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When Your Golf Swing Goes Bad (I mean really bad)

doug — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 13:29:16 +0000

I was having the damnest time recently with my swing – really coming over the top in a wickedly fashion and having the ball too far forward which was causing me to “flick at the ball’ with my hands, therefore, I was not getting a solid strike to the ball. The ball could have gone anywhere – and did. Some good, mostly bad.

It was really driving me mental and culminated in my breaking my driver after I slammed it into the ground in a round a few weeks ago. (see the pic below)

Actually this is the 1st time I have ever done this and not proud of it at all. It’s just what happened. So I took a few weeks off and did what any recreational player should do – go see a PGA professional.

I think this is even more critical if we don’t play on a somewhat regular basis as it is SO easy to drift away from solid fundamentals. And there are certain fundamentals we need to practice (and be reminded of) because, particularly in golf, even the smallest things will get us to overcompensate is SO many different ways.

Interestingly, what happened to me this time (and I was very cognizant of it) was my mind started to “tell a story” about what was happening. That I have a little arthritis in my right hip, I’m getting older and therefore it’s OK to lose 20 yards on your drive, that I’m just not he player I used to be, etc. etc. All nonsense – and not necessary.

It was really getting wicked. But one way to halt this dead in it’s tracks is to see a PGA pro. He immediately saw things that started to become comfortable to me – like having quite a closed stance and having the ball well forward with my irons.

Once I moved the ball back in my stance (with my short-mid irons) and got he shaft leaning forward at impact immediately the feeling of a solidly compressed golf ball started to come back. And it was IMMEDIATE. That’s how quickly a pro can help.

The other thing was opening my shoulders a bit so I have a better path through the ball. Funny, all of a sudden (I’m left-handed) I could see a new vast amount of space over my right shoulder – as previously my stance was become so increasingly closed.

Really for them, I suspect, this stuff is rather easy to see on the amateur/recreational level where things can get exaggerated very quickly. With a professional on the other hand, things become a lot more subtle as they have a well set pattern in place of solid ball striking but it’s STILL the same process – something has crept in (somehow) and it’s producing un-consistent shots.

For the pros it’s all about precision. If they are not precise in their ball-striking, they won’t get the proper distance and the 15-30 foot puts they need to make to score. And this won’t feed the family. No wonder they all have “entourages” they assemble. They need to be constantly monitored like a hospital patient.

That is really the fun and maddening part of golf right there. When you’re on the game (and controlling your golf ball)becomes a sublime experience – it’s almost magical. But when your off it’s like (as a friend once said) “hitting frogs with a stick”

So if your game starts to head South for you, don’t wait too long to see your local PGA pro. They’ll immediately come up with a plan for you and instantly stop all the nasty “brain chatter” we create for ourselves.

Although it’s always a work in progress and I’m not quite there yet, ultimately it was never as bad as I thought or was “making” it up to be. Just a few simple tweaks. Amazing.

Why Amateur Golfers Don’t Improve

John — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 13:16:10 +0000

Since everybody else seems willing to pontificate about what’s wrong with the amateur golf swing, I might as well give it a go. Here’s the inside scoop; It’s all about knowledge of what really happens in the golf swing.

Up until the last few years, golf teaching has been based on what a star player felt or what a star teacher thought he saw a star player do. Unfortunately golf is too fast to really see what’s going on with the naked eye. And what a star player thinks he’s doing is often quite different than what a video shows.

It’s only been in the last few years that technology has provided the tools for scientifically analyzing good golf swings. Tools like high speed cameras, muscle electrodes and video x-rays have all given tremendous insight into what is really happening. We are just now finding out that much of what we thought we knew about hitting a golf ball is just plain wrong.

Did you know that 76% of your power comes from cocking and releasing the wrists. Another 11% comes from the elbow hinge. Now there’s 87% accounted for and we haven’t mentioned the torso at all. Shocked? I was when I heard that statistic.

Now I know why Bob Toski was able to hit a driver 240 yards from his knees. I know it’s true, because I saw it. Because of these recent discoveries, we now see many of the pros changing their swings. Have you noticed that they’re getting simpler all the time? We can now eliminate many swing doodads that we used to think were critical.

The most common fault for the amateur golfer is coming over the top, right? Did you know that this isn’t caused by the shoulders. It’s anatomically impossible for your shoulder rotation by itself to get the club out in front. It’s the hips where the problem is.

Rotating the hips early on the downswing moves the shoulder arc out over the ball causing the outside in swing. (By the way, I charge for my instruction so be sure to put the check in the mail.)

So we’re finally learning what really goes on in the golf swing . . .

Golf Trip to PEI and New Brunswick

John — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 02:57:39 +0000

This is a really quick note about a golf trip to Atlantic Canada that my wife and I are beginning tomorrow. We are going to be traveling Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick sampling some of their best courses, restaurants and lodging.

The plan is to come back with lots of photos and maybe even some video and a full report on what a golf holiday in the Maritimes is like. One thing for sure, it’s going to be cooler than it is around here. We can’t wait to leave the 90′s and head for low 70′s high 60′s. Just for fun I’ve laid out the trip on a new website at Tripline. Click HERE for the link.

I haven’t had time to post a lot, but you can see our basic itinerary. When you get to the site, click on the link for the Atlantic Canada Golf Trip. You can navigate the map by clicking the destinations or look at the tripline below. Check it out and let us know if it has potential.

PGA Championship – Golf Survives Nicely

John — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 14:49:51 +0000

I don’t care if Tiger or Phil weren’t in it on Sunday, the PGA Championship was exciting right up to the conclusion. It’s too soon to anoint new superstars of golf, but some of the young guns we saw Sunday are going to replace the World’s top ranked golfers before too long.

Forget the mistakes and blunders, Whistling Straits is a tough course especially with the wind blowing. If you watched you saw a lot of good golf and some miraculous recovery shots under a lot of pressure.

Some have taken exception with the way the tournament unfolded, even calling it tainted as Jason Gay of the Wall Street Journal implied. I say golf survived very nicely and demonstrated why it’s the game it is. It’s one of the few sports where the rules are really the RULES and they don’t change by the player or circumstances.

When I first saw that they were going to penalize Dustin Johnson 2 shots for grounding his club in a bunker, I admit I was upset. Until, that is, the PGA official came on camera and explained that the local rules clearly state that all sandy areas at Whistling Straits are bunkers, even if they have people standing in them, footprints and tire tracks. The official went on to describe how they went to great pains to post this everywhere so that no player would be uniformed.

I can see how this would upset someone who’s not a golfer and typically follows sports like basketball where the rules have been so decimated and abused that no one really knows what they are anymore or how a given official on a given night and for a given player is going to interpret them. We golfers don’t have that problem. The rules are the same for you and me as they are for Tiger Woods. They can’t be bent, broken or selectively interpreted. And that is what makes Golf the game it is.

Players like Dustin Johnson are a credit to the game and represent what it stands for. He didn’t pout or duck reporters or threaten the officials. He took his punishment like a man and said he should have read the rules more carefully. He probably won’t make that mistake again. His caddy ought to do penance for not explaining the situation before his man even got near the ball.

This isn’t the first time that golf’s rules seemed cruel. But that’s the point, the game, like life, can seem cruel to those who don’t understand the rules. Golf is about the only sport or game that I know of where players are expected to call penalties on themselves.

Golf may be just a game, but like the First Tee ads claim, it’s also about core life values. Show me an honest golfer and I’ll show you a good human being.

Whistling Straits – One Awesome Course

John — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 16:15:02 +0000

Hole 7 - Shipwreck - 214 yard Par 3

This year’s PGA Championship is a must watch if for nothing other than to check out the Whistling Straits course. Nick Faldo called it ‘cool’, I call it ‘way cool’. I’m including a couple of shots from the course website to wet your whistle. Click on the first one and visit the Whistling Straits course site. There you’ll find descriptions of all the holes and even flyovers. We are going to see some demanding recovery shots to say the least. On this course if it isn’t fairway, it’s tall grass or sand. If you counted everything that looks like a sandtrap, then there must be a thousand. To top it off the course is set on the dunes/cliffs of Lake Michegan. If the greens are right, this course is as good as any played this year and that includes Augusta, Pebble Beach and St. Andrews – not bad company to be in.

Hole 9 - Down and Dirty - Par 4, 415 yards

Hole 16 - Endless Bite - Par 5, 535 yards

Hole 17 - Pinched Nerve - Par 3, 223 yards

Tiger Woods – Golfer for All Seasons

John — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 18:22:45 +0000

Tiger Woods has been the best golfer in the world for at least a decade. I have rooted for him over the years even though I typically pull for the underdog. I wasn’t so much rooting for Tiger’s success as for someone to show us that golf can be mastered. When you win 6 out of the 11 tournaments you play and win the US Open with a broken leg it can sure look like you’ve slayed the beast.

Time and time again, golf has demonstrated that no one, not even Tiger Woods, beats the game. Make two birdies in a row and then – surprise – you double bogey. Why, because your mind succumbs to golf’s sirens. Tiger is now the poster child for golf’s toughest lesson – defining self worth by a golf score is a sure way to play tense and shoot terrible scores in the process. This cycle can become self-perpetuating and has caused many a golfer to hang up the clubs for good.

With every tournament it’s clearer that Tiger’s problems are in his mind and not with his body. As Bobby Jones once said, ‘competitive golf is is played mainly on a five-and-a-half-inch course…the space between your ears’. Nowhere is that more apparent now than with Tiger Woods. If Tiger can once again find his form and is willing to share with the rest of the world what happened, perhaps he’ll help all of us make peace with the game.

For taking such a long break at the beginning of the season, Tiger did well at the Masters. From that point on he has basically gotten worse the more he plays. Tiger’s once invincible putting stroke now seems as lost as his drive. It’s a result of tension and tension is mental. A golf swing or stroke can survive a lot of faults but it can’t survive tension. Ask Dustin Johnson about that one.

Tiger has been defined by golf. He only added to that in any significant way when he became a husband and then a father. Now it’s clear that he failed miserably on the last two accounts. How could he not now doubt his golfing ability. It’s possible that he feels he should be punished for what he did, so letting the golfing gods tear him down may be his way of healing. Let the psychologists debate that one. Bottom line – Tiger is a bundle of tension on the course, the kind of tension that can make you miss a 3 foot putt and not even touch the hole.

Tiger’s game is not going to improve until he rights the mental ship. Perhaps complete failure this year will allow him to remake and rebuild his golfing psyche. Let us amateurs learn something from Tiger’s demise. Golf is a game we play hopefully for enjoyment, fun and camaraderie. Shooting a 70 or a 100 doesn’t make us better or worse people. If we let golf be what we do and not who we are, we might just find more enjoyment in the game. And that’s really what it’s about for those of us who don’t have to earn a living playing competitively.

My best golf rounds have ALWAYS been when I was paying no attention to score. Once I realize I might be having a season best round it all goes to hell in a handbasket. In some ways that’s golf’s enduring mystery and charm. A round of golf is not so much something you do as something you watch unfold.

Firestone Pick – Not Tiger

John — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 12:35:30 +0000

If there’s one thing that MIGHT get Tiger going again, it is for enough people to say he’s finished. Of course he’ll win again if he keeps playing. More than likely he’ll win a major. What he won’t do is win 5 majors to beat Jack’s record.

18 months ago I bemoaned the fact that there weren’t any young golfers to challenge the older dogs like Tiger and Phil. 18 months later that has all changed. We are seeing an emergence of a pack of youngsters who all have the skills to win big events. Their strength isn’t the game of any one player, it’s that there are so many of them. It’s seems a new guy like Oosthuizen bursts on the scene every other tournament these days. If Louis hadn’t won the Open, Rory McIlroy was right behind, especially if he hadn’t hit the weather wall on Friday. There’s now a growing legion of players who can easily put it together for any 4 given days. Really good just isn’t enough anymore to win a Major, you have to be clicking on every cylinder.

What’s more, these young kids aren’t intimidated by Tiger. They’ve never had the beat down that players like Els, Goosen and Singh have taken. They don’t cringe when they see Tiger on the leaderboard. There response is more ‘So What’.

Tiger’s game and confidence just aren’t there yet to win this week at Firestone. With enough Tiger-bashers like myself we just might make him mad enough to crush the field, but don’t count on it.

Golf at Hickory Ridge CC

doug — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 13:07:40 +0000

So my fellow GolfDashBlog partner, John and I finally got out to play some golf last Friday at Hickory Ridge Country Club in Amherst, MA on about as nice a golf day as is possible.

I was a member of Hickory Ridge about 10 years for 5 years or so and never got tired of playing the course. It was built in 1969 and designed by famed architect Geoffrey Cornish out of a pasture and farm land.

I actually re-did their logo way back then by refining it (it was in desperate need of an update) so it’s still pretty cool to see it on all their apparel, equipment, etc.

There are some great holes at “the Hick” my favorites being #9 (a wicked par 4) #17 a longish par 3 that par is always a good score and the long par 4 #18 – my vote for one of the best finishing holes in Western, MA (and pictured above)

We played on a Friday and the greens fees were $30 each – about as good a deal as you can get for this quality of a course. It goes up slightly on the weekend ($45) but still a very reasonable fee by today’s standards. It is also a very enjoyable course to walk (which we did)

John played some great golf. Laser accurate and long off the tee, he had many chances to probably shoot on the 70′s just his putting was a tad off. Me, on the other hand, had some good holes but am struggling with consistency off the tee. Many times I hit pretty strong shots but a number of times I duffed it trying to kill the ball.

I keep telling myself I need to play more than once every two weeks to get any better but still it’s not easy when your in the heat of the moment trying to string together good shots.

All in all it was great to catch up with John and we plan to play again in the Fall season, one of the best things about Fall is New England golf – which is right around the corner.

Tempo – Golf’s Most Important Teacher

John — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:55:20 +0000

I’ve been trying to publish an article about Tiger, but I keep getting derailed. However, this article in Golf.com was so interesting, and about Tiger as well, I feel compelled to post this first.

John Novosel, a guy who has been working on swing tempo for almost a decade claims to have clear insight into Tiger’s problems and I think he just may be right. In fact, what he has discovered may be the most important component of all our games.

John’s theory, based on timing Tiger’s and other pro golfers’ swings over many years is that you can see their performance rise and fall with how closely their tempo is 3/1. This translates to it takes 3 times as long to get to the top of the backswing as it does to reach impact. A golfer’s relative speed doesn’t make a difference, you can swing fast like Nick Price or slow like Ernie Ells but the tempo has to be 3/1.

I won’t spoil the article for you, you can read the whole thing here. It’s not long, but very provocative. I’d even go so far as to speculate that tempo may be the most important component of your swing. How many instructors are missing the mark trying to fix flaws in individual elements in the swing when they should be teaching tempo. Maybe most swing flaws are symptoms of bad tempo – the primary fault?

The Right Teacher is Key to Golf Instruction

John — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 17:11:19 +0000

Thought we’d take on the golf instructors of the world. If you remember a couple of blogs back, I quoted a statistic (sorry I can’t remember where I read it) that the average 18 hole golf score has only improved by half a stroke over the last 30 years. And that’s with all the advantages that new technology has brought us.

Granted, most of us don’t take professional instruction on a regular basis, but there are thousands of instructors out there making a living so enough of us are going to keep them employed. Why, then, hasn’t that score dropped more than half a stroke?

If some guy in your league improved his handicap by 8 strokes in one year and credited it to a teacher, tell me half the guys or gals in the league wouldn’t beat a path to the instructor’s door. So are there good teachers out there and, if so, where?

As in any profession there are those that know and those that don’t. How comfortable would you feel just picking a dentist’s name out of the phone book and having her go to work on your teeth. I didn’t think so! There are plenty of dentists out there, but only a few I want to trust my choppers to. So we can assume that this is the same for golf instructors – a few bad, a few good and most various shades of so so.

If there are some good instructors out there, and I’m sure there are, how come students aren’t lined up in the parking lot and down the road. Who wouldn’t part with some serious scratch to get really better at this game? Before you say no, go look at that high priced titanium monster driver in your bag.