All posts by recgolfer

putting

A Few Putting Notes

1 Comment

1. I’ve been doing something lately that has improved my ability to take the putter way from the ball on a straight line and return it on a straight line.

I rest the sole very lightly on the ground, not hovering it off the ground, but just lightly touching, instead of resting the putter on the ground with all of its weight.

What this does is avoids my having to lift the putter off the ground ever so slightly before I swing it back. The lifting motion can cause me to lose stability in my swing and take the putter back at an angle and spend effort to get it back on line. Not a good way to putt accurately.

I am sinking more putts than before, and this might be a reason.

2. Ever since we have been able to keep the flagstick in the hole when we putt I have been doing that.

A few days ago, though, I had a left-to-right breaking putt of about ten feet for a birdie. For some reason I walked up to the hole and took out the flagstick. I didn’t think about whether or not to take it out, it just seemed like the thing to do.

Sank the putt.

Maybe I’ll do this from now for putts I think are makeable. For approach putts that I can only expect to get close, having the flagstick in gives me a better idea of what the distance is.

3. Speaking of approach putts, for really long ones, 30 feet or more, I have been hitting them with an open stance.

Being turned a bit toward the hole puts my right hand, which has a great deal of sensitivity to propelling an object to a certain distance, as yours probably does, too, in control of the stroke.

The result is hitting the long ones closer than before.

driver

A Coordinated Driver Swing

Leave a comment

It’s easy to say there is one swing for your driver, hybrids, and irons. And that’s right. One swing is hard enough to get right, and one swing works.

But getting that one swing doesn’t solve your problems because you have to be able to use that swing on all your swinging clubs (I’m excepting your wedges and the putter.)

The club that is hardest to apply this concept to is the driver. It’s longer, it’s lighter, the swing is flatter, and you’re standing farther away from the ball. The 6-iron feeling, for example, just isn’t there.

The key to any swing, but especially the driver swing, is that in the forward swing, the body turn and the arm swing must be coordinated. They don’t each do their own thing and hope it all comes out good in the end.

What I have found works so well is the feeling that the hip/body turn carries the unmoving upper body assembly at the start of the forward swing.

As the turn continues, upper body momentum builds up, and a graceful and flowing release of the arms that times itself occurs, to swing the club through the ball without any effort of your own.

All this feels like one continuous movement. No parts, just one long, flowing movement. Watch the pros on TV swing their driver to see what I mean.

Practice your driver by creating this feeling as you swing it through the air (no swinging at golf balls). Over and over. Every swing feels this way; they are all identical.

Try that and see what you get.

books

Bob’s Living Golf Book – April 2023

2 Comments

It has been since January 2022 that I posted an updated version of my updatable golf book. I have spent the interval developing the swing principles contained in A Basic Golf Swing to arrive at what I really want to say.

BLGB is a comprehensive golf instruction book that helps you to score better in two ways: hitting better shots, and avoiding bad ones.

Here it is.

Play well, and have fun.

putting

Par Putts and Birdie Putts

Leave a comment

A question many golfers as themselves is, why is a six-foot par putt (say) easier to sink than a six-foot birdie putt?

There has even been some research done on the question.

This what I think, and it’s kind of an easy answer.

You probably have lots more six-foot putts for par than for birdie. You know if you miss this one, another opportunity will come later in the round and you’ll probably sink it.

A six-foot birdie put, on the other hand, comes around maybe once every three rounds or so for most of us. We don’t get a chance like this very often and we have to make advantage of it when it comes up. And that is the problem right there.

I remember a round I played on a course that has fiendish 17th hole. Par 4, somewhat longish, with a bunker on the left guarding the entrance to the green. Even hitting the green with your second is hard to do.

The pin was in the back left. I hit a hybrid which drew perfectly and ended up eight feet past the hole.

Getting a birdie here would be a feather in my cap and I knew I would never have another chance like this again.

Of course, I missed the putt.

The urgency to get an unexpected birdie putt into the hole takes us out of our usual process, our usual mental approach to the putt.

Instead of knowing what we are doing, and being as comfortable with it as if it were a par putt, we are really uncomfortable because there is so much at stake. We are mentally adrift.

We start hoping the ball into the hole instead of hitting it in. And that’s the difference.

Think this, regardless: If the ball goes in, it goes in. If it doesn’t go in, it doesn’t. There’s nothing more to it.

Now if it were an eagle putt…

tournaments

The Six Most Important Shots at Augusta

Leave a comment

Jack Nicklaus was quoted in GolfWRX today about what he thinks are the six most important shots at Augusta. These are the ones you really have to pay attention to and know how to hit. Not to mention the catty remark about the rest of the course.

“Everybody knows Augusta pretty much, there’s [sic] about six shots at Augusta that you better pay attention to.

“Your tee shot at two, your second shot at 11, tee shot at 12, your tee shot at 13 and the second shot at 13, and the second shot at 15.

“I don’t think 16 – that doesn’t bother me, I don’t think I’ve ever hit it in the water there.

“So those six shots, if you play those shots smart, play them intelligently, and put them in the conservative side of the ledger, the rest of the golf course is not very hard.”

Elsewhere, one of the old guard is worried about the camaraderie or lack of it at this year’s Past Champions dinner. We know Greg Norman won’t be there, so it should go just fine.

The only thing I think of that could go wrong is that there would be nothing on the menu that noted rural Florida epicure Bubba Watson is willing to eat. Fix him a bowl of Cheerios.

tournaments

2023 Masters Preview

1 Comment

Winner: John Rahm (-12) over both Phil Mickelson and Brooks Koepka at (-8)

Just in case you just arrived from another planet, let me tell you that it’s Masters week again.

Will Scottie defend? Will Rory complete the career Slam? Will a LIV golfer win? Will Jim Nantz take sappiness new heights? (“And that will live on as a putt for the ages” “Jim, it was just a one-footer for a bogey.”)

Will Tiger make the cut, and if he does, will he be granted the use of a cart to finish the final two rounds because after the first two he can barely walk?

Answers: No, no, no, yes, yes, and no but yes.

How can you not watch?

Oh, yes. Here’s the recently revealed real story of why Gary McCord got bounced from the Masters announcing team.

Gosh, I love this tournament. So do lots of other people.

The Masters seems to be a religious experience for so many golf fans. I really don’t know why that is, though I can guess.

Of all the majors championships, this is the only one played on the same course year after year. As such, it has become so familiar that I’ll bet you can close your eye and think “6” and an accurate image of the sixth hole comes immediately to mind. Same for all the other holes. Could you do that for TPC Sawgrass, which you have also seen every year for years?

And, it is no doubt the most beautiful course we see on TV all year. These things make it special.

It does have tradition, created by its ties to Bobby Jones.

All of this makes many people put it at number 1 in the ranking of the four majors.

(As for the beauty thing, though, here’s a photograph of Augusta National in the summer.)


But is it the greatest major? Well… It’s not the championship of anything, but rather a high-class invitational. It has the smallest and some observers would say the weakest field.

Two former champions with nine Masters titles between them offered a different opinion last week, though. Both Jack Nickluas and Gary Player rank it fourth among the four modern majors.

Nicklaus because “it’s not meant to be ahead of those others” and “I’d put the Masters No. 1 as far to play in and enjoy doing that kind of stuff. But as far as importance of the game, and being American, the U.S. Open is No. 1.”

Player said, “It’s the youngest of the majors. The others are steeped in tradition and history… . Nothing comes to the top without time.”

And then Player said, “If it wasn’t [sic] for the players, [Augusta] would just be another golf course in Georgia.”

Them’s fightin’ words, Gary.

The course membership, desperately trying to keep its course relevant, has Augusta National playing to 7,545 yards this year. The major change is the 13th hole, which was lengthened by 35 yards from last year thanks to the purchase of land several years ago from the neighboring Augusta Country Club.

It got to be so that if you didn’t get a 4 on this hole you had lost a stroke to the field. This year, a 5 will be a good score, and you might see more than a few 7’s.

Here are the current hole yardages compared to the original 1933 yardages.

Front:
1933: 400-525-350-190-435-180-340-500-420
2023: 445-575-350-240-495-180-450-570-460

Back:
1933: 430-415-150-480-425-485-145-400-420 — 6,690
2023: 495-520-155-545-440-550-170-440-465 — 7,545

Now here’s a real treat for you. In 1959, Sports Illustrated published an article by Bobby Jones on the golf course. Following about a 1,000-word essay on the course, each hole is presented with an attractive schematic drawing and Jones’s description of how the hole should be played.

You will read how Augusta was designed to be played, until it had to be defended from the modern long ball beginning with Tiger Woods over twenty years ago.

How to find that article in just a moment.

Where’s what it says about the thirteenth, then playing at 475 yards:

“We call 13 a par 5 because under certain conditions of wind and ground few players will risk trying for the green with a second shot. In my opinion this 13th hole is one of the finest holes for competitive play I have ever seen. The player is first tempted to dare the creek on his tee shot by playing in close to the corner, because if he attains this position he not only shortened the hole but obtained a more level lie for this second shot. Driving out to the right not only increases the length of the second but encounters an annoying sidehill lie.

“Whatever position may be reached with the tee shot, the second shot as well entails a momentous decision whether or not to try for the green. With the pin far back on the right, under normal weather conditions this is a very good eagle hole, because the contours of the green tend to run the second shot close. The danger is that the ball will follow the creek, and the most difficult pin locations are along this creek in the forward part of the green.

“Several tournaments have been won or lost here, even though the decision may not have been obvious at the time.”

We’ll see if the added yardage makes that much of a difference.

Update: It did. Lots of players laid up with their second shot to pitch on with their third.

To get to the article from the linked page, click the GALLERY button on the lower left and scroll using the arrow button on the right until you get to page 44 of 104 (extreme lower left).

Please have fun with this 54-year-old magazine. Other highlights are:

Jimmy Jemail’s HOT BOX on page 8.

The Triumph TR-3 advertisement on page 14 (only $2675).

Page 56 shows a picture of Ted Williams and rookie Pumpsie Green, the first Black player for the Boston Red Sox, the last team the major leagues to integrate.

Chapter 2 of Tommy Armour’s new book, “A Round of Golf With Tommy Armour” starts on page 79.

And articles on horse racing, yachting, bridge, and trout fishing. SI was a very upper-class East Coast magazine back then.

The Masters was a different tournament back then, too.

improvement

A Few Inspirational Golf Quotes

1 Comment

“The average golfer’s problem is not so much a lack of ability as it is a lack of knowing what he should do.”
Five Lessons, Ben Hogan, p. 97

“To improve your golf the first stage is not necessarily to change your swing, but to learn to do your best swing more often.”
The Golf Handbook for Women, Vivien Saunders, p. 92

“It is true that if you cannot putt you cannot win, for no hole is won until the ball is down—but good scores are only made possible by good play up to the green.”
On Learning Golf, Percy Boomer, p. 221

“I can outhit many men, much to their embarrassment, for suddenly they are pitting…their strength against mine. That’s foolish. They aren’t competing with my strength; they’re competing with the efficiency of my swing.”
Play Golf the Wright Way, Mickey Wright, p. 33

“The average golfer’s chances of developing good judgement are better than his chances of radically transforming his golf swing.”
The Elements of Scoring, Raymond Floyd, p. 73

“Check out the country club scene and you’ll find that the guys beating everyone’s brains out are mostly the players who happily drive 225 to 230 yards down the middle, knock it on the green more often than not with ample club and well-controlled swings, and, when they don’t, own sharp enough short games to get up and down two of three times.”
My Golden Lessons, Jack Nicklaus, p. 166

“The shortest route to improvement is to get on the green in fewer strokes.”
Hale Irwin, Golf Digest, January 2010, p. 98.

And two from The Recreational golfer:
“The one feeling you should have before every shot is athletic confidence in your ability to hit the shot well. If you’re not feeling that, well, good luck.”

“Play a practice round where any shot can be repeated, but only once. If your mulligan is more like it, your mind wasn’t ready the first time. Work on that. If the mulligan is just as bad, this to a shot you need to practice.”

hands lead the clubhead

The Hands Lead the Clubhead – VI

Leave a comment

Once again, I come to you with yet another way for you to accomplish this vital fundamental in spite of your impulsive desires not to. Hopefully this will be the easiest method of all because you don’t have to do anything. You just have to not do two things, which unfortunately, are very tempting to do.

At the top of the backswing, there is an angle between the left forearm (right forearm for lefties) and the clubshaft. The first thing not to do is release that angle at the moment you reverse the direction of your swing. By retaining it for just a split second at the very start, you will lock in that angle so that the momentum of your swing releases it naturally and at the right time. Easy!

As you come into the ball, however, there is still a chance for you to screw it up if you absolutely have to by adding a little bit of hit or steerage with your right hand (left hand for you lefties) just before contact, which throws the clubhead ahead of your hands, the opposite of what we are trying to achieve. The second thing not to do, then, is that.

Believe me this is as simple as I can make it. I can’t foresee a The Hands Lead the Clubhead – VII post. But you never know.