Rule: When between clubs, take the longer club and grip down. Then make your normal swing.
Don’t try to hit the ball harder, because you don’t have to, and for sure don’t ease up, because that’s like hitting the shorter club.
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One of the things that made me be a better golfer is that I don’t care where the ball goes after I hit it. If it goes here, or goes there, I just get to my ball and play the next shot, whatever it is. If you want to put your best swing on the ball, let a graceful swing flow through the ball, and leave it at that.
Very few of us are good enough to worry about whether, from the fairway, the pin is 160 yard away or 158. I’m not, but around the green, two yards makes a world of difference to me.
I didn’t want to assume my pace is one yard long when I step off a shot. I wanted to know exactly how long it is.
I went to a baseball diamond and walked around the bases, counting my steps. At 90 feet per base, or 30 yards, that’s a 120-yard walk in total.
It took me 140 steps. Divide 120 yards by 140 steps and I got 6/7 of a yard per step.
I made up a card that I keep in my bag showing how far I walk with any number of steps from 1 to 20. For example, if I take 11 steps, that’s 9.4 yards.
When I walk off short pitches, chips, and approach putts, I know exactly how far it is. That’s one step closer to hitting the ball stone dead.
I was at the range a while ago fooling around on the putting green. I like to try different things out there to see what happens.
In the 2015 British Open, Irish amateur Paul Dunne*, co-leader after three rounds, had this putting grip where both hands were side-by-side.
I thought I’d try that, but I couldn’t make it work. Dunne’s putter had a thick grip, and mine didn’t. There wasn‘t enough of the putter grip in my fingers to hold the club the way he did. But I didn’t want to give up, so I tried an interlocking grip with my left forefinger between my right middle and ring fingers.
That didn’t work. I still didn’t have control of the grip. There’s one more finger to go, I thought, so I put my left index finger between my right index and middle fingers. Bingo.
That brought my hands neatly together and put the grip in my fingers the way I was looking for. I call it the Forefinger Interlock grip. (You heard it here first.)
Notice in the second photo how close together my thumbs are. The left thumb nestles into the pocket of my right palm, and the pad under my right thumb fits right on top of my left thumb. The effect is that you hold the putter entirely in your left hand. The right hand provides stability.
Both thumbs point directly down the shaft.
Notice also how square my hands are. I don’t try to do this, it’s just what happens when I take this grip. That’s where my hands end up.
One of the problems with a standard putting grip, where one hand is lower on the shaft than the other, is that you have two hands that you have to keep working together so one hand, usually the right, doesn’t run off and do its own thing.
That problem disappears with the Forefinger Interlock, because all you have down there is one clump of hands — one thing moving the club, not two. In this way the putter face does not twist out of square. You get a swinging stroke, not a hitting stroke. Your hands are taken out of the stroke entirely.
Results? I’m putting just as well on average days as I did on good days. Because my hands are not involved in the stroke, I’m more relaxed mentally. That gives me more confidence, which leads to better putting.
So. Is the Forefinger Interlock the grip of the future? The grip that will take five strokes off your score? The grip that will take the Tour by storm? Maybe.
But it is definitely something for you to try. Can’t hurt, and it might help. A lot.
* Dunne collapsed in the fourth round, shooting a 78 and finishing in a tie for 30th place. He turned pro later that year, and in 2017 won the British Masters by three strokes over Rory McIlroy.
If you use a laser rangefinder on the golf course, you get an accurate distance to the pin. It would be nice to know where the pin is in relation to the center of the green, though. A location indicator attached to the pin, or on the 150-yard marker, if they’re used, is only an approximation.
As you’re approaching your ball, and before it’s your turn to hit, find a sprinkler head with a yardage affixed and stand right above it. Shoot the pin and compare the difference between the yardage to the pin and the yardage shown on the sprinkler head.
If the sprinkler head yardage is higher, the pin is nearer to the front of the green. If the sprinkler head yardage is less, the pin is nearer to the back of the green.
Most of the time we are short with our approaches (but that’s another post). If you know because of what you just found out that the pin is toward the front of the green, you might what to take a longer club to make sure your ball gets to the green.
If the pin is behind the center of the green, you can take less club and hit an easier shot, knowing that you still have enough club to get the ball onto the green. Remember, most greens are at leasts 30 yards deep, which gives you plenty of room for error.
The advice you read these days is that your driver should be arcing upward when it makes contact with the ball. True enough for recreational golfers. There are some instructors, though, who would have you learn a swing separately for your driver so that could happen.
I won’t argue with them, because they might well be right in that that would be ideal way to play golf. But recreational golfers who have time to make one trip to the range per week, and play one round of golf per week, don’t have the time to develop two swings. Getting good at just one is hard enough.
So here’s what you don’t have to do to be swinging upward with your driver.
– You don’t have to deliberately swing up at the ball.
– You don’t have to tilt your stance away from the target when you set up to the ball.
– You don’t have to tee the ball higher or tee it up way forward in your stance.
None of those things. All you have to do is use your normal stance and your normal golf swing.
I figured this out when I was working on my swing with a 6-iron and no ball. I found that the club kept hitting the ground about thee inches in front of the ball.
This means I would have hit a golf ball lying on the ground while the club was still going slightly down, like we’re supposed to. But three inches isn’t that far in front of the ball. After that, the club would have to start arcing upward.
I laid out a few alignment rods as shown in the picture. The orange rod points to the center of my stance, where I would place the ball for an iron shot. The tee peg points to a spot three inches in front of that, marking the bottom of my swing. The yellow rod points to the ball on a tee, even with the inside of my left heel.
As you can see, the yellow rod lies well in front of the bottom of my swing (tee peg). That means when the driver bottoms out three inches in front of the orange rod, it has plenty of time to be arcing upward when it contacts the ball.
When I started swinging normally at a teed-up ball, using the same swing feelings that I do when I swing an iron, the ball just took off.
Remember, all the clubhead has to be doing is moving a few degrees upward. By using your normal swing, that will happen.
One swing is hard enough to learn. Fortunately, that one swing is good enough for everything.
Winner: Zach Johnson in a playoff over Marc Leishman and Louis Oosthuizen
The oldest championship in golf begins this Thursday on the Old Course St. Andrews (“Sinandrews”, to the locals).
The first Open Championship played here was in 1873, and won by Tom Kidd, who shot 91-88 to win by one. Twenty-six competitors teed up for the tournament that was done in one day.
The last time the OC was played here, Louis Oosthuizen won in a walk over Paul Casey.
This aerial photograph of the course shows the first green just beyond Swilcan Burn (lower right), with the 17th green just to to the left. The course runs between the white boundary lines that head toward the upper left of the photo.
Golfing fans have seen this course so many times, it is about as familiar as Augusta National. There are a few things you might not know about it, however.
There are seven double greens, 2/16 through 8/10. They are so large that it takes a truly awful shot to encroach the oncoming group. They can also present a golfer with the longest approach putts he will ever face.
Pay special attention to the 7/11 green, fronted by the Strath bunker, which is in play on the tee shot from #11 (below). It is easy to get into and hard to get out of.
(Photo by David Cannon/Getty Images)
The primary defenses of the course are its bunkers and the wind. Many of the bunkers cannot be seen until you find your ball in them.
The wind can change direction at any time. A wind in your face on the outgoing nine can easily turn around and be in your face coming home. The wind can also carry your ball onto the green, or lead it to one of the infuriating bunkers.
The place to make a score is the Loop, where the course hooks and turns back around, the 8th through the 11th holes. 8 and 11 are little par 3s, and the 9th and 10th are drivable par 4s. The short par-4 12th can be had, too.
Odd note: The course was designed to play in the reverse order from how it‘s played now, viz., 1st tee to 17th green, 18th tee to 16th green, etc. Someone said, the placement of the bunkers seems odd, but when you play the course “backward”, they all make perfect sense. Every year on the first Wednesday in September, the original routing is followed. See here for a fascinating analysis of the reverse course.
Personal note: I played this course in 1968, when you could walk right up to the starter’s shack, pay your fees, and wait for the group on the first to tee to go off and then it was your turn.
How did I do? I kind of got eaten alive, but had loads of fun.
On the first hole, I played a run-up into the green, an obvious shot just by looking at it. As I walked up the fairway, I saw this crack in the ground that gradually got wider. That didn’t give me a good feeling. Sure enough, my ball was in the Burn. “Now I know,” was small consolation.
I did, however, birdie the 17th, the Road Hole — 3-wood over the hotel, 3-iron onto the green, 20-footer. I thought at the time the hard shot was the tee shot. I didn’t know anything about the Road Hole bunker (and look how close it was to the pin that day!). I guess the Golf Gods didn’t want my ignorance to hurt me twice.
I’ve given up predicting winners or even taking about who the front-runners are. Just enjoy the broadcast and be sure to set your clocks to wake up early on Sunday.
Oh, yes. Word is in the air that this could be the final OC for legendary starter Ivor Robson.
Your irons are your offensive weapons. Once your ball is on the fairway, the shot into the green is where you set up your score. Really knowing how far you hit each iron is critical. Use this easy method to find out.
Go to an executive course nearby with a laser rangefinder. The idea is that you pick a club to analyze and drop a ball in the fairway at a measured distance and hit the club you think will go that far. As the holes, go by, you can refine the distance at where you drop the ball until you have it just just or nearly so.
Let’s start with you 9-iron. Maybe you think you hit it 130 yards. Drop a ball 125 yards at from the pin. It’s better to start off conservatively. Hit your shot, and if you would call it a representative shot, go to the spot on the green where the pitch mark is. Step off the vertical distance (see illustration) from that mark to the pin. Add that distance to, or subtract it from 125 yards, accordingly, and do the same on the next eight holes, if possible.
After nine holes, you will have a good number of data points to work with. Estimate the distance you hit your 9-iron by taking out the longest four and the shortest four. The one in the middle is the distance to use.
Now play nine more holes, from 145 yards, analyzing your 7-iron.
You can also do this with your 5-iron and your 3-iron or hybrid equivalent.
Now look at the yardages you have for these four clubs. There should be a consistent progression from club to club. It won’t always be ten yards. I hit my irons at nine-yard intervals. When in doubt, adjust a club distance downward.
Determining distances between hybrids is more difficult. Because we don’t hit greens with them too often, it’s hard to tell exactly where the ball landed.
I have twelve-yard intervals between hybrids, as well as between my longest iron and shortest hybrid. I learned that by keeping watch on the course and adjusting as I gathered results.
Play several rounds on a regulation course now, sticking to the yardages you just figured out, and see how it goes. Adjust if you are always short, but if you are always long (but not too long), don’t change a thing.
I would go through this exercise every year. You change, your swing changes, and especially if you bought a new set of irons, do this right away.
We all have a practice swing that is sheer poetry, but put a golf ball in front of us and we become our old selves again. How do we stop doing that?
First of all, why do we do it? It’s because we get too caught up in results instead of process. If we do the right things, and the ball is in the way, it will go where we want it to go.
We just can’t resist adding a little extra, trying to make the ball go where we want it to, just to be sure. We can’t believe it is as simple as just swinging the club correctly.
But it is.
So here’s my advice on how to re-train your brain not to get distracted by the ball — how to see your swing at a ball in the same way as you take your practice swing.
Put a ball on the ground in front of you, and address it. Now back away from it about six inches so when you swing you won’t hit it.
Make some swings, five or so, heck, ten, but as you swing, look at the ball. Don’t ignore it as you do with a practice swing. Look at that ball head on.
After a time, your mind will start associating the ball in front of you with a smooth swing that does not contact the ball in funny ways. Funny peculiar, not funny ha ha.
Because there is no result with this swing, your mind stops thinking about results, and focuses just on swinging.
Your conscious mind is in on the deception, but your unconscious mind is not at all this subtle. All it knows is that when you swing at the ball, nothing happens. There’s nothing to worry about. Your fears never arise, and it’s from the unconscious mind where they originate.
Since you’re re-training your brain, you have to practice this exercise a lot. You can’t just give yourself a suggestion. That’s working with your conscious mind. Habits are formed in the unconscious mind.
Doing this drill over and over is how you build a new habit, one that leaves you feeling like hitting the ball is doesn’t add anything to what you’re already doing. That’s how you keep the ball from distracting you.
One of the keys to hitting a straight shot is for the angle in your left wrist be the same at the top of the backswing as it is at address.
This video shows you why that is so, and how to learn this critical skill.
Here’s the rule. If you have less bend in the left wrist at the top than at address, you have closed the clubface. If you have more bend at the top than at address, you have opened the clubface.
The best way to fix a mismatch is to set the club at the top the way you like it. If you like a cuppy wrist up there, you need a strong grip. If you like a flat left wrist at the top, a neutral grip will do.
A bowed out left wrist is seldom seen in recreational golf, but if that’s you, use a weak grip.
