Posts Tagged ‘practice techniques’

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Improve Your Putting

June 29th, 2010

I’ve used this Putting Station for years and had always planned on writing a blog post about it so here we go.  First here’s a picture of the station:

Improve your Putting

Improve your Putting

Here’s how to set this up.  If you don’t have one, go down to Home Depot or Lowes or any hardware store and get yourself a chalk line and some chalk.  That is what I used to create the red line on the ground.  You can snap a line for a straight putt or a braking putt but it’s best for this station to use a straight putt.  The two tees by the ball create a gate for the stroke to keep your contact in line with the sweetspot and helps to reinforce good aim.  They should be positioned just outside the toe and heel of your putter.  Line on the putter and line on the ground should over lap.  Make sure there is line showing beyond the back edge of the putter( it makes it much easier to line up that way).  If you don’t use a line,  intersect the line with the leading edge of your putter.  One thing this picture does not show is the putter.  The putter and ball should begin even with the first set of tees.  So, at address, the putter is right between the gate with the ball just in front of that.  The picture above is just of the tools needed for the putting station and not an accurate depiction of where the ball should go.

The other two tees a few inches in front are just beyond the width of a golf ball straddling the line.  These tees should be quite close to the width of the ball.  These tees are used to test your face angle control.  Only putts starting exactly on the line with a square face will propel the ball through the gate and on its way.

Work on this station for putts within 6 feet.  It can be used beyond that but I don’t recommend it.  You want to practice makes and distance control.  This station should be set-up in a way that every ball that gets through the second gate with decent speed goes in.

This will really show you how well you are managing the face of the putter.  That’s where the money is made.

FACE and PACE.

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Posted in Practicing, Putting

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How to Shoot 67

May 22nd, 2010

Here’s a picture of Jordan Spieth’s scorecard from today (Saturday, May 22, 2010):

Jordan Spieth's Stats for Saturday

Jordan Spieth's Stats for Saturday

Does this ball striking look familiar?  I see this type of ball striking stats in my own game and the game of some of my junior and tournament golfers.  The stat I don’t see often, with this type of ball striking, is the 24 putts needed.  This clearly shows how well he either, chipped/pitched and/or putted.  How many of you are capable of shooting 67 when hitting 4 fairways and 9 greens?

How many of you are disciplined enough to spend time away from the range and focus on your short game even after a day like this? All the time and preparation that wedge play and putting takes, shows it’s true benefits on days like this.  To be able to score well on our off days is the sign of a golfer that can win a four day tournament.

This is powerful reminder of where your practice needs to be focused at the higher levels.

As a reminder, this is from a high school golfer.  Youngest to have chance to win a PGA Tour event in a long time.

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Posted in Putting, Tournament Golf

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Golf Lessons – Good Lie / Bad Lie

March 21st, 2010

This Golf Lessons post will talk about good lies and bad lies.  What they are and how they affect shot selection around the green will also be discussed.  To accurately determine what shot to play, the first thing you have to do is determine what options you have available to you.  This begins with an assessment of the lie.  Here is an example of a good lie

Good Lie

Good Lie

and here’s an example of a bad lie

Bad Lie

Bad Lie

For me, I define a good lie as any lie where I know for sure that the club and ball will actually contact each other and a bad lie is when there is a good chance that some grass will get between the clubface and the ball.

A good lie allows for many more options is terms of club and shot selection and a good lie will also tend to be more predictable when it hits the ground. With good lies, you can use various shaft and face positions from a delofted front edge chip to an open faced flop shot.

A bad lie can make all the choices for you.  It can tell you what type of shot you have to do and what club you should use.  Granted, you can choose many options but you’ll learn from experience which ones work and which ones don’t.  Generally speaking, the worse the lie the more loft you should use.  Typically, you will also be restricted to an open clubface and vertical to lay back shaft positions.  Because the ball won’t spin as much(because of grass getting between the face and the ball), we use loft to try and gain control over how much the ball will roll after it lands.

Stay tuned for future posts where I talk about how to create these types of shots.

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Posted in Golf Lesson

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Golf Lesson – Flipping

March 3rd, 2010

I define flipping as an instance when players really stall the pivot and accelerate the unbending of the right wrist.  For some people, that will get the clubhead passing the hands and for others it complicates contact.  As many of you know, I coach college golf at Monroe Community College in Rochester, NY.  I also give golf lessons at Webster Golf Club as its Director of Instruction.  The most common plateau causing element of the swing I see is flipping.  This year I have 11 players on my golf team and 7 of them flip it.  They have decent swing but have such a hard time creating consistent impact alignments because of the flipping.  This condition also caused me to plateau at a certain level and once I got rid of it, my level of ball striking immediately became more consistent.

Here are some video and pictures to show you what I mean:

Hands Even or Behind ball

Hands Even or Behind ball

Hands in Front of ball

Hands in Front of ball

This player is a very good player that can shoot par or better at times than all of a sudden shoots 80.  This part of impact is an imperative, to quote The Golf Machine.  Being able to keep your left wrist flat and right wrist bend as you pivot through impact will greatly help your ability to control your angle of attack into the ball, your spin rate and your low point control.  It’s these things that drive the good player crazy because they do it one shot but not the next or one day but not the next.  Without reasonable repeatability is these areas, it is impossible to control spin, trajectory and distance.

I’ll go into drills to help with removing the flip in a future post but for now practice chipping while keeping your left wrist flat and right wrist bent while using your pivot to hit the ball.

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Posted in Golf Lesson, Practicing, Teaching Techniques

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The Power of Par

January 26th, 2010

There was a lengthy discussion today on Twitter about this question: “Does the par of the hole have any influence over your decision making?”  This was basically a teaser question intended to start a discussion about how players value par vs. how they value a single stroke.  For years, I have preached to my players that the each shot has a value of one and that a 4 on a par three has the same value as a 4 on a par 5.  In both cases, it is 4 strokes out of your total.  Yes, one is a birdie and one is a bogey and the internal belief system we place on those words will effect us mentally.

I urge you to try and break out of that belief system.  A 235 yard shot to a green surrounded by trouble is the same shot if it’s a par 5 or a par 4.  Each of us has to decide what should I do to give me the best chance to shoot the lowest score possible.  If you think you should lay up on the par 5 than you should lay up on the par 4.  The only reason you would lay up is because you believe it provides you the best opportunity to shoot the lowest score on that hole.  If you lay up on the par 5 and go for it on the par 4, you are not valuing your shots equally.  You are valuing your shots based on the par of the hole you are playing which I don’t believe is a good idea.

Would the situation change if there was no such thing as par and at the end of the day you turned in your scorecard with just the total on it.  Looking back on that shot from 235, does it look different now?  In both cases, it is a shot from 235 yards with trouble all around.  The par of the hole does not change that.  Your attitude toward that shot does change because of the par.

I am not an advocate for always going for the par 5 in two even though going for it is a leading indicator of lower scores on the PGA Tour.  All I am saying is don’t let par make your decision for you.  Look at the bigger picture and see how this situation fits into the round as a whole.

Here’s a little skills test (made up by me @golfdonaldson and @jasonhelmanpga)to see if your skills are good enough to go for it.  Take 10 shots from 100 yards from a green.  Measure the distance each shot is from the pin and total the distances to get one number.  Next take 10 more shots to the same green from 235 yards away.  Go to where each of those shots landed and hit it again.  Could be a putt, chip or pitch.  Determine your distance away from the hole for each set of 2 shots and total the distances from all sets of 2 to get one number.

Compare the numbers.  Which one gets you closer to the hole?  Make sure you do it to greens with different severities of difficulty so you have more confidence in whichever decision you make on the course when the situation arises.  I think it is a great skills test and be sure to include different starting distances from the hole to see how they compare.

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Posted in Mental Game, Practicing, Teaching Techniques

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