUGGers welcomed the springy month of May Monday with the Fast, Safe & Courteous excursion onto the golf course for the first time this year.

After a swift, secure & civilized opening briefing by Coach Mary on the driving range the group split into two halves; one heading off for a three hole speed-golf play led by Coaches Pat Beilke and Petra Cole as the other half put their pitching wedges to good use on the range under Coach Mary's firing command. The two halves switched their tasks for the second hour.

The EC LUGGers proved very adept at rapidly paced but injury-free playing while observing complaisant golfing etiquette! The correct order of play was observed (the player whose ball is further from the hole goes first), the flag was attended to while golfers with long putt made their strokes, and everybody froze like vogue statuettes while a shot is being played.... Well, perhaps not quite in that frigidly well-petrified manner, but nobody was more disagreeably distracting than a stationary slumbering mouse would be when their playing partner was trying to play her shot, and that made for a very pleasant time on the golf course!
Having put three solid golf holes and many good pitching shots (and a few go at our customary balancing and ball tossing stations - the latter now done with eyes closed) under their figurative belt the group quite unanimously opted for a replay of the Fast, Safe & Courteous along with Note-In-The-Hole stints for our upcoming 'Mother-Daughter Day' get-together next Monday (May 10th). The group will once again meet up between 3:30-4PM (with actual event running from 4-6PM) at the far right end of Cottonwood GC driving range. Happy Mother's Day in advance!

To moms and daughters who are planning on joining us next week; come looking sharp, folks! There will be cameras involved.

Interview with Clark Cunningham of the Peerless Foursome Series

Just a mention that an interview with Clark Cunningham, the author of The Peerless Foursome golf children's book series, is now available at AssociatedContent.com. Mr. Cunningham is donating 40% of cover price of every book he sells online with the 'GGEC' PFS code mentioned to the El Cajon LUGG!

The first book, The Spyglass Cup, is now available at thepeerlessfoursome.com

Best Ball of Partners (26 April 2010)

The EC LUGGers' fifth event of 2010 went quite smoothly even with a busier schedule and a new lead instructor for the day. Coach Mary was at the Cottonwood driving range to get the group organized before letting Coaches Carol Lingle and Pat Beilke take over for the afternoon.

After everyone had put away their cell phones and followed a whirly round of warming up led by Bella, the LUGGers split into two groups with the Power Puff Girls (Cierra, Hayley, Jessika, Kristen, and Savannah) heading first to the practice green for 30 minutes of lag-putting games with Coach Pat; while the Woodstock Golfers (Madison, Bella, Marilee, and Tara) stayed at the range for half an hour of pitching and chipping through hoops, conducted by Coach Carol. Papa Doug and a few moms were also on hand to witness the budding golfers' facility with the golf club.

Safety rules were observed as usual. The golf clubs felt much safer with their heavy heads being lovingly held by the palms of the LUGGers' hands, whenever they weren't busy swinging the poor chunks of metal against the well beaten little white balls. The LUGGers also did well in taking turns and not approaching others who were swinging their clubs, ensuring that the afternoon rolled on without any occurrence more painful than a few sore feet (new lesson learned the achy way by new golfers: always wear athletic shoes to the golf course because boots really aren't easy on twisting feet!).

The groups switched and everybody had a few good half-swing pitches and distance-judging putts under their belt (it does pay to take time and have a good aim before hitting!) by the time we headed to the west putting green for the day's title activity; Best Ball of Partners. The LUGGers split once more to groups of 2 or 3 and deftly navigated 9 green-side holes played to specific instructions. Everybody breezed through the 'aim every shot' hole, but struggled a bit with the 'play each shot with eye closed'. The best score for each hole was counted and fabulously fun prizes were given as the event closed at 6PM (Congrats, Madison & Jessica!).

Our next event (3 May 2010), the Fast, Safe, & Courteous Event, will meet once again at the right end of the driving range at Cottonwood GC in El Cajon, CA.

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).