5/15/20 Update

We hope this finds you well and that you’ve had an opportunity to get out and play a round or two. Bill, Peter and the rest of our wonderful staff have done a great job getting us open for play under difficult circumstances.

As you’ve probably seen by now, we have a beautiful new tee complex on #8! A huge thanks goes out to Mike and Eric Lajeunesse and Ed Corrigan for their hard work. In addition we’d like to thank the Saturday Morning Group,  Sunday Funday Group and John McGee for their generous donations to defray the cost to the club. All told we received nearly $2,000 in donations for this project!

Without the generosity of our members we wouldn’t be able to provide the stellar golf conditions and upgrades that we’ve all become used to. Next on the agenda is a new forward tee for #9. If you are interested in making a donation to the cause, please contact Peter in the shop or Tom Collins.

Friendly reminder that the social distancing measures in place at the Country Club of Barre are not optional. Please ensure that you are following the guidelines. We all need to continue to do our part to keep everyone safe and remain open.

A few bits to remember:

  • The golf shop remains closed to members and the public unless you are explicitly authorized to enter. Contact Peter and his crew over the phone (802-476-7658) to pay for a cart or green fees or to arrange for curbside pickup of merchandise.
  • Please do not attempt to pay with cash. We are only accepting credit or debit card payment at this time.
  • If you must congregate, limit groups to less than 10 people and please do not hang out in the parking lot or at the club following your round.
  • If you’re hungry and thirsty after a round, Fairways & Greens would be happy to get you an order to go!

We thank you for your understanding and your cooperation!

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Notes from Opening Day

A couple bits of information for you:

Many of our neighbors are using the roads buy steroids online to exercise and we’ve received a few complaints of cars driving at a high rate of speed. While we are all very excited to be on our way to the course, please be mindful of your speed on the roads around the xanax 1mg club. The speed limit on roads leading to CCB are 35 mph.

We need to reiterate that the pro shop will NOT BE ACCEPTING CASH. In order to keep our staff safe, please do not attempt to pay for anything with cash until further notice. Peter and his folks will be happy isotretinoin drug to place a credit or debit card on file allowing you to pay for any merchandise or cart rentals via telephone.

All members are expected to have an approved payment plan with the Board of Directors or to have paid their dues in full prior to playing. Dues can be paid online at ccofbarre.com.

We thank you for your cooperation. See you at the valium online course!

– Country Club of Barre Board of Directors

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2020 Opening Information

Great news, we have been given clearance to open for the 2020 season! As we mentioned previously, while we are opening for play, things will still look and feel far different from normal. Please read on to find out how things have changed.

When can I play?

The Pro Shop cheap vardenafil will be open and available to reserve tee times starting at 8:00 on Thursday May 7 via phone only.

CCB Members – We will be open to member play only May 7-8, 2020. All members who would like to play must contact the Pro Shop by phone to make a tee time – walk-in tee times will not be permitted. You must let the staff know all members of your group and whether they will be walking or riding. All cart rentals must be paid in advance and we ask that you contact the pro shop to place a credit or debit card on file that may be charged. Member reserved tee times will not be honored until Monday May 11, so please plan accordingly.

Non-members & Guests – As of Saturday, May 9 we will also open to all residents of Vermont. Again, tee times will be required and must be reserved through the Pro Shop at (802) 476-7658 – walk-in tee times will not be permitted. The shop must be notified of all players in the group and whether those players will be walking or riding. All cart rentals and green fees must be paid retin-a in advance.

Online tee time booking will be available for members and non-members beginning Monday, May 11. Walk in tee times will still not be permitted.

Safety Measures Implemented:

We will not be accepting cash for any payments. All payments must be made via credit or debit card, either by phone or on our website. Again, NO CASH WILL BE ACCEPTED.

Tee times will be available at 15-minute increments to allow for physical distancing between groups.

Carts will be restricted to one player and one bag per cart – no exceptions. We have 50 new carts this season, but we highly encourage anyone able to walk the course to do so.

Clubhouse will remain closed to all. The locker rooms and bagroom will be closed until further notice. We are installing two porta-potties on the golf course and drinking water will be available to purchase through Fairways & Greens ($1.00 per bottle).

Fairways & Greens will be offering curbside pickup only – please call (802)505-4023 or (802)371-9826 to place your order.

The Pro Shop will be closed to all, but that does not mean you need to buy gloves, balls, and other supplies elsewhere. Peter and staff will have goods available for curbside pickup. Please contact him via email (pfinnpga@hotmail.com) or phone (802)476-7658 to place your order before you play.

All flagsticks must always remain in the hole. Bill and staff have installed pool noodles in each cup to allow you to remove your ball from the hole without touching the flag or lip of the hole.

Bunker rakes, scorecards/pencils and trash cans have been removed from the golf course. We encourage the use of electronic scoring on your personal cell phone.

The driving range will remain closed until further notice. Practice putting greens will be open so you can warm up prior to play – you may not use the areas unless you have a tee time.

Physical alprazolam distancing guidelines are still in effect, so please remember to stay at least 6 feet from others whenever possible.

We thank you for you understanding and your efforts to continue to practice social distancing measures. These restrictions are subject to change. See you all at the club!

– CCB Board of Directors

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Message from the Board of Directors – 4/21/20

Members and Friends,

We hope this message finds you healthy and ready for another season at CCB. As you are no doubt aware, the Governor has extended his Stay Home, Stay Safe order until May 15. While our current target opening date is May 16, we are keeping a close eye on the situation and are prepared to open as soon as it is safe and permissible to do so.

When we do open, things will look very different at the club to keep us all safe – we will be strictly adhering to the guidance issued by the State and VGA. More info on VGA guidance can be found here.

Some news and notes:

  • Social distancing at the club – we encourage you all to take advantage of our beautiful golf course while getting your exercise and practicing social distancing. Please keep in mind that the golf course is closed to play, so refrain from bringing your clubs on your walks! We are all understandably getting stir crazy and itching to play golf, but the last thing we as a club need is for word to get out that we’re allowing play when we aren’t supposed to be. Also, be aware that the clubhouse is closed, so we have no restrooms or drinking water on site.
  • As we previously mentioned, our annual workbee was cancelled. Bill and Mitch have done a tremendous job getting the golf course ready for play, but they could always use a hand. If you’d like to get some fresh air and work on the course, please contact Bill Evans (802-522-8353), Mitch Evans (802-477-3755) or Eric Lajeunesse (802-522-7141).
  • Our fleet of 50 golf carts has arrived and they look great! We’re in the process of adding CCB logos which will really make them pop.

           

  • Huge THANK YOU to all those who have paid your 2020 dues! The financial climate is uncertain for us all, so any payments are greatly appreciated. We will happily set up payment plans upon request.

Please note that all plans are subject to change. We are doing our very best to keep abreast of the situation and keep CCB in the best possible position to succeed this season. We appreciate all that you do for our club and look forward to seeing you all very soon!

– Country Club of Barre Board of Directors

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Message from the Board of Directors – 4/1/20

Members and Friends,

We hope this finds you staying healthy and looking forward to another great summer at the Country Club of Barre. Your board of directors has been hard at work planning for the season and putting us in the best position going forward. We wanted to give you an update as to happenings at the club and our changes necessitated by COVID-19.

The board is pleased to announce that we have hired a new head golf professional, Peter Finnegan. Peter brings the club years of experience as a PGA professional and a keen focus on providing top-notch customer service. He is a tremendous asset for the club, and we are very happy to have him on board. Peter can be reached at (843) 333-6905 or pfinnpga@hotmail.com.

In addition, last fall the club entered into an agreement to replace our existing fleet of 40 carts with 50 2018 Club Cars. The newer, larger fleet will give us much needed flexibility, reduce maintenance and operation costs, and prevent the need from renting supplemental carts for events. We anticipate they will be delivered in the month of April.

As you are aware, the situation we all face regarding COVID-19 is ever-changing. Following are the plans the board has developed based on the information that we have today. We will be meeting for our monthly board meeting on 4/20/20 and hope to have more concrete information to share at that point.
∙  The Annual work bee has been cancelled – if you would like to volunteer to help us get ready for the season while getting some exercise and practicing social distancing, please contact Bill Evans (802-522-8353), Mitch Evans (802-477-3755) or Eric Lajeunesse (802-522-7141).
∙  All facilities (golf course, restaurant and clubhouse) are closed until at least April 15 in accordance with Governor’s Stay Home, Stay Safe order.
∙  Fairways & Greens is planning to offer curbside pick-up once we open for the season. Menus will be located on the 8th and 16th tees allowing players to call ahead. In-person orders will not be accepted until further notice.

Our season isn’t far away, and we are asking that every member please pay your dues as soon as you can. We understand the idea of spending large sums of money right now is difficult and we will gladly work to set up a payment plan that works for you. Peter has even offered a generous 20% discount on all pro shop purchases from opening day through July 31, 2020 for new members who mention this email when they join!

We are diligently planning for how to open the golf course and facilities as soon as it is safe for us all to do so. With that said, we ask that anyone who is sick or feels under the weather please refrain from visiting until you are well.

This is your club and any support is very much appreciated. Thank you all!

– Country Club of Barre Board of Directors

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How to correct your slice in golf

How to correct your slice in golf

Written by Golfweek

Dealing with a slice can be one of the most frustrating aspects of golf for amateurs. The banana ball flight off the tee makes it difficult to keep the ball in play and can drastically reduce the ball flight.

Here are a few tips to help eliminate your pesky slice and hit it further and straighter off the tee.

The grip

This is often the first thing that goes wrong and can lead to a big slice. In order to properly grip the golf club, right-handed players should take the club first in their left hand and grip it mostly with their fingers. With the clubface on the ground, turn your left hand until two knuckles are visible and form a “V” shape with your left index finger and thumb. Place your right hand over the left and create the same “V” shape with your right index finger and thumb, pointing to your right shoulder.

The Setup

Start with the ball teed up and placed just off the inside of your front foot. Place your head a few inches behind the ball. This will help create an upward strike off the tee rather than a downward strike. When the club makes contact at a downward angle it can create a lot more spin and take away distance, leading to that big slice. Your shoulders should also have a natural tilt due to your head placement behind the ball.

The swing

Using that shoulder tilt from setup, rotate your shoulders and bring the club back until your left shoulder is underneath your chin. This will allow you to complete an inside-outside swing path. A big slice is often the result of an outside-inside swing path, which feels like it should cause the ball to go left but creates the opposite effect. For the proper inside-outside swingpath, picture hitting the ball to the opposite field in baseball or softball.

The Clubface

One of the biggest contributing factors to a slice is an open clubface. Once you’re swinging on an inside-outside path, slightly rotate the toe of the club over the heel while swinging through impact. This will square the clubface at impact and help produce the proper ball flight.

 

Source: Golfweek

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Golf Top 100 Teacher: This is how your right arm should feel at the top of your backswing

Golf Top 100 Teacher: This is how your right arm should feel at the top of your backswing

Written by Martin Chuck

Good arm structure—most critically at the top—has been a hallmark of many wonderful golf swings.

Sloppy arms can lead to all kinds of problems. Among these is the flying right elbow and the torso-hugging right elbow. In fact, the right elbow is responsible for most backswing arm woes.

But don’t worry, I’ve got a drill for you that’s as easy as a Sunday drive.

Hold your arms in front of you as if you were (properly) driving a car—for those of you who skipped driver’s ed., that means hands at 10 and 2! In other words, the wheel is a clock; put your left hand on 10, now the trick, reach into the middle of the wheel and grab 2 o’clock, palm up. This funky’ opposing hold on the wheel gives your right arm the primo feeling for the top of your swing!

Source: Golf.com

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The trusted secrets of a member-guest juggernaut

The trusted secrets of a member-guest juggernaut

Written by: Guy Yocom

Tom McQueeney Jr. is 81 now, his golf in abeyance as he waits to have his right hip replaced. Tall and regal, he likes to give junior golfers lessons on the putting green, and he chips a bit, but his main pastime is keeping the grillroom at Race Brook Country Club in Orange, Conn., alive with jokes, gossip, wisecracks and tales of yesteryear. The centerpieces of his best storytelling, shared only after he has placed his drink order cialis sale —(“Beefeater on the rocks with olives, please”)—has to do with the Blakeslee Memorial Cup, the club’s three-day member-guest. McQueeney and his partner, the late Clem Miner Jr., dominated this tournament. Over the course of three decades, beginning in 1960, they won it 14 times and finished runner-up another eight.

“TMac,” as he’s known around the club, is Exhibit A for the case there is much to be learned from crack amateurs. He was a school teacher his entire adult life: He taught Greek, Latin, French, U.S. history and was a high school basketball coach. Thus, a pro career was never on the table. But his zeal for practice and competition, combined with having a chunk of the summer months off, made him one of the most skilled and shrewd players around. His acquired knowledge is often fresh and always helpful ativan to those he shares it with.

McQueeney and Miner individually were superb players. TMac at his peak was a 1-handicapper, Miner a scratch. Together they played as though conjoined at the brain stem, not speaking much but performing precisely on the same wavelength. From the order they played, to the way they read putts together, to club selection, it was a clinic, neat to watch and a little mysterious.

It being the heart of the member-guest season, I suggested to TMac he would be doing readers a favor by passing along some four-ball advice. For McQueeney, the list flowed easily. Herewith, some collected member-guest wisdom, according to TMac:

• Remember, meden agan. “That’s Greek for nothing in excess. It really applies to booze but applies to food, too. Having said that, I’ll eat a hot dog if I feel like having one. This isn’t the Olympics. You’ve got to live a little.”

• Go easy during the warm-up. “Find your rhythm and try to hit the ball solid, nothing more. Hit mainly wedges through the 7-iron. Don’t hit more than a few drivers. End by hitting a few of the harder shots you know you’re going to face.”

• Play a side game with your partner. “Clem and I always played $5 birdies between the two of us. The times we each made bunch of birdies, it didn’t work out too well for our opponents.”

• Have a secret skepticism about your opponents. “We always quietly held the other team in playful contempt. We joked about them. It lifted Clem and I up, helped strattera usa us bond and play hard for each other.

• Farthest from the hole putts first. “If your partner has a three-footer for par, and you’ve got six feet for birdie, don’t ask him to ‘clean up’ the three-footer. If he misses, you’re going to lag the six-footer instead of trying to make it. Don’t get cute. Don’t overthink it.”

• Putt aggressively. “In general, be much bolder than if you were playing individually. If you hit a putt long, well, that’s why you’ve got a partner, to cover you.”

• Keep the course in front of you. “I just told you not to be short, but having said that, on almost all courses, it’s better to be short than off to the sides. That’s where the bunkers and trouble are. Always try to keep a clear route to the hole for your next shot.”

• With the irons, take one more club. “Even good amateurs tend to miss short. Coming up short puts pressure on your partner. The sweet spots on those irons are small, so give yourself the benefit of the doubt.

• Don’t talk too much. “Be friendly, but don’t get too distracted. There’s time to discuss your opponents’ family and job after the round.

• Compliment your opponents. “Maybe to a fault. I was never big on gamesmanship, but when we played against a guy who swung hard and hit it a mile, I couldn’t help but mention it. ‘I’ve played with long hitters before, but you’re very long,’ I’d say. They loved the praise. They also tried to swing even harder, and you know what happens when they do that.”

• Thin beats fat. “Always err toward hitting shots a little thin, especially under pressure. There can be a temptation to dig, especially from bad lies, which you seem to get more of in tournaments. Don’t give in. Fat shots are demoralizers.”

• Redefine the gimme putt. “It’s shocking to me how many two-footers are missed in tournament play. I’ve missed them, too. Don’t be too quick to give short putts, and expect to putt them cheap levitra all yourself.”

• Never change putters during a tournament. “Metal doesn’t change, you do. If you’re putting poorly, do your best to work it out. If you switch to another putter, nine times out of 10 you’ll putt even worse.”

Sated by his most recent round of tip-sharing, McQueeney takes you to the parking lot to show off his new car. He pops the trunk and points to a lone club inside. “Last thing, always keep a driver in your car. You never know when you’ll pass a driving range.”

Source: GolfDigest.com

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Michael Breed: The two things you need to escape the sand

Michael Breed: The two things you need to escape the sand

By Michael Breed

Here’s your greenside sand lesson in two words: speed and bounce. Splashing a ball out of a bunker takes more power than you might think—that’s the speed part. And to use that speed effectively, the club has to slide through the sand without getting stuck—that’s the bounce. Focus on a few keys.

First, grip the handle more in your fingers than your palms. This will help you hinge your wrists on the backswing—notice I have a full wrist set by halfway back (above). I can use that lever to generate speed quickly.

Second, lower the handle at address, feeling more bend in your wrists. When your hands are low, the heel of the club is more exposed, and that helps the clubhead glide through at a consistent depth. Setting the hands higher raises the heel and can cause the toe to dig, which stops the swing short.

Third, stay centered as you go back, and then swing to the left through impact. To maintain the club’s bounce, don’t let the shaft rotate counterclockwise as you swing through. Your trail hand should stay under the shaft, the knuckles on your lead hand pointing up. Use these keys to hit quality bunker shots.

Source:GolfDigest.com

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How to improve your contact with every club

How to improve your contact with every club

By Renee Trudeau O’Higgins

I’m going to assume you don’t need my advice to hit a putt solidly. That’s pretty easy to do. But what about the rest of your game? If you’re honestly assessing it, are you making great contact most of the time on your drives, irons, pitches, chips and bunker shots? Yep, you can hit bunker shots solidly—you’re just hitting the sand, not the ball. And the same logic applies: Better contact means better results. So instead of worrying about whether your left arm is straight during the backswing or some other swing thought, let’s get your focus back to where it should be during a swing—hitting the ball with the center of the clubface. Here I’ll give you advice on how to do that, and how to play better from the sand.

IMPROVE YOUR SEQUENCING

Golf is a lot more fun when you’re hitting your driver solidly. Players who struggle with this club typically have sequencing issues—the upper body is too involved at the start of the downswing. That forces the club into a steep, out-to-in path, and the ball is struck with a glancing blow.

I advise you to routinely check your driver’s face to see where your impact was. If it’s “toey” a lot, try to make sure your chest stays in the top-of-backswing position a beat or two longer. To get a feel for that, make swings with your driver on an upslope; no ball needed. The goal is to brush the ground then clip the tee. If your club crashes into the ground behind the tee, or the tee flies to the left, you’re upper body is still leading the downswing. Instead, hold it off for a count, and feel your lower body shift up the slope first.

STAY CONNECTED

An arms-only swing leads to fat and thin chips. You’ve got to get your body moving to chip effectively.

To train the body pivot, place a tee in your armpit closest to the target. Swing back and through trying to keep it there. You will if your arms and body move as one.

“Skilled iron play is about hitting it flush from all sorts of lies.”

RANDOMIZE PRACTICE

How often do you hit the same iron from the same lie in the same round? There’s always some variance once you’re off the tee. That’s why hitting it flush from the fairway or rough is all about adaptability.

Try this drill to assess how well you adjust. Drop three balls that come to rest in your hitting area. Now try to strike each one as solidly as you can without changing anything but the club’s position at address. You’ll soon find you have better awareness of how to swing to get the club to bottom out in front of each ball. This drill prepares you for how to adapt to get solid contact every time you swing.

CONTROL THE FACE

Many greenside sand shots get thinned into the bunker’s face. The problem often stems from trying to maintain a wide-open clubface throughout the swing. I know, I know; you were told to do that. But the thing is, if you leave the face wide open, you’ve got to make a pretty aggressive swing to get the ball out. And for many golfers, a big swing leads to inconsistency.

Instead, try hitting bunker shots with a closed clubface at address. If you keep your grip pressure medium to light, the club will open as it moves through the sand, and you’ll hit a solid shot with far less effort.

Source:GolfDigest.com

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