Golf in the No-Pro Zone

My book, not the size I expected it to be, is now available on Kindle.

Ultima

Book just about finished.

Free instruction - coming soon!

I'm working on a piece entitled "GOLF IN THE NO-PRO ZONE" that I'll publish for free.

Patience

Patience is more than a virtue, it is the answer to everything. Just wait. Don't just do something, sit there.

In golf, we talk about those who want to make something happen as opposed to those who let things happen. It's the latter, the letters, who prosper, because they have patience.

A favorite complaint among the amateur golfers I play with is 'slow play' and how exasperating it is. I try to remind them that they can leave if they don't like it, and go someplace other than a golf course. There is no clock on us. The best players are not the ready-fire-aim types like John Daly, but the "I'll hit no shot before its time" types like Hogan, Nicklaus, and Woods.

If you want to get much, much, better at golf, play more golf, practice more, work on your short game. DO NOT BUY NEW EQUIPMENT. It takes many years to accustom oneself to using the tools we have.

Is Patience the Secret of Golf? Consider this: when Angelo Argea was Nicklaus' only caddy for many years in a row, he got paid a good bit of money to go over to Nicklaus when he was in trouble and whisper the word 'Patience' to his boss. Ben Hogan was threatened with penalty strokes for taking the amount of time he took, and he told the commissioner that was just fine with him, but please tell him how many penalty strokes were assessed so he'd know how many more to shave off his score.

And a lack of patience will be Tiger's downfall. He just couldn't wait to get back to golf. He plays the Masters in a couple of weeks, and it will NOT be pretty.

Learning from TrackMan

Did my usual drill, 13 swings, one with each club starting with the 64º and ending with the driver.

Twice.

First set, tried to hit 13 shots dead straight. 2nd, used my normal draw-producing stroke.

Measured the distance lost by subtracting the average total distance with the normal stroke from the average total distance with the straight hit and dividing the remainder by the average total distance with the normal. Averaged a distance loss of 10% by trying to hit straight.

Measured the accuracy of each hit by dividing the total sideways deviation from the center aim-point by the overall distance of each stroke. Averaged an accuracy loss of 7% using my normal, draw-producing stroke.

That means that my distance gain outweighs the accuracy loss when I take my normal cut at the ball. 69% of my normal strokes landed left of the target, vs. 31% of my accuracy strokes.

My next session, I'll look at how to improve my accuracy using my normal draw-producing stroke.

Golf on TV

Watched a lot of the matchplay, got SO tired of hearing that 3-down is worse than 2-down, that this put is a must-make, that there are x holes to go, that matchplay is a different game.

No, it isn't, at least not for me. When I'm playing in a stroke-play tournament, I'm playing two matches on each hole; one vs. bogey, one vs. par. Losing a hole to par is acceptable; losing one to bogey is not.

Ping Eye2 BeCu

Just bought a 2-W set of these classics (with Rifle shafts) on spec.