Lewis O’Neal Fowler, left, taught his grandson Blake Addison Hamilton, right, how to golf.

Blake Addison Hamilton started out young developing his love for golf.

Ryle High School senior Blake Hamilton was recently named the Enquirer 2011 boys’ golfer of the year. His journey to the top of his game started several years ago, under the guidance and tutelage of his grandfather.

Lewis Fowler was inducted into the Midwest Deaf Golfers Association Hall of Fame in 2004. He has been playing the game since 1949. Fowler has been able to bond with his grandson through the game of golf, despite the barriers presented by his deafness. When Hamilton was 3 years old, Fowler gave him his first set of golf clubs.

“I wanted him to get the fundamentals, just the basics,” said Fowler, interpreted in sign language by Fowler’s daughter and Hamilton’s mother, Donna Hamilton. “I don’t believe in forcing the kids to play something they don’t like, and I was shocked that he loved golf from the very beginning.”

Fowler’s father died when he was 13, forcing him to go to work to help support his mother. He found a job as a caddy at Harlan County Country Club, a nine-hole course. He earned 75 cents per nine holes in 1949. Fowler played at Valhalla last year for the first time and found that caddies there make $500 per round.

It is his love for and appreciation of the game that Fowler wanted to pass along to his grandson. Despite all of his success, Blake remains grounded, due in large part to the influence of his grandfather.

“My goal was for him to have fun and just love the game,” Fowler said. “I still ask him today if he loves the game of golf.”

It quickly became apparent to Fowler his grandson was a special talent. Blake’s skills developed at a quick rate.

“I knew at about 4 years old, his chipping and putting was phenomenal,” Fowler said. “His ball would just roll and stop. He was never like me when I was starting to play golf.”

Blake first beat Lewis on the course at age 12. The pupil is now consistently better than his first teacher.

“Now, he is way better than me,” said Fowler, who was pleasantly surprised the first time his grandson got the best of him on the course. “Even though he beat me, I was like, ‘Wow!’”

Lewis and his wife go to every one of Blake’s tournaments. Blake’s parents and grandparents do everything they can to support Blake at each tournament. They have started working second jobs in order to be able to travel to his upcoming tournaments. Fowler traveled to see Hamilton play tournaments in South Carolina and Tennessee last summer.

Fowler points to the first day of the 2010 Kentucky state tournament and a three-day tournament at Clemson University as Blake’s best rounds to date. He was there to watch them both. His guidance gives Blake support and comfort knowing he has a close relative who knows so much about the game.

“There’s things my coach can tell me, but there’s still things that I know he can help me with,” said Blake Hamilton of his grandfather. “I know that he is just as good a teacher as any coach.”

Fowler has been a member of the MDGA for 28 years. He hosted an MDGA tournament at The Willows in 1996, bringing 110 deaf golfers from different states to Kenton County. He was inducted into the MDGA Hall of Fame in 2004.

“He could have been someone special in the golf world, but the whole deaf thing kind of put a barrier up, which is unfortunate,” said Hamilton, who looks up to his grandfather and hopes to one day earn entrance into a hall of fame himself. “It’s something that I haven’t accomplished yet, and it’s definitely something that I look up to him for. It kind of motivates me. He’s my role model and my leader and I want to follow in his footsteps and someday be in a hall of fame myself.”

Hamilton will golf next year for the University of Cincinnati. He made the all-state team as a junior and missed repeating his senior year by 0.25 points. He finished third at the state tournament as a senior, the highest state tournament finish of any Ryle golfer ever.

“My goal is not to just play on the PGA tour, but I want to win,” said Hamilton.

Fowler is confident his grandson will continue to improve and excel on the golf course.

“I know he’s going to get there. He’s going to work hard, I know it,” Fowler said. “I’m thinking by the time he’s 28, he’s going to be there. He’s stayed dedicated and worked hard from the beginning.”

The success on the golf course is secondary to the bond shared between Blake and Lewis. All of the victories and awards and honors are the icing on the cake. Fowler and Hamilton have refused to let communication barriers get in the way of their relationship or their success on the links.

“I’m so proud of my dad, and also so proud of Blake, but without my dad, Blake couldn’t be where he is,” Donna Hamilton said. “I don’t golf, my husband doesn’t golf; we give all the credit for Blake’s success to my daddy. It’s a blessing from God.

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Dark clouds were in the sky and rain was pouring down, many high schoolers questioned if Regional’s would even be played.  After all of the hard work of the Boone Links staff and an impromptu shotgun, the most intense day of the year for high school golf was underway.  At the Region 7 tournament 2 teams are fortunate enough to go to the Kentucky State Tournament and 3 individuals, outside of those teams, get to join them.  Most, if not all, spectators thought Ryle High School and Covington Catholic High School would be going down to state, those spectators were right again.  Ryle High School, coached by Jonathan Ehlen, a manager of the Golf Ranch, saw his team shoot 308 to finish 2^nd at the Regional Tournament.  The individual race might have been even more exciting than the team race.  Austin Molen (Cooper) was the lowest individual, outside of the teams, and earned an automatic big to state.  The second and third individual spots went to Cater Hibbard (Boone County) and Luke Tobergte after an exciting playoff, where Zach McNeil (Walton Verona) came just shy of a state bid after his bogey on the only playoff hole.  Tobergte, a freshman at St. Henry, is coached by Jerod Cahill, another manager at the Golf Ranch.  The Golf Ranch would like to wish everyone the best of luck during the Kentucky State Tournament next week!

Boys’ golf

Region 7 Tournament

At Boone Links

Team scores: 1. Covington Catholic* 300, 2. Ryle* 308, 4. Dixie Heights 324, 5. St. Henry 327, 6. Cooper 337, 7. Walton-Verona 338, 8. Conner 346, 9. Beechwood 355, 10. Boone County 356, 11. Trimble County 363, 12. Carroll County 364, 13. Holy Cross 365, 14. Scott 374, 15. Simon Kenton 386, 16. Owen County 404, 17. Villa Madonna 419, 18. Gallatin County 430.

Medalist: 1. Austin Beck (CovCath) 74.

Individual state qualifiers: Austin Molen (Cooper) 76, Carter Hibbard (Boone County) 77, Luke Tobergte (St. Henry) 77.

Doug Martin

By Doug Martin

It’s very important to start your season with giving your short game a lot of attention. This is inclusive of your putting, chipping, and bunker play. Most of us will have taken 3-4 months away from the game before the new season starts. Consequently with the time away from the game we lose our sense of touch and feel and need to re-connect with developing the muscle memory associated with having a good short game. I think its important to set time aside to practice the different aspects of the short game. In this news letter, I would like to begin with putting and give you some simple thoughts to get you started.

When you look at putting, everyone does it a little different, I think developing a stroke that repeats and gives you the ability to hit your intended line at the highest percentage is what your looking for. Speed and line are the two most important elements of a putt. With speed being most important. The speed you chose for the putt will ultimately determine the line. Too often we fall in love with the line and completely forget about speed. So as you begin your practice focus your attention on speed when your practicing your putting. Here are a couple drills i would suggest: Line drill- put a ball at 10-20-30-40-50 ft and hit putts in order of 10-30-50-20-40, mixing it up this way will force you to get your feel for speed. Do this drill until you can get all 5 balls within three feet of the hole. The 2nd drill is: Go to the middle of the green and putt to the fringe, trying to stop the ball as close as you can to the fringe. Start with 6-8 balls and putt in a different direction with each putt.

Good Luck with this and look forward to having The Golf Ranch green as good as ever for 2011.

Doug Martin

By Doug Martin

As was discussed in the last post, get ahead with your short game. I would like to continue with the chipping aspect and how to regain your touch in the spring. First, I would start with hitting some bump and runs with an 8 or 7 iron to see how the ball reacts when it hits the green and how it rolls out. Typically the greens are soft in the spring and inconsistent after coming out of the winter. Getting the ball on the ground sooner and making it run will take a lot of the guess work out of how the ball will react once it hits the green. Using a sand wedge or lob wedge will put more spin on the ball and make it difficult to judge how the ball will react once it hits the green.

From a fundamental stand point, when hitting the bump and run, control the trajectory by where the ball is placed in your stance, and how your weight is distributed at set up. The further back the ball is the lower the ball should travel, as long as your hands are ahead of the club, pinching the ball off the turf. With your weight forward that should allow the club to work slightly up on the back swing, ensuring a descending blow.

The Golf Ranch provides a great opportunity for short game work as we try to keep 3 different heights of grass around our putting green, All the best as you begin to make your short game the foundation of your game in 2011.

Chris Desmarais, left, and Blake Hamilton, both seniors on the Ryle High School golf team, are photographed at The Golf Ranch in Burlington, Kentucky. / The Enquirer/Gary Landers

Written by

Marc Hardin
Enquirer contributor

Expect the neck-and-neck golf rivalry between Covington Catholic and Ryle to continue unimpeded this season.

“It’s us and them every year for the title,” Ryle senior Blake Hamilton said. “Last year, they beat us in the regional after we won three years in a row. We definitely don’t want them to win twice in a row.”

The Colonels and Raiders have represented the region at the state tournament each of the past nine years. Last season, CovCath ended Ryle’s run as three-time Seventh Region champion, but Hamilton became the Raiders’ fifth individual winner in nine years. CovCath won the team crown from 2001-06, but did not make the first-day cut at last year’s state event, in which Ryle placed tied for eighth.

The Colonels, winners by four shots at the regional, lost three of their top five scorers. The Raiders are returning their top four players. Hamilton, 20th at state, is joined by fellow senior Chris Desmarais, junior Paul Clancy and sophomore Zach Adams. Sophomores Davis McNichol and Hunter Hughes and freshman Logan Gamm comprise a strong top seven.

“I like how a lot of our guys are younger,” Desmarais said. “It means we’ll still be strong after the seniors leave.”

Ryle coach Jonathan Ehlen won the region as a Raider in 2002 before embarking on a successful golf career at Northern Kentucky University. He has been exposed to a variety of ways to improve play and evaluate talent. His Wednesday team tryouts at the Golf Ranch in Burlington involved a skills test featuring 15 playing stations at which each golfer had three swings to score. Each shot received a score of 1-3.

“Davis had the best score, so that says how deep we are,” Ehlen said. “I think our top seven or eight guys are pretty close in ability and that allows me a lot of flexibility for all these tournaments we’re going to be playing in.”

By the time they reach the regional, the Raiders will have been tournament-tested. Ryle is slated to participate in 13 tournaments and an Aug. 17 18-hole event against CovCath at Triple Crown.

“We are not playing one 9-hole match all season,” Ehlen said. “In college, I learned how tournaments help you get better. One of the things about a tournament setting is it allows kids to play against other golfers and on other courses that they don’t see as much, in a college setting. And college coaches come to these tournaments.”

The Raiders will begin their season Monday at the Shelbyville Invitational at Weissinger Hills Golf Course, and they will play in six events the first two weeks. They will have new uniforms and new gear.

“We let the team pick out everything, from shirts and pants to bags and shoes, and we let them design the bags,” Ehlen said. “Everything is trendy, right down to the white belt that (PGA golfer) Rickie Fowler likes to wear. We think it boosts their confidence when they step to the tee and look the part of a successful golfer.”

Also new is the Raiders’ conditioning program, which focuses less on lifting weights and more on running and building range of motion and power through compound movements that simulate a golf swing. Workouts will begin at 6 a.m. each school day.

“The kids don’t like me for it, but it will pay off in the end,” Ehlen said.

CovCath welcomes back juniors Austin Beck, who placed third at the regional, and Alex Scanlon.

Cooper returns its top two scorers, seniors Austin Molen and Adam Millson. Molen finished fourth at the regional, one shot ahead of Millson and Ryle’s Desmarais.

Highlands, the Eighth Region winner last season with three eighth-graders, and runner-up Mason County each return their top scorers. Bluebirds senior Hunter Majewski was the regional and conference runner-up. Seniors Tanner Walton and Bradley Litzinger are among the top returnees for the Royals.

Article From The Cincinnati Enquirer

Why not host your companies next event at The Golf Ranch!  Everyone needs some time to refresh and what better way to get your motor going again than after a great day of golf instruction and fun.  The Golf Ranch can host your company or sales team for some golf instruction and then spend some time on our driving range for a day of events like a Long Drive Competition or Closest To The Pin.

Call Jerod today to find out how you can spend some time with us at The Golf Ranch!

By Doug Martin

How you mix your practice and play will ultimately determine your progress as a player.  As a player, you must understand how to evaluate your game, strengths vs. weaknesses.  Too many people play and only look at the score to determine improvement or development of their game.  Score certainly is our ultimate goad, but how we get to the score is through our ability to execute shots we have practiced.  Hence, the practice piece.  Effective practice, requires a plan of action.  Too often we only practice our strengths and not our weaknesses.  As a player it should be apparent as to what are your strengths and weaknesses.  Once these have been determined, its important that you incorporate both strengths and weaknesses into your practice sessions.  Once you have spent adequate time practicing your weaknesses, take it to the course to see if any improvement has been made.  Finally, patience is important here.  It will take more than a few practice sessions to see improvement.