Your Best Friend

You are on the golf course hitting great shots and scoring poorly.  How frustrating.  Has this ever happened to you?  How you handle depends on your abilities to observe, adjust, and most importantly, how you treat yourself. 

Last weekend I was playing an afternoon round at my club, Blue Mash, where I have an expectation for a score between a 73 and 78, on a normal day.  I noticed something was off from the first tee box where the markers were pushed back, and the hole was playing into the wind.  My tee shot was well struck and barely cleared a fairway bunker which is normally an easy carry.  I had 5-iron in where I usually take 8 or 9 and made bogey.  It became clear from the setup and conditions that the course would play long and difficult.  I bogeyed the first five holes and could safely say that I hit a great shot on each of those holes.  At this point, I had a decision regarding how I would approach the remainder of the round.

When you are not rewarded for good effort, you get upset.  Dr. Bob Rotella says that when distracted by bad play or bad scores, you need to be your best friend out on the course because nobody else is there to help you.  I agree and have learned that positive self-talk is key and to not get down on myself.  I also understand that you can’t confuse effort with results.  Imagine how the tour pros felt on the final day of the 2020 US Open.  Only one (Bryson DeChambeau) managed to break 70 in the final round.  These guys were clearly scoring 5-10 strokes worse than a normal day and were grinding terribly.  They were frustrated and you could see how their scoring affected their game.  De Chambeau didn’t let it alter his attitude and approach and was victorious.  The guy is comfortable in his own skin and despite being a bit of an odd duck, is clearly his own best friend.

The temptation after a bad start is to press and try to save the round.  Last weekend, I had to resist by using positive self-talk and to try and focus on the next shot.  I was partially successful and finished with an 11-over 82.  Normally, after shooting a poor score, I’ll stew about it for a day or two, but I honestly felt that was the worst I could have scored for the way I played and the conditions that presented themselves.  The previous week, I hit the ball horrendously and carded an 8-over 79 on a different track, which was the absolute best I could have shot considering my ball striking.  Still, I took some positives away from that round and felt that my short game saved me from carding a round in the mid 80s.  The key in both situations is to understand and adjust to the current conditions and not get down on yourself.  Be your own best friend!  If you can do this, you will be mentally tough to beat.

Obviously, I have some areas of my game that need work.  I’ve got a tournament coming up a week from Monday, and a trip to the eastern shore to play on some tough venues.  I’m off to the course to practice. 

Do you confuse effort with results?

Are you your own best friend?

Play well!      

Inside the Brilliant Mind of Brooks Koepka

Photo from Golf Digest

What makes him tick?  As we approach the final major of the season, my intrigue continues to grow with his amazing success.  He is extraordinary in the big events but rather ordinary in the regular tour stops.  How does he turn on the mental supercharger for the majors?  Few athletes in history have been able to turn it on in big events to the same extent.  Great golfers like Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods demonstrated fantastic ability to concentrate, but their performance was more evenly distributed across all their events.

Sports fans old enough to remember the Hall of Fame running back John Riggins, recall Riggo hated to practice and almost never did.  He was often in the hospital injured during the week, or out carousing and making trouble, but come game day, he could turn on an amazing level of focus and concentration and performed brilliantly.  Football is a sport where you are very dependent on the performance of others.  Golf is not.  Koepka has no offensive line to run behind which makes his majors performances even more remarkable.

In perhaps his greatest book on sports psychology (How Champions Think), Bob Rotella sites “single-mindedness” as the most important key.  The greats demonstrate it time and again and sometimes at the cost of other important aspects in their lives.  Tiger certainly had single-mindedness and learned it from his dad.  Maybe his personal failings later in life were a cry for help due to the strains of single-mindedness at an early age.  Michele Wie’s parents tried to enforce single-mindedness before she was ready and may have ruined a great golf career.

Koepka doesn’t appear to be single-minded at all.  He doesn’t sweat the majors any more than you or I would going to an important meeting at the office.  He does abide by a corny half-baked idea that it’s easier to win the majors because he has fewer opponents that will be in contention for a variety of reasons.  Does that really work; can you trick yourself into performing better by simply believing you are superior?  For example, could your son or daughter excel in an important event like taking the SAT and expect superlative performance by thinking half the other students in the class will choke under the pressure?  There may be some truth to it.

More importantly, is there something we (the average amateur) can adopt from his approach that will help our games?  Think back to a time when you put on a great performance for a big event.  A couple months back, I presented at a professional conference and was rather nervous at the thought of getting up in front of my peers for an hour.  What if I stumbled or said something stupid?  But, I nailed the presentation.  How?  I practiced the heck out of it until I was so sick of it I could do it forwards and backwards.  On a few occasions, I’ve been able to mentally trick myself into performing better on the golf course by playing without any swing thoughts, but that doesn’t sustain for more than a few holes.  The only tried and true method I’ve found is consistent practice, but it’s important to get feedback from someone other than yourself during the practice.  I did that presentation alone and for family members and got constructive feedback that made it better.

So next time you’re on the practice tee or working short game, ask for feedback.  In the best case, get it from a professional instructor.  Learn the right way and practice.

And yes, Brooks Koepka is my pick for the 2019 British Open.  I’ll ride him until he bucks me off.

Play well.

The Opportunity Cost of Playing or not Playing Sports

Have you ever asked yourself, “Why can’t I play this sport to the level that I’d like?”  Have you also observed folks very proficient in a particular sport and noticed that they have no life outside the sport?  This two-way phenomena is known as opportunity cost.  From our Economics 101 text book, opportunity cost is defined as:  “The loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one alternative is chosen.”  It is the chief reason why people underachieve in recreational or competitive activities, and why some who excel in those same activities, may suffer from the failure to take care of themselves in other areas of their lives.

Opportunity cost is not good or bad, it’s just a judgement call each of us make every day about many things.  The opportunity cost of an avid football fan who watches 15 hours of games every weekend might be that he has a poor golf game.  The opportunity cost of a mom or dad shuttling their kids to youth soccer games, practices, and tournaments every hour of every week might be the inability to work, socialize, or exercise.

To get more clarity, I’m reading Dr. Bob Rotella’s “How Champions Think.” This book gets in the minds of competitors from several sports who’ve made it to the top and identifies some common recurring themes.  Single-mindedness is huge.  These folks dedicate a good portion of their lives to mastering a craft and it often comes with significant opportunity cost.  There are ruined marriages, neglected children, repetitive stress, and burnout, and they are a bit disturbing to read about.  If you’re looking to become a champion, this book provides an uncommon but necessary view.  Rotella advocates for single-mindedness, but points out it takes very special individuals to manage the competing factions that this level of dedication requires.  He cites Jack and Barbara Nicklaus as two of the best in handling them.  Unlike a lot of marriages and relationships with tour players and spouses, Jack and Barbara understood how their significant other needed to operate and made it work so that Jack enjoyed the greatest golf career ever, and mostly Barbara raised a wonderful loving and understanding family.

I also just finished Bob Ladouceur’s “Chasing Perfection”.  Ladouceur was the head football coach at De La Salle High School in California and led his teams to 12 consecutive undefeated seasons and accumulated a record of 399-25-3 during his tenure.  I wanted to know what his secret sauce was.  In one passage, he discusses the desires of other kids to transfer to De La Salle and become part of the winning tradition.  Most of these transfers washed out when they discovered the level of dedication and demands he placed on his players and coaches for single-mindedness and preparation.  These were eerily similar in effort and opportunity cost to the athletes Rotella describes.  This book is an eye-opening read.

As an avid golfer, I’ve dedicated more than my fair share of time to gaining and maintaining the skills I need to play to a certain level.  I have also suffered the opportunity costs.  Let’s face it, golf is a game that requires a lot of time.  Each of us has a level of dedication and desire that we need to apply to satisfy ourselves, and mine is more than the average player, but doesn’t come close to the extremes I’ve recently read about.  I would be very uncomfortable ignoring key factions of my life to become the best player I could be.

Have you experienced this dichotomy?  What’s your level of dedication and single-mindedness?  Suffered any significant opportunity costs?

How To Measure Success in Golf

What are Phil’s standards for success?

In Putting Out of Your Mind, Dr. Bob Rotella says that to judge yourself a success on the putting green, you should measure by how often you were mentally prepared when you struck your putts, and not whether the ball went in the hole.  He adds that once you’ve struck a putt, everything else is out of your control.  Makes sense, and I love this process oriented approach, but let’s face it, most amateurs and probably most professionals are more results oriented than we’d like to admit.

While reading the aforementioned book, I tried out the methods during a round at a local muni.  It was if someone else had possession of my body while I was putting.  It worked great, but the total process oriented approach was very hard to maintain.  For a short period, I even managed to not think about my score during a few rounds, but couldn’t keep it up.

Getting immersed in the process works.  It’s a good idea and is worth the effort.  So, how do you measure success or failure?  Can a 30-handicap player stand on a tee box with a 200 yard carry over water, and hit three straight into the drink, but feel if they put a good swing on each, and think nothing is wrong?  That’s a “Tin Cup” moment and should feel wrong because the player failed to know their limitations and move up a set of tees.  I try to follow Rotella’s mantra and think one shot at a time, but ultimately golf is a game where we keep score.  We win or lose against opponents, or post some number in a stroke play event or round.  As a 5-handicap for the last umpteenth years, when I’m not thinking in process mode, I’m measuring myself by score.  Typically:

Good day – 74 strokes or below

Average day – 75-77

Substandard – 78 and above

The 30-handicap may look at their round differently:

Good day – broke 100

Average day – broke 110

Substandard – lost all their golf balls

We do measure ourselves largely by score and that’s okay.  Recently I overcame this tendency – albeit briefly.  I played a round in the dead of February while working on a swing change.  I told myself I didn’t care what I shot and I was just going to focus on the swing change.  I shot 83 and took like 39 putts, but I left the course very satisfied because I hit 10 greens in regulation and saw good progress with the swing change.  I don’t think this model can sustain over time, but it was nice as I was able to treat the round like a NFL team approaches a pre-season game – totally about the process.  Ultimately, it will come back to score.

So what would success look like for Phil Mickelson?

Good day – Won The Masters

Average day – Finished 2nd

Substandard – Out of the top 10

I know Phil has been working on a swing change and is keen to battle test this at Augusta, (more on that coming in our Masters preview), but at the end of the day does that really matter to him?  Nope; it’s about winning.

How do you measure success?  Process or results, and BE HONEST!

Play well.

 

Golf’s West Coast Offense!

This is a strange tale of improvement that I need to pass on.  It was spawned a couple weeks ago when I responded to a post by The Grateful Golfer in which Jim wrote about fighting off bouts of poor play.  In line with that, I mentioned the technique I had tried of writing your score down hole by hole for the entire round, before you play, and how it had started to work.

As readers of this space know, I’m a huge fan of mental game improvements and a big proponent of all of Dr. Bob Rotella’s books.  I’ve never seen this technique written about by Dr. Bob or anyone else, but got the idea thinking about the success Bill Walsh had with scripting the first 20 plays of a football game.  Walsh was helping his teams prepare and visualize good starts.  His teams always seemed to execute well in the first quarter and my golf game was in need of some first quarter magic.  I was getting killed by poor starts.

The specifics:  In addition to the scores, I was predicting GIRs and putts per hole.  My approach was optimistic but reasonable.  I didn’t chart any career rounds but felt it was a good idea to plan for the best ball striking possible, at least to a level that I was capable of.  In addition to plenty of GIRs, I threw in a few bogeys to keep it real, but no three-putts!  I realized that this technique might be deviating from the stay in the moment mindset associated with good mental approaches, but I had seen enough bad starts that I didn’t care.  I just wanted to try something new that might help.  After all, it was a different kind of visualization.  You write a goal down on paper to cement it in your mind’s eye, right?  Same idea.

The results:  As I mentioned, my early season ball striking was terrible, but boy has it been working after the change.  My first round out, I scripted 16 GIRs and hit 14.  The second round was in a four-man scramble and we finished 4th out of 33 teams.  I performed well in pressure situations (hitting last) which felt like a positive.  And last weekend I played in very heavy wind and managed to hit six of nine greens on the front nine on my way to a two-over 74.  I had scripted 72 strokes, 13 greens, and 31 putts even knowing that I’d be playing in difficult conditions.  I finished with 74-9-29 which was probably the best wind game I’ve ever played.

I am not sure what is going on with this technique, but I suspect it allows you to visualize success based on playing to your full potential, but turning your full potential into your comfort zone.  Is 16 greens in my comfort zone?  Heck no, but if I can fool my mind into thinking that it is, maybe I’ll get closer more often.

Admittedly, there was a physical element as well.  I haven’t been playing or practicing much, but have been working out daily and doing a lot of rotational work to rebuild flexibility in my torso.  Also, on Saturday, during The Players, I rug putted for five hours during the telecast.  Call me crazy, but I was very comfortable the next day on the greens, wind or no wind.  So there’s probably a combination of mental and physical preparation at play.

So there you have it.  Try scripting your next round down to the finest detail and see if Golf’s West Coast Offense will work for you!

Play well.

How To Improve Focus For Golf

This year I am making a concerted effort to simplify every aspect of my game from my fundamentals to my thinking.  A key component is improved focus during play and practice.  During early rounds, I have met with my share of successes and failures but have noticed that during periods of good play my focus is laser sharp.  During a stretch of poor play, I found my mind wandering and have tried to force myself to concentrate better.  Is good focus a byproduct of good play or can you force it?  The ultimate chicken and the egg scenario appears to be a bit of both.  I have found a few tricks to help me improve my focus and thought I would share.

If you’ve read, Putting Out of Your Mind by Bob Rotella, one of the key concepts he keeps coming back to is focusing on the smallest target possible.  Olympic target shooters have always attempted to “aim small, miss small” and I’ve found this helpful, not just in putting, but for chipping and full swing.

Putting:  On the green and especially for short putts, if you zero in on a blade of grass on the edge of the cup you expect your ball to enter on, and keep focused in on that spot, right up to the point before you pull the trigger, it seems to free up your mind and body to make a better stroke.  Jordan Spieth leverages this concept by looking at his target even while making the stroke and who’s to argue with his results?

The Masters champ focuses in.
Photo by wsj.com

Chipping:  While practicing chipping or pitching, I’ve found it useful to place two tees on the green a few yards apart and work to land my ball as close to each using different clubs.  If you practice chipping without focusing on a landing point, sometimes you’ll hit a poor chip that may end up close to the hole.  May make you feel good at the time but won’t help you out on the course.  By zeroing in on your landing spot, you can use the same club and learn how different swings produce different ball flights and spin patterns.  I’ve got some work to do in eliminating the chip yips that infected me from late last season, but this technique has helped improve my concentration and ability to trust my practice swing.  Side note:  if you have the chip yips, it’s either a technique issue or one of trust, which was true in my case.

Full Swing:  On your full swings, try and zero in on the smallest point in the distance and as high off the ground as possible.  This can be a tree top, apex of a distant building’s roof, power pole, or anything.  Keep that target in your mind’s eye, even while you start your swing, and you’ll free yourself up to make a move free of mechanical thoughts.  I do use an intermediate spot on the ground to set my initial alignment, but always ensure it corresponds to a distant high point I can focus on as a target.  Not sure why the high point strategy works, it just does.

Finally, you’ll find that rehearsing good focus techniques on small targets is not easy, especially during practice.  It’s hard when your mind tends to wander because the shots don’t matter.  But if you can focus on improving your ability to focus, you will play better.   Got any techniques that have helped improve your focus?   Please share and good luck!

 

What The Foley Firing Means

In short, nothing because Humpty Dumpty has already fallen.  Lanny H Golf nailed the motivation behind the timing of the firing with his piece today  and how it’s midway between the PGA Championship and Ryder Cup.  Tiger, being the narcissist that he is, couldn’t stand to stay out of the limelight for too long and kicked Sean Foley to the curb just as interest in Woods was waning.  What I found more than coincidental is that Foley also coaches Hunter Mahan, who just won The Barklays, and the dismissal came not one day after his victory.  Really Tiger?

Looking at the merits of the firing, this should have been done several years ago, but now it doesn’t matter who’s trying to put the pieces back together.  Readers of this blog know that I think Sean Foley’s approach is very technical, so much so that his students play golf swing; not golf.  The most casual observers of Tiger’s play under Foley could pick up the overly mechanical approach and it has devastated Tiger’s previously superior golf mind.

Again, it’s too late, but if Tiger even thinks he has a shot at resurrecting his game, I would advise a series of appointments with a Bob Rotella type to first get his mind right, then think about a swing coach.  Tiger is damaged goods and no top flight swing coach should think of taking on this rebuild project.

 

Solving the Poolesville Puzzle

Ever run up against a course that has your number?  What are your strategies for conquering?  I am playing mine tomorrow.  Poolesville  is a local muni in the western reaches of Montgomery County, and has my number for the last six years.  At par-71 and at a nondescript 6,405 yards, in my last 15 rounds I have never played well, with 76 being my best score (achieved twice) and I’m struggling to a stroke average of 80.31.  Ball striking always seems to be an issue as are slow starts.  It has been impossible to get on a roll, much less threaten to go low.  I did notice that on one of those rounds of 76, I was very comfortable mentally because I had finished reading Putting Out of Your Mind by Bob Rotella the day before and was implementing his techniques.  My ball striking wasn’t great, but I was a peace with myself and not worried about my score or missing any putts.  This leads me to think this is purely psychological.  How do I get past this mental blocker?

I wrote earlier on how I got past a mental blocker hole at Rattlewood by totally changing the way I played it and I’m thinking of taking a similar approach. Normally, at Poolesville, I’m always playing defensive and trying to keep the ball in play with a 3WD off the tee, but that has left me with longer approaches into the smallish crowned greens.  GIR stats plummet and I inevitably leave myself short-sided too often and can’t score well.  Perhaps a total reversal is required, with an attempt to bring the course to its knees by busting driver on every hole,  which should leave shorter irons into the par-4s.  I’m getting inspiration watching Rory McIlroy destroy the field at The Open Championship with the same strategy.

It’s often that when NFL teams go into the prevent defense in an attempt to protect a lead, the lead inevitably vanishes.  Perhaps this is my prevent and I need to get aggressive.  Anyone have some experience handling problem courses?  I’d like to be a horse for this course and I’m all ears.  Thanks!

 

Do You Confuse Effort With Results?

After watching the Jeremy Abbott saga at the Winter Olympics, I’m reminded again how athletes at every level often let their mental state affect performance.

Jeremy Abbott from ABC News

Watching Abbott in the moments before his short program skate, you sensed his incredible nerves, saw the tension in his face, and I remarked to my wife that I thought he was going to blow it.  Didn’t take long for him to fall apart right from the start, but what happened after the big fall?  Abbott got up, dusted himself off and finished an otherwise flawless performance.   This was clearly a choke and we’ve all done it.  You let your brain get in the way of your capacity to produce.  Abbot finished strong because he knew there would be no medal and the pressure was off.  He relaxed.

What could he have done differently?  I suspect he let the four-year build up of pre-Olympic preparation and aspirations create a level of expectations that were too high.  He confused effort with results.  If I were Abbott, and I can’t skate a lick, I would have told myself, “There are many excellent skaters in this competition.  On any given day, anyone could win the gold.  I’ll focus on giving my best effort and if I win, great; if not, I’ll heartily congratulate the champion.”

Athletes who relax, enjoy the moment, laugh at the nerves, and embrace these opportunities as nothing more than life’s great experiences, have a better chance for success.

T.J. Oshie

See T.J. Oshie before and during the shootout in today’s USA 3-2 victory over Russia?  He was smiling, enjoying the moment, embracing the challenge.  I had confidence in him and he managed to perform at his capacity.

How can these lessons help us on the golf course?  I’ve read all the books by Dr. Bob Rotella and there are many nuggets you can get from him or other sources on the web.  Invest time in developing a good pre-shot routine, simulate game conditions during your practice, visualize the shot before you play, and don’t take a lot of time over the ball.  They’re all good advice, but the best way I’ve found to not confuse effort with results is to remember two simple things.  Try your hardest on every shot and remember to have fun.

Golf is a game and we are humans.  Sometimes we play great and other times we blow it and that’s okay.  What are your keys to perform your best?

Golfer And Genius – The Only Thing Common Is The “G”

Albert Einstein defined insanity as repeating the same behavior over and over and expecting a different outcome.  I was reminded of this today as I twisted myself into a mental basket case trying to implement too many mechanical fixes during the first eight holes of my golf game.  Fed up with hitting pop-ups and chunks off the tee, I decided on the 9th hole to “screw all these stupid swing thoughts” and just hit the ball hard at the target.  “Bingo!” The flow and rhythm immediately returned and I rifled short irons right at the pin on four of my next five holes and carded three birdies.  Having done the “think target only” thing in the past with great success, I was left to wonder, “Why do I keep doing this to myself?”

The culprits are not just us weekend warriors.  I learned during Saturday that Jim Furyk’s resurgence at the PGA was due largely to some recent work he’d been doing with Dr. Bob Rotella.  Apparently, Furyk’s mind was so twisted he couldn’t get out of his own way.  Watching Furyk reset five times before every putt was starting to drive me insane, but he was making most of them, so he must have been doing something right, and Rotella must be making a boatload of cash off these touring pros.  He has developed quite a reputation for fixing guy’s heads right before stellar performances in the major championships.

Weekly players practice once or twice before a round and latch onto a swing thought that happens to be working at the time and then try to put that into play.  The fallacy in this method is that swing thought momentum is fleeting and inevitably we make a bad swing using the good swing thought and the mistake is a catalyst for a new swing thought.  Every been there?  I think we’d all be better off playing 18 holes and starting the round by just thinking target and attempting to “trust our swing” as Dr. Bob advocates.

I wonder how much an hour of Dr. Bob’s time costs?  How’s your mental game?

It’s Never Too Late To Learn

I went out early on Independence Day for a quick nine holes at my local muni and was joined on the first tee by an elderly gentleman who was walking with a pull cart.  It was clear from the start that this fellow was not in the best of shape but the great thing about golf is that you can play it despite your physical shortcomings,  and play well into your old age.  The thing I enjoy most about playing on this little executive course is the diverse group of players I get paired with.  There are young families, elderly folks, and most are either beginners, novices or retirees and the time spent usually requires a little patience on my part.    I learned that he was 83 and just had some sort of lumbar injection that allowed him to walk more pain free.  He said by walking nine holes he was attempting to strengthen his legs.  I contemplated that for awhile and thought that when I was his age (in 31 more years) I hoped to be able to walk nine holes and have some semblance of a game.   Now he could barely hit the ball 125 yards, but I got a hearty laugh when he boasted how he was “rippin” it past his 90-year old buddies who he plays with in Florida 🙂

So we moved along slowly, and I helped him find his ball and pick up a few errant tee shots when he needed a do-over and we got to discussing the state of the professional game and how players today were so much better physical condition of those from my era (Nicklaus and Watson) and his era (Snead and Nelson) and that now they even work on their mental games.  I mentioned that I studied the mental game and had read most of Dr. Bob Rotella’s books, and had enjoyed Putting Out of Your Mind the most.  I told him that Rotella teaches that you play better when you putt like you don’t care if you make it.  Now he had very little dexterity or fluidity with his short game because of his physical condition but gave it a try with three or four holes left and started rolling the long ones close and short ones in.  He was absolutely thrilled with this tip and I was super pumped that this little mini-lesson helped him enjoy his round that much more.

When we finished, I told him I enjoyed his company and would play with him anytime.  He thanked me again for the tip and it was a good reminder that it’s never too late to learn.

Great start to the 2013 golf season!

I’ve been struggling with my confidence since the poor finish to the 2012 season and decided to pick up Bob Rotella’s Golf Is a Game of Confidence.  Halfway through the read the message was clear:  I needed to re-dedicate to my short game and regain some structure with my pre-shot routine, which admittedly I had slacked off on.  I recalled the last few good rounds I had played and the common thread was an excellent short game practice session the day before.  When I come away from a great session on the green I get an invincible feeling that transitions into confidence and relaxation in every aspect of my game.

Out at the short game area yesterday, I worked on a very methodical pre-shot routine for chipping, pitching, and putting and enjoyed some excellent feedback.  90% of the routine was my old routine, but I concentrated hard to repeat before every shot.  The slight adjustment was to take a final look at the target, on all shots, and immediately pull the trigger.  On my putts, I literally stared down my spot, moved my eyes back to the ball, and started the stroke in one motion.  By not hesitating, I was trusting my feel, which was akin to a basketball player eying the basket, firing off a jumper, and letting his natural sense for calculating distance, arc, and force sink the shot.  And it worked great.

I also used the landing point drill with three alignment sticks to frame a small box (open end towards the hole) where I wanted my chip or pitch to land.  This got me focused exclusively on the target and freed up my sense of touch.  At no time did I think any mechanical thoughts because I was totally focused on my landing spot and feeling the shot during my practice swings.  The results were awesome, with plenty of crisp contact and dialed-in distance on the pitches and chips, and putts that were banged into the back of the cup.  It’s funny how one small mental change can yield so much physical benefit.

So it’s the start of the work week, the weather has turned sour, and I’m all dressed up with nowhere to go.  🙂  Has your season gotten off to a good start as well?

2012 golf improvement plan – Early returns are in!

I’m six weeks into my improvement plan and I’ve got some early feedback and lessons learned to share.  To reiterate, the plan was to work on core strength and conditioning in hopes of better ball striking and to couple that with the rollout of new short game and putting techniques from Stan Utley.  I’ve got three rounds under my belt and have noticed a definite increase in distance with my driver and short irons, probably due to the faster clearing of my hips on the downswing and a better ability to maintain my spine angle.   While I’m enjoying the added length, I’m struggling with distance control on the short irons, as some fly the new distance but others do not; probably to be expected.  Nevertheless, hitting driver – pitching wedge into par fours where I used to hit 7-irons is a big plus.  Big mistake last time out, though.  I wondered what it would be like to do a core strengthening session the morning before a scheduled round.  All day I had the shakes and my back tired midway through the round causing several very loose swings.    Maybe next time just a little stretching is in order.

I’ve had mixed results on the short game.  The putting changes have been solid and the move to a right hand dominated stroke is working great on the lags.  I’ve rolled in seven birdies in the three rounds and feel my distance control is good.  My chipping has been good, probably because of all the winter work on my living room carpet, but greenside pitching has been terrible.  I never got comfortable with the new techniques and have hit several very thin while under pressure and it seems the problems have infected my sand game which is normally very reliable.  A post round practice session last Sunday indicated that I was not turning enough on my backswing and the touch and feel returned when I made the adjustment.  However, it’s easier to do when it doesn’t count so I’ll be interested to see some improvement during this weekend’s outing.

As Bob Rotella says in Golf Is Not A Game Of Perfect, “you’ve got to train it and trust it.”  With the pitching, I’ve done neither and am definitely thinking too mechanically on the course.  I want this so bad after getting a taste of the possibilities, but need to practice these changes and exercise some patience until they sink in.  Are we there yet?

Dave Pelz, Dave Stockton, Stan Utley; who’s the best?

Who is the top short game guru?  I’ve received a lot of inquiries on the subject and my choice may surprise you.  I’ve read many books, watched many tips, and practiced enough techniques (mental and physical) to establish a ranking.  These are based solely on my positive long lasting experiences.

Top billing goes to sports psychologist Bob Rotella.  I’ve read several of his books, and Putting Out OF Your Mind really hit home and was a total paradigm shift for me.  Rotella teaches a total mental approach to putting and short game and provides no actual physical techniques.  Inside is a treasure trove of anecdotes from real tour players to illustrate his methods, and his approach is designed to relax you, build confidence, and leverage all your natural ability.  My first round out after this read, it was if a new person had possessed my body.  A bit strange at first but imagine the confidence rush when all those knee-knocking five to six footers were getting rammed in the back of the cup.

Runner-up is Stan Utley who’s less well known, but who’s technique is best for feel players like myself.  Utley’s two gems The Art of Putting and The Art of The Short Game simplify the approach one can take on and around the green.  The consistency of a few minor fundamental changes makes digesting and replicating easy.  Again, very important for feel players that find overly mechanical instruction counter-productive.

For the technicians, you can have the rest.  Dave Pelz has his cadre of touring professionals and instructional segments on The Golf Channel but every tip I’ve read, or show I’ve viewed is loaded with mechanical jargon and technical details that would take hours and hours of practice to perfect and store up so much mental baggage, you’d need a caddy to haul it to the course.  Some may be able to deliberately line up putts on the toe of the putter for fast downhill left to right sliders, but that thinking is disastrous for those of us who need a more simple approach like, “get committed, rehearse, pull the trigger.”

Dave Stockton has a lot of disciples in putting circles; kind of like the Bill Walsh of the PGA Tour.  I experimented with his putting techniques and while I found his information on reading greens helpful, his techniques were again way too mechanical and screwed up my feel for distance.  Want a lot to think about on the greens?  Go with Stockton.  Need to simplify; head with me to the Stan Utley camp.

Again, I read the Utley books over the winter and have experienced good results with the changes.  The best change/tip I’ve discovered for feel on long putts resulted from discontinuing the Stockton practice of pulling the putter with my left hand.  Instead I feel the distance with my right hand after a right hand-only practice swing.

Who is your favorite short game guru?  K.I.S.S. and good luck!