Chicago Public Golf

Alright folks, the links page is coming alive and I’ve added a bunch of new features. At the left is a little screen shot of what you get when you go to del.icio.us/chicagogolfcast. I have 183 bookmarks so far that encompass a ton of Chicagoland golf course information.

I’ve bookmarked the home pages of about 129 Chicago area golf courses and grouped them by price range, region, architect, and the expressway you would take from downtown. The other 50 or so bookmarks are for things like local architects, golf road trips, online tee-time companies, and local periodicals.

Keep in mind that it is still in process and we will be tweaking this thing throughout the year. If it looks a little daunting, take a look at this post where I write more about the links page and how it works.

I got out this Sunday and hit a few buckets then chipped and putted some. I have not yet played 18 holes in the Chicago region yet this year and it is killing me. I probably won’t be able to get out until May because of the cold weather and my travel and work plans, but then I’m going to go crazy with golf.

Look for posts upcoming about some special features in the links page.

I know, it’s beautiful out. My sources in Indianapolis tell me that not only is everything green and lush down there, but they’re actually cutting the greens and mowing fairways already. We may not be quite at that point in Chicago, but it looks like everything is better than playable.

I’m going to try and get out Thursday afternoon, which is the first day that us carriers of a USGA handicap can officially post a score. That’s right. Say you went out this weekend and blew up to 100+ and you’re drooling to post it because it’s going to knock off a low differential and start the ball rolling to some “handicap restoration.” Not so fast my friend (hey, when did Lee Corso show up?). You can’t do that. We are officially “out of season” until Thursday so you just wasted a blow-up round (hopefully you didn’t lose too much cash).

If this is news to you, or just confusing, go to the CDGA website and get the lowdown. I strongly encourage you city dwellers to get a handicap from one of the clubs that allows you to post online. I do it and post 100% of my scores online. I actually only play my home course (Schaumburg GC) about twice a year (which is not good, because it’s a great place). I think you can even register online now, but I’m not sure. I couldn’t figure it out from the website. Regardless, it’s now easier than ever to have a full-fledged USGA handicap. If you don’t, you’re cheating yourself.

If you care, here are the 14 dates that the CDGA recalculates your handicap, so get posting.

1. March 29
2. April 19
3. May 10
4. May 24
5. June 7
6. June 21
7. July 5
8. July 19
9. August 2
10. August 16
11. August 30
12. September 13
13. October 4
14. October 25

I sit here looking out over the vast landscape of cold and snow in Chicago, wondering how I’m going to make it to the spring. We have some great tournaments coming up on TV and we’ll even get to see Tiger Woods in a few weeks at the Match Play, but that really doesn’t make spring in Chicago feel any closer.

When these things get me down, I go to the internet and try to simulate that feeling of looking at golf courses, thinking about single-hole strategy, and appreciating the fine design of a great architect. I can do that at the site of Bolingbrook Golf Club.

It is a decent golf course and we’ll have a review sometime in 2007. But for now, let’s just sit back and appreciate the website. Spring feels very close when you go the course tour. They have a narrated fly-over for all 18 holes. As with the clubhouse, they did not skimp at all at the website. What muni has enough cash to hire a helicopter and write code to embed this in the website? Well, probably one that charges around $90 a round.

Alright folks, Mr. Sherman has promised in his golf blog, Bunker Mentality, to update it more frequently now that the Super Bowl is over. He says:

Now that the Bears are finished, we can devote our attention to a real sport: golf.

I like it Ed, and I am going to hold you to it. In fact, I too am dusting off my own golf blog and will begin posting again. Not necessarily because the Bears are done, but because seeing Pebble Beach in HD really motivates me.

The 2007 season is right around the corner. Heck, March is like 18 days away or something so we need to begin our prep for some serious Chicago golf. How about beginning with the following three steps:

1. Set up a link to this blog and Ed Sherman’s blog to keep you informed.
2. Get your clubs out of storage and make sure your equipment is ready for a round of golf at any point after March 15.
3. Make a list of your 2007 golf goals (more on that later).

Stop back soon.

We here at the Chicago Golfcast are compiling some serious internet resources so that you never have to worry about bookmarking another site related to golf in Chicagoland. We are using the free resources at the community bookmarking site called del.icio.us. Before you click on the del.icio.us/chicagogolfcast/ link over in the right margin, let’s talk in general terms about what this “community bookmarking” is all about.

Del.icio.us, in its simplest form, is just a place to put all of your bookmarks so that you don’t have to retype them every time you want to go the website. You could also do this with bookmarks in your browser, but those are on your hard drive and you can’t access them if you’re at another computer. But that’s not all.

Del.icio.us also allows you to tag each bookmark. A tag is simply a word you use to describe some aspect of your bookmark. You can tag all of your bookmarks with as many tags as you want. This lets you group them by topic, by frequency, or however you want to group them.

And finally, del.icio.us let’s you share your bookmarks. So not only can you see what others across the globe are bookmarking in your favorite topics, but you can help others by sharing your bookmarks with them. This is what we’re doing, sharing our bookmarks with you so you don’t have to go find the sites on your own.

This brings us to the bookmarks we have set up in del.icio.us/chicagogolfcast/. Once you click on that link, you are presented with a relatively simple screen that has a list of website bookmarks on the left side and a list of tags on the right side. Let’s key in on the tags and take one tag as an example. Why don’t you open up another browser session so that you can toggle back and forth between this description and the del.icio.us screen.

Okay, the first thing I want you to do is look at the list of tags and find the tag “hills.” This stands for Arthur Hills, the world renowned golf course architect based in Toledo, Ohio. Click on “hills” and let’s see what you get. On the left side of your screen you have two great Chicago golf courses designed by Arthur Hills, Stonewall Orchard and Bolingbrook. If you were to click on them directly it would link you to their official websites. Simple stuff huh?

Now look on the right side. You should see a list of “related tags.” Note that there is a related tag that says “+islandgreen.” This is where you get some serious power from del.icio.us so strap yourself in. This is telling you that one or more of the bookmarks tagged with “hills” also has a tag of “islandgreen.” Click on the island green tag and guess what you get. That’s right, a list of Chicago golf courses that have island greens, of which the Arthur Hills designed Bolingbrook is one.

Now look a little closer at the Bolingbrook Golf Club link on the left hand side. Right below it you should see in small print the words “to hills islandgreen top40x Stevenson.” These are links to all of the tags for Bolingbrook Golf Club. We have already seen why it is tagged “hills” and “islandgreen.” If you click on “hills” it just pops you back to the list of Arthur Hills designed courses in Chicagoland where we began this adventure. But note that it also has the tags “top40″ and “xpwstevie.” It is tagged “top 40″ because we at the Chicago Golfcast have decided that Bolingbrook is one of our top 40 courses in the region. Go ahead and click on the link to “top40″ and you can see a list of the rest of the top 40 (keep in mind that it’s still in process). Or if you want, click on the tag “xpwstevie.” This is a list of all the courses that you could get to if you were to take the Stevenson Expressway from downtown. This is a precursor to our regional breakdown which we plan to make much more detailed in the future.

Wow, I am bone tired just thinking about the circles we could run in if we stayed at this. So go grab a Red Bull and spend some time sorting through this on your own. We have a bunch of different stuff out there. Here are some examples of tags we have set up:

• roadtrip gets you a list of courses that are a little out of the region, but close enough to prompt a fresh tank of gas and a day or weekend trip
• architectsites gets you a list of the major architects that have courses in the region so that you can link to their sites and learn more about their philosophies and their projects
• teetimes puts you in touch with the two major providers of web based tee times for the region so you don’t ever have to talk to a human until you get to the course

We’re going to keep adding on and we may talk about a tag of the month in our podcast or write about it in the blog. Keep coming back to check for new stuff.