I don't normally devote a column to professional golf, but I thought I would talk about an article by Jaime Diaz in the May 13, 2013 GolfWorld that many of you might not have access to. It explains why the pace of play on the PGA tour is so slow and what can be done about it. It's not as simple a problem as you might think.
I don't need to go into too much detail about how slow the Tour is. Five-hour rounds are common, and despite the slow play penalty given to young Tianlang Guan at the Masters earlier this year, Friday afternoon threesomes took 5 hours and 40 minutes for complete their round.
It should be noted, regarding the penalty given to young Guan, that he was asked four times to speed up, but playing slowly is a habit he could not break.
Chinese journalists were asked if they thought he had been singled out, and they said, "On, no, He's really slow. He needs to speed up."
Diaz lists seven reasons why play is so slow, not making excuses for any of them.
1. Firmer and faster greens require more careful study.
2. Courses are longer and more difficult.
3. Players who hit the ball longer are waiting for the green to clear on par 5s instead of hitting a second shot short and moving on.
4. Sports psychologists encourage longer pre-shot routines.
5. Yardage books and green charts are more involved.
6. Players precisely align their ball when they putt, often even for the shortest ones.
7. There are longer and more frequent discussions with their caddies.
Each of these little things adds up.
The current slow play policy is to give players in a group that is out of position, more than one hole behind, 40 seconds to hit their shot. A player going over this limit is warned, and if it happens a second time while the group is out of position, the player is given a one-stroke penalty.
The last time this policy was enforced was in 1995, when Glen ("All") Day was nicked.
If the group is not out of position, a player may take as much time as he wants to.
What to do?
A lot of it has to to with peer pressure and awareness. Many slow players don't think they're slow, and get upset when you tell them they are. I've talked about that before. Slow is many people's normal speed.
The policy could be changed to eliminate the warning and go directly to the penalty.
Another would be to speed up play in developmental competition. The AJGA has time stations at several places around the course, and the average time is 4:19.
Things slow way down in college golf, though, where most of the new Tour players learn to play at high levels. They come to the Tour having learned to take lots of time.
Change is possible, though.
A notoriously slow player named Richard Johnson was in the first twosome of the final round of a tournament, which had tournament officials quite worried. He could set back the entire field.
Johnson assured them he would not dawdle because he had an airplane to catch. He finished the round in under four hours, shot a 64, and vowed never to play slowly again.
Most people, and even touring professionals are people, find that when they play faster, they play better, and golf is much more enjoyable.
As for the Tour aggressively speeding things up, that won't happen until there's enough motivation to build a consensus among the players. That might take a while.
My new book, The Golfing Self, is now available at www.therecreationalgolfer.com. It will change everything about the way you play.
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Monday, May 13, 2013
In golf, it's a swing, not a hit
The French have a saying that goes, Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, or, the more things change, the more they remain the same. The French also have a saying that goes, Vive la différence, to which many web sites are devoted, but not this one.
I would like to introduce to you Mr. Jim Barnes, who is writing today's guest post. He speaks to the important point that you have to swing the golf club, not clobber the ball.
Mr. Barnes:
"I would describe the swing as an effort in which a steadily increasing movement is achieved in response to the co-ordination of several sets of muscles working to produce the movement. The hit I conceive as a quick movement resulting from the sudden application of a single set of muscles. The one is a slow steady pull; the other is a sharp jerk.
"The beginner or unskilled player, on watching the experts, either amateur or professional, will usually be struck by the fact that they appear to hit and hit hard, and they do. But the point to be remembered is that they have first come to acquire the knack of timing the stroke properly. In other words, they can afford to apply plenty of force since they apply it correctly.
"The disposition to want to hit the ball as hard and as far as possible is entirely natural. For this reason, the effort is being made here to get it firmly impressed on the player, that while there is a good deal of "hitting" in the golf stroke, even for a full swing, it is of great importance to guard against overdoing it.
"Then there is another very important objection to making the stroke too much of a hitting effort. When this is done, there is an unconscious effort, more often than not, to stop the forward sweep of the hands as the ball is hit, if indeed not a fraction of a second before the hitting takes place.
"Long experience has proven that if the effort to drive the ball is allowed to stop immediately on contact between the clubhead and the ball, the result, generally speaking, will be poor. Instead of getting a picture of the stroke as a movement where the hands are practically stopped as the ball is hit, try to visualize them as sweeping right on through and out in front of you as far as the arms will permit them to go.
"In a short swing, the hands, wrists, and forearms supply nearly all the needed power, so that the stroke is distinctly a hit. The more full the swing the smaller the proportion contributed by them. For that reason, it is important to keep in mind that the chief consideration is the general sweeping or swinging movement with the hands and clubhead."
Some of you might have heard of Jim Barnes. He golfed professionally in the early 20th century, winning the PGA Championship in 1916 and 1919, the U.S. Open in 1921, and the Open Championship in 1925.
These excerpts are from his book, A Guide to Good Golf, published in 1927. Plus ça change, . . .
My new book, The Golfing Self, is now available at www.therecreationalgolfer.com. It will change everything about the way you play.
I would like to introduce to you Mr. Jim Barnes, who is writing today's guest post. He speaks to the important point that you have to swing the golf club, not clobber the ball.
Mr. Barnes:
"I would describe the swing as an effort in which a steadily increasing movement is achieved in response to the co-ordination of several sets of muscles working to produce the movement. The hit I conceive as a quick movement resulting from the sudden application of a single set of muscles. The one is a slow steady pull; the other is a sharp jerk.
"The beginner or unskilled player, on watching the experts, either amateur or professional, will usually be struck by the fact that they appear to hit and hit hard, and they do. But the point to be remembered is that they have first come to acquire the knack of timing the stroke properly. In other words, they can afford to apply plenty of force since they apply it correctly.
"The disposition to want to hit the ball as hard and as far as possible is entirely natural. For this reason, the effort is being made here to get it firmly impressed on the player, that while there is a good deal of "hitting" in the golf stroke, even for a full swing, it is of great importance to guard against overdoing it.
"Then there is another very important objection to making the stroke too much of a hitting effort. When this is done, there is an unconscious effort, more often than not, to stop the forward sweep of the hands as the ball is hit, if indeed not a fraction of a second before the hitting takes place.
"Long experience has proven that if the effort to drive the ball is allowed to stop immediately on contact between the clubhead and the ball, the result, generally speaking, will be poor. Instead of getting a picture of the stroke as a movement where the hands are practically stopped as the ball is hit, try to visualize them as sweeping right on through and out in front of you as far as the arms will permit them to go.
"In a short swing, the hands, wrists, and forearms supply nearly all the needed power, so that the stroke is distinctly a hit. The more full the swing the smaller the proportion contributed by them. For that reason, it is important to keep in mind that the chief consideration is the general sweeping or swinging movement with the hands and clubhead."
Some of you might have heard of Jim Barnes. He golfed professionally in the early 20th century, winning the PGA Championship in 1916 and 1919, the U.S. Open in 1921, and the Open Championship in 1925.
These excerpts are from his book, A Guide to Good Golf, published in 1927. Plus ça change, . . .
My new book, The Golfing Self, is now available at www.therecreationalgolfer.com. It will change everything about the way you play.
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Concentration on the golf course
Joyce Wethered, an English golfer whose heyday was in the 1920s, and is regarded as one of the best female golfers of all time, was on the green and putting in the 1920 English Open when a train came roaring by. (Golf courses in those days were built next to rail lines to make it easy to get to the course, since few people had cars.) The story goes, as an example of her superior power of concentration, that she was so wrapped up in her putt that she never noticed the train.
But let’s think about this for a moment. Trains make lots of noise. When one goes by and it’s less than 100 feet away, it’s loud, and you hear it. If, however, you’re truly concentrating with a moving mind, the noise won’t bother you. You won’t pay attention to it because it’s irrelevant to what you’re trying to accomplish. That’s what happened to her.
When you are truly concentrating, your power of perception increases. You notice more things. Along with that, though, comes filtering out information that is not relevant to your task at hand. Your moving mind attends to whatever is important and the rest gets discarded.
We all think we know what it means to concentrate. We “bear down,” “zero in.” We force our mind to pay attention to one thing and fight to exclude distractions. We are taught from an early age that trying hard and concentrating are the same thing. We continue to concentrate in this way not because it works, but because it is what we were taught.
We have learned that since the body must do hard work to achieve results, so must the mind. We are also aware that we seldom concentrate in this way, because, quite frankly, most of us avoid hard work if we can.
This is all a misunderstanding of what it means to concentrate. There are many other misunderstandings. Concentration is the easiest thing in the world to do. It’s nothing more than being able to maintain your mental focus without pause.
-- from The Golfing Self
Find out more about what concentration means, and to learn how to concentrate correctly, in this revolutionary golf instruction book, now available at www.therecreationalgolfer.com.
It will change everything about the way you play.
But let’s think about this for a moment. Trains make lots of noise. When one goes by and it’s less than 100 feet away, it’s loud, and you hear it. If, however, you’re truly concentrating with a moving mind, the noise won’t bother you. You won’t pay attention to it because it’s irrelevant to what you’re trying to accomplish. That’s what happened to her.
When you are truly concentrating, your power of perception increases. You notice more things. Along with that, though, comes filtering out information that is not relevant to your task at hand. Your moving mind attends to whatever is important and the rest gets discarded.
We all think we know what it means to concentrate. We “bear down,” “zero in.” We force our mind to pay attention to one thing and fight to exclude distractions. We are taught from an early age that trying hard and concentrating are the same thing. We continue to concentrate in this way not because it works, but because it is what we were taught.
We have learned that since the body must do hard work to achieve results, so must the mind. We are also aware that we seldom concentrate in this way, because, quite frankly, most of us avoid hard work if we can.
This is all a misunderstanding of what it means to concentrate. There are many other misunderstandings. Concentration is the easiest thing in the world to do. It’s nothing more than being able to maintain your mental focus without pause.
-- from The Golfing Self
Find out more about what concentration means, and to learn how to concentrate correctly, in this revolutionary golf instruction book, now available at www.therecreationalgolfer.com.
It will change everything about the way you play.
Monday, May 6, 2013
Don't ground the clubhead
When you're ready to hit the ball, it's natural to rest the clubhead on the ground just behind the ball. Let me suggest that you not do this. Instead, hover the clubhead just above the ground. Why? How about six reasons?
1. Hovering the club makes it harder to squeeze the club with your hands. Light grip pressure is one of the keys to better ball-striking. This method makes you more sensitive to how firmly you are holding the club.
2. Your posture will be better. That is, you will stand up straighter, not getting yourself hunched over. When you bend over to rest the clubhead on the ground, there is a tendency to settle a bit more after the clubhead gets there. Hovering the clubhead prevents that tendency.
3. Your takeaway is smoother. It's hard to snatch the clubhead away from the ball when it is already in the air. You have to start off the swing slowly and gently, which leads into a swing controlled by your best tempo and rhythm. It helps maintain your balance throughout the swing, too.
4. Because you're starting the swing slowly, you'll turn rather than sway off the ball. The center of your swing stays over the ball instead of shifting to one side, meaning your swing will find the ball again instead of the ground behind it.
5. This is a big one -- cleaner contact. One imperative of the strike is ball first, ground second. When the club is already in the air behind the ball, it's in the position it needs to be at contact from the very start. If you rest the club on the ground at address, you have to raise it up a bit through impact. When you hover, just bring the club back to where it started out. Much easier.
6. You avoid a penalty. When you set the clubhead on the ground behind the ball, you have addressed it, according to the rules. If it moves before you hit it with your stroke, you could be penalized two strokes. By hovering the clubhead, you have never addressed the ball. Now if it moves, there is no penalty.
It doesn't take very much practice at all to get used to hitting the ball with this adjustment. Remember that all you need do is keep the clubhead off the ground. It doesn't have to be way up in the air. Half an inch will do.
My new book, The Golfing Self, is now available at www.therecreationalgolfer.com. It will change everything about the way you play.
1. Hovering the club makes it harder to squeeze the club with your hands. Light grip pressure is one of the keys to better ball-striking. This method makes you more sensitive to how firmly you are holding the club.
2. Your posture will be better. That is, you will stand up straighter, not getting yourself hunched over. When you bend over to rest the clubhead on the ground, there is a tendency to settle a bit more after the clubhead gets there. Hovering the clubhead prevents that tendency.
3. Your takeaway is smoother. It's hard to snatch the clubhead away from the ball when it is already in the air. You have to start off the swing slowly and gently, which leads into a swing controlled by your best tempo and rhythm. It helps maintain your balance throughout the swing, too.
4. Because you're starting the swing slowly, you'll turn rather than sway off the ball. The center of your swing stays over the ball instead of shifting to one side, meaning your swing will find the ball again instead of the ground behind it.
5. This is a big one -- cleaner contact. One imperative of the strike is ball first, ground second. When the club is already in the air behind the ball, it's in the position it needs to be at contact from the very start. If you rest the club on the ground at address, you have to raise it up a bit through impact. When you hover, just bring the club back to where it started out. Much easier.
6. You avoid a penalty. When you set the clubhead on the ground behind the ball, you have addressed it, according to the rules. If it moves before you hit it with your stroke, you could be penalized two strokes. By hovering the clubhead, you have never addressed the ball. Now if it moves, there is no penalty.
It doesn't take very much practice at all to get used to hitting the ball with this adjustment. Remember that all you need do is keep the clubhead off the ground. It doesn't have to be way up in the air. Half an inch will do.
My new book, The Golfing Self, is now available at www.therecreationalgolfer.com. It will change everything about the way you play.
Sunday, May 5, 2013
Hit Your Driver Straight: A Checklist
Recreational golfers shoot good scores by getting the ball in the fairway off the tee. By going through the following checklist before you swing, you will increase your chances of hitting good shots with the hardest club to hit well.
Straighter shots begin when you set up to the ball. Most golfers set up aimed to the right of their target.
Either the ball goes right, or a subconscious correction sends the ball pretty much anywhere, only sometimes where you intend.
Practice your aim every time you go to the range. It is a skill that cannot be learned for good; it must be refreshed at every opportunity.
Ball position counts, too. With your driver, you want hit the ball slightly on the upswing.
Lay an alignment stick on the ground pointing from your stance toward the ball (at a right angle to your target line). When the stick points to the ball, and inside of your left heel lies against the stick, the ball is in the right place.
The following five traits can be easily built into anyone's swing. They help keep the club under control so you can return it to the ball square and in line.
1. Take the club back straight. It's hard to take the club back outside, but easy to take it back inside. Have a friend stand behind you and give you feedback to get this right.
2. Start your downswing by turning your body. Let the hands and wrists go along for the ride until the momentum of the downswing unleashes the wrists and hands into the ball.
3. Keep your body turning. A common error is to slow down your body near impact so can apply a hit.
4. There's a race between your hands and the clubhead to get to the ball first, which your hands have to win. Keep pulling your hands through the impact zone.
5. Suppress the urge to clobber the ball. Make an easy pass at it and let the design of the club hit the ball straight and far.
My new book, The Golfing Self, is now available at www.therecreationalgolfer.com. It will change everything about the way you play.
Straighter shots begin when you set up to the ball. Most golfers set up aimed to the right of their target.
Either the ball goes right, or a subconscious correction sends the ball pretty much anywhere, only sometimes where you intend.
Practice your aim every time you go to the range. It is a skill that cannot be learned for good; it must be refreshed at every opportunity.
Ball position counts, too. With your driver, you want hit the ball slightly on the upswing.
Lay an alignment stick on the ground pointing from your stance toward the ball (at a right angle to your target line). When the stick points to the ball, and inside of your left heel lies against the stick, the ball is in the right place.
The following five traits can be easily built into anyone's swing. They help keep the club under control so you can return it to the ball square and in line.
1. Take the club back straight. It's hard to take the club back outside, but easy to take it back inside. Have a friend stand behind you and give you feedback to get this right.
2. Start your downswing by turning your body. Let the hands and wrists go along for the ride until the momentum of the downswing unleashes the wrists and hands into the ball.
3. Keep your body turning. A common error is to slow down your body near impact so can apply a hit.
4. There's a race between your hands and the clubhead to get to the ball first, which your hands have to win. Keep pulling your hands through the impact zone.
5. Suppress the urge to clobber the ball. Make an easy pass at it and let the design of the club hit the ball straight and far.
My new book, The Golfing Self, is now available at www.therecreationalgolfer.com. It will change everything about the way you play.
Thursday, May 2, 2013
What I'm working on right now
I read a golf instruction book in which the author, a teaching pro, said he always told his assistants, you're not allowed to teach students the thing you're working on right now.
We tend to get that way. Whatever we're doing now is the key to the kingdom, whereas it is really a way of correcting a flaw in the swing that is peculiar to ourselves and might be irrelevant to anyone else.
I, however, feel no such constraint. So here goes.
I am working on two things -- making sure my hands get back to the ball before the clubhead does in the downswing, and making sure I continue turning through impact.
The first one I have down pretty well. I started out with the swing thought of pulling the handle of the club through impact, which served as a reminder. I did that often enough that I don't need that thought any more. The feeling of the correct movement is familiar enough that all I have to do is think of that.
Hopefully, there will come a day when the move will be automatic and I don't have to think of anything.
Turning is one of the weak points in my swing and is one of the reasons why I hook the ball. When I stop short, (or slow down, actually) I have to save the shot with my hands, which closes the clubface.
The swing thought I'm using now to remind myself to continue turning is to imagine that the butt end of the club extends and pushes my left thigh to the right as I swing down. It doesn't want to turn on its own, so my mental golf club pushes it around. Seems to work.
The task is, as before, to learn the feeling so the swing thought is unnecessary, and keep going until the movement is automatic.
It's a lot like training a dog. You have to give them a treat after every success until they figure out what the reward behavior is. Then you gradually withdraw the treats as they learn to perform the expected behavior on command. Here, swing thought = treat.
And I must say, when these two things work together, I hit highly playable shots.
See my new book, The Golfing Self, at www.therecreationalgolfer.com. It will change everything about the way you play.
We tend to get that way. Whatever we're doing now is the key to the kingdom, whereas it is really a way of correcting a flaw in the swing that is peculiar to ourselves and might be irrelevant to anyone else.
I, however, feel no such constraint. So here goes.
I am working on two things -- making sure my hands get back to the ball before the clubhead does in the downswing, and making sure I continue turning through impact.
The first one I have down pretty well. I started out with the swing thought of pulling the handle of the club through impact, which served as a reminder. I did that often enough that I don't need that thought any more. The feeling of the correct movement is familiar enough that all I have to do is think of that.
Hopefully, there will come a day when the move will be automatic and I don't have to think of anything.
Turning is one of the weak points in my swing and is one of the reasons why I hook the ball. When I stop short, (or slow down, actually) I have to save the shot with my hands, which closes the clubface.
The swing thought I'm using now to remind myself to continue turning is to imagine that the butt end of the club extends and pushes my left thigh to the right as I swing down. It doesn't want to turn on its own, so my mental golf club pushes it around. Seems to work.
The task is, as before, to learn the feeling so the swing thought is unnecessary, and keep going until the movement is automatic.
It's a lot like training a dog. You have to give them a treat after every success until they figure out what the reward behavior is. Then you gradually withdraw the treats as they learn to perform the expected behavior on command. Here, swing thought = treat.
And I must say, when these two things work together, I hit highly playable shots.
See my new book, The Golfing Self, at www.therecreationalgolfer.com. It will change everything about the way you play.
Monday, April 29, 2013
Remembering
Ben Hogan wrote in his book, Five Principles, "The average golfer's problem is not so much a lack of ability as it is a lack of knowing what to do."
That's why when we hit golf balls we need to carefully investigate what we are doing, and not seek a particular result.
Percy Boomer talks about this in his book, On Learning Golf. The number one Golf Bogey, as he calls it, is the natural urge to act in the obvious way to achieve the desired result. (his italics).
What he meant by this is concentrating on the result of the swing (the ball landing in the fairway or on the green) at the expense of the correct technique by which that end may be gained.
He borrows a term from F. Matthias Alexander and calls people who do this end gainers.
On the practice tee, this means putting a patch on a patch until the swing finally produces a straight shot. The resulting swing can't possibly last beyond the groove that was set up during those few golden minutes, because that swing is not built on any known swing principles.
You could go practice putting for a half-hour and come back to the tee and have no idea how to re-create that swing. And that would be a good thing.
Rely instead on sound instruction and your efforts to apply that instruction. Learn the principles that make your swing work. At the same time, learn the things you do that cause your swing to fail.
Practice how to do the one and how to avoid the other.
You might at first have a list of five things you need to do. Practice them all, looking for ways to combine them so that the five become four, then three, then two, and finally you have one swing.
In another spot, Boomer lists six essential features of the golf swing. Number six reads, "It is essential to feel and control the swing as a whole and not to concentrate upon any part of it." (his italics)
That's it. Better golfers feel their swing as a whole. End gainers feel it as parts that lead to a result, but those parts are never the same from day to day.
That's why, when you're hitting poor shots, your question should not be, "What do I need to do to make the ball go straight," but "What am I supposed to be doing that I'm not?"
It might take more than one lesson to learn what these principles are (big news flash, right?). Keep taking them until you get it.
When you hit balls, practice those principles and use the golf ball as an indicator.
Where the ball goes is irrelevant. Concentrate on what you have to do. When you do the right things, the golf ball will reward you.
Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com
That's why when we hit golf balls we need to carefully investigate what we are doing, and not seek a particular result.
Percy Boomer talks about this in his book, On Learning Golf. The number one Golf Bogey, as he calls it, is the natural urge to act in the obvious way to achieve the desired result. (his italics).
What he meant by this is concentrating on the result of the swing (the ball landing in the fairway or on the green) at the expense of the correct technique by which that end may be gained.
He borrows a term from F. Matthias Alexander and calls people who do this end gainers.
On the practice tee, this means putting a patch on a patch until the swing finally produces a straight shot. The resulting swing can't possibly last beyond the groove that was set up during those few golden minutes, because that swing is not built on any known swing principles.
You could go practice putting for a half-hour and come back to the tee and have no idea how to re-create that swing. And that would be a good thing.
Rely instead on sound instruction and your efforts to apply that instruction. Learn the principles that make your swing work. At the same time, learn the things you do that cause your swing to fail.
Practice how to do the one and how to avoid the other.
You might at first have a list of five things you need to do. Practice them all, looking for ways to combine them so that the five become four, then three, then two, and finally you have one swing.
In another spot, Boomer lists six essential features of the golf swing. Number six reads, "It is essential to feel and control the swing as a whole and not to concentrate upon any part of it." (his italics)
That's it. Better golfers feel their swing as a whole. End gainers feel it as parts that lead to a result, but those parts are never the same from day to day.
That's why, when you're hitting poor shots, your question should not be, "What do I need to do to make the ball go straight," but "What am I supposed to be doing that I'm not?"
It might take more than one lesson to learn what these principles are (big news flash, right?). Keep taking them until you get it.
When you hit balls, practice those principles and use the golf ball as an indicator.
Where the ball goes is irrelevant. Concentrate on what you have to do. When you do the right things, the golf ball will reward you.
Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com
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