rhythm and tempo

Advanced Tempo and Rhythm in Golf

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This is my third post on rhythm and tempo in a month. Maybe you think I’m obsessing on his subject. I’m not. It‘s that important and it can make such a big change if you get it right.

A month ago, I talked about the meaning of tempo and rhythm, and went into greater detail two weeks ago. Nothing I said in those posts needs to be changed. But there was something I left out. Here it is now.

This 3:1 rhythm looks like a mechanical formula, but it is anything but that. There is a personal dimension to this rhythm, which you must figure out for yourself in order to make it work for you.

Let me give you an example from music, where the notion of rhythm comes from.

Most of you have heard classical, orchestral music. Most of you as well have heard jazz. The rules of rhythm are the same for each genre. The expression of rhythm is quite different in each, though. One swings, the other doesn’t.

To play jazz in an orchestral style would fail. So would trying to play orchestral music in a jazz idiom.

We all have our own feeling for rhythm built into the way we think and thus the way we move.

For example, some people perform their backswing in strict time, at a steady pace from start to finish. Other people might accelerate a bit as the backswing develops.

Some people might move from the backswing to the downswing without pause. Others would allow the backswing to come to a brief rest before it falls into the downswing.

In other words, the 3:1 rhythm does not confine your swing to one mechanical style. As long as you stay within that external framework, you can, and should, express it in your own way.

A good way to discover your expression is to swing in the air, about halfway between a horizontal plane, like baseball players do, and near vertical, like golfers do. Split the difference. Swing back and forth at that middling angle looking for the way of expressing the 3:1 rhythm in a movement that feels right for you.

I know you’ll find it, along with a tempo that’s comfortable.

Now try hitting a few golf balls. You might find it to the the easiest thing you’ve ever done.

chipping

Stop Chunking Chip Shots

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I don’t think anyone will disagree that the most maddening mistake in golf is to chunk a simple greenside chip shot. Just a little swing with a 9-iron, the hole is about 40 feet away, couldn’t be easier, and you lay up sod three inches behind the ball. #@9!!

Even the pros do this (Hunter Mahan in the 2010 Ryder Cup) though they do it much less often than we do. Here’s how to reduce chunking to a once-in-a-blue-moon mistake — instead of something you worry about every time you chip.

Put your mind on the sole of the club, from the moment of takeaway and through contact. Just think of where the sole is and slide it across the top of the grass when it gets to where the ball is. That’s how you get the club to brush the grass the same way every time when you make practice strokes.

Forget about the ball, forget about where you want the ball to go. Think only of sliding the sole across the grass.

I figured this out at the range a few weeks ago. Whenever I go to the range I am always looking for ways to make 2 and 2 equal four. The hard part is in realizing that 2 and 2 are right there in front of you so you can put them together.

My practice strokes throughout the session had all been identical. I mean identical. I practice this shot a lot, so I know what I’m doing. Each time, the sole of the club brushed top of the grass in the same place and at the same depth. What more needs to be right?

But sometimes whenever I moved on to hit the actual chip, I started thinking, “Hit the ball,” and my stroke would change, and sometimes I would hit a little behind the ball. It took me a while to figure out how to correct that.

I thought that if I stayed with my practice stroke and played “Brush the grass” instead of “Hit the ball,” I would hit these beautiful chips, one after the other, and chunking was never an issue. And that’s exactly how it worked out.

You can use this thought any time you’re hitting a short game shot, from the fairway, greenside, or even from a bunker.

It’s the sole that matters.

[Update] A few years after I posted this idea, I was reading through Seve Ballesteros’s comprehensive instruction book, Natural Golf. This is how a short game magician said to hit chip shots–to slide the sole of the club along the grass as the club swings through the ball.

health

Sitting Is the New Smoking

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This post has nothing to do with golf. Let’s call it a Public Service Message from TRG.

I am tangentially connected with the health industry. What I heard last week makes perfect sense and I want to pass it on to you.

Sitting is the new smoking.

A raft of modern health problems have their origin in sitting too much. Sitting at the computer, in front of the tube, anything that lures you into sitting for hours a day.

The solution in one word. Move.

Get up and move. Get up often and move. Be active. Move. Throughout the day, every day.

Move.

Thank you. Now back to golf.

rhythm and tempo

The Difference Between Rhythm and Tempo

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I just talked about this a few weeks ago, and I wouldn’t normally revisit the subject for another few moths at the earliest. But a few things came up after that most recent post was published that made me realize the difference between rhythm and tempo is not clear in the golfing world.

Either people get rhythm and tempo mixed up, or think they are the same thing. You must understand the difference if you are to build them into your swing.

What came up? Two things. First, I was talking to one of my sons about his swing. He was telling me his rhythm was very good and when I asked him more about it, it became clear he was really talking about his tempo. And when he mentioned tempo, it turned out he was really talking about his timing. And when he mentioned timing, he was talking about rhythm.

Then I went to a post I wrote earlier in the year about Ernie Els’s swing, in which the embedded video by Andrew Rice talks about how to make your swing faster (good advice) but says to do that he wants us to have three counts to the top of the backswing and one count back down to the ball (more good advice).

He wants you to speed up your swing and tells you what the rhythm of the swing is. Oh, my.

Even the experts get confused.

So let me be very clear here. Rhythm and tempo are words taken from music. Tempo is the overall speed of a composition. Rhythm is the relative duration of its component parts.

You can play Stars and Stripes Forever at a quick pace or slower pace (tempo) but the quarter notes stay quarter notes, and the eighth notes stay eighth notes (rhythm).

If the golf swing were music, the backswing would get three beats, and the downswing would get one beat.

Count out your swing, starting at 1 when you take the club away. Then count 2, 3, 4 to the top of the backswing, and 5 back down to the ball. That’s your 3:1 rhythm laid bare.

The tempo of the swing is how long it takes to make those five counts. It takes Els 1.0 seconds to execute a 3:1 rhythm. It takes Price 0.8 seconds to execute his 3:1 rhythm.

So if you want to speed up your swing, just take less time to execute the 3:1 rhythm.

OK?

ball position

Ball Position

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An easy way to hit the ball consistently well is for it to be in the same place every time you take your stance.

As easy way to be an inconsistent ball-striker is to move the ball all over the place.

Which one do you do?

You can hit fat or thin with a perfect swing if you keep moving the ball around in your stance. These two videos show you how to put the ball where it belongs.

Golf instruction books by some pros tell you to play everything off your left heel. That’s really beyond the capability of most recreational golfers.

Other books tell you to put the ball opposite your left heel with long clubs and move the ball toward the center of your stance as you move down to shorter clubs. That’s asking you to have a different swing for each club. Again, no.

One spot for your driver, one spot for a ball on the ground. You really can’t go wrong that way.

rhythm and tempo

Golf’s First Fundamentals – Rhythm and Tempo

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The correct rhythm and tempo makes everything you do right fall into place. It is the glue that binds the swing together. Until you get this part right, all your other work is for naught.

The correct rhythm is three parts backswing, one part downswing. Count from one to five as you swing. One is the moment you take the club way. Four is the top of the backswing. Five is impact. Three parts up, one part down. That’s it.

Tempo is how long the one to five count takes. Swing as fast as you can while still controlling the club.

Find your optimum tempo by hitting balls using the 3:1 rhythm. Start out by swinging slowly, even leisurely, at first. Gradually start picking up the overall pace of your swing, staying inside the 3:1 boundaries. The assistance of a portable metronome keeps your swing speed consistent at each point, which controls the experiment.

At some point you will find the ball leaving your clubface with authority, going high, straight, and far. Keep swinging faster just to make sure, but I promise you will reach a speed at which your swing just falls apart. That’s too fast.

Slow back down to where you get those pure strikes. That is your standard tempo. You might be surprised at how fast it is.

Use your pre-round warm-up to groove the 3:1 rhythm and find the tempo that is working, because tempo will vary from day to day.

When you’re playing, a sudden decline in the quality of your shot-making often means nothing more than your swing rhythm is off. Take a few practice swings to remind yourself of the 3:1 rhythm. That should be enough to get you back on track.

shot-making

Approach Shot Accuracy

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Here’s a rule of thumb for recreational golfers regarding iron play.

Take the number of the club and add a zero to it. That’s the percentage of the time you should hit the green with that club.

With a seven-iron, you should hit the green seventy percent of the time. Five-iron, fifty percent. And so on.

If you can achieve this, and you play from the right set of tees, you should score pretty well.

putting

Break-Even Putting

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This is a factoid (does anybody use that word anymore?) I have mentioned before, but I want to develop the point today. There is a break-even distance in putting. That is the distance from which a golfer averages 2.0 putts.

From farther away, the player would average more than two putts (three-putt more often that one-putt). From closer in, the average would be less than two putts.

The break-even distance for the average recreational golfer is 15 feet. For touring professionals, the distance is just over twice that, about 32 feet.

What I get from this comparison is to try to push that break-even distance out as far as I can. I will never have a professional golf swing, but there’s no reason I can’t be nearly as good with a putter.

One of the putting drills I do occasionally is to hit ten fifteen-foot putts, without three-putting. Then I do the same from twenty feet, twenty-five feet, and thirty feet. Sometimes I do take three putts, but sometimes, one goes in!

If you try this drill, don’t putt from the same spot over and over. You can’t groove your stroke when you play, so you shouldn’t do it when you practice, at least not in this drill.

Oh, yes. You have to putt out. No fair giving yourself the leave. Sometimes you really blow it and leave your first putt four feet short. If you do it here, you’ll do it on the course, too, so you might as well get comfortable cleaning up your messes.

When you’re finished and have hit your forty putts, test yourself. Put one ball on the green at each distance and putt them out in this order:

Twenty feet,
Thirty-five feet,
Fifteen feet,
Twenty-five feet.

As you do this drill, and start to get good at it, you’ll find yourself thinking deeply about how you putt from distance, looking for how to make long putts accurate and repeatable. That will only make you a better putter.

What I get out of this drill is when I have a long putt, I feel confident I can leave it close to the hole, and sometimes luck will take over.

That takes a lot of stress out of being on the green. Not to mention, it lowers your score.

golf swing, putting, short game

The Essence of Golf (Advice)

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If I were to give recreational golfers advice on what would do the most good to get them hit the ball better, I would say these things:

Golf Swing

Get a grip that fits your body. This is two things. A good grip is one that has a chance of success. Many rec golfers I see play with a grip that is too strong or doesn’t leave the hands working together. See a pro, get a lesson, to be sure about yours. Also, you might have a fine grip, but it doesn’t go with your swing. If you have a neutral grip and a slice swing, that’s trouble.

Learn the correct rhythm, and the tempo that is right for you. Rhythm is the same for everyone. This blog post shows you what rhythm is and how to get it. Tempo is different for everyone. Yours is probably too fast. Try this post to find your best tempo.

Your hands must lead the clubhead coming into the ball. Most of you do the opposite, because you’re trying to hit the ball with your right hand. This is an easy idea to understand, but difficult to execute because our “hit” instinct is so strong. See this video.

Pitching and Chipping

This one is really simple. First, get lessons on how to hit these shots. One lesson for each shot. They are their own kind of shot and need to be learned that way.

Then, hit them using the iron method — one swing, different clubs. For pitching, you really need two swings, of different length, but for chipping, only one. Calibrate each swing and you can’t miss.

Practice your standard strokes A LOT so they don’t slowly drift on you and make you wonder why you aren’t getting the ball close anymore.

Putting

I commonly spend an hour on the practice green chipping and putting, mostly putting. I see other rec golfers come on, putt for about ten minutes, and leave. Who is going to become the better putter?

Use a pendulum stroke that moves in one unit from your shoulders to the clubhead. Do not let your wrists get involved.

Find an alignment spot on the green in front of your ball and hit the ball right across it.

Practice short putts, from two and three feet, A LOT. Hit these putts with authority. Do not finesse them into the hole.

Calibrate your stroke so you can hit to fifteen feet, twenty-five feet, thirty-five feet, and forty-five feet at will. Practice these stokes at a hole to maintain them, and to learn how to add or take off a few feet because of differing green speeds.

That takes care of ninety-five percent of golf. Learn the other things, bunkers, uneven lies, wind, a multitude of short game shots, after you have mastered the material above.

equipment, playing the game

The Gap in Your Golf Game

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Unless you are a very good player, there is a gap in your golf game that you likely cannot close. That gap is between your 4-iron/24° hybrid/7-wood and your driver. Within that space, recreational golfers generally do not have a good chance to hit greens and make pars.

The solution is to judge the conditions carefully if you have a long shot into the green. When there’s no real trouble around it, then go for it if you can get there with a club you get into the air easily.

(Having said that, if it’s a club you don’t get into the air easily, maybe it shouldn’t be in your bag at all.)

If you miss the green, you’ll at least be hole high with a chip onto the green for a par putt and a sure bogey. Nothing wrong with that.
What if there’s trouble in the form of bunkers, water, tall grass? Now it might make sense to play short to a long chipping position. In that case, hit the shot with the longest club you have confidence in.

That way, you’ll eat up a lot of yards, be in front of the green with a good lie and a chance, again, to chip on for a par or a sure bogey.
If you have a gap like the one I’m talking about, and I do, it’s best to think of the longer clubs as advancement clubs — clubs that get your ball down the fairway without the risk of losing strokes.

Or, you can go one step farther and not even put them in your bag. That way, they will never get you in trouble.

I like a light bag, so I carry only 10 clubs. The set starts off with driver, 24° hybrid, 6-iron and on down stepwise to a 56° wedge and my putter. No 5-iron? I hit it well, but not often enough to carry it.

I hit my driver 220 yards. With a 175-yard second, I can reach the green on all but the longest par 4s. Long par 3s are hard to hit anyway, so playing short and safe works out better than playing long and into trouble. Par 5s are three-shotters, and 395 after two shots leaves a short iron into the green.

I’m not asking you to play wimpy golf. Not at all. I‘m suggesting that you be realistic about how to play from long distances so you don’t lose strokes needlessly.

The pros play golf one way. We play it another. When you’re ready to hit into the green from 200 yards without courting disaster, you’ll know.

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