All posts by recgolfer

books, putting

Vector Putting

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Most people will tell you that reading greens is an art that can never be reduced to science.   While that is mostly true, there is more science in it than you might imagine.   Say you’re on an idealized green that is perfectly flat, but a bit tilted.   It is entirely possible, knowing the speed of the green, the amount of its tilt, and the speed of the putt, to calculate the exact path to the hole.

In 1984, H.A. Templeton published a book titled Vector Putting, that lays out a plan which shows you how to analyze a green in just those terms.   The keys are what Templeton called the zero-break line, and the gravity vector.   I will explain them in a simplified, but still accurate way, retaining the term, “zero-break line”, but replacing “gravity vector” with “aiming point”.

The zero-break line is the line that follows the slope of the green straight downhill.   The aiming point is the spot on this line, extended now above the hole, where you aim your putt.

Find the zero-break line on a sloping green by walking below the hole in its vicinity.   You will at first sense that you are walking downhill, but when you sense you are now walking uphill, you have crossed, and thus found, the zero-break line.

The aiming point for your putt is a spot on the green on this line but on the uphill side of the hole.   The precise location of this spot, as said before, depends on the speed of the green, the slope of the green, and the length of the putt.

The aiming point (the X in the diagram) will be closer to the hole along the zero-break line when: the green is slower, the slope is less, and the distance is shorter.   The aiming point will be farther from the hole along the zero-break line when: the green is faster, the slope is greater, and the distance is longer.   The one constant is the speed at which the ball approaches the hole.

For a 10-foot putt on a medium speed green (normal daily fee course) that slopes two degrees, the aiming point (the X on the diagram) would be six inches above the hole on the extended zero-break line.   A ball putted toward this point with enough speed to finish one foot past the hole will go in the hole — regardless of where the ball is in relation to the hole.   If you imagine a clock around the hole with the zero-break line running from 12 to 6, it does not matter at what o’clock the ball is.   A ball 10 feet away will go in the hole if it starts out toward the aiming point with the right speed.

The chart below shows you how to find the location of the aim point on medium greens, as used in the example above. Read down the right-hand column to 10 feet, across to 2%, the slope of the green, and you will find the aim point be 6 inches above the hole along the zero-break line.

This method works best for putts of 10-12 feet or less.   Over that short distance, the slope of the green is usually constant, making the green act like a tilted plane.   Longer putts that might have several different breaks between the ball and the hole do not lend themselves as well to this technique.   But for the shorter putts, this method is like money in the bank.

There is a refinement built into the chart, which shows you the aiming point for putts at 90 degrees to the zero-beak line. Putts like in the picture above, played from below 90 degrees, or others played from above the 90-degree line will spend a different mount of time rolling across the green.

The little numbers in the boxes show you how many inches to add for putts played from above the hole (superscript) or to subtract for putts played from below the hole (subscript), to the basic aiming point to compensate for this effect.

Play with this on the practice green. Remember, you are not trying to figure out how far outside the hole to aim your putt, but how far up the zero-break line you are aiming for. You could have one putt that would pass four inches to the side of the hole, and another one passing six inches to the side of the hole, when both times you would really be aiming at a spot ten inches above the hole on the zero-beak line.

You might also enjoy Geoff Mangum’s extended discussion of this technique.

Note from February 2022: It comes down to this. Read a putt one way and you look for the one curved path that will guide the ball into the hole. How often do you find the right path? Another way is to assess the amount of slope in the green (easy), in which direction is runs (easy), and use that information to find the spot to putt at that will carry the ball into the hole. I have much more success with #2.

mental game

Moving Forward is a Critical Golf Skill

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In all of my posts about the mental game, I try to leave you with the idea that the skills you have developed to this point express themselves fully only when your mind is calm and concentrating on a feeling of ease with what you are about to do, rather than on results or process. The question, of course, is how you get to that state of mind. Here’s my answer.

So much of the worry that disturbs our mind comes from the past. You made mistakes on shots like this before so you are worried that you might do it again.


The way to release yourself from the past, and worries that attend to it, is to give your mind something else to do. Just like with a poorly behaving child, don’t suppress. Distract. When you’re watching the ball go where you hit it, do not judge the shot. Just watch. All you need to know is where the ball ends up so you can find it again.

When the ball stops rolling, switch your mind immediately to the next shot. Good or bad, put your mind on what will happen next. Keep going forward. Get out of the habit of judging your shot, which makes you stay on something that is done and cannot be changed.

If you need some help, try giving yourself credit for having a well-rounded game. So you missed the green and instead of getting your par with two putts, you’ll get it with a chip and a putt. From wherever you are, imagine a positive sequence of shots that get the ball quickly into the hole. You don’t have to hit four good shots to get a par. Three good ones will do. Golf is not that hard.

By the time you reach the ball, your mind will be absorbed in what to do next. It will not have spent one moment on what happened up to that point, because you did not give the chance to. This is exactly what you want to do. Don’t give your mind any time to wander off into a place where it could do you harm.

In a current NY Times article, Phil Mickelson is described as being “the best forgetter out there.” He is always moving forward, looking for shots that will put himself in command of the round. He doesn’t spend any time on what didn’t work out. I would guess that he doesn’t spend any time on what did, either.

The more you make that your habit, too, the more prepared your mind will be to stay out of your way and let your skills be expressed. If this is a change you need to make, it takes time and constant work. The rewards are more enjoyment and lower scores.

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

putting, rules

USGA To Rule On Anchoring the Putter

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The April 30 edition of GolfWorld magazine magazine contained a brief article saying that the USGA and R&A are seeking a way to ban or limit anchoring the putter for inclusion in the 2016 rules revision.

The opening paragraph in GolfWorld reads:
“A change to the Rules of Golf that would limit golfers’ ability to anchor long putters and other clubs against the body is looking more likely, judging from R&A officials’ comments during a press conference April 23 to promote this summer’s British Open at Royal Lytham & St. Annes.”

The article described “discussions with the USGA on the matter as proceeding at an intense pace.”


Further, “The governing bodies are looking at Rule 14, which defines a stroke, as opposed to restricting the length of the club.”

So far, this looks to me like a solution in search of a problem. There was no controversy until last year when Webb Simpson won twice and Keegan Bradley won a major championship, both using an anchored putter. If you look at the Strokes Gained, Putting rankings, there is no trend for players who anchor their putter to be at the top.

However one putts, one still has to read the green correctly, get the speed right, aim oneself properly, get the staring line right, make a flawless stroke, and have supreme confidence all the while. I don’t know how an anchored putter makes those things easier to achieve. I have seen both Simpson and Bradley putt in other tournaments where they couldn’t hit their hat.

How a Rules change would affect the career of players who have established themselves putting one way and would in 2016 have to learn a completely different style, I will leave to the players affected and their attorneys.

The real issue for the world of golf concerns players who have a bad back. I wrote earlier this year in this space about the effect that banning a long putter would have on the many thousands of amateur golfers who play with a bad back and need a long putter in order to keep playing.

By targeting Rule 14 rather than restricting the length of the club, it would appear that the USGA is taking our needs into account. We can only encourage them by writing to them to express our concern.

If you need an accommodation in putting because of a bad back, please write to the USGA to express your concern over any rule change that would affect your ability to play.

The USGA does not seem to have an e-mail address for general correspondence. Their mailing address is:

The United States Golf Association
P.O. Box 708
Far Hills, N.J. 07931

You may also telephone them at 908-234-2300, FAX 908-234-9687.

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

rules

Know the Rules: Water Hazards (Red Stakes)

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There are two kinds of water hazards. Last week we talked about the ones marked by yellow stakes. Those are water hazards you have to hit over. This week we’ll talk about water hazards marked by red stakes. These are called lateral water hazards. They are defined by water that generally runs alongside the direction of play.

Imagine there is a small stream running alongside the fairway from tee to green, about ten feet wide, and you hit your ball into the hazard containing the stream. You may play the ball as it lies with no penalty. You may not ground the sole of your club or remove loose impediments,


You may also, while taking a one-stroke penalty,
a. Play another ball from where you hit the one that went in the hazard,
b. Go back as far as you want to on a line connecting the spot where the ball entered the hazard and the hole (this could be on the other side of the hazard),
c. drop a ball outside the water hazard within two club-lengths of and not nearer the hole than (i) the point where the original ball last crossed the margin of the water hazard or (ii) a point on the opposite margin of the water hazard equidistant from the hole.

Why would you want to drop on the opposite side of the lateral water hazard? One reason would be that you might end up closer to the hole than if you exercised option b. Another reason could be that there might be no place where you could exercise option c(i). Imagine a green complex that looks like the one below.

The pond on the right side of the green is marked with red stakes. It is possible that you could hit the ball into the water and have no place on the near side of the hazard to drop the ball that is not closer to the hole than the hazard (c(i)). If this were a stream, you could exercise option c(ii). This, however, is a large pond. The other side is over 80 yards away. You probably wouldn’t use option b, or option c(ii), since they would both leave you with a long shot over the pond. Your best choice would be to go back to the tee and play from there (option a).

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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To enjoy playing golf, to play your best golf, and to improve, you must see everything about your golf game in a positive light. Criticizing gets you nowhere. Put only the good shots, the great shots, in your memory. Magnify them, glorify them, let them define how you play golf. Tell yourself, “That’s how I play golf.” Those shots weren’t accidents. They truly are how you play golf.

Yes, you do hit bad shots. Everybody does. Do you ignore them? Of course you do! Put them out of your mind. The only shots to carry with you are the good ones. Never say, “I can’t hit this shot,” or, “I can’t [anything].” Never say that. Work only with true things. It is not true that you can’t hit a particular shot. It is true that you didn’t hit it. So when you flub one, say to yourself, “I didn’t hit that shot, but next time I will.” Always use positive words.

Write down your good shots. Keep a notebook in which you record the results of each round of golf you play. In this book, write down the good shots only. Write down the setting, what club you used, describe the shot, and the result. No symbology! Use words! Write down a narrative that inspires you and re-read it before you play. Remind yourself of how good you are. Got a hole on your home course that’s hard for you? Write down the times you played it well and memorize what you wrote. Review those notes before you go out. Put the good times in your head.

If you had a good run of well-played holes, write down how you felt during that time. Give yourself some advice on how to feel like that at will instead of it just happening. During a good streak on the course, enjoy it and keep it going. If you have one good hole, have two more. There is no such thing as “playing over your head.” You wouldn’t be playing this well if you weren’t capable of it.

Stay positive about your game. Hit only the shots you’re good at with the clubs you’re good at. Sure, you‘re allowed to carry fourteen clubs, but if there are a few you don’t feel comfortable with, leave them home! Find a way to get the ball around the course hitting the shots you like with the clubs you like, and find a way to hit those shots with those clubs as often as you can. Identify your skills and beat the course to death with them.

Stand over every shot believing that it will turn out well. If you’re unsure of yourself, choose a different shot or a different club. Is there a shot you need but don’t hit well? Get a lesson, learn how to hit it so you look forward to hitting it during play.

When the round is over, talk to your friends about the good shots you hit, and that they hit. Review the round in a positive way. Change the subject if someone starts talking about their flubs. Come away from the course happy, believing that you had a chance to display your skills to their full advantage, and that next time out you’ll do it again.

Always be positive about your golf. Allow nothing negative into your golf game. Always be positive.

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

rules

Know the Rules: Water Hazards (Yellow Stakes)

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When you hit a ball into a water hazard, the procedures can be complicated. It all depends on which kind of water hazard you hit into. They can be marked with either yellow stakes or red stakes, and the procedure for each is different. This week we will talk about hazards marked by yellow stakes. Water hazards marked by red stakes are lateral water hazards, which we will discuss next week. This is all in Rule 26.

The first thing to do is to determine whether or not your ball is in the hazard. If you cannot find your ball, the rules say it is a question of fact that it is in the water hazard. For example, you saw it go into the pond and splash, or you saw it roll toward the pond and disappear in weeds lining the pond. In the absence of such knowledge or virtual certainty that the ball is in the water hazard, you must call it a lost ball and proceed accordingly.

It is possible that your ball can be in the hazard, but not in any water. The boundary of a water hazard is defined by yellow stakes, and is the straight line connecting the nearest outside faces of adjoining yellow stakes. If your ball is inside this line, or even resting on it, your ball is in the hazard. The stakes themselves are inside the hazard, and are obstructions.

If you find your ball, you may play it without penalty. You may not ground your club in the hazard at any time before the stroke is made, and you may not remove any loose impediments in the hazard. If you do not find the ball, or you do but choose not to play it, you have two options (Rule 26-1). Both are accompanied by a one-stroke penalty.

You may go back to where the ball was originally played, drop another ball and play from there, or,

You may drop a ball behind the water hazard on a line connecting the hole and the spot where the ball crossed the boundary line of the hazard. You may go as far back as you like along this line to take your drop. [I once hit my tee shot into a pond and took my drop about twenty yards back, where there was much a much better lie available. I hit my 5-iron to less than a foot from the hole and tapped in for par.]

In both cases, you may clean your ball or substitute another one.

If the ball is moving in a water hazard, you may make a stroke at it, but you must do so without delay. You cannot wait until a moving ball comes to a more favorable position for the stroke. You may lift the ball while it is moving in the water in order to exercise one of the two options above.

Deep Rules:
(a) You are in a bunker and hit the ball over the green into a water hazard on the other side of the green, and the ball is not playable from there. You may either (1) go around to the tee side of the water hazard and play over the hazard after dropping a ball on the extended line between the hole and the spot where the ball crossed into the hazard, or (2) drop a ball in the bunker from where the original stroke was played. There’s a one-stroke penalty in each case.

(b) There was reason to believe your ball went into the hazard, but you couldn’t find it and played another ball under Rule 26-1. Then later find your original ball and it was not in the hazard. Unfortunately, when you made a stroke on the new ball, that became the ball in play, and the original ball became a lost ball.

(c) If a ball is lost near a water hazard, but there is no reasonable evidence that it is in the hazard, it must be treated as a lost ball if not found, not as a ball lost in a water hazard. That’s to prevent someone from avoiding the lost ball penalties, which are more severe than the water hazard penalties.

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

mental game

Play Well and Have Fun

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Golf is our recreation, our hobby, our happiness. Unless you play for money, that’s all it is.

Every now and then, I play with a golfer who tells me that he used to play with too much intensity, and would get so upset after a bad shot, and so on, and that he finally stopped doing all that. The game got a lot more fun, he enjoyed his company more, and for sure, his company enjoyed him.

After your round is over, ask yourself these three questions. Are you happier than you were before you teed off? Did your playing partners enjoy having you in their group? Are you at peace with how you played? If you can say yes to each of those questions, you had a good day at the course. If you shot a good score, so much the better.

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

mental game

How to Profit From a Post-Round Review

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After a round of golf, what do you think back on? Do you talk about the score you could have had if only you had done this or that? Most people do. How about the good shots? Do you spend much time on them? I think we tend to take our best shots for granted, even the 45-foot putt that we had no business making, but in remembering the good shots lies the key to better golf.

The bad shots happen. Let ‘em go. Remember only the good shots. You have the ability to hit them or you wouldn’t have done it. Build on them. Remember what they looked like, and most importantly remember what it felt like, not just physically, but mentally, as you were hitting them. This feeling of mind is what will lead you to hitting more good shots just like them.

You might say “How can you remember a feeling,” but just as the image of the shot persists in your memory, so the does the memory of your mental state during the shot. That might not be something you’re used to remembering, but it’s there. You just have to look for it. Don’t worry, it’s not hiding. Just start thinking back and you’ll find it right away.

Why is this important? It’s because the mind leads the body. The state of the mind directly influences the state of the body, and thus its performance. The difference between a good shot and a bad one is a matter of mind, not of technique.

When you have a clear idea of the state of your mind when you hit good shots, you can then teach yourself to repeat that state of mind at will. How? Before you hit any shot, in practice or in play, retrieve that feeling of calm confidence, then hit the shot. Constant repetition is the key to developing your mind in this way–it’s not there for the asking.

By doing this, you will develop good shot-making skills much faster, and you will achieve the mental consistency you need on the golf course.

The second thing to review is the mental decisions you made. Affirm your decision-making process when it led to you to the right decision, and correct it in review when there was a flaw–not for the purpose of saying, What if, but to get it right the next time. This is teaching yourself to think like a golfer.

The last thing to do in your review is look for shots that keep your score up because you don’t know how to hit them–chipping out of the rough might be an example. Then fix them. If you had a headache, you’d take an aspirin right away, wouldn’t you? So if part of your golf game is giving you a headache, get a lesson. Right away.

The scorecard in your hand is a blueprint for how to play better if you look at properly. It’s not about “What I did,” but “What I’ll do.”

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

practice

Build Your Swing One Club at a Time

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A teaching pro once told me that when he was getting ready to play in a tournament, he did nothing but putt and hit wedges. Lots of wedges. He explained why, but I didn’t really get the point until about two years ago.

For a long time, I didn’t have a very good pitching stroke. Those 50- to 100-yard shots were pretty tough. So I finally decided that whenever I hit a bucket, half the bucket would be devoted to hitting pitches. In just a few months, I got the stroke down and the results were magnificent. Each shot was crisply struck, took off with authority, went straight, arched high, and stopped near where it landed.

Then I put two and two together. Why not build the swing I use for pitching into the swing I use for full shots? This is what the pro was talking about. He was bringing all the right elements of striking the ball—-tempo, releasing the club through impact—-into the full swing. The full swing is just a longer pitch.

I want you to try this. Start working hard on your pitching game with your sand wedge. Get a lesson if you have to. When you’re hitting pitches that fly high, straight, and bite when they hit, you’re ready to learn how to extend that same swing into your full shots.

Now go through the bag one club at a time. Learn to hit your pitching wedge this way. Hit some pitches with your SW, then hit your PW. Keep going back and forth until your SW and PW swings feel the same. Then move on to your 9-iron, and again alternate between your SW and 9-iron. When that’s successful, move on to your 8-iron, same process.

Never move to the next club until you are completely confident with the one you’re working on. This carries confidence over to the next club. Otherwise, you carry over doubt, and the program beaks down. It might take you a week or more to get it right for one club. Keep at it, one club at a time, until you’re hitting your driver with this same, smooth swing. When in doubt, go back to the wedge. In fact, never leave the wedge. That club is your foundation.

Let me assure you that I don’t mean for you to swing your 5-iron or your driver with the identical swing that you use with a sand wedge—-short, small, and without much clubhead speed. As you move up to longer clubs, the swing feeling you carry over from the sand wedge will naturally adjust to swinging a longer-shafted and straighter-faced club as it was designed to be swung, but with the same light feeling that you use with the sand wedge. The result will be a shot that goes straight, and you won’t lose a yard from what you had been getting.

I cannot overstate how easy it is to learn how to hit the ball straight if you use this approach. If you are willing to throw out your old swing and its bad habits, such as lurching into the ball, guiding the club into the ball, swinging with a tempo that is far too fast, etc., you can become the accurate and consistent ball-striker you long to be. Commit to this program and you’ll improve so much it will be like you’re a different golfer.

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

short game

Short Game Variables

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The fun of the short game, as well as its frustration, is that you will never hit the same shot twice. There will always be a different lie, a different amount of fairway to cover, a different amount of green, different contours, different green speeds, all of which add up to having to use your imagination to a degree if you want to get the ball close to the hole. That means being aware of the variables of short shots and being able to control them. Then you can add a little of this or take off a little of that to tailor your shot to the precise situation in which you find yourself.

There are only five variables affecting the shot: loft, angle of approach, club path, clubface alignment, and clubhead speed. The parts of the shot that these variables affect are distance, direction, trajectory, and spin. The art of the short game is in controlling those variables.

Loft affects how high the ball flies in the air and how far it rolls after it lands. A high-flying ball, for example, gets over obstacles and stops quickly when it lands. All that counts is loft at impact. Vary loft with the club selected, by de-lofting the clubhead at address, opening or closing the clubface at address, varying ball position at address, and by varying the angle of approach.

Angle of approach is the angle to the ground the the club makes as it meets the ball. The clubhead can be moving parallel to the ground, or coming down at any selected angle. The closer to parallel the clubhead is traveling at contact, the higher the ball will fly because the effective loft of the club is greater. Angle of approach also affects the amount of spin that is applied to the ball. This variable is best controlled by ball position at address. The closer to your right foot the ball is, the steeper the club will come into the ball. A more or less wristy swing will also affect this angle.

Club path governs the direction the ball will go after it is truck. It is not the only influence, though. There is a complicated relationship with the clubface alignment that is the true determinant of this direction. The ball will tend more toward where the clubface is pointing than where the club is being swung. An open or closed clubface, best set up at address, also puts sidespin on the ball, affecting where the ball rolls after it lands.

Clubhead speed determines how far the ball will go after it has been struck. Also, the faster the clubhead is moving, the more spin that is applied to the ball. Swing speed can be varied by changing the tempo of the swing, changing its length, how the club is released through impact, or by gripping up or down to change the length of the club.

The alterations you make in the shot to affect these variables interact. When you make two alterations, they can work in an additive way or negate each other. Be aware of that when you test these alterations around the practice green. Pay attention as well to the degree of alteration needed to achieve a desired result. Remember that the test is how distance, direction, trajectory, and spin are affected.

A final variable is the ball itself. A Tour ball accepts more spin and is more responsive to variations in the stroke. It will also accept more spin in a full shot, so if you curve the ball to a pronounced degree when you swing, a Tour ball might not be the best choice in spite of its value around the green.

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