Ghettogolf: from the practice green on Randall's Island

Greetings from practiceland. Another week gone by and still no actual golf. What gives? I'll probably discuss that soon. But til then I thought we ought to take a closer look at one of the darker, sadder forgotten corners of the golf universe, a place where I've been spending a lot of time lately--the short game practice facility at the golfer's exile on Randall's Island.

The 2014 Brooklyn Open

This year's Brooklyn Open will be played on Monday, July 7th 2014, just eight months after its debut last October. According to tournament director Rich McDonough, the event was moved up to the summer for the better weather and playing conditions and on account of some construction planned for the fall.

Otherwise it looks to be more or less the same format as last year's, with four amateur divisions and one professional. Find out more and register at brooklynopen.com.

WTF: Your Summer 2014 Forecast

So I just read some disturbing "news". According to the morbid shit-rag known as the NY Post, this year's Farmer's Almanac is calling for a lot of bad summer weather in our region.

According to the Almanac, which claims an 80% accuracy rate and correctly predicted last winter's protracted misery, the Tri-State will be hotter, humid-er and thunderstormier than usual this summer. Already, online assholes everywhere have started to chortle about a "Solar Vortex"--sure to become the latest in face-punchingly annoying hashtag catchphrases.

Home, home on the Range

For the last couple of weekends I've been hitting buckets up at Randall's Island. Getting there is a minor pain in the ass, but I put up with it because Randall's is the superior choice in the city for whacking balls.

Lately I've been actually enjoying the time spent at the range for a change. I guess I am liking what I'm seeing out here. Swingwise whatever it is I'm grinding away at seems to be working and now it feels pretty good to launch balls on repeat.

Walk or Ride?

Once upon a time this blog was launched, with the loose objective of discussing "your game, my game, the pro game, etc" but lately it's been falling into a sinkhole of self-referentiality. Don't worry I know.

I'm sorry. There's nothing else I can do. I can only go where the inspiration is and right now my own tail-spinning game is completely dominating my worldview. Besides aren't we all kind of realizing at this point that the golf blogsophere is already plenty full of redundant crap, unsurprising opinions, stories about stories, SEO-baiting cut-and-paste jobs and so on. At least my redundant crap is original. And untainted by corporate or advertising filth of any kind, not yet. Anyways I'm sure we'll get back to covering some golf-related ephemera soon enough. It's all a cycle.

Lost In Staten Island

After stinking up Brooklyn with my lousy play, I decided to hide out for a bit in Staten Island. Looking over my last twenty scores, I see that I've played more rounds at Silver Lake than anywhere else. So I guess that makes this unofficially my home course now. It's a big change after being a Brooklyn golf regular for all these years.

Ghettogolf: Just Dropped In... (part 2)

For the next round I thought I'd try Marine Park. The last time I was here a few weeks ago I got brutalized--a 97 was the best I could come up with and I sort of decided not to play here for a while, maybe until conditions improve. But what the hey, I found a deal online that was just too sweet to pass up.