Saturday, February 28, 2009

Hand-eye coordination

When all is said and done, hand-eye coordination is the key to making a good golf stroke. Most of us are way too adept at the eye part, and way too lax about the hand part.
Because I was trained as a pianist from an early age, I have what is called "good hands." And yet, I have to carefully remind myself to become aware of the sensations in my hands in order to execute the best golf strok of which I am capable.
I suspect this is true of others, but I can't be sure.

Friday, February 27, 2009

Intensity

After watching TW fall to TC in the 2nd round of the Matchplay yesterday, and noting his smile when he said "I lost" I got to thinking that the intensity Woods once had is gone. And it will not return.
Having climbed the mountain and paid a fearful price, in pain and doubt, I believe that Tiger's quest to surpass Nicklaus' record in majors will not be successful. He's matured beyond the boyish single-mindedness and begun to THINK about the value of records. 65 wins before your 33rd birthday, against stronger fields than anyone before him, and now, as he ages, and endures the highs and lows of parenthood...there's no way he can compete with the same fire in his belly.
Yes, and one more thing...he's now the second most successful multiracial citizen of the United States!
But there's more. Watching TWs swing in SloMo I was struck, again, by the extreme downward shift he uses to start the downswing; he keeps his spine angle, but comes down about six inches by flexing both knees. It's the key to his swing, and it's a move that is fiendishly difficult to repeat without lots and lots of practice. When he overdoes this, it's FORE RIGHT...yesterday, that took him O.B., and probably cost the whole match.
Well, when that happens, it has to affect his confidence. He is human. And now he's shown Tim Clark up close and personal -- and the rest of the pros in clear relief -- that he's all to human.
That doesn't make him any easier to beat, and he's still the best golfer in the world, off his record, but it gives 200 other great golfers hope that, if Tim Clark can take him down...

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Deep thinking about shotmaking

In a competitive pro career that started in 1930 and ended in 1971, Ben Hogan was acknowledged as the best scorer of his time, the man who could analyze a course and shoot a number.
He had either zero or two holes-in-one on Tour, and he said that he might have had more if he'd aimed for the flag, but that was something he RARELY did.
Huh? The best scorer of his day, maybe of all time? And Tiger Woods has 18 now in a career that is in its 11th year? 
Hogan was aiming to set up a one-putt. He understood, better than anyone else, that the game is about making the lowest score on the hole. In reference to #11 at Augusta, he said, "If you see me on that green in regulation [two shots] you'll know I made a mistake" because he figured it was easier to make a four chipping from off the green (or a three) than trying to get a long putt close.
Ya think Ben knew something you don't?
Maybe that was his secret.

It ain't necessarily so

Watch a video or film or sequence photos of any top player and it's obvious that there is a decided shift of the hips toward the target (roughly -- there are no straight lines in human movement in 3space) takes place as the downswing starts. This is what observers, including teaching pros, have seen for decades, in person and on film and video. So the idea formed, and has become Holy Writ, that the hips -- or the lower body in general -- lead the downswing.
Well, that's true enough, but it leads to an erroneous and hard-on-your-back conclusion, that you should make that move to start the forward stroke.
In reality, what happens is this. The accomplished player -- the golfer, as opposed to the hack -- reaches the top of the backswing in very good balance. He knows intuitively that he has to move the club away from the target to get to the back, or back-inside, of the ball, and moves his hands, which hold the club, away from the target.
That movement threatens the delicate balance of the backswing. Being an athlete, the golfer keeps his balance by countering the move of his hands with a move of the hips.
That hip movement, in turn, pulls the hands toward the ball. At some point before the arms have reached a horizontal position, the golfer begins uncocking his hands, which sends the clubhead forward and around...and that movement is compensated by a rotation of the hips that, again, maintains the golfer in balance. But the thing very few people understand is that the hand move sets up the whole sequence - first the hands, then a little shift, which works on the hands again, which feeds back into the body to make it turn...
In other words, if you don't TRY to do anything more complicated than keep in balance, all you have to do is start the hands in the proper direction and then release the club EARLY ENOUGH.
Teachers talk about a late hit because they see a late hit in pictures, but when hackers try to hit late, they don't hit early enough! By the time you feel your wrists start to uncock, the ball has been struck.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

How to bias your game

I am in favor of bias over balance. The main tradeoff in golf is between power and accuracy. The simple truth is undeniable...the faster the clubhead is moving, the harder it is to meet the ball with the percussive center of the clubface, better known as the sweetspot. 
Now some of us are gifted with the talent to get the clubhead moving faster than average, some of us are only averagely talented, and some of us -- about a third of all golfers -- can generate significantly less clubhead speed than the average player.
Long ago, in the wood & balata era, the USGA designated the distance a male scratch or zero-handicap player, the mythical par shooter, can hit the ball with a driver as 250 yards; female scratch players were presumed to be able to move it out there 220 yards. The male was also presumed to be able to hit his longest fairway wood (a spoon, or 3-wood) 220 yards, so the maximum length of a par-three hole was set at 250 yards (driver for a scratch player) and 470 yards as the maximum length of a par-four (driver and spoon).
Let's say there's a male golfer today who can manage an average drive of about 240 yards -- below average ability. There are two schools of thought:
1. Below average distance - correct by body-building, training, equipment changes, practice, effort. In other words, shore up your weakness.
2. Below average distance - compensate by working on accuracy, short-game, game-management, trajectory control.
If you read the popular magazines, the front cover most months promises something inside that will give "10 more yards" or "15 yards further" or "gain 25 yards in 25 minutes" or something else along that line. It amounts to some change in technique, equipment, or conditioning that will give you more clubhead speed.
And reduce your accuracy.
Well, that's all well and good if your concern is selling magazines, books, training aids, conditioning programs, technical 'breakthroughs', golf clubs and balls. As Charles Revson, of the Revlon cosmetics company used to tell his employees, "we're not selling cosmetics, we're selling hope". Hope you can believe in...works for some.
But, if your goal as an individual is to lower your golf score and get 10 more smiles/round, and put your friends' money in your pocket, you need to embrace the suck. You don't have the talent to hit it significantly further than you already do. NOTHING will give you so much as ONE FREE YARD. You are like everyone else who plays golf, from beginners to the best players in the world. There is no free yardage. It costs accuracy.
Who cares how fast he or she can swing a clubhead when you're on the green faced with a 20-foot putt? Or facing a pitch over water, or an escape from a bunker? My mother, if she hadn't died 35 years ago in her 70s, was strong enough to make any of those shots. She never played golf, but she had enough strength. So does my 10-year old grand-daughter. She doesn't play golf either, but she can dance, each with utensils...
There is only ONE longest hitter in the world at any time. That's the guy who wins the latest long-drive contest. His need for accuracy is minimal.
There is only ONE best player in the world at any time. It's the guy who wins the latest professional golf tournament. It doesn't matter if he scores 10 under or 10 over par for four rounds, so long as he turns in the lowest score, he's the "Champion Golfer of the Moment."
As of today, that's Dustin Johnson, winner of the 2009 Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Tomorrow, he may be the champion again, because today is Saturday and the 2009 Los Angeles/Riviera C.C. tournament is scheduled to finish on Sunday, and he's in the field.
No, you don't really expect to add 10 or 20 or more yards, do you? Even if you understand that you can't get them for free?
The way to lower your scores is the same for you, me, Tiger Woods or Dustin Johnson. You have to use whatever tools you own, including your physical endowment, or talent, and play each hole as efficiently as possible, making the lowest score you can and avoiding making any large scores.
That means you have to learn to maneuver the ball; you can hit with any given club at average height, higher or lower; you can hit straight, left-to-right or right-to-left. Combine the three heights with the three trajectories and you have three times three, or nine different shots you can hit with any club.
Let's take the 7-iron for example. If I hit a shot at "normal" height and straight, I can carry that shot about 125 yards and watch it roll out another 10...135 in all. If I hit it higher, it will carry 5 yards less and roll 5 yards less, 125 in all. Lower, and it will carry about 130 and roll 15, 145 in all.  If I hit it right-to-left, my draw or hook shot, I can count on adding 5 yards each of carry and roll to the straight distance, and if I hit it left-to-right, I can subtract 5 yards each of carry and roll. So, a straight shot will be at a minimum of 125 yards carry and roll, and a maximum of 145.
A draw will push the maximum up to 155, a fade or slice will cut the minimum to 115. 
THAT'S 40 FUCKING YARDS, PEOPLE. And that says nothing about the lie, the wind, the elevation change, rain, heat, cold...or, for that matter, variation in expended energy.
OHANDBYTHEWAY, the stronger a player is, the wider the gap between the maximum and the minimum. 
The next post will present the algorithm to lower your scores.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Feeling the swing

If asked to feel something, I use my hands. That's what they're built for, with more sense receptors in the fingertips than anyplace else on the body, inch for square inch.
But what we really use to feel things is our brains. The sense receptors are activated, send signals to the brain, we interpret said signals and "feel" things.
Just fine for feeling a lump of clay or the surface of an apple. But if you're 'getting the feel' of a golf club that you're swinging up and back around your body, then forward, you're using your sense of the weight of the club relative to your hands. And receiving the neuro-electric information and interpreting it takes time.
Indeed, by the time you feel just where the clubhead is (aside from the address position, when you can look at the thing) it isn't there anymore.
Soooooooo, what we all have to do is pinpoint the thing we WANT to feel that allows us to make a good, efficient, stroke at the ball.
Once you get that, you build the rest of your routine about that last feel.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

My little secret

I find it difficult to impossible to completely empty my mind, but I've learned to do something that allows me to make a stroke - not really a swing - without having words in my brain.
After I've visualized the flight path of the ball and set up in a way that will produce that (based on several million ballstrikes in my past), I look at the ball and start counting the dimples. While I'm counting, which takes some amount of concentration to actually focus on the dimples, without any further thoughts about anything - not my body, my hands, the shaft, the clubhead - the stroke takes place.
Sometimes, maybe once or twice per round, everything goes according to plan. Since that's about as well as Jones, Hogan, Woods, Nicklaus ever did, I'm content.

Monday, February 2, 2009

Learning

Any time you hear someone who seems to have all the answers, you can be sure he's not getting any better at golf (or anything else, if there is anything else).
Either you're learning something new, refining what you already knew, or getting rid of something you thought was true, OR you're getting worse.
That's why we practice, and play. Either one, done with an open mind and a committment to be committed, allows learning.
Learning gives own knowledge. Knowledge is power. Power corrupts.