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practice

Three Shots this Winter

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Unless you live south of the 35th parallel, you aren’t playing a lot of golf right now. That’s good. It means you can take the time to practice three shots which, if you get really good at, are going to cut strokes off your game by the relative fistful.

These shots are the 7-iron approach, the chip from 10-25 yards, and the 30-foot approach putt. If you can hit the first one well, then all you have to do is get the ball past the 150-yard marker and your next shot will put the ball on the green. The second shot covers the chips you hit more often than the greenside chip, and is the shot that I would guess loses you more strokes in your short game than any other. Get 30-foot putts close and you will cut way down on three-putt greens and become a better putter from everywhere else, too.

When you go to the range, take a 7-iron, a sand wedge, and a putter. Practice these three shots only. In a one-hour visit to the range, spend twenty minutes on each one. These are not the only areas where you lose strokes regularly, but they are the easiest places to get lost strokes back with dedicated practice.

Notice that I didn’t say anything about the driver. You do have to get the ball in the fairway or what you do next to the green won’t count for much. So hit a fairway wood or long iron off the tee with your 7-iron swing. Keep the ball in play and make some putts. It’s a simple game.

commentary

Pro Golf is Back

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I check out of pro golf every year after the PGA is over. The Ryder Cup, Presidents Cup, Solheim Cup, those events don’t do much for me. After the PGA is finished in August, all the men’s and women’s majors have been played and it’s time for college football anyway.

So every year it takes me a little while to get used to how good the pro golfers are. I watched the third round of the Sony Open yesterday, and I’ll watch the finish today because 18 guys are within four shots of the lead on a course where low scores will be plentiful.

What I had forgotten:
1. How hard they and fast they swing, such as the current co-leader, Matt Every.
2. How dead straight they are. Nick Faldo showed us the 8-yard-wide opening to the 18th green that players have to navigate from about 250 yards away. I lost count of how many golfers bounced the ball onto the green right through that gap from that distance.
3. How important every putt is. The moment I tuned in I saw a guy miss a three-footer and a few minutes later saw someone else miss a putt of the same length.
4. How much I want to go to Hawaii this time of year.

For the past several years the official opening of my golf season has been to watch Bubba Watson jump out of his shoes cutting the corner with his drive on 18, but he’s not in the tournament this year, so I guess we won’t get to see that.

The group I would follow today if I were there is the Corey Pavin and Chris DiMarco duo. I would learn a lot about how to play golf, and there wouldn’t be that many people in their gallery, so I would get to see everything.

One thing about pro golf that I hadn’t forgotten, and that I saw plenty of yesterday, is that to shoot a score you have to keep the ball in play and make some putts. My son, who is 35 and learning to play, calls me after every round. We go over which shots didn’t work out in order that he might learn better ways of getting the ball around the course. Right now my thing is for him not to tee off with any club longer than a 4-iron. He’s doing that, and finding out how different golf is when you hit second shots from the fairway.

Anyway, I advise him that next time he should try this shot, or this strategy, and you know what? He takes notes! Not that I know anything, but he writes it down! For all you readers who have teenagers in the house who think you are sooooo stupid, there’s hope. A time will come when they listen to you. Actually, they’re listening now, but they just don’t want to admit it. I’m hearing both our sons say to me, “You know when you always used to tell us X? Well, . . . “

But, back to golf. There’s snow and ice on the ground in the Pacific NW today (see #4, above), which means putting practice indoors and the Sony Open at 4 this afternoon. Life is good.

rules

The Rules of Golf 2012-2015

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I got my new rule book from the USGA in the mail today. This book is the result of a close collaboration between the USGA and the R&A, and was published with both sets of readers in mind. The copy inside is distinctly British, using a Gill Sans typeface, common in Great Britain, but not over here, which makes the Rule book much easier to read than before. Penalties are in red type, making them easier to notice. If you need glasses to read with, though, the size of the typeface could be  problem on the course.

The highlight of the book is a seven-page section titled, “A Quick Guide to the Rules of Golf.” The rules themselves are written in a highly legalistic style, but this section is written in plain English and covers about everything can will happen to you barring an accident of nature. I would recom-
mend studying this section until it is thoroughly understood.

The principle rules changes are on pages 6-8, and were discussed in this space last fall. You should be able to get a copy of the new rule book at your local pro shop. Carry one in your bag.

Speaking of rules, these are the ones which I see violated most frequently when I’m not playing a club or tournament round (Rules reference in parentheses):

Improving one’s lie in the fairway (13-2)
Moving or breaking off branches or growing plants in the way of a stroke (13-2)
Teeing up forward of the tee markers (and another ball must be played) (11-2)
Grounding a club in a hazard (bunker, or inside the red line marking a water hazard) (13-4)
Hitting the wrong ball (15-3)
Conceding putts (not holing out) in stroke play (3-2)

The penalty for the first five violations is two strokes. The penalty for the last one is disqual-
ification. You can’t be disqualified from a social round of golf, but you can be prohibited from turning in your score for handicap purposes. Anyway, holing out is the right thing to do because it just is.

My take on the rules? If you’re just out there to knock the ball around, who needs rules? But if you keep score for any reason, follow them.

playing the game

It Pays to Plan Ahead

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Recreational golfers throw away shots every round by not being prepared to play the course. Every shot has options. Choosing the wrong option or the wrong club causes you to play extra strokes that didn’t need to be taken.

The best way to prevent this from happening is to make a plan, before you get to the course, for how you’re going to play each hole, for better or for worse. The fewer on-the-spot decisions you make the better.

Base your plan around the shots that you hit well. Plan your round to hit those shots as often as you can. Your plan should consist of the club you’re going to tee off with and where you’re going to hit the ball, and the club you’re going to use from the fairway and where you’re going to hit it, that is, favoring which side of the green. That might not be the side where the pin is if the price for missing on that side is too high. That’s Plan A.

You also need a Plan B, which you pull out if Plan A doesn’t work. When you’re in trouble is not the time to be thinking. Know ahead of time what you’re going to do if you tee off into the trees on the right on #10. Know which club you’re going to use and what shot you’re going to hit to get the ball back into play. You might have two options prepared, one for when there’s a way to advance the ball, and another for when you just have to punch out. Either way, know what you’re going to do and how you’re going to do it before you ever get to the course.

All eighteen holes should be thought out in advance like this. Plan B is not that hard to figure out, because if you play a course often enough, you know where your misses go and where they don’t go.

If you’re playing a course for the first time, you can’t make plans, so rely heavily on your best shots. Hit them as often as you can and see what happens. As you do, plot out the course by writing down which clubs you would like to use next time and where the safe spots to hit to are. Mark these spots with a felt pen on the course map on the back of the scorecard.

If making detailed plans is not your thing, at least keep a notebook in your bag with a list of clubs you use off the tee, hole by hole, of every course you play. That in itself puts you way ahead of the game.

Better Recreational Golf  has more good playing tips. check it out.

commentary

Goals for 2012

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Even though one day later is the same as any one day later, and we can start on a new path anytime we want to, there is something about turning the page to January 1 that makes a difference. We have had our year-end festivities, from November through December, and then there’s January. Thirty-one days of not much going on. So we get introspective and start to think, “Maybe there’s a better way.” A better way to do whatever it is that’s important to you.

If golf is important to you, you’ll be setting goals for the coming season. Last year I didn’t accomplish much on the course because of my Grand Canyon hike, but I did get a lot done on re-tooling my swing. I also had a putting lesson last month that turned everything around. I can’t wait to go out there again and start breaking par.

That probably won’t happen, though these things might:

1. Get my grandson real good at this game.
2. Shoot in the 70s consistently instead of once or twice a year.
3. Get my next golf book published.
4. Have more fun.

Each one of them is within reach. I’ll keep you posted as the year goes by.

Here’s one for you:
Read Better Recreational Golf. It’s full of little things that will make a big difference.

equipment

Can Hogan Sure-Out Wedges Be Used From the Fairway?

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I like my golf clubs to multi-task. If I can only do one thing with it, then I’m not getting the most out of having it in my bag. For example, I hit my 7-iron ~150 yards from the fairway, I chip with it, and if I need 110 yards under the wind, a half-swing punch does the job.

My #2 hybrid gets played off the tee, from the fairway, and if I need to hit out from trees, a firm chipping stroke keeps the ball very low and sends it yards down the fairway.

So what about the Hogan Sure-Out? This club was designed by the Ben Hogan company to do one thing – get the ball out of a bunker, and it does that job very well. You have to work at it to keep the ball in the bunker, but it does more than that.

See all that metal at the bottom? This is a heavy club, and where you swing it, it will go. Think of being in deep grass, tall weeds, and the like. Think about what they would do to your flimsy gap wedge. They would grab it and yank it around leaving the ball in the weeds and you unwrapping your club. Not the Sure-Out. Every time I have been in this predicament I have used my Sure-Out and it was not denied. It cut through the weeds and got the ball back into the fairway easy as pie.

From the fairway, or just off the green, you have a 56-degree wedge that does not take a back seat to a traditional wedge. I pitch with this club from about 60-75 yards. It’s great around the green because the weight means I can make an easy stroke and get a firm hit.

So yes, you can use a Sure-Out from the fairway, and any other place you can imagine.

Getting back to multi-tasking, how about the driver? I haven’t figured out a good second shot to hit with it, and if any of you have suggestions, leave your comments below.

Visit Better Recreational Golf

equipment, putting

Notes from a practice session

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My back is still giving me problems. I can’t swing a golf club, but I can chip and putt, so that’s what I went to the range to do today. This is what I learned.

1. One of my biggest problems on the green is leaving putts short. If the putt doesn’t get to the hole, it will never go in. A putt that finishes six inches in front of the hole might as well have finished two feet in front. My sense of touch leaves the ball short, and I have to live with that. There’s no changing it. What I can change is my stroke.

A few weeks ago I talked about Making Putting Easier. There are eight things I do every time I putt. What I have found is, that number 7, Keep the putter low to the ground on the follow-through, gives me the extra oomph I need to get the ball to the hole and a little ways past it. Keeping the putter low after contact helps drive the ball forward more than an arcing stroke does. Try this if leaving putts short is a problem for you. I’ll make a video on this when the weather clears up.

2. Becoming a better putter means you will have fewer three-putt greens and more one-putt greens. That much is obvious, but achieving it requires planning. Think about from where you commonly take three putts. Those are the putts you should be practicing. The extra one-putt greens come from those makable 8 to 12-footers that you never make. Those are the putts that steal a stroke when you make them, so practice those.

3. Practice short putts, too, but it isn’t your stroke that you should practice. It’s how you use your mind. The reason you miss a three-footer is that your mind clutches during the middle of the stroke. You draw the putter back, but sometime during the through-stroke the fear of missing comes into your head in some way and the putter goes off line.

To solve that problem you have to teach yourself how to keep your mind from doing that. Put down a ball nowhere near a hole, and hit the ball four feet. It doesn’t matter where the ball goes, or if it goes three feet or five feet. Just make a little putt.

Keep doing this, and pay attention to what’s going on in your mind. Since there isn’t anything at stake, probably not much. That is the feeling of mind you should have when you hit a four-foot putt for your par. Because you know what that feeling of mind is, you can train your mind to repeat that feeling anytime you want to. Then that fear reaction never comes up because your mind is occupied with something else.

You eliminate the problem of choking short putts by training your mind to stay out of the way when you hit one. I’m serious. You have complete control of this and you can teach yourself to do it. You can train your mind to anything you want it to.

4. I went into the pro shop to give my regards to the pro. He had two Ping irons that a customer had brought in, but only one of them was a Ping. The other one was a fake, and not a very good one at that. If you know what a Ping iron is supposed to look like, it’s easy to tell.

He told me that of the three leading brands of irons, if you buy them over the Internet, there is about a 50 percent chance that you’ll end up buying a set of counterfeit clubs. Moral: buy your golf clubs from a store or pro shop, not online. It’s just too big of a risk.

Or, you can buy 20-year-old clubs like I do. No one was counterfeiting Hogan Apex Red Lines back in 1988, and no one will today.

Visit Better Recreational Golf

practice

Practice/Playing Emphasis

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When I practice, I spend almost half the time with my driver or 7-iron, almost the other half with my putter, and the remainder, not as much as the first two in comparison, on my short game.

I figure it like this. The better my swing is, the fewer times I’ll need to use my short game. And, I’ll always be putting. My short game is good, not great. I just need it to be good enough to give my putting a chance.

—–

On The Golf Channel’s 7 Nights at the Academy shows that were broadcast last week, Raymond Floyd said the best thing about putting. It went something like, “The Tour is full of wonderful ball-strikers, but a lot of them never win anything because they’re mediocre putters.”

Byron Nelson said, on one of the old Challenge Golf shows,  “If you can drive and you can putt, you can play this game.”

See A Paean to Putting for my thoughts.

potpourri

In Praise of Limitations

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About a week ago, I mentioned that my back was acting up and a full swing is just not in the cards. That’s still the case, but yesterday I went out and played nine with my 6-iron, pitching wedge, sand wedge, and putter. It went really well.

There isn’t much I can do from tee to green except hit a giant chip, but if I do that, I get a much straighter shot than normal and I don’t lose as much distance as you would think. Normally the 6 goes 160 yards, and I got 140 out of it with that less-than-half swing.

All that wedge work is paying off in spades, and I get on the green and close every time. Not exactly one-putt close, but two easy putts and every now and then a makable try.

The thing that is working the best is contact. Contact is all the rage these days. Contact is what counts, and as readers of this space know, it is what I have been working on since a turning-point lesson last April. It is truly amazing what good, solid contact alone can do for you. You feel that solid thump as the ball gets pinched between the ground and the clubface, then you see the satisfying take-off as the ball shoots down the fairway. Or around the green when you think “Oh, no, I hit that one too hard,” when all you did is put untold amounts of spin on it and it lands two feet in front of the hole and comes to rest one foot in front.

The divots are things of beauty. They start in front of the ball, are about six inches long, thin, maybe a quarter inch thick at most, and as wide as the clubhead; not a chunk out of the fairway, but a slice of it, just the way it’s supposed to be.

I don’t care at all that I can’t hit the ball very far right now. When the back settles down again, . . . oh, gosh, I can’t wait.

“I’m playing 18 today, walking, I don’t need a cart. By the way what’s the course record here?”

You know, you can order Better Recreational Golf and still get your copy by Christmas.