All posts by recgolfer

putting, short game

A Morning Around the Practice Green

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I went to the range this morning to get a little practice in before I settle down to watch the Masters broadcast. I took a putter, and 8-iron, and four balls. I started chipping with the 8-iron to holes different distances away to see how close I could chip effectively with it, and how far away. I plan on doing that with all my chipping clubs, 6-iron through sand wedge. Someone else can chip with their lob wedge, but not me.

In addition to finding out what I wanted to know about the 8-iron, I found an effective way of judging the strength of the stroke. It’s fairly intuitive. I was just looking at the hole and waiting for a feeling to appear that said, in its own way, “This hard.” It is a feeling that is in your mind, but is felt in some way in your body, too. I found that if I executed that feeling with my body turn, and not with my hands and arms, my distance control was really good. When the feeling got into my hands, all was lost.

As for putting, I worked on approach putts by dropping balls at 20, 25, 30, and 35 feet, then putting them toward a hole. Again, looking at the length of the putt and letting the right feeling of power to infuse itself worked like a charm. For these longer putts I am finding that the best power generators are the oblique muscles of the abdomen. They are big muscles, not subject to flinching, and are the muscles of the moving stroke farthest away from the hands, which are the last source of power you should consider.

Short putts: Remember how, in the real old days, golfers would putt their putter in front of the ball, then lift it over to the back and make their stroke? They were checking to see if the clubface was square to their starting line, and that is easier to do without a ball in the way. If you have an alignment mark in the top surface of your putter, all the better. Mine doesn’t, so I drew one with a Sharpie.

You put the putter in front of the ball, line things up, lift up the putter and replace it behind the ball without disturbing the alignment of the mark, and stroke along that line. Works great. You don’t have to spend all that time fussing with the mark on the golf ball.

One last thing. Two last things, actually. Set the putter down gently so it barely touches the ground. That gives you a freer start to the stroke. Keep looking at where the ball was for a few seconds after you have hit the putt. I don’t know why, by this greatly improves your accuracy.

Visit www.therecreationalgolfers.com

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Know the Rules: Dropping the Ball

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There are times when you can drop the ball to get relief from an obstruction, or when putting a ball in play after a penalty has been incurred. We’ll talk about those situations later, but today I want to go over the procedures surrounding dropped balls. They’re not simple. Actually, just dropping the ball is simple. You hold the ball out at shoulder height and arm’s length, open your fingers, and let it go. Enjoy the ride down, because all the fun starts when the ball hits the ground.

Once the ball is dropped and comes to rest*, it is in play unless it: (this is straight from the rule book)

(i) rolls into and comes to rest in a hazard;
(ii) rolls out of and comes to rest outside a hazard;
(iii) rolls onto and comes to rest on a putting green;
(iv) rolls and comes to rest out of bounds;
(v) rolls to and comes to rest in a position where there is interference by the condition from which relief was taken under Rule 24-2b (immovable obstruction), Rule 25-1 (abnormal ground conditions), Rule 25-3 (wrong putting green) or a Local Rule (Rule 33-8a), or rolls back into the pitch-mark from which it was lifted under Rule 25-2 (embedded ball);
(vi) rolls and comes to rest more than two club-lengths from where it first struck a part of the course; or
(vii) rolls and comes to rest nearer the hole than:
  (a) its original position or estimated position (see Rule 20-2b) unless otherwise permitted by the Rules; or
  (b) the nearest point of relief or maximum available relief (Rule 24-2, 25-1 or 25-3); or
  (c) the point where the original ball last crossed the margin of the water hazard or lateral water hazard (Rule 26-1).

In any of these cases, you must re-drop the ball, without penalty. If the re-dropped ball does one of these things again, you must place the ball as near as possible to the spot where it hit the ground on the second drop. Fortunately, most of these cases are rare. The ones that occur most often are (v) and (vii).

Deep Rules: If the dropped ball comes to rest but then moves again, it is played as it lies without penalty. If the dropped ball is not recoverable, such as it rolls into a pond, another ball may be substituted.

All of this is found in Rule 20-2.

The penalty for an illegal drop is one stroke, but if the mistake is corrected before the ball is played, there is no penalty (Rule 20-6).

*More Deep Rules: “Comes to rest” is the operative phrase. The ball does not have to hit the ground. It only has to strike part of the course. If it comes to rest in a bush without hitting the ground, it is play. If it strikes a branch on the way down, it has struck a part of the course and in play where it comes to rest, except for (i) through (vii) above.

Practical advice:
Many times you will be dropping the ball onto less-than-ideal ground. Since the ball is held an arm’s length away from you, it’s hard to tell exactly where the ball will hit the ground and end up. You want to be left with the best lie possible within the limits the rules allow. You should therefore practice dropping the ball, so you can predict just where the ball will land. When it comes time to drop the ball on the course, you’ll know how to drop it on the best spot of ground, again, within limits, to increase your chances of getting a good lie after the drop. And no tricks. It’s a gravity-fed drop only.

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

commentary

Payne Whiffs the Discrimination Issue at Masters Press Conference

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Yesterday, Masters chairman Billy Payne faced questioning from reporters about the continuing absence of female members at the Augusta National Golf Club. He handled the issue as poorly as a 30-handicapper dealing with a downhill slider on one of Augusta’s bikini-waxed* greens.

Payne’s stock answer to the question was, “That’s a membership issue,” hoping the assembled press would get the hint and realize where they were and whom they were talking to, and start minding their manners. In other words, golf’s equivalent of being in church and speaking to the head prelate.

Apparently the press hasn’t drunk the Augusta Kool-Aid, because the questions kept coming. Apparently, too, Payne had only one answer scripted because he didn’t expect to have the same question asked more than once after he gave the word. Since he was prepared with only one answer, that’s the answer he kept on giving, and it got worse every time.

In my April 2 post, I suggested that Martha Burk should work this issue from the inside, through the golf organizations that have leverage. Now that the press has picked up on the points in that post (are people in high places loyal readers?) that will be another point of pressure if they don’t let go, and keep asking the question after the Masters is over. At the Players Championship press conference. At the U.S. Open press conference. At the PGA Championship press conference. Keep the ball in the air.

Now I know this is a golf instruction blog and that’s what you expect to read when you dial it up. There’s another Know the Rules post coming tomorrow. This issue is important, though, and I am using this space to add my voice to the list of people who don’t believe that Augusta is above criticism or accountability in the golf world, and that we have a duty to ask why ANGC is getting by with flouting the rules that the rest of this country has to live by, and the golf world thinks nothing of it.

I hope to see a fine tournament ending with Webb Simpson and Keenan Bradley playing off in a battle of belly putters. But let’s not allow the issue of female membership die as soon as the honorary starters tee off tomorrow.

* So described in 1994 by Gary McCord in his final** Masters as a broadcaster.

** Per request/demand of the Masters Tournament Committee.

See also Finchem Whiffs Discrimination Issue at Ponte Vedra Beach

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Augusta National and Women as Members

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The issue of Augusta National Golf Club admitting a female member is in the news again. Martha Burk, instigator of the protest over the same issue in 2003, is pressuring Augusta once more. Normally, the CEO of IBM is invited to become a member. IBM has a new CEO, a woman. Will Augusta National stick to something of a tradition and issue an invitation to her because of her corporate status, as Burk says it should, or say nothing because of its own tradition of never having had a female member?

Something might be said about that at a press conferences this week, who knows. What we do know is that Augusta National is a private club and they can admit or deny admission to anyone they care to. That doesn’t mean we have to give them a pass.

Shoal Creek Golf Club became a pariah in 1990 because of its policy of not admitting Blacks, and the PGA withdrew its offer to the club to host that year’s PGA Championship. Shoal Creek could not have gone ahead and run the tournament anyway because the Championship is run by a governing body not attached to the course. The Masters tournament is run by the offending club, so Augusta National would have to be sanctioned via outside pressure by a relevant organization instead of orders given. But it has to be the right organization. The National Organization for Women is not the right organization.

Burk didn’t get that the first time, and she still doesn’t get it. A more effective strategy would be for her to go behind the scenes and lobby the PGA Tour not to recognize the tournament as an official win, not to count the money earned on the official money list, and not to award FedEx Cup points to the winner. She can lobby the PGA of America and the USGA to remove the Masters champion from its list of players exempted from qualifying for the U.S. Open.

This would be a more effective strategy because what drives the Masters is prestige. They’re not worried about money. In 2003 and 2004, the tournament was broadcast without commercials in order to avoid the prospect of a sponsor boycott. What would hurt would be to take away the trappings of prestige that has elevated this chummy invitational to a status co-equal to the title tournaments of golf’s major governing bodies. Even Jones thought the tournament had wrongly outgrown its original nature.

I doubt that will ever happen, though. The good old boy network is too strong. Can you see Tim Finchem even giving this idea more than a millisecond of consideration? In the end, Golf should be asked to explain why it came down hard on one private club for discriminating, and but does not on another. That would be a good question to ask at the U.S. Open press conference this June and the PGA Championship press conference in August.

ball first ground second

Ball First, Ground Second

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To hit a decent golf shot, you need to make contact on the center of the clubface with the clubface square to the target, and the clubhead moving toward the target. Do that and you can play decent golf.

If you want to play outstanding golf, there’s one more thing. Hit the ball first, the ground second.

If your handicap is in double digits, the chances are great that you hit the ground first, and the ball second most of the time. When that happens, clubhead speed is diminished before the ball is struck, causing you to lose distance. The clubhead can get twisted, affecting accuracy.

The most effective strike is to hit the ball before the clubhead reaches the bottom of its arc. This drill teaches you how to do that.

Fold up a bath towel two times, so there are four thicknesses of towel, and place the towel about six to eight inches behind the ball. Now hit 9-irons without brushing the towel on the way down.

When you do, the ball leaps off the ground with what seems like no effort on your part. That’s the kind of shot you want to be hitting.

After you get good at this drill, you can try a more challenging one which tests what you think you have learned. Take the towel away and put a tee on the ground so it points (from you) to the leading edge of the ball.

The divot that you make with your 9-iron should start on the target side of where the tee is pointing.

The 9-iron is a good club to start both drills with, but once it gets easy with that club move to an 8-iron. Work your way through your irons one club at a time, not moving to the next one until you have mastered both drills with the club you’re working on at the moment.

And I do mean “mastered.” “Pretty good” isn’t good enough. That means old habits are still kicking around. You need to practice until they are entirely gone. Don’t be surprised if it takes several months of steady practice to work through all your irons.

Of all the instructional posts on this blog, this is the one that will have the greatest positive effect on your game. All the other tips will help you to become better. This one will transform you. You’ll be playing a different game. I’m not kidding.

rules

Know the Rules: Nearest Point of Relief

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Perhaps the primary rule of golf is to play the ball as it lies. There are several circumstances, however, under which a player may lift the ball and drop it elsewhere to get relief from certain conditions.

Relief is often based on finding a reference point called the nearest point of relief, which is defined in the Definitions section. It is the spot nearest to where the ball lies, and not nearer to the hole, from where a player can make the stroke the player would have made from the original position had the interference from which relief is being sought not been present.

In finding this point, the player must simulate the address position and stroke, with the same club, and swing in the same direction, as if the interference from which the player is taking relief were not present. For example, if a player would have made a right-handed stroke with a 4-iron toward the green were the condition not there, that is the stroke he must simulate to find the nearest point of relief. The nearest point of relief from a particular spot might be different for a right- and left-handed golfer.

Determining the nearest point of relief can get tricky. If it appears that the nearest point of relief is an unplayable lie, such as tall grass, this does not change where the nearest point of relief is. In this case, the player might choose not to take relief and to play the ball instead from where it lies.

After finding the nearest point of relief, the player must hit the ball in the same direction that was used to find that point.

If playing from the nearest point of relief means a club different from the one used to determine the nearest point of relief is now a better choice, the player may use the different club.

It is possible that the nearest point of relief is inside an object, like a tree trunk, or cannot be physically determined because a barrier prevents taking an address position. In these cases, the player must estimate where that point would be if those complications were not there.

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

rules

Wartime Rules of Golf

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Think you play on a tough course? You ain’t seen nothing like this, from the Richmond Golf Club in Surrey, England, promulgated in 1941:

1. Players are asked to collect bomb and shrapnel splinters to save these causing damage to the mowing machines.

2. In competitions, during gunfire or while bombs are falling, players may take shelter without penalty for ceasing play.

3. The position of known delayed action bombs are marked by red flags at a reasonable, but not guaranteed, safe distance therefrom.

4. Shrapnel and/or bomb splinters on the fairways or in bunkers, within a club’s length of a ball, may be moved without penalty, and no penalty shall be incurred if a ball is thereby caused to move accidentally.

5. A ball moved by enemy action may be replaced or, if lost or destroyed, a ball may be dropped not nearer the hole without penalty.

6. A ball lying in a crater may be lifted and dropped not nearer the hole, preserving the line to the hole, without penalty.

7. A player whose stroke is affected by the simultaneous explosion of a bomb may play another ball. Penalty one stroke.

Most writers would try to come up with a witty comment on each rule, but they exceed anything I could even imagine. Play well, and have fun. And play in peace.

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mental game, playing the game

The Opening Tee Shot

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Maybe not the hardest shot in golf, but certainly the most unnerving, is the opening tee shot. No matter how well you warmed up, you can’t help but wonder what’s going to happen today. There’s a host of doubts that could be running through your head, but if there are, it comes down to this. You warmed up your swing but you forgot to warm up your mind.

Isn’t that the point of your warmup, to get ready to play? If all you do is hit balls to remember your swing and smooth out any loose shots that appear, the exercise is all you got. The warmup is meant to accomplish three things: establish clean contact again, establish your swing tempo, and get your mind into playing mode. That last one is the most important.

One thing you will hear about your pre-game warmup is not to start correcting faulty shots. The reason for that is doing so warms up the wrong part of your brain. You want to engage your subconscious mind, the one you can’t have a conversation with, the one that responds to what it sees on an intuitive level.

When you have a ball in front of you, look downrange, pick a shot, and hit it. Don’t judge the result. If you have a slice that came from nowhere, let it go. Hit lots of wedges and fewer shots with the longer clubs. Swing, hit the ball. Swing, hit the ball. Make it no more complicated than that. All the while, practice looking first to find a shot and hitting the shot you see.

When you step onto the tee box, stay in that mode of thinking. Look down the first fairway and see what needs to be done–where you want to hit the ball and what club will get it there. The big mistake would be to hit the shot you hit the last time you played this hole. Respond to what’s there now. Let the needs of the shot you see infuse themselves into you and respond to that feeling. Then go through your pre-shot routine as you would for any other shot and play away.

The more often you can start a round in this way, the easier this shot will get over time, and the more you will start playing every shot this way. Your only limitation will be for how long you can sustain this kind of concentration before you get back to analyzing again. With practice, you will be able to keep on for the entire round, but it all starts with your warmup, validated by playing the first tee shot the right way.

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

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Know the Rules: The Teeing Ground

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This post is the beginning of a weekly review of the rules of golf. Every Friday I will go over one rule in detail so you know, really know, what that rule is and how it affects the way you play the game. The rules do three things for us. They make the game fair, they hold us accountable for our mistakes, and they make golf easier to play. Knowing them is part of being a golfer.

I will discuss only the most obvious and common occurrences. If an unusual situation warrants it, I will mention a Deep Rule – something that hardly ever occurs but can be confusing or has serious consequences if not handled properly.

Today’s rule is Rule 11 – Teeing Ground.

The teeing ground is the designated place from where you start play on a hole, but it is not the entire prepared area. That’s commonly called the tee box. The teeing ground is a rectangle defined by a line connecting the tee markers, and going back from there a distance of two club-lengths. You can measure with any club.

The most important rule is that the ball must be played from within the teeing ground defined above. You can stand outside it, but the ball must be inside it. If you play a ball that is outside the teeing ground, it is a two-stroke penalty and another ball must (must, not can) be played from within the teeing ground. Deep Rule: If this mistake is not corrected before the player tees off on the next hole, the player is disqualified. Deep Rule: If a ball played from outside the teeing ground goes out of bounds or into a water hazard, those penalties do not apply because that ball was not in play. Only the penalty and procedure for playing the ball outside the teeing ground applies.

I like to tee the ball about a foot behind the markers to make sure there is never a question here. You can also use the rectangle to your advantage. Say you’re on the tee of a par 3 and between clubs. If you want to go with the longer club, you can tee up at the back of the tee box and take two yards off the shot just like that.

If you knock the ball off the tee while addressing it, tee it up again without penalty. If the ball falls off the tee on its own, tee it back up with no penalty. If you swing at the ball and hit it while it is falling off the tee, the stroke counts, but there is no penalty. If you swing at the ball and knick it slightly so it rolls off the tee even a few inches, the ball is in play at that spot and may not be re-teed without penalty.

Tee markers are considered to be fixed and may not be moved for any reason (two-stroke penalty). Keep them there. Don’t touch them. After the first stroke, though, they are to be treated as an obstruction. If movable, they may be moved.

It has happened to me several times that I get to the tee box and there is only one tee marker, or the two markers are lying to the side of the tee box because the maintenance guy who mowed the tee box forgot to put them back. Now what?

When tee marker(s) are missing in a tournament round, a tournament official should be called to correct the situation before play continues. If one is missing in a casual round, estimate where the other tee marker should be according to the shape of the hole and play on. When both tee markers are missing or not in place, tee up next to the marker that is in the ground indicating the measuring point for the set of tees in question. In either of these two cases, though, call the clubhouse and let them know about it.

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

putting

A Controlled Putting Stroke

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When I write these posts I like to keep two rules in mind. First, write only about things that a reader can learn from reading the post. If something is experiential, too open to interpretation, I won’t write about it, because I don’t want a misinterpretation to send anybody off in the wrong direction. Second, keep my own game out of it. What applies to me may not apply to you and may even be detrimental to your game. I try to write about golf’s universals–things that anybody can put into their game and become a better golfer.

This post breaks both of those rules, but I want to mention it for whatever it’s worth to you. If it makes you think about putting a bit differently and encourages you to make explorations on your own, even if they don’t end up where I am now, that’s fine with me.

Since my back surgery seven weeks ago, I have been putting. Nothing but putting. You can imagine that with nothing else about golf to distract me, I am getting to be a better putter than I was before. One problem I have been trying to solve for many years is how to take the putter back smoothly from the ball and in such a way that the putterface doesn’t open so that it can’t get square again when it gets back to the ball. That sound like two things, but it’s all of the same piece.

The square putterface is clear enough, but let me explain exactly what I mean by taking the putter back smoothly. It’s hard to bring something from a dead stop into motion without having a little jiggle at startup. Not impossible, but hard to do. With the putter, the little jiggle is expressed with the putterhead moving a bit along the Y-axis of the stroke path and the putterface turning slightly. (The Y-axis is at a right angle to the X path toward the hole, just like in your algebra book.)

When the putterface moves in that way, returning to it your carefully positioned starting point is seldom going to happen. As a consequence, having the ball go where you intend to putt it will seldom happen, too. Another putt you should have made gets missed.

A few days ago I fell into doing this one thing which seems, so far, to have cleared up the problem. My first move back is to take the handle of the putter back with a very gentle push by the left hand. The putterhead stays where it is for only the merest instant before it starts back, too. This move is so subtle that if you were looking casually you wouldn’t notice the lag between the handle and the head of the putter. That lag also puts light pressure into the palm of my left hand, since for an instant the handle is moving but the head is not. I maintain this pressure throughout the stroke.

The result is that the putter has no Y-axis drift, and the putterface stays where it needs to be to return to the ball squarely. I feel like Zach Johnson looks.

There’s more to it than this, in that this move is combined with my particular stroke, which I’m not going to try to describe (Rule 1). I need to check out Eddie Merrins’s book, Swing the Handle – Not the Clubhead, to see if this is what he had in mind. Incidentally, I tried this same move with a driver (not swinging in fully, because I’m not up to that yet, but just making a takeaway) and it feels promising.

Like I say, this is my personal exploration, and I found something that means something to me. If this opens you up to new possibilities, so much the better. The only thing I would remind you of if you want to try it for yourself is the subtlety of the movement. The added pressure in your left hand is very slight, and the lag in the motion of the putter is almost unobservable. More in those two things might not be the ticket.

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com