http://tomharack.com Fri, 04 May 2012 12:24:14 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The second installment of progress reports from a weight-loss program designed for golfers.   Having completed the two-week “clean” eating regimen that kicks off the “Weight Loss for Golfers” program, I’m on to the one-by-one reintroduction of certain foods to see if they produce adverse reactions. So far, so good -- that is, I’ve thus far discovered no food allergies; and though there are a couple of foodstuffs yet to be tested, major dietary components like ... ]]> http://tomharack.com/golf/golf/563/burn-fat-play-golf-longer-part-ii Full disclosure: I’ve been on a regimen devised by weight loss coach Larry Jacobs for two weeks, but I’ve been reluctant to cop to it, apprehensive that I wouldn’t make it even that far. For one thing, my weight issues are confined to the clothing-stretching realm, not the health-threatening category, so it lacks the urgency that some rightly feel. For another, the initial two-week segment of the eight-week program sounded daunting.   Turns out, though, that that ... ]]> http://tomharack.com/golf/golf/552/burn-fat-play-golf-longer It took a couple of weeks of viewing Butch Harmon’s new DVD(s), but in a way, that’s a good thing: As advertised, the 57 chapters and 250-plus tips can be accessed individually and stand alone reasonably well. Otherwise, from a purely instructional point of view, the four-hour, two-disk set would constitute a massive information overload. But as Harmon put it in a pre-release teleconference, this magnum opus is “about everything in golf there is,” not just ... ]]> http://tomharack.com/golf/golf/instruction/548/harmon-dvd-has-multi-faceted-appeal Our fantasy St. Patrick’s Day includes a sun-dappled round at a favorite Irish links – a Lahinch, Enniscrone, Royal County Down – followed by an early and extended happy hour in the clubhouse to mark the occasion. But circumstances, including the weather (this is a fantasy, remember), may call for a Plan B in indulging one’s Irish golf jones. And it’s tough to do better than 18 Greatest Irish Golf Holes, a lavishly produced, annotated, composite ... ]]> http://tomharack.com/golf/golf/538/golf-in-ireland-comes-alive-in-18-greatest-holes Below are some of the things that struck me as noteworthy at last week’s PGA Merchandise Show. The one thing they have in common, as the Alan Arkin character says in Little Murders, is that they have nothing in common. Actually, not quite true. The captious will notice that the emphasis here is on comfort rather than, say, explosive power, perhaps indicative of its author being “in transition,” as a psychotherapist might describe it. TRUE linkswear. Having ... ]]> http://tomharack.com/golf/golf/equipment/529/best-of-show-picks With a computer besting its human competitors on “Jeopardy” and the ever-more-astounding assortment of golf simulators, launch monitors, and “motion capture” technology, one may wonder: Will a computer ever take a human golfer in a five-dollar Nassau? Will their Watsons replace our Watsons? Nah. Like a lot of us human golfers, computers would outsmart themselves. Despite the technical sophistication of many training aids and other gizmos, golf remains an elemental undertaking, however difficult. That’s the appeal of ... ]]> http://tomharack.com/golf/golf/equipment/518/christmas-golf-gifts-inspired-by-simplicity   Two layouts by Donald Ross seem to beckon repeat play – a residue of his design vocabulary. Today’s example is The Sagamore, in Bolton’s Landing, New York.   Though of the same vintage as Mountain Ridge , The Sagamore’s location at the base of the Adirondacks means much more precipitous terrain. Indeed, while you get the sense of a fairly compact site overall – mature hardwoods make great buffers between many of the holes – the course ... ]]> http://tomharack.com/golf/golf/509/every-day-courses-part-ii It may seem borderline sadomasochistic to deconstruct the cliché – “a course you can play every day” – immediately following the first substantial snowfall here in the northeast. On the other hand, there will soon be time aplenty to ponder the question.   And unlike, say, “using every club in your bag,” the everyday-course thing is open to interpretation. Certainly there are some traits that would apply uniformly to courses you don’t want to play every day: ... ]]> http://tomharack.com/golf/golf/497/ross-courses-define-quotidian-quality Think what you will about Hank Williams Jr.’s disparaging remarks about the Obama-Boehner pairing and ESPN’s reaction to those remarks, Hank at the very least displayed a gross lack of understanding of golf. I’m only half-joking. The underlying assumption of his, er, critique is that playing 18 holes together is supposed to result in a meeting of minds on something other than, say, club selection. As subsequent history demonstrates, unless Pollyanna is in your foursome, this ... ]]> http://tomharack.com/golf/golf/personalities/489/memo-to-hank-williams-lets-tee-it-up Hurricane Irene was famously capricious in her march through the Northeast, with towns in Vermont and the Catskills washed away and others, directly across the Hudson, doused but otherwise unscathed. And while Turning Stone Resort – Casino, 30 miles east of Syracuse, wasn’t directly in the storm’s path, we didn’t know what to expect in terms of conditioning on the resort’s robust troika of 18-hole layouts. It turns out, no pun intended, that we’d never seen ... ]]> http://tomharack.com/golf/golf/474/turning-stones-golf-is-no-gamble