Just a quickie

From my friend Tim Cusick

http://www.myavidgolfer.com/articles/?view=department&department_id=15&no_current=1

Very good stuff.

It's been awhile, sorry

Sometimes I'm not sure if I'm writing about golf or life or if there is any difference. I do know that as an instructor I have at least one flaw that gets in the way of my success. I assume that everyone who comes to me for a lesson not only wants to get better but is willing to pay to price necessary to achieve this goal. The truth is that I don't understand those that aren't compelled to keep pushing themselves. This is my problem not the students. It's one of the reasons I will not be as successful from a financial standpoint as I could be in my chosen endeavor.

Back in the days, some 30 plus years ago, when I was still a professional alcoholic (I now have my amateur standing back :-)) I could not understand people who could and preferred to stop drinking when they began to feel or it or worse yet would stop with just a half glass of wine. It never made any sense to me. Even now my knee jerk reaction is one of "what?". In my recovery I became a member of an organization that has had great success with those of us who had gone as far down as we chose to. One of their precepts was that "Half measures availed us nothing". In other words anything less than a 100% effort produced zero. I've found this to be true in golf, also.

Every student I've ever had has approached changes to his/her game with great expectations and great resolve but it doesn't last except in a few rare cases. Changes to an existing game or learning it for the first time is very hard. Much harder than anyone imagines at the beginning.

Let me give you two examples.

I've had a set of Dave Pelz's putter clips for 8 years. There are 3 in each set. The idea is to help you learn to hit the sweet spot with your putter every time. Each one is progressively smaller. The last one gives you a 64th of an inch on either side. I've never been able to move out of the easiest size until last week. That's 8 years of work trying to learn this.

In my full swing I tend to be well above the plane on my follow through. David Leadbetters people brought this to my attention almost 20 years ago. I've been trying to fix it since then. A big breakthrough took place within the last few days.

Excellence in any activity is a very lonely business be prepared to spend lost of lonely hours to improve your golf. I'll be joining you in spirit.

Take care.

A little shift in direction

No complaints and no regrets,

I still believe in chasing dreams and placing bets

And I have learned that all you give is all you get

So give it all you've got

These are the beginning lyrics to the song "Here's to Life". I've fallen in love with it particularly done by Shirley Horn. If your golf game isn't doing what you want it to then take a look at these lyrics again. You may find both the problem and solution there.

Take Care

The Perfect Swing and A Perfect Swing

There is a difference. The Perfect Swing is the most efficient one that we can imagine. All of the angles are correct at address and at every stage of the swing. Tiger's swing was the essence of that concept while he was working with Hank. I'll go into those ideas in just a bit. I will say that in all probability none of us will achieve the perfection that was his. I can dream however :-)

A Perfect Swing is an individual matter. It occurs when a golfer makes the best pass at a golf shot that he can given his present knowledge and ability. A Perfect Swing is never compared to what someone else either can or cannot do. I play golf from time to time with a Long Drive participant. He routinely hits his driver 350 to 400 yards. In my wildest dreams I don't imagine hitting the ball that far but when I pick a spot off the tee and imagine my shot flying to that spot and subsequently hitting the ball there then I have made A Perfect Swing. A Perfect Swing is not limited to swings. It includes chips, pitches, sand shots and putts. A Perfect Swing requires you to imagine a shot that is within the scope of your present ability and then execute that shot.

The Perfect Swing however is what we aspire to. The Perfect Swing doesn't care if we are out of shape or not flexible enough or that our balance is weak or that we have a faulty emotional makeup. It just sits there waiting for us to pay the price which we may not be able to do to acquire it's perfection. It is the ideal that we strive to gather.

My goal as your instructor is to teach this "Perfect Swing". I believe that unless you know where you are going you will do nothing but go around in circles. We all see people like this at every driving range that we go to. People hitting ball after ball with little or no thought given to what they are trying to do. As an instructor I also recognize that humans have limitations. Sometimes a compromise will need to be made but I never want to make a compromise until you know what the ideal is and how this compromise will effect your over all results.

This blog has been sitting here for a couple of weeks while I tried to find words that conveyed the truths that I know. I think I'm ready to try to use "imperfect language" to describe perfect relationships.

The Perfect Swing is one where the swing adheres to the principles of physics and geometry as we now understand them. An understanding of Newton's Laws of Motion and angular momentum are requirements. Please don't misunderstand me. You can play very good golf without this knowledge. Look at John Daly, Bubba Watson and JB Holmes all who in my opinion have flawed swings but for me the knowledge of the ideal is very important. I can't help but wonder how much better they would have been or would be if their swings lacked these very evident flaws. For myself every shot I have ever missed has been because I was not aligned with these principles. Quite honestly I didn't begin to understand these concepts until I began to teach. I thank all of you for this increase in my own knowledge. I'm going to in the next few blogs lay out these principles. Take care.

What I know, how I learned it and why I teach it.

The game of golf is about getting outside, being with friends, taking a break from the pressures of life but ultimately its about shooting the lowest score you can. Remember the old Smith Barney commercial, "we make money the old fashioned way, we earn it"?

Let me ask you a question. If you could go buy a driver somewhere that was guaranteed to hit the ball 300 yards dead center of the fairway every time you swung it would you buy it? . Let's say you went out bought and then played with your new driver and it did just exactly what was promised, 300 yards dead center every time. Well, next week all your buddies would have purchased the same driver and you all now hit the ball 300 yards dead center every time. I bet that after awhile you would all become bored with driving the ball and eventually you would just walk out 300 yards and play your 2nd shots from there. This analogy or scenario is at the heart of golf. YOU CANNOT BUY A GOLF GAME! you must earn it. It is the challenge to improve that brings us back. It may be the last place on earth where success or lack of it is entirely dependent upon the individual and the effort he or she is willing to spend.

Every golfer can improve regardless of their present level of play. Even me who has been playing this game for 59 years a few of those at a pretty high level still has areas that need improvement, far more of them than I would like to admit.

So if you can't buy a golf game you have to earn it. Part of earning it is learning it. That's where people like me come into the equation. Golf instructors don't do anything that can't be done by any other human being who is willing to learn the game, be a psychologist, a communicator with an understanding of the physics of the game and have infinite patience. In other words we do the things that you could do but you choose to have us do them so that you will still have time to do other things, like play the game. :-)

Next time I will introduce the Perfect Swing and what I mean by that.

Take care

They are all correct

Every book, every magazine article, every golf video has correct information. Some of them talk about using the big muscles of the body others say your arms must swing faster.So how are we to determine which group of opposing ideas we try to use? To answer that question I think we need to remember the five things that are critical to each golf shot. They are;

1. Club head speed-How fast is the club moving at impact?

2. Centeredness of impact-Did I hit the ball on the sweet spot?

3. Angle of attach-Did the club approach the ball not to steep, not to shallow but just right? If you are on the correct swing plane as I teach then you will be correct.

4. Club face position-Was the club face at right angles to the target at impact?

5. Club swing path-Was I approaching the ball from the inside?

The answers to these question will tell you what you need to be working on. You will notice that 4 of the 5 of these question have nothing to do with how hard or fast you swing. I believe that we must answer questions 2 through 5 in the affirmative before we become to concerned with speed. Numbers 2 through 5 require a blending of both body movement and arm/hand movement not with the idea of creating additional club head speed but with creating the angles necessary to make solid ball strikes. Ultimately how fast I swing is determined by one, my physical limitations and two, by my ability to maintain the correctness of 2 through 5. Of the two the latter is more important.

My teaching is geared to these ideas. I believe you should swing as fast as you can AND successfully adhere to the correct positions required by 2 through 5.

The purpose of hitting one handed golf shots or half wedge shots or one armed putts are all geared to getting 2 through 5 in place. The better you have these in place the faster you will be able to swing and keep the golf ball on the golf course which for most of us results in lower scores, the primary reason we play the game.

Tim Cusick, my primary instructor when I was talking lessons at Hank Haneys told me that you get more benefits from hitting half wedges in practice than you do with your driver. He was right.

Tell next time

Effective practice or how to spend the hours on the range productively

Do you spend at least 50% of your time putting? Do you spend at least 50% of the remaining time on the short game? Anything left you can spend on your long game. I bet you have heard that at some point in the golfing life, heck I may have said that to you but that method is only true in some circumstances. If you have no other information then by all means use your time as outlined above but if you have numbers that suggest a weakness in your game that is adding strokes then change your practice time percentages to reflect those changes.

Let's explore that a little further. I'll make the following assumptions.

1. You have a game plan for each round

2. That game plan maximizes your potential for example, if you can't hit the driver in the fairway then you are using a club that will do so.

3. You are keeping accurate records of your results

If these numbers show that you are making all your putts within 3 feet of the hole but putts in the 20 foot and longer range are seldom getting into that 3 foot range then don't practice your short putts practice your distance control.

If when you chip the ball you get it up and down 75% of the time then go to pitching. If it's fine then work on your sand play.

All of my current students have gone through the target drill recently. For those of you who are not my students (why aren't you :-)? ) the drill consists of finding a target at 25 yards and then giving a giving yourself a circle with a 20 diameter. Hit 10 balls and calculate your % of landing the ball in the air in the circle. The goal is at least 75%. Then go to 75 yards with a circle of 40 feet. the % should be 60. Then out to 100 yards and a circle of 50 feet and a % of at least 50%.

You will probably find that your %'s are not very close to the ones I've given you. The first reason is that your technique is not yet good enough however the 2nd and far more important reason is that instead of focusing on the target you focus on technique. Nothing messes up a golf shot faster than thinking about how to hit a shot rather than where to hit a shot. These tests and drills that I use are to get you to focus on the latter not the former.

All of this brings us to the title of this article "effective practice". I'll restate the definition

1. Practice with a specific purpose in mind

2. Get immediate feedback

3. Focus on process rather than results

Let's assume that the drill above or your scorecard from your rounds of golf suggest that at 75 yards you get 30% of your shots into the target range.

You have to analyze why.

1. If you hit the ball very poorly most of the time then you need to focus on technique so your effective practice would look like this

a. My purpose is to improve my technique

b. Is the ball flying better or worse. Am I on plane or not.

c. If my goal is to keep my chest back longer am I willing to do that even if I hit the ball poorly?

2. If you hit the ball pretty well then the practice would look like this

a. Hit more balls into the target

b. Immediate feedback is am I doing it

c. The process is am I focused on the hitting the ball into the target or am I thinking about how to swing?

Golf is not easy. It's fun if you choose to make it so. You don't have to be good to have fun but if you want to get better these concepts that I've outlined here will help.

Take care

If only every shot outside of 100 yards was hit stiff, then all we would need to do is putt

but unfortunately that's not the case. In point of fact that's not even close. I would guess that for most golfers the shots hit from say 100 to 125 yards from the hole don't hit the green more than 50% of the time. When they hit the green they are mostly outside of 20 feet from the hole, hence the emphasis on hitting your putts the correct length. so, you might ask, where does the short game begin. It begins when you are planning the shot you are going to hit to the green and it starts from the assumption that you are going to miss the green with your shot. If, for example, you have a 250 yard shot to the green and you have the skill to make such a shot the first question you must ask yourself is "If I miss the green where can I miss the ball that will give me the best opportunity to get the ball in the hole is two more shots?"

If you watched any part of The Open over the weekend you saw a great example of that with the "Road Hole". You have two places you could miss the green, very short or very long anything else brought bogey or worse into play. Nicklaus talked about the 12th at Augusta the same way. He said anytime you saw his ball on the right side of the green he had missed the shot. Hogan used to play the 11th at Augusta to miss the green to the right. He said if he was on that green in two he had pulled his 2nd shot. Tiger before he became mortal almost always missed his shots in the correct place. It's a bit like driving with a seat belt on. You may not have an accident but if you do you are glad you planned ahead.

O.K. I'm tired of beating you about the head. So where do we go from here?

Some rules/ideas about where to miss the green;

1. Where can I miss the green that I can use my putter?

2. Is that place above or below the hole?

3. How steep is the slope if I'm above the hole?

4. If the slope is too steep, then where can I miss below the hole that I can chip the ball?

5. If I can't chip the ball where can I pitch it?

6. If I can't putt, chip or pitch would a better miss be in the sand trap rather than trying to hit a flop shot.

Once you figure out where you want to miss then comes club selection. Let's say you hit a 7 iron from 150 with some degree of success and the flag is 150 from where you stand. The average green is 30 yards from front to back. Let's assume that the best "miss" area for you is just over the green. Assuming there is a 10 yard gap between clubs then you would use your 6 iron. A good strike on the ball gives you a 30 foot putt in your preferred miss area. A little chunky shoot would travel in all probability 135 yards so you still have a 30 foot putt. But you say I want to hit the 7 iron it's the perfect distance and you are correct if you hit it very well but as Hogan said good golf is playing your mistakes. He beat everyone's brains out by planning his mistakes. Next time we will talk about chipping techniques. Take care

The "in's, out's and why's" of a Pre shot routine

I must admit that for most of my playing career I did not understand the need for a pre-shot routine. It is only in recent years that I have become a big fan. I can find no reasons to not have an effective pre-shot routine and a number of critically important ones that support having one and using it on every shot in play and practice. Here are some of my reasons for having one;

1. If and I believe it to be true that 80% of all golf shots are missed before the golfer ever takes the club away away from the ball then the primary function of a pre-shot routine is to eliminate that 80%. The following is a list of the things that a pre-shot routine takes care of;

a. Gets you aligned correctly to your target

b. Gets the golf ball in the proper position in your stance

c. Puts your center of gravity in the correct position for the shot you are trying to hit.

d. Gives you a mental checklist to go over which when completed gives you the emotional security of knowing that you have made all the preparations that you can for the shot to be hit.

I teach the same pre-shot routine to all. Here are the steps involved

1. After making my club selection and practice swings I stand behind the golf ball holding the golf club in my right hand about 1/3 of the way down the shaft and at a 45 degree angle to the ground. I sight down the shaft through the center of the ball and my target. I'm looking for an intermediate target not more than 3 feet in front of the ball. I believe it is easier to line up with a near target than one is farther away. (Quick note. There are a number of sports psychologists and some instructors who say that it really doesn't matter if you are lined up correctly because your body will make the adjustments so that you can still hit the ball to the target. I answer, why would I want to create an environment where I have to make an adjustment to my swing? The game is hard enough without have to make up a new swing just because I'm to lazy to learn how to line up correctly.)

2. While behind the ball I place my hands on the club in the grip position.

3. I then step into my address position and place the club first behind the ball so that the grooves are at right angles to the target line.

4. I place my right foot at right angles to the target line in a position where a line drawn through the center of the ball would go through the middle of my middle toe from toe to heel.

5. I put my left foot next to my right so that both sets of toes are parallel to each other and the target line.

6. I flare my left foot out a couple of inches, something less than 45 degrees

7. I then step to the right with my right foot so that the heels of each foot are parallel to the target line. The amount that I step back is dependent upon the club I'm hitting and where I want my center of gravity to be. The shorter the club the less I step back with my right foot in order to promote a more decending blow. The driver requires a wide stance so that my center of gravity is further behind the ball which promotes a level to ascending blow.

8. I then tilt my upper body slightly to the right to compensate for my right hand being lower on the club.

I check the accurateness of this by placing my club on the ground at my heels and then placing a club behind the ball so that it is parallel to the first club. By sighting down the 2nd club I'm able to determine where I'm actually aimed.

If at anytime I get interrupted or lose my focus I start over. In practice I asked my students to do this on ever shot.

This pre-shot routine places the ball in the same position relative to the left heel for every shot, approximately 1 1/2" inside the left heel. Don't panic. When instructors talk about different ball positions they are really talking about where the your center of gravity is located. That's why the amount the right foot steps back varies.

This takes practice but is really worth it.

A few more putting thoughts

In my opinion most good putters and all great ones have a specific rhythm for each and every putt. Here is what I mean by "rhythm". From address through impact each putt takes the same amount of time. In my case it's 1001 at address 1002 at the top of my putter backswing and 1003 at impact. I use this same count whether my putt is 6" or 60'.

I like to make practice swings until I have a feel for the distance I want to hit the putt. When I have a practice swing that feels correct and that I have applied my rhythm count to it I attempt to duplicate my last practice swing with my actual one. All I do with my actual is take my address position and then count, sometime out loud, 1001, 1002, 1003. I suggest to all my students that they find their own rhythm. I have one student that doesn't get to the top of his swing until the 1003 count and then is back at impact by 1004. However no good/great putter has a downswing that is slower than his backswing.

One of the major keys to successful putting is "feeling" how hard to hit the putt. Using the count makes that happen for me. The absolute last thing I want to do when standing over a putt is to adjust my speed or break. If I don't have those locked in before I take my address position then I'm in real trouble. If I get distracted or if I lose my focus i.e. the 14 to 17" safe zone then I step back and start again. I can't stress enough how important it is to keep focused on the rhythm and feel of the practice swing in the actual stroke. Thinking about break, score, the importance of the putt are all ways I snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

How often am I successful in hitting the putt into the safe zone? Depending upon the length of the putt roughly 50 to 90% of the time however the number of putts I now make has increased substantially. Remember as Yogi Berra once said, " 90% of the putts that are short don't go in" :-)

Putting Part Two

Additional thoughts on "10" We, some students and I, have played the game with the modification. Along with an improvement in distance control the greatest benefit appears to be in the area of "focus" or the mental side of the game. In at least two cases the 17" safe zone was extended to 10' on either side. One would think that a target that size would be very easy to hit. Everyone myself included had difficulties in changing our focus from the 17" window to the much larger size. This suggests to me that the most difficult part of this game is mental. By that I mean the ability to focus in on what the real objective for a particular shot should be. In this instance the objective was to putt the ball from 15' away into a 10' diameter circle, 10 consecutive times. My almost scratch handicap student took 6 tries before he was successful. This was not because it was difficult but because he was unable to focus on the task at hand. Food for thought.

Now a shift in gears

I suppose that in the final analysis any method of hitting a putt that allows you to consistently hit the ball in the hole if fine with me. There has been and probably always will be lots of personal approaches to the putting stroke however the vast majority of putting strokes fall into one of the two following camps.

1. Straight back and straight through where the power is generated by the shoulders and

2. Inside to square and back to the inside where power comes from the right arm.

I putted for a number of years using number 1 until it finally occurred to me that this type of stroke requires me to use the small muscles of my hands to manipulate the putter face in order to keep it square to the target line. I don't believe that using the small muscles of the hands works for any golf stroke much less the putting stroke. The older we get the more true this becomes.

I started putting with method 2 for a number of reasons.

1st. I'm already standing to the side of the ball so a putter stroke that works around my body just as a full swing does makes sense to me.

2nd I'm most comfortable with me eyes inside the target line and behind the ball just as it is with the full swing.

3rd. Inside to square to inside allows me to use a right arm/right shoulder stoke as my power source in the same manner that I would use a pool que.

Detractors to this method point out, I think incorrectly, that it is harder to get the putter face square at the moment of impact. That concept has greater validity if and only if you do not keeps the putter shaft lined up with a particular spot on the body. I use and teach that the putter rotates just as if it were a belly putter. If this is done then contact with the ball when the face is square is automatic. Some may say "why not use a belly putter"? If all we were concerned with is line then maybe the question would be valid but our primary concern with the putter is distance. I've yet to see anyone with either a long or belly putter be able to control their distance the same way the top pros on the tour do.

I think the manner in which you place your hands on the putter is critical. The left hand barely resides on the club with the shaft placed in the life line of both hands so that someone looking at your putter set up from down the line would think that your putter shaft is running through the middle of your forearms.

The putter head must in my opinion but grounded behind the ball. If you are right handed and you have the toe of the putter raised then because of the loft of the putter you are actually aimed left of your target. If the heel is in the air you are aimed right of your target.

The fine art of putting part one.

Harvey Penick said I believe that he started all his new students with one ball on the green putting it into the hole. As they achieved some competence he then moved them to chipping, then pitching, lob and sand shots. It wasn't until they had a fair mastery of these skills that he went to the long game. I was fortunate enough to have a couple of phone conversations with the short game wizard Paul Runyon. It is my recollection that he said essentially the same thing. This progressive concept is at the heart of my teaching philosophy. I use this concept for three reasons. First, nothing will reduce your scores faster than short game success. Second, all golfers can improve their short game skills. It only requires the correct techniques and practice. Not all golfers have the ability to hit long drives. Third, because everyone can improve their short game it builds confidence to tackle the long game with greater optimism and less pressure to succeed.

Before we actually start I want to tell you that I have never had an original thought about golf. That may be true about life. :-) Everything I know I have learned from those who came before me. I may package it a bit differently but the fundamentals are already there. I suspect that what they taught me they learned from someone else.

O.K. here we go.

Putting is all about speed. Period. Until you can control the distance you hit a putt you will never be a good putter. For some of you this will be old information but review is always good.

What is the correct speed for any putt? I've stolen this from Dave Pelz. He calculated that any putt, in order to overcome the ramp effect surrounding every putting cup, needed to have enough speed to finish 14 to 17 inches beyond the hole. Any putt hit this hard will still go into the hole. His testing supports this. The ramp effect is created by all the golfers that have played the hole you are on before you got there. It's caused by the impressions their shoes and body weight make when they tend the flag or when the reach into the cup to pull out a putt they have holed. If you are the first group to reach a hole since the cup was changed there will be no ramp effect but the a putt that still leaves you 14" from the hole should be easy to hole. All of my putting instruction is based upon you being able to learn to hit every putt 14 to 17 " beyond the hole.

Now a very brief discussion about break. The amount a putt will break is determined by how hard the putt is hit. A putt that just barely falls into the hole will have more break that one where the putt hits the back of the cup. When a pro asks his caddy to help him read the break the caddy makes his recommendations based upon how hard his pro hits his putts.

Here is a game I learned when I was back at David Leadbetters in the early 80's. It's the hardest putting game I know and the most effective. Just yesterday one of my better players and I created a modification that we think will help. The game is called "10". You find or create two cups about 15 feet apart. A slightly uphill/downhill putt is preferred. 17" from the rear of the cup you place a marker or stick a tee into the ground. The area from the front of the cup to the marker counts. It does not matter how far left or right of the hole your putt finishes. As long as it is between the front and the marker you are good. You take three golf balls. Start at either end near the cup. You putt your golf balls to the other cup. Any time you miss you start over. The objective is to putt three balls from one end into the safe zone then go the other direction also into the safe zone. Then three more into the original direction and finally one ball back the other way until you have made 10 consecutive putts into the safe zone.

Here is the modification. If you are unsuccessful in your second attempt at the original distance then move the rear markers out 2 feet, so that you have increased the size of the safe zone. Then try again. You continue to move the markers out until you are able to get 10 consecutive putts into the safe zone. Once you get 10 putts into the safe zone then start to move the markers back in. With this modification you can practice this drill for an hour without wanting to break your putter. I guarantee that repeated practice with this drill will make you a better putter.

Part two in a couple of days.

An exploration of the Mental side of the Game

I'm not sure where this discussion is going but lets start with a definition of what I mean by the mental side of the game and perhaps life itself. Please keep in mind that this is just my opinion, your mileage may differ. With that is mind here we go:

MENTAL is the exercise of your free will to control your emotional reaction to events that either are or may be occurring on the golf course at some future date or took place some time in the past. A future date could be anywhere from the next second to infinity. Past events also stretch to infinity. (Non golfers may substitute life for golf course :-) )

Let's talk about the golf shot that was just hit. Here are the questions I ask myself if the shot doesn't produce the results I wanted. All of these questions are designed to lead me to a logical conclusion not an emotional one.

1. Was the shot the right shot for me? Is it a shot that I could execute 80% of the time? If the answer is no then I stop the analysis right there and resolve to try to make better shot selection. If the answer is yes then the questions go on. I am saying that if I can't make this shot 80% of the time I NEVER attempt it. So if I only hit 10 of 14 fairways with the driver it stays in the bag until I can hit 11.2 of them. We will deal with this more under course management.

2. Did I go through a complete pre-shot routine including shot visualization before I made my swing? The same process used in #1 now occurs if no then I stop the analysis if yes then I go on.

3. How many swing thoughts did I have? Anything more than one is a no-no

4. Did I give more value to this shot than any other shot I had made this day?

Please note that the process for fixing the "mental" side is the same that I use when I'm practicing. I fix the most important things first and only one at a time. I'm always trying to come to a meaningful conclusion rather than the "I hit a crappy shot".

5. Was I focused on something other than golf? Was this something a something that I could change right now? For example was I thinking about a business deal or a relationship that was a little "iffy".

6. Did the lack of success with my previous attempt with this shot give me doubts about the success with this swing? As long as I'm successful 80% of the time then I'm trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory because I know that I'm going to miss at least 20% of the time. The better golfer you become (btw) reduces your 20% miss rate. Touring pro's are probably in the 5% or less range.

I like to shift gears a little bit and go to the Mental side of Practice. A book I recently read gave a definition for meaningful practice

1. Have a specific goal in mind
a. Maintain the spine angle
b. Drop or swing your arms into the slot
c. Keep your chest from revolving to square until after your arms have dropped in the slot
and many more

2. Get immediate feedback
a. In a lesson that's my job
b. When you are practicing by yourself that is your job and requires great disclipine

3. Be more focused on the process than you are on results


I see all the time and I suspect you do to people who are doing nothing other than getting exercise at the driving range. The hit one ball then before the first one has stopped they have dragged another on over. They do this day after day and wonder why they don't get better. They remind me of an infinite number of monkeys, typing on an infinite number of typewriters trying to write King Lear. People who are actually working on their game are going to hit bad shots. It's part of the learning process


Speaking of practice. I need to head there now. More next time.

What I hope this blog will be about

I've been in golf since I was 12. I'm now 71. I've been a professional for the last 24 years. The last 3 as a full time instructor. I want to share the things I've learned down through the years and am still learning from my present students. Some days I may say something profound and others not so much. Let me know how it reaches you.

Golf has 4 major components
1. The long game
2. The short game
3. Course management
4. Mental

The better player you become the more important the Mental becomes until it becomes almost 90%.