The Hammy is the name of the putter that was instrumental in her success that banner season, the brainchild of a Chicagoan and scratch golfer named Jim Alvarez. The inventor/entrepreneur logically deduced that standing perpendicular to one’s putting line, which is how anyone using a conventional, belly, or even long putter stands, isn’t the best method to success. Alvarez figured that if you gave a three-year-old a golf ball, and asked him to roll it into a hole 10 feet away, he would naturally face the target, and roll the ball with his right hand. That, in essence, is how you wield The Hammy.

The concept is to open the stance dramatically by turning the left foot out, so you are more or less facing the target. Using a split grip, with the right hand lower on the putter grip, and the left hand basically just along for the ride, you use the right hand to propel the ball towards the target, in essence, “rolling” the ball towards the hole.

It takes a bit of getting used to, but ultimately it’s a very effective and extremely natural-feeling putting style. Alvarez gives hope to all the would-be golf-inventors out there, twiddling around in their workrooms - once in awhile, you can in fact build a better mousetrap. Visit www.hammyputter.com for more information.

But up in the state’s northeast corner, in the infamous Iron Range, not too far from Hibbing (boyhood home of Bob Dylan and Celtics Hall-of-Famer Kevin McHale) and within striking distance of the city of Duluth, lies a couple of fine golf courses at a resort called Giants Ridge, the Legend and the Quarry.

It’s no easy trek from the Twin Cities to Biwabik, nor is it a simple jaunt from the stat’s main golf destination of Brainerd Lakes. But the quality of these two Jeff Brauer designs, and a third, perhaps 30 minutes further north, called the Wilderness at Fortune Bay, make the journey worth the effort.

The Legend at Giants Ridge offers 72 strokes (if you’re good - really good!) that wander up, over and through some spectacular North Country terrain. Bentgrass fairways, cavernous bunkers, sparkling blue lakes, massive boulders and towering hardwoods provide the challenge and the scenery. The scary 17th hole, a 200+ yard par-3 completely over water, is worth the green fee by itself. But The Legend is the undercard in comprison to The Quarry.

Carved up, through, over and around reclaimed minelands, Giants Ridge Resort’s Quarry course is one of the upper Midwest’s most memorable golf experiences. The course’s hallmarks include dramatically raised tees and deep hazards forged from mine lands, wetlands, forests and a former sand quarry. The Quarry honors the region’s industrial past in a unique manner, as each hole is named for area mines, past and current, including the giant Mahoning mines that produced more than 130 million tons of iron, to the Embarrass mine, which today, is a 550-foot deep mine-pit lake, the deepest on the Mesabi Iron Range.

It’s a unique and eminently worthwhile duo: Hard to access, hard to play, hard to forget.

Once in awhile though, something comes down the cyber-pike well worth one’s time and attention. Tin Cup is a clever name, and a brilliant concept. Cover your golf ball with this half-circle stencil, color in the design of your choice, and voila! You have a “custom imprinted” golf ball at a sliver of a fraction of the price of custom-imprinted golf balls.

If you don’t like any of the whimsical designs offered in stock, (Rhino, Shark, Shamrock, Cross, Crown, Dog, Martini, horseshoe, etc.) they’ll create one for you to your own specs.

In short, it’s a perfect golf gadget—inexpensive, useful and innovative. Visit www.tin-cup.com to see what I mean.

Even the most ardent golfer will find a full week’s worth of excellent venues in very close proximity. On the “to-do” list: Deacon’s Lodge, a first-rate Arnold Palmer design. Grand View Lodge, with two fine choices: The Pines course, and even better, The Preserve course. There’s Golden Eagle Golf Club, Whitebirch at Breezy Point Resort, and The Classic at Madden’s.

All in all, what’s known as The Brainerd Golf Trail offers over 180 holes of golf and 5 distinctive, “old school” lodging properties all within a 45-minute drive. It’s a stellar lineup, and the fact that the region is far better known for boating, fishing and all manner of lake activities makes this estimable golf presence even more impressive.

I also learned I eventually wanted to get back. And after five-dozen other adventures to varying points on the compass, I returned last week to the home of Lehman, Lumpy and Lunke (Tom, Tim Herron, and Hilary - surprise 2003 U.S. Women’s Open champion) respectively. Over the course of the next several blog entries, I’ll report the highlights of this encore visit to one of the best-kept secrets in summertime golf destinations - the ever-surprising state of Minnesota.

Designed by Ohioan Art Hills, Longaberger Golf Club in Nashport, Ohio is one of the finest public golf experiences in the nation. Now a decade old, this parkland beauty rises and swoops through some of the finest farmland in the Midwest. (In fact the club was put together after the purchase of a half-dozen separate family farms.) This up-and-down sensibility culminates with a 135-foot drop from tee to fairway on the par-5 fourth hole.

Longaberger was the first public golf course in Ohio to achieve certification through the Audubon International Signature Program and was designated as a Certified Signature Sanctuary in 2001. So both birds and avid golfers flock to this lush facility, with its competitive green fee structure, full-service pro shop and beautiful, hilltop clubhouse. It’s won nearly as many major awards as there are holes on the course, the highlights of which include the #1 Public Course in Ohio, as designated by both Golfweek and GOLF Magazine, and with two notable awards from Golf Digest: Cited as one of America’s Greatest 100 Public Courses, and as one of just 16 Five-Star Public Courses.

With a top-end rate of $99, and cheaper still in shoulder season, Longaberger Golf Club is both a blast and bargain concurrently.

[Editor’s Note: Reader our readers’ reviews of Longaberger Golf Club.]

The longtime “Big Four” include venerable Scioto Country Club, a recently restored Donald Ross gem that was the boyhood home and training ground for hometown hero Jack Nicklaus. There is Muirfield Village, which is the Golden Bear’s private fiefdom, one of his most impressive designs, and annual home to the Memorial Tournament. There’s The Golf Club, an under-the-radar Pete Dye masterpiece that is his least-known great creation. And finally, the lyrically named Double Eagle, a Tom Weiskopf-Jay Morrish design that is also private golf at its five-star best.

To this impressive list let me add another candidate: The aptly named Pinnacle Golf Club, just 10 minutes from downtown, in Grove City, Ohio. This Lanny Wadkins creation, just a couple of years old, is a striking mixture of golf holes cut amongst hardwood and deep vegetation. The rolling farmland on which the course was fashioned offers plenty of elevation changes, and the ravines, streams and ponds present add plenty of bite to what’s a serenely beautiful golf experience. If Wadkins, a Ryder Cup stalwart and former major champion, has more tricks up his design sleeve like the highly-recommended, thoroughly delightful Pinnacle Golf Club, an up-and-comer in the pantheon of great golf courses in Columbus, he will be a “little known designer” no longer.

25 separate rounds, not a repeat course among them, in less than four weeks time. If not for a single rainout and then another day with car trouble, I would have added two more rounds, and thusly pitched the VG’s equivalent of a perfect game: 27 rounds in 27 days.

Even better - a dozen of the 25 rounds were completed on never-before-seen courses; no easy feat for me, as I was mining some of my usual territory in Western Mass, Boston’s North Shore, and greater Philadelphia, among other regular haunts. The 12 newbie courses push me a little closer to 650 lifetime, and well positioned for a run to mythic 700, sometime towards the end of 2010, if all goes as planned.

Here’s the best of what I saw for the first time: Waterbury Country Club (CT) a little-known Donald Ross hillside beauty, the picture-book definition of “hidden gem.” Country Club of Fairfield (CT) a low-profile, windblown Seth Raynor standout hard by the Long Island Sound. Boston Golf Club (MA), a Gil Hanse stunner with an initiation rumored to be some 300k. Portsmouth Country Club (NH) a semi-private looker with lots of water views on the truncated stretch of land known as New Hampshire’s seacoast. Lancaster Country Club (PA) a classic William Flynn design that’s well balanced, eye pleasing, and lush.

Here are a few of my favorite “encores” I was lucky enough to revisit: (Sorry to name-drop, but facts, as they say, are facts.) Pine Valley (NJ), Merion (PA), Garden City Golf Club (NY), Salem, Worcester and Myopia Hunt Club (MA) All among the finest classic venues in the land.

Now I’m back in Savannah, or Sauna-Vannah, as it can accurately be described this time of year. The sticks are on ice, and for the time being, so am I. Vagabond Golfer, indeed.

When I first spied the terrain, still something of a golf neophyte in terms of my previous exposure to great courses, I was taken aback at the dazzling challenges the course presented—so unlike the standard parkland fare I was accustomed to. Sharp doglegs, thick forests, steep drop-offs surrounding exposed greens, and virtually no parallel fairways, I was both amazed and intimidated. Who knew golf could be so daunting, so terrifying and invigorating concurrently? I was instantly transfixed, and made it my business to return as often as possible from my home an hour south.

In the ensuing years since that initial exposure, I’ve moved a thousand miles away, and managed to visit and play hundreds upon hundreds of golf courses around the world, including nearly half of the worldwide Top 100. But I still pay an annual visit to Crumpin-Fox whenever I return to western Massachusetts, and this bucolic nature walk, full of challenge and intrigue, never, ever disappoints.
With apologies to novelist Thomas Wolfe, you can go home again.

Group One: Palmer-Nicklaus—Irwin—Miller—Watson—Norman—Stewart-Faldo.

Group Two: Loren Roberts-Stewart Cink-Glen Day-Jose Coceres-Aaron Baddeley-Peter Lonard-Boo Weekley-Brian Gay

It might be more obvious as to what they don’t have in common. The former are all (or will be) Hall-of-Fame members, who are among the most accomplished players in history, and have combined for almost 50 Major championships.

The latter group is a bunch of journeymen pros, zero Majors between them. But they are all connected by victory at Hilton Head - each has been crowned champion of the Heritage at Harbour Town Golf Links.

Up until 15-odd years ago, the roster of champions at this Invitational was like a “Who’s Who” of the game - almost everyone who won here was a “name” player. Yes, in addition to those listed above, Davis Love III has won here five times, as has two-time Masters champ Bernhard Langer, and three-time Major champ Nick Price, and former British Open champ Justin Leonard. But lately (the last decade anyway) Harbour Town’s formerly prestigious championship legacy has gone from the aforementioned “Who’s Who” to more of a “Who’s He?”

We hacking mortals can’t aspire to his skill level, but his sartorial level is well within reach. The affable Aussie is sponsored by Puma, which at first glance might remind you of a High School - retro brand, but in actuality has roared into relevance in recent years with a fabulous line of golf shoes and other apparel. Check out their High-Tech Golf Pants, as one such example. Stylish enough to wear on the course or in the grillroom, but as lightweight, stretchable and comfortable as your favorite sweats. They are a technological marvel, and just one of the innovative products making Puma an up-and-coming name in the always-evolving world of golf apparel.

The award is a lovely piece of engraved crystal, and looks good on the mantle, but the bric-a-brac factor is far overshadowed by the recognition of my peers in the golf business. Writing the Dye Book was a serious undertaking, and I speak for the entire Dye Family when I say that the award is something we are all very proud of.

Anyone who wants signed copies of same, including a very limited number of copies signed by Pete Dye himself, should contact me via email at: info@vagabondgolfer.com

The resort hotel is laid-back but luxurious, two separate structures (one in Spanish Colonial style, the other built to resemble a fortress) separated by a bougainvillea-filled path, restaurants, shops, pools and bars dotting the conduit between. The unmatchable beauty of the Caribbean Sea is close-at-hand, befitting a resort that’s mostly open air.

The nearby golf course, an ethereal Jack Nicklaus signature design called Punta Espada, is a seaside venue with few equals in the hemisphere. And the real kicker? We were sharing the grounds with some of the biggest names in sport, all on property for the inaugural David Ortiz Celebrity Golf Classic. “Big Papi,” a Dominican native who has become a legendary Boston Red Sox clutch slugger in the past five-odd years, had all kinds of pals on hand. They included A-Listers like A-Rod, Pedro Martinez, Ryan Howard, the star slugger of the recently-crowned world champion Philadelphia Phillies, Vladimir Guerrero, Mariano Rivera, Andres “Big Cat” Galarraga, former Red Sox stars like Luis Tiant and Jim Rice, Boston icons like the Bruins Bobby Orr, and the Celtics John Havlicek.

Everything about the weekend was first-rate—the accommodations, the weather, the parties, the golf event, which raised significant funds for Ortiz’ pet charities.

Here’s the advice for the day: Save your nickels, dimes and dollars. Get yourself to Sanctuary Cap Cana asap, because with or without the professional athlete mega-wattage on property, the hotel is the real star.