All posts by recgolfer

playing the game

Notes From a Personal Best

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Eleven years ago I shot my personal best round of 75. These are the notes I made when I got home, which were no doubt relevant to having shot that score.

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.

Gold Post, putting

How to Sink a Certain Kind of Putt

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Most of the things I discover about putting come from hours spent on the practice green. Every so often something goes click. This one, however, comes from my back room, where I knock the ball around for a few minutes every night.

It’s about sinking the putts that you just have to sink–short, no break. Just straight in the hole. Yet, those can be the hardest ones, for some reason.

This is what I noticed. I had been imagining a tiny line between the ball and the hole, and hitting the putt so the ball rolls along that line. That’s a lot of pressure

But what popped into my head that night was a band, as wide as the putter, going to the hole.

Not only that, but I saw that if you line up the toe of the putter with the corresponding edge of the hole, so that if the putter could magically slide across the green to the hole, the absolute toe would graze that edge of the hole, which would square up the putterface to roll ball into my rubber “hole” dead center.

In the photo, the thin red line lines up of the toe of the putter with the outside edge of the hole, and the transparent red band is what the putterface stays square to–a much easier image to believe in that a tiny line going from the ball to the hole.

So forget about the hole, forget about the ball, just make your stroke to have the putter face stay square to the band and the ball goes in. Easy!

As for lining up the toe of the putter with the outside edge of the hole, it might seem like this would not be exact. But if you try this out, and the putterface is not square to the hole, you will see clearly that the toe is not “pointing” to the edge.

I think this works because you are squaring up the entire surface of the putterface rather than a small point on the surface. And to tell the truth, I’m not even sure you can square up a point to something.

I tried out this method on a putting green and found it to be reliable up to about 15 feet.

[Update: With practice, you can use this technique on breaking putts, too, by learning how much to line up the tip of the putterface outside (R to L) or inside (L to R) the hole.]

supporting your golf

Filming Your Golf Swing

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Here and there you read that it would be a good idea to film* your golf swing in a period when you are playing well to have it as a reference.

That’s a good idea, but that alone is not enough.

If you fall into a bad patch, film that swing and compare the two. Then you can find out what’s wrong.

When you make the films, get a face-on view and a down-the-line view OF THE SAME SWING. That means you will need to have two cameras rolling at the same time from those two viewpoints.

I did that once and discovered a bad habit of getting too steep in the backswing, which had the effect of jamming my right arm into the shoulder, which closed closing the clubface.

Films compared, problem solved.

* I’m a product of the film and wet darkroom generation, so I just keep using that word.

golf swing

The Role of the Forearms In the Golf Swing

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NOTE: A Basic Golf Swing is now available that develops the comments below in full, and more, in both words and video.


For about a year and a half I have been working on an idea that has changed my swing for much the better. I have not mentioned it to you because I wanted to develop the idea so I understood its essence, then put it to the test to make sure it worked.

I now feel that I can let you know what this very simple idea is.

It has to do with the hands–how to keep them from turning and getting the clubface out of alignment.

Everything changed when I realized that it is anatomically impossible for the hands to turn. The hands turn because the forearms turn, and that is not a trivial difference.

I changed my grip to one that is based on the way my forearms are built. When my forearms hang down in a neutral position, not turned one way or the other, the result is a strong left-hand grip and a neutral right-hand grip.

Because my forearms are in their neutral position with that grip, there is no cause for them to turn, which means the hands won’t turn.

Then I developed a swing based on the feeling of the forearms staying neutral throughout the swing, i.e., not turning at all, and with those two things the clubhead stays square and the ball goes very straight.

That is the essence of the idea. It deserves a deeper explanation, and I will give that to you in a few weeks.

But read those four key paragraphs carefully for now.

putting

Distance Control On the Green

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I was browsing through the blog just now and read a post from 2010 about finding the speed of a putt. That is, if it’s X feet to the hole, how hard do I hit it?

There was one comment in that post that not only gets you in the ball park, it puts you right next your seats, to extend the metaphor.

Go the practice green and learn how to hit putts of 10 feet, 20 feet, 30 feet, and 40 feet. Learn to feel the stroke that puts the ball right next to the hole from each of these distances.

Take touch, which can vary from day to day, out of the picture by making the length of your stroke your sole distance generator.

If you are between distances, say 25 feet, make a practice stroke with the 20-foot stroke, another with the 30-foot stroke, and then one in between, which you will use for the putt. You would do the same if the putt is 20 feet but uphill, or 30 feet and downhill.

The more you calibrate your golf, the easier it gets.

golf swing, mental game

Relaxing the Arms

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NOTE: A Basic Golf Swing is now available that develops the comments below in full, and more, in both words and video.


I hope everybody knows by now that a relaxed golf swing generates more swing speed and thus more power than a muscular effort. Relaxation as a general rule goes only so far, though. We need to know how to apply it.

As always, The Recreational Golfer to the rescue. It’s in the arms.

When you are at address, let your arms hang down freely from the shoulders in a state of complete relaxation. So far, so good, but anybody can do that. The trick is to maintain that kind of relaxation throughout the swing.

It can be lost the instant the club gets taken away, or if it survives that, the instant the club is brought back down.

Maintain that calmness, and that relaxation, by relaxing your mind. Before you take the club away, think to yourself, “One, half, half, half…” and feel the relaxation appearing in both your mind and your body.

Then you can take the club away and let that freely hanging feeling continue throughout the swing, instead of your arms and shoulders tightening up as when the arms and hands are full of “hit.”

That will generate more speed than you thought possible.

If you ever have a chance to swing with a launch monitor, you will find that you get a higher swing speed when your arms are relaxed than if you try to muscle your way to swing speed.

One more thing. You need to swing with a tempo that lets your arms stay relaxed. If your tempo is over your red line, your relaxation will be lost.

golf swing

I Give Up On Swing Changes

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One thing the vast majority of golfers have in common is the continual search for improvement. No matter how well you play you could always do better—make your good shots great ones and make your poor shots good ones.

Even the greatest players are not immune.

“Ian Baker-Finch, who won the 1991 British Open, decided he wanted to hit his ball farther. So he changed his swing—and stopped making cuts, much less winning tournaments.” (Jim Flick, On Golf)

“[Hogan] surely knew that all serious golfers are prone to come up with what they think to be ‘the secret’ but which usually turns out to be a snare and a delusion. I know that I had many of them, some of which I briefly thought were so valuable that I would keep them strictly to myself until I had won all the tournaments and money I wanted to.” (Cary Middlecoff, The Golf Swing)

I even think if I said I can show you how to play scratch golf for the rest of your life but you have to give up sex forever, a good number of golfers we find that an easy choice to make.

I have been playing golf for over 60 years. I have a good swing. It’s reliable. It hits the ball straight. Yet I keep wanting to make it better. (What that would be, I’m not really sure.)

I tried putting more width into my swing by extending my arms and getting my wrists hinged at the end of the backswing. All that did was put me into an unfamiliar position that left me wondering, “No what do I do?”

I tried starting the forward swing with a strong movement of my left hip but all that did was leave the club playing catch-up.

I watched film videos of the best golfers tried imitating the positions they got into. And I think I did but none of that made a positive difference and most of it made things worse.

And that is barely getting started on the list of things I tried to hit the ball even better.

All along, when I would get frustrated because my Fix-of-the-Week wasn’t working, I would say to myself, “Bob, just relax, stop thinking about how you hit the ball, and put the swing it you have been using for years. Decades. The one that is You.” And I would hit the shot I had been chasing for the last half-hour.

That swing is in there, I just have to learn to stop doing things that prevent it from coming out.

Looking back on all that effort there are only two things I have ever put into my swing that are of any benefit—the emphasis on tempo and rhythm, and the emphasis on the hands leading the clubhead through impact, two things of which this blog is filled to overflowing.

I know that if I keep my swing speed under my redline, and swing the club through impact with my hands working as one unit leading the clubhead, I can play a satisfying round of golf. I’m human, so I will make bad swings from time to time. But those don’t mean I need to install a patch.

So I’m finished with swing changes. The swing I have now I wouldn’t trade for anyone else’s. I’m going to stick with it and enjoy the ride.

Now if only I could putt better…

practice

A Day at the Range – One More Thing

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In 1965, I was watching the U.S. Open on television. I remember watching Gary Player, who won the championship that year, hit a 6-iron from the fairway. What came across so clearly, to a 14 year-old kid, was that he was putting every bit of golf knowledge he had ever acquired, every practice ball had ever hit, every 6-iron he had ever hit, all that had been done so he could hit this one shot.

That is grinding. That’s how you play the game.

How do you learn to do that?

By taking every practice shot seriously. From the practice tee, to chipping, to putting, make very practice shot count. Visualize what you want to have happen, then do everything you can to make it happen.

Never touch club to ball without having that intention in mind.

This how you create a positive habit that comes out when you play.

practice

A Day at the Range

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…well, not an entire day, more like 90 minutes, but you know what I mean.

1. Swing practice. Practice hitting the ball straight. I say that because that is really all you can practice. Unless you are under the guidance of an instructor, it is very hard to practice hitting the ball farther. Most likely your attempts will take you in the opposite direction.

Missing the green to the right or left is what you want to take out of your game. If you’re always too short, solve that problem by using more club or move up a set of tees.

Start out hitting some decent 9-irons. Now use that swing with the rest of the clubs you hit to hit the ball straight. The longer shaft and lower loft will send the ball farther.

2. Practice the things that make your swing work. Practice the parts. Put them together and hit a ball. Repeat many times.

3. Save about 20 balls and practice hitting long chips/short pitches, whatever you want to call them, of 15-40 yards. This is the shot pros are insanely good at and that we are insanely bad at. And it’s not that hard to get good at it if you practice. Down in two from that distance is an attainable goal you should have for yourself.

4. Green reading. I read putts from about 30-40 feet behind the ball. That way, you can see the overall tilt of the green very easily. You can sees slopes in ground that up close looks flat. I even look at two-footers this way. You can miss two-footers if you think they all go straight in.

5. Green reading. I start by imagining where the putt would go if I hit it straight at the hole. I follow it across the green in my mind and notice how far to the left or right I think it will pass by the hole. My aim point then is that distance on the other side of the hole—if my mind’s eye sees it miss three inches to the left, I start the putt three inches to the right.

6. Watch this Phil Mickelson putting video. Was he says to do WORKS.