All posts by recgolfer

improvement

Practice Making Pars

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Up North, it’s getting wet already. Not much fun to play in a liquid atmosphere with squishy lies. Keep playing, though, and use the opportunity to improve.

Shun the regulation course and find an executive layout. Make sure you go out as a single, because you are going to be hitting a lot of mulligans. What you are going to do is par every hole before you move on to the next one.

First off, this method is for short game practice. You don’t get do-overs for tee shots and approach shots. Practice those on the range. So, after you have gotten the ball within 100 yards of the hole, drop a ball and hit it again if (a) your pitch doesn’t land and stop on the green, or (b) your chip doesn’t end up within 3 feet of the hole, (c) your bunker shot doesn’t get out, (d) your approach putt doesn’t finish within 2 feet of the hole, of (e) your second putt doesn’t go in. If you make all those corrections, you should end up scoring a par on every hole.

What you accomplished: You learned how to get a par and how to hit the shots you need to hit in order to do it. Those will be the short shots and putts. Now when you take you game to the big courses starting in March, you will have the skill and confidence it takes to play well around the greens and shoot the scores you deserve.

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

mental game, playing the game

Odds and Ends

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› One course you play on all the time you shoot your handicap consistently. Another course you play on from time to time you shoot five to ten strokes over your handicap. Guess which course you should be playing on if you want to improve?

› Play one round where you give up distance in order to hit shots that keep the ball constantly in play, for all 18 holes. You’ll have to hit something other than your driver on most holes, and play short of the green a number of times. You’ll have more fun and shoot a lower score, I promise you. The test is, will you play this way the next time out, or go back to your usual game?

› How to practice the mental game: Put a ball on the mat in front of you and take ten identical practice swings while you look at the ball, but without hitting it. After the tenth swing, step up to the ball without hesitation and hit it. Was that swing the same as the ten swings before? If not, practice this exercise until you’ve learned to stop letting the presence of a ball control your mind.

› Setup is grip, stance, alignment, posture, and ball position. If you aren’t pleased with the way you hit the ball, fix your setup before you start tinkering with your swing. If you hit the ball well but inconsistently it’s because your setup is inconsistent. Spend as much time practicing your setup as you do your swing. It’s that important.

› Those tips you read in the golf magazines? The ones that promise you more distance, cure your slice, fix your swing problem? They’re pure entertainment. Pay no attention to them. If your swing needs fixing, get a lesson.

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

commentary

Playing Golf With Women

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Something I very much enjoy. But Stina Sternberg thinks she has some problems with me. See her video where she lectures us men on how not to act like we’re self-centered five-year-olds. Then continue reading.

1. What’s with the cart? If you’re under 75, and not lame or injured, what are you doing in a cart anyway? Are you too delicate to walk, or out too of condition? Forget the cart. Enjoy the outdoors! That’s one of the reasons we play golf instead of going bowling.

2. No, Stina, I am not guilty of this. I have never given unsolicited advice to a playing partner I have just met, or a friend who knows how to play the game, and it’s rather sexist of you to imply that all men do. But when my wife, who is just learning the game, lays up sod for the fourth time in a row because her weight is so far back on her right foot that she’s almost falling down and she is getting more upset each time, I think I am qualified to remind her to get her weight over to her left side, which she does the next time and she starts hitting good shots again.

3. Are you kidding? Someone would intentionally stop another player’s ball? Nothing to say about that one, but as for giving putts, I’m not going to give you anything. Golf is played from the tee to the hole. And as for taking excessive shots, if a woman is taking so long to get up to the green that there are now two empty holes ahead of us (this has happened to me), I will suggest that she take four swings, then pick up. I said this fifteen minutes before the marshall caught up with our group and told her the same thing.

4. Expressions of anger. Right on, but women don’t own this issue. It doesn’t cut it with us guys, either. Make a habit of this and you’ll find yourself playing solo.

5. Good point on the gambling. I take what I win with pleasure from whomever owes it to me.

Now here are a few rules based on my exeriences, regarding things that I see women do, but not men.

1. Don’t step in the line of my putt. And when your female partner you came to the course with reminds you not to do that, don’t keep doing it.

2. If you’re going to call a rules violation on me, you’d better know what the rule is. I carry a rule book in my bag, and I’ll ask you to show me, right there and now, and I won’t care if you’re embarassed when what you said isn’t in the book or you’re wrong. Same thing goes for procedures. Even around the green, the person farthest from the hole plays first, regardless of whose ball is on or off the green.

3. If we’re playing for money, and you’re hitting short irons or wedges into the green on all the par fours while playing from the red tees, I will suggest that you move back. The red tees are to equalize play, not to provide an advantage.

4. When you have holed out, get off the green! We’re in the fairway waiting to hit. Save your chatting and score-keeping for the next tee. Leave your pull cart on the side of the hole closest to the next tee you don’t have to go all the way across the green to get it and go all the way back across.

5. Extra one for Stina: When we get sent off together, don’t think that I am likely to be an idiot like the guy in the video and I won’t think you’re likely to be a prima donna. All I want to do is have fun and enjoy your company for four hours. Until then, keep your head down and your left arm straight.

supporting your golf

Play With Better Players

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This is a message for everyone who wants to get become a better golfer: play with golfers who are better than you are. Much better. You will not improve if you don’t, no matter how many lessons you take, no matter how much you practice.

Percy Boomer, in his book, On Learning Golf, gets right to this point:
“The trouble with many 5 and 6 handicap men is that they have become as good as their conception of the swing enables them to be. Because their swing has not been developed about the correct centrifugal principle, it is unreliable, and they have to depend upon a tip being given or an idea coming to them just when they need it. This is a dangerous state of affairs, and the natural result of trying to learn golf by trial and error–that is by trying one thing one day and another the next–with no basic principle to back it up. It is true that this is the way most of us Pros learned, but it takes immense perseverance and a long time!” (pp. 208-09)
Now it sounds like I am about to urge you to take lessons to acquire the solid foundation Boomer is talking about. I would never advise against that. But I am concentrating on something he mentions in the first sentence of this extract. That is the conception of golf.
What is your conception? If you are teaching yourself, your notion of what can be done on a golf course is limited by what you can imagine. You will eventually rise to meet that notion, but that is all the farther you will progress. Because you cannot imagine what it means to play better, you will be stuck where you are, trying to perfect your limited idea of golf.
The only way to break out of your own mold, in my view, is to play with players who are much better than you. More than in terms of score, I mean in terms of skill.
Take the best shot you can hit, that you hit several times per round. Play with players who hit better shots than that, and hit them time after time–as the typical way they play. They not only hit better shots, they hit different shots that never occurred to you as possibilities. They’re playing a different game than you are.
It takes that to open your eyes and give you a new direction to take your learning and your practice. Then you can go get those lessons and put in the practice time because you have a goal in mind. You’re working toward something that has real meaning and will make you a different golfer, rather than being better at the some old things.
golf swing

A Little Golf Swing Image

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So many errors in the swing come from the upper body and the lower body not moving together in a coordinated way. If the lower body gets too far ahead on the downswing, the arms will be left behind and the clubface will come into the ball wide open. If the upper body leads, weight cannot return to the left side. Weak, off-target shots result.

Try this image to keep yourself connected throughout the swing. Imagine there is a string going from your left hip straight to your right shoulder. That it goes through your body doesn’t matter. Pretend your body is transparent to this string.

When you swing back, the right shoulder has to turn back behind you. Because the right shoulder is connected by this string to the left hip, the left hip will be pulled around, too. All the slack is out of the string.

Now on the downswing, it is the left hip that leads. As it slides and turns into the ball, it pulls the string and the right shoulder turns with along with the hip. Nothing gets left behind. Your body stays connected, and the clubface gets delivered back to the ball square and on line.

What more could you want?

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

playing the game

Today’s lessons

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They say you don’t learn anything when you play well, only when you play poorly. I say, Nonsense. When I play well, I learn how to play well. When else do you learn that?

I shot a 75 today. This is what I learned.

1. Don’t hit a shot until you’re ready. That means you are at ease with what you are about to do. If you have any misgivings, or doubt, or something just doesn’t feel right, step away. Clear your head, and step up to the ball again.
2. Play within yourself, especially off the tee. Play easy and believe in what you’re about to do.
3. Read putts by looking uphill. If you’re putting uphill, read the green from behind the ball. If you’re putting downhill, read from behind the hole. The slope of the hill and the break are always seen more clearly when you look uphill.
4. Find the shots that are working and use them to death. Let the shots that aren’t working take the day off.
5. When in doubt about which iron to choose, take the longer one, grip down a half inch, and fire away.
swing changes

Maybe Your Swing Is Just Fine

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Are you hitting fairways at a pretty good distance off the tee with regularity? Wonderful. Would you like to try a tiny swing change that will give you a few extra yards? Please say No.

Touring pros tinker because they look for every edge they can get. At their level, taking even one stroke off their score makes a big difference in their chances to win. When you as a recreational golfer search for something just a little better, without professional guidance, it could lead to something a lot worse. Getting back to where you were before might take a long time. Believe me, I know.

If you’ve been playing golf for a while, the way you swing is pretty much set. Identify the movements that make your swing work well and learn to repeat those movements. Avoid taking your natural swing in a different direction because of the latest thing you read about or saw on TV. this is truly a case of, If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

shot-making

How To Hit a Fade

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The fade is one of the most useful shots in golf. It starts out slightly to the left of the target and curves gently back to the right, sitting down nicely where it lands. If you are able to hit the ball straight with reasonable frequency, a fade is an easy shot to acquire.

Whenever we hit different shot than normal, it is best to do it with minimal adjustments to what we normally do. In this case, we’ll hit the fade using our regular swing and our regular grip. All we are going to do is change some of the angles in our setup. That, and a little change in our mental focus, will give us the shot we’re looking for.

A fade is caused by the clubface coming into the ball slightly open to the path the clubhead is traveling. That creates a clockwise sidespin which curves the ball back to the right of where it started off. Pre-set that angle at address by doing just two things:

1. Align your stance to the left of the target. If the pin were in the center of the green, you would want to start off the ball toward the left edge. Set up as if you were actually going to hit the ball to the left edge of the green.

2. Spin the club clockwise in your hands so the clubface now points between your aim point and where you want the ball to land. In our example, the clubface would be spun so it faced the pin. Be sure to spin the club. Merely turning your hands clockwise won’t do. The adjustment required is slight–only a few degrees is enough.

All you need do now is swing the club, using your normal swing, toward where your body is aimed, the left side of the green, and the slight misalignment between the clubface and the club’s path will take care of everything else. Well, almost everything.

At first you might find yourself pulled back in your mind toward your real target, the pin, and swing along a line toward it instead of where your swing is truly aimed. Now, the geometry of the swing, which was subtly altered, is way out of whack, and the shot you’ll get can best be described as “ugly right.”

To prevent this from happening, you must truly believe you are trying to hit the ball onto the left side of the green — that that spot is your actual target. Just setting up for a fade can be done correctly the first time, but learning how to switch your mind from your target to your aim point, which are now different, might take a bit of getting used to.

This shot works best with your 7-iron and longer clubs. Short irons put so much backspin on the ball that the sidespin is overwhelmed and the ball doesn’t curve much at all.

A fade is handy shot to have in your skill set if you have to hit the ball around an obstacle with room on the left for starting the ball off. You can also use it to get to a pin that is tucked on the right side of the green. Once you get the hang of it, though, you might find you want to make a fade be your everyday, bread-and-butter shot because of the control and consistency it offers.

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

commentary

What Do You Want Out of Golf?

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As you go through your golfing career, it’s a good idea to ask yourself this question every so often: “Why am I doing this? What am I getting out of this?” You should be able to come up with a satisfying answer. But if you can’t, it’s time to reconsider not only what you’re doing, but how you’re doing it.

Hopefully, we started playing golf because it was fun to do. We had fun with friends, we enjoyed being on those special place called golf courses, we got thrilled when we hit a good shot or sank a putt we didn’t expect to. It was fun to be in the special club that calls themselves golfers.

Somewhere along the line, that changes for many of us. Golf becomes a vehicle for another activity. Or we get caught up in getting good and forget about the fun. Or we forget that golf is a difficult game which returns to us only what we put into it, and get frustrated by the state of our skills instead of enjoying them.

Now I can put the two questions above to you, but only you can answer them. I can’t even suggest that your answer should be something like this: “[Insert wise words here].” It’s all up to you. It’s your answer and it’s one that must speak honestly.

It takes courage to ask these questions and give yourself honest answers. Because the answers might be, “I don’t know,” and “Nothing.” If that’s the case, then go find something else that fulfills you. Don’t waste your time on a pursuit that doesn’t reward you.

But if your examination reveals that the reason you thought you were playing golf isn’t, and what you thought you were getting out is golf isn’t, it might be that you’ve drifted away from the original reasons that golf attracted you and made you want it to be a part of your life.

In that case, start over. Find a way to be pleased about something after every round no matter what your score was, and go from there. That’s how you’ll find the rewards, that’s how to ensure golf is a source of joy and happiness.

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

putting

Finding the Right Speed On the Green

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Good putting is all about speed. True, you need to have the right line, but after a certain distance away from the hole, getting the line close enough is all you need to do. Getting the speed right is what makes the difference between two putts and three.

Many people think that speed is a matter of feel alone. You can see the line. The contours, or lack of them, are right there in front of you, but you have to feel speed. Not true. Speed is right in front of you, too, if you know how to look.

In addition to the length of the putt, there’s the height of the grass, the direction of the grain, the firmness of the green, the amount of moisture in the grass, and slope of the ground, that all affect how hard you will hit the putt. All these can be noticed and taken into account.

Your putter is a variable, too, There’s one place on the putterface to hit the putt, called the sweet spot, that allows your stroke to give you a predictable distance response. Many of the times that you left a putt short was not because you didn’t hit it hard enough. You had the right stroke but missed the sweet spot.

That said, there is a feel element to finding the right speed. You have to, through practice, know how hard to hit a putt that in general goes 20 feet, or 40 feet, or ten feet. These three basic strokes can then be modified when the length of the putt is different and other variables factor in.

But all this comes down to feeling what the right speed to hit this putt is. It doesn’t end with the calculation based on the physical variables. That calculation has to be translated into a feel that your body can use to hit the putt with the right force. How is this done?

It’s a mystery, really. Practice will help you get better at it, but feel is elusive on the course because it is affected by the condition of your mind. On some days you can be standing over a 35-footer and just know how hard to hit it. You’ve had days like that haven’t you?

But on other days the feeling doesn’t come and it’s just a guess. You’ve had days like that, too. Understand that you do have a feel for distance every day you play. On some days you just have to work harder to get it out.

When you can’t feel how hard to hit that 35-foot putt, move in closer to the hole until you find a range from which you do feel the speed. Maybe it’s half that distance. Let that feeling come through your mind into your body, and latch onto the confidence it creates. Then go back to your ball and look at the putt you face, with that feeling of confidence still in mind. The right force to put on the ball will come to you right away.

Finding the right speed begins with technical factors that are easily learned. What counts is the control you exercise over your mind to turn those factors into the correct physical movement. Once you know how to do this, every day on the green can be a good day.