The GolfBlogger’s collection of golf tips, The Five Inch Course, now is available in paperback, as well as in Kindle, Nook and

The Five Inch Course: Thinking Your Way To Better Golf (paperback)

The Five Inch Course: Thinking Your Way To Better Golf (Kindle)

The Inch Course: Thinking Your Way To Better Golf (Barnes and Noble Nook)

From GolfBlogger’s 2011 trip to play in the Crowne Plaza Invitational:

For the Crowne Plaza Invitational Pro Am at the Colonial, our group started on the back nine. Thus, the tenth was our first. It’s a 408 yard par 4.

I came to the first tee full of negative waves. There had been discussion at the pairings party the previous night about how the par four tenth was a much more difficult hole to begin than the downhill par 5 first. The main threat was a water hazard directly in front of the tee. Although even an average golfer could negotiate that water with a short iron, rumor had it that someone in every group would—through first tee jitters—manage to plunk it into the drink.

I really didn’t want to be that guy.

Our group gathered around the tee box and Del Ross, IHG VP for US Sales and Marketing handed all of us very nice Crowne Plaza Invitational belt buckles (sans belts). Stuart Appleby got one, too, and dryly remarked that his waist wasn’t quite that small. After posing for a couple of photos, we stood aside as Stuart teed up at the rear of the ground. The Starter made his introductions and our pro laced a shot over the trees on the left to what I presumed was a safe spot he had picked earlier.

We then moved forward to the amateur tees, where the starter introduced Del. He hit a good shot down the middle and my nervousness grew. Ft. Worth Mayor Mike Moncrief was next, and he, too, pounded the ball up the fairway. Now there were only two of us left to put the ball into the water.

I was third. Big Dog in hand, I stepped to the box as the Starter introduced me to the crowd. That was an absolutely amazing feeling; for just one wonderful moment I was Mr. GolfBlogger, Pro Golfer.

Then the evil thoughts returned. What if I put the ball in the water? Worse, what if I whiffed? Stuart Appleby surely would do an inward groan at having to endure a round with such an insufferable hacker. The nice people at Crowne Plaza who invited me would realize that they’d wasted their money.

In short, I was a wreck.

I tried to put all of that out of my mind; to concentrate on routine and a smooth easy swing. It worked. I made one of the better tee shots of my life, sending the ball straight down the fairway on a low, rolling trajectory.

Big sigh of relief. I was walking on clouds.

Our fourth, veteran Robert Leonard, also managed to avoid the water hazard curse.

My second shot was a nine wood to the right of the elevated green. A pitch over the trip left me with a long putt. Stuart Appleby lined it up for me and I drained it for a par. In fact, we all made par on that opening hole.

“Like” the Crowne Plaza facebook page to support Birdies for the Brave

Play better golf with the swing you already have.

The Five Inch Course on sale at Amazon.Com

The Five Inch Course is GolfBlogger’s new ebook, aimed at mid- to high- handicappers who would like to improve their scores, but who lack the time and money to commit to making serious swing changes.

Bobby Jones once said that “competitive golf is played on a five and a half inch course: the space between your ears.” It is with this in mind that The Five Inch Course offers more than a hundred tips for improving your golf score by playing smarter, more strategic golf. By putting just a few of these tips into play,  even weekend hackers can dramatically improve their scores without improving their swings.

For the cover price of a single issue of a golf magazine, The Five Inch Course can have you playing better golf almost immediately.

In 1960, the average golf score was 100. Fifty years later, with all the innovations in clubs, balls and instruction, the average golf score is ... still 100. In fact, only 20 percent of all golfers will ever (honestly) break that mark. However, this doesn’t mean that lower scores are out of reach. The Five Inch Course can get you there.

Here’s a photo from my 2011 trip to play in the Crowne Plaza Invitational Pro-Am at Colonial Country Club. My pro partner was Stewart Appleby.

Colonial’s Fourteenth is a 464 yard par 4. What you don’t see in either the photo or the hole illustration is that there’s a rather imposing (oppressing) grandstand very close to the tee boxes here. I couldn’t tell you how many people were in it, or even how many people were following us a t the time, although Mrs. GolfBlogger reports that there were more than a few. I had thought that playing in front of people would make me incredibly nervous, but by the third or fourth hole we played, I had tuned them out. I was thinking only about the fairways and the greens. I now think I have a sense of how the pros handle the crowds.

This hole was a disaster for me. I put my tee shot over near the tree you see on the right. My second ended up in the rough left. My third was into the right bunker. It took me two shots to get out of that. The shot that cleared ended up on the back side of the green. I was going to putt it back on, but by that time, one of my teammates was in the hole with a net par, and following the rules, I picked up.

This hole actually was an adventure for a couple of us. One of my teammates ended up along a fence line behind the trees right. His second shot didn’t improve the situation. Nor did his third.

“Like” the Crowne Plaza facebook page to support Birdies for the Brave

Golf Assorted Cupcake Toppers

Ridiculous Golf Item of the Week

This year, my good friends at Crowne Plaza are supporting four great charities through their Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial: