Golf Magazine Instruction Commentary

October 2008 Golf Magazine

2008-09-23T11:37:00.000-05:00

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.

August 2008 Golf Magazine

2008-07-16T13:08:00.000-05:00

HOW TO PLAY LIKE THE BEST—The shoulder turn and hip turn are best considered as a response to the swing as opposed to causes of the swing. Shoulder and hip turn are two factors that contribute to a long backswing. The longer the backswing the more time the club has to accelerate.

PAUL CASEY—Ok.

MAKE TRICKY READS EASY—Ok.

GAIN CLUBHEAD SPEED—As mentioned above, the shoulder turn (ie. turning your back toward the target) is not the objective—you longest backswing is. Many players will not be able to turn their back to the target and still keep the club on plane. Regarding softening your wrist, apply this to your whole body. Rid yourself of any unnecessary muscle tension. Tight muscles are slow muscles. And regarding turn your hips fast, this is a sure way to flare a bunch of shots off to the right (just like Tiger).

STIFF IT WHEN YOU’RE BETWEEN CLUBS—Why does Steve say “hit a shorter club with a harder swing” but “ hit the longer club with a ¾ [shorter] swing? Why not hit the longer club with a softer swing? Because it is very difficult to make a full swing but make it slower. It is no less difficult to make your full swing faster than you normally make it. Whether high or low handicapper, go with the longer club but shorter swing.

HIT YOUR IRONS ON TARGET—Let’s see if we have Kip’s lesson correct: If the knee doesn’t knock over the trash can (or bin), then the hips turn, then the curves in ball flight will begin [begins?] to straighten out. Huh? Is this article about hitting my target or about straightening out my ball flight. Kip, its about the club—not the trash can.

DIFFERENT SHOTS FOR DIFFERENT SANDS—The less sand you take, the less speed you need, so the shorter your swing.

MAKE PITCHES HOP THEN STOP—First, anytime you read an instruction to “trap” the ball realize the you are being instructed to do the impossible. Step to a ball and position the club as you would image it to be at impact when it traps the ball. You can’t. (If you can, please email me right away!). Second, anytime you open the clubface you add loft and increase backspin. If you want more stop and less roll take a more lofted club or open the clubface. There is no need for a setup or swing change.

HOW TO PUTT ON WINDY DAYS—Ok.

HOW TO HANDLE FAST DOWNHILLERS—If you want to see how well this instruction “doesn’t work”, go to a green with a fast downhiller. Put the ball in your hand and try rolling it close to the pin. Notice that when you do this your attention is not on some “speed point” but instead is on the hole. Your brain works the same way for putting.

HOW TO CHIP FROM A TRAP—This works ok if the ball is sitting up on top of the sand (ie. hard pan) or if the ball is on the upslope of a bunker with little or no lip in front of it.

HOW TO HIT A BACKHANDER—Ok

MY PLAN FOR WINNING SCORES—I couldn’t be more in agreement and disagreement with Dave. I fully agree that a player needs to have a “go-to” swing—a swing they are confident in. I couldn’t be more in disagreement with Dave that this go-to swing should be something other than then swing you use for every shot. A go-to swing is what Dave refers to in the opening sentences. The he changes and talks about go-to shots.
Go-to shot 1…..Who is Dave talking to when he says, “A low-lofted hybrid should give you bout 200 yards of carry and 20 yards of roll”? How many players don’t even hit their 3 wood 220 yards? The point Dave is really making (and it’s a good one), is that the longer you hit it the straighter it needs to be. If the landing area is very tight, hit a shorter club. Hitting two six irons 150 yards each and keeping them in the fairway is much better than a 240 yard drive that drifts into the trees and leaves you a 60 yard shot out of the rough and through the branches.
Go-to shot 2…..It is often the case that our ability to create a low rolling shot the right distance and direction is better than trying to use the wedge and fly the ball to the target.
Go-to shot 3…..Same as #2
Go-to shot 4…..Same as #2. Regarding the “low punch” don’t change your swing. Choose a club that produces a trajectory that will keep the ball under the branches. A driver is a great choice.
Dave makes a good point regarding these shots. More than “know of them” you need to “practice them”.

5 DRILLS TO SHARPEN YOUR GAME—Ok.

Private Lessons

IMPROVE YOUR LAGS—This drill is really about the benefit of convincing yourself that the putt is not that difficult. We don’t want to lag and be short. For any putt, we want to try to make it. However, when we miss (which we will do most of the time) we want to be close enough for a tap-in.

AVOID OVER-TURNING—Let the swing turn you.

STOP THAT TOP—Notice, to cure the tops the picture is of the golfer having the intention to make the ball travel low along the ground (not hitting down on it).

SIMPLIFY YOUR SAND STRATEGY—Lot of good points here. But you don’t have to open the clubface or swing the club steeply. Just lower your center at address.

Pinpoint you aim for big results—Ok.

July 2008 Golf Magazine

2008-06-17T20:50:00.000-05:00

July ’08

TREVOR IMMELMAN—Textbook.

MAX OUT DOWNWIND DRIVES—Close. Play the ball an inch forward. Keep your balance.

ADD 10 YARDS TO YOUR DRIVES—“Power slap?” Using the wrists feels powerful because we can feel our forearm muscles making their effort. This is “powerless effort”. Use the arms (they are powered by much larger muscles). This is “effortless power”. You don’t want wrist action in your putting or in your driving.

USE YOUR FEET TO PURE YOUR IRONS—What was Dave thinking when he wrote this? Useless.

BIRDIE SHORT PAR 4s—Ok.

MAKE CHIPS CHECK—Ok.

HIT A SHORT, SOFT SAND SHOT—Ok.

MAKE A PERFECT BUNKER SWING—Your normal swing is the perfect swing. The only change for a bunker shot is the setup.

PRODUCE PERFECT SPEED—And this produces perfect speed how? Disregard.

TURN 15-FOOTERS INTO EASY MAKES—Alignment does not determine direction. The swing determines the direction. Alignment is only useful in making it easier to swing in the direction of the target.

KNOCK IT STIFF FROM A SIDEHILL LIE—Ok.

TOP 100 TEACHERS--Emeritus is a title applying to someone who is retired. Manuel de la Torre works 6 days each week and many of those days begin at 7:00am.

HOW TO BUILD THE SWING YOU WANT—
….. BE MORE ACCURATE—The backswing does not determine accuracy.
…..STOP SLICES AND HOOKS—Good idea, but it wont fix slices or hooks.
…..ADD SPEED—Weight shift adds more inaccuracy than speed and hand release is a myth (look at the photo on page 85—no hand release! Don’t worry about the left leg or the re-hinging of the wrists at the end of the swing. These things happen as a result of the swing.
…..PURE LONG IRONS AND WOODS—These are all ok but do not ensure that you “pure the shots” Put simply, “puring” is the result of swinging in a way that returns the club to the address position.

HOW TO ATTACK ANY PIN FROM 100 YARDS—Ok.

THE QUEST FOR 300 YARDS—If your interest is in hitting the ball 300 yards (and you already hit it 260), I think the article lays a reasonable plan. If your interest is in improving your score, your time is much better invested in eliminating 3 putts and being about 80% on getting up and down.

HOW TO PUTT LIKE A CHAMPION—
..SET YOUR FOUNDATION—If you look carefully at Keystone 1 you see that there is nothing in the photo that matches the captions (e.g. “top of your back is parallel to the ground”. What is the “top of your back”?)
..GET SQUARE—Ok.
..RE-CREATE ADDRESS AT IMPACT—Ok.
..MAKE AN UPWARD STRIKE—The ball always comes off the putter with backspin.
..PUTT WITH RHYTHM—Ok.

PRIVATE LESSONS
TEE IT HIGH TO STRETCH YOUR DRIVES—Ok.

FIND THE RIGHT STRATEGY FRO YOUR GAME—Ok.

BALANCED PRACTICE LEADS TO BETTER SCORES—Ok.

KEEP YOUR EYES ON YOUR TARGET—Good. Then hold the picture of the club swinging to that target in your mind during the swing.

HOW TO CHECK YOUR GRIP AND YOUR CLUBFACE—Ok, but the V’s belong pointing at your center.

June 2008 Golf Magazine

2008-05-22T18:06:00.000-05:00

TIGER WOODS SEQUENCE—Photo 1..does it really look like Tiger’s shoulder blades are “squeezed together”? Not. Photo 2..”…years to perfect.” Not so, because the arm does not rotate at all. Photo 3..Ok Photo 4..In a 2 ½ second swing you are going to decide when and how much you are going to slow your hips? Get real. Let me assure you Tiger does not “slow his hips”. Photo 5..Brady has this a bit misconstrued. You see Tiger swinging the whole club (Just as Manuel teaches). If you looked at the club just before impact it would look the same way. Photo 6..If you swing the club fully, all of these things Brady says you should try to do, happen as a result of the swing. It may be better to think of a full swing as avoiding the deceleration that occurs in a shorter swing.
Finally totally disregard the “Key Move” described on page 43. The hands do not drop straight down. To prove that, just look at photo 4. The hands follow the inclined plane of the swing itself.

STOP MISSING PUTTS LEFT—There is absolutely nothing in this article that assures or diminishes your likelihood of “missing putts left”.

SETUP SECRET FOR SHAPING SHOTS—Manuel is an advocate of producing draws and fades through setup changes versus swing changes. However, Jerry’s setup changes will not produce draws and fades. Playing the ball back makes the clubface look right at impact. Playing it forward makes it look left. The ball flight will be to the right and left respectively but will not curve.

ADD 10 YARDS TO YOUR IRONS—Mike states that the key is to “make consistent impact…”. However, the entire article is devoid of any factors that would make your impact more consistent. Instead Mike spends the time explaining how you should “arrive at impact with a slightly descending blow.” I like the consistent impact idea, too bad he didn’t.

STOP SLICING YOUR IRONS—(the 237, 394th article for stopping the slice). First of all there are nineteen causes for slicing (read about them in Manuel’s book). If the cause of the slice is swing path, Jim’s suggest could work. However, there is an easier fix.

LEAVE YOURSELF A TAP-IN—Here we go again. Todd tells us that consistency is the key to tap-ins. But does he tell us how to be consistent? No, he tells us to learn two different swings for high and low trajectories. How does that result in tap-ins?

MAKE MORE 10-FOOT PUTTS—Get real. If you were going to roll a volleyball across the floor to another person, would your eyes be on an intermediate target one foot in front of you or would it be on the other person? When you are putting, who can look 10 inches in front of the ball and choose a correct intermediate target less than half the diameter of the head of a tee? Have the target in mind, not an intermediate target.

ROLL THE BALL STRAIGHT—This is a real breakthrough. If you roll your hands during a putt, you roll the head of the putter. Who’d a thunk it? Tom says, “Make sure that the back of your left wrist points at the target at impact.” What Tom doesn’t say is this works only if the back of your left wrist points at the target during address. What he should have said is that your hands (and the club) should arrive back at the ball just as they were at address (however that was). If they don’t, the putter face will not be the same as it was at address.

PUNCH A RESTRICTED SWING—Ok.

MAKE A PERFECT TAKEAWAY—The article is not about the takeaway but catching “it flush”. Further confusing is the fact that you fix the backswing in order to catch it flush on the forward swing. I think you would have to fix the forward swing instead. Further puzzling is how the folded right elbow is the key. Disregard.

TOP 100 TEACHERS—Emeritus is a title applying to someone who is retired. Manuel de la Torre works 6 days each week and many of those days begin at 7:00am.

20 MOST DIFFICULT SHOTS—
#20…Good
#19…Ok
#18…Ok
#17…As the slope steepens you will aim further right and as the club loft increases you will aim further right. Learn to judge where the clubface is facing at address.
#16…ok
#15…Easier still is to use a seven iron, swing level and the ball will come out nicely.
#14…Good
#13…Ok
#12…Play the ball one inch back in your stance. Make your regular swing and plan the club will make contact higher on the ball which will reduce the trajectory.
#11…Good
#10…Good
#9…Good—but swing the club with the arms, not the shoulders
#8…Good
#7…Consider making a very short swing to safely and predictably leave the bunker and put the ball in a good place to make your next shot.
#6…Rotating your grip more to the right is a more certain way to have the club face close during impact than by attempting to roll your hands during the swing.
#5…Cutting the ball does not add loft. Moving the ball forward in your stance does.
#4…Ok
#3…Ok
#2…Ok
#1…Ok, but don’t forget that there are some downhill lies from which the only shot will be backwards or to the side.

HOW TO MAKE MORE MONEY PUTTS—Ok.
TURN YOUR SHOULDER, SWING YOUR ARMS—The movement of the body can be described many ways. It is more useful to think of the hands swinging the club back, the arms swinging it forward, and the body responding accordingly to both.
Open the Face to Land Pitches Close—There is no correlation between opening the face and improved distance control. In fact, it might be argued that increasing loft reduces our distance control.

SWING THE CLUB DON’T THROW IT—Unchanging grip pressure is a sensation related to “swinging the whole club” which is an attribute

February ’08 Golf Magazine

2008-01-10T13:44:00.000-06:00

This month's articles

Sergio’s Power Lag—Lag happens. It’s not something that we need to add to our list of things to do. Look at what happens when you throw a ball over hand. At the end of your throwing backswing you will find that your wrist has flexed. As you start your forward swing of your throw, you will find that the wrist stays flexed. It continues that way until you arm is near parallel to the ground. At that time the wrist un-flexes and the hand, forearm, and arm form a straight line. You did not hold the lag nor release the lag. Instead it is a function of the motion. The same is true with the golf swing. Now do this experiment. Make a forward throw and try to manage the lag. Hold it for as long as you can and release it when you think it would be best. Did this help you throw further? No! Nor will attempting to manage the lag during the golf swing. The only thing that you can do regarding lag is to interfere with it. You can do this in one of two ways: 1) have your wrists so stiff that they cannot release (ball goes low and right), or 2) use your hands (hand action) in an attempt to try to hit the ball with the clubface (the prematurely diminishes the lag (see photo on page 107).

Lag it to tap-in range—I never hit a lag putt. I want to give myself a chance to make every putt. Peter’s drill will not help you get the ball closer to the hole. It will help you identify as to whether your swing plane is parallel to the target line.

Hit a reliable draw—There are two fundamentally different ways to draw the ball: change the swing, or change the setup. Jim is a proponent of the former. Heartland is a proponent of the latter. If you want reliability I think it is a no-brainer to believe you could better manage making a setup change than making a swing change.

Create more clubhead speed—In no way will ankle action increase your clubhead speed. What Paul is actually saying (re-read the article) is that his prescription will inhibit a forward sway (inset photo). Or, you can simply not sway when you swing and leave your ankles do whatever it is they do.

Add yards to your irons—Shifting your weight does not make your swing longer. Check it out for yourself. It does do a great job of making your contact much less consistent.

Straighten out your hybrids—The shaft angle on all clubs is the same. That is to say when you have the club soled properly so the club face has its correct amount of loft, the shaft will not be leaning forward (toward the target) or backward (away from the target). This is why all clubs are played from our center.

Quit hanging shots to the right—I like Rod’s objective, but there is a better means to check if you are rolling the clubface open during the backswing. Here it is:
From the address position swing the club back till the shaft is parallel with the ground. Now look at the clubface. Are the grooves pointing vertically toward 12 o’clock or are they leaning toward 1 or 2 o’clock? Next, finish the backswing so the shaft is parallel to the target line. Without changing the orientation of your clubhead and keeping it parallel to the ground, shift the club so the shaft is perpendicular to the target line. Then (without twisting the shaft) set it down in the address position. If the clubhead has the same orientation as it did before you began your backswing, then you did not turn the club on the backswing.

Putt with the Edge of your wedge—Brady’s instruction about the use of the wedge is functional. However, when you have this shot, rather than using the bottom edge of the wedge, try using the bottom edge of your putter. You’ll be much more comfortable making a putting stroke with a putter and the outcome will be more predictable.

Chip it close from an Uphill lie—Ok.

Stop leaving it in the sand—Rick says that a player leaves the ball in the sand because, “Your bunker swing is too shallow.” However, his 3 step solution makes no change to the “shallow-ness” of the swing.

Create Perfect putting impact—Perfect impact would be contacting the ball with the center of the clubface and the clubface square to the target line. Robert’s instruction addresses neither. Instead what this drill does is promote a de-lofted putter face working against the design by the club manufacturer who puts 3-5 degrees of loft in the putter.

Make a smoother stroke—When you count, make the cadence even and the volume of each number the same. Be aware if you say the word “three” louder than one or two. Also don’t setup the putter wrong. Chuck has the putter sitting on its heel instead of properly soled.

Fix pop-up slices—Disregard this article. If you have this problem, a sure fix is to observe the shaft and clubhead during the first four feet of your backswing. Spend some time training yourself that your forward swing should retrace that portion of your backswing.

How to dominate Par 3’s—I like Retief’s thoughts strategizing about these holes (comments 1-3). With regard to shaping shots, while Retief relates body movements to such shaping, remember it is club movement that shapes shots. Disregard his swing tips.

Private Lessons
Stay loose for more yards—ok
Reach the green from fairway bunkers—Ok.
How to shape shots by feel—Feel is related to how the body feels. Such feelings are one step removed from what shapes the shot—the club. Always work on being aware of what you want the club to do.
How to check for power leaks—Ok.
Use different clubs for chipping—Ok.
**I think this is the first time I’ve ever found most (let alone all) of these Private Lessons to meet my approval!

January ‘08 Golf Magazine Instruction Commentary

2007-12-12T17:16:00.001-06:00

This month's articles

READ THE BREAK IN REVERSE—Dave doesn’t mention it, but I can’t believe he overlooked the fact that a putt rolling from the cup to its point of origin requires a different stroke than rolling from origin to the cup. Because the initial speed of the putt is greater (on a level putt), it will not be affected by breaks in the first half of the putt as much as it will in the second half when the ball is rolling much slower.

PLANE SIMPLE—Don’t look too long at Zach’s swing. It’s not what you’d want to copy. The club head is outside on the first part of the backswing. The club is below the plane on the end of the back swing. The club face is open and the club is pointing left at the top of the swing. But, on the forward swing he fixes all those things. The reason Zach can play well is that he is consistent in his swing. His swing is not exemplary but it is something he has learned to repeat.

HOW TO PLAN A GREAT ESCAPE—I like Laird’s comments (except for those titled “Set Your Base”).

HIT CRISP, STRAIGHT IRONS—Fat, thin, short, and all-over-the-course is the result of tilting your hear to the right? Maybe for a few golfers. This is a new one.

MAX DISTANCE WITH YOUR 3-WOOD—
-Line up Straight—Using Don’s technique cannot work. Your eyes are not positioned over the club. Instead, when the golfer turns their head to see where the club is pointed the eyes will be looking from right to left which results in the club appearing to point more left than it really is.
-Keep your chin up—Why do you need “extra” room? Don’t raise your chin.
-Use Posture to keep your swing on plane—With perfect posture, it is easy to swing the club below or above the plane. Plane is not fixed with posture.

HOW TO CATCH DRIVES FLUSH—Don’t try to fix one problem by causing another. Neither of the yellow arrow depict the correct path of the club’s arc. To do so, the arrow would be drawn approaching from roughly one end of the second dowel rod and leaving over the other end of the same rod.

HOW TO KNOCK LAG PUTTS TIGHT—Many times our distance is off on putts because we loose the mental image of the hole. Brady’s fix is to look at the hole while you putt. Do you think he does this when he is playing for money? The solution is to hold the picture of the hole in your mind while you are putting. This informs the brain so it knows how big to make the stroke.

SET THE BALL FOR STRAIGHT DRIVES—“You’ll know you’re [set ] correctly if a line extending from the shaft of the driver bisects your left ear.” Go set up with your driver and ask yourself if the shaft is bisecting your left ear. If you can, you’re one up on me. Instead, set the club head behind the ball with the shaft square to the target line and then center yourself on the club.

CONTROL SPEED AND DIRECTION ON PUTTS—Use a band-aid for a cut not a putt. If your problem is hand-action during your putting stroke work on fixing that problem not on trying to avoid a band-aid stuck to your putter face. Make several very small strokes without the ball and no hand action. Then do the same with a ball. After you repeat no-ball/ball several times (about 30 putts), increase the size of the stroke paying attention to the hands holding the club with no wrist movement.

PITCH IT CLOSE EVERY TIME—Take a look at the small inset picture. You can clearly see how Dana has use her hands to “flip” the club. But now look at her arms in this picture. You can easily imagine how she could be holding the towels under her arms but still flip. Disregard this article.

HIT THE POWER SWEET SPOT—I agree with Bruce that hitting down on the driver will produce a lower trajectory. However, I disagree with him regarding hitting down increasing the back spin. Hitting down delofts the club face. When a club has less loft it produces less backspin (think about a sandwedge compared to a 9 iron). I also disagree that you have do setup different with the driver than with any other club. If the driver is fitted for you, then you should not have to compensate by tilting or moving your hands.

HIT YOUR IRONS LONG AND STRAIGHT—How alignment makes you hit the ball longer, I don’t understand. How alignment makes you hit the ball straighter, I don’t understand. Properly aligned you can still hook or slice and can still hit it fat or thin—any of which you can also hit shorter than anybody in your foursome. All the above notwithstanding, please don’t stop swinging at the flag. The ball always travels in the direction of your swing and will stay in that direction unless you have imparted side spin on the ball.

MY 4 DRIVING SECRETS—I’d hardly call these secrets.
-Slow down your backswing—only do this if your backswing is so fast that you feel jerky instead of smooth as you transition from backswing to forward swing.
-Get wide for more yards—If you want to widen your stance, don’t do it the way Sergio describes. Moving just the right foot changes the ball and club position. Move both feet equally.
-Don’t fear the fade—“If you can master the timing…” The club is on the ball for 3 ten thousandths of a second and you are suppose to turn the right hand then!! If you want to fade the ball change rotate your grip to the left at address. Don’t try timing it.
-My Take on Tee Height—Big secret here!!

ADD 20 YARDS—If we would combine all the articles about adding distance, could we hit a ball into next week?
-Power Factor 1 A flatter Approach—Flatter than what? If the club travels around the body with no up and down it will be on a horizontal plane 3 feet above the ground. How about if we just make it simple and say swing the club on plane?
-Power Factor 2 Wrist Hinge—“…--your wrist joints are among the fastest in you body.” In a head-on collision auto accident the neck joints are even faster. Joints aren’t fast or slow. Where does he get this stuff? Hinging the wrist does only one thing, it lengthens the arc of your swing. The un-hinging and re-hinging happens gradually but continuously throughout the forward swing. You don’t time it.
-Power Factor 3 Square Clubface—Charlie must have been having an off day when they interviewed him. Read the last paragraph. He completely disregards the elbow and turns his attention to the club (Better late than never!). If your grip is neutral and the club goes toe-up to toe-u then the clubface will have been square at impact.
-Power Factor 4 Ascending Strike—I called Taylormade on this one. They confirmed my assumption. The five degrees of “attack angle” is a function of the club shaft and is not a matter for you to attempt to achieve in your golf swing. If the club is optimally fit for you your swing speed cause the head to deflect the shaft a positive 5 degrees.

PUTT TO A SPOT—This is the old “intermediate target” lesson. The problem is that if you concentrate on rolling the ball over the intermediate target you loose awareness of where the hole is and now you’ve lost your distance control. Keep the actual target in mind, not the intermediate.

OPEN YOUR STANCE FOR CHIPS AND PITCHES—Again this is an oft cited instruction but should only be applied if setting up square is less effective for the player (typically it isn’t).

Power begins with your backswing—Ok.

SWING FREE AND EASY—Make your grip neutral. Swing with as little tension as possible and with you grip pressure remaining constant. Your stance should be square.

SWING EASIER FROM A DIVOT—When the ball is in a shallow divot, play the shot with your normal setup. Because a very small portion of the ball is below-grade your swing will have the club head contact the ball a little high producing what you would otherwise consider a “thin” shot. No problem it will still go about the same distance, will go straight but with a lower trajectory. If the divot is so deep that the club will contact the ball too high, then move the ball back in your stance so the path of the swing will miss the back edge of the divot and cleanly contact the ball. This too will produce lower trajectory with about the same distance.

November ’07 Golf Magazine Instruction Commentary

2007-11-21T14:23:00.000-06:00

This month's articles

-HOW TO HIT YOUR IRONS ON THE SWEET SPOT—Dave describes this instruction as a solution to the fact that 95% of shots are short of the target. Ask yourself this question, when you are making a shot is your intention to get the ball “to” the target or to make it go beyond the target. The reason for short shots is that is what we are intending—and that’s not a problem. Being two feet past the cup is no better than being two feet short. Yes, only balls that have enough speed to go beyond the cup have enough speed to go in.
The above notwithstanding, Dave’s drill is beneficial for any player who is not making center contact. However, before you round up a two-by-four, hit some shots while paying attention to your balance. You may find that center contact will require nothing more that keeping your balance during the shot.

-MAHAN WITH A PLAN—This story-behind-the-story here is that you can will with almost any ball flight as long as you are consistent. (P.S. Consistently straight is better than consistently right.)

-MAKE SOLID CONTACT FROM A DIVOT—I like what Brady has to say but think it is a little more complicated than necessary. Setup with the ball one or two balls back of center. Doing this de-lofts the club and in so doing lowers the leading edge of the club so the shot will not be bladed. From this setup make your normal swing.

-STOP SWING OVER THE TOP—This is classic. It adheres the widely taught (and highly illogical) maxim, “When you have a problem with the club swinging incorrectly don’t fix the club’s motion, fix the body.” Get a chuckle from this article and quickly turn the page.

-STOP PUSHING THE BALL—Déjà vu all over again. Got a problem with the club? Fix the body. Turn the page.

-HIT GREENS FROM THE ROUGH—First of all, always make your first goal to put the ball back in play. Sometimes your lie will allow you to go for the green. If the lie is workable (ie. the path along which the club travels to the ball is not through grass that will greatly slow and deflect the club AND the path along which the ball will exit is also clear of such grass), then think about the green. The more lofted the club, the sooner the ball will get above the grass. You can play this shot with the ball one or two balls forward in your stance.

-BUILD A MONEY STROKE—Look at the sequence of photos at the bottom of the page. Notice how de-lofted the putter is at impact. Putters are designed to put the best roll on the ball when they have 3-5 degrees of loft. Ironically, there is nothing that will make the ball hop and skip more than hitting down on the ball.

-HOW TO ADD 10 YARDS TO YOUR DRIVES—Don’t tell Brad, but you don’t hit the ball with your backswing. Having a wider backswing guarantees nothing regarding the forward swing.

-PERFECT ADDRESS—Turn the page.

-MAKE SHORT CHIPS EASY—I don’t know how this is suppose to fix the problem Michael described.

-THE SETUP SECRET FOR MONSTER DRIVES—If you say so, Jon. Why this creates “monster” drives I’m not sure.

-PUTT FOR BIRDIE EVERY TIME—Ok.

-HOW TO MAKE YOUR FIRST DRIVE A GOD ONE—This is a warm up? This is suppose to get you loose and ready? Dana’s drill is useful for a session on the range if you suspect your swing is off-plane but not as a warm-up. This is a very specific drill for a very specific issue not a warm-up confidence builder.

-10 TOUGHEST WEDGE SHOTS—This article describes the statistical results of ten different shots comparing the use of a sand wedge to a lob wedge. It does not teach you how to pay the ten shots.

-CLOSE YOUR EYES FOR MORE POWER—This is very subjective. It doesn’t hurt to experiment on the practice tee.

-SET UP FOR SUCCESS—Look at the drawing on the lower half of the second page (red bars on the shoulders). Look at how the artist drew the shaft in line with the left arm. Now look above at the three setups for mid-irons, woods, and short irons. Do any of the three have the shaft in line with the left arm? Sloppy, re-hash, of bad info.

-HOW TO HIT WEDGES FROM TIGHT LIES—Ok.

-RUNNING YOUR APPROACHES—Ok.

-BE ON YOUR TOES IN THE SAND—Put simply, keep your balance. Leaning backwards during your forward swing increases the distance between your center and the ball. The result is that you will make contact high on the ball.

November 2007 Issue

2007-10-16T13:54:00.000-05:00

November ’07 Golf Magazine Instruction Commentary  

This month's articles

-POSITIONS “A”. Blah, blah, blah. Let’s cut to the chase. This is the next version of a long list of articles prescribing the “body positions” of pro vs. amateur. This may be one of the worst of the lot because it is based on one high handicapper and one pro. There is discussion of their body but not one word about the club. Not one word about the tool that determines ball flight. If golf was scored on style and body positions this would be a landmark article worthy of your study. Since golf is scored by and enjoyed for ball flight, this article is worthless.

-HOW TO MAKE LONG HOLES PLAY LIKE SHORT ONES—This is another in Dave’s interesting analysis of golf statistics. He’s good at this. I like Dave’s analysis but not his recommendation. The problem he suggests is that amateur golfers attempt to hit longer drives on longer holes and wind up hitting poorer drives because their added effort distorts their swing. The solution he offers is a band aid. Instead, learn to make your swing consistent regardless of distance.

-HOW TO HIT PIN-SEEKING IRONS—And why does this technique make you more accurate? This article describes one way to produce a knock-down shot but does not offer one word about why a knock-down is more accurate than a normal swing.

-HOW TO BLAST ONE FROM A BUNKER DOWNSLOPE—This is ok, but think twice about spending time practicing this versus making 3-4 foot putts.

-6 WAYS TO FIX EVERY BAD SHOT—David should have titled this “6 Ways to fix every bad shot that is caused by strange body movements.” Read the first ten words of each of the 6 problems. All of these are strange body movement problems. These solutions have not benefit for problems from things like a problematic grip or poor alignment.

-HOW TO ATTACK WITH YOUR SHORT IRONS—I want to ask you to look at Brian’s two photos on the left. Lean to the right at address and then sway to the left on the back swing? That’s a sure way to make a simple shot more difficult. Brian also offers that prudent advice to “hit down on the ball”. That’s icing on the cake.

-SWING YOUR BAG TO STOP YOUR SWAY—I want to see Peter use this with one of his students. He wins the “creative but silly” golf instruction award.

-MOVE YOUR LEFT SHOULDER, ADD YARDS—Why is the yellow arrow longer in photo #3 than in photo #1? Does Bob have an elastic collar bone? Notice that the butt of the club in photo #3 is 15 inches (approx) from the center of his body and the club 4 feet. What is the chance of the club head arriving at the center the same time as the butt of the club? Answer: Slim and none. It appears to me that this is a sure way to have the ball go to the right.

-HOW TO STRAIGHTEN OUT YOUR PUTTS—Anne offers a great alternative if you don’t have a golf ball handy. If you do, then use it. Stretch a string out on the green (or carpet), place the ball inch from the string, and then make the putt. If the stroke is good and the blade is square at impact, the ball will roll parallel to the string.

-STOP SLICES (AND HOOKS!) WITH YOUR FEET—The idea behind this instruction is that if I put the body in a strange position I can force the swing to be different. Here is an alternative: Leave the feet in a normal position (each foot perpendicular to the target line and the toe line parallel to the target line), then swing the club correctly.

-HOW TO TURN YOUR SLICE INTO A DRAW—(I’d be more impressed if Steve taught us to turn the slice into straight). Here is the first article in this issue that deals with the club. I can’t imagine how this works but it might be fun to give it a try.

-BENCH YOUR SWING—This article deals with the club also. Nice. When doing drill 1 use a 5 iron instead. An eight will probably hit the ball too high.

-4 EASY WAYS TO BE A MORE CONSISTENT BALLSTRIKE—Can the formula for “hitting everything better” be reduced to : 1)shorten your backswing, 2)back a bigger hip turn, 3)Swing slower and with more arms, 4)release with your chest? I don’t think so. Again this is all body stuff and doesn’t deal with the essential role the club plays.

-USE YOUR TRIGGER TO INCREASE FEEL—Control of the putter results from: having a correct grip that squares the club face, swinging the club, have the putter aligned so the swing rolls the ball to the target. Forget the finger.

-IMPROVE YOUR CHIPS FROM THE ROUGH—Ok

-CURING WRISTINESS—Ok

-RELAX YOUR RIGHT ELBOW—Ok

-STAND TALL FOR A BIG TURN—At address, anything more than a slight knee-flex will restrict your back swing. The only knee flex that is appropriate is that which is necessary to sole the club.

October ’07 Golf Magazine Instruction Commentary

2007-09-18T13:14:00.000-05:00

This month's articles

-HOW TO BE CLUTCH—Before you invest a lot of time in this exercise, try it with simply tossing. Determine how effective you are at controlling distances by controlling your backswing. Do it this way:
o use ten balls to make ten tosses with your backswing halfway back (your forearm is parallel to the ground on the back swing).
o Note what the average distance was on the tosses.
o Pick up the balls.
o Now, close your eyes and get ready to toss a ball.
o Then, have someone pace off the distance that you had averaged.
o Have them quietly say, “Ready”.
o Now toss the ball concentrating on attempting to duplicate the halfway backswing you made.
o Do this with ten balls.
This drill will make it apparent that attempting to control the backswing is very ineffective. Not only were you not able to feel confident about the size of your backswing, your direction was poor. Humans are much better able to do this is they use their visualizing ability to simply watch a mental image of the ball going to the target and stopping there.

This approach to distance control is logical. It just is not the best way humans can control distance.
P.S. If you would try to use this, how would you adjust if the shot was a little uphill or downhill; or if you wanted to use a 7 iron?

HOW TO GROOVE YOUR PUTTING STROKE—Note: the block of wood must have this 45 degree angle cut on it so the putter can arc correctly.

HARDPAN MADE EASY—This is a little more complicated than necessary. Simply adjust the setup by have the ball positioned in the center of your stance (instead of the club). The club will be positioned behind the ball—slightly toward your back foot. Keep your balance (VERY IMPORTANT) and make your normal swing. The ball flight will be lower. The setup for this is similar to a fairway bunker.

HOW TO POWER UP YOUR SWING—Let’s simplify this:
o Key 1 the wrists hinge during the backswing (don’t shift your weight)
o Key 2 allow your arm (the bone from your elbow to your shoulder) to make as big a backswing as you can. Allow the elbow to fold if that increases the length of your swing.
o Key 3 you can eliminate this step since you didn’t shift your weight
o Key 4 when you flip the club the butt of the club travels toward your back foot and the head toward your front. Keep both ends of the club moving forward.

BUILD A BETTER BACKSWING—Ok. In step three, notice that the center does not shift to the right foot on the backswing. It merely turns and points toward the right foot.
Tilt right for pure contact—Ok. This setup does not prevent you from hitting the shot fat.

REGAIN YOUR TOUCH FROM THE SAND—Ok. Instead of thinking about Danish (which I love), I think you’ll find it more helpful to understand that what we are doing is to use the club to create a tidal wave of sand that in turn pushes the ball out of the bunker. To do this, set up one ball’s diameter behind the ball, lower your center so your swing will enter the sand before the ball creating a wave of sand.

HOW TO HIT PERFECT IRONS—This is about setup and does not assure you of hitting perfect irons. This only works if in step one you have your left arm at the correct angle. Pass on this article.

HOW TO CHECK FOR A PERFECT GRIP—Rotating the hands to the right (V’s over right shoulder) will close the clubface (deloft it and make it look left). This is a dangerous fix for the problems Brian targets.

HOW TO HIT DRIVER OFF THE DECK—Because the driver has such a small amount of loft, you’ll need a very high swing speed to get it high enough for it to travel further than your three wood. Unless you hit the driver over 250 yards, your 3 wood will probably give you more distance off the fairway than the driver. If you use the driver off the deck, the setup and swing should be unchanged.

THE SIMPLE WAY TO SHAPE SHOTS—This may be simple for Jason. He is suggesting making two different swings. Simpler yet is to adjust the setup for a draw or fade and use your normal swing.

FOUR EASY WAYS TO HIT MORE GREENS—This is an interesting article because it discusses improving your score through shot selection vs. swing improvement. I liked Jim’s ideas. These can help all players.
P.S. Use Jim’s strategy. Don’t try to use his swing.

MASTER THE SHORT SAND SHOT—Ok.

STOP COMING UP SHORT—Ok.

PLAY A CONTROLLED FADE—Work on straight first, fade second.

PERFECT POSTURE—Assuming that your clubs are the correct length and lie angle for you, perfect posture is as follows:

o hold the club with both hands and sole the club correctly
o center your body on the club
o allow the arms to hang (vs. reach)
o balance the weight in your feet
o done.

September '07 Issue

2007-08-13T17:05:00.000-05:00

This month's articles

-CHIP AWAY AT CHUNKY SHOTS—Chunky chip shots are not the fault of the club. So the solution to chunky chips is not choosing a different club. Using a fairway wood for chipping is fine but it won’t eliminate the chunks.

-FADE IT OR DRAW IT—This article almost has it right. Changing the grip will change the orientation of the clubface at impact. It is not a matter of changing the thumb position (although that’s close), instead it is a matter of rotating the left hand grip in total. Take your normal grip. The slightly loosen your grip pressure and rotate the left hand to the right to have the clubface impart hook spin at impact. Or, rotate it to the left to have it impart slice spin. Rotate the entire hand, not just the thumb.

-SCRAMBLING—I never argue with Dave’s statistical reporting. However, I find myself less accepting of his recommendations. In particular, I think Dave is mistaken in his recommendation for having “two targets” ( a landing target and a final target). To understand why, try this: Find a target about 30 paces away to which you will toss a ball as close as possible. Make the toss and then ask yourself if you were concentrating on the final target or on a landing target. If you are trying to toss it as close as possible, you will find that all of your attention is on the final target. Your brain works the same way when it is directing the performance of your golf swing.

-LAND BUNKER SHOTS WHERE YOU WANT THEM—“..your toe line points no more than twenty degrees left of target.” Huh? I’m supposed to bring a protractor with me into the bunker? How am I supposed to measure twenty degrees? The answer is that you don’t have to. First you only need to align left if you open the clubface at address (which is not necessary). If you choose to open the clubface (to add more loft), adjust your alignment with the club face looking to the right of the target, your feet aligned to the right and the target splitting the difference.

-HOW TO LOB IT TO A TIGHT PIN—Ok.

-How to hit driver into the wind—Any time our address position has the club to the left of center, we are adding loft to the swing. Therefore Gary’s initial address position is already a problem for hitting into the wind. The adjust he makes is excessive. Begin by positioning the club in your center, then if you want to lower the trajectory either tee the ball lower or slightly (remember the driver only has a few degrees of loft to begin with) close the clubface and align it to the right of the target.

STOP LEAVING SHOTS IN THE SAND—The image of a stone skipping across a pond portrays the stone on the surface of the water. If the wedge stays on the surface of the sand, you will blade the shot.

MAKE SWING CHANGES STICK—First, regarding the drill be sure the forward tee is not on the target line. Remember the swing is a circle and the moment the club passes impact its circular path takes the club head left of the target line. Second regarding transitioning from practice to play, it should be remembered that the result of training aids is for us to change our mind regarding what we want to do with the golf club. Keep that as your objective when you are practicing and give yourself a few weeks of practice before you expect to see the change be your “go to” swing.

-QUITE COMING OVER THE TOP—Mike’s suggestion is ok and you may find it helpful. However, if you want to go to the essence of the problem, it is that the forward swing is not on the correct path. My suggestion is to make a backswing and watch the club as you VERY slowly return it the address position. As it approaches the address position come to know the path it is taking. Repeat this until you can visualize this path. Then mentally watch an image of the club return along this path during your swing. Your brain is wired to respond to that image by performing the action you are seeing in your thoughts.

-GET YOUR SWING BACK IN SYNC—I think this is unnecessarily difficult to take from practice to play.

-TWO FOOLPROOF PUTTING KEYS—Ok.

-TURN UP OUR POWER—Allow the body to respond to the circular swing of the club. The result is just the right amount of turn at just the right time.

-THE NO-BACKSWING SWING—Let’s cut to the chase. The only value in the no-backswing swing (NBS) is the subtle matter of putting yourself in the correct position at the top. Look at STEP 2. Just make a backswing that satisfies these criteria and then the NBS has no benefit.

-HIT THE SAND TO THE HOLE—Some shots the sand “may” carry to the hole. On most shots (yes, even the ones where the ball stops next to the hole) the sand will carry well-short of the hole.

-BLOCK OUT SLICES—THERE IS NO RELEASE IN THE GOLF SWING!!!!!!! Ok, I guess I got that out of my system for the time being. This article diagnoses the problem correctly (i.e. the clubface should not stay square to the target line after impact). The solution is to keep the path of the club circular through impact as it passes to a toe up position with the club shaft appearing to point at the target.

-STOP CASTING YOUR CLUB—The solution to casting is not in the legs or shoulders. The solution is in the hands. Casting is the result of using the hands to unhinge the wrists. Instead the unhinging should be the result of the centrifugal force of the swinging motion.

-MASTERING THE KNOCKDOWN WEDGE—Ok.

-SHORT IRONS NEED DIVOTS—If your short irons are producing “high soft shots” then they are producing exactly what they were designed for. This article effectively delofts the clubs and turns a pitching wedge into an eight iron.

August '07 Golf Magazine Articles

2007-07-12T22:47:00.000-05:00

This month's articles

-MY BEST TIP—I recommend putting for the hole but accepting a putt as a good one at the ratio of 1 foot from the cup for every 10 feet the putt is in length.

DIG IT BABY—Look at the angle of the club face in both illustrations. Do either look like they would make the ball travel on the trajectory of the blue arrow? No. For a buried lie the club face must be pushing the sand in the trajectory you want the ball to travel.

STOP PULLED PUTTS WITH A SAW GRIP—Ok. If this helps go for it, but my recommendation is to have your putting grip and swing be as similar as possible to that which you use for chipping and full swing.

THE STARTER—K.J.’s swing is very effective, but not a model to be copied. At add he has the club positioned too far forward. Notice in photo 2 that his belt buckle is well behind the ball when it should be nearly even with it. Then in photo 4 notice the belt buckle and how he has had to slide his hips forward in order to not hit the ball left. In the lower photo 2 the club is out of position and the club face is closed. Finally, most of the commentary about his swing is inaccurate.

POWER RELEASE—This article preaches the same lesson Tommy Armour gave in his golf book. And it is just as ruinous today as it was then. First, only in sequential photos does there appear to be some point of release. In full video, you’ll see the wrists begin unhinging gradually as the speed of the swing increase its centrifugal force. Second, the wrists are never “bent” during the golf swing. At the top of the swing they hinge but this in no way is “bent” as Laird is suggestion. Swing a tennis ball on a string and you will find the like in tennis, baseball, and hockey the wrist in golf never bends. Please disregard this article!

SHORTEN YOUR FINISH—Trying to “stop” the swing at this point will cause all kinds of forces on your body and the club unless the backswing is also only waist high. “The club shaft and your left arm are more or less still in line”, what does that mean? Are they or aren’t they?

PLUG A MAJOR POWER LEAK—The four black boldface titles are fine. Disregard the rest.

USE TWO TEES TO CURE YOUR SLICE—Look at the picture. The v’s formed by the thumb and forefinger are point to the players center.

HOW TO MAKE A MODEL STROKE—No one can know everything about anything. I am not an expert on the relevance of face-balanced vs. toe-weighted putters. But here are two things that make this article suspect: 1) In the photo where Mike is set up with the toe-weighted putter he has the shaft leaning forward. This will deloft the putter and cause the ball to skid. This is definitely not advisable. 2) In the Odyssey two-ball putter which Mike uses as an example of a face-balanced putter, I swing it along an arc path and make putts all day long (as long as my swing is correct).

40-YARD SAND SHOT—I like Gary’s strategy to simply use a less lofted club and leave the sand wedge in the bag for these longer shots. However, there is no need to open the club face. Now you are turning the 9 or 8 iron into a sand wedge.

HOW TO CHIP FROM EVERY LIE—Ok.

SWEEP AWAY YOUR SLICE—I like Darrell’s creativity but his design depends upon you ability to discern the relative amounts of wind resistance to the swing of the broom. This leaves a lot of room for interpretation. The path of the swing needs to be more clearly defined. Swing the club back from the address position to over your right shoulder and watch the path of the club. That will definitively show you the correct path for the first half of the forward swing.

FIX THREE FAULTS WITH ONE DRILL—Ok.

GET YOUR PUTTS ON THE RIGHT TRACK—This is a good drill to optimize your eye position for address.

START FROM THE END—A good finish can fix a lot of problems.

GET MORE YARDS FROM YOUR SHOULDERS—Don’t focus on trying to decide if your shoulder turn is on the right plane. You’ll never know because the plane changes with the length of the shaft. Instead always make sure the shaft swings over your right should and the body is free to respond to the swing by turning.

HOW TO MAKE MORE BIRDIES—This is difficult. How do you not endorse a single suggestion by a Master’s champion? While it’s obvious this works for him, it is equally obvious that it is not consistent with lessons we teach. Most important, Zach’s suggestions are more difficult than necessary. One thing I do like is Zach’s putting stroke. Best of luck, Zach.

PRIVATE LESSONS

GET RID OF YOUR SNAP HOOK—The action that creates the snap hook is more of a quick rolling of the hands then it is a snapping of the wrists.

FREE YOUR ARMS FOR POWER—Ok.

PLANT YOUR LEFT HEEL—This is not a question of “to plant or not to plant”. Instead the problem is the weight shift. Keep your balance till after impact.

BEATING THE BURIED LIE—Ok but use the sand wedge.

July 2007 Issue

2007-06-23T18:56:00.000-05:00

June 2007 Issue

2007-05-20T17:46:00.000-05:00

This month's articles

-MY BEST TIP—Kenny Perry. Kenny says his best tip was to keep his right foot planted for pure contact. But read the quote below the photo and you’ll see that the secret was not the right foot but balance. You can keep you foot down and still loose your balance. It’s not the foot, its balance that is vital for pure contact.

HOW TO STOP TEE TOPS—Rick is on the right track but slightly off. The target line is a straight line. The swing arc is circular. Don’t imagine the club head “riding the rail”, this will cause other probems. Instead, while you are swining, imagine that the desired trajectory is low (a foot or two off the ground.

MAKE A HEADS-UP PLAY FROM DOWNHILL LIES—I love Dave—for stats not for technique. On a downhill lie with your shoulders parallel to the incline of the hill, the swing is unchanged. There is no need to make your forward swing more or less step. Dave is correct that this will produce a lower trajectory. His “stepping forward” move is reminiscent of Gary Player, who did this for a while (but not for long). Stepping forward invites a weight shift, a resulting loss of balance, and ultimately poor ball flight.

OLDER AND WISER, BUT BETTER? Interesting speculation, but the wrong conclusion. Dave’s data correlated the age of a player with their handicap. He found older players have higher handicaps. However, he only asked how old they were but did not ask when they started learning.

YOUR SECRET POWER ANGLE—Here we go again—a secret!! “If you do it right, your swing will feature the five power positions pointed out here.” I am assuming these positions are at impact. So try these, set a ball on the ground and set up in your address position. Now begin moving your body to the “five power positions.” Can you do it and still have the club face at the ball and square to the target line? I couldn’t. This is one of those articles that don’t describe what is really going on.

SIMPLIFY YOUR SWING—If good body motion would control the ball, Martin might be on to something. But it doesn’t. Ball flight is determined solely by the club movement. Forget this article.

HOW TO HIT FOOLPROOF DRAWS AND FADES—Mike gives a good description of how to change your swing to create draws and fades. However, that’s the hard way. Instead change your setup and keep the swing the same. At setup, merely regrip the club with the face slightly open to produce fades and slightly closed to produce draws. See Manuel’s book for details and the DVD for examples.

STOP HITTING WEAK PULLS—Here again the solution to problem ball flight is “body movement” instead of club movement. Fixing the body assures you of nothing. A pulled shot is nothing more than the club’s swing path not being in the direction of the target. Think about the clock face and move the club from 7 to 6 to 5 and the pulls are gone.

HOW FARE BACK IS TO FAR—Another way to ask the question is how far do you want to hit the ball. If you want it to go shorter then do things to shorten your back swing. If you want it to go further, then do things to lengthen it. Keep your balance, don’t open your grip at the top of your back swing, and allow your left arm to fold. However far back you can go is the right length for you.

STOP YANKING YOUR CHIPS—There is no Santa Claus and no club squares itself. Above is an article about pulling. Yanking could be thought of as pulling. The solution is the same.

HOW TO FEEL THE PROPER SWING PLANE—Ok.

USE YOUR TILT TO CURE YOUR SLICE—The ball slices because of the club’s movement. Fixing the body does not necessarily fix the club. Fix the club, forget the body.

A SIDEHILL SECRET—In principle this is ok. In application it is too imprecise. Spend some practice time on the sidehill lie. Tape the longest golf tee to the face of a wedge (it will look like a rocket ready for blast off. Set up on the sidehill lie. Now look where the tee is pointing. The more lofted the club the more you will find it pointing left. You can’t use the tee in this manner during competitive play, so learn to determine visually where the clubface is looking when you are on a side hill. Line the face of the club up with the target and then set yourself to the club.

HOW TO STOP MISSING THE SWEETSPOT—You can carefully do everything John is describing and still hit it off the toe or heel. Contacting the ball on the sweetspot depends on three things: Correct setup at address, making a swinging motion, maintaining your balance.

HOW TO CREATE SQUARE IMPACT—Whoa!! David is suggesting that your right palm mimics the angle of your clubface. So would our right hand be in different positions on the club for clubs of different lofts?

HINGE RIGHT FOR CRISPER IRONS—Dom suggests one hinge for full swings and a different hinge for half swings. What about ¾ and ¼ swings? And what about 3/8 or 5/8 swings? The wrists should hinge the same for all shots.

MORE YARDS, LESS EFFORT—Someone once said there is no Santa Claus. Presuming that the clubs contact with the ball is similar, the swing that is faster will produce more distance. I hope that doesn’t surprise anyone. Despite Brian stating, “ You don’t need extra swing speed to max out your distance”, if you look at his Impact-First drill it encourages stronger (I am guessing he means faster) body rotation (i.e. more speed).
If you look at the other drill, it “links your arms to your upper body so they can deliver power simultaneously” (I think that means speed too).

HOW TO STOP IT QUICK FROM THE SAND—Ok.

HOW TO BE PITCHER PERFECT—Notice that Anne says you’ll get “extra distance”. That be me ok for your driver, but do you want extra distance for your pitch shots? The reason Anne says that is for this drill to work you must close the club face and thereby deloft the club. When you use a wedge it will have the loft of an 8 iron. This drill is really a first stage fix for players that are too handsy. But it is not a recommendable way to chip.

10 WAYS TO SAVE 6 STROKES—
Popped up my tee shot—Ok.
Dead pulled my drive—Tim identifies the problem ok, “swung from outside”, but then overcomplicates the fix. Take a slow practice backswing that takes the club over your right shoulder. Note the path of the club during its firs 12-24 inches of backswing. Return the club along that path during the forward swing.
Hit a wicked slice/hook—Ok. From Tiger’s perspective the club is pointing at the target and the toe of the club is up.
Hit that long iron super thin—In the scenario that Tim set up, the fix is to maintain your balance through impact.
Hit a short iron short and right—Hitting it fat most often is fixed only when the player can swing the club instead of wanting to use the right hand to make the clubhead hit the ball. Seldom is hitting it fat the result of balance. The solution Tim offers will cover up the problem but won’t fix it and it will cause you to deloft the club making your approach shots come into the green on a lower, hotter trajectory.
Topped a fairway wood—The situation that Tim setup is uncommon. Most times topped fairway woods come from the player’s concern about getting the ball up. When that is in their thoughts (even a little), they will use the right hand to try to make the ball go up which instead tops the ball.
Hit that bunker shot fat—Keeping the face open on your sand wedge does not, cannot ensure that you will not hit shots fat. Also, try and have the trailing edge of the wedge enter the sand instead of the leading edge—its impossible.
Flubbed that flop shot—A flop shot has the blade of the club so open that it requires an inordinately big swing. Such a swing is psychologically frightening to make the ball go such a short distance. This takes a lot of practice. Without that practice you may well decelerate the club because you can’t get comfortable with such a big swing for a short shot.
Bladed that chip shot—Tim may be identifying one reason chip shots get bladed, but its not the most common. The most common is that the player uses the right hand in an effort to hit the ball up and in doing blades the shot. The cure is to always visualize the ball flight as being low (even with a wedge). The right hand won’t get active and you won’t blade shots.
Shanked that chip—If you are out on the course and begin getting afraid of shanking, simply do this: if the ball is roughly 16 inches from your toe line, imagine a tee that is just to the outside of the ball roughly 18 inches from your toe line. When you swing ensure your club does not clip that imaginary tee.
PRIVATE LESSONS
Get yourself in trouble—ok if you have a lot of time to practice and your shots from normal conditions are acceptable.
Pitch it close from a downhill lie—this instruction is ok if the downhill is moderate. However, don’t let your hands lead or else the blade will be out of square and the ball will fly to the right.
Start at the finish—ok
Tips to hit hybrids—Hybrids are designed for the same swing as all the rest of your clubs.
Make good putts on bad greens—Position your sternum directly in line with the putter shaft.

May 2007 Issue

2007-04-13T16:05:00.000-05:00

This month's articles

-CATCH THE WAVE--Dear Golf Magazine Editors, Welcome to the past. Listen to Manuel de la Torre 20 years ago or look at his 2004 DVD and you’ll hear him explain the “tidal wave” effect for bunker shots.

-DON’T LEAVE UPHILL WEDGES SHORT—When you are playing from an uphill lie there are two strategies: spine perpendicular to the hill (like Dave in photo #1), or spine vertical (like Dave in photo #6). If your spine is perpendicular the club will not go into the ground after impact. If the spine is vertical it is likely (depending on the grade of the hill) that the club will take a heavy divot or imbed in the hillside. Regarding being short, do this: imagine the normal trajectory of the club you want to use for the shot, then look at the grade of the hill and add that much trajectory to your normal flight, if the added trajectory directs too much of your swings energy upward rather than forward, choose a lesser lofted club.

-DO YOU KNOW 53 YARDS WHEN YOU SEE IT?—Do you know thirteen yards when you see it? Do you need to know the yardage between you and me if we were playing catch? No. Why not, because our tossing is regulated unconsciously by our vision not a consciously by our knowledge of yardage. Have a friend close their eyes and try tossing a ball various yardages as per your instructions. Now have them do the same thing with their eyes open with makers at those same yardages. Being able to estimate the yardage and being able to send the ball there, uses two different parts of your brain. Yardage is not helpful when you are making partial swings. It is only helpful when you are choosing clubs for full swings. (Look at Dave’s answer to the first question in the upper right hand corner of page 41).

-LASER TREATMENT—DON’T BUY THIS!! Like all your swings, a putting stroke is circular. When you swing this device the laser lines will immediately shine to the right of the target as you start your back swing and will immediately shine left as you pass the impact point. This device is based on a will cause people to try to bring the club straight back and straight through—very unnatural and unnecessarily difficult.

-HOW I STOPPED HOOKING, ONCE AND FOR ALL.—If your grip is too strong or you roll your hands during the swing you can have hooking problems. If your grip is neutral (v’s formed by your thumb and forefinger are pointed at your shirt buttons), and you allow your arms to rotate you will not have a hooking problem. Hogan created his own way of compensating—most players will find its more difficult.

-LONG ARMS ARE THE LAW.—Ok.

-SWIVEL YOUR HEAD FOR EXTRA DISTANCE.—This is a sure formula for hitting lots of shots to the right. Simpler and better is to allow your left arm to fold. This promotes a longer backswing and therefore more time for the club to accelerate.

-MAKE A WEAK EFFORT TO ESCAPE SAND.—Unnecessary.

-GIVE OUR SHORT PUTTS A “POP”.—How much of a pop? The swing is not “poppy” it is very smooooooooth.

-THE NATURAL.—Pay attention to the words “homegrown”. This is a code word for “this swing is so unusual that you’ll almost never see even professionals try it”. Look at J.B.’s club position in photo 3. From an address position, put your club in this position. The clubface is either delofted, facing to the right, or both.

-HOW TO HIT THE PERFECT CHIP.—There is so much wrong with this instruction its almost not worth the trouble.
Wrist Flat—The wrist is the hinge between your hand and forearm it can’t be flat. If the back of the left hand and the forearm are flat (i.e. you could lay a ruler across them), you will find that the club head is severely trailing the handle of the club and the club face aligned severely to the right.
Toe Closed—Todd writes “…your hand should be passive” and then goes on to say, “smoothly rotate the club”. Passive but active? How much should the club be rotated and when?
Weight forward—To fix hanging “back on your right side”, Todd wants us to hang on our left. Why not fix the hanging by making it simple and just be balanced?
Shoulder down—Look at Todd on page 60 in step 4. Is his left shoulder down?
Bottom Line: Use your normal setup and swing the club correctly.

-POWER FROM THE GROUND UP.—So the problem is a handsy swing, and the solution is to check the hips? How does this fix handsy? Do all handsy players have their hips out of place?

-HOW TO MAKE PITCHES BITE.—The ball doesn’t care if the wrist hinge quickly or if the club stops abrubtly. Its simple a matter of clubhead speed + clubhead loft + the type of ball you are using. Use a spin ball (Pro V1), and your most lofted club, and that’s all the spin that anyone can create.
P.S. the grooves do get worn on wedges and therefore they impart slightly less spin.

-HOW TO ROLL WITH THE RIGHT SPEED.—So the problem is that you are unsure how hard to hit a putt. Gary says that practicing rolling it over a pencil will improve your ability to know how hard to hit a putt. Or will it teach you the speed needed to jump a pencil? This is cute but absurd. Most missed putts result from the player concentrating on the ball instead of remembering where the cup is.

-BETWEEN CLUBS?—Ok, but this takes practice.

-2 = SAND ESCAPES.—Unnecessary

-HOW TO MAX OUT YOUR IRONS.—The problem that T.J. describes is “lack of crisp pure feel”. I’m really not sure what that means, are you? Regardless of what it means, do we ever want to contact the “inside lower quadrant” of the ball? From the address position, re-position the club face so it is up against the “inside lower quadrant”. Notice how the clubface is aligned to the right. Is that were you want the ball to go? Look at the small photo where the cup is in the air. Note the divots. T.J. took two shots. The divot for the this shot appears shallow and straight (not against the “inside lower quadrant”). The other divot is and deep and to the right—I think you are likely to get that kind of result from this kind of instruction.

-HOW TO CONTROL EVERY SHOT—Rotating the clubface affects the trajectory and direction of your ball flight. Rotating your hand (“knuckles down”) rotates the clubface. You can over-rotate and under rotate if you begin trying this technique. Be ready for a lot of practice and a lot of under and over cooked shots. Are you into simple? If you want the club face open or closed at impact just pre-set the club at address by rotating the shaft to the left for a hook or rotating it to the right for a fade and then grip the club while it is in that orientation. Now make your normal swing with no need to manage the rotation of your hands during the swing.

-THE CAN’T MISS PUTTING GRIP.—Somebody get Tiger on the phone and let him know he will never again miss a putt. I tried Brad’s suggestion. I could still be as wristy as I wanted.

-A NEW GRIP THAT STOPS YOUR SLICE.—Somebody get Cobra on the phone and tell them to trash all of those offset drivers they make for slicers. I certainly think that the “old way” that Brad describes is a problem but I am able to slice the ball with either of these grips.

-HOW TO STOP PULL-SLICING LONG IRONS.—As long as players focus on the body they won’t fix the pull slice. Dom’s suggest will only result in a pull slice that doesn’t start as far left and finishes further right. Fix the club not the body.

-USE YOUR HEAD FOR EXTRA YARDS.—(see above)

-PRIVATE LESSONS
SQUAT FOR POWER.—At the address position there is a specific number of inches from your swings center (just above your sternum) to the ball. If you squat the number of inches decreases. You will either hit the ball on the heel or hit it fat. No squatting. No swaying. The ball falls from between the knees because the left knee rotates toward the target.

PUTT WITH A FULL FOLLOW THROUGH.—The swing is a pendulum action. If the club swings back to 8 o’clock, it only has enough energy to swing forward to 4 o’clock. We don’t want the follow through bigger and never smaller.

SWING YOUR WEDGES AT 90 PERCENT.—Great advice for all our clubs (85% might even be better).

BUTT OUT!—You spin is not straight. It is “s” shaped. At address our objective should not be to have our butt out but instead to be balanced and relaxed.

April 2007 Issue

2007-03-20T14:58:00.000-05:00

This month's articles

-HOW TO SWING FROM THE TREES—Ok
-Ask Pelz—Before you try Dave’s approach regarding focus, try it when you are tossing a ball. What you will find is that for your tosses to at all be close to target, your mind’s focus must be on the target—not speed and distance. Whatever works for you tossing will work very well for your putting.

-LOOPY LOGIC—People make way too much out of the loop in Jim’s swing. Yes, it is unusual. No, you would not want to try to put a loop in your swing. Instead of looking at the loop, let’s look at the club as it moves through the bottom 1/3 of the swing (8 o’clock to 4 o’clock). There you will see that Jim does with his golf club just what every other good swinger does. Note: Because Jim plays the ball forward in his stance, he must slide his body to his left so that his center is aligned with the ball. If he had not taught himself to setup this way, he would not have to slide and add that variable to his shots.

-UPHILL ESCAPE—Ok. But be advised that setting up on an uphill shot with a sand wedge will send the ball very high. Your swing will have to be bigger than you might think if you have not practiced this. An alternative strategy is to use a PW or a nine.

-HOW TO HINGE YOUR WRISTS—STOP!! Martin has the hinges strapped on his wrists incorrectly. The left is ok but look at the right in the bottom picture. See how the hinge strap on his right forearm is no longer pointing at his right elbow. It’s twisting—and that’s not even with the club all at the top of the backswing. Martin is using the wrong hinges. Our wrists are ball and socket hinges. This illustration would be a little better if the hinge on the right wrist was mounted on top of the wrist like he has the left one.

-HOW TO BE FIRM WITH FAST DOWNHILLERS—It sounds desirable but what does “firm” mean? Hitting a ball on the toe of the club will not impart as much force as it will when you hit it on the center. So when you have a putt like the one on page 72, how much bigger of a swing would you want to make when you hit it on the toe? This takes a LOT of practice to develop a whole new knowledge of judging speed off the toe. Eden is right the ball won’t go as far when it comes off the toe. What Eden doesn’t tell you is that you now need to learn a whole new base of knowledge to judge toe shots in addition to judging center shots. It’s not worth it. Keep it simple. You can still put them in the cup on downhill putts when you hit them off the center. When you hit it off the toe, it feels anything but firm.

-IRONS IN THE MISFIRE—David is correct about many players aiming left of target. But it’s not because of the off-set. Players align left even with their putters—which have no offset. Use Manuel’s approach to alignment (page 35).

-HOW TO PRACTICE LIKE A TOUR PLAYER—I have never seen an article more superficial and misguided than this one.

-CHOKE DOWN TO KEEP IT LOW—Choking down shortens the length of the club and therefore lowers the club head speed. Shortening the swing will also decrease club head speed and therefore distance. How does choking down affect the loft of the clubface? It doesn’t—so choking down does not make the ball flight lower.

-DOES YOUR PUTTER MAKE YOU MISS?—Your putter does not and will not make you miss—ever. However, your putter can misfit you to such an extent that it makes putting more difficult than need be. Many players use putters that are too long for them.

-THE TURN SECRET—The only guarantee for not coming over the top is to have the back swing over the right shoulder and then have the club retrace the path of the backswing during the forward swing.

-TIGHTEN YOUR STAND TO BUST BIG DRIVES—Read the last sentence. What is says is true. What it doesn’t say is why this stance will make you hit it further. The reason it doesn’t is because it won’t. On the other hand, an extra wide stance can restrict your turn and keep you from making your fullest swing.

-STOP SLICING IN 5 SECONDS—Tom makes a good point as to how the toe of the club should be vertical but this is not the cause for most player’s slicing. If you see your shot ballooning high and to the right, Tom’s fix may be right for you.

-POWER UP WITH THE O FACTOR-- Try this: 1) stand at address with the club wresting on the ground, 2) leaving the club rest on the ground, turn your hips as fast as possible, you’ll see that the club does not move 3) the hips are independent of your arms. You can turn them as fast as you want and it adds nothing to the swing speed, except at the very end of their turn at which time they are twisting your torso to the left. Turn to page 172 and make a careful comparison of the clubface at address and at impact. The clubface is open and looking to the right. The only thing the O Factor will do on this shot is get the player to say, “Oh, no!”

-PRIVATE LESSONS
-Show the putter face the hole—The old wives tale is trotted out once again. One foot after impact the putter face will not be looking at the hole. The swing is circular. The moment the club passes impact the face begins looking left—on all swings. The putter does not need to, nor should you try to make it travel straight back and straight through.

-WATCH THE ELBOW—Forget the elbow. Focus on the club. Swing the club over your right shoulder (junction of shoulder and arm) with the shaft parallel to the target line. Then just re-trace the path for the forward swing. Wherever the elbow is during this swing is where it needs to be.

-WHEN BAD CONTACT IS GOOD—Actually this article has it exactly backwards. In heavy grass the grass catches the hosel, slows it down, and the toe quickly passes it and shuts the club face. Its why we hit a lot of grounders out of taller rough. On hardpan, plan to hit the ball thin and miss the dirt altogether.

-FOR MORE DISTANCE, LET THE DRIVER GO—This could be helpful for some players.

-THE HIGH TROUBLE SHOT—Rather than learn a new swing, just open the clubface before you grip it and play for the ball to travel to the right of your target line.

March 2007 Issue

2007-02-14T18:56:00.000-06:00

This month's articles

-BLAST FROM DEEP BUNKERS—This instruction is ok but learning how much to open the face and how big the swing should be takes practice. This shot requires no change in swing but does require some experience from practice. It’s an unusual shot, so put it at the bottom of your practice list. P.S. You don’t need a 64 degree wedge. You can rotate the face of any wedge to achieve maximum trajectory.

-WHY DO I STRUGGLE FROM UNEVEN LIES—This is ok except for Fix No. 3. Choose a club with more loft. If the downhill is gentle, align your shoulders to the slope of the hill. If the downhill is step, play the ball back in your stance and align to the left of the target. Like the bunker shot above, these situations need to be practiced so you can have experience from which you can draw.

-ESCAPE CLEANLY FROM DIVOTS—When the ball is in a divot, the lie is different than when it’s sitting on the grass in the fairway. Accept that. Then accept that the club will contact the ball just below its equator. This will result in the trajectory of the shot being lower. That’s ok, you can still make it go straight and all the way to the green. No swing change is necessary.

-HOW TO PUNCH UP YOUR POWER—The club is on the ball for .0003 of a second. Anytime anyone suggests that you “time your swing” thank them and then forget anything you heard. When you swing the club always gets square to the target line directly below your center-the swing times itself. Second, Martin’s idea is to “punch” or put linear energy into the ball. This will prompt you to flex your muscles but will slow down your swing. The swing is circular—keep it that way.

-HOW TO PLAY ON-TARGET CHIPS—Carefully read “The Solution”, notice that it says at set up to keep the shaft in line with the left arm. No take out a straight edge (you can use a business card) and lay it along the shaft of the club in these pictures. Do you ever see the club aligned with his left arm? No. Turn the page on this article.

-GET IT CLOSE BY GETTING WRISTY—Read the warning at the bottom of this article.

-How to control your turn—Let’s make this quick. Look at the club in the photo in the top right corner of page 61. Note how it is not pointing to the target but is pointing to the left. Now look at the photo No. 3. Note how the club is not pointing left but instead is parallel with this toe line. Same turn but two different positions at the top. We are not interested in controlling the turn. We are very interested in controlling the club. Forget this article.

-TRY A FORWARD PRESS FOR SMOOTHER PUTTS—Michael needs to watch the high speed photos taken of a ball coming off a putter face—it has backspin. Since all clubs have loft (even the putter), every shot leaves the club with backspin. You cannot put topspin on a ball unless you contact it above the ball’s equator. Regarding the forward press, look at the full length photo of Michael at address. Look at the putter face relative to the yellow line. See how the putter face is out of square. This putter face will send the ball to the right of the target line. Forget the forward press. The putter has been designed to put its best roll on the ball with the shaft vertical not leaning forward.

-COPY THAT—I like the idea but the devil is in the details. Annika swings the golf club. An uninterrupted swinging motion will turn your right side to the target. Don’t make this happen by trying to turn. Let it happen as a result of an uninterrupted swing.

-OPERATION DESERT ESCAPE—Too complicated. No swing change. No grip change. When you setup begin by hovering the club directly above the ball. Center and balance yourself to the club. Now relocate the clubface to just behind the ball and resting on the ground. This setup will make the lowest part of your swing right under the ball. Therefore the club will contact and propel the ball before the club reaches the sand. In other words, play this like a fairway bunker shot. The ball will travel on a lower trajectory.

-LOW DRIVES FOR LOW TEES—The driver face has “roll”. It is not flat. It has more loft higher on the face and less loft lower on the face.

-TURN LEVEL TO STOP HITTING FAT—The number one reason for fat shots (9 out of 10) is the use of the right hand to make the club face “hit” at the ball. Use the arms only.

-STOP DIPPING TO STOP PUSHES AND HOOKS—Isn’t this silly. For a million dollars and hitting a thousand golf balls don’t you think you could find a way to dip and still hit it straight? Yes. That’s because pushes and hooks have to do with the club not the body. Fix ball flight by fixing the club’s motion not the body’s.

-HOW TO FIX THREE BACKSWING KILLERS—Let’s make this simple. Keep your balance.

-WHAT YOU CAN LEARN FROM A SNAPSHOT—Ok.

-HOW TO BE CLUTCH—There’s a difference between focusing on what worries us during a round and focusing on what we want the club to do. Focus on what you want not on what you don’t (that works well off the course too).

-HOW TO TURN KNEE-KNOCKERS INTO TAP-INS—If this works for you great. But, for tap-ins the arc of the swing is so small it appears as though the putter head is tracking the target line (i.e. straight back straight through). Be careful that this tip doesn’t ruin your swing with the putter and degrade it into a straight-back straight-thru pushing motion.

-TRUST YOUR ROUTINE—absolutely.

-HOW TO BUILD A REPEATING SWING. Get ready this is going to be wild!
PRE-SWING—Keep your spine straight….your spine was made “S” shaped. You cannot (and better not try) to keep it straight. Look carefully at the photo. The yellow line is straight is is back? No.
Three-point stance—Just sole the club correctly and that will position you correctly.
Climb a ladder—the top yellow line is 3 inches below his shoulder.
TAKEAWAY—Move the shoulders and nothing else…look at how the shaft is in line with his left forearm. Now look at the front view of the setup on the preceding page. See how the club shaft is not aligned with the left forearm. So when he says the shoulders move and nothing else, he is not doing what he is saying.
-Key Checkpoint—club shaft, and hands are in line with your belt buckle. Look at the last photo in that series of four—again he isn’t doing what he is saying.
-TO THE TOP—“its not how far back the club is at the top”…huh? The further back it is the more time for acceleration before it contacts the ball. (take a look at Tiger on P. 79). It’s much less as to “how” you take it back but “where” you take it to. You want as full a backswing as is easy for you with the club on plane at the top.
-TRANSITION—don’t drop your arms (that’s a linear direction). Swing them (that’s circular).
-DOWNSWING—Ok.
-Key Checkpoint—“…mostly arms”—ONLY ARMS!!!
-IMPACT—Uh-oh. Look back to the previous page. Notice step 6 where he says, “You’ve done it right if, once again, the club, shaft and your hands are in line with your belt buckle. Now look at the impact position on page 124. He’s not doing what he told you. The reason he isn’t is because he can’t. The reason he can’t is because he “gets shifty” That left wrist is bowing. When it does the clubface gets deloft and/or out-of-square.
-Balance—“…stay balanced”. You can’t “get shifty (i.e. shift your weight) and stay balanced.
-Release—Ok. Release is something you “let” happen, not “make” happen.
-THE FULL SWING—
1) ok
2) ok
3) ok
4) the shaft is not perpendicular to the ground and there is no reason why it is better to have it stop short of being parallel.
5) ok
6) ok
7) the shaft is not perpendicular to the ground because he shifted his weight
8) ok
9) the shaft is not perpendicular to the ground and doesn’t need to be

-ADD WRIST ACTION ON EXTRA-LONG PUTTS—This is disastrous instruction. If you are tossing a ball (underhand) is there ever a distance where “wrist action” would be helpful? Use the same swing, just make it bigger.

-DIVIDE YOUR BALL IN TWO—focusing on parts of the ball guarantees you nothing. Keeping your balance will keep you behind the ball. If you want the ball lower setup with the ball further back in your stance (or choose a lower lofted club).

-LET YOU POSTURE DICATE YOUR PUTTING STROKE—this is almost correct. The lie angle of the putter defines the angle of the swing plane. The flatter the lie the more flat the swing plane. This has nothing to do with your posture.

-FOR MORE LENGTH, LENGTHEN YOUR TARGET—go to the range and find out how far you carry your wedge, 8, 6, and fairway wood. Once you know these you can deduce the rest.

January 2007 Issue

2006-12-12T19:54:00.000-06:00

This month's articles

-HOW TO ESCAPE FROM A BURIED LIE.—Mitchell is offering some ideas that can be helpful. Here is my suggestion: Look at the lie. Ask yourself, if the sand behind the ball was going to push the ball out of the bunker and onto the green what would you see happen (e.g. a tidal wave of sand starting below the ball and moving in the direction of the flag). Now ask yourself how could you swing the club so that it would create that tidal wave of sand. Once you get the idea of how that could happen, use the club that way and make the swing. Turn to page 95 and you will see Stuart making a bunker shot. Notice the plume of sand chasing after the ball. He has used his club to create a "tidal wave" of sand that pushed the ball out of the bunker. Manuel does a good job of explaining and demonstrating this on the video.

PUTTER ALIGNMENT—the straw idea is ok. The problem is our tendency to line ourself to the cup instead of aligning the club to the cup. My suggestion is to run a string from the target to your ball, set the club behind the ball with its face aligned to the string. Now set yourself to the putter and then look at the target. It will look to the right of you—because it is. Be sure you are used to seeing the target (putting, chipping, or full swing) off to the right.

REACH BACK FOR POWER.—I didn’t see anything in this article about “reaching back”. Regarding Tim’s swing—don’t try this at home. Tim’s grip is overly rotated and shuts the face of the club—which compensates for his follow-through that is stiff and forces the club face open. It works for him—but you wouldn’t want to model this.

CATCH EVERY CHIP CLEAN.— “…hitting down into the back of the ball.” PLEASE TRY THIS!!!! And after you do and can’t figure out how to do it, I want you to realize that it’s not possible to hit down on the ball and have it do anything but squirt along the ground. Look at Glenn’s club in the main photo. Does that look like a club that was hitting “down” or a club that was swinging forward?

HOW TO GET YOUR ROUND BACK ON TRACK.—Brian’s ideas can’t hurt but they are very general. Don’t be disappointed if they don’t work.

GROOVE IT.—Ok.

MAKE A BAD SWING FROM THE ROUGH. If you have a 165 yard slice, you should recognize that your golf skills are not very developed and that the best play from the rough is a simple chip shot to get the ball back into the fairway. Trying “hail Mary passes” from the rough is the beginning of double or triple bogey.

LEVEL YOUR HIPS AND STOP YOUR SLICE. The ball doesn’t care about your hips. It slices because of what you are doing with the club and you can do it with your hips level or not. Fix the club.

ADD WIDTH TO ADD YARDS. Keeping anything “firm” is a nice way of saying “tension”. The left arm is not “firm” at address. Making it firm during your swing adds tension which reduces speed. Notice how much shorter Kevin’s swing is in the “DO THIS” photo. Shorter swings make shorter shots (I hope that’s not surprising). Tour players who have a “straight left arm” at the end of their backswing work on having a large range of motion in their left shoulder joint. Their arm is straight but not firm. It has no more “firm-ness” at the top than at address.

HIT MORE HOME RUNS WITH MORE TURN.—Don’t spin! All of us have different range of motions in our hips and spine. The maximum turn is for your shoulder line to be perpendicular to the target line. If you want to work on this you can but don’t force it. Forcing will cause tension and set you up for a trip to the chiropractor.

THE HILLS HAVE LIES.—Ok.

DON’T GET CROSS.—Ok.

FIX BAD FOOTWORK.—Ok. (there’s no such thing as muscle memory)

HOW TO DIAL IN YOUR PITCHES.—Sounds a little like de la Torre to me.

HOW TO ROLL SMOOTH PUTTS.—no hand action.

WHAT CAN YOU LEARN FROM A SNAPSHOT.—the golf swing is a motion not a collection of positions. Create the right motion you’ll get these positions.

YOU CAN BUY A BETTER GAME.—If there is an ounce of truth in this (and there is) there is also a ton of trouble. It boils down to these two points: 1) to the extent that your missed shots result from clubs that mis-fit you, fitting will improve your game, 2)to the extent that your score is high because you hit too many shots toward the toe or heel, some high MOI clubs will help narrow the shot pattern. That’s it. So don’t worry about your buddies “buying a better game”. Other than in the above two scenario, its what you do with the club more than the club you do it with.

PLAY THE SPLASH SHOT.—don’t try this unless you practice it—take the drop.

AVOID “UNSQUARING: THE BLADE.—Ok. But its easier to make sure its square is to raise the club head from the address position until the shaft is parallel to the ground. Look at the grooves and rotate the club in your hands until the grooves are pointed straight up to the sky. Now set the club behind the ball and facing the target. Don’t move it and take your stance.

ITS ALL IN THE LAG.—Ok.

POWER KILLERS.—Ok.

BITE-SIZED GOLF.—Ok.

December 2006 Issue

2006-11-19T16:07:00.000-06:00

This month's articles

-HOW TO GET THE MOST FROM A LESSON—Ok.

-WHY YOU SHOULD CHANGE TO A LEFT-HAND-LOW PUTTING GRIP. Wow, Dave is making a great point—you don’t want your shoulders aligned left. But guess what? You don’t want them aligned left for any shot. So how do you get them aligned for a drive or a five iron? However you do that, do it the same way for your putting. There is no need to reverse your grip. What really surprises me is how Dave can recommend reversing the grip to fix one problem when he explains it creates another problem—deteriorated performance on longer putts.

-DING THE WING.—This is ok, but there is a simpler way to learn how the forward swing works. Simply end the swing with the club shaft resting “on” your left shoulder. In fact, a very nice way to experience the swing is to rest the club on your right shoulder and from that position swing it to a resting position on the left. Look Mom, no chicken wing.

-FINE TUNE YOUR TEMPO.—Pia is a pioneer in many aspects of golf training. While the tempo exploration she is describing may have a legitimate benefit, I would recommend that your focus on tempo not be on experimenting with different tempos but on keeping your swing in tempo. When you do this you will sense two things. First, at no point in the swing did you attempt to speed it up or slow it down. The increase in speed occurred smoothly on its own as the club swung to the center point of the swing and the slowing of the club was also smooth. Second, your grip pressure was constant. You never felt your hands increase the pressure during the swing. Your swing improves as your tempo reflects the smooth increase and decrease inherent in swinging.

-GREEN READING.—Very logical. Not very practical. Todd suggests a number of facts that you would want to gather regarding the putt, but he doesn’t explain how to assemble them all into making the putt. The fact is that reading a putt is much more a matter of trial and error. You ask your self ok if I send the ball along this line will it find the target. If not, then how about this line, etc. Make guesses until one makes sense to you. Once you’ve arrived at your best guess, practice conviction and stick with that plan.

-READING BREAK FROM OFF THE GREEN.—Very logical. Not very practical. While standing behind your ball, approximate where the club you are using will land the ball. From that point imagine how the ball will break. If the imagined break does not get the ball to the hole, choose another line and imagine how that would break. When you find a line from which the ball will break to the hole, set up for that line. Remember…conviction.

-MAKE CLEAN CONTACT FROM HILLSIDE LIES.—David covers a lot of ground in this article--more than necessary to address clean contact. Contact stays clean when your center stays the same distance from the ball and when you use your arms (vs. hands) to swing. That’s all. The rest of the comments David makes have nothing to do with “clean contact”.

-SOFTEN UP YOUR PITCHES.—This article targets “loft and pinpoint distance control”. The first thing we are told to do is to setup so the club is delofted. If that doesn’t make you want to turn the page, then we are told to stop our backswing “as your hands pass your right knee.” For “pinpoint” accuracy the backswing will have to vary in size with the length of the shot.

-FIND THE STANCE THAT SETS YOUR BODY SQUARE. The premise of this instruction is that there is some benefit to setting yourself square. What we really want is to set ourselves so that we can swing the club in the direction of the target. The variation in foot position is nothing more than the player discovering how to best set their body to swing the club to the target.

-THE LOWDOWN ON DOWNHILL CHIPS.—Ok.

-USE THE SAME SWING TO HIT IT HIGH OR LOW.—While Dana’s suggestion that different clubs be played from different positions (i.e. mid-iron played back of center), I fully agree that you never want to change the swing, just change the setup.

-RELEASE WITH POWER.--#1 We spoke about he chicken wing earlier. I’ll spare you the repeat. #2 The release is not a release at all. It is the sensation we experience as the clubhead rapidly increases in speed as a function of swinging. You don’t need to “release”, just don’t add any stiffness that could get in the way of allowing it to happen. If you bow your wrists, you’ll prematurely close the club face and hit it left. #3 Look at the photo of Pia on page 51 do you see any sign of wrist manipulation? No!

GRIP IT RIGHT EVERY TIME.—The idea of a “natural arm hang” as being the guide for putting your hands on the club has been around for years—but makes no sense. We are not interested in how our arms hang. We are interested in how they react to the centrifugal pull of the club. We want to hold the club with one concern in mind. Does my grip square the clubface during the swing as a result of centrifugal force. Keep it simple. Make the V’s formed by your thumbs and forefingers point to your shirt buttons.

--WHAT YOU CAN LEARN FROM A SNAPSHOT.—When you setup at address the club is positioned perfectly to send the ball to the target. Notice how your left wrist is cupped. Now try to flatten the left wrist but still have the club facing the target. Forget the “flat left wrist at the top” nonsense. The rest of this is more misleading than helpful.

-SWING IT-AND STING IT—LIKE TIGER.—Remember the earlier article about using the same swing to hit it low or high. Stick with that.

-BAST FROM THE ROUGH.—Get back to me when your chest and arms look like Tiger’s.

-DEAD-ARM WEDGE.—The ball doesn’t care if your arm is dead or alive. The amount of backspin is a function of ball, lie, club loft, and club speed. Making these abbreviated swings reduces the club speed.

HIGH-SPEED DRIVER.—When you get to 73% of greens in regulation, consider then the time to improve your swing speed. Accuracy first, distance second. A seven iron is an immediate fix when your eight iron isn’t delivering enough distance. There is no immediate fix for a club that doesn’t deliver enough accuracy.

-HOW TO TONE UP LIKE A TIGER.—Ok. However unless you are at 73% of greens in regulation don’t get the cart before the horse. Accuracy first, distance second.

-FIX YOUR DISTANCE.—Unfortuantely, Mark proves himself wrong in the photo. In the photo with the left heel down, drop a line from his right ear you’ll see that the line intersects the ball of his right foot. In the photo with the left heel up, drop the line and you’ll see it to intersects with the ball of his foot. Raising the heel nor keeping it down causes or prevents a weight shift. You can keep you balance regardless of left heel position.

-FIX YOUR ACCURACY.—If you slice to the right set up for the left? Duh!

-FIX YOUR IRON PLAY.—Any time the hands lead the clubface, the club is delofted and is looking to the right. Notice Mark’s grip. He has rolled his hand to the left in order to fix the clubface alignment but it is still delofted. This is way too difficult and produces ball flight that is too low.

-FIX YOUR LONG GAME.—You never have to concern yourself with the angle of your swing plane. When you setup with a shorter club the plane is more verticle. When you setup with a longer club the plane is less vertical. Just never let anyone convince you that angle of all swing planes should be the same.

-FIX YOUR SHORT GAME.—Mark wants us to steepen our backswing for accuracy. What is the correlation between steepness and the ball going straight to the target with the right distance? There isn’t a correlation. With regard to the swing plane for the shorter clubs, review the comments in for the prior article.

-FIX YOUR LAG PUTTING.—Ok.

-FIX YOUR MID-RANGE PUTTING.—The title of this article refers to distance but Mark’s comments refer to line.

-FIX YOU UPS AND DOWNS.—The photos of the club heads show the club on the left as delofted and out-of-square (it will send the ball to the left). The club on the right is lofte and square. If you are going to deloft a club make sure you also set the face square to the target line.

FIX YOUR ROUGH ESCAPES.—When we get in the rough, we can become fixated on the idea of making the clubface hit the ball. A better intention is to swing the club to the target. This will promote a swinging motion (more speed) and a follow-through. Choose a club that has enough loft that you don’t have to do anything extra during the swing to achieve loft.

FIX YOUR SAND PLAY.—Not letting your weight shift to your back foot during a swing is good advice for any shot. It is no particular cure-all for sand play.

FIX YOUR SCORING.—Be careful. Intermediate targets are a lot easier to align to than they are to choose. Most of the time, your intermediate target is not going to be on the target line—its tougher to do than you might think. Try it a few times and then lay your club down on the line from your ball to the intermediate target. Look at it carefully. Probably 2 out of three times you’ll be off.

FIX YOUR SHORT PUTTING.—Wow! Look at what Mark is telling us about the triangle, “To sink more putts, keep the triangle formed by your arms and chest intact, AS YOU WOULD ON A FULL SWING.” Now turn back to the article on iron play. Do you see any intact triangle? There should be.

-MAKE YOUR LAST SHOT A FULL ONE. Good logic, but not practical. In this article you are in the fairway 280 yards form the green. You hit a wedge 100 yards. What’s the chance of your hitting the lay-up shot 175 or 185? The lay-up strategy is fine. But don’t delude yourself into thinking that your lay-up will eliminate the need for you to be able to hit your 120 yard club 115 yards.

-ELIMINATE YOUR SLOUCH.—Ok.

-GRIP DOWN FOR ACCURACY. There is a correlation between length of club and center-of-face contact. However, today’s high MOI clubs (clubface does not twist much for off-center contact), they still go fairly straight. When you choke down, the club speed is reduced and the distance is reduced. Imagine a drive that just trickles into the rough. Had you choked down you would be in the fairway. If this appears to be an advantage you want sometimes, then choking down can be helpful.

-“THUMBS UP” FOR MORE POWER.—Worth a try. Don’t expect miracles.

USE THE “BOX-AND-ONE” DRILL.—With the ball positioned opposite the inside of your left heel, the clubface will be facing left at impact unless you sway forward. This is not a fix for “spraying the ball.”

November 2006 Issue

2006-10-14T20:33:00.000-05:00

This month's articles

-The Pelz Files.
CHANGE YOUR GRIP TO PRODUCE A SMOOTH PUTTING STROKE.
This is a sad example of the state of confusion that exists even in highly regarded experts. Note that the “situation” is pulling and pushing putts. But “Why it Works” makes no mention of pulling or pushing but instead refers to neutralizing wrist movement and a smooth putting stroke. Disregard.

HARD-PACKED SAND—Dave wants us to have a wedge with minimal bounce but then tells us to open the clubface which then adds bounce. If the sand is hard-packed you can’t slide the club under the ball. Disregard.

PUTTING WHILE LOOKING AT THE HOLE—Disregard.

RESEARCH AND DATA—Ok.

PERSPECTIVE—Ok.

STOP THE TOPS!—Most topped shots are the result of hand action. If the topping is not from this cause, Michael’s solution could be helpful.

WHY I CAN’T MAKE PUTTS?—Ok, but there are other important factors as well as these that Rick mentions.

FULLY LOADED.--I like this swing. Good setup (ball is a little to far forward), good balance at the top, body responding to the swing.

LEARN TO TURN.—Mike is telling players to “make” the turn happen instead of “let” the turn happen. The turn is the result of swing the club over your back shoulder and then swinging it over your front shoulder. You should maintain your balance until the travel of the club past impact pulls you around and pulls you onto your front foot.

BALL BEARINGS.—I had my hopes that finally someone would explain “why” we should even consider addressing the ball in differing positions. But, again I was disappointed. The reasons I never find a good reason is that there is no good reason. The club belongs positioned in the middle of your stance—period.

HOW FAR FROM THE BALL? More info than you need, but pretty good. Here’s how to keep it simple: grip the club with both hands, sole the club behind the ball, center yourself on the club, the (without moving your head, shoulders, arms or club) set your feet so that your weight is balance equally between both feet and near the balls of both feet. Whatever distance that produces between you and the butt of the club is the correct distance.

GIVE YOURSELF THE GREEN LIGHT. Way to complicated with too many variables (eg. “so open the face a few degrees”). While standing at the ball, imagine the flight and roll of an eight iron. Ask yourself will this work? If not go to a nine, etc. Choose a club that will produce the needed flight and roll without any swing changes.

CREATE LAG POWER. Here again we have a confusion over what to “make happen” and what to “let happen”. Lag is not something we make. Lag is the result of your arms (elbow to shoulder) swinging along a smaller circumference and the clubhead swing on a larger one. Traveling a shorter path (like a race car on the inside lane), the arms will arrive at 9 o’clock sooner than the clubhead. This is how the lag occurs. However, the arms are transmitting motion to the club and soon it will catch up with the arms. The same phenomenon occurs when you toss a ball over handed. Your arm moves forward while your hand holding the ball appears to lag. You don’t have to do anything to create this lag you let it happen.

FEEL YOUR WAY TO BETTER PUTTING.—Good. The objective is not to establish feel but instead to give you unconscious brain the opportunity to compare its expectation with reality. Your unconscious does all the calculating when you make a partial swing. It decides how big the swing needs to be. It wasn’t born with this ability—it was learned. Just as with any skill, your unconscious can improve its ability to decide upon a stroke for a give shot. This will help it adjust it make better guesses when you putt.

HOW TO LOFT IT FROM THE SAND.—This is a simple and reasonable way to add loft to the shot. Its only drawback is that it calls for you to guide the club into the sand during the swing. Using de la Torre’s approach you take care of the entry point in the setup.

ENTER SANDMAN. Ok.

THE LONG AND SHORT OF THE FLATSTICK STROKE. Unnecessary. If you were going to improve your underhand tossing accuracy, would you work on trying to make your backswing the same size as your forward swing? No. By definition a swinging motion is a back and forward arcing motion with the size of the forward motion determined by and similar in size to the backward motion. Again here is the “make” and “let” confusion. “Make” the putter swing and “let” the back and forward actions be similar in size.

WHAT’S NEXT?—This is great. Dana uses ten sentences to attempt what generally takes an hour or two of demonstration and supervision. Nice attempt, but too simplistic and too presumptuous that these 150 words can effectively foster a golf swing.

IN THE THICK OF THINGS—Practice is the operative word. The kind of shots being described are seldom the object of an hours practice session. I would put it this way: choose a club that you could imagine would create the flight and roll you want, make a few practice swings in comparable heavy grass getting familiar with what its going to take get the club to move through the grass fast enough to get the ball to your target, now attempt the shot. These are very unpredictable don’t be too disappointed if it doesn’t come out perfect.

IS YOUR SWING OUT OF DATE? Is Brady Riggs out of his mind? While there are constantly changing ideas about optimizing the golf swing, it isn’t hard to find swings on tour that look like the “old” swings and it isn’t hard to find “old”,even “very old” swings that look modern. More importantly this whole article is about body position. The physics of the club and ball have not changed and won’t. Learn the movement of the club and you’ll have a swing that has no expiration date.

NEVER SLICE AGAIN!—Golf Digest has provided good service to the golfer in researching the slice effects of club face angle and swing path. This is good information.

FIX YOUR PATH.—Your mind directs the body which in turn moves the club. Until you change your mind about the path of the club, you can do these drills for months and never fix the path. First, remember that your path (good or not) is a habit. To change a habit you have to intentionally and consistently choose an alternative behavior. The best fix for changing your mind about path is to swing the club back over your right shoulder and then slowly and perfectly return it along that same path. To make the path change visually more apparent, swing the club back ten inches from the address position. The clubhead will barely be off the ground and you will be able to notice that it did not go straight back but started to trace a circular path. Mark the location of the toe of the club with a tee. Now finish the backswing. Before you start the forward swing look at the tee and recognize that your swing must bring the clubhead on a path inside that tee.

HOW TO THINK AWAY YOUR SLICE.—Nice try doc but none of your suggestions deal with either path or face angle.

FIX YOUR FACE.—We don’t want to have to manage the club face during the swing. That’s what Michael is teaching you. The hands at the top of the backswing are interesting, bu the moment of truth is what happens at impact. To adjust the club face at impact, instead, work on your grip. Position the hands on the club so that the centrifugal pull of the club will square the club for you. Start by making sure the V’s formed by your thumbs and forefingers both point to your center (i.e. shirt buttons).

BLAST A TEE.—Waste of time.

STACK YOUR DECK—At impact the body will be positioned very similar to the address position. What is critical is that the club is at the address position. In the YES photo Micheal has the club out of position and is either delofted or out of square. The shaft should be pointing at his shirt buttons.

THE TOP 100 SOUND OFF ON SLICING. Jane got it right—fixing a slice is about fixing the motion of the club. Both David and Carol wanted to fix the body.

Get it in sync.—
FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHT.—“..your right hand and clubface should face the ball”…duh! Anytime your ball goes forward (right, left, or straight) the clubface is facing the ball.
STAY IN YOUR SHOES.—David says don’t swing more than you can swing…duh too!
PULL YOUR POCKET.—David says don’t stop your hips—keep them turning. If you swing the club guess what that swing causes? Turning. Turning at the right time and to the right amount.
HINGE YOUR WRISTS—Ok.
THE SWING MIRROR—Whoops. On the left David’s club is about his right shoulder. On the right, his club is below his shoulder.
STAY CENTERED—Don’t make this too complicated. Just stay balanced till after impact.
PUT YOUR CLUBS TO WORK!—Band-Aids that may or may not help. Fix the swing.

BACK-OF-THE-BUNKER BLUES—Ok. But don’t try this if the front of the bunker has a high lip. This shot comes out low. Also, you don’t need to avoid the sand wedge unless the ball us physically contacting the back lip.

NO SHANKS!—The fix for the shank is sometimes misunderstood. In this article, the fix is focused on the body. First the problem is that the hosel of the club hit the ball. The fix is to concentrate on making a swing that will have the toe of the club contact the ball. This will feel radical but it eliminates hitting a second shank.

PUTT WITH YOUR SHOULDERS—Ok. Putting with your arms works much better.

CHEST BACK, HANDS HIGH—Forget the body. Look at the illustrations and observe the club.

SHORT AND SWEET—The drill mentioned in the article is good for improving your repertoire of shots. However, it has nothing to do with improving your control and consistency.

October 2006 Issue

2006-09-19T23:02:00.000-05:00

This month's articles

-THE PELZ FILES. Dave provides some useful information.
Warm up routine. Ok. I prefer to use a brief warm-up session to awaken my attention to ensuring that I am swinging the club (any and every shot).
Shanking. Ok.
Divots. Whoops. When we practice swing there should be no divot. The divot is caused by the ball pushing itself off the club and in so doing pushing the club head down. If you are getting divots on practice swings you are probably using hand action to make the club head hit the ball instead of using arm action to swing the whole club.

NARROW YOUR STANCE. Fat shots have nothing to do with lateral movements (side to side). Thin shots can result from lateral movements. Regardless of whether your shots are fat, thin, or just right keep your balance so that the center of your swing (just above and behind your sternum) doesn’t move.

WHY CAN’T I ESCAPE THE SAND? 1) Place the club about 1 ball behind your ball. 2) As the club passes the bottom of your swing its momentum should pull you to your front foot. 3) Use your arms not your hands. 4) [and this is the biggest culprit] Don’t try to get the ball up out of the bunker. When you do your hands will attempt to scoop the ball and the result will be a bladed shot or too much sand. Visualize the ball as going low to the target. See Manuel’s book for more on this.

KNOCKIN’ IT CLOSE. This article has little to do with getting the ball close to the hole, instead it is about executing a shot with low trajectory. Why have a different setup and different swing just to achieve low trajectory? Use your regular setup and swing but select a lower lofted club. If you try what Zach is suggesting, you’ll find that when the hands lead, the club face is looking to the right at impact. This means that you have to align left to compensate. How much left??

HOW TO GET YOUR SWING IN SYNC. Just reading this article gave me the heebee geebees—way to complicated. When you focus on doing just one thing (swing the club across your right shoulder) you’ll find that movement turns your hips and shoulders the right amount and at the right time. From the top, put the club back (s l o w l y !) at address. You’ll find that this action causes the shoulders and hips to move at the right time and in the right amount. Manage the swing not the body. Allow the body to move in response to your swing.

MAKE THE PUTTS YOU SHOULD MAKE. Setup is important but let’s not go overboard. The swing also has something to do with making the putt. Donald’s instruction is ok, but forget step 2. Next do step 4 first (with your eyes over the ball you’ll do a better job of aiming the putter) then step 3 and then step 5.

HOW TO CARRY THE BALL 10 EXTRA YARDS. So let me see if I get this… You’ve got a 230 carry over a waste area and your going to elect to experiment with a different swing and setup?
All of this to get “draw spin”. On a slice the axis for the backspin (which you get on every shot) is tilted to the right. On a draw the backspin is tilted to the left. Draw spin is still backspin. So now we are going to make the ball curve and still hope to carry 10 more yards? With a curve, we’ll have to get 15 more yards out of that swing. If this were reasonable why wouldn’t Mike use this setup all the time. Why would he want a 240 yard drive instead of a 250? Get real.

ADD 10 YARDS WITHOUT TRYING. Club fitting “can” help. Forget getting oversized grips unless arthritis makes it painful for you to wrap your hand around the grip.

PUNCH YOUR WAY TO LOWER SCORES. If you are hitting into a headwind, the one thing you don’t want is more back spin. This shot increases backspin and will cause the very ballooning you want to avoid. Forget the special setup and swing. Jus select a lower lofted club.

STEP BACK ON STEEP SLOPES. We can’t be sure from the picture, but on moderate downhill slopes just align your spine so it is perpendicular to the grade of the hill. Now your shoulders are parallel with the hill. You’ll have more weight on your left foot at address. Maintain this weight distribution until the forward movement of the club pulls you forward.

KEEP YOUR SHOTS ONLINE IN ONE EASY STEP. There are 19 reasons for the ball to go to the right. Chuck’s prescription may work for some shots that go to the right.

MAKING THE SWITCH TO LEFT-HANDED IS NOT MISSION IMPOSSIBLE. Ok.

FINE-TUNE YOUR SET FOR MORE SHOTMAKING VERSATILITY. Ok.

MAKE PULLS GO AWAY. Read this article. Then re-read this article. Then say a special thanks to Manuel de la Torre for making it clear that the ball goes left because the club goes left—NOT BECAUSE THE HIPS GO LEFT. Fix the club the rest takes care of itself.

HOW TO GROOVE YOUR PITCHING MOTION. This is a good drill. If you do it imagine a line from where the golf ball would be to the target. When you toss make sure the ball stays on the line from you to the target.

WHAT YOU CAN LEARN FROM A SNAPSHOT. By my count Paul is 2 for 2.
Turning is ok—when it is caused by the swinging motion of the club.
Stay in the shot is ok.
Making a descending blow is not appropriate. Yes the club does descend in altitude but your thought should be of the club swinging forward not down.
Keep the face open—unnecessary (the sandwedge has over 50 degrees of loft) and trying to hold it open is often problematic.

THE INSTANT POWER MOVE. (Fasten Your Seatbelts). Let’s make short work of disposing of this long article. Look at the fold-out pages. Find step 3 “Make the Magic Move”. Then note the sequence of 3 photos, the last of which show’s A.J.’s left hand radically rotated under the club shaft. Leave that left hand fold-out open. Close the right hand fold-out. With the left-hand fold-out remaining open, turn to page 76. Now fold back page 76 so that you can compare this photo of A.J. with the 3 photo sequence in the fold-out.
Again, notice how radically rotated the left hand is in the photo sequence on the left. Now look at the page 76 photo (you might want to use a magnifying glass). You’ll see that what A.J. does in this photo is not what he is telling you to do in the fold-out. The ball is on its way but A.J.’s hands have not rolled over.

Now compare A.J.’s hands on page 76 to Tiger’s on the right hand fold-out. Yep, very similar. Also look at the photos on page 110—no radical roll but a ton of power! Tiger nor A.J. do this radical roll. In an excellent swing (like Tiger appears to be making in the fold-out), the club goes toe-up at 9 o’clock in the back swing and then toe-up at 3 o’clock in the forward swing. This occurs not because we are rolling our hands but because of the rotator (like in rotate) cuff joints by which our arms are connected to our shoulders.

If (and I mean if) this “magic move” creates any greater distance, it would certainly create radical inconsistency. When was the last time you had a bogey or a double because you could not hit the ball far enough? Almost never. The bogey or double is because you could not hit it straight enough.

Want some real magic? Take a scissors to this article and make it disappear.

HOW TO AGE-PROOF YOUR GAME.

Golf in your 20’s. Ok.

Golf in your 30’s. The weighting game is ageless. The idea of “shifting your weight” has been talked about for ages but is appropriate for no golfers of any age. Your swing is a circle. Every circle has a center. Below the center of your swing is where the club squares to the target line. When you shift your weight you sway and so does the center of your swing. Shifting your weight is the easiest and most reliable way of making your swing inconsistent and unreliable. Your arms can create plenty of speed—you don’t need to sway.

Golf in your 40’s. Ok.

Golf in your 50’s. Turn on the power. Carefully notice the photo of the golfer in this golf tip. Does he look 50? No. Neither does the flexibility of his left rotator cuff. Re-read the opening line of this little jewel. Note the words “decreasing flexibility”. That applies to your rotator cuff joint. This tip’s solution to lack of flexibility is be more flexible—huh? Do whatever it takes to allow yourself to swing the club in the direction of your right rotator cuff and as far back to parallel as your flexibility allows. P.S. You can do stretching to increase flexibility.

Golf in your 60’s. Turn your head for solid contact. Could you call this scrapping-the-bottom-of-the-barrell. Where do they come up with this stuff. If your 60 (or 40, or 70) forget this. Just for fun note that the fix for not moving your head because of pain that may be caused is to move your head correctly. Huh?

With regard to keeping the same putter, ask that golfer if he plays the same ball as he did years ago. No way. He want the advantage of technology. Well, new putters have techno advantages too.

TRAPPED UNDER A TREE? Use your putter. While this is a legit shot (hitting down with putter), only use it when a regular swing of the putter would not be adequate. In the photo it appears you could easily use a regular swing. Also don’t use this shot without at least a little practice.

USE TWO TEES TO GROOVE A SWING PATH. Ok. Balance is very important in this drill.

USE THE “STANDING 8-COUNT” DRILL FOR MORE POWER. This drill might be effective. It would be better titled, “Use the standing 8-count drill to discover the power of your FULL swing”. If you make a fairly full swing already, this drill will be of little use.

TURN HEAVY ROUGH INTO SAND. This is a very “lie specific” tip. If the lie is right (i.e. if the amount of grass behind the ball is thick enough) this could work. Things like this need to be learned. Don’t think that because you read about it you can effectively do it.

KNOW THY GRASS. Good tip for players of any age when they play Bermuda greens.

September 2006 Issue

2006-08-21T13:27:00.000-05:00

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.

July 2006 Issue

2006-06-17T11:35:00.000-05:00

This month's articles

-MAKE YOUR PITCHES BITE. This is so “yesterday” with regard to golf instruction. So we have a green that slopes away from us and the first thing we want to do is to de-loft the club by playing it in the back of our stance? Second, put a ball on the carpet at home and try to “pinch it”. You’ll quickly discover that this cannot be done. Sorry Michael.

-WHY AM I CHUNKING IT? These four reasons are all possibilities. Probability says that a shot gets chunked when we use the right hand to create speed and leverage the club.

-MAKE EVERY SHORT PUTT. Using the hands to leverage the club ruins any shot. Robert’s “fix” is ok if: 1: we don’t then use the right hand in a leverage manner, 2: it teaches us how to not use the hands and allows us to return to having both hands on the putter.

-HOW TO NAIL YOUR FAIRWAY WOODS. Step 1. With this position of the ball the club begins facing left on its way to the 3 o’clock position of toe up. We don’t want the ball going right. Instead set the wood behind the ball and center yourself on the club. Note: this also will position you “behind the ball.” Step 2. Ok. Step 3. Ok.

-ONE MINUTE TO STRAIGHTER SHOTS. The “wrist watch” is a common idea, a logical idea, but a wrong idea. It’s not the watch that determines the ball flight but the club. And its not just the angle of the club face at impact but also the out-to-in or in-to-out path of the swing. “One minute” is so appealing—and so misleading.

-NOW WHAT? I like what Darrell has to say with the exception of using the hands on the back swing. This can lead to using the hands on the forward swing with can easily lead to chunking or blading. With regard to the length of the follow-thru, there is no magic length. It is a function of the size of the swing necessary to carry the green.

-KILL FIRST-TEE JITTERS FOREVER. Try it, it could work for you. My preference is to fully occupy my mind with what I want the club to do. When I am successful at this, I have no attention left over to give to the kind of thoughts that create jitters.

-SECOND HELPING. Dave suggests that frequently we hit the second one better than the first. My question for Dave is how often do we drop a second ball when the first shot is 8 inches from the hole? You have to ask yourself if the premise for the article isn’t weakened by the fact that the second ball is will frequently (not always) be better than a missed shot. Regarding the tour players, did their score improve because of the “second shot effect” or because the first shot revealed to them the correct yardage or the way the ball would bounce and roll. My suggestion is to turn Dave’s process on its head. Instead of making a practice swing and visualizing where that ball would have gone, create a visual image of the ball going where you want it to go and watch that “movie” while you are swinging. Your brain will create a swing to fit the picture.

-THE NEW WAY TO BLAST IF CLOSE FROM THE SAND. Scott is correct about the sand wedges not needing to be set open at address. The rest of this is re-cooked old school instruction. Too complicated and incorrect. Play the greenside bunker just like a pitch shot from the grass. The only change is to play the ball one-ball forward and lower your center at address.

-RULING THE BREAKS. Good.

-ELBOW ROOM. Ok.

-TAPE MEASURING. Keep it simpler. Is the club swinging in the direction of the target? Am I aligned with the target? Is the club swinging (or being levered)? Be sure to set the camera so it is either looking down the target line or even with the ball and perpendicular to the target line.

-DIRTY WORK. No. No. No. Get out the magnifying glass and look at the club Tiger is holding. It’s a 56 degree wedge. When the ball bounces off the club face, it pushes against the club. When its trajectory is very up, it pushes the club very down—i.e. a divot. Our swing should never be into the ground. It should brush the grass. Lofted clubs at full swings make divots.

-HAND YOURSELF EXTRA YARDS. Todd is correct in correlating increased arc diameter with increased distance. His drill is ok to test your potential range of motion. However, the increased diameter should be the result of the arms being free enough to be pull outward by centrifugal force rather than you stretching them.

-WHAT YOU CAN LEARN IN A SNAPSHOT. Chuck’s observations are accurate but misleading. All of the observations are not the cause of a good shot but instead are the result of the player swinging the club correctly.

-HOW TO CRUSH IT! Yes it’s a driver. Yes, it’s a ball. Yes, it’s different when you are on a quest of bodybuilding and 400 yard drives. If this is your goal, this article can be valuable. But don’t treat this article like a smorgasbord. You can’t mix and match these ideas with a normal golf swing. How many tour players do you see with the backswing shown on page139?

-USE THE TEE DRILL TO ESCAPE SAND. Ok.
-STARE DOWN YOUR CHIPS. Ok.

-RAISE OUR LEFT SHOULDER TO BEAT A SLICE. Slices result from club movement not from body movement.

-STOP SWAYING TO PLUG YOUR POWER LEAK. Flaring the left foot give more range of motion on the forward swing but less on the back swing. Leave the feet square. Just practice on keeping your balance until the forward swing pulls you forward.
-get in sync with your driver. This is a reasonable drill if your struggle results from trying to make the ball go further than you reasonably can.

June 2006 Issue

2006-05-24T21:20:00.000-05:00

This month's articles

-SAY GOODBY TO A ONE-PIECE TAKEAWAY. Does the ball care if it’s a one-piece or not? You don’t think so and neither do I. Swinging the club back with the hands will put it in a dandy spot from which to swing forward—that the ball does care about.

-HOW TO TURN ON THE POWER. Your hips rest on the top of your legs. Unless one leg is longer than the other or one knee is bent slightly more than the other, its not possible for the hips to be on a 10 degree angle.

-HOW TO STOP CHUNKING FROM THE SAND. First, a swing only moves on one plane. To swing down steeply and then follow-thru on a shallow or flat plane is not possible. Drill 2 has the player set up with the bottom of their swing aligned with the ball, that means the club will still be descending when it gets to the ball and you will have club-ball contact. We never want club-ball contact in a greenside bunker. The club goes into the sand, creating a small sand tidal wave. The tidal wave of sand pushes the ball out of the bunker.

-HOW TO MAKE A SOLID DOWNSWING. This is way to complicated and its contrary to your natural motion. Do this. Set up to the ball and make a back swing. From the back swing position, replace the club to its address position. DON’T SWING IT BACK. JUST REPLACE IT. Do this several times and then observe the sequence. You’ll find that the hips and shoulders move last. In point number 2, having the handle lead the down swing will produce either a very delofted club or a club face that is pointing to the right at impact. We don’t want either of these.

-OUT-THINK SCARY FAST PUTTS. If you are at the top of a staircase tossing a ball down to someone at the bottom do you need to attempt to focus on throwing it a few steps short of the bottom? No. The same is true for putting. Your unconscious is getting the same data your conscious is getting. It knows its downhill and will make the adjustment for you.

-WHEN AND HOW TO PUTT WITH YOUR DRIVER. Ok.

-STRAIGHTEN YOUR SHOTS.
1) Changing the ball position does not make it impossible to chop down on the ball. The solution to too step an approach is to learn the correct swing path.
2) Set the club at the ball and then adjust your stance until your arms are freely hanging and your weight is just behind the ball of your feet.

-STALL AND HIT A DRAW. Ok, but difficult. Better to just close the club face slightly at address, align right and swing normally.

-HOW TO CHECK YOUR POSITION ATH THE TOP. Ok.

-Now What? This is ok but there is no need to open the club face. Doing so complicates the shot unnecessarily.

-ESCAPE FROM WASTE BUNKERS. Ok.

-FIND YOUR LOST SWING. ????

-TIPS FOR READING GREENS. I don’t know where Mike got this info, but wherever he found it he should have left it there.

-HOW TO BE A HALF TIME STAR. Look at the photo on page 68. The pin is not ten feet from the front edge. While I like the pitching wedge, this is not the club for this shot. Playing a downhill like to a tight front pin calls for the loft of a sand wedge. Regarding his instruction #1, that’s ok. Regarding #2, that’s ok too. Regarding #3, that’s ok as well. However, the Drill he prescribes is a classic formula for delofting the club and attempting to time the hit. Remember, in a swing there is no release. The club is in a constant state of swinging.

-UNDER PRESSURE. Ok.

-HOW TO PLAY DOWNWIND. Good.

-WHAT YOU CAN LEARN IN A SNAPSHOT. Classic body instruction. Everybody’s body can look different. The ball doesn’t care about the body—only the club.

-TEE IT HIGH OR LOW? The photo and the caption on page 174 don’t match. The bottom of the ball is not above the crown. That nothwithstanding, give this a try. Teeing higher can be beneficial. But don’t make any swing changes.

-ESCAPE FROM UNDER THE LIP. Ok.

-CREATE HIP ACTION FOR MOR POWER. Even if it produced more power (and it doesn’t) you can see how the player has severely shifted his center. Now, in order to hit it straight, he has to shift it back at the instant the club impacts the ball. Impossible.

-SINK MORE PUTTS WITH A KILLER CROSSOVER. Lots of inaccurate info here.

-CONTROL THE HEIGHT OF YOUR WEDGE SHOTS. Ok.

-STOP POPPING UP YOUR TEE SHOTS. Look no further than the illustration and see that the hand position is set for the ball to be a high fade. Forget this instruction.

May 2006 Issue

2006-04-14T22:14:00.000-05:00

This month's articles

-HOW TO PRESSURE-PROOF YOUR PUTTING. The bi-line for the article is “Focus on the process, not on the result…” This bi-line is the best part of the article. By the way, if you focus on the apex of the break in a putt, you’ll tend to leave the putt short and at the apex. The rest of the article is ok.

THREE EASY PIECES. Eddie’s instruction provides a novel alternative to much instruction about how the body moves during the golf swing. That notwithstanding, it is far easier to focus on one thing than three. When you create a swinging motion in the club all of the motions that Eddie wants you to “make” happen, happen automatically as a result of the swing. One piece (the swing) is even easier than three (body motions).

NOW WHAT. Mitchell does a good job here with one exception. Instead of adding loft by cupping your wrists in the back swing (very difficult to manage), either take a more lofted club or open the club face and adjust your alignment to the left.

INCREASE THE LAG. Want to populate the right rough with a dozen new balls? Then try out this instruction. When you try to delay the lag, the club face will likely be facing to the right at impact. Lag occurs not because we are keeping our wrists from unhinging. Instead, the lag that we can see in slow motion video is the delay between the beginning of the forward swing and the point at which the swing has created enough centrifugal force to cause the wrists to unhinge. As our arm speed increases the amount of lag will increase. You don’t manage the lag—just swing the club.

STEEL VS. GRAPHITE. Ok.

DOWNHILL PUTTS. Ok.

HOW TO MAKE A PERFECT BACKSWING. I like Donald’s point about the body and the arms being in sync. However, the instruction is overly complicated. Simply swing the club and monitor your body’s movement. With as little tension as possible, the body will respond with an in-sync shoulder and hip turn as your arms swing the club around you. Watch for the difference between the body “responding” to the swing vs. “initiating” action not caused by the swing.

HOW TO STOP PUSHING THE BALL. Ok. I think a player would find it easier to simply make the club go to a toe-up position when it arrives at the 3 o’clock position (like Martin has in the large photo). Fix the club –not the body.

HOW TO PREPARE FOR A CAREER ROUND. Ok.

HOW TO AVOID SLOPPY LAY UPS. Ok.

HATE BUNKER SHOTS? Ok.

KNOW HOW FAR YOUR CHIPS WILL GO. Mike makes a good suggestion. Distance control is the result of your mind making the right response to the distance it sees to your target. The “ladder” is a bon fide way to give your brain (unconsciously) the experience from which it can learn to respond with the right sized swing for a shot.

HOW TO RIP YOUR DRIVES. Tom must never have looked at this photo. The distance from the ball to the yellow line is more like three inches than one. Further, using the yellow line as a reference point you can see that the ball is not aligned with his armpit but closer to the logo on his shirt. I would say maybe Tom was having a bad day, but I see that this is also in his book. Suffice it to say, a golfer could set up exactly as Tom has suggested and hook and slice the ball all day long.

HOW TO MASTER THE SAND. Dave is great at gathering statistics and explaining the physics involved in a shot. When it comes to instruction he gets confused. In section number 2 he describes that “bounce and scoot” are the key to distance control. Sorry Dave, with all other things being equal, swing speed determines the distance. And, other than in extreme circumstances, the sand wedge has plenty of loft without opening the club face a “little”.

POWER UP YOUR GRIP. The way you position your hands on the club (your grip) either works or it doesn’t. There is no “powering up”.

MAKE SOLID CONTACT ON PUTTS. The putter swings like a pendulum. The end of a pendulum does not move along a horizontal line as this article suggests. It moves along a curved (circular path) line. Disregard this instruction.

NAIL YOUR RELEASE. You can’t nail what doesn’t exist. There is no such thing as release. When a player has tension in their hands, wrists, and forearms the body cannot respond appropriately to the swing. Attend to tension. Don’t try to “nail” something that doesn’t exist.

CONQUER UNEVEN LIES IN BUNKERS. Ok.

MAKE THE RIGHT DIVOT ON SHORT-IRON SHOTS. The “right” divot is one that results from the ball pushing itself upward off the club face at impact. Pushing itself up, results in the club being pushed down. The more lofted the club, the more up the ball. The more up the ball the more down the club. The more down the club the more divot will result. You don’t attempt to make a divot. A divot is the result of lofted clubs at full swing speed.

April 2006 Issue

2006-03-20T19:32:00.000-06:00

This month's articles

-HOW TO PUNCH IT OUT FROM THE WOODS-Simple, nice!
-
HOW TO MAKE PERFECT IMPACT – Mike is going to generate a lot of lessons with this article—lessons fixing the problems the article creates! Just consider one of his suggestions: lean the shaft of a 5 iron forward about 15 degrees. The loft on a 5 iron is about 25 degrees. If you lean it forward 15 that cuts the loft to 10 degrees. That is less than a 1 iron. Look carefully at the photo of Mike swinging and you can see that the face is nearly vertical.
-
TAKE A WALK TO SHAPE YOUR SHOTS-Ok.

HOW TO SHOOT YOUR LOWEST SCORE EVER-I’m guessing Mike did not come up with this title. While the total of eight sentences are reasonable in their content, I don’t think they are adequate to satisfy the title. Improving you short game is always a good investment of your time.

IT’S ALL IN YOUR MIND – Coop is right, its all in your mind. By all, I mean psychological barriers as well as misunderstandings about how to swing the club. If it’s a psychological barrier that is keeping you from playing better, his 3 steps may help. If you alignment is poor, grip is wrong, or swing is off-plane these three steps are not the answer.

HOW TO PITCH IT CLOSE FROM A TIGHT LIE – Take a look at the yellow arrow representing the flight path the ball will travel. Does it look like that ball is going to stay on the green? Rick’s description of usual mistakes is a good one. However, the solution to that problem is not to create another problem. Leading with the handle de-lofts the club face. Don’t go from one extreme to another. Swing the club and the head and handle will arrive at the ball together and the loft will allow the ball to land softly.

5 MORE KEYS TO SOLID WEDGE PLAY – Ok.

ASK THE TOP 100
ANGER MANAGEMENT – Initiating any thoughts of a bad shot is a bad idea. Actions are the results of thoughts. Bad actions always have their origins in bad thoughts—either bad mechanics or bad emotions.
TIGHT LIES – Ok. The real problem is that players believe that their swing should create a divot. The correct image is that a swing brushes the top of the grass.
COVER DAMAGE – Ok.

SHOULD YOU CHIP WITH ONE CLUB OR MANY? – Ok.

TOUCH THE FLAG FOR STRAIGHTER SHOTS – Ok.

NOW WHAT? – Target selection, setup and visualization are ok but don’t complicate this by trying to change your swing (e.g. steep swing, hold the club face up).

HOW TO GET CLOSE FROM THE SAND-There is no Tooth Fairy and while Mike’s suggestions are good ones, getting close takes a lot more than Face, Base, Pace. Be reasonable, getting close from the sand results from knowing “how” to play from the sand and then spending time getting experience in making sand shots.

HOLE MORE CHIPS! – I love Dave’s empirical approach to golf research. The chipping math is novel. I’m not so enamored with his instruction. He doesn’t give us the analysis of why the ball needs to be “off the back ankle”, the follow-through need to be 20% longer, and why the blow needs to be descending.” Could it be that there really is no reason? It could.

HOW TO MAX OUT YOUR BACKSWING – Kip gives a reasonable solution to the problem of a backswing restricted by a chin. The title to the article makes it sound like this would help everyone and always results in “perfect rotation” (whatever that means).

THE NEW BASICS – I was unable to find reference to any “advances in equipment” that would alter the setup basics.
• I checked my 1952 edition of Ernest Jones “Swing the Clubhead” and confirmed that Brian’s grip is indistinguishable from the photograph of Ernest’s grip.
• The “new posture” may be new but it’s too vague to be useful. All of the “mid-shoulders over kneecaps” stuff is a backwards approach. Instead, set the club to the ball and take a stance where your arms hang freely and your weight is balance in your feet.
• The “new alignment” is the old alignment but ignoring the feet. Even if (that’s a big “if”) the feet may not “affect your swing nearly as much” what’s the reason to ignore the foot alignment?
• While the reference point for ball position in the “new ball position” is the bottom of the swing versus your feet, the objective is still the old drone of “back for shorter clubs front for longer clubs”

MAKE TIME FOR A DRAW – For every swing the club approaches the ball from inside the target line. If you want to draw the ball, don’t attempt to make swing changes. Merely reposition your hands on the club orienting the v’s (formed by thumb and forefinger) to aim further toward your right shoulder.

HIT YOUR PITCHES TO ANY GREEN - The strategy here is to learn three different shots. A better strategy is to learn one swing and simply use clubs of different lofts to achieve the desired trajectory.

PASS THE LIE DETECTOR TEST – Ok.

USE A PUTTING GRIP THAT FITS YOUR STROKE –
• GATE SETUP – Ok.
• STRAIGHT STROKE – For sanity check, just try this. Use a string or strip of masking tape as your target line. Notice how difficult it is to move the putter so that it’s center mark never leaves the line (even more difficult on a long put). Fortunately, the putter does not need to stay on-line to make the ball travel along your target line. It only needs to swing in the direction of the target (like all your clubs).

OVERCOME TENSION – Ok.

March 2006 Issue

2006-02-22T12:16:00.000-06:00

This month's articles

YOUR WAY TO A BOLDER PUTTING STROKE. The benefit of Mitchell’s drill is that it turns your attention from “what you don’t want” (not having a difficult 2nd putt) to “what you do want” (to make more putts than the person you are competing with during the drill). If you use this drill, don’t restrict its application to just putting. Use it to become more aware of when your thoughts are more on “what you don’t want” vs. “what you do want.” And by the way, this lesson applies to daily life off the course as well as on the course.

THE STRING’S THE THING. A putt is the name we give to a stroke made with a putter. The stroke we make with a putter is a swing. A swing by definition is an arc (a portion of the circumference of a circle). The string used by this device presents us with a straight line. How can a straight line help you improve a stroke that is circular? The article says ,”It instantly shows you the target line and squares the face.” How does the string square the face? Further should the face be square to the string? When you make a putt (like a drive) the clubface is square to the target line only at one point (and that point is where you want to position the ball at address). Take a very close look at the photo and you will see that the putter face is NOT square to the string. Lastly the string only represents the target line if the green is level along the line of the string. The chance of having a hole in a putting green that is level in four directions (the four strings in the picture) is slim.

WHY CAN’T I MAKE PUTTS? While deceleration is real it is only one reason that we miss putts. While hitting the ball left of target may be the result of pulling, there are other reasons as well. Rick Grayson gives some good advice but this article implies that these are cure-alls—they aren’t. If you are having problems with distance control begin by evaluating how clearly you are holding a mental picture of the ball rolling “to” the cup (i.e. stopping at the edge). Deceleration results when we are attempting to consciously manage the size of the stroke instead of letting the size be dictated byour mental image and managed unconsciously.

SLING POWER. I was unable to find any mention of “sling” in this article. Craig did mention a “bow and arrow” effect but attempted to connect this somehow with shoulder turn and hips (do you really turn your shoulders when you use a bow?). Finally, he makes a novel correlation between the clubface (a flat surface) and the left forearm (cylindrical surface). That’s a puzzle. Like so many pros, Lee’s swing is Lee’s swing—not yours. This is not a swing to emulate in any way. The real lesson to learn from it is the value of learning that there are many ways to move a golf club and win if we will learn to repeat them consistently.
• DON’T BEND THE SPOKE. Please don’t attempt to keep your left arm straight. Lee doesn’t. If you look at frame 4 in the top row, you’ll see the amount of flexibility Lee has in his left shoulder joint as the club approaches parallel. This is why his left arm appears straight. If you don’t have that degree of flexibility, then allow the elbow to bend so the club can reach parallel for the maximum arc length. If your arm is relaxed, centrifugal force will straighten the elbow as your swing approaches the ball.
• HOVER THE CLUB. Hovering has nothing to do with the deeper-faced (taller) drivers. Regardless of the size of the face, we always tee the ball so that the equator of the ball is even with the top edge of the driver’s clubface.

HOW TO CREATE PURE IMPACT. Why Bill would say that impact is the critical point “especially on iron shots” is a mystery. Its critical in all shots. How doing a drill in a hotel room somehow validates its significance is also puzzling. Nevertheless, we are once again subjected to the poisonous suggestion to “keep your hands slightly ahead of the ball as your weight transfers forward onto your left foot.” Look at the photo on the left. You can see that the clubface is out-of-square. It is looking to the right. Is this any way for “pure impact”? Now look at Bill’s finish on the right photo. Is the toe of the club pointed up?

WHERE WOULD YOU RATHER BE? The gist of this article is that it is better to be short if there is trouble long and better to be long if the trouble is short. Good plan.
• BUT SUPPOSE THINGS DON’T GO ACCORDING TO PLAN… Keith now tells us that to make the short shot to the green we need to change our setup and swing (weight left, ball right, club quickly up). But he doesn’t tell us why. Maybe there is no reason why. Maybe the wedge works fine if we use the setup and swing we normally use.
• AND IF YOU’RE IN A BUNKER… No one can be proficient at distance control by consciously controlling the size of their swing. Needing “nearly” a full swing from greenside bunkers is such a vague piece of information. Don’t put a high expectation on your bunker play unless you make it part of your practice and build some experience with distance control. Otherwise, be satisfied with just getting it on the dance floor and work on the putt.

NOW WHAT? Eden gives some simple and effective instruction in this article. The points he makes may be especially valuable on tight shots, but you would be well served to employ it for all shots.

HOW TO TAKE YOUR ‘A’ GAME FROM THE RANGE TO THE TEE. This is a classic question and Shawn gives a clear, simple, and effective instruction on how to better solve the problem.
• FOCUS ON A TARGET. Good.
• MAKE ‘AIR SWINGS’. Good.
• PUSH YOUR CHIN UP. I don’t know where this came from but has little to do with transitioning from range to tee.

TAME YOUR FIRST-TEE JITTERS. Good.

THE PAUSE THAT REFRESHES. Adam doesn’t explain why he wants to “get more extension”. Regarding his tempo, we all have different tempos. Listen to the rate at which various people speak or watch the rate at which they walk. Your tempo is your tempo. You can’t improve it. However, tempo is not rhythm. A swing can have any tempo but it must be rhythmic. It must accelerate and decelerate at a constant rate. A short backswing will always appear to be quick—there’s not much distance to travel. I think Adam may be the victim of his golf buddies wanting his swing to look like “their idea” of what a swing should look like. Golf is about controlling the ball—not about achieving some perfect tempo. The drill that is suggested by Ted is logical, but probably not beneficial.

GOING UP. While Nancy’s solution is simpler, its not correct. The amount of the flagstick that can be seen on a given hole can change based on whether the hole is in the front or the back of the green. She is exactly correct regarding the difficulty in evaluating the amount of elevation. Try clubbing up or down using increments of 30 feet of elevation per club.

TELLING LIES. Ok. You should not make a decision based on one swing. The driving range might not like it if your mark a dozen balls. Another way of doing this is to put a piece of tape on the sole of the club and hit balls off a piece of Lexan (unbreakable plastic). Most driving ranges will have this device—they may even let you use it. If the lie angle is correct for you, when the ball flight is on line with your target, you should find the tape has a scuff mark roughly midway between the toe and heel.

WHAT IS THE MOST COMMON REASON PLAYERS HAVE POOR ALIGNMENT ON THEIR FULL SWINGS? Good—except for Mike’s instruction. Mike knows that it is not uncommon for players to align themselves 20 yards right on a full swing. However, the solution is not to align your feet 20 yards left. Imagine a line from the ball to the target (that’s the target line). When you address the ball your feet will be aligned parallel to and 20 inches (varies with club length) left of the target line—not 20 yards!

HOW TO PITCH FROM LIGHT ROUGH. Step one is fine. Step two is a problem because in golf you can’t consciously know how big the swing is going to be any more than in tossing you can consciously know ahead of time how far back you are going to swing your arm in order to toss the ball to your target. Further, the hinging of the wrists has nothing to do with hitting the shot fat. Step three is ok but wanting to “slide the club under the ball” is unnecessary. The physics of impact will cause every ball to climb up every clubface. The loft of the sand wedge will take care of the trajectory without you having to do any “sliding”.

HOW TO TAME A DUCK HOOK. Martin writes, “The back of your left hand mirrors the position of the clubface at impact.” Look at the back of Martin’s left hand at impact. It is looking dead right. Yep, you won’t hook that one, but the ball will be so far right you may wished you had

HOW TO AVOID MIS-HIT CHIPS. While the bi-line for this article is about “tracking to the hole”, Don wants us to focus on a descending strike for controlling trajectory (which has nothing to do with tracking). Further he explains that you’ll get “predictable results” with a descending strike (if only it were that simple). From there we get the standard “ball back, shaft leaning, etc.” Note the picture on the right and his instruction about the buttons. The white arrow is vertical the buttons are not. In the end, Martin has outlined his approach to chipping, but has not explained how this avoids mis-hitting chips (eg. too far, too short, fat, thin, left, right, etc.)?

HOW TO PUTT TO A LOWER TIER. Ok.

LOSE YOUR OVERSHIFT. Tightness is seldom the answer for anything to do with a good swing. Darrell’s suggestion for tight abdominal muscles is logical, but not a solution. With very tight abs you can still sway marvelously. Instead, relax and sense the weight in your feet at address. Get the weight even. Now, while swinging keep your attention on the weight in your feet and your intention on not having it shift until the motion of the club passing the ball pulls you toward your front foot. Voila! No overshifting.

BOUNCE YOUR WAY OUT OF BUNKERS. Close. Positioning the ball forward (which is a good thing in bunkers) is ok. If, with the ball forward, you then place the clubface behind the ball the shaft is leaning but that does not open the clubface. It does add trajectory. From this set up why you need to “lead with your hands” is a mystery and a catastrophe. Look at Brad in the address photo. Isn’t that exactly how he would like the shaft to arrive during the swing. If the hands lead, the shaft will instead be leaning forward and the clubface will be delofted and the bounce of the club eliminated. “Thud” and “thump” (very subjective).

RESCUE YOUR ROUND. Good. Dave does a good job of demonstrating: 1) how to analyze a disaster shot and 2) how resolving the matter is about setup changes and not swing changes. When you are in a disaster scenario, “take your medicine”. Let it cost you one shot—not two. Find the most likely path to relief. Note: Golf is for enjoyment. Avoid taking risks that are dangerous and can affect your golf for a life time.

POSITION YOUR RIGHT FOOT FOR MORE POWER. If your range-of-motion does not allow the club to reach parallel at the end of your backswing, moving the back foot so that the toe is further from the target line can enable you to reach that position because it repositions the hip and reduces the range-of-motion required. However, you want to make sure that as you begin experimenting with repositioning that back foot that the foot is kept square to the target line and not flared open as described in this article. Flaring the foot will tend to alter your swing path and impart a hook spin on the ball.

FINESSE IT WHEN YOU COME UP SHORT. Good. Remember your distance control will be better with a low running shot than a lofted one. Use a chip shot instead of a pitch any time you can.

DON’T LIFT UP WHEN YOU GO BACK. Ok.

PUTT WITH YOUR FOREARMS. Ok. Just remember that “locking” is not the answer to active wrists. Use your arms to create the swing and the wrists will happily remain passive. When the arms stop short of the end of the swing, the wrists will take over to achieve the finish. Use the arms from beginning to end.

KEEP THE CLUB ON PATH FOR A FEW EXTRA YARDS. If there were a blue line to the target for every shot, we might be able to make use of the instruction to point the butt of the club at the target line. There isn’t and its difficult to correctly visualize it. And just as there is not a blue line, the swing also has not flat spot. The path of the club is circular and circles have no flat spots. Keeping the club on path is a good idea. This instruction can lead to problems. Note the orange arrow. The path of the club should never cross the target line.

February 2006 issue

2006-01-23T12:55:00.000-06:00

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.

January 2006 Issue

2005-12-17T11:47:00.000-06:00

This month's articles

OPEN WIDE TO HAVE A SAND BLAST
I hope Bob Vokey is sitting down when he reads Mitchell’s Minute. As Titleist’s “wiseman of wedges” Bob might suggest that Mitchell get his eye at ground level and look at all the bounce that has been built on the sand wedge without having to open the face. Bob (and for that matter all the wedge designers) did not go to all the trouble to build expensive wedges that need to be opened in order to work well. Need more loft? By all means open the face. Just want to exit a normal greenside bunker? Use the club as it was made it will work just fine.

YOUR GAME
HOW TO BE STRAIGHT WHEN IT COUNTS. OK

NOW WHAT? This is way too much to think about. The shot is already challenging. Make the shot no more difficult than necessary. Look at photo 2. Yes, there’s a bunker but its really not in play. If you are concerned about how the club will interact with the sand, position the ball one ball back in your stance. Make your normal swing the club will contact the ball before it contacts the sand. Remember, when you play the ball back the club will be aimed slightly right at impact.

STOP YOUR REVERSE TILT AND CREATE POWER. So the answer to not tilting to your left is to tilt to your right? Does the photo at the top right of page 45 exactly like what he’s doing at the bottom right? Look at the difference in the angle of the yellow line. Keep it simple…set up correctly and then don’t tilt.

PLAY THE SAND, NOT THE BALL. Yes, a good mental image is of the sand pushing the ball out of the bunker. No, we don’t need to make a special back swing for this. Keep it simple…just lower your center (sternum) at address (you’ll have to fold your elbows to keep the club from touching the sand). On your forward swing allow your arms to relax and extend. The club will enter the sand nicely and out comes the ball.

HALF BURIED LIE. Ok

HOW TO GET TOUGH FROM THE ROUGH. Ok

HOW TO GO LEFT WHEN RIGHT IS DEATH. Unnecessarily complicated. Rather than changing your swing, just change your setup. First option, pick a target on the left side and align to the left. If you want the ball to curve left. Rotate your hand position to the right so that the “V’s” formed by your thumb and forefinger point over your right shoulder. Keep it simple.

HOW TO LAY OFF THE CHILI-DIP. This is a good example of a terminology problem. Chili-dip is often used to describe those shots when the club passes under the ball resulting in a small pop-up and the ball traveling forward only a small portion of the intended distance. However, Rick is using the term to describe a shot where the club makes a overly large divot. While it is reasonable that lowering one’s head could in turn lower the swing path into the ground, notice that while standing at address you can raise and lower your chin without moving the club. Only a small fraction of the time are chunked shots from body being lowered. Most of the time it is from excessive use of the right hand. Want to prove that too yourself. Take a half swing and attempt to make a large divot. You’ll notice that you did not lower your body, you instead used the right hand to drive the club head into the ground.

THINK YOUR WAY THROUGH THE WIND. A round of golf takes 4 hours, I’m sorry but wind conditions change. So knowing the reported windspeed before you tee off is not very relevant. Further, unless your are playing a course without trees the windspeed reported at some airport will probably not be representative of the course. Finally to complicate matters, the windspeed you experience at ground level is not the windspeed that will effect ball flight. Instead, recognize that evaluating the effect of the wind is a guess and that taking the wind into consideration is always better than overlooking it—even if your guess is wrong sometimes. A head wind always hinders more than a tail wind helps. So if you play into a wind and take an extra club to reach a green, expect that if the next hole is downwind its not going to allow you to take an 8iron instead of a 7iron. Finally, keep it simple when you are playing into the wind think twice about taking Paul’s advice about changing your swing—just take more club.

WHAT IS THE BIGGEST FACTOR HOLDING BACK AVERAGE GOLFERS FROM IMPROVEMENT? I like the importance Peter puts on understanding cause and effect. I was stunned by his comment that the cause for a slice is an open clubface. His analysis is partly correct. However, the club face can be perfectly square at impact but produce a slice if the path of the swing is outside-in.

HOW TO HIT A RELIABLE FADE. See above article about “reliable draw”. Position V’s toward left shoulder. Keep it simple. Change the setup not the swing.
ASK THE TOP 100. Ok

HOW TO SEE THE PERFECT PUTT. Ok

THE COOLEST SHOT. This is only cool if the dime it stops on is near the hole. Don’t waste your precious practice time on this “cool shot” after you perfect the rest of your shots.

HOW TO HONE YOUR FINESSE. Dave’s motion with the medicine ball demonstrates how the swinging motion of a toss is similar to the swinging motion of a golf swing. What this has to do with finesse isn’t apparent.

SWEEP YOUR SLICE AWAY. Let’s remember that the path of the swing is circular (including Bubba’s). Martin’s suggestion of the “bristles of the broom riding against the wall for the first two feet” turns the circle into something that I’m not even sure there is a name for. Keep it simple. If we do not need to “have the bristles ride along the wall” on the back swing we don’t need to have them do it on the forward swing. The club travels on the same plane (not the same path) back and forward.

DIVOT DECISIONS. Ok, but in the first situation don’t change your swing (chop down) just setup with the ball further back in your stance.

TWO WAY TO ADD POP. The elevated heel is one of the many gimmicky things that we can use to help us learn that is unnecessarily foreign to how we should play. If you think your shoulders at setup is a problem, check Michael Breed on page 83. The “walk and wack” has less to do with increasing our speed than it does to reveal the role rhythm plays in a good swing.

TAKEAWAY: USE A FORWARD PRESS. Ouch!! I wish someone would bury this idea once and forever. Make a forward press and hold that position. The hands are in front of the club face making the club face out-of-square (aiming right) or delofted—neither of which is how you want to start a shot. Making a smooth swing does not have anything to do with a forward press.

SHORT GAME: VARY YOUR DISTANCES. Ok.

TIGHTEN UP YOUR SWING. Having seen thousands and thousands of swings, I can’t imagine coaching anyone to tighten up. It is contrary to the overriding sense of fluid rhythm that characterizes the best swings.

REDUCE WRIST COCK. The wrists are hinges. The cocking and uncocking motion are reciprocal. Allow the swinging motion to hinge the wrists and to unhinge them. Trying to control the hinge introduces “hand action”—this is where trouble starts.

Get hippy to lose your slice. Slices occur because of swing path (outside-in) and clubface (out of square) problems. Your hips can’t cause or fix these.

MAINTAIN THE TRIANGLE. First of all, notice carefully how the two red triangles are not the same—it wasn’t maintained. In the setup drawing we see the “forward press” with the shaft pointing at the left shoulder. In the swing drawing (illustration of a good swing) the press is gone and the shaft of the club points correctly at the shirt buttons. Don’t focus on maintaining the triangle. Focus on swinging the club—this creates what could be observed as a maintained triangle.

December 2005

2005-12-07T14:01:00.000-06:00

December '05 Golf Magazine Instruction Critique

Many golfers look to Golf Magazine for information to help them play better. Unfortunately, the instructional information often appears contradictory but, more seriously, too often it is problematic. By problematic, I mean that the words in the instruction don't match the picutres and that the instruction given cannot produce the results being sought. The objective of this blog is to alert players to such instruction.

This month's articles:

MAKE YOUR WEAK SLICE EXTINCT. Let's ask Michael if (for a million dollars) he could "bump the door" and still come over the top. Try it. The answer is yes. You might be able to "bump" and swing on the correct path but "bumping" will not rule out coming over the top. It's possible that "bumping" could in fact worsen your ball flight.

NOW WHAT. Mark's comments are ok. With regard to club selection, 52 and 56 degree wedges will produce an aggressive trajectory. Before you open the club face and make the shot more complicated than necessary, step on the club face (not in the bunker) with your foot making the club's face parallel to the ground. The shaft will be point up to the sky. Then angle of the shaft will give you an indication of the trajectory of the ball flight it will produce. Use this to determinie if you need to create added trajectory by opening the club face.

HOW TO TAME A PAR 5. Ok

ASK THE TOP 100
READING PUTTS. Ok
GRIP. Ok
SPIN. Ok
LONG BUNKER. Ok
TURN ON YOUR POWER. Craig says one thing and then does something else. Notice him doing the "chair drill"--how much weight shift is there? None. And that's the way it should be. A golfer will find great advantage in developing a swing built around being balanced through impact.
CASH IN ON YOUR SCORING CHANCES. Ok
I'M NINE STROKES BETTER. The grip change was ok. But the takeaway info is not. Brad's suggestion was that at waist high the clubhead is outside your hands( ie. the shaft of the club is pointing at you). From this position if you return the club to the ball you will see that the diretion of the swing is to the left. Instead, at waist high the shaft should be pointed parallel to the target line. Finally, not that Bad says, "You should feel as if you're starting the swing with a body turn and letting your hands follow along." But note that John (the student) explains that how he improved was, "I start my downswing with my arms, rather than my body." It's John (not Brad) whose got that one right.
THUMB IT, HIT A DRAW. OK
GROOVE YOUR STROKE TO A TEE. OK
SAVE PAR WITH THE CUT LOB. Many golfers have come upon ways they like to make the ball do this or that. However, many of those ways are too complicated and unnecesary. Always try to produce special ball flights by way of setup versus having to learn and perfect various swings. If you want a steep trajectory move the ball forward in your stance (aim more right) or open the club face (aim more left). Use your normal swing.

THE BEST SWING FOR YOUR BODY TYPE. Beware this article is filled with problems. First, it virutally impossible to tell if a tee sticking out of the butt of your grip is pointing at the target line or six inches either side of it (and that's assuming you even have a chalk line laid out on the ground). On page 94 it is suggested that this body type may have insufficient hip turn. On the same page it is suggest that a wider stance be used--but a wider stance further inhibits turning. This wider stance is then combined with a lateral shift of the hips that makes correctly returning the club to the ball very unlikely.

TAKE A WRIST FOR POWER. OK

CONQUER WET SAND. OK

COPY OLAZABAL'S TURN AND SHIFT. OK

GET IN POSITION FOR YOUR PUTT. This article has problems. See page 70 from last month's issue for correct set up.

2005-12-07T10:06:00.000-06:00

November '05 Golf Magazine Instruction Critique

Many golfers look to Golf Magazine for information to help them play better. Unfortunately, the instructional information often appears contradictory but, more seriously, too often it is problematic. By problematic, I mean that the words in the instruction don't match the picutres and that the instruction given cannot produce the results being sought. The objective of this blog is to alert players to such instruction.

This month's articles:

KNOW YOUR ROLL. Good

HOW TO FIND THE HOT SPOT. Peter got this one close to right. His conclusion is that when you "catch one flush" that identifies the hot spot. "Flush" just means that the club face was square to the target line at impact. You can catch it flush any number of places on the face. To really find the hot spot you'll need a launch monitor and face tape on the club. If you decide to go through with finding the hot spot, the "stepping forward" drill is probably going to make hitting that little spot a lot more difficult. Remeber the mark on the driver is less than a half inch in diameter. Hitting that small of a spot will keeping your balance will be challenging enough. Hitting when you "step forward" makes it much less likely. Only try this if after a few session you can't make contact near the spot. The same goes Peter's idea for "ditching" your long tees.

NOW WHAT. This is more complicated than it needs to be. Always ask, "What can I do to adjust the ball flight that does not require me to change my swing at all." Want more height? Do either or both of these to set up changes: 1)position the ball further forward in your stance but swing as though the ball was in its normal position. When the blade meets the ball it will produce a higher trajectory. The ball flight will be left of target so compensate in your alignment, 2) Open the club face at address by rotating the grip in your hands. When you look down at the club it will have more loft and be aimed right. Again, adjust you alignment. A higher trajectory ball flight results from setup changes--NOT swing chagnes.

PULL DOWN FOR POWER. A golf swing is by definition circular. Pulling is linear. Pulling has not place in a golf swing. It creates habits that can ruin your golf. Stay away from pulling. Power is a good thing. Pulling is not.

HOW TO GO LOW. This is more complicated than it needs to be. Always ask, "What can I do to adjust the ball flight that does not require me to change my swing at all." Want more height? Do either or both of these to set up changes: 1)position the ball further back in your stance but swing as though the ball was in its normal position. When the blade meets the ball it will produce a lower trajectory. The ball flight will be right of target so compensate in your alignment, 2) Close the club face at address by rotating the grip in your hands. When you look down at the club it will have less loft and be aimed left. Again, adjust you alignment. A lower trajectory ball flight results from setup changes--NOT swing chagnes.

PUTT OR CHIP FROM THE FRINGE. Good

LET IT SLIDE. Good

A WEDGE BETWEEN US. Ok. But don't forget that your highest percentages for getting it close is with your lower lofted clubs. Use them every time you have plenty of green to work with.

SPEAK OUT. All are good except for Gale's comment. Hitting down (contacting the ball above its equator) can NEVER make the ball go up.

FULL CONTACT. Varying the position of each club at address is unnecessary and promotes inconsistency. All the clubs can work quite well if you play them all in the middle of your stance.

BURIED ALIVE. Good

TEN MOST WANTED SHOTS
SUPER LONG SUPER STRAIGHT DRIVE. Mike's recommendation is excellent for all shots.
SHORT IRON STOPS ON DIME. Hitting a ball off a tee will always optomize back spin. Here's a reliable formula: anytime you increase the loft of a shot or increase the speed of a swing, you increase back spin.
POWER DRAW. This swing changes is dangerous and requires split second timing. If you want a draw, just rotate the grip to close the club face, aim right, and don't change your swing.
LEFT TO RIGHT PUTT. OK
GO-FOR-IT FAIRWAY WOOD. Good concept. Accidental contact with the club laying across the bag could be disasterous.
LOW STINGER. Always steer away from instruction that uses a swing change to alter your ball flight. See above for lower shots.
HIGH SOFT PITCH. Always steer away from instruction that uses a swing change to alter your ball flight. See above for higher shots.
HALF WEDGE. OK
EASY-OUT. OK
LAG PUTT. Points #2 and #3 are ok. If you were going to toss a ball into a bucket, would you find yourself trying to imagine the apex of the toss so that the ball would then fall into the bucket? I don't think so. Your attention would always be on the bucket. ALWAYS keep your target in your mind. If it is a breaking putt your target will be to the side of the hole.

TRACK YOUR TAKEAWY. Ouch! The small inset photo is a problem. Notice how the shaft is leaning forward. Now look at the larger illustration with the butt of the club against the sternum. The shaft should never lean forward for normal shots.

POWER PRIMER. GOOD

COMETE IN PRACTICE. OK

FINISH FOR POWER. OK

SOLID-CONTACT WALL DRILL. OK