Category: Uncategorized

Practice sessions must be organized.

Follow these three steps:

1. Arrive with a plan.
2. Do the plan.
3. Leave feeling good.

This policy for organized practice is simple to understand. Really though, only well trained tournament players of all ages are good at staying organized for an entire practice session.

Staying organized requires:

1. Adequate stamina (including being well fed and rested)
2. Adequate attention span (this is built up over time)
3. The ability to fend off distractions.

Today, I am most concerned with the latter. You must be able to fend off distractions in order to run an organized practice session.

Distractions come from all over. Buddies appear and want to show your their new driver. They come along and want you to out and play. they want to chit chat. You have to get back to the office. Your smart phone is after you. The amateur next to you wants to “help” and starts sharing some key or pointer that has nothing to do with the lesson content you’re there to work on intently. Threats to your practice session’s organization are everywhere. To the degree that you allow your plan to get derailed, you will not get better.

Use the checklists above to help you get better faster. I want your lessons to really pay off.

Golf may be boiled down to just two things: covering ground and holing out. That’s it.

In my book Easy Bogey, How to Break 90 I describe in detail exactly what it takes.

To break the 90 barrier, practically no firepower is required. All you have to do is cover little bits of ground and do a decent job of holing out once you are in neighborhood of the cup. It’s really pretty easy.

Regardless of your golfing goals, you have my permission to make golf as simple as possible. Cover ground and hole out.

What do I mean by cover ground? It’s just that. It’s getting your ball down the field. It’s advancing it along. It’s reliably sending it down there without trying hard. 

We have all been tricked. We have been tricked–and tricked ourselves–into thinking golf is difficult. It is not. There is a starting line and a hole in the ground. Golf your ball until your ball until it goes in the hole. Get it?

The golf course designer does not want me telling you this: Golf is simple.

The golf course designer is not in the keep it simple business. He is in the complication business. Bunkers, dog legs, elevation changes, trees, gulleys, deep grass and water hazards are placed, built, or left in order to deceive and beguile. These features do punish errant shots causing scores to blow up.

NOTE: Did you know most errant shots are brought on by greedy course management decisions rather than swing errors?

Golf courses are beautiful places. They are made scenic by mother nature and the course architect. But they do not mean golf is difficult or serious or complicated. Golf courses consist mainly of yardage. I urge you to also pay more attention than ever to the yardage of each hole. That information–found on the scorecard or yardage marker–is given to you by the architect. The yardage is a huge tip off. It’s a road map meant to keep you from bashing away aimlessly trying to hit far. Trying to hit it far is not golf.

“Players” check out how much ground they have to cover on each hole. Hackers and dabblers neglect this step. They think of it as “far.” Wrong approach. It is never far. It is an identifiable amount of ground to be gobbled up in well thought out realistic bite size pieces. 350 is not far. It’s 350. Using your skill level you have to intelligently cover that yardage, Then hole out. 460 is not far. It’s 460. And so on.

By the way, yardage is measured along the ground. It is not measured through the air. I very strongly recommend worrying less about making the ball go up. Covering ground is done by advancing the ball forward, not up.

You are not going to figure out how to hit a golf ball. It is an absolute waste to rely on this hope. If you want to improve for real and have it last, you have to have drills. You have to know why you are doing them. And you have to put in the time and do the reps.

Madsen Golf and Cal Poly each prefer learn by doing.

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Putting Challenge

Get out your putter, set three balls down one club-length away from a coffee mug in the living room.

How many times in a row you can hit that coffee mug? 

No instruction. No thinking. Shear intention to hit the mug and stick-to-itiveness to stay with it for awhile.

If it’s too easy, switch to a shot glass.

Let me know how it goes. Would you?

 

Getting better at golf requires you to spend time with your clubs at the course, in your backyard, basement or local park at least.

You cannot think, buy, talk or dream your way to better golf. It requires time and effort.

An excellent coach can make sure you spend your time and effort very productively. This is the purpose of lessons. Lessons help you understand and continually remind you that you are involved in a process that takes time and effort. Lessons also undoubtedly help you speed up that process.

When your ball is nestled down a bit in rye grass, open the face a bit even if using a fairway wood or hybrid. This exposes the bounce.

The bounce offers forgiveness on slightly fat shots and helps the bottom of the club glide through the turf.

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You swing your best when you have the fewest things to think about.

 Robert Tyre (Bobby) Jones Jr.

I see it over and over again. Folks trying to do something they are not good at, getting frustrated and trying to figure out what they are doing wrong. Unproductive. 

Spend time strengthening your strengths. Practice by definition is succeeding repeatedly. What are you good at?

Care of the Course     

As you know, we are making improvements for Winter. We appreciate your patience as we punch and sand for the health of the putting greens and as we overseed with rye to keep things green for you.

As always, thank you for your care of the course efforts and for helping others remember to fix extra divots and ball marks please.

Swing Tip

Just swing. What the? How do you do that? Think pendulum. Think wrecking ball. Add nothing.

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Practice Tip

Scoring is done with partial and small shots. Spend way more time on wedge play.

 

Player moves or touches a loose impediment in a bunker when the ball is in the bunker
2019 Rule: No penalty.
Current rule: Loss of hole/2-stroke penalty (with exceptions).

We are all going to have a little studying to do before January 1. This information comes from a reliable source. I promise. If you would like, I can send you the link. My plan is to feed you little bits at a time to chew on. Let me know if you have any questions.

Dropping procedure
How to drop a ball

New rule: The only requirement is for the player to
hold the ball above the ground without it touching any
growing thing or other natural or artificial object, and
let it go so that it falls through the air before coming
to rest. To avoid any doubt, it is recommended that
the ball be dropped from at least one inch above the
ground or any growing thing or object.

The 27,000 PGA of America Club Pros were offered a chance to chime in on a survey on the ball distance issue.

Bob M voted just the opposite on all three counts. I would like to know what you think.

Below is a part of the letter we got back with the results.

______________________

Last week,  more than 7,500 of PGA Professionals responded to our survey, developed in conjunction with the National Golf Foundation, asking for feedback on the topic of distance in the game of golf. Please see the results below:

Question 1 – 68% of those PGA Professionals DO NOT believe that increases in distance are detrimental to the health of the game.

Question 2 – 81% believe that advances in golf ball technology have been BENEFICIAL to our efforts to grow the game.

Question 3 – 70% would OPPOSE a rollback of the golf ball.

Thanks again,

Paul K. Levy, PGA of America
President