|
|
This article, written by Ozzie Carlson, appeared in the Bergen Record 2007 series
Fixing Your Game
Article 9: Title: Feel a Wide Swing Arc for Consistency
There is a strong tendency among us golfers to swing the club with our arms and hands. This quite naturally occurs because we do most everything else during our day with these muscles. We trust them. They feed us, answer and dial the phone, brush our teeth, drive the car, operate the remote, etc. etc.
The problem with this approach to golf is that we collapse the width of our swing arc. And in so doing we lose both accuracy and power. Why? Think about this. In our arms and wrists we are dealing with three joints: shoulder, elbow and wrist. When we consider that each arm is operating differently during the swing that’s six joints in all.
Getting all these joints on the same page so they work as a unit to facilitate a quality golf swing becomes almost a Herculean task. So what’s the secret? Don’t try!
Instead of trying to control your swing with your arms and hands, let’s have them operating more as spokes in a wheel, where they play an important but supporting roll to the motion. They serve to keep the arc (wheel) from collapsing but do not make it turn.
Turn your merry-go-round: So how do we swing then? Try this: Stand erect with arms hanging and holding a club horizontal and sufficiently away from your body so that the handle points to your left pivot (the ball joint at the top of your left thigh (righthanders). To generate a swing arc, think of your legs/hips/torso as the center post of a merry-go-round and the clubhead as a kid who wants a ride on your merry-go-round. Now turn your center post, in place, away from and through to your target and give the kid a ride. When the arms serve merely as spokes, the kid gets a nice smooth ride. Conversely, when you start activating wrist, elbow and shoulder joints, you begin to change the arc drastically and you can make that kid sick in a hurry. So too, with your ball flights.
Passive vs. Active: Yet, if we did not have joints in our shoulders, elbows and wrists, not to mention all the joints in the hands themselves, we would not be able to swing a club well. So we do use these joints, but in a passive and relaxed roll only. They must be relaxed to respond properly to the motion of a swing arc generated by the rotation of the torso, which as we learned last week, must spin in place, tilted.
Feel Wide Away: The feel we get when our arms and hands respond to the rotation of our tilted torso is a wide arc. A wide arc away – along the ground – no lifting the club up in the takeaway and no premature cocking of the wrists. We also must feel that the clubhead swings straight away from our target – into the catcher’s mitt, as we unhurriedly spin the right shoulder and hip away at right angles to the target line.
Focus There to Go There: Now here’s the catch! When you start away, you must feel away from where you are going, which is wide along the ground toward your target. If you do not swing away from where you are going, it is highly probable that you will never go there. And if you don’t go there, your clubhead speed will never get delivered from the ball to the target. And if your clubhead doesn’t whoosh to there, for certain you ball will never get from here to there!
As we see here in the photo of Jack Nicklaus as late in his career as 2001, he still had that wide arc and focus on where he was going. That feeling of being in front of yourself @ the target is a sure sign that your arms were wide away and through in response to your torso spinning in place and tilted. He did so many things well in this swing, let’s forgive him for rolling over on the outside of his left foot!
Golfstruck – Better Golf Right Now!
This article, written by Ozzie Carlson, appeared in the Bergen Record 2007 series
Fixing Your Game
Article 10: Know Where It’s Going Before you Hit It
For the competitive player, we need to KNOW where the ball is going to go BEFORE we hit it! For the rest of us, we say that sure would be nice! So how do we know? The good player uses his set-up to accomplish the following:
a) establish his DOWN – where his club will strike the ground in relation to the ball
b) feel the direction his right side will fire – thus determining the path of his swing
c) feel where he is going – the delivery of his clubhead speed from ball to target
Why? Because these are essential to his ability to consistently produce desired ball flights.
Consider this: direction is controlled by swing path and clubface; distance is controlled by clubhead speed delivered; trajectory is controlled by the steepness of our angle of attack coming into the ball. And finally, spin is controlled by the combination of path, face, speed delivered and angle of attack.
So if we can use our set-up to:
a) establish our DOWN – we have handled angle of attack
b) determine our swing path – we can start the ball out on target
c) feel delivery of our clubhead speed – we have distance handled.
We have therefore handled three of the four determinants of ball flight before we even draw the club back. All we need do then, with our waggle, is to feel the hand action that will deliver the clubface with the attitude that will produce the draw, fade or straightness of ball flight we have visualized. We now KNOW where it’s going BEFORE we hit it.
Establish your DOWN: The following pre-determine where our clubhead will naturally reach the bottom of its arc: where our weight, handle, elbows and the tilt of our spine, specifically where an extension of our tailbone would meet the ground are at impact. So the good player uses his set-up to set his tailbone into his left heel, which sets approximately 60% of his weight into his left heel. This combination of spine tilt, weight preset into his left heel and the connection of his handle and elbows to his left post gives him the feel of where he intends to be at impact. If his weight and spine are going to be into his left heel at impact, he will therefore place his left heel where he wants to strike the ground in relation to the ball. For his irons, that will be +1” beyond the ball. For his woods, his left heel would be aligned with the back of the ball.
Fire your Right Side: To feel the path of our swing, we need to set-up to fire our right side in one direction only – toward the target. So we align our hips at the target. Everything else is aligned parallel to the target line – feet, knees, shoulders, elbows. But the hips are slightly pre-turned so that our right pivot (right-handers) is aligned slightly inside, behind and set into (up against) our left pivot. The pivots are the ball joints at the top of our thigh bones. Then we activate the muscles up the insides of our legs (squeeze knees slightly together and dig-in with the insides of our feet) to connect our pivots so they work together as a team. From this starting position we can feel in our feet and pivots that our weight will transfer from the inside of the right heel toward the left instep (the direction our pivots are aligned), i.e. directly toward our target.
Go There: Now that we can feel our DOWN and have determined our PATH, we must give our body one, and only one, decisive message as we prepare to trigger our swing motion – GO THERE! Where is there? To deliver our clubhead speed from the ball to the target we must focus our attention there – along the ground, beyond the ball, along the target line. Suggestion: always pick a target spot on the ground, beyond the ball, along your target line to line up to. This spot visually tells your body where to go! That spot should be + 6 to 8” along your target line for your wedges. Then ideally add +1” per club to move your target spot farther down the line for each longer club. With this focus you are now prepared to deliver your DOWN and your THROUGH toward your target. To start your swing, simply waggle to feel your clubface control and then swing wide away from THERE – so that your swing motion will be delivered – Through THERE – to your target!
Golfstruck – Better Golf Right Now!
This article, written by Ozzie Carlson, appeared in the Bergen Record 2007 series
Fixing Your Game
Article 11: Putt Better Than The Pros
Nearly every tour player would tell you that the most inconsistent facet of his game is his putting. Among the top ranked players this year from Tiger and Vijay to Mickelson, Sergio, Els and Goosen nobody has been exempt from long streaks of bad putting. So much so that going into last week’s PGA Championship, the final major of the season, there was no clear cut choice of who would win on those severely sloped greens at Southern Hills.
Question: So why are so many tour players, those who rely upon putting for their livelihood such inconsistent, streaky good putters? 1st, the human machine is imperfect. We are a little different each day dependant upon what’s on our mind, how we slept, what we ate and our attitude, so recapturing feel can be difficult. Next, our technique and routine are key. And finally, how we practice can make all the difference.
The putting equation is as follows: Line + Speed + Read + Performance = Result. So, if we are to make putts consistently, we need to be able to start the ball on precisely the line we select with the ball rolling true, i.e. no sidespin whatever, every time. Then we need to be able to roll it the distance or speed we intended, every time. Why?
There is a truism in putting: Every read has a speed. Which simply means that a breaking putt can be made on any of several lines dependent upon the speed at which we roll it. So to make the putt we must first determine our speed in order to read the line. What does that mean? Are we going to die it in, putt it at back of the cup speed ( 3 feet past the hole) or roll it at fall-in-the-hole speed (17” past the cup)? A bit of advice here. The hole is biggest at fall-in-the-hole speed so if you want to make more putts, develop the feel for stroking your putts at this speed.
We can see then that consistent excellent putting requires practice if we are to deliver line and speed consistently. And here is the rub. Very few players, amateurs and pros alike practice their putting technique properly. All too many of us are trying to stay still over our putts. We are trying to keep our head still by not watching the putt roll (a la Tiger and now Annika). We are trying to stay still from the waist down (like most tour players), which creates tension in the hands, arms and shoulders – a sure recipe for loss of feel and speed control.
Instead, let’s learn to putt the way the best putter of all time (Bobby Locke of South Africa) putted, let your entire body and your putter become one lever together, swinging around a fixed fulcrum (left neck for righties). Learn the feel of swinging your putter by using your feet, legs and hips so that you can keep the tension out of your arms and hands. Learn to swing away from and through to an intended finish position @ pendulum speed with no independent moving parts. Learn to swing on-line with the face square as though swinging along the arc of a Ferris wheel, not on a tilted merry-go round as the belly putters do. And learn this at home on your carpet, putting to a second coin placed 211/4 inches beyond the 1st coin (the front edge of the cup) nightly during the commercials or between innings.
Then when you get to the putting green before your round, get the speed of today’s greens by rolling 20 footers to the fringe, observing that you swung to your swing target (intended finish position) at pendulum speed. Then roll two footers over a specific blade of grass, again observing your on-line, square-face finish so that your line on the ball is rolling true. Then try making some 6 footers from all around a hole with a minor degree of slope, again observing your finish position and the true roll of your ball, every time.
Note: In order to observe your finish position and the true roll of your ball, set-up with your eyes in the 3rd Eye Position. That is tilt your head, with both eyes on-line and immediately behind the ball, sufficiently toward your target cup to be able to observe your finish and the initial roll of the ball without moving your head.
Golfstruck – Better Golf Right Now!
This article, written by Ozzie Carlson, appeared in the Bergen Record 2007 series
Fixing Your Game
Article 13: The Playoffs – Golf’s Marathon
As we grow up in the game of golf, we all have to learn how to prepare our game for competition. Whether it be a one-day junior tournament, the club championship, an extended golf vacation with our mates or one of the tour Majors.
Beginning this past week with the Barclays Classic at Westchester, the Fedex Cup has created a whole new level of competition akin to the playoffs in any other sport. To win the $10 million pot of gold at the end of the rainbow the players must, for the first time in golf history, prepare their games for a four week marathon of competition.
We all know how difficult it is to get our games to peak at just the right time for one important tournament. Now think about the challenge of maintaining that edge over a whole month of events!
Last week at the Barclays the PGA tour’s fitness trailer was abuzz with activity. As players hustled through their workouts, I asked Head Conditioning and Fitness Trainer, Mr. Scott Riehl, a former resident of Wyckoff, who on tour is in the best golf shape and how that might affect the outcome of the playoffs.
His response was interesting. A high percentage of players on tour now have regular regimens for their before and after round workouts, which change periodically in order to keep their bodies balanced. Those who are well into balanced body conditioning, he believes, will have the advantage primarily because the golf swing generates such an unbalanced, one directional strain on our bodies. This strain, over time, creates tightness, stiffness, soreness, even pain – the bane of every player. When we lose flexibility, we lose rhythm – the flow of motion – the glue that connects all our moving parts into that beautiful sequence of motion.
Naturally Scott was reluctant to make any predictions. Hey all these guys are his clients. But me, I watched swings carefully on the practice tee. Surprisingly, there aren’t many that are not fundamentally flawed in one way or another. I think we’ll see the winner come from that small group of players who have learned to swing well within their ability, who manage the course and themselves well, and who have been in training for this event all season.
The usual suspects who always seem to rise to the top in the Majors come to mind, but in addition I like some of the young players to make their mark here: Jonathon Byrd, Nathan Green, Mark Wilson, Heath Slocum and rookies Doug Labelle and Brandt Snedeker. They are all fundamentally sound, have a good head on their shoulders and are in sound golf shape.
We all know Tiger took the week off, willing to spot his fellow competitors the points earned at the Barclays, for the need to rest and prepare his body for the next three in a row. Here we have arguably the best conditioned player in the game not wanting to stumble coming down the stretch in the final event – because he simply ran out of gas.
So how do we prepare for up coming events? First of all, let’s not overlook the need for proper rest and nutrition. You must fuel your machine or it simply won’t go. Next is a workout program that 1st warms up the muscles aerobically prior to stretching them. Then let’s work on the stretches that promote full rotation and flexion around our joints, always starting from the ground-up: ankles, knees, hips, shoulders, neck, elbows and wrists. I learned during the off-season that we must always work in all three planes of motion to develop a balanced body with full range of motion: front-to-back, side-to-side, and transverse or rotational.
Now our body is ready for the day’s work: swinging the golf club. Counting practice swings, short game and putting, tour players make some 300 to 500 swings a day. Up until now perhaps their lives seemed glamorous. It is when you are winning! The rest of the time it is really hard work. The mental strain of competition is often overlooked as much as the need for proper care of the machine that swings the club.
One thing for sure: the winner of the Fedex Cup will be no fluke. He will have earned his place in the spotlight over not just a month of competition, but a full year of preparation that includes, importantly, time off to recoup both physically and mentally.
Vijay Singh, pictured here, is considered The Marathon man on tour. He plays more events and puts in more hour of practice than anyone else. So obviously he is a favorite to win it all. But does he take enough time off to be mentally and physically at his peak down the stretch? We’ll see!
Golfstruck – Better Golf Right Now!
This article, written by Ozzie Carlson, appeared in the Bergen Record 2007 series
Fixing Your Game
Article 14: Short Game Magic
As I sign off for the 2007 summer golf season, my fifth of writing this column for The Record, let’s talk about the importance of what we refer to as the short game.
To me, the chipping/pitching and putting game, the scoring part of the game, is the most interesting and fun to practice – when we know how.
Think about this: the leading tour players average missing 5 -7 greens per round. And yet they are shooting scores of par or better. That means that they are either saving par most of the time or making a lot of birdies to make up for their missed greens. They must be consistently getting it close enough to one putt. And since they only make about 60% of their six footers, that’s pretty darn close. How do they do that, considering they are playing from all sorts of lies to often firm, fast and undulating greens?
Relaxed hands and Arms: To the amazement of most of my students, the short game is not played with the arms and hands swinging the club. The soft touch we see displayed around the greens comes from having thoroughly relaxed arms and hands. So what does swing the club?
It is only when we learn to use the lower body as the initiator of our swing motion that we can relax our hands and arms. Try this: Fill a bucket of water; assume your chipping stance, holding it by the handle with both hands and swing it along your target line without splashing any water over the sides. What muscles are you using to swing the bucket? The answer is that your arms are just hanging like spokes in a wheel and you are using the big muscles = legs, hips, torso to swing the bucket in a pendulum motion away from and toward your target. Once you have this feel, developing touch with your game from around the greens gets a whole lot easier.
To Deliver our DOWN: Next, we must position ourselves to strike a descending blow. That is, we must hit down to get the ball up – with the backspin that produces a soft shot that checks and “walks” to the hole. We don’t want that ball running away from us. So align your left heel and handle just ahead of the front of the ball. Set your tailbone into your left heel with your left neck against the back of the ball, and with all your weight on your left foot. You are now positioned to deliver your DOWN just beyond the ball.
Next, we can’t hit down unless the club gets up in the backswing, i.e. we must cock our wrists, using our right wrist and right elbow merely as fulcrums. We accomplish this by pushing down on the handle with the left hand, arm and shoulder as we turn away from where we intend to finish our swing. The wrists cock so that the toe of the clubhead cocks toward the right shoulder with the left wrist remaining flat.
Once we have learned to swing away from and through to our intended finish position, at pendulum speed, from high to low, we can begin to play different types of shots from various types of lies in the rough. The most important of these is the one I term the semi-cut shot. It works as follows:
The semi-cut shot: Our attempt here is to minimize the resistance produced by swinging our clubhead down into and through the rough so that we don’t feel that we have to swing hard just to get the ball up and out of the thick grass. We accomplish this by opening the clubface slightly so that the heel is leading the toe of the clubhead. We then weaken our grip slightly so that the “V” between our right thumb and forefinger is pointed directly at our chin. We then cock along this “V” rather than over our shoulder so that as we swing down and through, the heel of the clubhead leads the toe, “knifing” our way through the grass, thus producing minimal resistance.
Finally, and this is critical: we finish as we started, with both arms relaxed and extended, the left wrist flat and the handle pointing to our left pivot. The ONLY difference between our starting and our finish position is the rotation of our body from address position to facing the target in our intended finish position.
Golfstruck – Better Golf Right Now!
This article, written by Ozzie Carlson, appeared in the Bergen Record 2008 series
The Winners Circle
Article 4: Title: Putting Wins and Loses Tournaments
We saw it again this week at the US Open. The player who wins, putts well. The player who misses coming down the stretch returns to try again another day. And yet tour players, with very few exceptions, will tell you that the most unpredictable and inconsistent part of their game is their putting.
Why is that? To be fair, making putts requires greater precision than any other part of the game. Yes the cup is bigger than the ball, but in determining our line and speed, we need that margin of error for our read of the green.
Speed/Distance Putting: When reading a putt we must first determine what speed we intend to roll the ball. Why? Because the faster we roll it, the less it will break, and conversely. So to determine our line, we must first determine our speed. It is no coincidence that the best speed putters of all time, Horton Smith, Bobby Locke, Bobby Jones, Walter Travis, Jackie Burke, Bob Charles, Dave Stockton, George Archer, Jack Nicklaus, Ben Crenshaw, Brad Faxon and Loren Roberts were also among the best and most consistently great putters of all time.
Inconsistent delivery of speed is one of the primary causes of streaky great putting. This category would include such great players as Billy Casper, Gary Player, and yes, Tiger Woods.
On-Line Putting: Once we become good speed putters, we must become good line putters. In reality, we get no margin of error for line. To make putts we must be capable of starting the ball rolling, laser-like, along our exact read line. predictably Some of our best players throughout their careers struggled mightily with line putting. Among these were Sam Snead, Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer, Tom Watson and yes Phil Mickelson.
So what’s the problem? For a long time, as players, we have been lead to believe the myth that, “great putters are born, not made.” In other words, unless you came out of the womb with a putter in your hands, you have no chance of learning this precious skill. I don’t think so. What then, is the real reason why so few talented players have earned the label of great putters?
In my humble opinion, excellent putting requires less talent than any other part of the game. But I’m convinced, even as I watch good players practice their putting, that there exists a huge information gap – a void if you will – about excellent putting, which makes it very difficult to learn this all-important facet of the game.
So what’s the solution? If we are to make putts and win tournaments, we must develop and constantly practice a stroke and a routine that collectively deliver line and speed, consistently. In the short space of this article we can only get a start. But here goes.
The Art of Putting is to find THE line and THE speed and deliver both consistently. So the putting equation then becomes:
Read + Line + Speed + Performance = RESULT
Read the green to locate your Target Cup (accounting for slope, grain, speed, break = where do I putt to?). Unlike the target cup we see on television, we must adjust for distance as well as direction. This approach turns even the most difficult of putts into a straight and level putt.
Next, while looking at your Target Cup: Take practice swings to determine your Swing Target (where must I to swing to at pendulum speed to roll my ball to there?) Once you can feel your swing target @ pendulum speed you are ready to step up and perform.
Then, to actually make the putt, you will need to develop a performance routine that delivers your stroke a pendulum speed, on-line with the face square, from a fixed fulcrum, in a one-lever motion – to your swing target – every time.
Next week – a performance routine that delivers in the heat of battle.
Golfstruck – Better Golf Right Now!
This article, written by Ozzie Carlson, appeared in the Bergen Record 2008 series
The Winners Circle
Article 5: Title: The most important shot in the game
The six foot putt – the most important shot in the game – once again determined the outcome of the US Open. During the course of the week we constantly saw the top players fall away, one-by-one, by missing their “makeable” putts.
During the playoff between Tiger and Rocco, NBC reviewed the nine, 6-foot and under putts that Rocco Mediate missed during the four rounds of regulation play. How many did Tiger miss? Did he miss even one? So what’s the difference between hoping we’ll make the 6-foot putt and knowing we’ll make it?
To make putts on command, time and again, you need attitude – the confidence and belief you will deliver the stroke you have practiced, a consistent line and speed stroke, decisive reads, a target cup, a swing target (your intended finish position) and a performance routine that effectively delivers line and speed to your swing target, consistently and predictably. We see all of these in Tiger’s approach to putting. He does all of these so well that he constantly entertains us with absolutely unbelievable pressure putting.
Let’s focus today on what makes for an effective performance routine. For a performance routine to be effective, it must set you up properly to the ball, align you to your target, focus your attention and feel of motion on your swing target and trigger your stroke (tension free) away from and through to your swing target in the same way every time..
A well rehearsed performance routine takes on a cadence and rhythm of its own that serves to insulate your mind/body from the heat of the moment. It allows you to perform “with ice in your veins” by being so into your process that you have no time, nor opportunity to become distracted by such variables as making or missing, winning or losing.
I have successfully taught the performance routine outlined below to many players who have since become excellent putters. It works.
To simplify the process of learning this routine, I have broken it down into distinct and separate phases, so you can learn each phase in succession and then put them all together.
A Performance Routine That Delivers In The Heat of Battle:
The Set-Up Phase
Line up your (marked) ball to your target cup, precisely!
Align the putter face to ball line with putter head flat on the ground
Position the handle in line with the back of the ball
Tilt straight spine sufficiently for arms to hang free and vertically from shoulders
Place head horizontal with eyes above ball line & immediately behind ball
Tilt head toward target until you can comfortably see both the ball and the target cup
Position lead heel 1” beyond the ball, establish width of stance & set tailbone into lead heel so the natural bottom of your swing arc occurs just beyond the ball
The Grip & Alignment Phase
Place hands on Grip along the life lines behind thumb pads, i.e. facing target cup
Align feet, knees, hips, shoulders to deliver your on-line stroke to target cup
Note: aligned hip action is the key to delivering on-line shoulder motion
The Connection Phase
Connect your mind and the inside of rear thigh (forward pressure) to your swing target
Focus and feel your motion connected to your swing target
Last Look – eyes trace putt line to target cup & back – smoothly
The Delivery/Observation Phase
Trigger your stroke with entire lead side – by swinging away from your swing target while keeping rear thigh and elbow connected to your swing target
Observe Finish Position and the roll of ball – to learn from every putt!
Excellent putting is more fun! There are no shortcuts!
Golfstruck – Better Golf Right Now!
This article, written by Ozzie Carlson, appeared in the Bergen Record 2008 series
The Winners Circle
Article 6: Title: Mental Toughness – The extra Club in Tiger’s Bag
Last week in the US Open we were treated to an epic playoff battle between two very determined, never give up, players – one coming off debilitating back surgery (Rocco Mediate) and one coming off very recent and nearly crippling knee surgery (Tiger Woods).
They went an extra 18 holes capped by yet another Tiger birdie on 18 and were still tied. Wow! Both, battling their worn out bodies, produced errant shots, and miraculous shots. And finally Rocco’s back won, coughing up two pull hooks on the 19th hole, handing the trophy to a one-legged Tiger.
And while many rooted for golf’s version of Rocky – the ultimate underdog, we learned, the next day just how much fight there is in Tiger. He had played this US Open against his doctor’s will. He further damaged that same knee, putting him out for the rest of the year, requiring ACL surgery.
Tiger knew, perhaps after his knee buckled during his first round on the 18th tee (his ninth hole), that he was in trouble and shouldn’t be out there. Yet he wouldn’t quit. No excuses. No apologies. “I never thought of quitting on these people, he said, that just wasn’t going to happen.”
Earl Woods trained his son to become the best golfer of all time. It would appear that he accomplished his goal. “I promised Tiger that he would never meet a person as mentally tough as he is. He hasn’t. And he never will.” Earl Woods.
There have been many attempts throughout the history of sports to define that extra something that the great athletes seem to be able to call upon when the game is on the line. Never have we been treated to so many extraordinary moments by a single athlete as those produced by Tiger. And this US Open was indeed, his greatest achievement of them all. On one leg with no idea how far his irons shots would fly, he still beat the best of the rest.
How is that possible? And exactly how does mental toughness make a difference in the outcome?
In golf, mental toughness has all to do with the thoroughness of our preparation to play each shot – one at a time – every time – in our practice sessions. And it has all to do with practicing to put all the types of shots we will need – in our bag. Which means, to call on any particular shot in the heat of battle, we must be able to produce that shot correctly, eight out of every ten attempts – in our practice sessions.
That’s right, we can’t just turn it on, on the back nine on Sunday. If that were the case, any one of the 12 players who were within 3 shots of the lead at the turn on Sunday, could have won this year’s Open. They didn’t have the shots they needed – in their bag. One-by-one we saw them falter, on the greens, from the tee and from the rough.
So how do we develop the mental toughness that will put us in the winners circle? Accept only precision! Work on one type of shot until you get it right. Practice smart. By that I mean, practice exactly the way you intend to play. Why? Because you will always play the way you practice.
Use the same pre-shot routine to plan the shaping of your shots – to very specific targets, in practice, as you will do on the course. And when you can’t produce a shot, consistently, take a step back. Take the time required to figure it out – what must I do differently? Then work slowly and very methodically – in slow motion, until you get the feel required to produce that ball flight.
To be ready to win, you must repeat this process for every type of shot, from the winning putt on eighteen, to the first tee shot of the day. Practice your chips and pitches from all kinds of lies. Learn how the rough will affect your ball flights and what you must do to counter its effect. Practice from sidehill lies. Practice in the wind and in the rain. Learn how to get your ball from here to there – in every circumstance you expect to face in your upcoming tournament.
Mental toughness comes from proper practice, not just the will to win – though that certainly helps.
Golfstruck – Better Golf Right Now!
This article, written by Ozzzie Carlson, appeared in the Bergen Record 2008 series
The Winners Circle
Article 7: Title: Good Speed Putters Make More Putts
The debate continues: When putting, which is more important: line or speed? Let’s think of it this way: in order to determine your line, you must first determine your speed. Why? Because a slowly rolling putt will break more than one that is rolling faster. So there are actually three speeds at which a putt can be made: die-in-the-hole speed; back-of-the-cup speed; and what I call make-it speed.
At make-it speed, the ball would roll 17 inches beyond the cup. It is at this speed that the cup is the most generous. Why? Because two important factors come into play at this speed. First, the ball is rolling fast enough as it approaches the cup to hold its line. And second, not so fast that it won’t grab the inside edge of the cup and dive in. It is at this speed that the hole it the biggest, i.e. all putts from inside edge to inside edge, drop.
So if we want to make more putts, we should learn how to practice our make-it speed putting. But here’s the rub. Everyone always talks about how important speed putting is, but while writing the book on putting, my research uncovered not one morsel of information that told me how to become a good speed putter. What I did find was information about when to putt at die-in speed, i.e. when we have a difficult putt and want to leave the shortest possible second putt. I also learned about back-of-the-cup speed, which we use to take the break out of short putts or when putting uphill (and into the grain). Only Dave Pelz seemed to talk about that magic 17” beyond the hole. But nobody tells us how to actually roll the rock precisely at any one of these three speeds to holes at different distances.
Excellent speed putting, it seems, has been reserved to an exclusive club of perhaps the 10 great putters of all time – all of whom just seemed to be born with a certain magic feel. Well, I’m here to tell you, it doesn’t have to be that way. Speed putting can be learned. So let’s get started with the magic of pendulum speed.
Try this: suspend your putter by lightly pinching the top of the grip between your thumb and forefinger, allowing it to swing to and fro at its own natural speed – pendulum speed. Notice that as you broaden the swing arc the putter travels faster, and conversely.
The magic of pendulum speed is that for any given length of swing arc, Mother Nature – gravity and centripetal force – always deliver a uniquely precise speed – a different speed for each different length of swing arc.
To become a consistently excellent speed putter, your job is to get in tune with natural pendulum speed. Learn to swing your putter from a fixed fulcrum (the left side of the neck for right-handers) in a one-lever motion at pendulum speed. The true meaning of a one-lever motion is that the entire body and the putter become one, with absolutely no independent moving parts, e.g. hinging of the wrists or elbows, head movement, etc.
Though many tour players intentionally try to keep their lower body still when putting, Bobby Jones, Bobby Locke, Ben Crenshaw and Brad Faxon, among a precious few others, knew better. You see, when the lower body is held still, we must tense the hands, arms and shoulders in order to move the putter. This tension interferes with pendulum speed.
Try this: fill a bucket with water, to the absolute brim. From your putting stance, swing the bucket by its handle without spilling even one drop of water. To accomplish the required no-splash motion, you will learn to relax the shoulders, arms and hands and instead use your feet, legs and hips to swing the bucket from a fixed fulcrum. You are now learning the true feel of pendulum speed.
Next: repeat this feel of motion with your putting stroke, using your feet, legs and hips to swing the putter. Note where the putter naturally strikes the ground- this is the bottom of your swing arc – the moment when it is travelling the fastest. When putting, position the ball so that the natural bottom of your swing arc is immediately beyond the ball, so that your putter is naturally accelerating at impact. In this manner, you will not feel like you have to hit your putts – thus eliminating the tendency to involve wrist hinging.
Finally, now that you can deliver your stroke, repeatedly, at pendulum speed, you need to learn what length of arc is required for different distances. Try this: take practice swings while looking at your target cup to determine the length of swing arc you feel you will need to roll your ball to your target cup (the adjusted cup position accounting for slope, break, grain and green speed). When you believe you have discovered the precise finish position that will roll your ball the intended distance – hold it! Observe it and feel that precise finish position. You now have a swing target – a place to swing to.
Set-up to position the bottom of your arc just beyond the ball, align to your target cup, and focus your attention and feel of motion on swinging away from and through to your swing target at pendulum speed in a one-lever motion.
Then, and this is of utmost importance, hold and observe your finish position as you watch the ball roll to a stop. You must immediately determine if you delivered precisely the motion you rehearsed. Only when you observe the motion you actually delivered will you learn from each putt, so that you come to understand why the ball went where it did. As you practice you will become more adept at determining swing targets and delivering your stroke at pendulum speed, from a fixed fulcrum, in a one-lever motion – to them.
Golfstruck – Better Golf Right Now!
This article, written by Ozzie Carlson, appeared in the Bergen Record 2008 series
The Winners Circle
Title – The Demands of Royal Birkdale
So what makes a links course special? And what kinds of shots are needed to beat the course? Host, this week, to the British Open for an historic ninth time, Royal Birkdale has been voted the # 1 English course in the Open rotation. Situated on the coast in the beautiful resort of Southport, England with each hole individually nestled among ribbons of rising sand dunes, Royal birkdale is one of the all-time favorites of the players.
For this year’s event the course has been lengthened some 155 yards, but more importantly shot values have been added in the form of slopes and undulations to certain greens and strategically placed fairway and greenside collection bunkers on 16 of the 18 holes.
The real beauty of a links course is that you never really know quite what you’ll get. The coastal weather can be very unstable and the wind direction can change with the ocean tide. The layout is treeless so the wind blows all the way down to ground level affecting even the roll of the players’ putts. Collection bunkers dot the landscape, often in seemingly strange places, at least until the wind direction changes. The half hidden greens are best approached from only one side of the fairway so an errant tee shot can quickly lead to a bogie or worse. So regardless of the weather, one thing is for sure; the revised Royal Birkdale will most certainly present a true test of shot making skills.
So strategically, what can we look for from the leaders this week? Though the course will play longer this year, nearing 7200 yards, driving accuracy rather than length off the tee will be the determining factor in scoring opportunities. The many new and well-placed fairway bunkers will force players, once in them, to lay-up to their favorite wedge distance. So if the wind blows, look for this year’s winner to come from among the best of the lay-up artists, most accurate wedge players, and the player who consistently converts his short putts.
The Successful Lay-Up: Always remember rule # 1: when in trouble, get out of trouble. In his last British Open at St. Andrews we saw none other than the great Jack Nicklaus take four strokes to get out of a fairway bunker, finally electing to play out sideways. The successful player this week must know his game and keep his ego in check.
When in trouble, a player needs to ask himself two important questions: where do I want to play my next shot from; and do I have the shot in my bag that will get my ball from here to there? When determining where you want to play your next shot from, consider your lie, what trajectory in required (to get over the bunker lip) and what type of shot you could successfully produce eight times out of ten tries. Also when laying-up – to where you will like your next shot – remember to figure how far your ball will roll after in lands so that you wind up with the best angle into today’s pin position.
The Wedge Game: Often a player fails to consider laying-up to get out of trouble because he doesn’t have confidence that he can get the ball close enough from lay-up position to one-putt, thus saving his par. On a links style course the players must prepare to play lower trajectory shots into sloping greens so firm that the ball may well run half way across the green. Those who can make this adjustment quickly and with accuracy will be left with makeable putts. The ability to play this approach shot well may be the single most important factor in Tom Watson’s five British Open victories, one of which was at Royal Birkdale. Yet, even the vast majority of tour players shortchange themselves on practice time devoted to the feel of successfully producing this all-important recovery shot.
Converting Makeable Putts: Finally, nothing is more discouraging in golf than failing to make our short putts. So we all must invest a significant % of our practice time learning to make these scoring putts. Those who learn to like practicing from six feet and in – win tournaments! Though getting off the tee well is important, that old adage, “drive for show and putt for dough,” still holds true.
Golfstruck – Better Golf Right Now!
|
|
