National Hole-In-One Association Pays $50 Million in Cash and Prizes Since It’s Beginning

A charity or company has decided to host a special event, a golf tournament. The perfect golfing day has been chosen for the event, a spectacular venue, a day with optimum weather conditions, as well as adding the sizzle and excitement for all of the participants. The tournament director can see it now, the crowd of participants holding their breath waiting for the sound of the ball as it drops into the cup. Why are they breathlessly waiting? Because the tournament director added a hole-in-one contest to the 15th hole, and the closest shot of the day is taking their shot at a million dollar giveaway at the end of the tournament.

(PRWEB) March 26, 2007 — To make this fantastic event happen, charitable organizations and companies chose National Hole-In-One Association (http://www.hio.com) to help create an unforgettable experience for the golf tournament participants. NHIOA pioneered the American hole-in-one insurance industry, beginning in 1981. Since then, NHIOA has covered over 300,000 events and paid in excess of $50 Million in cash and prizes at thousand of golf tournaments including PGA events, charity golf events, and corporate events. With their unmatched experience supplying insurance coverage for hole in one contests, NHIOA will help sort out the details, provide best in industry quality golf signs, and offer excellent customer service. For as low as $104, National Hole-In-One Association will add excitement, integrity and security to your golfing event with unmatched experience in hole in one insurance, putting contests, and million dollar shootouts.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Golf Blog picks “Badds” for the Masters.  My brain can’t get past the Tiger. Read away:

“The Masters is only 2 weeks away. In preparation, The Golf Blog will be previewing some of the players to watch. We’ll tell you now that Tiger Woods is, of course, the odds-on favorite to win this year (more on him later), but there are at least a handful of golfers who are playing really well this year who might make a run.

Today’s feature is on Aaron Baddeley, the 26-year-old Aussie also known as “Badds.” Well, thank goodness those cheesy “Badds” commercials have stopped because now we can focus on Aaron’s golf game. Aaron revamped his swing, making it shorter and more compact. It appears to have paid off. He’s currently 6th on the money list, with 1 victory (FBR) and 3 Top 10 finishes (including a tie for 6th this past week at the CA Championship).”

Read more. 

Here is a portion of a great golf “psychology” article from the PGA.com website. In it, Andrew Mitchell, explains the “never give up” rule about golf that separates amateurs from the pros. To read the entire article, click here.

“A Lesson Learned”. You have to stay focused and determined. Golf is never a game of “give up”. Whether you are a weekend warrior, trying to get your TOUR card, or simply an average golfer, remember, ALWAYS focus on the next shot. It doesn’t matter how your ball got to where it did, it’s how we REACT and PREPARE for the next shot. You never know what the next shot brings, and if you stay committed, it could be glory. If you lose your focus, it could be tragic. But that’s part of the beauty of golf.

Take Zach Johnson. Twice this week, he chipped in from off the green — which probably made him tens of thousands of dollars. Or how about Mark Calcavecchia? He would definitely agree. Here’s a tour pro trying to make the top ten on the money list before the Masters, to ensure a trip to Augusta. Sitting in the middle of the fairway on #18 at Doral, he probably didn’t envision an 8 on the hole. But even as the wheels came off a bit, he regained his composure. So he made an 8, he didn’t make a 9 or 10 — and he’s headed to Augusta.

I admit it is a really great shot, but a press release, in the famouswords of Harry Caray: “Holy Cow!”. Good way to plug your gold academy I guess.

The San Diego Golf Academy proudly announces that Bret Melson, an accomplished student at SDGA Hawaii Campus, has set a new world record for the longest hole-in-one ever scored. Melson aced the 448-yard, par 4 at the Ko’olau Golf Club in Oahu, Hawaii.

Scottsdale, AZ (PRWEB) February 12, 2007 — The golf industry’s premier golf college, the San Diego Golf Academy proudly announces that Bret Melson, an accomplished student at SDGA Hawaii Campus, has set a new world record for the longest hole-in-one ever scored. Melson aced the 448-yard, par 4 at the Ko’olau Golf Club in Oahu, Hawaii, and his amazing story can now be viewed at www.sdgagolf.com/world_record_hole_in_one.php.

“I think every golfer dreams of acing a hole at least once in his or her lifetime, but never in my wildest dreams would I have thought about acing that particular par 4,” says Melton. “I knew the ball had reached the green, but when my friends and I got up there, we couldn’t find it. We looked for 15 minutes and I was totally shocked to find it at the bottom of the cup.”

Bill Preston beat odds of 9,222,500 to one by scoring the double while playing golf with his wife Carol at Mangawhai Golf Course near Auckland in New Zealand. According to the Daily Mail, he said: “When the ball went in for the second time there was a lot of shouting and cheering from the four playing on the tee in from of us.”

His wife added: “My reaction to the first was amazement. The second one was a real shock. I couldn’t believe it, nor could the people on the other tee. It was a real thrill.”

It was the first double hole-in-one in the club’s history.

Club manager Dave Barlow said: “All of us at the club were blown away by somebody getting two aces in one round.”

Mr Preston’s two hole-in-one balls will be mounted and his name added to the club’s honours board.

If you ever thought you couldn’t achieve something or that a goal was too difficult to reach, then Bill Hilsheimer has achievements to share with you.

He has only one hand, yet this week he accomplished his third hole-in-one while in Florida. Bill Hilshemier was golfing in Florida last week when he needed only one swing to hit the golf ball into the hole. This is a remarkable achievement for an amateur golfer who does not compete in the sport. Moreover, Hilshemier, age 68, hit his third without using his right arm.

He overcame the odds of 12,600 to 1 when he made his first hole-in-one. He also overcame the odds 59 year ago when a train ran over his hand after he fell onto the coupling of the railroad tracks. The wheel of the train separated his thumb, first two fingers, and part of his palm from the rest of his hand.

Amazingly, Bill Hilshemier still played baseball, basketball, and football while he was in high school and he continues to defy the odds on the golf course. His inspiring determination and belief in himself illustrates a “you can” attitude.

Thanks to KidsNewsRoom.org for posting

While Vijay Singh is an incredible talent his prickliness with the media is well documented. And sometimes hilarious. This blog post from Golfweek hits the spot.

“Funny story about Vijay Singh and Bay Hill. I was covering the tournament in 1993, before Vijay Singh was Vijay Singh, if you know what I mean. Nobody really knew much about him, but Arnold Palmer had extended an invitation to Singh to come play what was then called the Nestle Invitational.

Read the rest of this entry »

Interestingly Mick’s relationshp with Tiger has been quite “cool” over the years. I think this acknowledgement from someone as talented and as big a draw as Phil Mickelson sheds even more light on how much Woods means to the PGA Tour.

Phil Mickelson vigorously backed Tiger and Tiger’s ability to call his shots on the format of his tournament, even if an “invite only” event.

“I think it’s important for the Tour to be in Washington,” he said. “I think it’s important for the Tour to have a very strong relationship with Tiger, and that tournament does both. And I think that we shouldn’t be narrow-sighted on the fact that Tiger creates so much excess revenue for the Tour. All of the excess revenue from the Tour goes to support those tournaments, and most of that money is driven by Tiger. So you’re looking at 450 spots that Tiger is creating. If we look at the big picture, he does a heck of a lot more with his tournament, and his involvement, for the game of golf. I think we need to be real careful on that.”

Click here for the balance of the article on USA Today.

The game of golf has never been better described than by this video. It breaks down the 288 necessary components for a repeating and flawless golf swing. Thanks J. C. Anderson.

Arnold Palmer has a hard time realizing how far his tournament has come. Talking it up with the the Golf Channel commentators yesterday, discussing toughening up an already hard Bay Hill course and also how well his personal invitee, Rocco Mediate (one of my favorites on tour as well) was doing, Arnie was in his element.

Tanned and relaxed, he stared out at some four dozen people, most of them media, a bank of cameras at the back of the room. To his side was the new trophy with a statue of Palmer lashing away with his driver.

The winner also will get $990,000, about half as much as Palmer made in his 50 years on the PGA Tour.

The name of the tournament has a nice ring: The Arnold Palmer Invitational.

“My daughters are responsible for that,” Palmer said. “While I was playing, I would have never allowed it. That was first stipulation for not making any name change. I liked the Bay Hill Invitational logo. But when I stopped playing, that sort of opened the door for the possible name change.”

He remembers being asked to host the tournament at Bay Hill in 1979, and “it’s worked out pretty well.”

“The first tournament was $100,000, and that was about the average on tour in those days,” he said. Of course, this year we’re $5.5 million. That’s reasonable progress in 29 years.”

There has been progress all around him.

Palmer hails from Latrobe, Pa., and he used to travel to south Florida to practice in the winter when he first turned professional. But the Miami area was too crowded for his tastes, so he began scouting areas up and down the coasts of Florida.