improvement

New Year’s Resolutions

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Now I’m not big on New Year’s resolutions, you need to understand that right off. Why would you want to wait until the calendar changes to a new year to start doing something that you know is good for you, when you could start any time? If you know it’s right for you, do it now.

Golf is different, though. We have a season that has ended, at least for those of us who live in the cold, rainy north. It’s time to prepare for the opening of the 2011 season, which means New Year’s resolutions are OK.

The point of a resolution is to stop doing what you were doing, and start doing something else that takes you in an entirely different direction. Doing the same thing better doesn’t count. You tried all summer to do the same things better, and where did that get you?

Do something different. Do the thing(s) that you know you should be doing but haven’t had the gumption to try. Those are real resolutions.

I made my resolutions in October, and started working on them. This list includes them and a few things that have to wait for the new year.

1. Play from the red tees in January and February. The shorter course will let my hit scoring shots more often (short irons on down), and shoot better scores. The subconscious mind only knows what  you shot. It doesn’t know the difference between the red tees and the whites. Or the blues. Great for your confidence.

2. Stop playing smart golf. Play the course straight up. If a particular hole demands a shot I don’t have, learn the shot instead of always letting the hole win.

3. Play different courses to get a complete golf challenge. Being good on just one course doesn’t mean you are a complete golfer.

4. Be mentally composed before very shot. Easier said than done, but imperative for playing good golf.

5. Take my game to the course. Meaning, play the shots I want to hit rather than the shots the architect wants me to hit.

6. Look at where I’m hitting into with a clear mind so I see what is really there.

7. Take playing lessons.

Seven is enough. Doesn’t have to be ten. What are yours?

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people

Count Yogi

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People these days are catching up to Moe Norman, the straight-hitting Canadian savant who might have been the best ball-striker to ever live. There’s even a movie coming out about his life. There’s a golfing school based on his swing, called Natural Golf. Moe Norman — the best golfer you’ve never heard of. Except he isn’t.

Count Yogi is.

Real name, Harry Hilary Frankenberg, born in 1906. The story goes that he was standing in a corn field, long before Shoeless Joe, and heard a voice say to him, “your brain is your body’s greatest gift – use it. Watch the ball with your eyes, but put your brain eyes (like a blind person would) on the end of your stick (club head). Take the stick back and return it, circling under to loosen, standing tall and straight with perfect relaxed posture.”

Whatever that means, it meant something to him and he became a marvelous golfer whose list of accomplishments you can read on many web sites.

His five-word mantra about golf was, “Simple game. Nothing to it.” It was all about controlling the clubhead, and “you should always be loose, boneless, muscleless, effortless, because when you are, you can mentally control the clubhead.”

The backswing: pull it back “to control,” one of his students said. Farther than that and you’ll lose control.

”I have always been a consistently straight golf-ball hitter because I have eliminated virtually every idea suggested in numerous instruction articles in books, magazines and newspapers. I keep the swing simple and think only of being relaxed, graceful and smooth.”

“I play with an infallible mental routine and have ever since I was a little boy. I don’t play with my hands, my wrists, my arms, my age or my strength. I play with 100% brain.”

He had a five-step setup that was a key element of his swing, which helped him take the body out of the swing, his thinking brain out of the swing, and just use his natural motion controlled by his subconscious mind.

Listen and watch him go through the steps in this video.

Yes, he’s off balance at the end of his swing, but don’t let that bother you. There are other videos of him swinging that I recommend you look for, because they show a swing of great beauty and effect. The key point for me is that he wants you to let your natural instincts take over. When you’re standing over the ball, reviewing your swing thoughts, worried about the result of the shot, whether you can pull it off, and all the other self-talk you conjure up, none of that has anything to do with what you’re about to do—hit the golf ball.

If you can find a way at all to quiet that part of your brain, and just swing, you’ll play better golf and have more fun. You can learn a lot from Count Yogi, the man who made that his life’s message.

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

drills, hands lead the clubhead

Your Wrists at Impact

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I have a two-page photo spread of professional golfers at the moment impact that I saved from an old Golf Digest magazine (July 2004). I saved it because impact is the whole point of the swing — to deliver the clubhead to the ball square, on line, and with force. I wanted to have this set of of photos hanging around so I can keep looking at them and see what it is that they all do the same way.

Cut now to Ike S. Handy. Ike is a fellow who took up golf late in life (over age 50) and in a matter of a few years was a scratch player. He won senior tournaments in Texas, has many holes-in-one, and reliably shot his age even in his 80s. Why? Because he hits the ball straight. Not real far, but straight. He wrote a book called, oddly enough, How to Hit a Golf Ball Straight, in which he explains how he does it.

I got a copy of that book, and here is the message that hits you over the head in chapter after chapter, page after page. After studying the filmed swing of a dozen of the world’s best players of his day, the one thing he found that they all did the same was that their “hands passed the ball ahead of the clubhead and their wrists were cocked at the impact of clubhead and ball.”

He says this in every imaginable way throughout the book. The hands must pass the ball before the clubhead strikes it, and the wrists must still be cocked at that moment. That is, there must still be some backwards bend in the right wrist.

Back to the photo layout. These golfers pictured are: Mike Weir, Phil Mickelson, Michelle Wie, Adam Scott, Padraig Harrington, Charles Howell III, Se Ri Pak, and Ernie Els. There are two things about them that is all the same: their right wrist is bent backwards, and their hands are ahead of the clubhead. Here’s what it looks like when Rory McIlroy does it.

Here’s a simple drill to learn how to get those wrists in the right place. Take out your sand wedge and make half swings with only your left hand on the club (right hand if you play left-handed).You will feel the proper shape of your left wrist going through impact. The practice maintaining that shape when you swing with two hands on the club.

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

books

The Golf Swing by Cary Middlecoff

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One golf book I read through once every year and then browse through continually is The Golf Swing, by Cary Middlecoff. It is a review of the development of the golf swing from Harry Vardon to Palmer, Player, and Nicklaus.

The meat of the book, though, is what he says about developing your own swing, advice contained in the chapter titled, “Your Swing.” He says little about the particulars of the swing, save a few fundamentals, but much about how to practice your swing for maximum return. I’ll summarize his advice for you.

– Every session should have a purpose, every shot should have a target, and every swing, good or bad, should be analyzed afterward. Accepting good shots without question is, Middlecoff says, “a tendency that should be resisted.”

– Keep a notebook so you can start the next session where you left off the last one, so you can take your last session’s successes and carry them forward.

– Make every shot real. Imagine a spot on your home course and hit this ball to that spot.

– Make sure you grip the club consistently. Subtle variations in the grip cause more mis-hit balls than you might realize.

– Work on the backswing alone in order to bring the club back to the same spot time after time.

– From there, learn how to start the downswing with the turning of the hips alone. “Get it clearly in mind that the hip movement automatically lowers the hands to just above hip level and starts the shoulders moving.”

– Practice without a ball so as to learn how to free-wheel the club through the “hitting segment of the swing.”

– “Program into the swing” that both arms will become straight only a few feet past where the ball was. At impact, the right arm is still bent and the right wrist has not fully released.

– Practice the parts so they become automatic. Then put them together into a full swing that allows you, when playing, to forget about mechanics, and concentrate solely on hitting the ball.

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practice

Winter Practice Plan

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After my latest lesson, the pro asked me to make up a practice plan covering the material we have worked on so far. Here it is.

Full swing
Ten shots with each even-numbered iron, the next session with the odd-numbered irons.
Ten shots with the driver, the next session ten shots with the fairway wood.
Five pitches to 30, 50, and 70 yards, the next session to 40, 60, and 80 yards.
Five shots each: high fade, low fade, high draw, low draw, medium fade, medium draw. The next session, five shots high straight, low straight, uphill lie, downhill lie, ball above feet, ball below feet. Do one pair of sessions with a 7-iron, the next pair with a 5-iron.

Short game
4 chips from one spot (one set) to different holes. Putt out. Continue until all 4 balls get up and down, minimum of three sets.
4 chips from 10, 20, and 30 yards (in different sessions) to different holes. Putt out. Continue until 3 balls get up and down, minimum of three sets.
Toss 5 balls into greenside rough and get 3 up and down. Repeat.
10 shots from greenside bunker, 5 full swings from [fairway] bunker.

Putting
12 3-foot putts in a circle around the hole.
10 putts each to 6, 9, and 12 feet without looking after each putt. Next session from 15, 18, and 21 feet. To learn distance control.
10 lag putts from 30, 40, and 50 feet.
10 8-foot putts in a circle around a hole on a slope. To practice green reading.

All this takes about 3 hours. Three times a week.

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supporting your golf

The Recreational Golfer’s Video Tips

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If you’ve been to my web site, www.therecreationalgolfer.com, you might have browsed the Tips Index page and noticed the video tips I have posted. These videos explain in pictures what would be difficult to make clear in words.

You may receive notice of new video tips when it is posted by registering. It’s just a matter so sending me e-mail and you’ll be in the list.

My book, Better Recreational Golf, explained things in pictures where possible, but having a moving picture makes it even easier to see what to do and learn how to do it.

Please join the growing group of recreational golfers who are learning how to play the game better and have more fun.

golf lessons

My Move To a New Level in Golf

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It recently became clear to me that for the past three years I have been on a plateau, improving in only the smallest steps, having reached the limit of my ability to improve based on my own work and having a lesson every now and then to patch up a hole.

My conception of golf had become used up. There was nowhere I could go because I didn’t know where there was to go, much less how to get there. I told my pro this. He said, I’ll take care of it.

Five weeks ago I had the first of a series of lessons that will change the way I play golf. The first two lessons were swing lessons, on two themes. First, visualize the shot and direct that visualization from the target back to the execution. This is the reverse of deciding the execution and projecting that forward to the target, the way most golfers play.

The second theme, related to the first and a way of realizing the first, is to work on the nine-shots drill: high draw, high straight, high fade; medium draw, medium straight, medium fade; low draw, low straight, low fade. I already hit some of these shots well. Others I couldn’t hit on a bet. But I worked on all of them, with every club in the bag. The only swing advice the pro gave me were hints on how to hit those shots, but he mainly let me figure it out myself.

Here’s what I learned. Some of these shots are easier to hit with short irons, and some are easier with long irons. The adjustments you have to make to turn the ball one way or the other are tiny–a matter of a few degrees. They are minute variations of the shot in the center, the medium straight shot.

What has happened after about a thousand balls is that my overall ball-striking has improved dramatically, and I can hit each of the nine shots on command most of the time. My sense of the visualization feeding back into my swing is starting to develop–this is a hard one–and at times it seems that to see it is to hit. Seeing the shot infuses into my body the means to hit it.

This is a distinct difference from the way I used to play, which was hit the ball and see what happens.

One more thing. The pro said he didn’t want me to play until this series of lessons was over. For five weeks I’ve just been hitting balls, developing my ball-striking skills and my mental imagery in tandem. I’ll keep you posted and let you know how things go my first time out.

One more thing, this time for sure. He also said that when I let loose of such a mechanical approach to the swing, I will start hitting the ball a lot farther. Two days ago I was hitting 8-irons. My normal carry distance is 132 yards with that club. These were landing beyond the 145-yard flag–cold balls that spent the night in sub-40s temperatures.  Oh, boy.

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shot-making

How to Hit a Controlled Fade

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A fade is golf’s control shot. The ball rises up high, curves gracefully to the right, and falls gently down to the ground in the fairway or on the green. A draw gets you more distance, but it can easily get out of control and turn into a nasty hook. To keep the ball in play, hit a fade. Here are four ways to do it.

If you set up square and strike the ball squarely, the result will be a straight shot. To make the ball curve intentionally, you have to change something. To set up left-to-right spin, the clubface has to come into the ball ever so slightly open to the path of the club. For example, if the club is traveling from 3 o’clock to 9, the clubface, instead of facing 9, must be facing between 9 and 10.

1. The classic way to hit a fade is to change your setup. Aim yourself slightly to the left of the target and twirl the club in your hands so the clubface aces halfway between your aim point and the target. You have pre-set the club open to the swing path, so if you just make a square swing along your body line, the clubface will sweep into the ball open, and the left-to-right spin will be imparted.

2. Another way of hitting a fade is to set up completely square, and take the club away outside of your normal swing path. If you swing the club back down on this path, outside-to-in, the clubface will be facing directly at the target, but the club path will be to the left of that. The ball will start out left and come back in to the right.

3. A third way of hitting a fade is to set up to the left of the target, clubface square, and swing back on your normal swing path. The change happens as the club is on its way up. Over-rotate your left forearm clockwise as you swing back. This will open the clubface. Keep this rotation as long as you can on the way back down. The clubface will close again, there’s no preventing it, but there will not be enough time for the face to close all the way back to square. It remains open and left-to-right spin is once again imparted.

4. A fourth way is subtle, and is perhaps only for advanced players. Hold the club tighter than normal with the last three fingers of the left hand. Hold it very tightly, but not so much that your left forearm gets rigid. This will tend to lock your left wrist, preventing the club from closing at impact. The open clubface will give you the fade you’re looking for.

See also Curving the Ball to the Left or Right

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improvement

Practice Making Pars

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Up North, it’s getting wet already. Not much fun to play in a liquid atmosphere with squishy lies. Keep playing, though, and use the opportunity to improve.

Shun the regulation course and find an executive layout. Make sure you go out as a single, because you are going to be hitting a lot of mulligans. What you are going to do is par every hole before you move on to the next one.

First off, this method is for short game practice. You don’t get do-overs for tee shots and approach shots. Practice those on the range. So, after you have gotten the ball within 100 yards of the hole, drop a ball and hit it again if (a) your pitch doesn’t land and stop on the green, or (b) your chip doesn’t end up within 3 feet of the hole, (c) your bunker shot doesn’t get out, (d) your approach putt doesn’t finish within 2 feet of the hole, of (e) your second putt doesn’t go in. If you make all those corrections, you should end up scoring a par on every hole.

What you accomplished: You learned how to get a par and how to hit the shots you need to hit in order to do it. Those will be the short shots and putts. Now when you take you game to the big courses starting in March, you will have the skill and confidence it takes to play well around the greens and shoot the scores you deserve.

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mental game, playing the game

Odds and Ends

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› One course you play on all the time you shoot your handicap consistently. Another course you play on from time to time you shoot five to ten strokes over your handicap. Guess which course you should be playing on if you want to improve?

› Play one round where you give up distance in order to hit shots that keep the ball constantly in play, for all 18 holes. You’ll have to hit something other than your driver on most holes, and play short of the green a number of times. You’ll have more fun and shoot a lower score, I promise you. The test is, will you play this way the next time out, or go back to your usual game?

› How to practice the mental game: Put a ball on the mat in front of you and take ten identical practice swings while you look at the ball, but without hitting it. After the tenth swing, step up to the ball without hesitation and hit it. Was that swing the same as the ten swings before? If not, practice this exercise until you’ve learned to stop letting the presence of a ball control your mind.

› Setup is grip, stance, alignment, posture, and ball position. If you aren’t pleased with the way you hit the ball, fix your setup before you start tinkering with your swing. If you hit the ball well but inconsistently it’s because your setup is inconsistent. Spend as much time practicing your setup as you do your swing. It’s that important.

› Those tips you read in the golf magazines? The ones that promise you more distance, cure your slice, fix your swing problem? They’re pure entertainment. Pay no attention to them. If your swing needs fixing, get a lesson.

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Little Differences That Make a Big Difference in How Well You Play