All posts by recgolfer

putting

Hole-Oriented Putting

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I have taken a devil-may-care attitude toward my golf game lately. In other words, I don’t play “smart” golf anymore. I attack.

You don’t make birdies if you don’t shoot at pins. You don’t lay up to “your distance.” Closer is always better.

And then there’s putting. Putting is about hitting the ball into the hole. That should be obvious, but it’s not.

What are we taught to do when we putt? Read the greeen. Get the line matched up with the speed. Set up to your starting line. Square up the putterface. Smooth stroke.

Where’s the hole in all that??!!

Instead, stand behind the ball and look at the hole. Fill your head with the thought of hitting the ball into it.

Then step up to the ball thinking the same thought and hit it in.

That simple.

When you’re awake, your conscious mind is always thinking about something. Choose the right thing for it to think about.

When you putt, do you get points for the quality of your mechanics? How well you read greens?

Of course not! You get points for hitting the ball in the hole. So think that, because that’s what you want to do!

I promise you if you try this you won’t putt any worse than you do right now. And you will probably putt better.

short game

Indoor Wedge Practice

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We had freezing rain yesterday, for 10 hours, non-stop. The ground today is covered with an two-inch layer of what looks like snow but is solid ice. It’s as hard as a rock, and so slippery. Going outside is not a smart thing to do.

Not to mention, it’s 23 degrees.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t practice my golf.

My back room has a big rug over wall-to-wall carpet. I swing my wedge, maybe a 40-yard swing, and try, so every time when the sole of the club brushes the rug going through “impact”, to make the same sound.

About a dozen years ago I had a playing lesson and set up with a ball about 75 yards from the green.

I took three practice swings, the same length of swing each time, but with one hitting the ground firmly, one brushing the top of the grass, and the third one diggining into the ground a little bit.

The pro said, those were three different swings and they will each hit the ball three different distances. The club needs to hit the ground the same way every time.

So I started practicing the depth of my swing, and have ever since.

It’s one thing to have calibrated your wedges for distance, but you don’t have to wait until it’s 23 degrees and icy to start putting that calibration into practice.

rhythm and tempo

The Meaning of Tempo

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You hear lots of talk about the tempo of your golf swing–its overall speed. What is that speed?

It is, according to Percy Boomer in his masterwork, On Learning Golf, the speed that gives you “a sense of unhurried calm, a feeling that there is lots of time to feel each movement blending into the others.”

Swing at that speed with every club. If you swing faster than that, perhaps in the effort to hit the ball farther, you outswing your technique.

Often what seems to be a swing problem can be solved merely by slowing down a bit.

golf swing

The Relaxed Arms Golf Swing

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All golf shots, from drive to putt, are made with the arms. The body provides support for the arms, but it is the arms that swing the club, not the body. The arms must be completely relaxed to do their best job. This lets the arm swing be a true swing, and not a hit.

Stand up straight and bend forward just enough so your arms dangle down in front of you. Now swing them from side to side, loosely, effortlessly. Notice how relaxed they feel. Notice also how relaxed your shoulder joints feel. Keeping your shoulder joints relaxed is what keeps your arms relaxed.

You might think this is all right for putting, because no power is needed in that stroke. But it’s the same for a drive. You don’t need power in your driver swing. You need speed. Speed comes from relaxation. Tense muscles feel powerful, but they slow down movement.

In all the different types of golf strokes, it is a given that the arms and shoulder joints should be completely relaxed throughout the stroke.

playing the game

The Way to Shoot Low Golf Scores

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Hi, there. It’s been a while.

I got to reminiscing about the days when I played my best and how I did it. My game revolved around the 150-yard maker that courses have on their par 4’s and par 5’s.

Harvey Penick’s Little Red Book has a part where he talked about 150 yards and in and how you should expect to get down in three from there.

So I decided to take that seriously. I developed my iron game and my short game so that I thought on every hole, “Just get inside the 150-yard marker.”

Because from there I knew I was home free.

So can you. Just sayin’.

commentary, distance, equipment

The Golf Ball Rollback

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I’ve been waiting for the dust to settle somewhat on the golf ball rollback, but the news keeps changing every day as more and more opinion and speculation keeps coming out, so I if I don’t comment now, I never will.

What I can say is that the USGA is up to its usual stupidity, the kind it exercised for years in screwing up the U.S. Open with the way it prepared and conditioned the course.

Then there was the anchored putting fiasco.

Now this.

We really have to take a wait-and-see approach because the rollback doesn’t take effect for us until 2030. The deal might not yet be done.

(New golf ball testing rules come into effect in 2028, and the shorter ball comes into effect for everyone in 2030.)

The speculation is that the carry distance of the average male golfer will shorten by 5 yards, the average female golfer by 1 to 3 yards.



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The second shot would hardly be affected. They say.

What bothers me is that nothing I read about the comment period refers to comments they got from millions of recreational golfers, who are really what supports golf in this country.

Because they didn’t ask us.

Oh, they asked us about anchored putting, and they apparently didn’t like the comments they got, so we got left out of this discussion.

We like things the way they are. We are not the reason that courses are becoming obsolete because we hit the ball that far. We just don’t.

Back in the day when I was playing my best, my total driving distance was at 235 yards. Once a month I might pop one out there 250 and say to myself, “How did that happen?”

With that distance off the tee, a course of 5,900 yards fit perfectly.

So what am I going to do now that I’m much shorter than that?

When Bridgestone discontinued the ball I use, the e5, I bought as many as I could find. I have twenty boxes of them in my basement.

I would suggest that in 2029 you buy as many of the ball you use then and play them to your heart’s content from 2030 forward.

And then tell the USGA that even though they are in charge of “the game”, you are not a part of “the game” they are in charge of any more.

Because all you want to do is go out and have fun.

Which is what golf is for the millions of us.

P.S. You want my solution to the distance problem at the elite level (Because that’s the only level where distance is a problem)?

Make the pros play a balata ball.

Instead of their wild drives ending in the deep rough, they will end up two fairways over.

That will put more of a premium on straight rather than far, which should cut down distance from the insane to the mere ridiculous.

short game

Two Chipping Drills

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These are the drills I used to get good at chipping and I still use to stay good at chipping.

Practice greens have a number of holes to putt and and chip to.

Drill 1: Drop four balls at one spot and chip each one to a different hole. Then putt them out.

When you get all four up and down, go to Drill 2.

Drill 2: Chip balls, from four widely-spaced locations, to the same hole. Then putt them out.

Select your targets in the first drill and your locations in the second drill to give you the greatest challenge.

You might think these drills would be hard to do because of the amount of room on the practice green that is required for them and what do you do when the green is filled with people practicing their putting?

Not to worry. Practice greens are among the most under-utilized real estate in the world.

I promise you that everybody else is at the range to pound their driver and maybe ten percent of them will come on to the practice green and knock a few balls around and leave after five minutes because that’s enough of that.

You’ll have the green all to yourself.

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Want to Break 90? Consistently?

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This is what to do change from a 90’s shooter to an 80’s shooter.

Keep track of your rounds, shot by shot, to identify the beaner shots that ruin a hole. Chances are they are the same kinds of shots all the time.

For example, that monster slice. Chunking it from the fairway. Missing the green from 60 yards with a wedge. Leaving a 40-foot chip or 40-foot approach putt 12 feet shot. Or long. Missing two-foot putts.

IOW, find out what shots killing your chances to shoot a good score and GET LESSONS TO FIX THEM.

Then practice until they are fixed.

Finally, learn how to play the game. Hit shots you are good at and avoid choosing to hit shots you are not good at. Or that the course does not want you to hit. Rein in your ego.

Understand that for you, bogey is a good score. There will be some doubles, but there will be some pars that balance them out. It’s the triples and quads you have to eliminate.

I could say a lot more things, but this is enough for now. Good luck!

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The Golf Swing in Two Movements

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The golf swing is such a subtle thing. No matter how precisely it is described, translating that into something that works for you is never a given.

So I’ll just say this about it.

The arms swing, the hips turn.

That’s it.

Notice there is nothing about “hit” in there. Just those two things.

Figure out how to make those two things work together and you’ve cracked the nut.