I’m thrilled and proud to announce that my Utah Golf Courses mobile app is now available on the Apple iTunes Store.
Tablet view of a course page
This project is one of love and learning. The challenge for me was to learn some programming techniques and libraries. During that process it became apparent that I could use those techniques to port my Utah Golf Guru site and it’s data to an app.
Utah Golf Courses App
The Utah Golf Courses app is simply a listing of every course in the state of Utah. Each course features a photo, most taken by me and some via drone. There is some great, detailed information about each course such as yardage, par, slope, rating, range ball quality, amenities, and even what types of grass the fairways and greens are. I even include some playing tips and opinions on courses. Some make the grade and some don’t.
Utah Golf Courses mobile app
To find courses one can use a standard search, or use the search filters to fine tune the type of course (public, private, military, resort), and geographic location.
It’s not perfect and I’m sure to make some improvements and tweaks. But I wanted to have all the Utah courses and phone numbers in one place on my phone. Now I have it.
Future Apps
Because of the skills I’ve learned through the process of making Utah Golf Courses, I now know I have the ability to make a HOG app for iOS and Android. I’ve begun work on that. I’m stoked to be able to deliver this blog and the massive amount of content here directly to mobile platforms.
Stay tuned.
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Utah Golf Courses Android App
Coming out of golf hibernation this spring has been hard. Having not touched a club for 4+ months put some serious rust on the game. The first round I played was the best of the short season to date, and scores have been progressively getting worse.
Today I tweaked my back somewhere between getting out of the car in the parking lot of the course and the first tee. I’ve been rubbing the lower back vigorously in the shower with soapy (thus slippery) hands to work the knots and inflammation. On the course I tried the same thing but didn’t have soapy hands and did it on top of my golf shirt. In a few seconds I’d done it so hard I took a half-inch wide chunk of flesh off my knuckle. So then I had back pain and a nasty flesh wound on my knuckle. Golf is tough.
On the range before the round a swing thought came into my head from out of the sky once told me by an old golf buddy who moved away years ago, “narrow your stance.” I tend to have a wide stance and it might creep wider and wider. I’ve been quite inaccurate with the irons this year, and hitting lots of fat shots and even 3 shanks. I’ve gone years without one shank. I narrowed the stance on the range and nuked a 4-iron almost to the end of the range.
On the course I hit the irons tremendously for the most part. Nearly jarred my 2nd shot on the 2nd hole. The greens were so bloody fast though, I missed the nearly gimme birdie.
As the round progressed I hit a lot of great iron shots, but started to fight the back spasms. Starting on the back every few swings was a bizarre “protect the back” swing, which doesn’t work well. Just ask Tiger Woods. I lost a few strokes to par because of those few swings, but managed 77.
77 for me normally is a mediocre round, but as rusty as I am, simply breaking 80 for the first time was a major step in the right direction. The number is somewhat a representation of the round, but is much less important to me than the feel of hitting solid irons and executing shots. That’s much more rewarding.
Positive thoughts at the moment, but the back is very, very stiff.
Pop quiz: What’s the only document more complicated than the USA’s IRS tax code? You guessed it, the Rules of Golf!
I’ve just read through, ok glossed through the new and immediate rules decisions by the USGA and R&A regarding video evidence, disputes, and decisions. Golf has had such a bad reputation because of things like the recent Lexi incident the governing bodies obviously felt it immediately necessary to do something. In regular fashion, they added more language to the rules which doesn’t address the main problem.
If the committee concludes that such facts could not reasonably have been seen with the naked eye and the player was not otherwise aware of the potential breach, the player will be deemed not to have breached the Rules.
The above line is the key to the new changes, and I completely agree with the sentiment. If it isn’t humanly possible to conclude there’s a breach in the rules, then there are no rules broken. That’s the good part, but not the elephant in the room.
867-5309
What’s completely missing from the new rules is the way that rules infractions are discovered, reported, and the timing in which these notifications happen. I’m talking mainly about the viewer call-ins, emails, or social networking of rules infractions. In the case of Lexi Thompson, she was notified and penalized an entire day later, and during her final round. In my opinion, any possible infractions and related penalties should have an expiration date. Perhaps once the next day’s tournament tees off, all possible issues from the previous round become invalid. If there isn’t an upcoming round, perhaps one hour after each player finishes the tournament is the point at which any questions about rules violations become moot.
That time limit can apply to any source of the possible infraction, whether another player, a spectator, a rules official, or some fat dude sitting on his couch eating Cool Ranch Doritos who has nothing better to do than shuttle his DVR back and forth 12,000 times to see if Segio’s ball moved on the 13th at Augusta in the final round of the Masters. That has to be the worst run-on sentence I’ve ever typed, but it sure rolls off the tongue nicely.
In my opinion (yes I realize nobody is asking for it) there should be NO call-ins. No emails. No tweets of rules infractions. There’s no other sport on the planet who allows such a thing and it’s one more way the golf industry makes itself look more dumb in the eyes of the general public.
Some reviews take a wee bit longer than others because there are specific applications for the products, like travel. Case in point is the Sun Mountain TravelGlider Suitcase (below).
The TravelGlider Suitcase is a companion to the Club Glider Journey, which I reviewed here a long time ago. The TravelGlider works on the same basic engineering as the Journey, four wheels are better than two, or none.
The TravelGlider Suitcase is H 30” X W 13” X D 13” and weighs 17 lbs. There are multiple internal pockets and a main compartment that expands 2.5” for added capacity. There are numerous handles for easy loading, carrying and of course the baggage handlers to throw the thing around.
The inside is spacious and hold plenty of golf apparel items for golf trips of several days to more than a week, depending on how much you sweat or spill marinara on your golf shirt.
Wheels
The key and best part of the bag is the ease in which it is huffed and transported through airports, train stations, parking lots, hotels, and wherever else one may shlep a suitcase. Just like the Club Glider, I can move my suitcase around an airport with one finger. Even my pinkie. It’s so easy. The wheels retract for storage and to check the bag.
Conclusion
Getting around airports with a Club Glider and TravelGlider is so easy it almost makes airports fun. Almost.
Sunday services today took me up Parley’s Canyon between Salt Lake and Park City, to Mountain Dell. There are two courses there, the Lake and the Canyon. I enjoyed a slightly brisk and quite windy round there, going through the process of resurrecting my dead golf game.
I busted out the PB&J on about the 11th hole.
On the 12th tee I reached for the 2nd half, but found that the 2nd half was gone.
On the 14th I found the culprit, a MOOSE! Hard to see, but he’s in the trees.
I may not have played the best golf, but it was nice to be out in nature sharing my lunch with the wildlife.
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