October 2008 Golf Magazine

GREG NORMAN: STILL A HIT—A giant spoonful of body analysis. An ear-splitting silence of any word about how Greg moves the club. Want your body to look like Norman’s during a swing? Then this is for you. Want your ball flight to look like his? Don’t look for that in this analysis.

MAKE EVERY FOUR-FOOTER—Like so many articles, this one has a great title. However, the article has nothing to do with increasing your percentage of four-footers. It does however make a good point about “upswing”--but that’s all.

HIT A POWER FADE—Let’s not take issue with the ball placement, but let’s look at setup. Steve’s setup is fine if you want a fade with extra height. There is no need to try to contact the outside quadrant of the ball.

FIND THE RIGHT STANCE WIDTH—Wow! Where did David come up with this one? I tested this. The change in my stance had no change in the position of either hand. By the way balance is a matter of weight not hand position. Balance is achieved when the weight carried by both feet is the same. Disregard.

HANDLE SOGGY LIES—OK.

CURE YOUR SLICE IN 10 SECONDS—Not again!!! But it gets worse. Shawn’s instruction actually promotes the clubface arriving out-of-square at impact. It promotes a slice. Try this. Take your normal setup. Notice that your left wrist is cupped. Now (while leaving the clubhead rest behind the ball, attempt to flatten your left wrist. The clubface is radically out-of-square.

PTICH FROM DEEP ROUGH—I can buy David’s article if we reduce it to this: When making a shot ensure that you allow your body to respond to the swing produced by your arms.

STOP FLUBBING CHIPS—If flubbing means “hitting them fat” this technique can be helpful. The reason it works is that almost all fat shots are the result of hand action during the forward swing (instead of arms). However, Chuck’s technique has you setup with the clubface delofted. So this keeps you from having the high soft shots that are often useful.

THE EASY WAY TO LAG PUTTS CLOSE—Ted wants you to calibrate a putting stroke on a level stretch of green. How many putts are level? How much do you adjust for a slight downhill or an extreme uphill? Myriad teachers have proposed this approach to calibration. It works poorly.

PUTT UP A TIER—Break the putt into two pieces, decide the correct stroke for each and then add them together? Are you kidding me? This may be logical but it sure isn’t practical. I think the better approach is the one Don uses when he recommends to “Imagine you’re bowling…” That’s not great but its better.

GET EVERY BUNKER SHOT CLOSE—There must be something in the water these guy’s are drinking. Yes, its true the arc of the swing gets bigger as the ball travels further. But don’t try to guess how big the swing should be. That’s a formula for poor performance.

STRIPE A BALL BELOW YOUR FEET—OK.

FIX POOR CONTACT—If by “clunky” Roger means fat, the solution may not be solved by sprinkling grass leaves in front of the ball on a mat. Fat is the result of the club not retracing its backswing arc. Instead the club arrives at the ball on an arc that is lower—hence fat. This can be the result of hand action or not maintaining the balance (toe to heal) you had at setup.

THE EASY WAY TO PLAY HYBRIDS—And how is this different from the driver and irons? The one thing to take from this article is to get hybrids (i.e. fairway woods) in your bag to replace your long irons (2, 3, 4, and 5).

MIRACLE WHIPS—Let’s be clear, no change in clubs will fix a swing.

Private Lessons

DITCH YOUR DECELERATION—A putter looses 20% of its speed to the ball at impact. It cannot be accelerating through the ball. The arc of the swing should appear relatively symmetrical.

COMING BACK FROM A SLUMP—Ok.

PLAYING THE PUNCH—Ok.

PERFECT YOUR POSTURE—Posture is a matter of pragmatism. Posture is functional. With your hands on the grip and your knees unlocked, sole the club correctly. That establishes the spine angle that’s right for you. Then without moving the club, your hands, arms, chest or head set your feet so that you feel your weight balance between left and right and between toes and heels.