February 2006 issue

This month's articles

BEN CRANE’S KEY TO ONE-PUTTING. The gist of Ben’s comment is that the more defined the target-line that you visualize, the more defined the instructions to your muscles. It’s remarkable how well our brain can instruct our body to perform in accord with our visualization.

PIN YOUR WEDGES CLOSE. To use language you and I are familiar with, Mitchell’s instruction to Robert was to “swing the club”. Without a ball, make a less-than-half swing focusing on having the shaft of the club conform to your image of a pendulum. This is what worked so well for Gamez—it will work that well for you too.

HOW TO LAG IT, THEN SMASH IT. Be careful!! This instruction is suggesting how to control the timing of the swing. The club is on the ball for .003 of a second. Attempting to manage the timing of the shot is very difficult. However, a swinging motion will create the correct timing for you. Before you invest any time in Charles’ idea take a look at his stats. He is near the bottom in driving accuracy. Whereas Ted Purdy (a student of de la Torre’s teachings) hovers in the top ten.

WHY CAN’T I CRUSH IT? Ok.

TAKE IT EASY. A fellow de la Torre teacher told me a story about being at a filming of Canadian golf phenom Moe Norman. Moe had a setup unlike any you’ve seen, but had remarkable distance and accuracy. When my friend asked him if golfers should copy his swing, Moe gave him a short but poignant answer. He retorted by asking, “What’s my name?” Of course what he was saying is that the swing was his, worked for him, and should not be thought of as the answer for anyone elses golf game. I think the same is true for Colin’s swing. Ignore the pictures, but his comment on tempo is universally true.

HOW TO SQUARE THE FACE. Using the split grip can be helpful to warm-up and force your wrists to travel their full range of motion. However, having the club face arrive square at the ball has nothing to do with how far apart the hands are on the club. Instead, it has everything to do with if the hands are in a neutral position. If this isn’t clear for you, revisit Manuel’s book or the DVD.

HOW TO MAKE EVERYTHING YOU LOOK AT. The hyperbole of hyperboles. To fall in the hole, the ball must travel down the target line with enough speed to fall into the cup. What does that have to do with holding the putting in your palm? Secondly, the putter is a golf club. “Pushing” the putter is no more necessary to get the ball to go straight that it is with the driver. David is promoting the very problematic notion that for the ball to go straight, the club must travel in a straight line. Properly used, every club is swung and travels in a circle. “Pushing” most often will result in the putter traveling offline and to the right.

HOW TO CONQUER KILLER PAR 3S. A good discussion that can help you realize that the green is not always the right target for your tee shot.

NOW WHAT? On difficult shots do we want to try inventing a swing that is different than what we are used to? Mitchell’s step 1 is ok. From there on, this gets complicated. On a “do or die” shot like this we don’t need to get involved in special swing thoughts. If you had a bucket of balls from this position, couldn’t you get a ball to the green with your normal swing? Probably. Aren’t the odds better than trying a swing you haven’t practiced? Probably.

POP & ROLL TO THE HOLE. Remember Manuel’s rule of thumb. Your odds improve as you increase the roll time and decrease the air time of any chip shot. Jerry’s idea to change your swing is one approach. Why not just take a lower lofted club?

HOW TO STOP THE YIPS. When putters move like pendulums, they are swinging. A swinging motion produces the best results.

USE A CART TO MOVE IT RIGHT TO LEFT. Ouch! First, if you feel compelled to follow Charlie’s suggestion, use a pillow instead of a cart tire. Second, “swinging from the inside” will not make the ball move right to left. Every good stroke approaches the ball from the inside. If you want the ball to curve left, just close the club face slightly before you take your grip. Adjust the setup not the swing.

ASK THE TOP 100

YANKS. If your swing is doing its job as you proceed around the course, a yank should be considered a “whoops” and not a signal to change. Something about that shot made you feel as though your swing would not work and therefore you should do something different (or extra). After a yank just get back to clarity about wanting to swing the club.

DIVOTS. You don’t take divots, the club does. A divot is the result of the ball pushing the club downward after impact. Divots will occur by themselves when the club has enough speed and loft. If you are hitting it thin, “trying” to make a divot is not the answer.

FORWARD PRESS. Look at photo 2. The putter face is both de-lofted and aimed to the right. It doesn’t work with the putter any better than it does with the driver.

LIE. OK

4 STEPS TO A SOLID GRIP. Ok, sorta. Use Manuel’s instruction.

PUTTING AIM. Ok.

X FACTOR. The bi-line for this article is “Learn the easy move that will give you serious Tour-pro distance.” I can’t imagine how disgusted Tour players will be to find out that all that time in the gym was a waste. Learn the move—get the distance (and I have a bridge to sell you). This article is a classic example of observing a player doing a good job of swinging the club and concluding that the mechanics were created to produce the swing instead of recognizing that the mechanics were the body’s response to the intention to swing. You consciously focus on sustaining your intention to swing the club, your brain will unconsciously create all of the bodily actions to achieve that goal.

Peter’s instruction is filled with requisites for timing (“rotating your hips toward the target JUST as your shoulders are…”), (“right foot should roll onto its instep as you swing down.”), (“knock the ball off the tee just as your clubhead contacts…”).

If you are still enamored with the X Factor, before you begin working on it do the following:
• go to the range, pick to objects to serve as markers for the left and right sides of a fairway, hit ten consecutive drives. If more than 7 ended between the markers its reasonable to begin working on distance.
• think about your last round and ask if you would have saved more strokes by your drives being straighter or further.

The exercises that followed are good.

HOW TO CONQUER THE LONGEST YARD. I can’t imagine three less helpful (but more popular) suggestions that these. Increasing your grip pressure is a problematic if not ineffective way to change your tendency to get handsy. Staring at one spot in order to keep you head still, means immediately loosing your visual image of the ball going to the hole. Finishing with the putter face facing the hole means you “pushed” the putter rather than swung it (see above).

GO LEFT FOR THE RIGHT SWING. If you want to avoid the mistake of “flipping” the club, this instruction is not the way. A chip or pitch shot is just a small swing. It does not need all of the adjustments (complications) prescribed here.

ATTACK THE FLAG. Ok.

HOW TO PREP LIKE A PRO. Ok.

HIT THE FIGURE-8 SAND WEDGE. “The figure-8 works because your club approaches the ball on a shallower path”—huh? If (and I mean IF) there is some reason that this contorted swing path would allow you to better judge a swing for the 40-60 yard shots, I cannot image what that would be. I would suggest that Nicklaus’ ability to execute the 40-60 yard shot had a lot less to do with the path of his swing than the hours (yes I mean multiple hours) he would spend weekly on his sand game.