All posts by recgolfer

pitching

Practice Your Long Pitching Game on the Course

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Yesterday I played nine holes from tees that are way too long for me. As a result, I hit long pitches into six of the nine greens.

Two of the other greens I got on by hitting a 7-iron bump-and-run.

That is a good shot to have when you are too far away to chip, but too close to pitch, and the lie is tight.

What about the ninth green? I hit that one with a drive and a 5-wood. It had to happen at least one time!

By the way, say you have a pitch that you know goes 65 yards and you laser the pin and find that it is 65 yards away.

Whatever you do, don’t hit that pitch! It will land and release about about four yards. Hit your 60-yard pitch instead.

Anyway, you can practice pitching at the range, but the real learning takes place on the course. What I did is how you get a lot of learning done with this shot.

brilliant ideas

Decision Scramble

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This is a variation on the traditional scramble. Partners in the scramble have a decision to make on every shot and they have to live with their decision.

Here are the rules:

1. Each team can play two balls, one by each player.

2. After the first ball is played, but before the second ball is played, the team must decide if it wants to play the first ball.

3. If the team decides to play the first ball, that ball is in play for the team, and the second ball is not hit.

4. If the team decides not to play the first ball it becomes out of play, and the second ball then gets hit.

5. Since the first ball is no longer in play, the team MUST use the second ball for its next shot.

It’s best if partners have similar handicaps. If partners have significantly different handicaps, the player with the higher handicap should hit the first ball.

mental game

Visualize the Entire Shot

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The next time you go out to play, try this.

Before you make your stroke, look ahead to where you want the ball to end up and visualize the ball going through the air/along the ground in the way you intend AND at the same time visualize the feeling in your body that will make the ball do that.

That second one should almost be a palpable feeling.

mental game

The Perfect Golf Swing

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If you break 90 regularly, if you go to the course and expect to shoot in the 80s, I would guess you have a near-perfect golf swing–for you.

If you swung that swing a dozen times in a row, with no ball in front of you, I would bet that every swing would be as near to the same as a dozen swings can be.

The clubface would be square all the way through, the clubpath through “impact” would be right at the target, the hands would always be leading the clubhead. Most importantly, you would swing to identical finishes each time.

In other words, perfect.

Now put down a ball and swing at it. Did that same perfect swing come out, or did your “Hit the ball!” swing come out?

This is why golf is hard. We KNOW what to do. It’s just that the ball makes us do things we know are wrong, yet we can’t help it.

At this point I would normally give you the solution. But with this, I there’s nothing I can say.

You’re going to have to figure it out by yourself, which I urge you to do because if you crack this nut, there will be no stopping you.

It’s the most important golfing skill there is.

putting

A Cure for the Yips?

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A few posts ago I mentioned some things I am doing with my putting.

One of them was to think of swinging the shaft of the club, not the clubhead.

Today when I was playing (solo) I yanked a three-foot put two times in a row (the real putt and a do-over).

I realized I was thinking about the clubhead. I tried again and just swing the shaft back and forth, got a pure stroke, and the putt went straight in.

Just a thought.

practice

What and How Recreational Golfers Should Practice

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What to practice:

Learn to make contact on the center of the clubface consistently.

Learn how to get on the green in one shot from under full-swing distances.

Learn how to hit chips/approach putts to one-putt range.

Get good at sinking 4-7 foot putts. These are the ones that good putters sink and poor putters don’t.

How to practice:

Measure the attention given to each one by balls hit, not by time spent. For example if your full swing practice is built around skill-building, it might take a half hour, at least, to hit 30 balls. You can hit thirty 4-7 foot putts in well under 10 minutes.

This professional practice plan shows you how this practice concept works in full.

practice

Practice the Parts, Not the Whole

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A few years ago I posted a video lesson titled, How to Get Good at Golf. This is probably the most important post I have ever made.

The point I made is that a golf stroke is the sum of its parts. To learn the swing, you have to learn its parts and how they fit together.

Practicing swing after swing as a whole does you no good.

In my video essay, Six Fundamentals of the Recreational Golf Swing, I described in detail six features of a functioning recreational golf swing.

At the range, and in my back yard, I practice them, and a few other movements that are specific to me. I practice each one by itself, to reinforce each one in my unconscious mind’s concept of golf swing movement.

I also practice them individually because several of them are not my natural inclination. I get lazy and my swing starts failing because one or the other gets left out.

But because I practice them so much and am so familiar with them all, it’s easy for me to notice which one is missing, so just a few reminder swings makes my swing whole again.

So, again: your task is to figure out the movements that make your swing work, what your fundamentals are, and practice each one, by itself, over, and over, and over.

That’s how you get good. And stay good.

putting

A Few Putting Improvements

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I’ve been doing a few things lately that have improved my putting. You might want to see if they make any difference for you.

1. I hover the putter slightly at address rather than resting it with its full weight on the ground. That way I can take the putter directly back from the ball and not have to lift it while I take it back.

2. I think of the ball being transparent to the putter such that the ball will be stuck first on the side closest to the hole (yellow dot). I even look at that spot when I putt. That takes all the “hit” out of the stroke. At the time I would brace for that little hit, it has already occurred. (And if you think you don’t brace for the hit, think again. You do.)

3. Instead of swinging the putter head, I swing the shaft. The arms and shoulders rock, the wrists do not break, but swinging the shaft is the important thing.

driver

The Right Way to Use Your Driver

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I think the biggest problem we have with the driver is that we think of it as a distance club. Yes it’s the longest club, but it is not a club of unlimited length. It, like all the other clubs, is meant to hit the ball a certain distance.

We get the most out of our driver if we think of it instead as a positional club. Our task is to hit the ball off the tee to a place in the fairway that makes our shot to the green as easy as possible.

Consider every other club. If we want to make a six-foot putt, the direction has to be highly accurate. If we chip from off the green, we’re aiming at the hole.

When we pitch from 70 yards, we’re aiming at the hole.

When we hit an iron into the green, we’re aiming at something, maybe the pin, or somewhere more towards the center.

Why would it be different with the driver?

There’s a famous story about Ben Hogan at Carnoustie hitting his ball into a tiny space between a mid-fairway bunker and out-of-bounds because that spot gave him the best look at the green for his second shot.

It’s a shot that few people dare to try. But he did, because that’s how he used his driver―for position.

I know this is asking a lot. Turning your driver into a positional club is not easy to do. But start practicing with it that way. When you’re at the range, pick a specific spot and try to get the ball to that spot with your driver just like you would with a six-iron.

You might have to change how you hit your driver, but if you do, it’s going to be a change for the better.

In the end, you might not be able to land the ball in the divot you made yesterday, but if you can hit the ball to the right side, or the left side, or the center of the fairway at will, boy, those pars are going to start adding up.

Because the origin of pars (and birdies) is the tee, not the fairway, or around the green.