7 minute read
GOLF
from SAM October 2020
PRO TIPS
Advertisement
Richard Hudson and Eddie Charnock, Algarve Golf Guru, PGA Professionals discuss Club Head Rotation when Chipping
One of the key factors to successful To help you with this feeling of staying connected with a chipping is how the club face works natural rotation you can place two sticks on the ground during the takeaway and the follow as shown in the above pictures at 45 degrees to your through. So many golfers believe that feet alignment. These sticks help you to realise how the club face has to move straight much wrist manipulation is needed during the backswing back and straight through to target, and follow through in an attempt to keep the club face to hit the ball straight and to stop you on your target line. from flicking the wrists. To do this move requires a wrist manipulation which does not help you create consistency Your chance to WIN! and can cause you to flick. Win a 30 minute golf lesson with The Gurus!
To start the takeaway, move the clubhead along the name will be entered in to a draw to take place on the 1st target line, your arms want to naturally move the club November. this way, allowing for a natural rotation during the takeaway. You will feel the clubhead slightly fanning on Who was the highest placed European in the 2020 US the way back (see pic 1). Return the clubhead to the ball, Open? at impact your club face will be square as you have made a natural movement on the takeaway. The manipulated Please email your answer to sales@algarvegolfguru.com straight back takeaway is not the way as this causes To discuss the areas covered above or to book a golf a closed club face and loss of bounce at impact! After lesson, please contact Richard or Eddie and mention impact, you keep the body moving, so allowing your club Simply Algarve as a referral. and arms to follow a natural rotation, with the clubhead E: sales@algarvegolfguru.com W: algarvegolfguru.com staying connected (see pic 2). Just answer the following question correctly and you
GRAPHIC DESIGN?
SPEAK TO US
Quality Portuguese cuisine with an International twist...
Enjoy and explore texture, colour & ultimate tastes with a carefully selected menu at reasonable prices. Fish & meat specialities as well as homemade desserts from this Family run restaurant.
Wednesday Special: Curry night Friday Special: Fish and Chips night (Sole and Fresh Cod).
Available for business and groups on request Open from 7pm Monday to Saturday, closed on Sundays Please call 289 396 638 to book your table
Greenvalleyrestaurant.com Valverde, Quinta do Lago Algarve, Portugal
Parting words...
I never learned to sail. But I love the idea of catching the wind to the next place. It’s such a romantic idea. Jake Cleaver looks to control the wind as he peers into the world of Sailing to find out just how they catch the wind to their next destination.
One of the great things about living here in the Algarve is that occasionally you turn around and think hang on a minute.. Am I in a postcard?
“Blue skies and sailing boats, like a picture in a book, I can’t believe I got here and how long it took.” Mike Scott of the Waterboys sang in his song “Long way to the
Light”. It’s a song that rings in my ears at such moments. I never learned to sail. But I love the idea of catching the wind to the next place. It’s such a romantic idea. And so clever. I mean to start with we would just have had to have been like Freddy Mercury and just go “any way the wind blows”, even if it did, unlike Freddy, matter to you. The discovery of how to tack and jibe, or to the uninitiated like me, zig and zag up into the wind is quite mind boggling. I do however like to dream, and I like to read books on sailors and to follow them on Youtube. Living vicariously is easier now than ever before. One of my favourite Youtube channels is called “Sailing La Vagabonde”. They are an Australian couple called Elayna and Riley, that have been sailing around the world for the last 5 years, and in their words “have recently found themselves with a stowaway” - little baby Lenny, who is about two already. It has been very exciting recently, as after sailing Greta Thunberg across the Atlantic, from America to Lisbon, at the end of last year. They travelled down to Lagos where, due to the virus, they ended up getting stuck. When things started up again, and they were allowed to start sailing La Vagabonde once more. They came across and stayed near the island of Culatra, and explored all around our neck of the woods. Very exciting! But why, you may say? You live here. You already know what it’s like. But I feel like it’s a case of like when you first go on Google Earth, and have the world at your fingertips. You can go literally ANYWHERE. Where do you go? Your house. It’s fun to see them sailing around our postcard for a while. You know how sometimes Google automatically translates things for you? And normally it gets things right (I mean it speaks more languages than me so I’m not judging), but sometimes it doesn’t. One example of this was an advertisement for a sailing course that popped up for me on the interweb. (Google, have you been listening to me?) It said come on down and learn to “Candle in the Wind”. You see, in Portuguese it would be called “Vela ao Vento” which means to sail in the wind. However, Vela in Portuguese also means Candle, and Google, rather amusingly, decided to get all Elton John about it. If I do ever get a sailing boat I’ll
be sure to call it the “Norma Jean”, so that when people
watch me sail off into the sunset they will be able to say “Goodbye Norma Jean”, and that I lived my life like.. Well, you know.
“Vela”, is also not to be confused with “Vê-lá” (go see or make sure). Such confusion, no wonder Google struggled. In Portuguese you could be told to “Vê-lá se acendes a vela no meu barco a vela” (make sure you light the candle on my sailing boat). Although, it’s probably difficult to keep a candle alight while sailing along, that’s why this probably hasn’t caused too much confusion, yet.
And just to make it more confusing, in Portuguese ‘Vela’, can also mean playing gooseberry. You know, being the third wheel on a date. They say that a person “está a fazer vela”, which means he (or she) is acting as the candle. A very funny expression, but also, you know, makes sense. Who knows what a gooseberry has to do with anything?? Maybe that’s the point..
There’s lots of roundabouts here in the Algarve. A great improvement on traffic lights, that do exactly that - cause traffic. But the great thing is that they are all different. So you can’t get too lost. My favourite is the one I now think of as the
Now, back to postcards if I may. Not too many people send them anymore. Why bother when people know where you are instantly on Instagram? Perhaps that’s a shame, as when people get home from their holidays there’s little point asking them how it went. You already know what they had for breakfast everyday..
Maybe it’s not all bad though. Apparently when people used to send postcards back from their holidays, quite often they would get home before their postcards. Talk about your past catching up with you.
Because postcards really are a window into the past. And it’s so lovely to look back at the ones that my Granny and Grandpa sent me when I was younger. Not that I can understand their writing (and they weren’t even doctors). I need my parents to decipher it.
But as I said in the beginning, living here in the Algarve is pretty picture perfect and so unspoilt. How lucky are we? We don’t need to go anywhere. Going outside is like taking a step back - into a postcard.
