For any golfer who wants to play great golf
Getting better
My new favorite practice putting game – Split Nines
Aug 10th
If you want to add some pressure to your putting practice to make it feel a bit more like what you’ll feel on the golf course then try this game.
The game is split into two halves, your front nine and your back nine. On your front 9, each putt is like you’ve hit the in regulation. Every putt made is a birdie, every putt missed leaves a par putt (you must putt in, 3 putting does count as a bogey).
On your back nine, these are your greens missed in regulation. Every putt is for par. Miss and your next putt is for bogey.
So, on the front nine, you want to get as quickly and as far under par as you can. Be sure to mix in 3 shorter putts (4-6 ft), 3 medium putts (6 – 12ft) and 3 longer putts (more than 12 feet) in each nine.
How to make swing changes stick
Jan 12th
Recent experience has taught me that you need two things to make swing changes stick. Practice and time. Now while these may seem self evident there is more going on behind the scenes in the subconscious mind than meets the eye.
We’ve all heard the phrases “Practice makes perfect” and “Perfect practice makes perfect”. We all know that tour players have practiced all their lives to get the level they are at. The thing is that they are not always practicing the same things in the same way. They have built up enough skill level, that as they dial one thing in, they can work and address another part of the game.
What am I getting at?
As amateur golfers we don’t have the luxury to practice to practice like a tour player. In fact, for most of us, we rarely get to practice. I’ve tried to combat this by investing in some things that bring the practice home, and while that does address much of the problem, there is another part of practicing that has to be thought through as well.
Practice Games
Nov 4th
Now that it’s getting colder in the North East, I find that when I go to the practice area at my golf course that there is no one there. The place is deserted. Still, I want to keep getting better so I’m spending a lot of time. I’m using a couple of practice games that make practice really interesting and add some significant challenge.
I call the first game:
Pin Seeker
The objective is to get the ball as close to the hole without going more than gimme range past. Here are the rules.
Develop great rhythm and tempo in your golf swing by practicing bunker shots
Jul 4th
Practicing bunker shots can improve your rhythm and tempo
Bunker play. What comes to mind for you? Does it fill you with fear? Do you think, “how many shots will it take to get out”?
This is one of the areas that amateur golfers practice the least. And it’s one area where the average golfer can really save a ton of strokes. So practicing bunker shots can save you shots and has a number of extra benefits.
- Bunker shots become much easier.
- Lose the fear of being in a green-side bunker.
- Help with rhythm and tempo.
- Smooth out your swing.
Stuck in a slump? It may be the best thing for you.
Jun 28th
Golf is a game full of up and downs, and I’m not just talking about saving par.
What I mean is that everyone’s “career” with golf, whether playing professionally or playing on the weekend with buddies goes though periods of highs and lows. Whether it’s missing 5 or 10 cuts in row, or shooting 10 strokes above normal for your last 5 or 10 rounds, we all go through tough times trying to get that little white ball into the cup. We all get into occasional slumps.
I’ve been on a bit of a slump myself. After shooting some of my best rounds of the year several weeks ago, I have fallen into a deep fog, where it seems like I had lost all control of my golf ball. We’ll at least until today, although the seeds of the discovery were sown a while back, but I’ll get to that shortly.
The slump seems to have come out of nowhere. My last round before the slump was a 77. I’m not yet a scratch golfer so 77 on a tough par 72 course from the back tees is just fine with me. However when the slump started it began a downward slide in scores. Before I knew it I had several 88s, a 90, and the dagger in my heart was 97 in the member member tournament yesterday.
Although I wasn’t sure how I would fix it, I firmly believe that I will. I also know that I’m not the only golfer to have gone through slumps either. Jack Nicklaus, Steve Stricker, David Duval, Davis Love III, Ian Baker-Finch and many more have gone through their share of slumps. Steve Stricker came back from “no man’s land” to world #3.
A must read: “Straight down the middle” by Josh Karp
May 5th
Like many golfers I have my library of golf books. I’ve split my library into instructional books, mental game, and other. Although this book falls into the category of other, I relate to its message because Josh’s journey through golf, in many ways, chronicles my journey.
It is amazing how golf connects to and reminds of every day life. I know people who will play golf with potential business partners to see how they handle themselves on the course, as it is often a reflection of how they deal with adversity in life.
But the journey of improving your golf game can also have an impact on improving your life in general. My life has changed as a result of playing golf. I’m reminded of a quote “Whoever said golf and life are similar was wrong. Golf is harder.”
Josh’s journey in which he learns to stop worrying and love his swing is a journey filled with ups and downs, meeting fascinating people, and making connections to things that on the surface seem unrelated to golf. But Zen and other disciplines have many similarities. For me I always understood Zen to be about letting go. It was about letting your body do what it does, instead of trying to control it with your conscious mind. After all, a warrior who has to control his muscles consciously won’t last very long. He will quickly be defeated by a foe with flow.
The risks of forcing shots
Mar 30th
What can we learn from the professional golfers we love to watch? We can learn a lot.
On this weeks episode of “Being John Daly” we saw Daly’s meltdown in the last round of the tournament in Mayakoba, Mexico. By his own admission, he was going for too much. He made some bad decisions and he compounded the errors by trying to hit it farther, or draw it more, or going after too many pins. He was forcing it and he paid the price.
He knew that he didn’t need to hit driver, that it was a perfect 3 wood golf course for him. But when things started to go south, the driver came out to play.
Instead of taking his medicine and getting back to the strategies that got him there, he took unnecessary risks, and he felt he had to do that because the tournament was getting away from him. But that is precisely the time that he needed to play within himself.
Control distance with trajectory
Mar 30th
There are many excellent reasons to learn to control your distance with trajectory. Here are some of my favorites:
- Not every shot is a full shot. The more you can learn to master partial shots, the more control you’ll have approaching greens.
- Dealing with the wind. Lower trajectory shots fly better in the wind and are less likely to be taken off line. Have a short shot and it’s a windy day? Take more club and use a partial shot to take the wind out of play.
- Helps your short game. Partial shots are all about feel, control and imagination, learn to do this and it will make your wedge game and short irons so much more effectively. It will also open up more of the green enabling you to play safer shots to tucked pins and still get the ball close.
- Learn solid contact. Partial shots require you to stay within yourself. The more you practice these the more you’ll learn to feel how a solid shot feels. Trust me, it transfers to your long game and full shots and makes you a better ball striker with every club.
Does Ray really want to break 80?
Mar 29th
Why isn’t Ray Romano really improving?
From what I’ve seen on “The Haney Project” this season, Ray seems to be getting more and more confused. The focus has been entirely on Ray’s swing with only a little bit of work on short game.
If Ray really wants to break 80 he needs to learn how to get the most out of what he has. That will improve his scores tremendously, then any improvements he makes to his golf swing will pay even more dividends. The problem as I see it is that the focus isn’t really on breaking 80, it’s on fixing swing flaws and mechanics.
First place Ray could cut a lot of strokes: Putting.
Learning Golf in America – Part 1
Mar 2nd
John, a successful entrepreneur started playing golf at a company outing. He soon got hooked on the game and decided he wanted to become a good player. He had plenty of money to spend on golf lessons and ended up going to see some of the best known teachers in the game, they were all on Golf Digest’s top 100 Teachers.
His game didn’t improve. Each teacher he saw contradicted the previous one. First he stood up too tall, then his posture was too upright. After seeing those teachers, going to their 4 day workshops, he ended up more confused than ever. He would make incremental gains, then lose them as quickly as they came. He was in golf overload, and he still couldn’t break 90.
Larry, a successful feel player when he was young, was now turning 60 and decided he needed more distance to play better. After seeing a number of teachers, his head was filled with tips and swing thoughts. The new distance did not materialize, and now his body was confused. He used to be able to self diagnose and make changes on the course, but he had so much going on in his head that he couldn’t play the way he used to. It took him years to get back to playing golf the way he used to, from feel.
Although I’ve changed the names to protect the innocent, these are not unusual stories. There is more information than ever on the golf swing. There are so many websites advertising their tips. Golf magazines are filled with instruction. But is the average golfer getting any better?
