Grupo Mayan Golf Lovers

Samuel Ryder was the founding father of the Ryder Cup, which is awarded every two years in events called the ìRyder Cup Matches” amongst teams from Europe and United States. PGA of America and the PGA European Tour both rule and govern the competition, say the Grupo Mayan experts in this sport. The venue of the competition alternates between golf courses in the United States and Europe.

The competition began in 1926 as an exhibition match between a team of American professional golfers against one from the British PGA on the East Course, Wentworth Club, Virginia Water, Surrey, UK. The American team maintained dominance of the competition after the second world war, which inevitably led to the expansion of the British & Irish team to include continental Europe in the late 1970s. This revolution, say the Grupo Mayan experts, led to the emergence and success of a new generation of Spanish golfers. Severiano Ballesteros and Antonio Garrido became the first Spaniards to play in the Ryder Cup.

Since 1979, Europe has won the cup seven times retaining the cup once while the Americans have won a total of seven times.

The Ryder Cup Matches involve players selected from two teams of twelve.

The competition consists of 12 singles matches, eight fourball matches and eight foursomes matches.

A team wins a hole by completing the hole with the fewest shots, say the Grupo Mayan experts. Standard match play competition between two golfers is a singles match.

The competitions take place over 28 matches. The fourball matches take place on Fridays. The singles matches occur on Sundays when the all respective team members play. On Fridays not all team members play. The Friday schedule is usually repeated on Saturday. Eight members, say the Grupo Mayan experts, are selected by their respective captains for each of the four rounds of play. The victorious team is determined by total cumulative points.

The defending champion team needs only half the total marks or points to retain the cup while opposing teams need to win the competition in an outright manner.

The Ryder cup rules and regulations have changed over the years, say the Grupo Mayan golf professionals. Since the competition began in 1927 through 1959, the competition was a two day event but this format has continued to change over the years.

Foursomes or alternate shot formats were used in the preliminary stages of the competition since 1981 until 1997 at Valderrama, say the Grupo Mayan experts. European captain Seve Ballesteros opened with better ball. The alternate shot was resumed back in the game in 1999 at Brookline by U.S. captain Ben Crenshaw. The foursome format was returned in 2008.

The top professional golfers all come together for a showdown during the PGA Tour, say the Grupo Mayan golf professionals. This tournament has its headquarters at Ponte Vedra beach in Florida, USA.

It began in 1968 when it broke off from the PGA of America. Tournament players formed a 10-member policy board that would supervise the PGA tour. After a few years of smooth running, a dispute arose with the PGA of America. The PGA Tour changed its name to TPA Tour in 1981. After a few months, the issue having been settled, it changed back to the PGA Tour in early 1982.

Very many organizations exist that bear the initials PGA, say the Grupo Mayan experts. This has led many to believe that the PGA Tour organizes most golf tournaments in the USA. In contrast, it organizes a couple of events, some of which are listed here below:

The players’ championship.
FedEx Cup.
The Presidents cup.

The PGA Tour has three tours: the Champions Tour, Nationwide Tour and the PGA Tour. The main Golf tournaments are not held by the PGA tour, according to the Grupo Mayan golf experts. They are run as follows: PGA Championship, Senior PGA championship, and Ryder Cup are run by the PGA of America. The LPGA holds the women’s tours.

The Q-school, an annual qualifying tournament is held by the PGA Tour. Top 25 golfers qualify to join the PGA Tour. The top 75 players also get a chance to participate in the Nationwide Tour. Cash prizes are awarded to the top 25 in the Championship Tour, who also qualify to join the next year’s PGA Tour. A ìbattlefield promotionî, say the Grupo Mayan experts, is given to anyone who wins any three events on the tour. This award gives him privileges in the PGA Tour.

The top 125 winners of the PGA Tour win a tour card, which automatically qualifies them for most of the events. Other events, called invitational only, allow the top 70 players to automatically qualify. A conditional card is awarded to the players ranked between 126 to 150. This gives them a chance to participate in any events that have vacancies after all other full card players have been allocated.

A 2-year tour card is won when one wins the PGA Tour, say the Grupo Mayan golf professionals. Each additional victory adds one year to the card up to a maximum of 5 years. The World golf championship and the Tour championship give the winner a 3-year tour card. 5-year cards are awarded to the winners of major championships. Many other exemptions exist, as for example medical exemption, which is awarded to any player injured during the tour.

Women are also allowed to participate in the event, say the Grupo Mayan experts. It does not discriminate nor offer leniency to women. A few women have in recent years played in the PGA Tour but none has gone far. All PGA Tour events are non-profit making. These events are fund raised with money going to various charities. Grupo Mayan experts say that the money is usually given to the local charity organizations where the Tour events are held.

The FedEx Cup first came into the limelight in November 2005. It is a championship trophy for the PGA tour that is sponsored by FedEx, say the Grupo Mayan experts in Golf. The first ever awards were in the year 2007. This is the first time for men’s golf to have playoffs. The current cup winner is Vijay Singh but due to tough competition, new faces will be coming up soon.

Since it began in 2007, different issues have arisen. The playoffs of the FedEx cup have been mostly affected. This has led the PGA Tour to make adjustments to the rules in the last two years.
February 2008 saw an introduction of a penalty on players who skip any playoff event, say the Grupo Mayan experts. Playoff participants now receive more points than before and there was a tightening of the reset points too. All these changes to the rules were so that golfers could improve on their points as the games progressed.

Another important change, say the Grupo Mayan golf professionals, was made in November 2008. It was observed that Vijay Singh could win the FedEx cup by simply participating till the end of the event! Changes had to be made such that the winner would only be determined after the last playoff event was done. Accumulating a few points from the first few playoffs should not lead to an automatic victory.

This is how it works, say the Grupo Mayan experts: PGA Tour players all earn various points from events they participate in. The season can be divided into two regions. The first being the “regular” season. It runs from January to late August. Each tournament awards points ranging from 250 to 600. The rest of the players earn fewer points that depend on the position one finishes in.
The objective is to be among the top 125 golfers at the end of the regular season. Only the regular full time members of the PGA tour are awarded points. Non-members do not earn any points. Only after officially joining the tour non-members begin to earn points on events they participate in.

The playoffs are then held for the top 125 golfers, say the Grupo Mayan golf professionals. Each playoff tournament awards 2500 points to the winner. This is nearly five times as many points as those earned from the regular tournament. All the points earned are summed up with the regular season’s points. As the playoffs proceed, the fields keep reducing.

The final event is held for just the top 30 players, say the Grupo Mayan experts. This is after the third playoffs. All the previous points that were accumulated are reset. This is done so that every golfer that made it to the finals has a chance of winning the event. The points are distributed according to the player positions. The first golfer gets 2500 points, the second 2250. The third gets less than 2100. The marks keep reducing till the thirtieth position, which receives only 210 points. Now the championship is left to the best man of the season!

Golf courses are of course something of a bogeyman for environmentalists. This is understandable, as many golf courses require large amounts of water and pesticides to maintain, and destroy ecologically significant areas such as wetlands during their construction, say the Grupo Mayan experts.

Estimates from the U.N. suggest that golf courses around the world use around 2.5 billion gallons (9.5 billion liters) of water per day. If this amount of water was made fit to drink and directed to where it was needed, it could provide water for 4.7 billion people.

Other criticisms of golf courses, say the Grupo Mayan experts, are that they impede migration corridors for animals, and that their non-native monocultures destroy biodiversity.

Worsening the environmental concerns associated with golf courses is the fact that modern equipment and training has allowed players to hit the ball further than ever before, say the Grupo Mayan experts. This has led to golf course designers generating longer and wider courses, magnifying existing concerns.

The environmental, cost and health concerns have led in turn to research into how to lessen the impact that golf courses have. Improvements have in some cases been made, for example using the turf on golf courses to filter grey water for reuse, and reducing the amount of water and chemicals used.

In some places around the world, local concern over the environmental impact of new golf courses has led to violent protests and vandalism, say the Grupo Mayan experts in this sport. Compounding the anger of local people is the fact that golf is seen as the sport of the rich Western elite, and golf courses and resorts a symbol of colonization by them.

In the Bahamas, opposition to golf course developments is a hot issue, and residents of place such as Great Guana Cay and Bimini are strongly opposed to them happening on their islands. There is evidence to suggest that golf courses on the islands would destroy the balance of nutrients on which coral reefs and mangrove swamps depend, say the Grupo Mayan golf professionals.

Elsewhere, golf courses have been developed that circumvent the concerns held by the environmental movement. In Saudi Arabia golf courses are sometimes constructed on oil-covered sand. Players are allowed to use a roller to smooth the greens (which, of course, arenít green) before putting. In Australia, in Coober Pedy, there´s a similar course thatís nine holes dug into big mounds of diesel, oil and sand.

Other countries donít treat golf courses with quite the same respect as may be common elsewhere, say the Grupo Mayan experts. For example, in New Zealand, itís not unheard of for courses in rural areas to fence off greens and allow sheep in to graze on the fairways (free mowing!).

The Augusta National Golf Club prides itself in being the most exclusive golf club in the world.  It is located in Giorgia, in the city of Augusta and was founded in 1933 by Bobby Jones.  Its beautiful design came to life thanks to Alister MacKenzie, say the golf experts within the Grupo Mayan resorts.

It is well known because it is the Golf course where the Masters Tournament takes place.  As you may already know, the Masters Tournament is one of the main four Majors in the world of professional Golf.

The golf course provides golf players and golf fans amazing views and botanic beauty.  During the month of April, when the Masters takes place, the view of the flowers and trees that border the course are blooming with beautiful colors and you can feel spring in the air, say the Grupo Mayan experts in this sport.

One curious thing about this great Golf course is that it has never been rated.  All public and private golf courses are given a rate, but apparently, the Augusta National Golf Club has never given an official rating.  The Golf Digest Magazine organized a team of raters to evaluate the Golf course and in 1990 it was given a score of 76.2, but it is an unofficial rating, comment the Grupo Mayan experts Golf.

Among the natural features you can find in this beautiful golf course, say the Grupo Mayan professionals in golf, are: The Big Oak Tree, which is about 150 years old, the Eisenhower Tree, or the Eisenhower Pine, which is a pine that is near the 17th hole.  This tree was named after President Eisenhower.  Another great feature in the Augusta National Golf Club is the Ike’s Pond, which was built where President Eisenhower suggested a dam and a fishpond should be.  Rae’s Creek is the least elevated part of the golf course and was named after the previous owner, John Rae, who passed away in 1789.

According to the experts in Golf from the Grupo Mayan resorts, among the architectural features you can find here are:  The Crow’s nest, which provides living space for 4 -  5 people.  It has a cupola with windows and you can only get there using a ladder.  The Eisenhower cabin is another architectural feature, which is part of the ten cabins this golf course has.  As its name suggests, it was built for President Eisenhower, so that is where its name comes from.  There is also a memorial called the Founders circle and it is located in front of the clubhouse.

Going on vacation in one of the magnificent Grupo Mayan resorts through an all-inclusive vacation package or a specialized golf travel package can be a memorable experience for our guests. Most spend their time in the beach or getting involved in the various water sports available in the resorts.

However, whatever vacation packages our guests are in, many visitors to Grupo Mayan resorts often find themselves heading out to the fairways and playing a game or two of golf. The great Mexican weather and the majestic sceneries can really entice enthusiasts and beginners alike to play the game.

Our Grupo Mayan golf experts notice that many golfers, whether they have played the game before or would play it for the first time, would often focus on their swings and their drives. Most would really want to make that perfect swing and drive the ball across the length of the fairway and onto the target hole.

However, even if you were the greatest driver or swinger but if you always mess up on your putting, then you would not go places with your game. Grupo Mayan golf experts recommends novices and enthusiasts alike to consider getting good at their putting game. It is only logical to master this aspect of the game since this is usually the final stroke to get the ball into the hole.

Golf putting tips abound in online or offline format. You can read them in books or e-Books, or you can watch them through instructional videos. You can find these items in sports shop or specialty golf shops, or you can order these online. You can seek the advice of our Grupo Mayan golf experts regarding such materials and you could probably get the item that suits your preference.

However, the best way according to our Grupo Mayan golf experts, is to actually go out in the greens and practice putting. Professionals recommend establishing a routine of an hour at a time to practice your putting, but it is important to establish your schedule and to stick to this schedule if your really want to improve.

Learn how to master sending the ball across the green at different approaches. Work on your mechanics and learn how to read the green. Develop a good consistent stroke. Our Grupo Mayanexperts recommend trying out different levels of force and energy in putting to determine how much you will need to make the perfect put.

The Grupo Mayan resorts are home to some of the best golfing in the world. Guests love to holiday at Grupo Mayan resorts and play on our professionally designed championship courses and work with our renowned golf pros.

Many Grupo Mayan guests have asked how to regrip a golf club. Being able to regrip your own clubs, say the Grupo Mayan golf pros, can save you lots of money. With a little easy instruction you will be able to completely regrip all of your clubs.

Before you begin, suggest the Grupo Mayan golf pros, it is a good idea to collect the necessary supplies. You will need one little plastic cup, solvent, grips, and double-sided tape.

The first step in regriping your own golf clubs is to take the old grip off. The Grupo Mayan golf pros say the best way to do this is to place the grip in a vise and clamp down on it. To protect your golf club you can wrap an old towel around the club before placing it in the vice. With a sharp knife you can slice into the grip being sure to cut deep enough to reach the shaft. Once the cut is made you will be able to peel away the grip from the club’s shaft. Use a utility blade to remove any residual sticky tape or glue.

The next step, say the Grupo Mayan golf pros, is cleaning the club’s shaft. Use your solvent to remove any debris or residual tape left on the shaft. Our pros use light fluid but any solvent will work as long as it evaporates quickly. After you have cleaned the shaft you must dry it completely with a cloth.

The 3rd step involves wrapping your club’s shaft with your double-sided tape. Only apply the double-sided tape to the shaft area, do not place the tape down the length of the entire club. Any store that carries golf equipment, such as a pro shop or sports store, will have double-sided tape available for purchase.

According to the Grupo Mayan golf pros once the double sided tape has been applied you should lubricate the tape with a little of your solvent. While the tape is lubricated attach your new grip by pushing it firmly onto the shaft. Do not let the lubricant dry before placing the grip on the shaft.

Once you have the grip on, say the Grupo Mayan pros, you have finished regriping the club. Move on and regrip each club and then allow them to set overnight before use.

The Grupo Mayan resorts are home to Mexico’s premier golf courses. Each of our luxury resorts has a championship course designed by golf professionals for guests to enjoy. We also offer the services of our onsite pros to all of our golfing guests.

Grupo Mayan golf professionals are often asked for advice on cleaning golf clubs. While this may seem like a simple process, golfers who spend big bucks on their golf clubs want to make sure they protect them by cleaning them correctly.

Almost all golf clubs are made of metal say the Grupo Mayan golf professionals. The term “woods” is a misnomer and dates back to when actual wooden clubs were used by golfers. Metal golf clubs require special care to keep them in playing condition. The Grupo Mayan professionals offer guests the following cleaning tips:

•    The grooves on golf clubs can be extremely dirty. It is important to clean them out both before and after a round of golf. The Grupo Mayan golf professionals suggest cleaning the grooves on your golf clubs with a soft bristle brush or a golf tee from your bag. You can then wipe the dirt off with a towel.

•    Golf clubs must be keep dry at all times to avoid becoming rusty say the Grupo Mayan golf professionals. Golf clubs come with a water resistant coating but can still fall victim to damaging rust. Every time you clean your clubs make sure you dry them completely. You should also have a waterproof bag cover to keep your clubs dry if you get caught in the rain.

•    Don’t wait to clean your golf clubs warn the Grupo Mayan professionals. Make it a point to clean every club used as soon as your round of golf is over.

•    When washing your golf clubs make sure to wash the grips of each club. Oil will get on your grips each time you play, especially in humid conditions. Grips should be washed using a mix of soap and water.

•    The Grupo Mayan golf professionals say it is important to always keep you golf clubs covered. This will protect them from accidental dings and dents. Some parts of your golf club, particularly the face of the club, are very thin. An accidental bump can crack the club.

Taking care of your golf clubs will increase their life say the Grupo Mayan golf professionals.

The Grupo Mayan Mexican resorts are a favorite of golfers from around the world. Our onsite golf pros work with both beginning and advanced golfers to help improve their golf game.

Many beginning golfers, say the Grupo Mayan golf professionals, have concerns over buying the right golf clubs. There are hundreds of choices and any golfer can become overwhelmed when trying to decide which clubs to purchase.

The Grupo Mayan golf professionals urge beginning golfers to purchase inexpensive golf clubs. Many beginners can either borrow golf clubs from friends or buy second hand clubs. You definitely do not want to spend large amounts of money on golf clubs until you are familiar with the game and know just what you need.

Second hand golf clubs can be found in a variety of places. The Grupo Mayan golf professionals suggest looking for used clubs at your local pro shop, in the newspaper, or at second hand stores. Even yard Sales sometimes have second hand golf clubs for sale.

While you are learning the game of golf you should try as many different types of clubs as possible say the Grupo Mayan golf professionals. Ask your club pro, the Grupo Mayan professionals, and other golfers for advice on which clubs work best for them. You will want to try the following types of clubs before making a final decision:

• Steel shaft clubs
• Big headed clubs
• Graphite shaft clubs
• Special cast clubs
• Cavity back clubs
• Forged clubs

The Grupo Mayan golf professionals say that trying all of these different clubs will give you a better idea of what will work for you. Different clubs weigh differently and hit differently.

The Grupo Mayan golf professionals also suggest asking at your local pro shop for specific advice. Your pro shop will have clerks trained in helping golfers choose clubs. These clerks will be aware of the latest developments in golfing equipment and are a great source of information.

Don’t be afraid to keep using your second hand golf clubs for a while say the Grupo Mayan golf professionals. The longer you use these second hand clubs the more you will know about your style of play before spending large amounts of money on new clubs.

The Grupo Mayan golf professionals will be happy to share their knowledge of golf clubs with all of our guests.

Stop by the Grupo Mayan pro shop at any time to meet and work with the Grupo Mayan golf professionals.