Over the last month or so, there were some significant milestones for ChicagoGolfNoob.com. I thought I would just take a minute to say a couple words about them.

Wedding
I got married to my girlfriend of 5+ years, Beth, on August 27th at Crystal Tree Country Club in Orland Park, Illinois. This is a private course, but I am lucky enough to know a member of the club, so I will soon be playing the course. Our ceremony overlooked the fairway on the 1st hole (a 432 yard par-4 where your tee shot is downhill and your approach shot is uphill). This beautiful view was just a small factor in what made the wedding so nice.

Birthday
Yes… It’s that time of the year again. I didn’t get a lot of golf-related gifts this year though. The only thing I got (and I appreciate this greatly) was a box Titleist NXT golf balls. I’ve been wanting to try these golf balls for a while now, since they are supposedly the model of Titleist golf balls that are fitted to my game. I look forward to using these in the next couple of rounds. Thanks, Sarah and Adam!

Courses
I’ve been very lucky this season. Between all the wedding planning, holidays, family events, and other things (like the weather), I’ve gotten to play a lot of golf this season (a lot more than I initially thought I would get to play). As of this writing (including two rounds at courses I have not posted), I’ve been able to play 22 rounds of golf at 18 new courses (4 of which are rounds at field trip courses). On top of that, I should be able to complete an additional 3-4 new courses by the end of the season.

Handicap
Even though it was a goal for this year, I’ll mention that I’ve lowered my handicap to below 30 (according to oobgolf.com), sitting currently at 29.7. This may not sound like a big milestone (a handicap of 30 is still pretty bad), but it just shows the progress I’ve made over the years. Since I’ve reached that goal for this year, I’m hoping I can take it down even further over the next couple of months.

Nominated
I know I mentioned this a couple posts back, but I think it is very cool that I got nominated for CBS Chicago’s Most Valuable Blogger Awards. I’ve had a lot of positive support from my friends and followers, and I truly appreciate being nominated.

100 Posts
This post is actually my 100th post on ChicagoGolfNoob.com. I think this is a big milestone, since many new blogs rarely get to 100 posts. I guess in a project like this one, it’s easy to hit that mark early, since I’m writing about every course I play. I’m hoping to start writing some more beginner-related posts in the future, which should help get me to the 200 post mark fairly quickly.

–

So, if you are reading this, and you’ve either voted for me in Chicago’s MVB awards, played a round of golf with me this season, helped me improve my game and lower my handicap, given me a golf-related gift (or any gift actually), or gotten married to me, I truly appreciate it.

Thank you.

I’ve been nominated in the Sports category of CBS Chicago’s Most Valuable Blogger Awards! Thanks to all my golfing friends for nominating me.

Click here to vote for me!

I don’t ask for much, but if you could, please take a moment to vote for “I’m a golf noob” in the Sports category. Voting is open between August 16th and September 9th, and you can vote once per day, so keep voting!

While you are there, check out the other categories and vote for the blogs that you enjoy.

Update: Unfortunately, I didn’t win. There’s always next year though!

This weekend marked the end of the 2011 Spring Season of the Windy City Golf League. I thought I would speak a little on how I played throughout the season, and also what I liked and what I disliked about the league.

Throughout the 12-week season, I played 8 matches during 5 rounds, and finished with 1600 points, which put me tied for 4th place before going into the end-of-season Arghe Isle Cup Tournament. The person in 1st place had 5700 points, while 2nd and 3rd place had 2675 and 2400 points, respectively. Out of the 8 matches, I won 3 of them, with an adjusted scoring average of 111. I decided not to play the Arghe Isle Cup tournament, because I was way too far back in the points standing to jump into 1st place even if I beat everyone in my group, and I had an out-of-town event that would have been hard to work around.

As I mentioned in my introductory post to the Windy City Golf League, the main idea of the league is its flexibility: you play matches wherever you want with whomever you want in your league flight for as many times as you want throughout the season. While I still think this concept is a great idea for a golf league, I definitely see that it has a couple of drawbacks. First, your matches are controlled by other people’s schedules. If your schedule doesn’t match up with someone else’s schedule, you won’t be able to play matches. In fact, the person who took 1^st place played nearly all of his matches during the weekdays, and that’s just something I couldn’t do. Second, a lot of people who signed up for the league didn’t play a single round throughout the season, which limited the number of people who would actually play rounds (I would say only 60% of the people who signed up actually played, and 30% played regularly). These two drawbacks make me want to try a regular golf league, because when I have time (or scheduled time) to play a round, I want to make it count towards the league. Throughout the season, there were many weekends where I had an opening to play a round, but no one else was available to play.

So coming off of my first golf league, I have mixed feelings towards it. I think if I had a more flexible schedule where I could play rounds during the week, then I would have enjoyed it more. I love the flexibility to play different courses around my schedule, but playing in a league where the time, place, and opponent are scheduled would probably appeal to me more, just so I can get in more matches. All-in-all, I had a good time, met some nice people, and knocked a couple courses of the list along the way.

Near the end of last year, I started to look into what Chicago has to offer in golf leagues. Nearly all of the leagues that I found are based just at one course and played only on certain days at that course, which is something that didn’t appeal to me. I eventually ran across the website for something that seemed a little different: Windy City Golf League. A couple months later, while browsing around the Chicago Golf Show, I ran across the booth for league, and I got a chance to talk to the founder, Jason Rotter, about the concept, format, and rules of the league.

The main idea that differs the Windy City Golf League from all other standard leagues is it’s flexibility. Instead of playing all of your matches at one course on one day in the week, the league allows you to choose to play your matches at any course, on any day, and any time. You also can play anyone in your league flight as much as you want, and you can play as many matches throughout the season as you want. Once you play a match, you just enter the results of the match into their website, and they handle all the ranking and statistics from there.

There are two types of formats for the league: the individual head-to-head league and the 2-person team scramble. For the individual league, you are grouped into flights based on your current (or estimated) handicap and based on your typical availability (which, at this point, might not have so much of an effect), so you will most likely play someone who is around your skill level. Your matches are standard 9- or 18-hole stroke play matches, and you receive points based on how many strokes you win or lose by. For the team league, since the league is relatively new, it is assumed that everyone is scratch golfers, and all teams are placed in the same flight. This obviously change once the league gets enough team to create multiple flights. Matches are played in scramble format, and recorded in stroke-play format. The 12-week league concludes with one final tournament where points can be earned: the Arghe Isle Cup Tournament. The qualify for the tournament, you need to be the points leader in your group, have the highest player rating, or have the lowest adjusted scoring average. The overall winner of each flight wins the tournament trophy.

The current cost for the league is $60 per person ($120 per team) per season. There are two seasons: the Spring season, which runs from April to July, and the Summer season, which runs from July to October. One really nice thing that Jason has worked on over the past years is creating partnerships and deals with golf courses in the areas. League members get special offers and discounts at some of the popular courses in the area. On top of that, Jason has also been working on other incentives that quickly offset the cost of the league.

So, needless to say, I’m going to join the league for the Spring season. I’m not going in to this expecting to win anything (some people might disagree with that attitude), but I’ll certainly enjoy it if i do. Maybe joining this league will help me with my mental game, forcing me to focus a little more during the round. But I’m primarily joining to meet some new people, play some new courses, and have some fun (and I think most people will agree with that attitude).

Just a quick note: I am no way associated with the business of the Windy City Golf League. I am merely a participant. This post was written entirely by me, and everything is written based on my knowledge of how the league is operated, which was gathered by researching their website and from my conversation with the founder.

Update: Read my end-of-season wrap-up post here.

Here we go. Another golf season is kicking off as the weather is starting to warm up. It looks like I’m going to get to play my first round of the year on the first weekend of April. So before I begin the season, here are the goals I’ve set for myself:

• Break 100 – This is my main goal for the year, and I know it’s going to happen. I got so close many times last year, most notably when I shot a 102 at Indian Boundary Golf Course, and if two 9-hole rounds counted, I would have shot a 101 at Fountain Hills Golf Club.
• Score an average of 105 – This number has slowly been going down over the years (115 in 2009 and 110 in 2010), and each year I missed the goal by an average of 2-4 strokes. I could take the easy road and keep the number at 110, but what fun is that?
• Play 20 rounds of golf on 15 new courses – I’m carrying over this goal again this year. I’m already planning on playing 14 new courses, so this goal should be fairly easy to meet.
• Birdie a par 5 – I have a feeling I’m going to struggle with this goal, since I haven’t gotten comfortable hitting with my fairway wood or my hybrid. This should give me a reason to practice more with those clubs.
• Two birdies in one round – Just throwing this in here. It could happen, and it will eventually happen.
• Four pars in one round – Same as above.
• Play a full round without 3-putting – This probably will have a direct correlation with breaking 100. I think I’ve come close to meeting this goal a couple times in the past.
• Finish the course list in the ChicagoGolfNoob.com Golf Tracker – I should be able to finish it this year. A couple weeks ago, I [hopefully] completed the list of Illinois courses, and the course count was at 156. All I have left are the courses in northwest Indiana, and maybe a couple missing courses in Illinois.

Since I’ve been actively using oobgolf.com to keep my scores and track my statistics, I’m going to throw in a couple more technical goals. Note that these goals will be based on the last 20 rounds that I’ve played:

• Lower handicap to 30 or less – In 2009 my handicap was 36.4, and in 2010 it was 33.4. So, if the pattern continues, I should be pretty close to meeting this goal.
• Raise fairway hit percentage to 45% – Right now, it’s at 40%.
• Raise green-in-regulation percentage to 10% – Right now, it’s at 8.9%.
• Lower average putts to 2 – Right now, it’s at 2.11.

There they are. I made plenty of goals for myself, many of which are easily attainable. Let the season begin!