practice

Hit It Straight, Not Far, At the Range

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When you go to the driving range, concentrate only on hitting the ball straight and to a target you have picked out. Pay no attention to how far the ball goes.

Range balls, especially ones that you can tell are old, won’t go as far as the ones you play golf with. If you try to get the distance from a range ball that you think you should get, you wind up changing your swing to put more oomph into it, and ruin everything you came to the range to accomplish.

Remember, straight and accurate. That’s all.

practice

Random Practice

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When we practice a skill, there are two ways to practice it. One is called block practice. That refers to doing the same skill over and over until you get it right. Another way is called random practice. That means to practice one skill a little while, switch to another one for bit, switch to maybe a third, and keep going back and forth.

Researchers have found that when a person uses block practice exclusively, their progress is slow and day-to-day gains are small. Random practice on the other hand leads to quicker, larger gains, on each skill.

So the next time you go to the range, try this. Warm up with a few wedges, short ones, long ones, then a few 7-irons, a driver or two. Then go back and forth among these three clubs in no particular order.

The reason this works better is because when you work on one skill over and over, after a while your mind becomes disengaged. You lose focus and stop learning anything. You might even go backwards.

Switching to a different skill at frequent intervals gives your brain a new problem to solve, keeping it alive, alert, focused, and active.

Read this article for a fuller explanation.

tournaments

U. S. Open – 2025

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Winner: J. J. Spaun, 279 (-1) by 2 over Robert McIntyre

My favorite golf tournament of the year will be held this year from June 12-15 at my favorite golf course: Oakmont Country Club in Pittsburgh, PA.

I was there in 2010 for the U.S. Women’s Open, won by Paula Creamer.

It is a scary course. It gives you no room to make a mistake. The bunkers are bigger than they look to be, they are everywhere. The rough seems benign when you run your fingers through it, but members told me that it absolutely grabs your golf club if you don’t know how to swing through it.

Greens? They will Stimp at about 15. Sam Snead said that once he marked his ball with a nickel and the nickel slid off the green. I saw one of the players in 2010 putting from above the hole on #1 and I thought to myself, “There’s no way she’s going to stop that ball.” Sure enough, one slow roll at a time, the ball ended up off the green.

This a course where over par for 72 holes can take home the trophy. If you know what I mean, the Open won’t won by the player who shoots a low score, but by the one who manages to shoot the lowest score.

The video below takes you around the course in detail. Of special note, something you can’t appreciate on TV, is that the tee on #17, a drivable par-4, is about 40 feet below the fairway. Players trying to drive the green have to contend with a raft of bunkers they can’t see, including one to the right of the green that is eight feet below the putting surface.

From the bleachers by the 18th green you can see the entire course.

And this one.

Do you want to know the best part of it all? The fourth round of the U. S. Open is always on Father’s Day. I would always spend the day with my father watching the broadcast. If your father lives near you, and is a golfer to any degree, make an annual date with him. It’s a tradition you will remember for the rest of your life.

golf swing

John Daly Tells You the Truth

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There is so much out there about how to swing a golf club. One instructor/book/video says do this, and another instructor/book/video says that. Not to mention what this other instructor/book/video says to do.

You know how it goes?

So I’m going to tell you about another video. But. It’s simple. It’s easy to do. And it makes everything fall into place.

1. Pay attention to the spots where he talks about hitting one-handed wedges.

2. Pay attention to the spots where he says grip down and hit a wedge shot–even with your driver.

If you understand what he is saying, and figure out how to do what he’s telling you what to do, I promise that you will hit better golf shots almost instantly.

playing the game

The Truth About a Single-Digit Handicap

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This how you have to play to get into single digits, based on my experience having been there.

1. Get the ball on the green or green-high in 38 strokes or less.

2. Get your first short game shot* on the green. Two short shots in a row is a big no-no.

3. Hit greenside chips to one-putt distance.

4. Hit approach putts over 20 feet to one-putt distance.

5. Be very good putting from four feet and in. I mean VERY good.

* Pitches, chips, sand.

Uncategorized

Aim Your Golf Swing

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To hit the ball in the direction you intend, you have to set up aimed in that direction. What doesn’t get said is that you have to aim not only yourself, but your swing, too.

Just before you take the club away, imagine a short line on the ground in front of the ball going right toward your target. Tell yourself that is the line you want your club to be travelling on when it hits the ball.

Now you have aimed your swing. You have given your subconscious mind an order to swing the club along that line, and it will make sure your body complies.

obituaries

Dave Pelz (1939-2025)

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Dave Pelz, renowned short game and putting researcher and teacher, died on March 23rd of prostate cancer. He was 85 years old.

Pelz played collegiate golf at Indiana University, with a record of 0-22 against an Ohio State golfeer named Jack Nicklaus.

A physics major, Pelz worked for NASA for 15 years before leaving to devote his life to the game of golf.

His researches changed the way professional golfers play today, most importantly the four-wedge bag setup that made Tom Kite the career leading money winner on the PGA Tour for a time.

Read his New York Times obituary.

golf swing

My Golf Swing Checkpoints – 2025

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From time to time I write a post about what I work on with my swing to produce the results I want. You know, down the middle, reasonable distance. Not asking a lot.

For most of 2024 I worked on these things and take them into 2025 fully installed.

I see no reason why they wouldn’t work for you, too.

1. Backswing. All I want from the the backswing is for the clubface to be square when the backswing is finished. Because there are so many ways to get the clubface out of square, I have no guidance on how to achieve this other than to say swing back, check the clubface alignment, and if it isn’t square, figure it out. Hint: start with your grip. How do you check the clubface alignment? If you set up facing north, swing back, leave your hands where they are in space as you turn to the east, and lower the club to the ground.

2. Transition. Start the forward swing at the same speed you swung back.

3. Your head. Everything is moving toward the target in the forward swing: legs, hips, torso, arms, hands, club. Except your head. It stays put until after the ball has been struck. This is a very important point. Another way to say it is, stay behind the ball. See Harvey Penick’s Little Red Book, pp. 75-76.

4. Lag. At the end of the backswing there is an angle made by your trailing forearm and the clubshaft. In a light, graceful way, swing forward so that angle does not straighten out, but do not lock it in place. You could straighten it out, you just choose not to. The momentum of the swing will straighten it out for you at the right time.

5. Tempo and rhythm. Swing at a walk-in-the-park tempo that allows you to feel everything that is happening in your swing and that none of it is rushed. Your swing should have a dance-like rhythm to it. Remember you are trying to swing through the ball, not hit at it.

setup

The Weight of the Club

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An overlooked detail of the setup is nonetheless important – having the weight of the club in your hands before you take it away.

Most of us rest the clubhead on the ground before we take it away. That is a bad habit.

The moment you do take the club away, its weight, which was on the ground, comes to your hands, primarily your leading (left) hand (right hand, for lefties), causing you to squeeze slightly with that hand, creating tension that you don’t want.

Before you put the clubhead down behind the ball, make sure you feel its entire weight in your leading hand and keep it there by resting the sole no lower than on the tips of the grass blades.

Now you have pre-set your leading hand grip, tension-free, and there will be no more gripping introduced when you take the club away.

As well, if you rest the weight of the club on the ground, you have to lift the club slightly for it to clear the ground and not slide along it, which lifting can transfer to your shoulders, causing them to lift. You don’t want that to happen, either.

Here’s a second point. You might also find that when the weight of the club is in your hands, it hangs down with the shaft leaning backward (away from the target) just a bit. Keep it like that.

If you make the shaft go straight up and down at address, you will notice tension into your leading wrist and forearm. Bad.

Do these two things, not resting the clubhead on the ground, and allowing the shaft to lean backward as it wants to, to promote a smooth, tension-free, and effortless swing.

statistics

Keep These Golf Stats

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Hole-by-hole statistics

1. Number of full swing shots.

2. Number of short shots (anything off the green with less than a full swing).

3. Number of putts.

4. Length of first putt.

Include penalty shots in the count of where they occurred, number 1 or 2.

What the numbers show

These numbers are good:
Par 3s: 102 or 111
Par 4s: 202 or 211
Par 5s: 302, 311, or 212. 202 is nice, too.

These aren’t:
Par 3s: 213
Par 4s: 322
Par 5s: 412

When number 2 is 0, that represents a GIR. Fairway hit? Draw a circle around the number 1 score.

Looked at hole-by-hole, you can see how you got your score, and which part of your game was not ideal:
Number 1 was greater than par minus two.
Number 2 was two or more.
Number 2 plus number 3 was greater than three.
Number 4 and number 3 together are an assessment of your approach putting.

Over a number of rounds

If number 1 is consistently too high, you need swing lessons.

If you have too many twos in number 2, or number 2 plus number 3 is consistently three or more, get some short game lessons.

Too many threes in number 3? Total putts over 34? Putting lessons.

Prioritize improvement in this order: swing, putting, short game.

A fuller explanation of how to use these stats can be found here.

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