All posts by recgolfer

rules

Know the Rules: Unplayable Lies

Leave a comment

At some point you will hit your ball into a place where you don’t have a shot. Trying to put the club on the ball just isn’t possible or would be a very bad idea. In this case, you can declare an unplayable lie and get relief, but under the penalty of one stroke. The options are pretty simple, and there are three.

You can:
a. hit another shot from the spot where the ball you just hit was played, or
b. take a drop within two club-lengths of where the ball lies, but not nearer to the hole, or
c. take a drop on the line connecting the hole and where the ball lies, extended as far backwards from the where the ball lies as you wish.

Again, all these relief options come with a penalty of one stroke.


If you declare an unplayable lie in a bunker, relief under b. and c. must be taken in the bunker.

You may declare your ball to be unplayable anywhere on the course except when it is in a water hazard.

You may clean your ball before dropping it, or substitute another ball.

The player is the sole judge of whether the ball is unplayable.

That’s about it on unplayable lies. This Rule 28.

I used this rule once to help myself out. I hit the ball off the tee of a par-3 hole to the left of the green on a bank of grass with a deep bunker between the ball and the green. I chunked my second shot into the bunker, against a deep vertical face. Instead of trying to take a stroke or two to get out of the bunker, I declared an unplayable lie, took relief under option a. on the bank of grass (where I hit the shot originally), and chipped in for a bogey.

Let me recommend that if your ball comes to rest against an exposed tree root, that you declare an unplayable lie and take relief. Hitting a tree root with your full swing is a good way to sprain your wrist or worse.

Deep Rules: If a ball is declared unplayable and when dropped rolls into a lie that is also unplayable, the player may invoke the unplayable lie rule again.

It is not necessary to find a ball for it to be declared unplayable. In this case, the player may take relief under option a. Relief under options b. and c. may not be taken unless the ball is found.

The procedures involving the combination of wrong balls and unplayable lies are so involved, I don’t think you want me to explain it. Just avoid the whole affair by putting a mark on your ball and making sure the ball you find is really yours.

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

hands lead the clubhead

Casting: Golf’s Killer Fault is Easy to Fix

Leave a comment

While swing changes should be a matter between yourself and your pro, there is one change I am going to recommend to you. It is very likely one that you need to make. Stop casting.
Casting is releasing your wrist set just after you start the club back down from the top of your backswing. This is too early. If you do that, you’re giving up clubhead speed and accuracy for no reason. By correcting this common error, the difference in the way you hit the ball will be jaw-dropping.

You don’t think you cast? Let’s find out. Swing up to the top of your backswing and look over your right shoulder at the angle made by your left forearm and the club shaft. Set up again, swing the club up and then back down, stopping when your hands get hip high. Look again at the angle your left forearm and the club shaft make. Is it the same angle? If the angle has changed and the forearm and shaft make a straighter line than before, you’re casting. It’s time to get that out of your swing.


To see why, look at the two pictures. In Figure 1, the player still has his full wrist set as his hands enter the impact zone. Notice that the hands are in the same place in both pictures, but when the wrist set is maintained, the clubhead has to go over twice as far, in the same amount of time, to get to the ball. This generates extra clubhead speed with no extra effort.

Figure 1

In Figure 2, the player is casting. As the club enters the impact zone, there isn’t much of his wrist set left. His power was used up long ago and the accuracy of the strike is in question, too.

Figure 2

Casting is one thing that pros don’t do. They retain their wrist set for as long as they can. A better way to put it would be that they don’t let that angle go until the momentum of their swing naturally releases it. That’s what the release is. It’s the speed of the swing building up to the point where the wrists can no longer hold their set. They let go of the angle and the club lashes into the ball.

To learn how to hold on to the set, swing up to the top at your usual speed, and swing back down now very slowly until your hands are hip high. Concentrate on maintaining that angle between your left forearm and the club shaft. Don’t let it change one bit. Slowly swing from there back up to the top again and back down to hip level. Do this over and over so the feeling starts to take hold in your subconscious mind that your wrists don’t move. They just go for the ride. All the while, your hand, wrists, and forearms must remain relaxed so the wrists can release when it is time for them to.

After three tries at this, on the fourth try let your swing go all the way through the ball, letting your wrists release when they swing past hip level. (See also Your Wrists at Impact)

The wrong way to stop casting is to try for a “late hit” and hold onto the angle for dear life for as long as you can. What frequently happens is that the wrist set is held for too long. The clubface is still open as it reaches the ball, resulting in a tremendous slice.

There is no such thing as a late hit. Get that phrase out of your mind. Casting makes you hit early. A relaxed swing with a maintained wrist set delivers the hit on time.

While you’re practicing this, don’t get caught up in what the angle of your wrist set is. Ninety degrees would be nice, and some touring professionals have even a smaller angle. If you can’t get to ninety degrees, that’s OK. Don’t force yourself to go beyond that your flexibility allows you to do. This is a professional move, but it must be based on your physical capabilities.

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

putting

A Strategy For Reading Greens

Leave a comment

Much of green-reading is based on the experience you have had, remembering what greens looked like they would do and what they actually did. When you read a putt, you reach into the bank of putts you remembered and pick out the one that looks the most like this one, weigh the two, and come up with a solution. That’s really what green-reading is. This post is about how to organize your reading so you can store your memories in a way that makes them easily and accurately retrieved.


When you walk up to a green, maybe from 100 yards out, notice if the table of land that it rests on is sloped in any way. You might not be able to see it from the angle you have, but it’s there. That slope will tend to pull putts in that direction.

When you get on the green, find the high point and the low point. Forget about where your ball is for the moment. Just look at the green in general. Most of the time this slope will conform to the slope of the land you looked at coming up the fairway.

These first two looks show you slope that must be taken into account. Your putt might break a different way, but if you’re going to ignore the overall slope of the putting surface, you have to know what it is first and have a good reason for ignoring it.

Now look at your putt from the low side, to see changes in elevation that would cause you to hit the ball harder or softer to get the ball over the distance to the hole. The farther from the hole the ball is, the more important speed is, and the more important it is that you take this look. Try to do it when someone else is lining up their putt so you save time when it’s your turn.

Look at the putt from behind the ball unless you are putting up or down a slope. In that case, look at the putt from the downhill side looking uphill. Contours are easier to see. Look first for the general shape of the putt—if you were to hit the ball straight at the hole, would it go in, or end up to the right or to the left?

If the ground gives you two breaks, say right to left at the start, the left to right at the end, account for both, but give the latest break more allowance, since the ball will be traveling slower and be more affected by the slope of the ground.

It is not entirely necessary to look at green contours from close to the ground. You can see all you need to from a standing position, maybe bending over a bit to look from a height of four to five feet.

Reading longer putts from behind the ball does not let you see contours around the hole clearly, and that is where you need to pay the most attention. Walk up to about ten feet from the hole and straddle the line of your putt so you can get a good look at slopes near the hole. Don’t guess from way back there.

You should have a good feel for how hard you want to hit the putt. Put that information together with what you see on the ground to pick a starting line for the putt. Do that with this next bit in mind, probably the most important thing I will say today. Beyond a certain distance, you’re not realistically trying to sink the putt. You know that if you did it would be good fortune rather than your skill that got the ball in the hole. Your skill, however, is what gets the ball close and gives it a chance to go in. Your goal then is to see how to send the ball across the green to place where good fortune can take over. That’s how you leave yourself tap-ins, and that’s how those twenty- and thirty-footers go in every now and then.

Organize your green reading this way, going from the general to the specific, step by step. That pulls out one recognition at a time and lets you build our read logically without guesswork.

Remember that you will never read greens perfectly. Did you ever see a pro on TV let a putt slide by the hole a hair on the right and have an expression of complete disbelief? Have you ever heard the announcers on TV say, “This putt goes left, doesn’t it Roger?” “It does Johnny, but it looks like it goes right, and no one so far today has figured out that it doesn’t go that way.” All you can do is read the green based on what you know, and if you get it wrong, file away the correction for next time.

See also Vector Putting

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

rules

Know the Rules: Lost Ball and Out of Bounds

Leave a comment

In friendly games, if the ball sails OB or looks like it could be lost, most players will drop another one right there and play on as if nothing had happened. Or, they go to where they think the ball went, can’t find it, then drop another and play on as if nothing had happened. Let’s get this right.

If you think you hit the ball out of bounds or that it might be lost, this is what you do. Inform your playing companions that you will play a provisional ball, using just those words. Saying, “I’m going to tee up another one,” or “Let’s try that again,” or the like doesn’t count. You must also play the provisional ball before you go looking for the original ball.


So now you’ve hit the provisional ball and all is well with it. What you would do next is look for the original ball. If you find it and it is not out of bounds, then it is the ball in play and you must pick up the provisional ball. If the original ball is found out of bounds, or you cannot find the ball after having searched for five minutes, the provisional ball is in play. You do not have to look for your ball, but if it is found by anyone before you make a stoke with the provisional ball, the original ball is in play.

You may play the provisional ball without obligation until it reaches or passes the point where the original ball is likely to be. If you make a stroke with the provisional ball with it lying at or nearer to the hole than that point, the provisional ball is in play and the original ball is lost.

The penalty for a ball lost or out of bounds is stroke and distance. Say you hit your tee shot out of bounds. That’s one stroke, the penalty stroke is two, and hitting the provisional is three. When you get to the provisional ball, you will be hitting your fourth shot with it.

This is Rule 27.

Out of bounds is generally marked by white stakes.

Tip: when you play a provisional ball, make sure it is one you can distinguish from the original ball. If the provisional ball ends up near the original ball and you cannot tell them apart, then both balls are lost and you have to go back to the original spot and hit again, under a second stroke-and-distance penalty.

Deep Rules: A player may, at any time, play another ball from where the original ball was last played under a penalty of one stroke. That ball is not provisional, but is the ball now in play.

If the ball is lost in an immovable obstruction, in an abnormal ground condition, or has been moved by an outside agency, the player must proceed under the rules governing those cases.

If you think your ball might be out of bounds or lost, but might also have came to rest in a water hazard, you may play a provisional ball. If you find the ball in the water hazard, you must abandon the provisional ball.

The friendly game scenario where a player drops a ball where the ball was lost or OB and plays from there? The player must go back and play properly under stroke and distance and take an additional two-stroke penalty for breaking the rule.

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

golf stories

Getting Arnold Palmer’s Autograph

Leave a comment

I mentioned in an earlier post that I started playing golf when I was 10. That September, my Dad asked me if I wanted to see a golf tournament – see the professionals play. I said, “Sure,” so we went to the 1960 Portland Open Invitational at the Portland (Oregon) Golf Club.

When we got there, we went straight to the range to watch the players warming up. There were caddies downrange, one for each golfer, because they had to provide their own balls back then and the caddies were out there picking them up. I was worried the caddies would get hit, but their player hit shot after shot right to them. Unbelievable.

The third tee was right next to the range, so we started following some group, I forget who was in it, and on the next hole, the second hole of tournament golf that I had ever seen, one of the guys made a hole-in-one. No kidding. What fun!


Arnold Palmer was there. He had won the Masters the year before, but was a year away from becoming ARNOLD PALMER. I knew who he was, though, and on the eighteenth hole I walked into the fairway at Pop’s urging to get his autograph as he walked from the tee to his next shot.

There were no gallery ropes in those days; you just stayed a respectful distance away when the players were hitting and then followed them down the fairway.

He was walking to his tee ball and I went up to him and asked him for his autograph. He asked me kindly to wait until he was finished playing and he would sign for me. So I went up to the green and stood a good distance away to not get lost in the crowd. I waited, and waited.

I heard some commotion from the gallery around the green, so I guess something had happened. Some applause, and everything was quiet again. Not a few moments after that, here comes Arnold Palmer, alone, walking straight for me. He had said he would sign for me, he found me, and he signed.

You can’t imagine how happy I was to get his autograph, and it took me until I had grown up to realize what he had done. He had kept his promise and he had to find me to keep it. Instead of thinking that I had left, he went looking. That’s why he’s The King. You bet I still have that autograph.

Oh, yes. Palmer shot 270 to finish in fourth place, four strokes behind winner Billy Casper, Jr. Palmer won $1,150 and Casper’s first-place check was worth $2,800.

The capital “A” is 1-3/4″ high.

See also My Natalie Gulbis Story

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

hands lead the clubhead

The Golf Swing Move That Changes Everything

10 Comments

[July 15, 2019: This is the blog’s most-read post. It has almost twice as many views as the second-ranked post. It should. It is the first mention on the blog of the most important fundamental of the golf swing, your hands lead the clubhead at impact, that for a reason I cannot figure out is rarely mentioned in golf instruction books. But every good golfer does it, and no bad golfer does it. Period.

[How to get this right is not addressed fully here, but it is in posts that followed. In the intervening seven years, I have tried many methods of getting this right. The easiest way I know of is to feel the butt end of the club moving leftward from the beginning of the forward swing to beyond the point when the ball is struck. This method is fully explained in the recent post, Your Hands Lead the Clubhead- IV]

My son is learning how to play golf. He didn’t start until he was about 30 years old.  He is fairly athletic and hits the ball a long way, but neither he nor I have any idea of where it’s going to end up much of the time.  

The reason for that, and the one thing that he is struggling to learn, involves his right (trailing) wrist.  This post is not about him, though.  It’s about over half the recreational golfers I play with who do the same thing he does.  They flip that wrist.

In an earlier post, I talked about pronation and supination.  This is one of my most-read posts, because it is something that Ben Hogan went into at length in his book, Five Lessons.  

The Hogan mystique makes many amateurs think this is the magic move that if they get figured out, will change everything.  For once, they’re right.

In practical terms it all means a backward bend in the trailing wrist MUST BE MAINTAINED through impact.  

That wrist, right wrist for right-handed golfers, left wrist for lefties, must not be straightened out, and certainly not be bent forward (flip), until after the ball is struck. (see photo, above)

This is a golf swing imperative. You cannot play good golf if you don’t do this.

How do you get it right?  Search the blog on “hands leading the clubhead”.

See this video, or this one.

If your ball flight is a guessing game, chances are that flipping is your number one problem.  

I even see guys flip when they putt and they can’t putt worth a lick.  

Put this move into your golf swing and you will be a different golfer.  Golf will become a different game.  I absolutely guarantee it.

rules

Know the Rules: Immovable Obstructions

Leave a comment

An obstruction is anything artificial except fences, walls, stakes, etc, that define out-of bounds. An obstruction that cannot be moved with reasonable effort or undue delay or without causing damage is an immovable obstruction. You get relief from an immovable obstruction when the ball lies in or on it, or if it interferes with your stance or the intended area of your swing. Common examples are cart paths, sprinkler heads, bridges, and exposed drainage lines.

Relief in this circumstance is complicated and depends on where the ball is. In the following four cases, the ball may be cleaned after it is lifted.

1. If it lies anywhere but on the green, in a bunker, or on the teeing ground, the player may lift and drop the ball within one club-length of the nearest point of relief, but not nearer the hole, without penalty. The nearest point of relief in this case may not be on the green or in a hazard.


2. If the ball lies in a bunker, the ball may lifted and dropped as in 1., but the drop must take place within the bunker. Alternatively, the player may choose to drop the ball outside the bunker, on a line connecting the spot where the ball lies and the hole, such line extended as far back as the player chooses, with a penalty of one stroke.

3. If the ball lies on the putting green, the player may lift the ball and place it (NOTE: not drop it) at the nearest point of relief without penalty. The nearest point of relief may be off the green, but not in a hazard.

4. If the ball lies on the teeing ground (example: you hit a dribbler that trickled over right next to the pole holding the ball washer that happens to be on the teeing ground), you may lift and drop the ball without penalty in accordance with 1.

Deep rules:
You may not take relief if interference by anything other than an immovable obstruction makes the stroke impracticable, or if you are taking relief to make a stroke that is clearly unreasonable or which requires an unreasonable stance, swing, or direction of play.

If the ball is in a water hazard, relief must be taken according to rules for water hazards, not the rule for immovable obstructions.

There are twenty-six Decisions concerning immovable obstructions. The spirit of the rule governs them. Here are a few examples to give you the idea.

Player determines nearest point of relief but is unable to make intended stroke. No further relief allowed.

Relief from the obstruction incidentally gives the player relief from interference in the original line of play. No problem.

Relief from one obstruction lands the ball in a spot interfered with by another obstruction. Take relief again.

Player needs relief for a ball lying on a bridge. Relief must be taken directly underneath the spot on the bridge where the ball lies. Maybe you should play it off the bridge.

Object interferes with abnormal stoke, but an abnormal stroke is reasonable under the circumstances, e.g., to play toward the hole you must hit the ball left-handed. Relief may be taken. The player may then take a right-handed stroke unless that stroke is interfered with in which case relief may be taken again.

Let me end this long post with a story from the European Tour. It was in Sandy Lyle’s Golf Hall of Fame 2012 induction speech.

Some years ago Tony Johnstone was playing with Seve Ballesteros, and both had driven over the hill and both went to find their ball. Tony Johnstone said “Seve, I’ve got a sprinkler head very close to my ball, can I get a drop?” So Seve came over, folded his arms, and said, “No.” Johnstone said, “If I move my foot back a little bit further, can I get a drop now?” Seve said, “No, Tony.” Well, Tony being like a little Jack Russell looked up at Seve and said, “That’s okay, this is your ball here anyway.”

See also Know the Rules: Movable Obstructions

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

improvement

A Better Way to Improve your Golf

Leave a comment

When you start playing golf, you have to learn the basics: how to hit the ball, how to get the ball in the air, how to putt, how to chip. Getting lessons on these basics is the best way to learn them, and you should keep taking lessons on these skills until you’re fairly good at them. “Fairly good” means that more often than not, you know here the ball is going to go when you hit it.

If you have developed your game to that point, you’re probably breaking 90 with regularity. You should continue to take lessons, but change your focus radically. You already know how to swing, so you don’t need any swing lessons. What you do need is a lesson on how to hit your fairway wood off the ground. This is a tough shot. Get a lesson on it. You don’t need a chipping lesson, because you can do that, but how about a lesson in chipping from greenside rough? How about a lesson in hitting uphill and downhill putts? See where I’m going with this? You should be learning shots, not swings.


When you play golf, you don’t go out there to swing the club. You’re there to hit the ball toward and into the hole. Most of the time you’re not making a routine play at the ball. You have to make a shot. Once you have the basic skills figured out, the focus of a lesson needs to be doing just that — using the skills you have to hit shots.

On TV, golf looks simple. You know how much harder it is in real life, and how many different kinds of shots you have to play in eighteen holes. Every swing, every stroke at the ball is generally tailored in some way to the shot at hand. The more different shots you can hit, the more you will be able to take whatever the course throws at you. Having a solution for every problem is a comforting way to play golf. It’s knowing how to hit shots that gives you a good score, not knowing how to swing the club.

You might have one shot you want to work on, which you can have your pro teach you at the range. Even better is to have a playing lesson where you go out on the course, drop a ball at a particular spot, and say to the pro, what shot should I hit from here, and show me how to hit it. You can cover five or six shots that way and it will be the most valuable lesson you ever had.

I say again, after you get to a certain skill level, don’t learn swings, learn shots. Becoming a shot-maker is how you get better from there.

See also How to Take a Lesson – part 1

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

rules

Know the Rules: Movable Obstructions

Leave a comment

An obstruction is something that is artificial, except for walls, stakes, fences, etc., that define out of bounds. Growing trees, bushes, weeds, and such are natural objects and are not obstructions. They are part of the course. If an obstruction can be moved without unreasonable effort, without causing delay, and without causing damage, it is a movable obstruction.

To get relief for a ball lying beside a movable obstruction, you may move the obstruction. You do not get to lift your ball and drop it elsewhere. If the ball moves because of your moving the obstruction, you must replace the ball with no penalty.

If the ball lies in or on the obstruction, you may lift the ball and move the obstruction. The ball is then to be dropped as near as possible to the spot directly under where it lay in or on the obstruction, and not nearer the hole. You may clean the ball when so lifted.


If the ball is moving, an obstruction that might influence it, other than the flagstick or equipment of any of the players, may not be moved. The penalty for doing so is two strokes.

All this is in Rule 24-1. Now for the fun stuff.

An incorrect ruling regarding this rule helped Ernie Els win the U.S. Open at Oakmont in 1994. Els drove his ball into the left rough. His shot to the green was blocked by a camera tower. The tower was mounted on a tracked vehicle, which could have been moved without delay, but the tower was ruled to be an immovable obstruction (to be discussed next week). Els got a free drop to a better lie which most likely saved him a stroke on the hole. He went on to beat Colin Montgomery and Loren Roberts in a playoff.

Deep Rules: You may not hold onto the ball when you move an obstruction. That would be a violation of Rule 18-2a, and a two-stroke penalty would apply.

A ball can become lost in an obstruction, but there must be reasonable evidence that this occurred. A surmise is not good enough. Without reasonable evidence that the ball was lost in the obstruction, the ball must be treated as a lost ball. If the ball is lost in the obstruction, the obstruction is to be moved and another ball dropped as near as possible to the spot directly under the place where the ball last crossed the outermost limits of the obstruction, but not nearer to the hole.

See also Know the Rules: Immovable Obstructions

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

shot-making

Elevated Tees

Leave a comment

It is not unusual for a course to have a par-3 hole where the tee is elevated above the green. This throws a wrinkle into your club selection, and that’s not all. The way you play the shot needs to change, too.

A golf ball in flight obviously has a vertical component of motion and a horizontal one. When the ball descends, it is going down, but still forward as well.

A green that is lower than the tee allows the ball to fall down farther, which at the same time will also carry it farther forward. That means you need less club for a given distance. A general rule is to use one less club for every 50 feet of elevation difference.

If the tee is on a level with A’, B’, and the green at A, B, you can see that a club which would leave you short on level ground will be just right once it has completed its extra fall downward.

It’s hard to describe 50 vertical feet looks like, and hard to tell just by looking because the difference is stretched out over the length of the hole. Use one less club as a rule the first time you play the hole, then adjust from there.

The other danger that an elevated tee presents is that the ball spends more time in the air before it hits the ground. Every aspect of its flight gets exaggerated. We’ve dealt with forward-back motion with club selection, but there’s side-to-side motion as well.

Your fade that lands nicely on the green could fade itself right off the green by the time it hits the ground when launched from an elevated tee. It makes sense, then, to keep the ball as low as possible with this shot. This is especially true if there is any wind blowing.

Dip into Better Recreational Golf downloadable free on this blog, and look up the Hard Chip. This is the shot to play.