American Junior Golf Players at Mission Hills CC.

Ray volunteers each year at this AJG tournament. His job is the timer at the 16th hole of the Dinah Shore course.

Following the golf, we attended the dinner at the Club where the volunteers, MHCC members, AJG officials, the young golfers and their parents all gather. After dinner the junior golfers all go outside for their traditional water balloon fight. I missed it. Damn. But I did go outside and take some of these photos of the kids.

This photo was taken while everyone was in the buffett dinner line. These young players were very busy behind us on their cell phones playing some game that had them all giggling. Of course I was curious and after a bit asked if I could take their photo.

L>R Michelle Yang - shot a 74 , Demi Frances Runas - shot a 77, Rochelle Chan - shot a 77,
and Alison Lee shot a 74.

Michael Weaver, on the far left, was low scorer with a 65!

They are all looking left because another water fight had just occured.

I overheard these young girls excited about some text message that had just come through on one of their phones. The girl in the pink shirt is holding up the phone from the other girl.

And more phone related goings on. Almost every girl had a phone in their hands. I asked if they take photos of each other while they are playing and email them to their blogs. They said, "Yes."

We had fun.

Working on my golf swing.

Golf and photo taking after dinner last night.

How I love these late night holes of golf on the Arnold Palmer course. We play without another golfer in view. I like the freedom to hit another ball so I can focus on practicing the swing changes I'm working on with Ray's help. Mike, who teaches Ray and I, is out of town. I am finally getting a sense of where I'm going wrong with the basically flawed swing concepts that are well ingrained in my muscle memory do to many previous years of swinging incorrectly.

Concepts/beliefs are funny things. A teacher tells me to drive with my legs......I do but then spin out because my legs and hips are open and ahead of my upper body and arms....I hit from the top throwing my arms out away from myself because I feel blocked. Another teacher tells me to stay behind the ball.......I try this but now I rarely get to my left side anymore, and again feel blocked. I'm not saying it is the teacher's fault, I'm saying my mind hears what it wants and believes I'm doing what I'm told. Geesh. I try hard, but if I can't see that I'm not doing what someone wants then I'm reinforcing lots of bad moves at the ball unknowingly.

Ray has been great at trying to get me to see I'm not getting the club up in the correct plane on the back swing and, that in the down swing, I am still hitting from the top, not letting the club fall on its own, close in right by my right hip. I have so much trouble giving up control that my hands death grip the club. Somewhere in this flawed thinking, I believe hand and arm strength will make the club swing properly. No wonder I have knots on top of both shoulders and a stiff neck. Trusting is hard. The day I give up fighting physics is the day I know I'll shoot in the 80's again.

Good news is I am finally able to feel where I'm going wrong. Bad news is making the right moves after years of doing the wrong things in the swing takes time and PATIENCE.

I brought my Canon D40 fitted with the 50mm 1.4 lens. Once the sky started changing color I had trouble deciding which I wanted to do more.....hit the ball or click the shutter. I see it's difficult with the wider open apertures and shallow depth of field to get a close up silhouette, like Ray, in focus. If I use a smaller aperture, I can't hand hold the camera for an in focus shot. Hmmmmm. I need to experiment and learn more about this lens.

A quick shadow shot of myself in the golf cart. I wish I'd taken more time and included the golf clubs on the back of the cart and had more separation in my leg on the dash and the steering wheel.

The evening sprinklers came on or we'd kept playing until pitch dark.
I'm thrilled to be so excited about something again.

Off to Woman 2 Woman

In an hour I leave for a weekend workshop with lots of my friends.

At 9:30 this morning I had a golf lesson with Mike, a golf pro who teaches the
PROS! He says that I will be able to play golf and not hurt my back. I was hitting balls like never before. Now I need to make notes of all he taught me so I don't forget. I'm so happy.

Then my friend, who lives out of state, back east, is male etc., etc., (I was told not to mention his name) sent me some notes he made following a conversation we'd had yesterday on the topic of fear.
"1.In fear there are no rewards nor punishment simply consequences…in overcoming fears there are simply rewards.
2. Fear is indifferent, it does not care about being good or bad, fair or unfair, it is not personal…it just hates to be banished as demonstrated by its capability of "hanging around" or "changing shape".
3. Fear is habitual and can be taught, yet is unpleasant to be around if never learned.
4. Fear fends to be sequential, a leads to b leads to c leads to d. But d is never feared first nor can it lead back to a. The tour bus gets you to d as it would seem totally illogical to go there directly. Example of D…. "and then I will be pushing a shopping cart down the street muttering to myself about having no where to live or shower". Could start with A…."oh the market was down today".
5. Fear while seemingly large and powerful can be diminished with smiles, laughter, and conversation with another.

And the main thing about fear is all the pluses are on the other side."

Gottago. I'm late to pick up the ladies.

Ray and his golfing buddies this morning ready to begin play.

While getting in some exercise this morning I detoured off my route as I noticed Ray walking off the practice putting green. He walked over to his buddies. They drew numbers or something to see who played with whom.

They were ready to get on the course but indulged me long enough for me to click off one shot.

Errands are done and I'm dressed and ready to pick up Sandi in 5 minutes. We're headed in to LA. Waiting and seated at my computer, I noticed Ray walk by the large window. I walked out, kissed him good-bye and heard he was playing well. They played fast. He was already on the 15th fairway.

Off to LA now.

Kraft Nabisco Golf Tournament at Mission Hills CC.

Yesterday and today we got to watch as the Pro Am golf foursomes played on the Palmer Golf Course, the course our condo is on. Both days I took my lunch outside and had ringside seats watching the golfers try to make birdie and even eagles on the 5 par 15th hole just outside our windows.

Tomorrow the LPGA golf tournament play begins on the Dinah Shore course.

Michele Wie and David Ledbetter (one of the greatest golf coaches).

Michele listening to David.

Michele and David with Michele's parents.


I ran behind a palm tree to take these photos with my Canon D40 with a 70 - 300 mm lens handheld. I was pretty pleased that of the 15 shots I fired off quickly I got these photos.

First day of the pro/am at the Kraft Nabisco Tournament here at MHCC.

Morgan Pressel

Lorena Ochoa - the #1 top ranked woman golfer in the world.

Today while out on a walk carrying my backpack with Ray, we ran into Lorena Ochoa on the 4th tee box of the Palmer Course. I could not resist asking her if she'd mind Ray taking a photo of her with me. She's so nice with everyone. She agreed. Had this been during tournament play on Thursday, Friday or Saturday, I would never have bothered her.

Then Ray and I spotted Morgan Pressel. I patiently waited for Morgan and her amateurs to finish on the green and then asked Morgan for a photo. I've never been able to ask for an autograph or photo in the past.

Didn't Ray take a couple of great photos? He's good!