Robbinhurst Golf Club and Driving Range

“There are a lot of different ways to approach the game of golf," Andrew Elderkin said. "Golfers can be different sizes and weights, but still be successful. It is all about how you conduct yourself on the course.”

The golfers at Robbinhurst call it a “hidden gem.” Nestled between Chesterton, Valparaiso, and Portage with a picturesque landscape of rolling hills, pine trees, and challenging water, it has become taylormade burner superfast 2.0 driver Stuart and Andrew’s life’s work. They both begin their days before dawn, and end the day hitting a few balls either on the putting green or the driving range.

Andrew began playing golf at 4 years old. In 2007 he became a certified USGTF professional with additional certification in golf club repair. This fall he will be participating in the Master Professional program through USGTF. Stuart was his basic skills coach, imprinting golf etiquette and strategy. Acting as the first golf professional at Robbinhurst, Stuart realized and appreciated different personalities that came through the course. With Andrew, he wanted to stress the importance of patience and conduct while playing the game of golf.

This year the duo has decided to join forces to encourage families with young boys and girls these same taylormade burner superfast 2.0 fairway wood life lessons that have been ingrained in the Elderkin family tradition. Robbinhurst’s Junior Golf Program, their most popular program of the season, teaches not only discipline and technique, but can be the first experience with golf many youth will have. All skill levels are welcome.

The course began as a farm, with the old windmill still standing at the first hole. Stuart Elderkin, a former dentist in Toronto, has been around since the beginning, spending weekends in Indiana building the golf course with his wife and family. A Jack of all trades, he had his hands in everything; from the construction of the clubhouse and golfer discount golf clubs education, to maintenance operations. Andrew Elderkin was born in 1979, as the golf course was just beginning to take off, and inevitably fell into the family trade.

“Working with my family at our course has created for me an even greater sense of responsibility,” Andrew Elderkin said.

The Holywood-man will tee-off with South African Ernie Els

The Holywood-man will tee-off with South African Ernie Els on Thursday morning, with Martin Laird also in the group.

Casey called it "a grind", while Poulter said after a second-round 74 completed with a double-bogey seven last May: "You're watching, you tell me, is it fun?"

"That wasn't the plan," said Els. "He didn't hit that bad a shot. The penalty was quite severe.

Head greenkeeper Chris Kennedy described discount golf clubs as "the most difficult build up I have ever known", adding: "March was the warmest and driest in 120 years and April was the wettest on record.

"You make changes on a great course like the West Course people are going to not like it.

Els hopes the moaning and groaning about his new-look Wentworth becomes a thing of the past this week.

Royal Portrush seems to be the epicentre of all golfing matters this year with the Irish Close championship there this weekend (Friday to Sunday), the Irish Open scheduled for June 28-July 1, and the amateur North of Ireland championship from July 9-13.

"It's history and we've patched things up with all the players. You're not going to please everybody, but I don't believe everybody should criticise just because there's changes."

At The Island in north County Dublin, the Irish Women's Open Stroke Play championship takes place over 54 holes on Saturday and Sunday. Leona Maguire (Slieve Russell) launches her defence of the title.

"Now May is shaping up to be the coldest in decades. We've had hail, white frosts and driving rain. It's been so hard getting quality grass to grow."

The former world number three felt more pain in the shoulder he dislocated snowboarding on Christmas Eve and last week fell out of the game's top 50.

"I'll go it full whack then," he said. "I've got to get my brain to trust that I can't hurt it any more.

"The way it was put forward the first year Taylormade Rocketballz Irons was a little childish (he hated the fact it was played out in the media rather than in private), but hopefully we'll have more smiling faces from the players this year.

Further changes have been made since, among them the 12th hole reverting to a par five and the fringe rough around the final green making it less likely that balls will spin into the water — as happened to Westwood as he lost a play-off and the world number one spot to Luke Donald.

"It's amazing how the brain controls the body almost involuntarily. I'm frustrated, but I'm not stressed about it because I believe I can still play better golf than I ever have before."

l THE elite competitors in Irish amateur men TaylorMade R11S Driver  and women's golf will be on display at two renowned links courses in the north and south of the island.

Lewis strives for second consecutive win

Top-ranked Yani Tseng posted a 3-and-1 win over American Katie Futcher, and No. 2 ranked Na Yeon Choi was a 3-and-2 winner of fellow South Korean Jenny Shin.

American Angela Stanford, the No. 12 seed and the runner-up to Yoo two years ago, was impressive with a front-running 4-and-3 win over Eun-Hee Ji of South Korea. Stanford will play Hurst discount golf clubs in the third round.

"I don't think Suzann losing really opens things up for me," said Lewis, who was in Pettersen's bracket. "I think I've got a lot of tough matches still ahead of me, and there were a lot of upsets yesterday, so it just shows what match play is. Anything could happen on any given day."

"That's the reason I go out and play every day," Lewis said. "I think I've probably been playing as good, if not better, than a lot of the American players and I haven't got noticed yet, and that's what drives me every day to go out and get better and to keep playing and to keep winning matches. I think if you're up on that leaderboard enough and you win enough golf tournaments, people will start to take notice.

Lewis never gave Gal a chance. The former Arkansas star played 15 holes in 5-under par. She made birdies of 4, 10 and 30 feet on the first three holes and won the fourth when Gal bogeyed. The German moved within 2-down after 11 holes, but Lewis birdied the 13th and 14th to open daylight again.

Cristie Kerr, last year's runner-up and the No. 5 ranked player, lost Friday along with No. 7 Jiyai Shin and No. 14 Karrie Webb. Eleven of the 20 seeded players in the 64-woman field have been eliminated.

So is Lewis. She has a win and four other top-10 finishes with earnings of $436,746, fourth best on tour.

Kerr saved par from a greenside TaylorMade RocketBallZ Driver bunker at No. 18 to extend the match, but she hit her second shot into a lateral hazard on the first playoff hole and had to take a drop. Hurst opened the door a little by missing the green and knocking her third about 4 feet past the cup. However, Kerr, winless since 2010, missed her bogey putt and conceded the match.

Julieta Granada of Paraguay posted the most impressive win on Friday with a 6-and-5 thrashing of Ryann O'Toole, who eliminated Lincicome in the first round.

Jodi Ewart of England, who knocked out Pettersen in the opening round, sent another Scandanavian to the sideline with a 3-and-1 win over veteran Sophie Gustafson. The 24-year-old will face Azahara Munoz. The Spaniard beat Webb 2 and 1.

The 27-year-old Lewis has more TaylorMade RocketBallZ fairway wood pressing problems. Her third-round opponent will be Sun Young Yoo, who won this event two years ago and the tour's first major earlier this year, the Kraft Nabisco Championship.

The weekend will be double rounds. The third round and the quarterfinals will be played Saturday, and the semifinals and championship on Sunday.

how Matt Kuchar won The Players Championship

Golf is impossible to predict as it is. Throw in the mystery that is the TPC Sawgrass, and there’s no telling who beats the strongest and deepest field in golf. You’ve heard the line about there being horses for courses? This is more like predicting the dot race on video screens at a baseball game.

Think of Sawgrass and the image of Fred Couples comes to mind as a two-time winner. The first two times Couples was at Sawgrass, he missed the cut. The next year, he won. And the  Mizuno JPX-800 Irons following year, he made the cut with one shot to spare. Davis Love III, another two-time winner, captured his first Players Championship in his seventh try. He missed the cut three times and was disqualified once before then.

"There’s no other course that less people have worked out than this one," Geoff Ogilvy said, who is still trying to do just that. He closed with a 69 on Sunday. It was only his third round in the 60s in 11 years at The Players Championship. This from a guy who has won a U.S. Open and two World Golf Championships. He’s got a little bit of game.

"Everyone who has played here, they have never really been that consistent here," Woods said. "I mean, everyone. Going from the time Jerry Pate won, no one has really contended here or been in contention 70, 80 percent of the time. Some golf courses, you get certain guys playing well there no matter what."

By now, everyone knows that Sawgrass is not as friendly as Firestone or Torrey Pines for the 14-time major champion. When he tied for 40th last week, it was the fifth time he has finished out of discount golf clubs the top 30. Woods has never finished out of the top 30 more than twice at any other tournament.

Steve Stricker and David Toms, both reliable customers, have missed as many cuts as they have made at Sawgrass.

Throw in the other three players from the "Big Four" of that generation — Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els and Vijay Singh — and it doesn’t get much better. Mickelson had a chance to win only once at Sawgrass, the year he won in 2007. Singh’s only good chance was in 2001, when he was runner-up to Woods. Els never has come close.

Rory McIlroy is not off to a roaring start at Sawgrass. In his three times at The Players Championship, he has yet to make par or make it to the weekend. This year, he became the first No. 1 player in the world to miss the cut at Sawgrass since Greg Norman in 1996. McIlroy is only 23, and he’ll figure it out one of these days — maybe even next year.

It should come as no surprise that of the PGA Tour events that have been around for at least 30 years, The Players Championship is the only one without a back-to-back winner.

Now consider this: Despite a level of consistency unseen in this generation — 72 wins over 15 years, and finishing among the top three in 44 percent of his tournaments — he has only seriously Mizuno MX-1000 irons contended twice at Sawgrass. He was runner-up to Hal Sutton in 2000 and picked up his only win the next year.

average foreign-exchange student for Stanley-Boyd

But at the same time, Groan is doing something not a whole lot of foreign-exchange students can say they’ve done. Namely, he’s been one of the top performers on the Stanley-Boyd golf team.

In Norway, because of the lack of available courses, golfers must actually acquire a “green card” to play. This means that those wishing to golf must attend classes that teach the rules and etiquette of the game,  as well as how to play it. When you step on a Norwegian golf course, there aren’t a whole lot of beginners. Everyone knows the rules, everyone knows how to play.

Having golfed for the past six years in Norway, Groan didn’t quite have the adjustment joining the golf team as he did with other aspects of life in the U.S.  In fact, he even pointed out that  Mizuno JPX-800 Irons his host father Jim Brinker wanted Groan to live with his family because of their shared love of golf.

“They play ‘ready-golf’ over there, which means he’ll shoot first (when he’s not supposed to) and it’s all about speed of play,” Norrell said. “Over there, you hurry up and golf. He does not socialize on the course...he’s always thinking about how he’s going to hit his next shot.”

“He’s such a mature individual,” Norrell said. “He’s just a delight to be around because he has a professional attitude. He has a lot of respect for people and everyone who plays with him or comes into contact with him thinks that he’s one of the greatest kids there is.”

“Focus,” he said when asked what his greatest strength on the course is. “Being able to put your mind on the task and what you’re supposed to do.”

Golf has been a huge part of Groan’s life since he was old enough to learn how to play and that wasn’t going to change because he lived in a foreign country. After running cross country in the fall, Groan joined the Stanley-Boyd golf team this spring and he’s excelled on the taylormade burner superfast 2.0 fairway wood course, being at or near the top of the leaderboard for the Orioles in most of the events they’ve played in this year. Most recently, at a meet in Black River Falls on Tuesday, Groan shot an 84 and finished fifth overall.

“He’s had some great training,” Stanley-Boyd coach Larry Norrell said. “Whoever taught him taught him to look for these principles in a golf swing and if you watch him on the golf course, every swing he does, he analyzes.”

Sure, he experiences some of the same feelings that foreign students typically do. At first, he felt a little uneasy being thousands of miles away from his home in Oslo, Norway. Then, there was the obvious language barrier. And of course, he’s missed his family while spending close to a year at Stanley-Boyd High School.

Groan is hoping to either go to medical school or become a pilot after he graduates from high school in Norway next year. Both professions will require many years of schooling and countless hours of hard work. But if his attitude on the golf course is any indication, that shouldn’t be much of a problem for Groan.

Groan certainly has no arguments with his coach about that. While golf can be a social, even leisurely activity for many Titleist 712 AP1 Irons, Groan takes it as seriously as he does the other parts of his life, working to improve every day.

That focus and drive is something that’s ingrained within Groan, not only because of his own determination but because of the culture of Norwegian golf in general.

While Norrell thinks that this culture difference has directly contributed to Groan’s advanced skill level, he’s still had to adjust to the U.S. style of play.