Hot Clearance Items from Midwest Golf Monday, July 23, 2007
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Keep your life organized with this convenient rack. A locking, ventilated door keeps your personal items safe, while two side shelves store your golf bags and clubs. Three adjustable shelves in locker Two side shelves 36" H x 39" W x 12" D |
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Visit the Liquidation section of our site anytime for the best deals in golf!Feel free to forward this message to family and friends! |
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posted by Brandon Schenz @ 11:13 AM,
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Hot Buys & Clearance Items from Midwest Golf Tuesday, July 10, 2007
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The Snowsun is made for sports. The frame fits, and blocks wind, almost like a goggle with Climazone venting. They offer 100% UV protection. The polycarbonate lenses are impact resistant, ligthweight for superior comfort and anti-scratch coatings. |
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Visit the Liquidation section of our site anytime for the best deals in golf!Feel free to forward this message to family and friends! |
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posted by Brandon Schenz @ 6:15 AM,
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Great Lakes Golf Travel Monday, July 02, 2007
The Midwest’s finest are as good as it gets
Northern Michigan
Mackinac Island. There’s much more to this quaint island than just the world’s best fudge. Since no cars are allowed on the island, you must arrive by ferry or via the 8,614-foot Mackinac Bridge—North America’s longest suspension bridge physically connects Michigan’s Upper and Lower Peninsulas. You can get around the island only by foot, horse carriage or bicycle. Then there’s the charming, 385-room Grand Hotel with the world's longest front porch. The 120-year-old, elegant hotel was the site of the 1979 movie, Somewhere in Time. Be sure to catch the island’s state park, honored by National Geographic as one of America’s 10 finest. For more info, visit www.mackinac.com.
Sleeping Bear Dunes Natural Lakeshore. Located in northwestern Lower Michigan, along the shores of Lake Michigan, it’s roughly 25 miles from bustling Traverse City. Disney’s FamilyFun magazine calls it the “Number One Midwest nature escape for families,” and rightly so, as this 70,000-acre getaway features 35 miles of wide, sandy beaches directly on Lake Michigan, massive sand dunes perched atop towering headlands and pristine inland lakes and streams. There are plenty of water sports, hiking and outdoor activities for people of all ages to participate in.
Frankenmuth. Roughly an hour northwest of metro Detroit on I-75, this Bavarian-themed town has a zoo, top-rated golf course and a main street packed with hotels, gift shops and large restaurants specializing in the world’s best fried chicken. The most-famous stop on South Main St. is the all-encompassing Zehnder’s of Frankenmuth, home to Splash Village Hotel & Waterpark, the 6,813-yard Fortress Golf Course and the town’s most-renowned eatery. For more info, visit www.frankenmuth.org.
Minnesota
Brainerd Golf Trail. Roughly two-and-a-half hours north of Minneapolis there are 20-plus courses on 17 sites, amounting to more than 300 holes of golf, in the scenic Brainerd area. There’s also plenty of lodging in town, ranging from upscale lake resorts to modern hotels, which is why it’s ranked as the state’s top stay-and-play golf destination. Courses here share a blend of lakes and woods—without the high green fees you might find in comparable golf destinations in other parts of the world. For more info, visit www.brainerdgolftrail.com.
Treetops FallPaul Bunyan Tributes. Seen that truck commercial on TV, where it drives up to a diner bearing a large (perhaps life-size) statue of Paul Bunyan? That’s in Brainerd Lakes, which claims ownership of the mythical lumberjack. Thus, tributes to him can be found all over town. The most famous Bunyan statue is located at Paul Bunyan Land at This Old Farm Pioneer Village, just east of Brainerd on Highway 18. It’s surrounded by the entire collection of rides from the former Paul Bunyan Amusement Center, which closed in 2003. The newest Paul sits at the Brainerd Lakes Area Welcome Center, where visitors often climb on his lap for photos. Many other Bunyan statues are around, including a talking version, as are his flashlight (at Brainerd’s water tower) and wooden axe (outside Crosslake’s Ace Hardware).
Walleye Pike. No trip to Minnesota is complete without tasting the official state fish, walleye pike. Many restaurants serve it, in one preparation form or another. TJ’s Supper Club in Deerwood serves it deep-fried, with au gratin potatoes on the side. Right on a lake, the restaurant also dishes up a fantastic Sunday brunch that includes pike.
U.S. Hockey Hall Of Fame. Three hours north of Minneapolis, in Eveleth, Minn., this hockey museum celebrates American hockey by honoring and recognizing outstanding hockey contributors and capturing the true spirit and excitement of hockey. Inductees include many famous U.S.-born stars and members of the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team.
Wisconsin
American Club. Once a dormitory for Kohler’s immigrant employees, this AAA Five-Diamond resort hotel in Kohler—90 minutes from Milwaukee—features unique, luxurious decor that creates a singular experience room by room. Because bath-furnishing mogul Herb Kohler owns the resort, no two bathrooms in the hotel are the same. The Horse & Plow restaurant/sports bar is second-to-none for casual fare. Next door, Kohler Waters Spa offers nourishing treatments, massages and all-day experiences. Stroll through the streets of Kohler for a morning walk.
Green Bay Packers Hall Of Fame. The 25,000-square foot facility, located inside Green Bay’s Lambeau Field Atrium, lets visitors relive the most exciting moments in Packers and NFL history. You can see, touch and feel 80-plus years of football through 80 exhibits, including three Super Bowl trophies and a re-creation of Vince Lombardi’s office. Also, a children’s interactive area lets little fans experience what it’s like to play for their favorite NFL team, which in this area better be the Packers. For more info, visit www.packers.com.
5 Best Places To Stay
- The American Club - The area’s only AAA Five-Diamond resort hotel, The American Club in Kohler, features a first-class spa, fitness center and two spectacular golf courses.
- Boyne Highlands Resort - Offers three top-notch golf courses as well as comfortable accommodations. The Ross Memorial is an absolute must.
- Garland Resort - The only AAA Four-Diamond property in northern Michigan, the impressive main lodge is the largest of its kind east of the Mississippi River.
- Inn At Bay Harbor - An impressive hotel and 27 holes of outstanding golf along Little Traverse Bay are only the beginning at Bay Harbor.
- Grand Traverse Resort And Spa - Over 400 hotel rooms and 200 condos are available, as well as a beach club, health club and courses designed by Jack Nicklaus and the great Gary Player.
5 Hidden Gems
- Shanty Creek - Features Tom Weiskopf’s first design in Michigan, Cedar River, as well as the Arnold Palmer-designed Legend Course. Consistently rated one of the state’s best.
- Black Forest Golf Club - Tom Doak’s Black Forest is a tough but enjoyable test of golf that demands your entire game be on the ball.
- Black Lake Golf Club - Built on land owned by the UAW Family Education Center, Black Lake’s Rees Jones-designed Championship Course runs across 300 acres of mature forests and wetlands.
- Forest Dunes Golf Club - Designed by Tom Weiskopf, this links-style track features natural sand dunes, native fescue and plenty of great golf.
- Grand Geneva Resort - Home of The Brute, one of the toughest and most challenging tests of golf in the Midwest. Features close to 70 sand bunkers and enormous, undulating greens.
Miscellaneous Midwest
- Spring, Summer And Fall - Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin are cold-weather states, and as a result, feature relatively short golf seasons. Plan your trip for sometime between late April and early October, and you’ll have a ball.
- In Vino Veritas - Believe it or not, Michigan is a great state for wine, as its soil provides nearly ideal growing conditions for grapes. Be sure to sample the local labels during your travels, especially in combination with some musky.
- Gone Fishin’ - Lake trout, brown trout, walleye, salmon, steelhead and bass are all fair game in the Great Lakes as well as Michigan’s 11,000 inland lakes and streams. Charter boats and multiday fishing adventures are easily found throughout the state.
- Taste The Goodness - Minnesota travelers would do well to sample some of the homegrown fruits and vegetables, honey, maple syrup, cheese and specialty meats, including bison and emu. Check out the Minnesota Grown Directory to locate farmers’ markets in the state.
- Cheese! - Wisconsin produces more than 35 percent of all cheese made in the United States, much of which comes from family-owned and -operated factories. Be sure to take a tour and see how some of these award-winning varieties are made.
posted by Brandon Schenz @ 10:48 AM,
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Become a Better Gambler
Most casual bettors don’t make a profit from their sports-betting hobby. This includes bettors who are relatively sharp as well as those who couldn’t pick a winner if their lives depended on it. That’s not a horrible thing, either. If every bettor won, sportsbooks would be going belly up far more often than they do, and bettors would run out of places to play. And many bettors really don’t care very much about earning a long-term profit. They like to have some action on games as a form of recreation or excitement, not as an investment decision. Many of these types of bettors are far more interested in TV games than anything else, and they tend to bet more on bigger games, like the Super Bowl or the NCAA Tournament.
Much of the industry considers money management as important as picking winners, and rightfully so. But throwing around buzzwords like ‘money management’ and describing esoteric concepts like ‘isolate a percentage of bankroll’ and ‘positive expectation bets’ really doesn’t help the fortunes of most recreational bettors. If you are content with betting solely for entertainment purposes, then this essay will serve little purpose. But if you wish to be a successful sports bettor and earn a profit from your betting through an extended period of time, here are some tips that should help in that quest.
1) Don’t bet into bad numbers Professional handicappers recognize the value of the half point. On the average college-basketball card for a Saturday, for example, there are at least six games that are won or lost against the spread by a point or less. A pro bettor will be on the right side of just about every one of those decisions. A professional will either getting the push when others lost, or the bettor will get the win when others pushed. The pro will take the extra time to shop around for the best number at multiple sportsbooks. The pro will have accounts that are funded in enough places to ensure that a bet can be made at the right place and at the right line. The pro will have an idea of which direction the line is likely to move, which will help in capitalizing on an advantageous number.
A professional will take these calculated steps, and as a result, a pro will win these close games more often than not. If a pro bettor a modest 20 bets a week (which equals out to roughly 1,000 a year, a number that is on the low side for most professionals), it is not unusual to gain an extra 10 or 15 victories a year and another 10 or 15 pushes just by betting at good numbers. Assuming the bettor is betting a modest two percent of his bankroll on any given play, those 20 or 30 favorable decisions translates into a 40-60 percent swing in the return on a sports-betting investment. That is a profile on how to earn profits one half-point at a time.
2) Make more straight bets and fewer parlays Professional bettors make the vast majority of their bets as straight bets, not as parlays. For amateurs, the number is closer to 50/50, and there are many, many amateurs who rarely straight bet at all. But the straight bet is the pro’s bread and butter. Professionals are satisfied with the return on investment from a 3-2 day or a 12-8 week. They are in it for the long haul and not always the quick score that parlays provide. Amateurs are often lured by the big paydays that winning parlays provide, conveniently forgetting that a slow and steady winning approach will yield more profits. Straight bettors are pleased with taking more victories than losses because it will produce a profit every time. Parlay bettors would not be satisfied by this outcome. There’s a reason that every sportsbook in Las Vegas has their parlay cards prominently displayed. Frankly, parlays pay the bills at most joints in Las Vegas. That’s not to say pro bettors never go for the long shot score. But when they do, they do it for a considerably lesser percentage of their bankroll, and they do it in conjunction with their straight bets, not in lieu of them.
3) Concentrate more on box scores and less on final scores It’s easy to look at the final score of a game and make all kinds of false assumptions. But without reading game recaps and looking at box scores, you really have no idea of what took place and the current form of the participating teams. It’s key to handicap games again after the games are over. Ask yourself some questions: What happened that you expected to happen, and what was a surprise? Which things are likely to repeat themselves, and which are something of an anomaly?
Here’s a fictitious example: The Pistons play the Bulls at home as nine-point favorites, but win by only 97-90. However, after looking at the box score, it’s clear that Detroit dominated for most of the game. The Pistons won the rebounding battle and forced the Bulls into turnovers. They led by double digits at halftime and after three quarters. But the Bulls hit some late shots in garbage time and closed the gap late. On that same night, the Raptors are nine-point favorites to the Nuggets and win by that same 97-90 margin. But the box score here indicates a whole different story. The Raptors trailed throughout this game, but got hot in the fourth quarter to steal the victory. Toronto made an uncharacteristic 27 of its 30 free-throw attempts and hit 10 3-pointers. Denver shot just 4-for-19 in the fourth quarter.
By examining the box scores, you can recognize that the Pistons are in better form than the Raptors and/or the Nuggets are in better form than the Bulls. This sort of deduction can make your future wagers involving those teams more likely to be successful, even though the final scores of the two games were exactly the same.
4) Take advantage of value Linesmakers have a pretty good idea of which way the money is going to flow once they hang their opening numbers. Amateur bettors are a big part of this, falling in love with ‘public’ teams and betting them over and over again. Public teams usually refer to the team with the most media attention. In college sports, these teams are usually in the top-25 and from a major conference. In pro sports, these teams are the hottest teams or teams at the top of their respective divisions or conferences. The professional bettor will recognize this public bias, notice that the lines are inflated for many of the best teams in the country and either bet against many of the good teams or pass on their games entirely.
The pro bettors concentrate much more on backing the teams that have fallen underneath the public’s collective radar, as well as fading some of the mediocre squads that are in poor current form. The pros bet against top-25 clubs far more often than they back them. Because the teams are the most recognized, a bettor will catch six points on the underdog instead of four.
It’s equally important to recognize when the linesmakers have priced you out of a play. When a team is flourishing, it becomes more and more risky to side with them. A team's value dwindles as their success grows, and a professional bettor will always be able to spot this trend and stay away from supporting these teams.
5) Be smart when betting your streaks It’s one of the most common mistakes that amateurs make, and it’s quite possibly the most costly. They press their losses, raising the stakes to get back to even off a losing streak. Pro bettors know that there will be times when you lose more than you win. Hopefully, those times are few and far between, but inevitably, they will happen to everybody. Rather than raising the stakes during those times when you are having a bad run, the pro lowers his stakes, conserving bankroll while waiting for things to turn around. A professional bettor will avoid a perilous approach. Conversely, the pro knows that winning streaks are the time to press your bets, not the time to pull back with a conservative approach. When a pro bettor is in good form and good rhythm, the professional will not be afraid to raise the stakes a bit, making larger plays when the percentages are favorable (positive expectation wagers). It sounds so basic – don’t chase losses and ride your winning streaks. But few amateur bettors have the discipline.
posted by Brandon Schenz @ 7:08 AM,
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