All posts by recgolfer

tournaments

2011 PGA Championship Preview

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The final major of the year starts tomorrow. The one that gets too little respect, in contrast to the first one, which gets too much. Even I think that the golf season is essentially over after the British Open, but that’s mainly because I’m starting to get amped for the college football season.

The question, as usual, is who is likely to win. For the past three years, predictions have been pointless. A different player has won each of the last 12 majors*. The last six have been won by a first-time major winner. Given the parity that exists in men’s golf today, the answer to the question, Who is the best player to have never won a major, is, Everybody.

At the top right now, we have Luke Donald, a consistent player, but not an intimidator, Lee Westwood, who always finds a means of getting in his own way, Adam Scott, who might finally be coming into his own, and Jason Day, who keeps coming close so often that he has to have learned how to break through.

Personally, I would like to see Westwood take the trophy. I’m a sucker for the comeback story. Here is a guy who was the Next Big Thing for a few years and whose game just collapsed. He worked his way back with a swing that is the antithesis of the cookie-cutter swings on the Tour today. It looks homegrown (though it’s not) in the way he just seems to rear back and whack it. Through all his disappointments in recent majors, he has never complained or made excuses. That means a lot to me, too.

The Championship will be played on the Atlanta Athletic Club course, the site of two memorable major wins. The first one was when Jerry Pate won the U.S. Open there in 1976. He came to the 72nd hole with a slim lead and a 5-iron to a pin next to water. Commentators were discussing whether he should go for it or lay up. I thought to myself watching on TV, “If he wants to be a champion, he’ll hit the 5.” He did, and won by two over Al Geiberger and Tom Weiskopf.

The next one was the PGA in 2001, when David Toms came down the same fairway and had the same dilemma. His tee shot was farther from the green than Pate’s was and I was thinking. “If he doesn’t lay up, he’ll throw it away.” He chose to lay up, then pitched over the water to eight feet and sank the putt to beat Phil Mickelson by a shot.

I should be a Tour caddy.

The course will be 254 yards longer this week than in 2001, with all but 33 of the additional yards being added to the first four and last four holes. The 6th hole has a pond fronting the green that is new. It will reign in long hitters when the hole plays as a 425-yard par 4, and be a risk element when the hole plays at 296 yards.

Jerry Pate hit his 5-iron on an 18th hole hole that measured 460 yards. David Toms’s 18th was 30 yards longer at 490. This weeks it will be 507 yards long, with more trouble around the green than before. If you play a drinking game where you have to down a shot every time someone goes for the 18th green in two, you’ll finish the day stone sober.

The weather forecast is for low 90s heat and near-60% humidity. There will be a lot soaked shirts by the third hole.

This one could be fun. I’ll be watching. When it’s over I’ll be heading to Pre-Snap Read for the last three weeks before the college football season starts. FedEx Cup? Are you kidding?

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

*In order, staring with the most current winner: Clarke, McIlroy, Schwartzel, Kaymer, Oosthuizen, McDowell, Mickelson, Yang, Cink, Glover, Cabrera, Harrington. Note: only three Americans in the bunch.

playing the game

What Are Golf’s Scoring Clubs?

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The scoring clubs are the ones you hit the scoring shots with. The scoring shots are the ones that make the biggest difference in getting the ball into the hole as quickly as possible.

The three most important clubs are the driver, wedge, and putter. (See The three most important clubs.) Let me add two more.

One is an advancement club. Say you’re in the fairway, but too far from the green to get on with the next stroke. Play an advancement shot.

This shot eats up yards, but with a club that isn’t hard to hit, and still gets you close enough to the green so you can have an easy shot to get on.

I like to use my 24-degree hybrid for this purpose. Say I’m 260 yards from the hole on a par 5. This club will leave me a medium-length pitch for my third.

Or if you want, 260 yards is two easy 8-irons. (See The mathematics of club selection.)

The second club I want to add is a chipping club. For garden-variety chips, essentially approach putts from off the green, use a 6-iron. It gets the ball on the green and running, which is how you chip the ball into the hole.

So you have five clubs: a club for the tee (not necessarily the driver), two clubs for shots around the green, a club to eat up distance from the fairway in a controlled manner, and a putter.

Get good with these clubs, and the shots they hit, and see how easy golf gets.

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

beginners

Getting the Golf Ball Off the Ground

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For beginning golfers, their biggest triumph comes on the day when they learn to get the ball in the air consistently. Finally getting the ball to fly naturally off the clubface against a background of blue sky, on command, is a tremendous thrill. It is the gate that everyone must pass through to begin playing better golf.

The reason why this is so hard at first is because of the tiny margin of error in striking a golf ball, compared to other ball-and-stick sports. The golf ball is the smallest of hit balls, the golf club is the smallest of sticks, and the ground the ball sits on takes away half the room where an error in contact can be made.

Getting over this hurdle can be a reason why beginners decide to stop trying. It’s not easy. If you know someone who is taking up the game and is frustrated in this way, suggest the following:

1. Tee up the ball. Take the ground out of play for a while. Give yourself back that margin of error. Make sure the tee is the right height, though. For hitting an iron, the bottom of the ball should lie no more than one-half inch above the ground. For a driver, . . . , well, a beginner shouldn’t be hitting a driver, so we won’t go into that.

2. Do not try to lift the ball into the air. The iron club has an angled face, which is designed for that function. Just meet the ball. Getting the ball into the air is the club’s responsibility, not the golfer’s.

3. Start small. Hit little shots with a lofted club, such as a 9-iron, by taking a backswing of no more than four or five feet. If you return the club through the ball without thinking of hitting the ball, but only letting the club pass through the spot where the ball is, the ball will pop into the air just like that.

4. Ease into taking bigger swings, all the time just letting the club flow through the ball. The club’s design will get the ball in the air. (Remember that in steps 3 and 4, you’re hitting the ball off a tee.)

5. When you get to the point where you’re hitting one clean shot into the air after another, remove the tee and hit balls off a fluffy bed of grass. That will give you a little bit of room to hit underneath the ball and still be all right. Move at an appropriate rate to grass that is at normal playing height where the ball is resting firmly on the ground. You’ve made it! You’re in the club.

Now go play and have fun.

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

potpourri

The Golf Season So Far

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This happens every year. Just when I start to get my summer revved up, August is about to begin. We have short summers in Oregon, and this year it was especially short because of the long, wet spring we had. The parade of golf tournaments helps me keep track of how the year is passing by when the weather gives me false signals.

As far I’m concerned, the pro golf season ends with the British Open and i start thinking about college football. (See http://www.presnapread.com/.) As you read in my recent preview, it’s one of my favorite tournaments of the year, though this year I was in Japan when it was being played, and didn’t get to see any of it because of the time zone difference.

The PGA Championship doesn’t really grab me. Sorry. . .

The biggest story of the year is that we’re in a transition from one era to another. The Tiger/Phil is coming to a close (no, Tiger, when he comes back will be a very good player, but no longer a great one), European golf is ascendant, and the distinction between tours is blurring. If professional golf were a free market, we would be seeing a shake-out on both the PGA and European tours and the establishment of a world tour.

But that might involve American players traveling to foreign countries, eating food other than they are used to, and speaking a language other than English, (can you just imagine Bubba Watson ordering snails en Francais?). So let’s not hold our breath on a free market.

What we will find is that the success of European players gives them the power to resist the demands the PGA Tour levies on participants in its tournaments. The absence of current stars because of parochial membership requirements will have to give way soon. That would establish a freer market, and the results would be interesting.

For the ladies, it will take an economic recovery for the LPGA to schedule more than 30 tournaments. They’re trying to hang on by having a fifth major, and by holding it outside the U.S., are taking clear steps to create a world tour. Bully for them. Fortunately we have on of their precious events in the Portland area every August. If you want to see how good the ladies really are, and how good you aren’t, try to catch an LPGA event.

As for my season, I described in an earlier post the swing change my pro gave me to work on, and I’m still working on it. It’s paying off handsomely around the green already, but with longer clubs, the results are slower coming.

Here’s a hint, though. Friday I played with my grandson and was in the rough with my drive, 193 yards from the green. I took out my 24-degree hybrid, which in spring was my 175-yard club, and launched a gentle draw all the way to the green, the ball resting about 20 feet beyond the pin. And that was all carry, folks. No bouncing off rock-hard fairways.

I haven’t played much golf, because I’m also getting in shape for a trans-canyon hike at the Grand Canyon at the end of September. The conditioning hikes don’t leave me the legs for golf. Come October, I’ll be back in force.

When I do play, I’ve been carrying only six clubs. There was a note in an old Golf Digest magazine I picked up that told of a men’s club that had a six-club tournament. Twenty-three of the twenty-five players shot their handicap or better, and one 12-handicapper shot a 74. Try cutting down on your bag. It’s more fun, and you will not lose a stroke.

One last note. I finally got to single digits this year. For all of you who are close, let me tell you. You don’t have to hit the ball great all the time, just well enough most of the time. The difference in how I’m scoring right now, when I play, is that I don’t throw away shots by not thinking clearly or by having nightmare holes. Every shot I hit is the best I can do at the moment. If you’re a 12, you’re good enough to be a 9. You just have to stop wasting shots, and that’s mental.

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

short game

Why Should You Work On Your Short Game?

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Someone posted a thread on a golf forum that I read asking why he should work on his short game. The responses were pretty much to the point, which is, that no one has a flawless long game, and your short game will keep your mistakes in the LG department from hurting you.

It’s true that to play your best, at any level, you have to be able to hit the ball. A wicked short game won’t help you if you waste strokes getting the ball up to the green. It’s somewhat like a distance runner who has a blazing kick at the end of the race, but who lacks the endurance to stay in contact with the lead so his kick will matter.

May I repeat, this is not a chicken-or-the-egg problem. You’ll never score well unless you learn to hit the ball. Here’s a story which does not contradict that maxim, but illustrates clearly how the short game fits into scoring.

About eight years ago, I played golf with a guy, in his fifties, about 5’6″, 150, not a big guy, who also had a withered left arm. He hit the ball straight, but not very far.

His short game looked pretty good, too. Every shot he hit around the green ended up close to the hole. It was like his ball had an iron core and there was a magnet in the hole.

I was paying more attention to my game than his, but when I did, I noticed he was always getting a par. When the round was over, he had shot a 73, without hitting any shot from the tee or fairway that was noticeably spectacular.

I asked him about this, and he told me that he got this condition with his arm when he was a child, and he knew he would never become a long hitter. To score, he would have to have an outstanding short game. And that’s what he had.

Now he wasn’t having to get up and down on every hole. He did hit greens. It’s just that when he missed, he still got his par. His short game allowed him to get the most out of what his long game could deliver. That is what the short game does for you. That is why you should practice your short game.

Good enough for a player with a physical handicap, good enough for all of us, too.

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com/

rules

The Rules Of Golf In One Page

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There are two kinds of golfers – the ones who play by the rules and the ones who don’t. Or is it, there are two kinds of golfers – the ones who know the rules and the ones who don’t?

Actually, there are two kinds of golfers – the ones who play by the rules, but don’t know them, the ones who don’t play by the rules and don’t know them. Of the two possibilities left over, knowing the rules and playing by them and knowing the rules and not playing by them, there are no golfers like that because nobody knows the rules.

The rule book as 97 pages and there is an 457-page book of decisions on arcane exceptions that came up once in a tournament, and even that is not all-encompassing. Our sport is too complicated!

When the rules of golf were first codified in 1744, there were just thirteen rules. They dealt with conditions of the day, such as dogs and horses on the course (no mention of cows, sheep, and goats), clubs breaking, and balls “coming among wattery filth.” One can only imagine what that might refer to, given sanitation practices of the day.

But the idea you get from reading those rules is that you hit your ball, go find it, and hit it again. No excuses. They’re so simple that even your average PGA touring professional would know at least eleven of them.

For golfers who really want to know today’s rules, there isn’t much hope. There’s just too much material and the rules interact in unexpected ways. That’s where The Recreational Golfer comes to your rescue.

Over at therecreationalgolfer.com, there is a one-page set of rules that covers just about everything that would occur in normal play. The hedges are “just about” and “normal.” I’m using 12-point type, and to to condense 97 pages into one, you would need about .025-point type and a microscope, so I had to leave a lot out.

What got left out is mainly the legalistic language the rules have to contain to account for clubhouse lawyers who insist that the letter of the rule apply exactly to their case instead of understanding the spirit of the game. You know the type.

I call my short set of rules, The Rules of Recreational Golf. They’re easy to understand, easy to apply for people who are just out to bat the ball around the course and enjoy their surroundings and the company they’re keeping. For turning in a handicap round, or playing in a tournament, keep to the USGA rule book.

If you want to play by the rules, and I hope you do, try playing by these. If you do, you’ll get it right (except for the ridiculous out of bounds rule, which I changed), and you’ll know a great deal more about the rules than 95 percent of the golfers you play with.

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

commentary

The David Feherty Show

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About four weeks ago, The Golf Channel started a show with David Feherty interviewing notable golfers in his inimitable style.

The first few shows tried out Feherty as a stand-up comic, and yarn-spinner, neither role of which suits him. He is the master of the out-of-nowhere zinger. Later shows feature this aspect of his humor, settling him into what he does best.

The shows began with Lee Trevino, went on to Tom Watson, Charles Barkley, Johnny Miller, and this week, a topical interview with Rory McIlroy. This last one was a masterpiece. Watch a re-broadcast this week if you get a chance. Here is a local boy who made good, with a square head on his shoulders. He knows what fame is getting him into, that his life will change because of it, though not always for the better, and his upbringing has prepared him for it all.

Feherty is a thoughtful and focused interviewer. He has a clear understanding of the question he wants to ask, asks it, then stops talking to let us hear the answer. He is a respectful interviewer, who can ask a pointed question in an honest way that doesn’t smack of gotcha. If he is touching on a flaw, it’s one he has had, too, and his point is how did you overcome it. The conversation is partly about golf, partly about life.

He has had a hard life and speaks about his problems, not to gain pity or encourage support, but to say to us, “This is who I am.” Because of his honest and respectful approach to his life, the people he speaks to open up about theirs, because they feel safe with him, in a way that they might not with another TCG interviewer or Joe ESPN.

I hope you’re watching this show, which is broadcast on Tuesday evening. There are some laughs, some soul-searching, and a conversation between two people who in some aspect of life are in the same club and understand each other on that level.

In a low-key way, this is some of the best television I have seen in a long time.

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

people

Another Tiger Woods Blog Post

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If you are a regular reader of TRG, you will have noticed a lack of mention of Tiger Woods, a famous golfer who is now famous for not playing golf.

This generation of sportswriters doesn’t know what to write about except him. Tiger wins – 20-point bold head and six pages. Tiger watches at home on TV – lead article with photos (Oh yeah, the guy who won. Might as well give him some ink, too. Picture if you got one.)

Tiger is the story. Not Tiger is the story, too. Good grief.

We have had a long dry spell of Not Tiger, and I have plenty of other things to write about, but I have to break my silence. He fired Steve Williams.

Now that doesn’t break me up too much. I’m not crying for a guy who earned $9M on Woods’s bag, and is now carrying for Adam Scott. I just can’t figure out why it took this long.

Nor can I figure out why Williams is miffed. Doesn’t he know who he worked for? The guy who will and has fired anybody he chose to further his career. Loyalty is a one-way street in his company. The only sign points to Woods.

What I can’t figure out is why anybody still carries a torch for this guy. He has character flaws to burn and they aren’t well-hidden. Sure, he smiles and knows how to be a nice guy. But at life’s turning points, where you show what you are really made of, Woods fails the good character test every time.

I don’t write him off, because anyone can change. I sincerely hope he does. It would be sad for his legacy to be, “Yes, he won all those tournaments, but . . .” The but being he was pretty much an amateur human being.

He needs someone in his life who he can go to when he’s being a schmuck who will tell him, “You’re being a schmuck, knock it off.” Not sure that will ever happen.

So Williams will, in a few weeks, realize that being released from Woods’s company was a positive career move and will find his life to be much better off for it.

Let’s not close before we mention Rachel Uchitel, one of Woods’s paramours. She’s trying to get out of a consent agreement that keeps her quiet about her affair with the Father of the Year. Will she be able to go public with the lurid details? Would you love to read them? It’s just another act in what’s become a circus, isn’t it?

Back to writing about golf.

distance

Can You Swing Easy and Hit a Golf Ball Far?

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[ Nov. 2, 2018 – A less wordy version of this post ]

Someone once asked me, how do you hit the ball as far as you do when you have such an easy swing?

I said, That’s the answer. What’s the question?

When you hit the ball on the center of the clubface, that being the golf swing’s primary distance generator, you get all the distance you deserve. You’ll hit the ball straighter, too.

This doesn’t mean to swing with no power at all, just that if you’re trying to muscle the club through the ball to get your power, that actually slows the club down and you get less distance.

Ease back until you make centered contact consistently. That is the source of distance.

When you can do that, it will feel like you’re playing a different game.

practice

One Hour At the Driving Range

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If you’re a golfer with a busy life, finding time to practice golf is not easy. When you do get a chance to go to the range, every minute counts. These practice plans will let you practice the golf’s most critical skills in one hour.

Plan 1:
Get to the range and buy a bucket of 40 balls.

From the range:
0:00-0:03  Warm up with three or four pitches of 60-75 yards.

0:03-0:25  Hit full shots, in this sequence: 9,9,7,7,5,5,3,3,D. Repeat twice. Hit longer pitches with any remaining balls. The next time out, hit an 8,8,6,6,4,4,2,2,D sequence. If your range has a practice bunker, you can alternate hitting practice bunker shots instead of hitting the pitches to specific distances.

Notice that this is a lot of time to hit less than 40 balls. Take your time, take lots of practice swings, get set up for each ball like you would on the course. Make each ball be worth something.

On the practice green:
0:25-0:40  Using four balls, hit chips from about six feet off the green to four targets of varying distances. Then go putt out each ball. Repeat at least twice. Try this with a 6-iron and with a sand wedge. The 6-iron would be used for a regular greenside chip, and the sand wedge for chipping over an obstacle between the ball and the green. Practice chipping out of the rough. This is a special skill which you might need a lesson to learn how to do correctly.

0:40-1:00  With just one ball, practice 2-foot putts from different angles around a hole. Repeat with 3-foot putts. Hit approach putts from 40, 30, 20, and 15 feet, just getting the ball close to the hole. Practice a few breaking putts, uphill, downhill, or sidehill, reading the putt first. Invent putting games of your own to make putting practice enjoyable.

Plan 2:

Get to the range and buy a bucket of 40 balls. 

0:00-0:30 Work on these two shots only: your 150-yard club, and the long pitch. The first shot comes from Harvey Penick’s writings. If you get good at getting down in three from 150 yards in, you’ll score very well. Hitting the green from 150 yards in is the best way to do that. Next, hit pitches from 60-90 yards. The point is to find out which wedges give you predictable distances. See this post for pointers on how to control distances in the range.

0:30-1:00 Practice chipping and putting as above. Always spend half your time at the range around the practice green.

Plan 3:

Get a lesson. There has to be something you need to learn how to do or need to improve on.  A half-hour lesson, followed by a half hour of practicing what you were just taught, is one of the best ways to spend an hour at the range. Once a month is not too often.

Golf is the most time-consuming, practice-driven recreational sport there is. If you’ve chosen to play, organizing your practice is the best way to make the time you spend on the course worthwhile.

See also Two hours at the range.

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