September 2006 Issue

This month's articles

-THE PELZ FILES. Dave provides some useful information.
Rock Shot. Dave’s tactics for making this shot are fully consistent with Manuel’s approach (i.e. you can change the setup of a shot but don’t change the swing).
Disaster Scores. In brief—when in trouble take the most reliable and efficient (least strokes) route to put the ball back in play. If you find yourself in a difficult position think twice (three times!!) about making a miraculous (low probability) recovery shot. Instead, “take your medicine”. The difficulties on a golf course are put there for a reason. Let your mistake cost you one stroke—not two or three.
Lofted wedges. Most of your irons will increase in loft by 4 degrees. Let’s say your 9 iron is 44degrees (110 yards) and your PW is 48 degrees (100 yds.). Your SW is 52 degrees (90 yds.). If you add an L wedge at 60 degrees you have advanced 8 degrees. That means the club should carry 70 yards. A 64 degree wedge would carry 60 yards. Standing 60 paces from a flag and taking a full swing is something that takes a lot of practice to get used to. Don’t add the L and X wedges unless you are ready to devote a solid two weeks to practice them. I think you’ll improve your score more by devoting those two weeks to putting improvement.

WHY AM I TOPPING IT? Each of these three are “possible”. The more probable is that you are using hand-action during the shot. Doing so, reduces the reach of the club.

AUSSIE FOR POWER. “…hitting it past others doesn’t give you too much of a competitive edge…..My longest drives result from singing under control and striking the ball in the middle of the club face. Big hits are more about rhythm and timing.” These are the words of Adam Scott. They are worthy of your consideration.

HOW TO PLAY 50-YARD BUNKER SHOTS. V’s and U’s? Jim needs to take a second look at his own video. While the big yellow graphic on this photo looks like the bottom of a big U, the graphic is a photo of two Jim’s. If you superimpose the right Jim on the left Jim the U returns to the shape of an O (circular). All golf swings are circular. Forget the V’s and U’s and always be leery of instruction that uses vague words like “slightly” or phrases like “don’t dig you feet in too much”.

HOW TO MIRROR THE PERFECT SWING. If ugliness could break a mirror this instruction would shatter not only the mirror but will ruin your golf swing. Turn back to page 34 (Adam Scott). On the photo 1, use a pen and straight edge to draw a line from the buttom of the club shaft up through Adam and to the left edge of the photo. Now compare that line with the position of the shaft in photo 3. Now do to photo 6 what you did to photo 1. The club shaft does not stay on the plane it has at address. The club head does. F.Y.I., look carefully at how the background horizon intersects Mike’s head in Photo 1. Then notice how the horizon is almost above his head in photo 2. That’s how much Mike needed to squat to get the shaft to stay on that black tape. You can also see how much he had to bend his knees.

HOW TO STOP CHIPS WHERE YOU WANT. A chip shot spends more time rolling and less in the air. A pitch is the opposite. Tim uses the word chip for both. To control the trajectory, Tim wants you to learn 3 different setups. This triples your practice time. Instead, let’s use the same setup and same swing but just choose clubs with the trajectory that fits how we want to play the shot. By the way, controlling the trajectory does not “make the ball stop where you want”. You can hit a high shot long, short, or just right.

HOW TO MAX OUT YOUR DRIVES. Step 1 is good. Step 2 is unnecessary. While the size of the radius of the swing is a factor in distance, the width of the arc on the back swing has nothing to do with the width on the forward swing. Step 3 is ok but “shallow” is too vague. Setup with the driver, swing it back to 9 o’clock, and then carefully watch the club as you return it to the ball. This is the correct path for the club. Mike’s drill is ok but to make a change in your swing, you need to change the picture in your mind of the clubs motion. Throwing the ball does not do this as quickly as watching the club. Step 4 is unnecessary. If the action of the club face is a function of your grip. If the grip is ok, the clubface will be squared correctly.

HOW TO BE A SPIN DOCTOR. Ask yourself this question, “Which creates more backspin, a sand wedge or a five iron?” Spin increases as loft increases. Delofting a club as is being suggested in this article, reduces spin. The solution to keeping the ball from rolling off the back of the green is not to work on adding spin. The solution is to improve your distance control. If your putts are going to far past the cup, is the answer, “more backspin?”.

HOW TO START THE CLUB DOWN. Look at the pie charts. Stand up and do what they indicate. Start off 50/50 for address. Go to the top of your swing and then go 80/20 at the start of your “forward (vs. down) swing”. You’ll immediately notice that your swing center now moves to the left. Effectively that puts the ball in the back of your stance where the club face will yet be out-of-square at impact (fore in the right trees). Stay 50/50 till after impact when the club pulls you forward.

HEAVY SAND. The degree to which the sand is wet does not change the physics of the golf swing. It just means the sand will offer more resistance to the club. Just make a bigger swing.

THE LOWDOWN ON GREEN READING. Go for it!

HOW TO DRAIN MORE PUTTS? The manufacturer of your putter would “roll over in their grave” if they saw you taking Bill’s advice. Your putter has been manufactured with 3-4 degrees of loft in the putter face—on purpose. This loft improves the roll of your putt. Delofting the putter as Bill is recommending degrades the quality of the roll and the ball will tend to skip and squirm. When you see tour players setting up with their hands forward, their putters have been adjusted with additional loft.

THROTTLE BACK TO SUCCEED. Richard’s advice is good—for a bandaid. The real solution is to be in the moment (i.e. in the present). The present is now. The ball going into the lake, or past the hole, is the future. Keep your thoughts on what you want to do now. If you do that fully you will have no thoughts in the future. (great for off the course, too).

KEYS TO PURE POWER. The bi-line for this article is, “Two wrongs can make a right.” John’s “strong grip” is so radical that for the normal player they are going to hook their shots dramatically left. However, his hand position at impact has the club head trailing so radically that the face is going to be out-of-square and looking right. The result his a grip that shuts the club face and keeps the ball from going right. I’m sure it works for him.

BEND AND TILT. I really like the way Martin starts the article in the first column on the left. From there however, he gets into trouble. First, bend from the hips but not from the waist? What does that mean? Second he says that the shaft should intersect with the spine on a perpendicular angle. That would be ok if the spin were a straight line—it “s” shaped. Third, what’s a 5 degree shoulder tilt. Don’t worry, with your right hand positioned below your left, your shoulders tilt about 5 degrees. With regard to maintaining that posture, it’s simple—just get your weight evenly distributed between your left and right foot and keep that balance till the club pulls you forward after impact.

RULES TO GET UP AND DOWN. The commentary at the left margin is good. Steps 1&2 can work. Step 3 change this and make the shaft not lean forward or backward. Then center yourself on the club. Step 4—good 9 o’clock position. Step 5—oops. Don’t swing down. Swing forward. Stork drill—ok.

HOW TO HOSEL IT OUT OF THE ROUGH. The photo of the ball at the top of the article is not the same photo as the ball Patti is playing. No. 1—a stiffer shaft has nothing to do with cutting grass. No. 2--Closing the club face is going to make the ball plow through the rough instead of getting up over it. Hitting it in the “V” is risky. No. 3--- Ball in back of stance can reduce the amount of grass the club has to plow through to get to the ball. No. 4—This is the result of playing the ball back.

WHAT YOU CAN LEARN FROM A SNAPSHOT. Ok.

1 club 4 shots. First, a hybrid is not a hybrid. There are hybrid irons and hybrid woods. Robert is photographed with (and I think is recommending) hybrid woods. All four situations in which Baker recommends a hybrid make good sense. However, he is predominantly a “body-oriented” instructor and gives little focus on what the club should be doing. Yes to hybrid woods. But remember, they don't take a special or different swing.

TWO KNUCKLES IMPROVE PITCHES. You’ll notice that the “two knuckles” is a fix for too strong of a grip. We want one grip that works for all clubs and shots.

BREAK UP THE ROUND. Anything that improves our attention can improve our game.

FINISH WHAT YOU STARTED. Ok.

MAKE IT ROLL FOREVER. The underlying premise of this instruction is that a hook gives you extra distance. It doesn’t. You and I can only put a given amount of energy into the golf ball. 220 yards of straight will put you much closer to the hole than 220 yards of curve. Further, a hook is created by having the club face shut at impact. While this makes the ball curve left it also puts the ball on the ground sooner and we all know a ball in the air travels further than a ball on the ground.

AVOID THE AMATEUR SIDE. Read the caption written in the graphic: “you should try to err on the “pro” side of the hole on breaking putts.” This is silly talk. First, you should try to make the putt. Second, this article would have you think that to wind up 2 feet above but beyond the hole is somehow better than 1 foot short and below the hole. Any pro will tell you that he’d rather put uphill than downhill. Finally, Holes are round. They have two sides: inside and outside. If the putt does not go inside, the only thing we’re interested in is how many inches it is from the outside.