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This article, written by Ozzie Carlson, appeared in the Bergen Record 2007 series
Fixing Your Game
Title: Spin in Place for Better Ball Flights
We saw it last week in the US Open during those quality replays of Cabrera and Tiger. Swing after swing Cabrera was spinning in place to a balanced finish while Tiger’s misplayed shots into 11, 12 and 14 were out of balance because of a changing spine angle.
Johnny Miller’s analysis showing Tiger squatting and moving out of position was fabulous. He showed us precisely why Tiger is having to grind so hard over every shot. Tiger is not spinning in place consistently. I find this to be a very common problem with most golfers. All too often we tend to move our spine angle up/down or side-to-side when we spin, which robs us of ball flight predictability and accuracy.
So let’s take a look at Strike to learn the keys to spinning inside the barrel. First, we need a balanced set-up. You will notice via the vertical dotted lines that Strike’s butt is behind his heels as far as his eyes are in front of his toes, thus tilting his spine (cylinder) so that it is perpendicular to the shaft of his club. This balanced tilt makes room for his arms to hang relaxed and straight down from his shoulders – Strike is balanced in his set-up- the first key to spinning in place.
Now, notice his pivots, the green ball joints at the top of his thigh bones. The next key to spinning is place is understanding the relation of your two pivots to each other and to controlling your power. To get your pivots to work together as a team, you must activate the muscles up the insides of your legs by squeezing your knees slightly together and “digging-in” with the insides of your feet. You now have a stable base on which to spin powerfully.
During the backswing, and this is most important, the pivots work in straight lines, not in a circular motion. As you start your backswing, the right pivot turns away slowly as though on a curtain rod aligned perpendicular to your target line, while your left pivot moves diagonally away from the target, to precisely where the right pivot was at address(black arrows). This linear spin of the pivots while digging-in with the right instep facilitates a full weight transfer to the inside of the right heel with absolutely no sideways movement of your head or torso.
During the downswing we reverse the direction of this spin motion. Strike’s right pivot moves diagonally toward the target to replace the left pivot, while the left pivot spins powerfully away on its own curtain rod. Note: to spin in place, you must spin on the inside of your left foot, which is flared out ¼ turn at address and on an absolutely straight left leg.
When we spin our hips and torso powerfully in place, on the right rod/right leg axis away and on the left rod/left leg axis through, with no up/down change of spine angle and no side-to-side movement of the hips, the club returns to impact consistently on path toward our target. It is this linear movement of the pivots, working together as a team that transfers our weight fully from foot to foot so that we are spinning on only one axis at a time.
Learning to spin in place is a big step to straighter, longer and more predictable ball flights. I cannot over estimate the value of a balanced set-up as the first step toward getting the feel of spinning in place.
Golfstruck – Better Golf -Right Now!
17 Aug 2010
This article, written by Ozzie Carlson, appeared in the Bergen Record 2010 series
Scoring From ½ Wedge Distance
One of the questions I am most often asked is how do I feel and control distance from less than a full wedge shot away. My first answer is don’t put yourself in the “throw-up zone.” You need to avoid those 30 to 70 yard shots by laying up to a more comfortable full wedge distance.
This past week I had the great pleasure of playing golf with two of my former Ramapo players. James and Brian’s 300+ yard drives consistently split the fairway, but often left them at less than full wedge distance to the green. Recognizing that perhaps they shouldn’t have hit driver, they asked, now that I am at less than ideal distance, what should I do? What I have found to hold up in the heat of battle is the following method of feeling and controlling distance, trajectory and spin – so you can get close enough to one-putt.
Think of your left hip joint (left pivot) as the center of a bicycle wheel (right handed golfers) and your arms as spokes attached to the center of the wheel at the elbows. Now think of your clubhead as the rim of the wheel. To get your clubhead to travel through an arc, simply turn the center of your wheel – the left pivot – away from and through to your swing target, or intended finish position.
How far and how fast you turn your left pivot away and through to your intended finish position will determine the length of your swing arc and the amount of clubhead speed you deliver. The more speed you deliver the farther the ball will go, and conversely.
There are teachers who suggest that you gauge the length of your backswing to control your distance, but I have never found a player who uses that method to be any good, particularly under pressure. That would be like trying to drive your car to somewhere while looking backward over your shoulder. Good Luck!
The beauty of feeling your arms merely as spokes in a wheel is that your elbows stay connected to your left pivot (the center of your wheel) rather than wandering around on their own. When they stay connected (turn together), you will consistently make solid contact. No more chunking and sculling these difficult shots.
The art of learning to control your distance is coming to understand and feel how far and how fast to turn your hips. So start each shot by asking the golfer’s question: where do I have to finish to land my ball at that precise distance.
Then, simply focus on your intended finish position (now you are driving your car with your mind on where you are going), and turn your left pivot away from and through to there. Always observe your finish position so that you can learn from each shot; i.e. did I swing “connected” to my intended finish at pendulum speed, did the ball land where I expected?
Using this method you will soon learn the feel of motion required to land your ball at different distances. And more importantly, your clubhead will naturally be accelerating at impact, so you have the benefit of gravity and centripetal force keeping it in the arc for you.
In the 40 – 70+ yard range, simply choke down on the grip of your wedge, narrow your stance and adjust the speed of your left hip spin to control how much speed you deliver. By focusing on the speed of your hip spin and feeling “connected” at the elbows, you will find that your hands/arms/shoulders can relax sufficiently to develop “touch.” When James and Brian develop touch, look out world!
Golfstruck – Better Golf – Right Now!
Aug 24, 2010
This article, written by Ozzie Carlson, appeared in the Bergen Record 2010 series
Reading the “ridge greens” at Ridgewood
Seldom has a country club been more appropriately named. Strolling among the towering, majestic Oaks of Ridgewood, one gets the feeling of oneness with the universe. Yours truly, a former Assistant Professional at Ridgewood, wouldn’t miss this one for the world.
The “ridge,” the other geographical feature of this magnificent A.W. Tillinghast layout, runs spine-like from north to south right through the middle of the course, significantly influencing no less than 10 of the 18 greens played in this week’s tournament. Reading these “ridge” greens will pose one of Ridgewood’s greatest challenges for the world’s top 125 players.
The greens built into the East side of the ridge break markedly toward Route 17 (3,5,9,10,11,12,); while those built into the West side of the ridge break mildy toward Bergen Community College (14, 15, 17 & 18). As you watch the players try to read the “ridge effect,” after just a few groups, you will become pretty adept at predicting on which side of the cup they are likely to miss.
But Ridgewood is not just about its greens. Ridgewood is a shotmaker’s golf course. Both planning and executing shots that provide the best approach to pin positions will make or break the players on the course. So lets take a brief tour of this week’s layout – a composite of the three nines at Ridgewood: East, Center and West.
We start on 1-4 East where players must get off to fast start on these, the best birdie opportunities of the day. The players first warning signal, however, comes on the par five third hole where this deep and narrowly canted three tiered green that breaks severely toward rte. 17 will leave the uninitiated player shaking his head.
Next we skip to Ridgewood’s signature hole, a drivable par four with the smallest green in major championship history (#6 Center). This two-tiered postage stamp of a green also poses a reading nightmare with putts breaking devilishly and in the opposite direction they seemingly should.
Picking up a shot or two on #’s 3-5 Center played as 6 through 8 would be welcome, indeed.
The next stretch of holes #’s 5-7 East and 2 Center, played as 9 – 12 is the backbone of this layout. The players who avoids giving strokes back to the course here, all four days, may well find himself standing in the winners circle on Sunday. Hitting fairways with long and well placed tee shots is a requirement to play shots into these severely sloped and very demanding multi-tiered greens.
With no let up in sight, # 13 (4 West) is a par five stretched for this tournament to well over 600 yards. Miss the fairway here and you bring mounds covered by thick, gnarly, matted grasses grown to 15” in length, into play.
The 14th (5 West) requires a lay-up from the tee for a 150 yard uphill approach to an 6 tiered green that may well be the best designed green in all of golf. There are three tiers from front to back and three more from left to right. So the player, to avoid three putting this monster, must play to the right of and below the hole – which could require a draw or a fade to a very small target.
#16 is a birdie hole followed by the double dogleg uphill par 5 17th that only the very long, bravest and most accurate of players will even try to reach in two. For those laying-up, ego must be put aside in order to lay-up to full wedge distance to this smallish but severely right to left and back to front sloping green. Bogey or worse here, will be all too common.
The 18th (9 West) is one of the best finishing holes in golf. It requires a long fade from the tee. Interestingly, #’s 9 and 18 are the only fades required all day. Hitting a mid to long iron to this uphill spine divided green suggests – good luck if you need a birdie here to get into a playoff.
If the greens get firm and fast this week, 10 under could again be the winning score.
This article, written by Ozzie Carlson, appeared in the Bergen Record 2007 series
Fixing Your Game
Article 1: Title: Buying a Better Game
As we anticipate the upcoming “this is my year” golf season, barraged once again by the latest and greatest of innovative technology, our tendency is to rush out and buy that new tool that will provide that oh so important competitive edge.
With Golf Digest’s January evaluation/ranking of some 1500+ new clubs – in hand, we parade through our favorite golf shops looking to inspect, feel and yes, test, all the new equipment. With manufacturers hyping such terms as MOI, CoG, Torque, launch angle, tip stiffness, spin rate, milled face, raw finish and spin grooves, what should we be looking for? And how can we be assured of making a purchase that works for my game?
A word of caution here. There is a tendency among amateurs and pros alike to purchase new equipment when we are playing badly. The thought being that new clubs will fix our swing problems.
The better approach is to test new clubs when your swing is repeating with some consistency. That way you can better determine the benefit, if any, coming from the club itself.
So let’s start with your ball flights. What are you looking to do better? Discuss the pattern of your shots with a club fitting expert regarding direction(s), distance, trajectory and spin. What are your tendencies when you miss? What is the shape of your normal ball flight? Do you want it higher or lower, to quit slicing or hooking? Are you in search of more consistent distance or greater distance? Is there a specific distance you need a club for? Having trouble with your long irons? Do you need a gap wedge in your bag?
Now to the clubs themselves. We now have a square-headed driver. Who’d have guessed? Does it make sense? Yes, if you can get over the visual hurdle. But it often comes as a surprise to golfers that the single most important determinant of ball flight is the shaft.
The proper shaft should produce a high launch angle with a penetrating ball flight and a relatively tight dispersion pattern. Yet, we tend to try to buy greater distance! Here is where testing is really important. Of course field testing on the course or the range is best, but not always possible.
The alternative is in-store testing where your favorite retailer has set-up monitor and screen testing facilities to measure such parameters as spin rate, launch angle, swing speed, face deflection and distance. These measurements help us to zero in on the right torque, tip stiffness, flex point and shaft flex to best suit our swing. Faster swing speeds or whippy hand action require less torque, higher kick points and a stiffer flex, and conversely. But FEEL is still the most important criteria in club selection. If it doesn’t look and feel good, don’t take it home!
Next in importance to shaft is the length, lie angle and loft specs. Custom fitting, properly done, will benefit players at all levels. Though you may miss out on a sale or two, you will find that properly fitted clubs really do produce appreciably better ball flights, consistently.
What about hybrids? Arguably the best innovation since Gene Sarazen designed the first sand wedge back in the late 1920’s! They replace those ever so hard to hit long irons, get the ball up out of the rough and produce a higher trajectory that will hold greens.
There are many shapes, lofts and shaft specs to choose from here. Make sure you like the looks of the clubhead. Visual alignment is important, as is size of head and degree of offset. It is important that you gain confidence when you set this club down behind the ball.
The next best innovation in recent years is the gap wedge. So called because it fills a distance gap between your pitching wedge and sand wedge. For most players I recommend a 520 gap wedge when combined with a 580 sand wedge. However, if your sand wedge is 560, you may want to go to 510. The gap wedge is perhaps the most versatile of all clubs for chipping and pitching from a variety of lies, both in the fairway and from the rough. If you don’t have one, this is your next most important purchase.
One final note: yes, properly fitted equipment will produce better ball flights and improve your consistency. However, when it comes to improving your technique and your swing motion, there are no shortcuts. The balance of this summer’s series of articles will tackle our tendencies as players and help you to fix what’s wrong.
Golfstruck – Better Golf Right Now!
This article, written by Ozzie Carlson, appeared in the Bergen Record 2007 series
Fixing Your Game
Article 2: Title: Accuracy and Distance – Co-conspirators!
Players tell me all the time that they would give up distance for accuracy. But we all know that’s hogwash. We want to hit it straight and far! So how do we do that?
Fortunately for us, the most accurate drivers of the ball are also the longest hitters – the tour players. Accuracy and distance are co-conspirators. You really can’t work to achieve accuracy without gaining distance. My students discover, to their delight, that when they learn to hit the ball straight, the added bonus is that it goes farther.
Clubface: As players, we have a tendency to try to keep the face aimed at the target as we swing through. When we do, the ball slides off the end of the clubhead, which creates the sidespin that makes the ball slice. Try this: swing slow enough from impact to arrival to watch the toe of your clubhead pass the heel, thereby capturing the ball on the face so you can sling it toward your target. As you do this be sure to swing your clubhead along the target line (swing path), keeping it along the ground for a few inches beyond the ball.
Speed Delivery: Our next tendency is to prematurely thrust the right arm and right wrist to straight – prior to or at impact. This misconstrued concept of power causes a severe loss of both distance and accuracy. The better approach is as follows: Your right elbow and your right wrist (righthanders) must get to the ball still folded/cocked. Do not allow your right arm to straighten prior to impact. Rather, your arm thrusts to straight from impact to arrival – that distance beyond the ball where you must deliver the maximum speed of your swing.
And just as important, your right wrist never straightens. It remains cocked as the right forearm thrusts/rotates, so that as your right hand rotates from fingers down to fingers up, your palm (clubface) continues to face the target. To accomplish this, your left elbow must also rotate fully so the back of your left hand also continues to face the target, slightly bowed as it rotates from fingers down to fingers up.
The Magic Connection: And finally, the handle of your club and both elbows must point to the left pivot (the ball joint at the top of the left thighbone) from impact to arrival. This connection is Magic! You must return to impact with the elbows down and the club shaft at the same angle it was at address. Do not allow the elbows to “fly” or the handle to come up, thus creating a straight line of the forearms and club shaft. Now you cannot hook it, either!
When you learn to rotate/ thrust the forearms from impact to arrival – elbows down and level –with the right wrist remaining slightly cocked and left wrist slightly bowed, the ball will head along the path of your swing = toward your target. In short, you have delivered path and face along with more speed from impact to arrival. Result = you are hitting it farther in the direction you are looking!
Golfstruck – Better Golf Right Now!
This article, written by Ozzie Carlson, appeared in the Bergen Record 2007 series
Fixing Your Game
Article 3: Title: The Most Important 10 Seconds to Better Golf
What do you do after you hit a good shot? After a bad shot? These were the questions posed to Annika Sorenstam by instructor Pia Nilsson, former Director of the Swedish Golf Federation.
Like most of us, Annika responded with a fist pump after a good shot and a negative show of emotion following a bad one. (show photo of Annika in fist pump reaction). So Pia posed the next important question, what does that type of response do for your game?
Annika, a bit confused by the question, proffered – not much, I guess. But she quickly learned otherwise. Pia suggested that by attaching emotion (positive or negative) to an outcome has an imprinting effect on future performance. Let’s simplify.
Psycho golf: Getting too UP after a good shot or too DOWN after a bad one sends adrenaline rushing through the system. This has the physical effect of changing our feel and our rhythm. We tend to tense up and begin to rush our swings, even our walking pace.
But there is also a very important mental effect. We tend to change our focus. We begin to think about scoring – making up for the errant shot. By default, we get out of our routine of playing one shot at a time. Psychologically, we become impatient. And suddenly our round gets away from us. At this point we generally chalk it all up to just another bad day on the links. We don’t have bad days – only bad shots!
Post Shot Routine: What Annika learned from Pia was the importance of an effective post shot routine. You see, we learn best through immediate feedback. So when Annika learned to pose and observe her finish, i.e. what she did – not just what the ball did, she began to learn from every swing, from each shot she played.
Following a good shot, she learned to confirm the feel of a proper swing motion. Following a bad shot, she learned to fix her finish position and correct the feel of motion that produced that errant shot. Annika credits this simple change in her approach, both when playing and practicing, with her rise to the top – her consistent great play.
10 seconds to victory: The 10 seconds immediately following each and every shot we play are perhaps the most important in our quest for consistency and game improvement. If you will use those 10 seconds to confirm or correct a feel of motion, you can proceed, fully focused on how you will play your next shot. You will avoid the trap of abusing yourself for hitting such a “stupid” shot and be ready to move on to the task at hand – playing your next shot, with confidence.
Only One Bad Shot: As competitive players, we cannot afford to play two bad shots in a row. We cannot let a bad shot affect our performance on ensuing shots. We must learn to forgive ourselves for hitting a bad shot. How? By simply observing what happened and fixing it, right then and there. Take the 10 seconds to teach your misbehaving club fully what you expect of it next time. Then slip it gently back into place to rest and ponder its lesson before being called upon again.
Golfstruck – Better Golf Right Now!
This article, written by Ozzie Carlson, appeared in the Bergen Record 2007 series
Fixing Your Game
Article 4: Title: The Toughest Test in Golf – Strategy vs. Ego
Winning the US Open has become the toughest test in golf. The USGA set up Oakmont to test not just driving accuracy, but the ability of the player to place approach shots where he wanted to putt from, i.e. setting up his birdie opportunities. And finally, when he failed to do so, to test his ability to recover from trouble.
To win the US Open, the most coveted trophy in all of golf, the player must fine tune his game for the shots he will need to play on this course, adjusting for daily dryness/wetness conditions and pin locations. Once the players arrive on site, they have but a week to prepare!
At Oakmont, all trouble was not created equal. As if a par 70 stretched out to 7230 yards weren’t enough, the speed and slope of the Oakmont greens makes them legendary in competitive golf lore. Putting into bunkers is a real possibility. Getting above the hole can be a near death sentence.
Strategy counts: This week we saw three different strategies employed on the very demanding 341 yard par four 2nd hole, where, in the 1994 US Open playoff, Ernie Els and Colin Montgomerie scored a 7 and 6. Players, early in the week took the trouble out of play by laying up with an iron from the tee. Then, when the USGA moved the tee markers up for the weekend, they all used drivers hoping, should they miss the green, to catch a good lie from short right of it. The 14th was also shortened to driving distance on Sunday, making for, along with the 17th, three drivable par fours and a high level of drama and entertainment.
The famous church pew bunkers (pictured hear) that line the left side of the 3rd, 4th and 15th fairways were to be avoided at all cost. Hookers beware! Do I trust my driving accuracy or lay-up short of the church pews and test my long iron game to arrive safely on the green?
Making choices: The most dangerous 313 yards in golf! The17th, a drivable par four, is severely guarded by no less than 15 well placed bunkers, surrounded by deep rough. Ouch! Do I try to lay-up to my favorite wedge distance onto this severely sloping fairway or go for it hoping, should I miss this tiny speck of a green, that I catch a good lie in the bunker? This dangerous little hole set up to be the swing hole in the final round of the championship. Both Cabrera and Furyk bogied it on Sunday and Tiger walked away with a disappointing par.
The US Open is certainly no place for ego. The player must know his game and choose his shots wisely. Nearly every hole at Oakmont offers options. The players who consistently made the best decisions for their game and then stepped up, confidently, to play each shot, Cabrera, Furyk and Tiger put themselves in position to win,. Then, as we saw, the winner still had to make the putts. Congratulations to Angel Cabrera for hanging tough after that bogie at 17.
For us, though our weekly test is not that of US Open caliber, learning to play to where we know we will like our next shot will save us a boo coo of strokes and help us to win matches and tournaments. When we learn to play the shots we have in our bag, putting our ego aside, we will avoid the big numbers. Sometimes bogey is a good score on a hole. Bubba Watson’s triple from the deep rough on the 9th Saturday may well have cost him the Open.
Golfstruck – Better Golf Right Now!
This article, written by Ozzie Carlson, appeared in the Bergen Record 2007 series
Fixing Your Game
Article 6: Title: Understand and Deliver the Bottom of Your Swing Arc
The hot new swing on tour, as reported by Golf Digest in their June issue is termed the Stack and Tilt Swing. To learn more about The Revolution as its authors immodestly call their new method of teaching, click on golfdigest.com/stackandtilt.
The stack and tilt premise, that the bottom of the swing arc is the critical element in the golf swing, is correct. But I believe its teachers have a strangely misguided understanding of how that best happens. Since there is a curious buzz occurring throughout the golf world about the stack and tilt method, let’s understand how the body and club work best together to produce desired ball flights.
First, the bottom of the swing arc, the lowest point of our golf swing, naturally occurs directly below the base of our spine. That is where our arms naturally extend and therefore where the club head consistently strikes the ground when we swing.
Next, to get the right hand lower on the grip than the left hand (righthanders), we must tilt our spine and shoulders so that the right shoulder is slightly lower than the left. When we tilt properly, the tailbone of our spine moves slightly toward the target, thus shifting our weight a little more onto our left foot (60%). This tilt sets our tailbone into our left heel, so we strike the ground precisely at our left heel, the natural bottom of the arc
No tail wagging: If we turn naturally onto our right foot in the backswing (like a pitcher in his windup) and then step toward the target, by merely transferring our weight to our left foot, we can spin on our left leg axis and fire the right side to the target – with no sideways movement of either end of the spine – the head or the tailbone. If your tailbone stays home throughout your swing – back and through – the bottom of your swing arc, i.e. where you brush the grass, will occur opposite your left heel every time.
Alternatively, the stack and tilt swing has you leaning on your left leg throughout your swing to keep your head still, while the tailbone moves side to side. It is far more natural and easier to leave your spine (your center of gravity) in place as you learn the feel of turning away and through 1st, around your right axis and then transferring your weight onto your left axis BEFORE you spin through. Which is why I don’t think we’ll see the stack and tilt guys beating the best players any time soon.
Ball Position: Now that we know where the natural bottom of our arc occurs, we know precisely where the ball should be positioned for each of our clubs:
The Driver: Position the left heel opposite the back of the ball with a little wider than shoulder width right foot stance so the bottom of the arc occurs ever so slightly behind the ball, so you strike the ball just as the clubhead starts its upward ascent.
Fairway Woods and Hybrids: Place left heel opposite the back of the ball with a gradually narrower right foot stance as the club shaft gets shorter, so you brush the grass underneath and beyond and the ball.
All Irons: Place left heel one inch ahead of the ball, again gradually narrowing your right foot stance as the club shaft gets shorter, so that you strike the ball with a descending blow, thus brushing the grass or taking the divot just beyond the ball, at the intersection of your left heel and an extension of your spine.
Golfstruck – Better Golf Right Now!
This article, written by Ozzie Carlson, appeared in the Bergen Record 2007 series
Fixing Your Game
Article 7: Mastering the Wind
Every good player will tell you that his least favorite weather condition is wind. Wind is not only the most difficult of factors affecting the predictability and accuracy of ball flights; it serves to undermine one’s rhythm and normal swing motion.
For tour players, preparing for this week’s British Open generally means relearning their wind game. Which means: hitting the ball through the wind; keeping the ball down under the wind; and, holding the ball against a cross wind. Often in the British Open the players who do these best during the week, put themselves in position to win. Let’s take these one at a time to understand the adjustments we need to make to master the wind.
Through the Wind: Standing on the tee of a long par four into the wind we all have a tendency to grip tighter and swing harder – both, as we all have witnessed time and again, are near fatal mistakes. Result? We deliver a glancing blow with way too much side spin and a wildly off-line ball flight. Not good!
So what should we do? Think about this: when playing into the wind, what should our objective be – to put minimal spin on the ball. When we minimize back spin, the ball stays lower and boars through the wind with a penetrating ball flight. When we minimize side spin, the ball stays straight. How do we accomplish these worthy goals? Over years of successful play into the wind my mantra has become: Stand Tall! Swing easy! And be sure to Finish! When I swing this way, I tend to relax, stay in my spine angles and deliver my motion, unhurriedly, through to my target. This approach tends to deliver a wide, extended smooth swing arc down the target line. Result? Square, solid contact with minimal spin nearly every time. Note: I generally am the longest ball off the tee into the wind!
Under the Wind: Keeping you ball down out of the wind is the best way to know where you will play your next shot from. But only if you have a good sense of the bounce and roll portion of the ball flight after it lands. As we have watched the British Open over the years, we marvel at how well the players hit those knockdown shots under the wind and somehow judge just how far their ball will roll up onto the green.
Recently a group of young high schoolers, including Erik Skott of Wyckoff and the Ramapo golf team, returned from a golf trip to Ireland where the wind blew all week, sometimes up to 50 mph. It took only a couple of wedges blown well off course before they began running 7 irons up onto the greens. Necessity is still the mother of invention!
Technique: To play the knock down shot, take two to three extra clubs, choke down on the grip, play the ball back in your stance -slightly behind middle, and strike a downward blow against a firm left post with a slightly bowed left wrist (turn the knuckles of your left hand down). Finish low with your right knee, hip and shoulder pointing down your target line. Allow for the ball to roll some thirty yards depending on the firmness and speed of the fairway and green. Note: since the ball will roll the final 20-30 yards or more, you don’t have to fly it nearly as far, so you can take a shorter more compact, repeatable swing.
Cross Wind: I find the easiest way to keep the wind from blowing the ball off course is to turn the ball into the wind. The stronger the crosswind, the more we need to turn it. The formula I use, depending on temperature, is ½ yard of turn per one mph of wind. So a 20 mph crosswind calls for 10 yards of turn. A colder wind has more affect than a warm wind.
Technique: For starters, when learning to turn the ball into the wind, try simply adjusting your clubface position before you grip the club. To turn your ball into a left to right crosswind (right-handers), turn the face closed a couple degrees (or more depending on the strength of the wind) and align and swing normally. Observe the ball flight. Since you have imparted some hook spin to the ball the wind will tend to straighten out your ball flight. You have held your line against the wind – hence the terminology – holding your ball against the wind. For the right to left crosswind, simply open the face a couple degrees (or more) and align and swing normally. You have now put cut spin on your ball so it can hold its line against the crosswind. Note: When playing into a crosswind wind, take extra club, choke down about an inch, play the ball back in your stance and swing at ¾ power with your knuckles turned down. This will produce a lower more controlled ball flight.
Golfstruck – Better Golf Right Now!
This article, written by Ozzie Carlson, appeared in the Bergen Record 2007 series
Fixing Your Game
Article 8: Playing from Deep Rough
In this age of power golf, tour players often seem willing to run the risk of playing from the rough for the reward of having a much shorter shot into the green. The combination of 4-piece ball construction and wider grooves allows players to significantly increase the spin on the ball, even from the rough. So there is at least a chance of stopping the ball on the green, somewhere near the hole.
If you decide to play this game, beware that playing from the high grass is risky business. Any two shots could come to rest a mere foot apart and create such different circumstances that one player would have a predictable ball flight lie, while the other might be lucky just to hack it back into the fairway. For most of us, a little shorter and in the fairway is still the far wiser choice.
However, when you do find yourself knee deep in the fescue there is a technique that is critical to extricating yourself from this predicament. Last week at the British Open at Carnoustie we had plenty of opportunity to see how well the players both avoided the rough and recovered from it.
Developing Your Technique: To develop your technique, try dropping a few balls in the tall grass, somewhere out of the normal area of play on your course. Grip firmly with the last three fingers of your glove hand with the clubface open to your line of flight. As you swing, try to lead with the heel of the club, so that the toe of the clubhead never passes the heel. Push down on the handle and try to take a heel-deep divot beyond the ball. Keep you weight on your front foot throughout this swing so that your angle of attack is really quite steep.
Alignment is Critical: For right-handers, your ball will still tend to come out slightly left of where you are aligned. So align to the right side of the fairway or the right side of the green, whichever is your target. And remember, the ball will travel a significantly shorter distance than normal because the tall grass will severely slow down the clubhead speed you can deliver.
Rule #1: One final word, when in trouble, rule # 1 is to get out of trouble. So regardless of how far you are from the green, this is a place for little more than a pitching wedge. A club of lower loft will not generally get the ball up quickly enough to avoid the tall grass on the way out. When this happens, the ball is severely slowed by the tall grass and its flight drops very suddenly to the ground. Result? You’re still in trouble, but with one more stroke added to your score.
Golfstruck – Better Golf Right Now!
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