Blog

Checklists for Organized Practice

Practice sessions must be organized.

Follow these three steps: 1. Arrive with a plan, 2.Do the plan, and 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), and 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.

_______________________________________________________

Rules of Golf Changes 2019

Measuring the Size of the Relief Area 

_______________________________________________________

Covering Ground

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.

_______________________________________________________

Rules of Golf Changes 2019

Ball in Motion Accidentally Deflected

_______________________________________________________

Trying to Figure it Out?

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.

______________________________________________________

Putting Challenge for the Day

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?

_______________________________________________________

Rules of Golf Changes 2019

Replacing Ball When Original Spot is Not Known (link)

_______________________________________________________

How to Get Better at Golf

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.

_______________________________________________________

Wind Advisory in San Diego Today

In San Diego, because the weather is so good we just about play “indoor golf”. I have five trips to Scotland and grew up on a breezy coastal course in Orange County. So, I am a low ball specialist.

Today is a great day to practice or play. There is wind in the forecast. Hooray!

Think LOW. Use half shots and two or three more clubs to keep the ball low.

_______________________________________________________

Shameless Plug for Callaway

What’s in the Bag: Sergio Garcia

Let me know if you are thinking about new equipment. I have a definite opinion about the Callaway stuff and a connection at the World Headquarters in case you would like to get fitted by their world class professional club fitters.

_______________________________________________________

2019 Rules of Golf changes 

Standard for Deciding Why a Ball Moved

Click here for one of the USGA videos

Dear Bob,

What do you do with an absolute novice?

Mainly, it is always about fun and being relaxed and comfortable.

Nobody likes being uptight or frustrated.  Click on the link for an example. 

____________________________________________________

Testimonial

I’ve known Bob Madsen, PGA for twenty-five years and have spent many hours with him on the lesson tee, as well as doing playing lessons with him on the golf courses at Sycuan. His calm, simple, practical approach to teaching this often frustrating game always rejuvenates me and gets me back into a positive frame of mind. I forget the golf magazine/golf channel swing tips and quick fixes, and I come away from my time with Bob ready to enjoy the game again.  

 —Dr. Stephen Montgomery

____________________________________________________

2019 Rules of Golf changes are coming fast…

Click here for another USGA video

__________________________________________________

Winter Rye Info

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.

_______________________________________________________

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

 Robert Tyre (Bobby) Jones Jr.

_______________________________________________________

2019 Rules of Golf changes are coming fast…

Click here for one of the USGA videos

What are you good at? 

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?

___________________________________________________________

Phil, Tiger plan to donate portion of match proceeds to charity

___________________________________________________________

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.

___________________________________________________________

Rules of Golf

Couple more Definitions from the upcoming 2019 Rules of Golf.

Let’s all get out ahead of this: Rules booklets are FREE!

Penalty Area (formerly Hazard)

• Any body of water on the course
• Any other part of the course the Committee defines as a Penalty Area
• Relief with a one-stroke penalty is allowed

Relief Area

• The area where a player must drop when taking relief
• Dropped ball must come to rest in Relief Area

Swing Tip

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

___________________________________________________________

Practice Tip

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

___________________________________________________________

Rules of Golf

Couple more Definitions from the upcoming 2019 Rules of Golf. Note: if you do not know the vocabulary, you can not take advantage of the procedures.

Rules booklets are FREE!

Outside Influence (formerly Outside Agency)

• Wind, water, gravity, earthquake, animal, other objects or ball, etc.
• Any person except the player, partner, opponent or any of their caddies.

Natural Forces

The effects of nature such as wind, water, and gravity

Celebrate we will, for life is short, but sweet for certain.  Dave Matthews    Two Step

 

_______________________________________________________

Daylight savings time ends Nov. 4th. Get some evening rounds in starting now. Gold Club Super Twilight: $25-

_______________________________________________________

2019 Rules of Golf changes are coming fast…

Here are a couple of upcoming key changes to the Definitions (vocabulary)

Penalty Area (formerly Hazard)

• Any body of water on the course
• Any other part of the course the Committee defines as a Penalty Area (defined by red stakes or lines)
• Relief with a one-stroke penalty is allowed

Lost

• The status of a ball that is not found in three minutes

_______________________________________________________

To lower your scores…

Be less concerned about YOUR game.

Concentrate on being fun to play with.

         YOU will score lower, I promise.

Thank you,

Your Coach BM

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).