Thomas Baekdal is a huge motorsport fan, especially when it comes to the 24 hours of Le Mans. To put himself in total control about all the stuff happening in and around the race, he built a web app that combines information from all available sources and put together a neat application that looks like this:

What has this to do with golf? A lot! To follow the different tournaments I always have a couple of tabs open in my browser to see what is happening score- and newswise, parallel to that I scan what you fellow golf bloggers write about it. RSS made that one a little easier, but think about a monitoring aplication like the Le Mans thing for golf? Have all the live scorings parallel on one screen, including the latest news and multimedia sources, that would be a kickass application.

Now where is that programmer I can do that with?

The Golfclub Schloss Wilkendorf was one of the courses we played frequently during our first golfing years, as the clubs Westside Course was the only public 18 hole course around Berlin you could play with HCP 54. And what a nice one that was. Situated in the “Märkische Schweiz” east of Berlin, the terrain is unusually hilly and gave the course designers some nice terrain to work with. Almost all other golf clubs in and around Berlin are on flat terrain, so Wilkendorf really gives you a different experience. So let me introduce you to the two courses:

Sandy Lyle Course

As mentioned, I wanted to play the Sandy Lyle Course for a long time, at the beginning of my golfing career a couple of years ago. As a 36 handicap was needed to play the course, I had to work on my skills before I could do that. The tournament last monday finally gave me the chance to experience the course.

The Sandy Lyle Course was obviously designed by the famous Sandy Lyle and has a total lenght of 6.096 meters from the mens tees (par 72, CR 72,7, SL 132). Composed into a beautiful nature, it makes very good use of the terrain given, almost every hole plays up- or downhill or over some hilltop.

The first hole starts out relatively straightforward, a 345m par4 with a fairway being guarded by OB on the left and a biotope on the right side. The following par3 plays downhill, followed by an uphill par 5 with really nice bunker placement. You do not encounter a water hazard until the ninth hole, but the hole design and bunker placement, sidehill fairways make it really interesting and challenging to play the course. Don’t bomb it off the tee, good scores will come with smart ball placement. And take a moment in between holes to enjoy the beautiful scenery around you.

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Das Fazit der US Tour und der European Tour überlasse ich diese Woche mal Jürgen Kalwa. Und wenn Bernhard Langer nicht der Foremen der Woche wird, weiss ich auch nicht.

2007 PGA TOUR FedExCup
35. Platz (Vorwoche 73) Bernhard Langer mit 11 Events und 4.618 Punkten
132. Platz (Vorwoche 132) Alex Cejka mit 10 Events und 1.065 Punkten

2007 PGA Tour Money
39. Platz (Vorwoche 77) Bernhard Langer mit 11 Events und 1.078.329 Dollar
130. Platz (Vorwoche 132) Alex Cejka mit 10 Events 253.724 Dollar

2007 European Tour Order of Merit
57. Platz (Vorwoche 62) Martin Kaymer mit 13 Events und 206.353 Euro
116. Platz (Vorwoche 111) Sven Strüver mit 11 Events und 93.013 Euro
162. Platz (Vorwoche 166) Marcel Siem mit 8 Events und 51.754 Euro
272. Platz (Vorwoche 272) Bernhard Langer mit 1 Event und 3.739 Euro

Since ages I wanted to play the Sandy Lyle course over at Golfpark Schloss Wilkendorf and today pentecost tournament was a good opportunity to do that. Playing a tournament on a course you haven’t played before surely is a special challenge, but with the help of ao birdie book and trust in your game I thought I’d manage. Well, I sort of did:

Despite only playing 30 points, I wasn’t unhappy. After discarding six of eighteen, this still is not too bad. And I fucked these six holes up with my tee shots. Out of bounds or disappearing in the rough, always adding two shots to my score. The best recovery of the day was on the par 3 17th, where I hit my first tee shot to an unplayable lie underneath a tree, the second tee shot landed three meters from the pole and a nice putt gave me the bogey (what could have been a birdie, bugger).

I again played irons only, my four iron (longest in the bag) almost never let me down and gave me an average 190 to 200 meters. But to be honest, I want to be able to play my woods again, just to make the play more comfortable not having to rip it with every shot. It is good to know that you have long iron shots in the bag, but not having to pull them out every time.

The course was a true beauty in an immaculate condition. A review will be coming up this week.

Wednesday, 30. May 2007
22.05 Eurosport, European Tour, BMW PGA Championship in Wentworth (ENG)
22.35 Eurosport, Golf Club

Saturday, 02. June 2007
13.30 CNN, Living Golf
19.30 CNN, Living Golf

Sunday, 03. June 2007
09.30 CNN, Living Golf
15.30 CNN, Living Golf
20.30 CNN, Living Golf

Gnihihi!

Here’s a little pastime game for the more boring moments at the office. Or for your kids. They’ll learn some french, too.

My home club Gut Kaden plans to expand from 27 holes to 36 holes. To illustrate their plans for the public, they programmed a Google Earth layer that shows the amendment:

I like the work they did and the idea to use Google Earth as a presentation medium. It also could be used for existing courses to introduce the different holes just as a digital birdie book. Has this been done before? Any examples?

Ich bin ja mal gespannt, welche Preise es bei diesem Turnier zu gewinnen gibt:

Gestern auf golf.de entdeckt, das wöchentliche PDF-Magazin “Golf Journal Sports”. Auf 11 Seiten übersichtlich zusammengestellt findet man hier die neuesten Turnierberichte der European Tour, PGA Tour, Challenge Tour und natürlich auch LPGA Tour und Ladies European Tour. Angereichert mit aktuellen Spielerportraits gibt Golf Journal Sports einen guten und schnellen Überblick über das Turniergeschehen der vergangenen Woche. Die aktuelle Ausgabe findet sich hier.

Hinter der Publikation steht der Atlas-Verlag, der auch das Golf Journal herausgibt. In den Mediadaten des Atlas-Verlages stehen noch keine weiteren Informationen zu Golf Journal Sports, vielleicht ist es ja auch nur ein Versuchsballon. Auf jeden Fall gefällt mir Golf Journal Sports besser als die Golf Week, die seit letztem Jahr kostenlos in Golfclubs ausliegt, weil GJS fokussierter auf das Turniergeschehen eingeht und den ganzen Chi-Chi weglässt.

Übrigens hat die Golf Week es immer noch nicht geschafft, sich einen Internetauftritt zu basteln, http://www.golf-week.de/ ist seit letztem Jahr eine Baustelle. Peinlich genug. Und http://golfweek.de/gehört denen nicht mal, da habe ich gerade ein Angebot der Firma Active Value entdeckt, welches die Golfheadlines der letzten sieben Tage aus verschiedenen Quellen aggregiert. Sieht zwar auch unfertig aus, aber da kann ja noch was kommen.