All posts by recgolfer

playing the game, practice, putting

A Few Thoughts on Playing Golf

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Hit Your Approaches Pin-High
Most recreational golfers want to lower their score by making more pars. Forget pars. Go for birdies. That’s how you lower your score. How do you go for birdies? Hit your approaches pin-high. Always have enough club in your hands to get pin-high.

If you’re at the limit of the range for a certain club, take one more club, grip down, and swing away. On par 3s, take one more club than the yardage indicates. You’ll find yourself having a lot of 8- to 10-foot birdie putts that you never had before.

Take a Notebook To the Range
Did you go to the range today and work on a shot that had been troubling you? Did you figure out how to hit it? Did you write down what you did to make it work? No? Then you just wasted that practice session, because you won’t remember.

Bring a notebook and write down the winning formula as soon as you have figured it out. Even if you go back to that shot a half hour later, chances are great you have already forgotten what you did right.

Putting Tip
Keep your putter low on the follow-through. If you feel a pulling or stretching on your upper right arm as you follow through, you have kept your putter low.

Don’t ask why. Just try it.

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

putting

Approach Putting Tip

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This seems to be the week for putting tips. That’s what happens when I have a terrible day on the green and start working on making things better.

Because the stroke is longer, it’s harder to keep the putter on line when you hit a 30-foot putt than a 6-footer.

We all know that we concentrate on speed rather than line when we hit that 30-footer, but there’s nothing wrong with keeping the ball on the line you chose so it can go in.

Practice this at home by setting up a tin can lid as a hole and a block of wood a foot or so behind the lid to act as a backstop.

From about eight feet away, put your 30-foot swing on the ball and make sure it goes right over the center of the lid. There’s no reason it should not.

The longer stroke makes it easier to miss hitting the ball off the sweet spot. Since contact on the sweet spot is vital for consistently gauging speed, and direction is affected, too, that is essentially what you’re practicing with this exercise.

When you get to the practice green you can practice hitting the putt different distances, but get your stroke down at home first.

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

putting

Putting Tip

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I was out at the range this morning for my weekly practice session and noticed something that I started doing unconsciously while hitting short putts. I was gripping down.

I found myself gripping down about an inch, to get more control of the club, and man, did that work great.

I miss short putts, see, and anything that will help me make them I’m all for. This is a pretty good discovery. Everything about the stroke stays the same, just grip down an inch or so and that seems to give me a feeling of great confidence.

Maybe it will help you, too.

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

putting

Not All Golf Advice Works

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Dave Stockton has become the putting guru of the moment. One of his bits of advice is to not take a practice swing. Get your feel for speed as you make your read and go with it.

I tried that yesterday and putted like I’d never played golf before. All my approach putts stopped short and left. Way short, like 3-4 feet short.

By the seventeenth hole (I don’t give up easily) I’d had it. I went back to making practice swings, and what do you know? I left approach putts on the last two holes less than two feet past the hole!

Just goes to show you. Be real careful with what you read in a golf magazine. You can trust whatever is in this blog, though.

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

brilliant ideas

Scramble At the Ryder Cup

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I just got back from playing a two-man scramble at my men’s club. We had a ball, we made up for each other’s deficiencies, and shot a gross 75, net 65. It was no-pressure golf, lots of fun.

As we were driving away from the course, it hit me. They should do this at the Ryder Cup, too! Foursomes, four-ball, and a two-man scramble.

Why not? Everyone in the world plays a scramble at some time or another except the pros. Why shouldn’t they have as much fun as we do?

And can you imagine what the scores would be? Even a 59 wouldn’t guarantee a win, most likely.

Just think, if you paired a shot-maker like Boo Weekley (yes, Boo Weekley), with a master around the greens, like Phil Mickelson, would a 54 be out of the question?

This would all be so much fun to watch because they would be playing golf like we play. They’d be playing our sport.

So Corey Pavin, if you’re a regular reader of The Recreational Golfer, think about it. The Ryder Cup needs to let a little air out of its tires. If this is a world tournament, play golf like the world plays. Be one of us.

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

mental game

Always Be Positive

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Here’s a Jack Nicklaus story about having a positive mind.

Apparently Nicklaus was speaking to a group and mentioned that he never missed a putt on the final green that made him lose a tournament. An audience member raised his hand and said, “Yes, you did. It was at [this] tournament.” Nicklaus replied that he hadn’t missed that putt, and the questioner said, “Yes you did. I even have it on tape.” Nicklaus replied again, “No, I didn’t miss that putt.”

Well, Nicklaus had missed the putt, but he had also erased the miss from his mind. He refused to make that putt part of his history. That his memory no longer agreed with established facts was of no concern to him. He wanted to know that when he has to make a putt, he will, because his mind contains no evidence to the contrary.

When you come home from the course, remember your good shots clearly. The ones that didn’t work out so well, erase them. They never happened.

Put plus in your mind, don’t let minus in, and you’ll become the golfer you want to be.

practice

My Wife Went Shopping…

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…so I dropped her off at the mall and went to the driving range about a half mile down the road with my pitching wedge and two putters.

I got a bucket of about 60 balls and hit pitches in the 90- to 40-yard range. Not only does that instill sensitivity to those distances, but it instills the proper action though impact.

The last 20 balls were used to work on my swing. I took a half swing, and made four swings that were gradually larger until I got to a full swing. Then I hit the ball, but the important point is, with a pitching motion, just a big one. Extending your pitching swing is a wonderful way to develop a full swing.

After the balls were gone, I went to the putting green and practiced 1-, 2-, and 3-foot putts with a Wilson Billy Casper mallet, and approach putts from 15 to 35 feet with an Acushnet Bullseye.

I put my car keys on the green and putted at them, instead of a hole. That’s especially important with the short ones. I never saw the ball go past an empty hole. That’s not an image I want to put in my mind.

Good session. Find a way to say Yes when your wife asks if you want to go shopping.

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

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I bought a new set of irons today, off eBay. They’re Ben Hogan Apex Red Line, made in 1988. Can’t wait for them to get here. I play 1998 Apex’s, and I thought it would be a good idea to have practice set and a playing set.

Who knows? The Red Lines might turn out to be the playing set.

Don’t think I’m getting carried away. I know of a guy who has 25 sets of Hogan irons. Collector, maybe, I don’t know.

But what’s the big deal about Apex’s? I’ll tell you.

When you hit the ball just right it feels like you didn’t hit it. Maybe like you hit a stick of soft butter. There’s this soft, delicate thud, and the ball takes off like a rocket. I’m not kidding. You ask someone else who plays them what it feels like when you hit it right, and they’ll say, “Buttery.” For some reason, it’s the word we all come up with.

They’re also the best-looking clubs out there, too. The tuxedos of the iron world.

Every now and then I get paired up with someone I haven’t played with before, he sees the Hogans in my bag, and he goes “(sigh) I used to have a set of those.” I ask, “Did you like them?” He says, “Loved ’em.” I think, “Then why don’t you still have them??!!”

Today marks two more shopping months until my birthday. I’ll call these an early birthday present.

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

Make your golf game your own

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Yesterday I mentioned that I have begun, with smashing success, to hit all my long pitches with my pitching wedge. It feels good. It feels right. I feel in full control.

Yesterday I hit one from 60 yards, and one from 35, and both of them ended up less than three feet away. The second one almost rolled in.

This brings to mind that we have a lot of clubs in the bag we can use to hit a lot of different shots. It should not be said that you have to use this club for that shot, or that shot has to be hit with this club.

You should feel free to hit any shot you want with the club that you want to use. Not the club that everyone else uses, or what the pro says to use.

The reason is that when it comes down to putting the club to the ball, it has to feel to you like the right thing to do. You need to feel at ease with it in the same way that you write with one hand and not the other. It has to feel like your shot.

Let me give you an example. I have a stroke of one particular length and firmness that I use when I chip. Every time, for every chip, the same stroke. For some reason, that’s the way I like to hit those little shots. This stroke turns on the artist in me.

So to chip the ball different distances, I use different clubs. I make little adjustments to fine-tune the distance, but it’s basically the same stroke every time.

To play golf, you need
a tee shot,
an advancement (fairway) shot,
a pitch,
a chip,
a long putt,
and a short putt.

If you can find your way to hit each of these shots, with the clubs you like, your golf will improve immediately, because it will be your golf.

P.S. I sometimes use two putters. One for long putts and another for the shorties.

See also Play a Difficult Course

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

short game

Keep the short game simple

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The short game is complicated. So many clubs, so many shots, it got all too much for me. I just needed to get down to the basics.

So I got rid of the extra wedges in my bag. There were three, and I took out two and put a different one back in. Two are all I really need.

For the last month, I’ve been using the PW for everything over 30 yards, and the SW for the shorter pitches and chips that need some air time.

And you know what? I have more confidence and am hitting them closer. Sometimes scary close. With only two choices in the bag, I need only concentrate on how to hit the shot, not on whether I’m using the right club.

The fewer variables we put into our game, the easier it is to make good decisions and execute the decisions we do make.

There are people who have four wedges in their bag. They’re touring professionals, who have the time to learn how to hit the head of a pin from any distance you can name. That’s not us.

There are also people who would love you to have four wedges in your bag. They’re the people who make the wedges that they hope you will buy. But what makes them happy doesn’t make you a better player.

Take a few wedges, learn how to hit a few basic shots with them, and hit those shots over and over. That’s all you need to do to shoot good scores.

Oh, yes. This is my 100th post to The Recreational Golfer. I hope you are enjoying the ride as much as I am.

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