people

Tom Weiskopf (1942-2022)

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Tom Weiskopf, winner of the British Open in 1976 and 16 PGA tournaments, died on August 20th at the age of 79, of pancreatic cancer. After his golfing career was over, he became a noted golf course architect and television announcer.

In 1973 he won five tournaments in an eight-week span, including the British Open and Canadian Open back-to-back.

As an architect, he created courses that challenged experts, but didn’t leave the rest of us behind. “I may not give you access to every pin,” he once said, “but I’ll give you the middle of the green every time.”

Weiskopf was also the owner of one of the loveliest and yet most powerful swings in history. It was said to be the model for the logo the PGA Senior Tour used for many years.

Read this Golf Digest interview from 2008.

The Golfweek obituary.

golf swing

Relaxing Your Shoulders When You Swing the Golf Club

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We all know that tension leads to poor ball-striking. We try to hit the ball hard when we really should be hitting the ball fast. You get fast for no extra charge when you are relaxed, especially your arms.

But it is hard to relax your arms. They might be relaxed at the start, but they tense up as you swing.

That’s because you’re thinking of relaxing the wrong thing. To have relaxed arms, you have to have relaxed shoulders.

At address, relax your shoulders. Now when you take the club back, keep your shoulders relaxed. One sign that you are doing this right is that they do not lift up. Think that they stay down.

At first, it might feel like you are lowering them, but that is because raising them is your habit.

I promise you if you learn have relaxed shoulders throughout the swing, you will get free clubhead speed with no extra effort. Less effort, actually.

equipment

Care for the Grips on Your Clubs During the Round

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Before you got to the course to play, rinse off the grips on your clubs to get the dirt and oil off them, and to restore the tacky feel.

(But I know you always do that, don’t you?)

Take care of them during the round, too. Periodically you should take out clubs that you have been hitting more than a few times (driver, for example), and wet down the grip with just a few drops of water from the water bottle you carry.

(You do carry a water bottle, don’t you?)

Give the wet grip a good rubdown with your hand and wipe it off with the towel you carry.

(You do carry a towel, don’t you?)

All that should take only a few seconds. Doing that will make your grips feel, well, grippy, throughout the round.

The next time you watch a professional golf tournament on TV, you will notice the players wiping down the grip, especially late in the round.

It’s a little thing that could make a big difference.

pitching

Practice Your Long Pitching Game on the Course

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Yesterday I played nine holes from tees that are way too long for me. As a result, I hit long pitches into six of the nine greens.

Two of the other greens I got on by hitting a 7-iron bump-and-run.

That is a good shot to have when you are too far away to chip, but too close to pitch, and the lie is tight.

What about the ninth green? I hit that one with a drive and a 5-wood. It had to happen at least one time!

By the way, say you have a pitch that you know goes 65 yards and you laser the pin and find that it is 65 yards away.

Whatever you do, don’t hit that pitch! It will land and release about about four yards. Hit your 60-yard pitch instead.

Anyway, you can practice pitching at the range, but the real learning takes place on the course. What I did is how you get a lot of learning done with this shot.

brilliant ideas

Decision Scramble

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This is a variation on the traditional scramble. Partners in the scramble have a decision to make on every shot and they have to live with their decision.

Here are the rules:

1. Each team can play two balls, one by each player.

2. After the first ball is played, but before the second ball is played, the team must decide if it wants to play the first ball.

3. If the team decides to play the first ball, that ball is in play for the team, and the second ball is not hit.

4. If the team decides not to play the first ball it becomes out of play, and the second ball then gets hit.

5. Since the first ball is no longer in play, the team MUST use the second ball for its next shot.

It’s best if partners have similar handicaps. If partners have significantly different handicaps, the player with the higher handicap should hit the first ball.

mental game

Visualize the Entire Shot

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The next time you go out to play, try this.

Before you make your stroke, look ahead to where you want the ball to end up and visualize the ball going through the air/along the ground in the way you intend AND at the same time visualize the feeling in your body that will make the ball do that.

That second one should almost be a palpable feeling.

mental game

The Perfect Golf Swing

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If you break 90 regularly, if you go to the course and expect to shoot in the 80s, I would guess you have a near-perfect golf swing–for you.

If you swung that swing a dozen times in a row, with no ball in front of you, I would bet that every swing would be as near to the same as a dozen swings can be.

The clubface would be square all the way through, the clubpath through “impact” would be right at the target, the hands would always be leading the clubhead. Most importantly, you would swing to identical finishes each time.

In other words, perfect.

Now put down a ball and swing at it. Did that same perfect swing come out, or did your “Hit the ball!” swing come out?

This is why golf is hard. We KNOW what to do. It’s just that the ball makes us do things we know are wrong, yet we can’t help it.

At this point I would normally give you the solution. But with this, I there’s nothing I can say.

You’re going to have to figure it out by yourself, which I urge you to do because if you crack this nut, there will be no stopping you.

It’s the most important golfing skill there is.

putting

A Cure for the Yips?

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A few posts ago I mentioned some things I am doing with my putting.

One of them was to think of swinging the shaft of the club, not the clubhead.

Today when I was playing (solo) I yanked a three-foot put two times in a row (the real putt and a do-over).

I realized I was thinking about the clubhead. I tried again and just swing the shaft back and forth, got a pure stroke, and the putt went straight in.

Just a thought.

practice

What and How Recreational Golfers Should Practice

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What to practice:

Learn to make contact on the center of the clubface consistently.

Learn how to get on the green in one shot from under full-swing distances.

Learn how to hit chips/approach putts to one-putt range.

Get good at sinking 4-7 foot putts. These are the ones that good putters sink and poor putters don’t.

How to practice:

Measure the attention given to each one by balls hit, not by time spent. For example if your full swing practice is built around skill-building, it might take a half hour, at least, to hit 30 balls. You can hit thirty 4-7 foot putts in well under 10 minutes.

This professional practice plan shows you how this practice concept works in full.

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