Playing A Round: The Golf Club At Echo Falls–Snohomish, WA

I’m changing up from my usual Friday Budget Beater this week in favor of getting in a quick nine holes. I love sneaking in a round when I can, but it doesn’t happen that the weather lines up with some time off, but it just happened to today. It’s always fun to get in a quick nine after work, or maybe on a lazy afternoon, but getting a quick nine and shooting well is even better. Yesterday I was lucky enough to have both happen to me in a great round at The Golf Club At Echo Falls. While the course was definitely in winter play conditions after the record rainfall we had in October, besides the wet fairways and mucky rough, the course has actually held up rather well. I would say a few weeks of dry weather and it will be back in top shape in no time at all. All things considered, for a quick afternoon sneak in, this round played out about as well as I could have hoped. In my two hour afternoon break, I was able to sneak in an even par 36 on the tough front side at Echo Falls.



The first hole started out with a great 263 yard drive, that drew into the left center of the fairway. It probably would have been much worse off, but the wet fairway held the ball and didn’t allow it to roll down the slope into the rough. A 51 yard lob wedge found the front of the green and a two putt from 30 feet landed me a par on the first hole. The par 4 second is a short, but uphill hole that only measures 265 yards from the white tees. With the hill though, the hole plays much longer. In fact, my solid drive up the hill only made it 221 yards, leaving me a 41 yard lob wedge to the green. I misjudged the distance off the hill to the green and left my self a 45 footer for birdie. Another 2 putt let me escape even par after two. Ah, now to the third hole, the hardest easy hole that I have ever played. This hole is short, measuring only 258 from the white tees. The problem with this hole is that there is a ton of trouble on it. From the water that runs the right side to the trees that line the left, there’s not much room for error. Then you finally find the green which has enough hardened bunkers around it to scare off most folks. Well, my drive was about as good as possible, finding the front center bunker on the green. A quick shot out with my lob wedge and another two putt and I was off to the 4th, still even.



The fourth is another one of those sneaky holes that requires more targeting than distance. As you hit your drive down the fairway, there’s not much in the way of trouble. A left center drive is best, but going right won’t penalize you much. My drive drifted to the right side of the fairway and came up much shorter than I expected, coming in at only 234 yards. I had a possible shot into the green with a 3 iron, but when I struck the ball, it pushed down into the soft fairway and only travelled 153 yards. Again, a 61 yard lob wedge played into the green where a 2 putt left me an easy par. I’m just going to go on record right now as saying that I don’t like the fifth hole. This annoying little par 3 only plays 160 yards, but it seems to be the hardest hole on the planet for me to play. Once again, it played tough for me today. My 7 iron off the tee drifted right and ended up almost closer to the 13th green than the 5th. A great lob wedge over to the green left me a 5 foot putt for par and another hole of even golf. On the long, downhill sixth hole, my drive found the center of the fairway and actually rolled out to 277 yards. It was definitely the most solid strike of the day. I took my gap wedge from there to lay up as the landing area near the green was very tight and if one went left on a day like this, the ball would be lost forever in the soft rough. My layup landed almost where I wanted it, but was actually a bit close for what I was trying. A 61 yard lob wedge found the front edge of the green, but left me a 57 foot putt. Fortunately, my putter was still hot and I ran the 57 footer to a few feet away and tapped in for par. This left me even par after 6.



I stepped up to the final three holes feeling pretty confident about the nine. Drives were going well, irons weren’t bad given the conditions and my putting was strong. It was obvious to me that I needed to work on my mid wedges a bit, but overall, for a wet November round, my game was about as on as it could be. The par 3 seventh drove me insane. Again, an easy shot to a large landing area should make for an easy hole. What it ended up being was an 8 iron into the side bunker, then a brilliant sand shot and one putt for par. That’s just the kind of day it had been. The slightly up hill eighth hole left me feeling a bit strange off the tee, so I thought I would try something new and hit a 4 iron off of it to see what it would do. Of course, trying to get stats on it let me over swing a touch, which caused me to fan the shot right and lose a ton of distance. I tried to hit it again on the next shot, but hitting it out of the rough was more like hitting it out of a puddle today. Needless to say, I was 60 yards out on my third shot. I popped another lob wedge close and somehow drained the 35 foot putt (I’m still not sure how it went it, but it did) and made yet another par. The ninth hole was set up perfectly for my driver swing today, even though I didn’t need that much distance from the white tees. A slight draw, just to the right of the big tree in the center of the image above would be a perfect shot. What ended up happening is a 295 yard drive that found its way past the tree and in a perfect line to the green. A 58 yard lob wedge and a 2 putt from 57 feet and the round was done and I had finished at even par.

If I were to take anything away from this round, it’s that I need to work on those shorter irons and really put some effort into my sub 60 yard wedge game. Other than that, continuing to work on my putting and getting used to the F5 driver will be the big areas of focus over the winter. I will be sneaking in as many rounds as the weather allows at Echo Falls over the next few months. The course is close enough for me to sneak in 9 after an early day at work and also that if the weather is good enough to get in a round that I can do that without much planning. I’ll be continuing my drive to becoming a scratch handicap next spring, hopefully, with quite a bit of practice over the winter. Let’s just hope it’s not as wet as the record setting October we just had!

Stroke Saver: Pinch The Ball To Get More Stick

During my weekend round on Sunday, I made a conscious effort to begin moving the ball a touch further back in my stance on my wedges. The results far exceeded my expectations. Not only did the move back create a descending blow into the ball, which creates more spin, but it also changed the trajectory of the ball from a hump to a drop. What I mean by drop instead of hump is rather simple. The arc of a typical wedge looks very similar to the blue pattern below. If you were to split it in half, it would be almost identical in each half. The end of the flight would be a bit more drop as ball speed falls and gravity kicks in, but overall, it’s a very smooth pattern.



The red line above represents a downward blow onto the ball. Even with the club delofted slightly at impact, the ball spins off the face at a higher launch angle and will come into the green at a much steeper approach angle. This means your ball will be able to start holding those faster, harder greens in the summer, and during these wetter fall and winter months, you ball should land and virtually plug in place. Now, this may not be as easy at it looks for you given the fact that you really need to generate a decent amount of club head speed to drive the ball up higher, but more of it may have to do with how well you can ‘pinch’ your wedges. Pinching is what I call nailing the timing between hitting the ball and the ground. A perfect pinch will catch the ball and let it click off the face and fly at an increased launch angle. If that is done correctly, you will see a very similar distance to your current wedge shots, but you will see a steeper approach angle. If not, you will still see the steeper angle but you will lose some distance off the ball.

Learning to drop your wedges at a steeper angle will only help your game. If you are able to master pinching the ball with your wedges, and even your short irons, you should start seeing some huge drops in your distance to the hole on approach shots. From not having to guess on if the ball will roll out or spin back, to having shots that stop on a dime, accuracy going into the green can save you anywhere from 3-5 putts a round and get you braking your goals in no time.

Budget Beater: Don’t Fall For “Great Deals” That Come In Those Fancy Emails

So, I’m going on a bit of a personal rant here, but I think everyone needs to know about a deceptive marketing campaign that a manufacturer is using to basically milk people out of $15 a month, whether you use them or not. It usually comes in the form of an email so tempting that even I clicked on it to get the lowdown on this fantastic deal. What I read on the page that appeared when I clicked it made me wonder how a company like Warrior Custom Golf can even stay in business, let alone turn a profit, but I guess that’s why they have their trial program where the “free items” that they ship carry a $30-50 handling fee. But enough of that, let’s take a gander at the ‘Warrior Golf VIP Program” so you can judge this deal for yourself.

First up, in the tantalizing email, you get a free round of golf through the Golf18Network, which is payable in the form of a $25 credit (which is what everyone who signs up for Golf18Network gets anyways). You then get 3 additional credits throughout the year as long as your membership stays active. Total bonus – $75.

Then there is the $200 credit that can be used at the Warrior Golf Online Discount Pro Shop. This can be used for any items in the online store, which can range from $9.95 towels to $169.00 drivers. Again, this is all ‘stuff’ that can be found in their ‘free trial’ program where you just pay those over inflated shipping and handling rates to get them.



From there, you are given a $1000 value “Platinum Membership” to play at all Warrior Affiliate golf courses nationwide. Now, nationwide makes this sound like someone from say, Michigan could partake of this great membership, but unless you live in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Iowa, Florida, Colorado, Alabama, Texas, Georgia or California, you’re going to need to travel to take advantage of this great membership. Now is when it gets good though, you can only play these courses if you agree to pay for the standard cart fee. Of course, when visiting a few of the courses online, there was no cart fee located on any of the rates pages. This could mean your “free round” of golf that you can only use Monday through Friday, excluding holidays, could cost whatever they feel like charging you. Now a mystery to this one, which in all honesty could make it an OK deal, is the free set of irons and fairway woods that is listed as a benefit on the Platinum Membership page. I’m sure there’s a chunky S/H fee that will be tacked on to these guys, but if they included a set of clubs in what you pay, it’s not a terrible thing, right?

Now, I’m going to fly through a few more benefits quickly here to get my point across before I get to the really bad part about what I see in Warrior Custom Golf’s practices. On top of the benefits above, you will get 2 boxes a year of test equipment. These may include, clubs, balls, accessories, apparel and even training aids. Based on their store prices, I would estimate the value of each box $200 box at about $50 each. This would even include a Wilson Harmonized wedge or low cost titanium driver, towel, and a dozen balls from sites like Amazon. $200 just sounds like a fabricated number based on some crazy retail prices. From there, VIP access to their online store, a USGA membership, a stay and play package valued at up to $600 and free online training videos. Overall, it sounds impressive, but 90% of the discounts that you find here can be found online through other channels for no charge at all.



Just to see what a set of irons cost for that “premium deal” above, I jumped into the Warrior Custom store to see their pricing. Low and behold, they didn’t have any. So, I hit the irons section and tried to order a set. After submitting my name, email, phone number and shipping address, I was taken to the above page where I was told that a customer club fitter would call me within the next 24 hours. So, Warrior is so top secret that they can’t even sell me a set of clubs online – they need an operator to call me back and try to upsell me on other items or something? This has red flags written all over it. So finally, I hit up yelp for the low down and ratings on Warrior. With the exception of a few that actually called to order the freebie, then wanted to get more, regardless of the price, the reviews all said virtually the same thing. That WCG would ‘trick’ people into getting into clubs that were demos that needed to be returned after the trial period. Otherwise you were stuck paying for them.

For me, and I hope for you as well, this serves as a great reminder for ANYTHING that if it seems too good to be true, do some homework on it. Search online for reviews, especially at the customer service level. When you see anything mentioned like scam, racket or garbage, just delete the email and move along. If you fall victim to something like this, contact the BBB and your credit card company to dispute the charges that you paid. It will take a bit of your time, but at least you won’t make it easy for them to scam the next person in line. Remember, you can do very well buying used or new merchandise at local stores or online for far less than the ‘custom’ items will actually cost you. Plus, knowing the quality of the merchandise you purchase are backed up by a local store, you should feel very comfortable spending money on them.

Stroke Saver: Learn To Chip, Pitch And Lob To Lower Your Score

This weekend, Padraig Harrington won for the first time in over 8 years. He managed to put together one of the most ridiculous stats in European Tour history in doing so – he made managed to make it off the green in 51 shots in 25 attempts. That included 2 chip-ins and a holed out bunker shot. This means, on the remaining 22 holes, that Mr. Harrington made a chip on put on 18 of those 22 and a three and out on the other 4. That equals out to one amazing short game effort. Of course, the 23 under that he shot for the tournament was also rather impressive as well, so lets get down to dropping your scores with a bit of short game magic, just like Padraig had at the Portugal Open.

Mastering your short game will take some time, but understanding the three shots you will need to nail it won’t take you nearly as long to understand. When you land near the green, you have a few options to look at. First off, if you are close enough and there’s no obstructions, how do you feel about putting? If that’s a no go, or if there is something in the way (like a sprinkler or a dead patch) you should consider chipping the ball. A chip is a shot that will travel about 10% of it’s distance in the air, then roll out the other 90% of the way to the hole. Usually, chips are performed with a 7 to 9 iron and look much like a putting stroke. The pitch shot is the next option and is especially useful if you are working over flat traps, water or other trouble that allows the ball to roll out to the hole. A pitch shot will fly about half way to the target and then land and roll about the same distance. In other words, it’s about a 50-50 shot that is usually performed with a pitching wedge, approach wedge or gap wedge. Some people even venture down to a sand wedge on this particular shot, but it’s better to stay with a wedge with a smaller amount of bounce on pitches. Finally, there’s the lob, which some people turn into a “flop shot” all too often. A lob traditionally flies about 90% of the way to the hole in the air, then settles quickly and only rolls out a few feet. This shot is the go-to shot when you have a tight landing area or have to fly the ball over trouble to get to the flag stick. It also works very well when the ball is below the landing area and it comes down at a sharper angle with more control over the roll out.

Understanding these shots and how to use them is a scoring key to golf that many amateurs never quite master. The majority of 90’s shooters simply take a bag of balls over to the chipping green with a pitching wedge and hit ball after ball at the same practice hole over and over again. They master that little 20 foot chip shot, but it’s one that will never be hit on a real course. Then to make it worse, they try to adapt that shot to fit the situation they are really in on the course only to have things go horribly wrong. Working all three shots during your practice sessions is key to putting them into play on the course. The three club short game drill is a great way to work these into your game going forward. For this I recommend grabbing a chipping club (8 iron), a pitching club (PW or GW) and a lob club (SW or LW) and about 6 balls. Start by hitting two chip shots to the hole of your choice. Get them as close as you can. Next, pitch the ball half way to the hole and try to get it inside your chips. Finally, lob the final two balls to the hole and try to get them inside the pitches. Which ever set landed the closest, mark the closest ball with a tee or ball mark, and start it all over. Vary your position and hole location if you want to, but this game is all about beating the ‘inside marker’ each time you attempt it. When you can consistently hit all three types of shots inside 3 feet, you are set to move back and try a bit longer shots.



The great news about chipping, pitching and even the lob shot practice is that you can do them right in your front yard or at a local park. What you should equip yourself with is a chipping mat (mainly to avoid damaging the yard or the park that you are headed to) and a chipping basket or net. You can use many different targets, but the nets and baskets just make life a bit easier. The Revord Chipping Mat is a good quality mat that features anchor points that will keep it from moving around on you when you hit the ball. The 20” Portable Chipping Net is also a great addition to a travel setup as well. It collapses down into a tiny carry bag that will make it very easy to keep with you. A simple setup like this (under $50) will let you practice these three shots just about anywhere you’d like. If you combine these two items with either a quality foam ball or plastic balls, you can even practice it indoors when the weather doesn’t allow you to get outside.

Working these shots will do everything you need to drop 2-5 strokes a round off you next seasons numbers. Not having them in your bag means you will need to scramble a bit harder next year, which means less progress to your best possible rounds. Knowing how your you ball flies, and how it will run when it lands, is key to getting it closer to the hole. Getting it close every time will give you numbers like Padraig and help you get up and down just like he did at the Portugal Masters. You may not win a big trophy, but winning bragging rights with the friends might be just as important.

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Equipment Deals: Save $100 On A New Taylor Made M1 Woods

UPDATE:  Golfsmith has officially closed their online retail services. If you live local to one of their brick and mortar stores, you can still find deals like this, if not better, but if you do not, I recommend checking the TaylorMade M1 page at Amazon for great prices on the pre-2017 M1 series drivers, hybrids and fairway woods.

If you are in the market for one of the best drivers to ever grace the hallowed grounds of the most prestigious golf courses in the world, you are in luck. Golfsmith currently has the Taylor Made M1 drivers, fairway woods and hybrids all a substantial discounts. Usually this is a good indicator that the 2017 models are on the way in, but that doesn’t make this incredible setup any less of an upgrade for what’s in your bag today. The M1 features adjustable weighting and two different driver sizes for those that don’t like the Fisher Price driver look. The standard 460cc head is the standard for today’s larger faced drivers, but Taylor Made also made the M1 in a slightly smaller 430cc version that may look and feel better to you and your game.

The Taylor Made M1 is available in right or left handed models. The right handed model is available in two lofts – a 10.5 degree and a 12 degree model, while the left is only available in the lower loft. They also feature either the Fujikura Pro (high launch) or Kuro Kage Silver (mid launch) shafts in regular and stiff setups. The M1 head is also adjustable for a +/- 2 degrees in loft from the preset head, making the 10.5 degree model have a range from 8.5 to 12.5 degrees. The adjustability in the M1 may make it the perfect addition to your bag for next season. Refurbished models start at $339.99 and the new, off the shelf models are $399.99.

If you are on the lookout for a great fairway wood or hybrid model, Golfsmith has you covered with great prices on the M1 as well. For $249.99 or $199.99, you can fill those gaps in your bag with some great hardware for less that it was last week. Even better, if they have your model in stock, the blemished models at $209.99 and $169.99 are going to save you even more. Imagine landing a new driver, fairway wood and hybrid for you bag for about $700 when the driver alone would have set up back $500 a few weeks ago. This is definitely a great way to snag one of the best drivers around today for a very good price.

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Budget Beater: Did You Blow Your Budget On Gear This Year?

There’s something about having a new stick in the bag, or even better, a whole bag of new sticks, to get the practice juices flowing for the winter. Of course, if you are anything like me, you want to hit the range any time you possibly can anyways, so having a few new clubs to hit just makes matters worse. But that’s not the point of this post, it’s more about what happens when you blow your golf budget out of the water and you’re not sure how to recover for next year? Let’s start with a few basics and work forward.

1) It starts with a budget – Make sure you always make out a personal budget. Factor in everything you could want to be doing and then decide how much you want to golf. Let’s just say you make $5000 a month, and 25% of that goes to your home, 10% goes to insurance, 10% goes to cars, 5% goes to other expenses. Then you have 10% to food, 10% to utilities and 10% to other mandatory needs. The other 20% goes to taxes, which leaves not much money for anything else. Let’s just say you have a total of $75 a month to spend on golf at that point, so you need to do one of two things – 1 create a separate “golf” account at your bank with it’s own debit card or just use cash to pay for your tee times. Option 2 is always nicer, but some courses require a credit or debit card to make a tee time, so having a card for golf is always a nice way to do things.

2) If you blow it one month, don’t cover it with the next – So you have a beautiful January and you sneak out for an extra round, blowing you $75 budget by $30. What ever you do, don’t take that from February’s budget. Find a way to cover that $30 without robbing from the future. If you know you have two rounds a month for the whole year, you can base your play off that. If you change directions from that, make sure you have the money available for the extra round and do it. Never steal a future round just to sneak in an extra now. Give up things like an extra dinner out or coffee for a week and see if you can make up that $30’s that way.

3)  Vow to pack your snacks for the year – $4 for a hot dog and $2.50 for a soda. It seems innocent enough, but if you are playing 24 rounds of golf this year, you’ll be spending over $150 on snacks at the course. While that may not seem like much, that’s 5 rounds at $30 a piece or 2 months of your golfing budget spent on hot dogs and drinks. Grabbing a reusable water bottle and some lower cost energy bars (they usually have them on sale for a buck or less) will really stretch your dollar further.

4) Stop shopping for a 1/2 stroke – Proper fitting gear is all you need to golf well. Some time back, I purchased a set of very inexpensive cavity back irons to see if they would help my game or not. The $139 I dropped on the full set was a fun experiment, but it didn’t get me very much data. I hit the ball around the course and shot a 78. My Tour Blades went around the same course that afternoon and shot a 74. Don’t think that you can go out and spend more money and get that much better performance. Top grade equipment is all made from the best materials you can find, so the longevity of your investment is safe.

5) It all ends with a budget – Regardless of how much money you blew this year on what ever you blew it on, next year is a whole new year. Don’t fret over what you spent in the past. That money is gone and isn’t going to come back. On the flip side, looking to next year is crucial. If you want to stick to playing golf on a budget, you need to play golf on a budget. If you have $50 a month to play, that’s fine. If you have $200 a month to play, that’s fine too. Just find a number that doesn’t require you to get out a credit card every time you make a move and you will be winning the battle.

The big picture is what’s important and playing golf on a budget means that you aren’t going to spend money you don’t have on rounds that are gone all too quickly. Create a budget, shop for deals and get the most out of the money you have. From saving on balls to tee times, I’ll keep bringing you more ways to save money while you play. You just need to make the best decision for your budget on what makes the most sense for your wallet and your game.

Budget Beater: Does Your Course Offer Winter Playing Cards?

At $60 a round, it’s hard to cram in much golf when you are on a budget. In fact, playing more than a round a month might prove to be more strain than the budget can handle. Fortunately, unless you live somewhere where the weather is so nice year round, there are Winter Rates coming soon. To make the deals even sweeter, some courses offer unlimited play during the winter for incredibly low prices. For example, OkiGolf, the company that runs The Golf Club At Echo Falls, has stepped up with quite an unbeatable winter golf deal for Seattle area golfers. For as low as $149.99, you can grab a playing deal that will let you have unlimited weekday golf and unlimited weekend golf after noon at your choice of many top quality courses. For those in the area, here’s the pricing breakdown:

Trophy Lake (Port Orchard) – $149.99
Hawks Prairie (Lacey) – $159.99
Echo Falls (Snohomish) – $169.99
Redmond Ridge (Redmond) – $274.99
Washington National (Auburn) – $279.99
Harbor Point (Mukilteo) – $349.99

To make the deal a bit better, you also get the ‘player’s card’ rates at the other OkiGolf courses. This will save you between $10 and $50 the regular  round prices through March of next year.

Now, these are a “while supplies last” deal, so make sure you jump on them early if you live near one of these courses. Also, don’t be afraid to ask you local track if they have one as well. Many times, courses will take the guaranteed payout of an unlimited round in hopes that either the player won’t use them or, even better for them, that you fall in love with the course and become a full member in the spring.