All posts by recgolfer

commentary

British Open, New Grip, Big Break Sandals

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Well, my favorite tournament just ended. I love the British. All year we see guys play lawn darts, but on links golf, we get to see them roll the ball up to the hole as often as not. It’s a completely different kind of golf, one I love to play.

The way no one made a run at Louis Oosthuizen (WUHST-hay-zen), they might as well have called it good after the third round. But it was good to see him close the deal by hitting one good shot after another. No limping home and barely winning. This was a win, and I was glad to see it.

I changed my grip recently. I read Hogan’s Five Lessons quite a bit, and always find something in it I had previously overlooked or misunderstood. This time it was where the club lies in the right hand. I was not holding it quite enough in the fingers. When I made the adjustment, and it was a tiny one, my feel for the club changed dramatically, especially when coming through the ball. The next round I had consistently good impact, long shots, and short shots. Just goes to show you, a little change can make a big difference.

The Golf Channel’s Big Break series has lost its way. The early shows had personalities that came through the TV set. You tuned in to see what they would say or do next. Remember the Pam/Danielle thing on BB III? Remember Donatello from BB II — love him or hate him, you had to watch! BB IV — great competition, on a great golf course, Carnoustie. BB V — the last good one. Lots of players you could get behind, including Kristina Tucker, the Swedish dish whose behind they kept filming, and Julie Wells baiting Ashley Prange at every turn. Nikki DiSanto, who had an epiphany when she made an eight-foot putt and the rest of the golfers are trying so hard not to laugh, like the legionnaire in Life of Brian during the Incontinentia Buttocks scene, as she goes on and on about it. You just can’t make up people like this.

Now, Big Break Sandals is just resort golf, bikinis, and lip gloss. Booorring. I love BB, but I can’t come up with a reason to watch this edition. And I’m sure all the contestants are nice people, but they have the personalities of a dishrag.

Oh, well, at least there’s Golf Fix. That’s something you can count on.

health

Sun Protection

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I am quite fair-skinned. I stay covered from head to toe on the course. Big hat, long sleeves, long pants. Only my hands are exposed, but they have sunscreen on them, and one hand is generally in my pocket as I walk down the fairway.

I wonder about the rest of you. The sun is hard on you, and even though you’re not getting burned, damage is getting done. Have you taken a close look at Tom Kite recently? The skin on his face and neck is blotchy from the exposure over the years.

Have you ever seen an LPGA Tour Tan? Bronze legs up to the shorts line, then fish-belly white above that. Those legs are going to be leather in twenty years, and there are some older women on the tour who provide an example.

If you must wear a ball cap, cover your face and neck with sunscreen, one that blocks both UVA and UVB rays. Apply before you get into the sun, and once again at the turn. Don’t neglect your legs and arms, either.

Really. Protect yourself.

And don’t think because it’s not a sunny day that you don’t have to worry. If you can see kind of a brightish place in the sky, then the burning rays are penetrating.

Play well, have fun, and look out for yourself.

My new book, The Golfing Self, is now available at www.therecreationalgolfer.com. It will change everything about the way you play.

tournaments

Players I Like in the British Open

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These are some guys I would like to see win it:
Dustin Johnson – redemption.
Alviro Quiros – the Road Hole as a driveable par 4.
Lee Westwood – it’s really his turn.
Paul Casey – I get behind nice guys.
Tim Clark – to show that he really belongs.
Angel Cabrera – he was my fave before his US Open win, still is.
Gregory Havret – it would be a wonderful story.
Colin Montgomerie – it would be an even better story.

golf courses

Back From Oakmont

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When the U.S. Open was played at Oakmont in 2007, Tiger Woods said that a 10-handicapper wouldn’t break 100. He was being too kind. More like 120. Maybe.

This course is so hard I don’t know where to begin. Natalie Gulbis said she played it five times before Women’s Open week and never came close to breaking par. I completely understand why.

The fairways are not that wide, and if you don’t hit into the rough that looks innocent but grabs your club instead of letting it slide through, there are the bunkers. These things are big, and they are surrounded by a high mound on the side toward the hole. Chip out. Between these two, you can use up par just getting to the green.

The course is quite hilly. A level lie is rare. There are blind shots into greens. There are shots downhill into greens that slope away from you. Fairway slopes feed the ball toward the bunkers. I saw one golfer hit 7-iron off the tee of a 558-yard hole to avoid the bunkers.

Then there are the greens. The ones on which Sam Snead said he marked his ball and the coin slid off. Fast, slopy, have you ever seen someone go tink! on a 20-foot putt and have it go five feet by the hole?

If I were allowed to play here, I would take a double bogey and not be disturbed, a bogey and be very happy, a par and faint.

But let me tell you as well, this course is beautiful, and it manicured in every sense of the word. I have putted on greens shaggier than the fairway grass.

And it’s big. You can see almost the whole thing from the clubhouse. It looks like no other golf course you’ve ever seen. Pictures do not do it justice.

The men play there again in 2016. Make your travel plans.

short game

Make Short Game Practice Sessions Short

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The more practice the better. Who can argue with that? But I would suggest that when it comes to the short game, that means frequency, not duration.

The more times you go out to practice your short game, the better. That’s more times you’re exposing yourself to those shots anew, teaching yourself to get into the short game mode at will, as needed. Because you don’t know when you will be hitting short shots on the course.

Driver? By now you know exactly on which holes of your home course you’ll be using a driver. No surprises there. You know that on every green you’ll be putting.

You know you’ll be hitting an iron from the fairway. You have lots of time ahead of these shots to prepare your mind for hitting them. (And you should, by the way. As soon as you putt out, for example, you should be thinking “Driver swing,” and have your mind start giving your body the directions it needs to hit a good drive.)

The short game, though, is entirely unpredictable. You have no idea until it happens that you’ll have to chip onto the green. And then, you have no idea just what kind of shot you’ll have to hit until you finally get up to the ball.

That means you have much less time to gear your mind toward chipping in comparison to the other types of shots you hit. And that means you have to be able to turn on your short game mind on a moment’s notice.

So practice doing that. Drop a ball beside the practice green, chip it to the cup, putt it out, then go do something else. The ideal way to practice a short shot would be, if your practice facility is laid out like this, to hit a few long shots then walk over to the green, chip a ball , putt out, then walk back to the range. Just do that back and forth–range, green; range, green.

Give yourself one chance to hit that chip next to the hole. Hitting a dozen chips from the same place might teach you the technical aspects of the shot, but that doesn’t teach you the mind set you need to get that one shot close when you’re on the course.

Basic short game shots are easy to learn. Once you can hit them reasonably well, it all comes down to the state of your mind on the course when you have that one chance. Being comfortable and confident in that condition is what you need to practice to become a short game wizard.

My new book, The Golfing Self, is now available at www.therecreationalgolfer.com. It will change everything about the way you play.

playing the game

The Importance of Ball-Striking

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So often you hear touring professionals say that your score is made from 100 yards in, so that’s where you (the amateurs they’re taking to) should spend most of your time practicing. The trouble is, they’re projecting the way they score onto your game. That doesn’t make sense.

The professional game is built around getting the ball in the hole as quickly as possible once it gets to the green. That’s how you make birdies, and save pars if you miss. But the pros are taking for granted that they’re already getting the ball up to the green as quickly as it is possible to do, and we aren’t.

If you count on hitting 12-14 greens per round, then the short game is what will make you stand out. But if you generally hit just three or four greens, how is your short game going to help you break 80? or even 90?

If you want to get your score down, you have to stop wasting shots getting the ball up to and onto the green. Ball-striking, hitting more fairways and more greens, is the key. That means getting swing lessons and diligently practicing what you were taught.

I’m not saying you should neglect your work around the green, but all you need to be for now is to be adequate. The quickest way for you to get into the 70s is to have a swing that reliably hits the ball straight. Once you’re there, you can become a short game and putting wizard if you want to start chasing par. But get that swing straightened out first.

One last way to look at this. Which would led to a lower score? For a touring professional to hit all your full swings shots, or to hit all your short shots and putts?

I thought so.

My new book, The Golfing Self, is now available at www.therecreationalgolfer.com. It will change everything about the way you play.

health

Mid-Round Nutrition for Golfers

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My pro, Howard Robertson of the Willow Lake Golf Center in Keizer, Oregon, writes a column in the local paper which appears every Sunday. last Sunday, he wrote about hydration and nutrition during a round of golf.

He mentioned this to me once during a lesson, that the touring pros are always experimenting for the right mix of snacking to keep their hydration and blood sugar levels at optimum levels throughout the round.

After all, you’re out there on your feet, in the heat, for four hours or more, and you need more than breakfast and a drink of water at the turn to keep yourself going.

He recommends sipping from a diluted sports drink on very tee and munching on an energy snack every three or four holes. I do, too. Take a good drink, too, not little sips. Research in the hiking industry shows that sipping frequently does not replace lost fluids as well as drinking several ounces of fluid at one time.

I take along the food and drink that I take when I go hiking the the Cascade Mountains. For hydration, I empty a package of Gatorade powder and a package of Crystal Light into a 48-oz water bottle. The food I carry is carry is trail mix–nuts, carbs, raisins, M&Ms–that can be digested quickly.

What you don’t want to eat is protein. It takes a long time to digest and its digestion is water-intensive. That’s why a hot dog at the break isn’t a good idea.

Sipping water as you go along should be evident, and the snack food? I mean, do you really need any encouragement to eat that stuff, and besides, you get a chance to schmooze with CartGirl if you buy it from her instead of bringing it with you.

My new book, The Golfing Self, is now available at www.therecreationalgolfer.com. It will change everything about the way you play.

equipment

“New” Irons, “New” Driver

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I played with the new irons today. Ben Hogan Apex Red Lines, c. 1989. They’re wonderful. Glad I bought them. Great balance, great feel, smaller sweet spot than my 2003 Apex’s, but what a sweet spot.

I figured since I would be playing with 22-year-old irons, I should play with a driver of similar vintage, too, so I brought along my Wilson 4275. Laminated maple. Head smaller than your fairway metal. Shaft two inches shorter than my metal driver. Weighs two ounces more.

It took a few holes to get the idea, but I was hitting it straight, not as high, but it ran and ran. I lost distance, but not so much it affected how I played any of the holes on this course.

It’s going to stay in the bag. The shorter shaft and heavier weight somehow combine to give me more feel of the club throughout the swing, and swing in a more controlled way.

My two-putter experiment is working out nicely. I use an Acushnet Bullseye for everything except the shorties. For the ones about four feet and in, I use a Wilson Billy Casper mallet.

I guess this all means you can be creative with the clubs you use, and pick the ones that make you feel the best about getting the ball into the hole. And why not? Your game belongs to you, not the equipment manufacturers.

My new book, The Golfing Self, is now available at www.therecreationalgolfer.com. It will change everything about the way you play.

equipment

New Set of Irons Arrived

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I got a new set of irons today. Ben Hogan Apex Redline, built in 1988. So they’re not new, but they have a reputation as being the pinnacle of the Apex line of Hogan irons.

I bought them on eBay a few weeks ago, and took them straight to the pro shop after they arrived to get them fitted (+1 inch in the shafts, new lie angles). New grips come with that, too.

So this morning I picked them up took them to the course to play a round. Wow. Triple wow. They have such superb balance, and the sweet spot is sweet beyond belief.

I think I’m going to like these clubs.

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

short game

Laying Up

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I suppose you noticed that Graeme McDowell laid up on the 72nd hole a few days ago instead of going for all the distance he could muster. Smart. You should do that, too.

It’s good to be able to pitch on from 30-70 yards or so, but it’s even better to avoid those distances if you can. Shots from there require finesse. You never know just how they’ll work out.

Find a distance that is comfortable for you to hit into the green with a pitching wedge using a full, not-holding-back swing. That might be right around 100-110 yards.

You’ll use this strategy most often on a par 5. Say after your tee shot you have 280 yards to the green. If you hit your fairway wood, you might leave yourself 70-80 yards into the green. Tough shot.

Instead, hit a shot that will cover no more than 180 yards. That will set you up at your comfortable distance with that pitching wedge.

Or say there’s only 240 left. Hit a 7-iron and a wedge. If you can’t reach the green, divide up a big distance into two easy ones.

Closer is not always better. Eating up yards doesn’t help you if it leaves you with a difficult shot. Play easy shots that set up easy shots. Golf is much simpler that way.

My new book, The Golfing Self, is now available at www.therecreationalgolfer.com. It will change everything about the way you play.