Cape coach wins club championship

Congratulations to Lisa Hutchins for her recent victory in the Wild Quail Golf & Country Club Ladies Club Championship near Wyoming. She finished two strokes ahead of her competition in the two-day, 36-hole tournament.

Hutchins is an assistant coach for the Cape Henlopen High School golf team. She specializes in lessons on course management, short game, and the rules and etiquette. She also won the Wild Quail senior club championship in 2024.

Swing Control

Nancy Robitaille thinks golf fashion is going retro, and she is ready for it.

The lead designer for Canadian apparel maker Swing Control showed me a few of her creations for the 2025 season at this year’s PGA Show in Orlando. 

She also wore a pair of her Dutch Paisley pants to help club pros coming to the Swing Control booth see and accept her take on what will sell. It is part of the company’s Crystal Ball collection, a mix of tops, skorts, pants and outerwear.

“The lighter-weight pants are selling well,” Robitaille said. “The paisley is our No. 1 seller. The skorts come in two sizes, 16 inches and 18 inches.”

In another nod to a previous era, her After Hours set featured a track suit ensemble, complete with ribbon detailing running down the outside arms and legs.

“These are a big seller for us,” she said.

In addition, the tie feature on the 16-inch length skort that is part of this collection is drawing significant attention.

Robitaille also showed off the company’s new Pique dress, a simple yet flattering look. The cotton/poly/elastane blend sells for $120. It comes with a matching pair of shorts which have handy pockets for golf balls, tees and markers.

Delaware 27-Hole Challenge

Three teams from the Cape Region played well against most of the 84-team field in the Sept. 24 Delaware 27-Hole Challenge at Bear Trap Dunes in Ocean View.

The event combined three sets of nine holes in scramble, alternate shot and better ball of partners formats.

In the alternate shot competition, Brady Leonard of Cripple Creek and Ryan Diehl of Eastern Shore Custom Clubs finished T-3 in the Pro-Am Flight 1, only two strokes behind two teams that tied for first. Brian Rashley and Bryan Shepherd of Bayside Resort also tied for third with the Leonard/Diehl duo, along with two other teams.

Brooks Massey and David Bloodsworth of Heritage Shores finished second in the Pro-Am Flight 2 alternate shot segment and won the overall flight for their combined format scoring.

A swing tweak is paying off

Your basic swing should be about as repeatable as it can possibly be at this point in the golf season.

Nonetheless, if the results aren’t quite what you would like or are still a bit too erratic, you might consider a small tweak in your setup that could help.

My driver swings this year combined a few elements that worked well, but which I thought could stand improvement. The setup included teeing the ball so that it stood halfway above the driver head as the club rested on the ground. I also lined up the ball with the logo mark on the top of the club. 

Before the backswing, I hovered the club behind the ball, which combined with the tee height helped me swing up on the ball for additional height and distance.

That arrangement often worked well, but I still had trouble keeping the drives in the fairway. Post-round stats on the Arccos app showed I was equally capable of hitting the left rough, the right rough, or the fairway. 

I found a couple tips on YouTube that seemed promising, and after a bit of range practice, I took the changes out on the course.

I lowered the tee to where the top of it stands about 1/8th of an inch below the top of a golf ball set on the ground next to it. The ball is still relatively high when balanced on the tee, but not as much as before. 

When I look down at the ball just before I begin the backswing, it sits between the heel and the top logo mark, instead of being centered on the logo.

I still hover the club before the backswing, and my swing is otherwise the same as before.

The results are encouraging. The ball is landing in the fairway a bit more than 50% of the time. The ball impact marks on the driver club face are frequently dead center or slightly toward the toe, which explains some of the draws I’ve been hitting.

The total distance is also improved. After one surprisingly long drive recently, my playing partners suggested I should be tested for performance-enhancing drugs. They didn’t put it that way exactly, but this is a family-friendly newspaper.

Try your own experiments on the range, but if nothing seems to work, make an appointment with a local Cape Region golf professional. In my experience, they can often diagnose an issue with only a few swings and come up with a workable solution.