Guessing Yardage

So the past little while, I've played a few courses and gotten frustrated with guessing yardages to hazards and greens. The 100/150/200 yard markers are always there to help but even those seem suspect at times. A few friends of mine have range finders so I've got to see laser and GPS in action. The laser gives you exact distance to the flag but I don't think it helps with distance to hazards unless there's a marker of some sort for the laser to bounce off of. GPS units seem to vary quite a bit. Some will only give you yardage to the front, middle and back of the green while others will give yardage to hazards, driving distance as well as keep your score. The majority of GPS units have a fee attached in order to access their course database. This website has a good GPS comparison table.

I was leaning toward a GPS unit primarily because I want to be able to get yardages to hazards. There's nothing worse than thinking you picked the right club to lay up or carry a hazard only to see your ball disappear into it. I didn't want to spend a load of dough and I didn't want to pay an annual $30 subscription fee. This pretty much narrowed it down significantly. I ended up choosing a Sonocaddie V100. It retails for usd$149 shipped from many online retailers and you pay a one time subscription fee of usd$29.95. I ended up getting mine from a Canadian distributor through their ebay store.

I'll post more about it once I've had it out on the course a few times.

Maloof Money Cup 2009

Mark Appleyard - 360 flip 5-0

The contest was weeks ago... long gone... but I gotta link you to Rob Brink cuz he's got the sickest animated gifs including Appleyard x 3 and Mike Mo as well as many others.




Mark Appleyard - switch fs 180 to 5-0




Mark Appleyard - fs 180 fakie nose grind



Mike Mo - switch bs flip

Saturday, July 25, 2009 in Vancouver

We seldom get thunder and lightning in Vancouver but we got a killer display this past Saturday. It's probably better to watch this sucker muted.

Wet golf course

The host city of the Canadian Open got an insane amount of rain this past weekend. This video illustrates how saturated it got. At the 4 second mark, it looks like they are liposuctioning the fairway.

Santa Cruz Rob Roskopp target

There were always a few kids you knew growing up who were the first to skate. They had real pro boards before anyone else, learned how to ollie first etc. A friend of mine in grade 8 had this Rob Roskopp in hot pink and it was one of the first pro boards I ever held in my hands. I never even knew at the time that this graphic was part of a series of monster-breaking-through-a-target. Jim Phillips is an amazing skateboard artist. Board graphic from Disposable.

Pat Perez

Golf's very own tantrum kid is in the hunt this week at the RBC Canadian Open (held at Glen Abbey Golf Course, Oakville, Ontario, Canada). He's currently sitting at 8th after a rain delayed friday. I gotta be patriotic though and root for fellow Canucks Mike Weir and Stephen Ames.

Made in the USA

I find it ironic that one of the evil corporate giants of the skateboard world from the 1980's is still pressing decks in the USA while 99% of the upstart early 90's companies that overtook them have moved to China and Mexico for their board manufacturing.

Swiss Bearings: $25

Here's a rare chance to get a set of Swiss bearings for cheap + free shipping code IPCC9L69 if you spend over $50. There's also these Chocolate Swiss bearings for $25 with free shipping.

Richard S. Johnson at the Open

Everyone's favourite former skateboarding PGA player Richard S. Johnson tied for 8th at the Open Championship. Congrats!

Vision Psycho Stick

Along with the classic Gator, this was another board that was popular with the 80's poser. What is up with the wavy rail shape? Right up there in whackiness with the Schmitt Stix Rip Saw. Board graphic from Disposable.

Expedition - Hello x 3

Expedition clip from their China trip. So psyched on this team. Nice to see Ottawa transplant and Vancouver resident Spencer Hamilton killing it.

Open Championship

Padraig Harrington going for three Open wins in a row. Three... is a magic number. Good luck Irishman!

Bearings

I can remember a time back in the late 80's when 99% of bearing sold in skate shops were GMN and NMB. The other 1% was Powell Swiss and they were super rare. Now it seems there are over a 100 different varieties.

The past week or so, there's been discussions about bearings at Skate and Annoy. I'm not convinced the ABEC rating system has anything to do with good skateboard bearings but I will admit the first set of generic ABEC 7's I had back in the early 90's were the fastest bearings I ever rode up to that point, although they felt loose, the shields fell off and they busted pretty fast. The best set of bearings I've ever had though were Powell Swiss as well as these Terminator T2 Pro Gold's a friend of mine gave me. Suckers were fast! I definitely prefer bearings with the removable nylon cage for easy cleaning and, in my experience, I think that design is better than a metal cage. Right now I'm riding some Powell Red's which seem pretty good. I do feel I have to clean and lube them a lot though. First post here is a bunch of info on bearings courtesy of RocknRon.

H-Street Sal Barbier Raiders

Sal's first pro board shortly after the release of Hokus Pokus. He got the
intro part (2:50)... "Swamp rat, super good." In my city, pretty much all H-Street street rider pro models were super popular that year. Graphic from here.

Griptape Eraser

Was just reading this Ryan Gallant Welcome to Circa interview and he talks about cleaning his griptape a lot.

A friend of mine had gotten a Vision Grip Brick back in the late 80's, which was this tan block of soft gummy stuff. It was extremely good at removing dust from your griptape and the stuff lasts forever. If you step in dog shit or get bird crap or wet mud/dirt on your grip, this thing is not going to help remove it. I ended up inheriting the grip brick and had it for several years and it barely had a dent in it. I told myself that I wouldn't quit skating until the day it wore out. I ended up losing it at some point in the early 90's, which totally sucked. Several years later, I was at my local skate shop and they had this giant sander in the back room for sanding the bases of snowboards. Turns out the grip brick is just a belt sander cleaner. They had a bunch of these and I ended up with a new griptape cleaner. Stoked! Now with this one, I told myself I wouldn't quit skating until the day it wore out. The pic above is the sucker today. It's 15+ years old. Pretty sure my body will reject skateboarding (due to the abuse it puts on it) before the griptape cleaner wears out.

Dennis Busenitz

Man... dude is so sick.

H-Street Colby Carter Cactus

I've been lagging on blog posts the past several days cuz I was laying down
cork floors in my pad. My back and my knees are toast. Hokus Pokus was some ground breaking shit back in the day. The skateboarding world was introduced to Colby Carter (7:11) and Sal Barbier, who each got pro models shortly after the video. I remember this board was in heavy rotation that spring in my city. Graphic from here.

Puma C-Hopper golf shoes

I can't help being psyched on these Puma golf shoes.

Espionner

Happy Canada Day! Not gonna do a National Pride post like last year. Here's a classic Girl ad. Rick Howard rules. Below is some Rick Howard love from the 100th issue of Concrete Powder.