2018 Competition Season: Rebooting That First Tournament Start

Many of you know that 2018 is my first year back in tournament golf in quite sometime. Unfortunately, the season has been a bit of a bust so far for me. After missing out on my first scheduled tournament of the year due to a scheduling error, I was all set to make my first reboot for the start of the season last weekend at Willows Run in Redmond. Unfortunately, that plan did not come together for me, and honestly, it's going to be a struggle to make anything happen before mid-May at this point.

So, a quick plan of my season schedule looked something like this:

• April 14 - Harbour Pointe Golf Club
• April 21 - Willow's Run (Eagle's Talon Course)
• May 5 - Riverbend Golf Complex
• May 19 - Redmond Ridge
• June 16 - Willow's Run (Coyote Creek Course)
• June 23 - Cedarcrest Golf Course
• July 21 - The Golf Club at Echo Falls
• August 18 - Snohomish Golf Course
• October 27 - The Golf Club At New Castle

As the dates got closer, I missed registering for Harbour Pointe while we were on spring break. I totally missed the fact that I had to have my entry in on Sunday for that tournament, and felt pretty silly about missing it. From there, I was pretty excited to get entered into the tournament at Willow's Run on the 21st. On the 12th, I was given a bit of bad news, not horribly-terrible news, but something that required a bit more focus in the short term than worrying about getting a tournament round of golf in prior to everything happening. So, on the 27th, I'm going in to have a procedure on my leg to help with some circulation problems that date back nearly 25 years.

So, Washington National would have been the 28th, which after missing the first two of the year, would have been a nice opener. With this all happening the day before, that's not going to be possible. I may be back up on my feet and able to play by the 5th at Riverbend, but it's also my daughter's last dance competition of the year - so that is a last minute, depending on how I feel and how my game feels - decision. At this point in time, I believe that I will be missing out on my third scheduled event for the year, but stay tuned.

From there, Redmond Ridge is right on the radar for mid-May. We have a ballet recital to attend that day, which again pits family time against golf time, but we will cross that bridge when we get to it. At this point in time, it's almost feasible to think that the June 16th tournament at Willow's Run may be the first of the year for me. I'm not excited about losing half of my season, but it still puts me in the wheel house of a few of the major tournaments for the summer - if I can get more practice time in between now and then.

Don’t Fall For Specials Like This…

Golfing on a budget is hard. In fact, I’ll be the first to tell you that it’s almost impossible, but things like the advertisement above don’t help – at all. Yes, You can snag yourself a FREE set of Tomahawk Irons if you just call today and mention this code! Unfortunately, this is anything but the truth and their advertisement is terrible. They tout it as a “risk free” trial, but put so much fine print into it, that you are almost assured of having to pay for the irons – full retail mind you – when you are done with the 45 day period. It’s not the first time I’ve called out this company and it won’t be the last I’m sure. Just to be sure though, lets take a look at the actual deal that is being proposed.

Let’s start with the obvious, the irons themselves. The Tomahawk Striker Irons feature some fancy terms like Active Channel Technology, Rapid Recoil Technology and are made from Hi-Grade Steel. They feature a True Launch Shaft that is available in graphite or step-less steel. When I pressed about the shaft, they said it was a proprietary shaft and had no additional information on it. The 3-PW set features lofts ranging from 20° on the 3 iron up to 45° on the pitching wedge. Overall, it seems like a nice little, big box retailer quality set. With catchy marketing and sneaky sales tactics, Warrior Golf makes it hard to figure out much more about these irons, but really all someone is looking at is a low-end cavity back iron set that is designed for the beginning player. If these were marketed in the $100-200 range, they may not be a bad deal. Fortunately, most of the people that paid the $30+ to have them shipped out to them ended up getting them for that price after their returns were refused for whatever reason, so that’s good, but it starts a whole new story.

The buying process, or the inability to buy anything from Warrior online is a fiasco. What happens when someone hits the “buy now” button on their site is a long, 2 page process of entering in your personal information into their system. Once that is done, you’re not taken to a shopping cart or a shipping page, but rather, a page that says, “Your information has been submitted. Thank you for your custom golf club order request. One of our trained custom club fitters will be contacting you within the next 24 hours. For immediate service contact 800-600-5113 and reference your order ID # WEB10.” While some may find this endearing, this is not how a proper operation should be done. Just to see if they actually “saved” my information, I opened a new browser window and tried to order again to see what the result was – and it was even better. A security feature popped up saying I’d already entered an order on this computer and I needed to enter the Capta Code to continue – which showed the service had expired. I hopped back in with an In-Private window and did the order process again and got the exact same results that I did the first time. Warrior is only collecting user data – and who knows who they are selling it to.

To make a very long and painful story as short as possible, skip this company and their offerings. There are way too many great deals to be had in golf land today and there’s no reason to take a risk like this one. Save yourself the frustration and the surprises and visit your local golf shop for your first setup. First of all, they will probably have something in their used selection that can get you started with a much higher quality set for far less money and they will let you swing them (and a few other sets) right there in-store before you buy. They can also help with fitting and be honest with you about what you need to get playing instead of purchasing a set that doesn’t fit well and has 4 clubs that you probably won’t touch for the first 6-8 months of playing the game. If you need help finding a starter set and don’t have a shop near you, check out places like 2ndSwing.com, globalgolf.com or even Budgetgolf.com for some great deals on markdown and used equipment to get yourself rolling.

So, I missed out on week 8 as we were on Spring Break last week and away from computers and the internet a bit, but I'm back with Week 9 and a slightly new "rambling video format" that I'm trying to get a bit more comfortable with. Anyways, give the video a watch and stay tuned for next week.

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