Project 2 Handicap

The Fleeting Nature of Good Golf

2008-07-21T02:24:00.000-07:00

In my July 8th post I recounted how well I was striking the ball in the prior two rounds. That stretch of excellent ball striking continued through my next round at Keswick Hall last Monday, and through 16 holes of a Tuesday round at Stumpy Lake.

During this stretch my drives were nothing short of exceptional. Time and time again I found that I was able to essentially place the ball within just a few yards of my target. My hybrid and iron play was also solid.

Then, suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere, on the 17th hole at Stumpy Lake last Tuesday I badly heeled my tee shot. (It would have been a shank had I been swinging an iron.) I then stubbed an iron and limped to a double bogey. This was in stark contrast to my play earlier that day. Hole after hole I had been carding easy pars, just missing birdie putts. Through 16 holes I was just 3 over par and prior to a bogey on 16 was thinking about how I was going to card a couple of birdies and shoot par for the round.

So, after the fiasco at 17 I thought, "Okay, just forget that hole and play on". I felt like I was in a good frame of mind on the 18th tee, but once again - as it seems to happen with the shanks - I heeled my tee shot just as I had on 17. I recovered enough to bogey the hole, but my confidence, sky high just a few holes earlier, was a bit shaken.

So after finishing the Stumpy round so poorly I was eager to get back on the course, which I was able to do at Bow Creek on Friday. I could tell immediately that my ball striking was not at the same level it had been for the previous several rounds. I limped around the course, alternating good shots with poor ones, carding bogey after bogey and at the end of the day my confidence was badly damaged.

So then came yesterday. On the range prior to the round I struggled to regain form but except for a few good swings I couldn't find it. Then I played. As excellent as my recent ball striking has been - yesterday's was the polar opposite. So bad was my play, in fact, that I actually can't remember the last time I stuck the ball so poorly. At this point my confidence is pretty much shattered.

So, now it's on to the recovery stage.

My task now is to figure out where my swing went wrong. Did I over cook something? Is my complete lack of confidence a result of, or the cause of my swing failures?

My oh my, how quickly things change in this joyful yet frustrating game.

Centeredness

2008-07-08T18:12:00.001-07:00

I had a wonderful ball striking round last Sunday.

So this post is primarily to remind myself of my Sunday swing thoughts. Successful golf being the fleeting entity it is I am hoping that I might be able to refer to this post in the future to recapture last Sunday's magic.

It all started on Thursday, actually. I was playing at Bow Creek - the course on which I learned to play golf and the course that I return to anytime I feel that my psyche is in need of repair, and after dropping seven strokes in my last three holes the week before my psyche was in definite need of repair.

About half-way through the Thursday round a memory of my trip to Augusta a few years ago came to mind.

My friend Nick and I were there for a practice round. For both of us it was our first time at Augusta. We wanted to see the full course so instead of camping behind a hole and waiting for all the golfers to come to us we walked the course.

My memory was of an observation while I was standing behind the tee box at eleven. Ernie Els, Adam Scott and two other golfers whom I didn't recognize came walking up the hill to the tee box. I've long been a fan of Ernie Els' languid swing and I closely watched his mannerisms as he approached the tee box. He was so relaxed, and... athletic. But then I noticed that each of the other 3 golfers had the same mannerisms. Had Ernie rubbed off on them or was I noticing a commonality?

As each teed off I became convinced that it was a commonality. Each golfer displayed easy, athletic, balanced yet powerful swings on that eleventh tee box at August. I burned the memory of those swings into my brain and that memory reappeared for me Thursday.

So I tried to duplicate those swings. The common characteristics were:
- at address each player seemed completely "grounded", as if their feet were nailed into the ground.
- each player displayed perfect balance both before and during the swing. There was no leakage of power or loss of ball control due to swaying. There was no swaying at all in their swings.
- more than anything else, I remember thinking to myself that each player seemed completely "centered". Centered in both the mental and physical sense. Each displayed both a mental and physical calmness before, during and after the swing. Each swing looked effortless, yet each was powerful and sure.

On Thursday, recalling these memories, I was able to come close to duplicating this "centeredness". I was able to "swing within myself", yet maintain and in fact improve on my usual distance and accuracy. In some sense, I think I found "the zone".

I want to stress again that there was both a physical AND mental aspect to this experience. By "centered" I am referring to both a mental and physical "balanced" feeling. Mentally I was calm and unconcerned about the outcome of the shot. (That's not a completely accurate description - it's more like I was completely convinced what the outcome would be so I was therefore not concerned.)

Physically I was calm and so both concentration and the actual physical swing came easy. Perhaps the mental surety carried over into the physical realm? I'm not sure. All I know is that BOTH were present.

And I was able to recapture these feelings on Sunday.

Will I be able to carry this into my next round?

Maintaining the Lag

2008-07-04T07:45:00.000-07:00

Happy Independence Day, USA!

Well, long time no post, but that doesn't mean I haven't been working on my game.

The Bobby Clampett book The Impact Zone, discussed in my last post in March, has had a huge impact on my approach to the golf swing if not my scoring. Since reading the book I've been working on a number of swing changes prime among them maintaining the lag in my swing. I believe that I have improved this aspect of my swing with the result being an increase in swing speed and overall distance.

The key to my improvement has been a single change in my stance - bringing my back (right) foot forward (towards the target line) by somewhere between 3 to 6 inches. Why I did this will require some explanation.

First, my old stance was quite closed with my right heel setting up several inches behind my left. I developed this stance because it helped me bring the club into the ball on an in-to-out swing plane which encouraged a draw, my preferred swing shape. Until recently though, I didn't understand how this robbed me of power.

Several years ago an assistant pro at a driving range I would frequent would watch me swing and tell me to move my back foot forward. Since my stance was closed, he was essentially just telling me to move my right heel even with my left - parallel to the target line. He never explained why I should do this but whenever I made the change I found that I was able to bring quite a bit more power into impact. But the stance change felt funny and seemed to encourage pulls and so I would inevitably drift back into my closed stance.

After reading The Impact Zone I did some searching on the web for hints on maintaining wrist lag and I came across this writeup by Jeff Mann, which contained a link to this Hogan video. Watching the video it finally occurred to me why the pro's driving range tip seemed to work for me. Moving the right foot forward allows me to clear my hips in the manner that Hogan demonstrates in the video, and thereby helps me maintain a significant additional amount of lag in my swing.

Ergo, additional swing speed at impact, translated into additional distance!

Any swing change feels funny at first but I stuck with this one and it's finally paying off. Initially I experienced directional problems (pulls) but lately I've adjusted my swing path enough that my pulls are much less frequent. The extra distance has also played havoc with my club selection.

But these are adjustments that I'm happy to make in return for the extra distance.

Thanks Bobby Clampett, Jeff Mann, and Ben Hogan!

Book Review: The Impact Zone

2008-03-02T08:07:00.000-08:00

One measure of my obsession with the game is how much of my free time I spend watching, thinking about, and reading about golf.

Regarding the latter activity, I've written before about my golf book collection - now numbering close to 200 - and how several books have had a profound impact on my game.

Add another.

In The Impact Zone, Bobby Clampett - the former PGA tour player now TV on-course personality - provides a fresh approach to learning the mechanics of playing golf.

His approach is also refreshing for it's simplicity.

He lays out five swing dynamics which he claims are present in every successful (non specialty) golf swing, with every club - from putter to driver. Concentrate on perfecting these dynamics, Clampett says, and you can forget about the dozens (or is it hundreds? thousands? millions?) of "style" distractions.

An approach this simple sounds too good to be true. But my (albeit limited) application of the concepts has me more excited about the possibility of improving my game than I've been in years!

Here's one example.

Swing dynamic two is that the "forward swing bottom" on all shots should be approximately four inches in front of the ball. In my own practice I have found that - while with putts this may be a bit much - on all other swings from chips to driver the result is a crisply struck, powerful golf shot.

Clampett, of course, has viewed thousands of professional golf swings and claims that he can accurately predict the handicap of a golfer simply by measuring how far - with an iron swing - the deepest part of the divot is from the original ball position. Pros swings result in divots four to five inches in front of the ball, while most amateurs bottom out their swings much closer to the ball, or even behind the ball.

At first I was skeptical of this claim that - even with a driver swing - the best swings bottom out four inches in front of the ball. So I did a "Swing Vision" search on Youtube, which brought up several videos of professional golf swings. Try this yourself and play the videos from the face on angle, so that you can observe the position of the golfer's hands at impact. You'll find, as I did, that in every single case - whether with an iron or driver off the tee - the hands are indeed forward of the ball at impact, after which the club catches up with the hands and reaches it's lowest point in the swing - about four inches in front of the ball's original position!

After this discovery I applied the forward swing bottom concept during my next round of golf - concentrating on being sure that my hands were in front of the ball at impact with every driver swing. The result was that my drives were longer and more solidly struck than I can ever remember.

So that's the good news.

The bad news is that I now have to review my entire game in order to determine where I am successfully applying these dynamics and where I need work.

But while the work may take some time (and some temporarily higher scores) it's a small price to pay for the potential improvement in my game that perfecting the dynamics promises.

So, stay tuned.

Mysticism, God and emotional baggage

2007-08-20T18:46:00.000-07:00

A friend's family tragedy hung over me like a rain cloud all weekend.

Fortunately for me, my own family was around for me when I needed them. My wife's sister, brother and his significant other arrived for a short visit Thursday. My son and his wife drove down from Charlottesville to visit the visitors. And my daughter and her boyfriend were also around all weekend. On top of my thoughts of my friend, this influx of my family and our happy time together put me in a reflective mood - a thankful to God mood - but also left me feeling melancholy.

Melancholy was still my state of mind as I drove to the course Sunday morning.

My playing partners, two brothers, arrived late and they had news as to why. Their stepfather had passed away during the night. The news wasn't unexpected - he was ninety years old and had been sick. But their news cemented my mood.

The older I get, as these sorts of experiences mount, I'm finally learning to savor every minute of life.

And to count my blessings.

And not to sweat the small stuff.

Like golf.

So, it was due to this sad turn of events that I finally felt what it is like to play a round of golf without emotional baggage. My score was inconsequential to me Sunday.

I played the front nine in one under par. I was just enjoying the company of my friends, and taking pleasure in focusing my energy into moving the ball to the hole. I hit a few shots really well but for the most part I just scraped it around without any big mistakes. I was just playing to my skill level, unburdened with any emotional baggage. My emotions were on an even keel. One under for nine was an unusually fine score for me, but I was in no mood to celebrate. At the same time, there were no nerves in play.

It was, after all, just a silly game of golf that were were enjoying.

A well struck 3 footer for par on 10 lipped out, bringing me back to par for the round. But what might have upset me on another day - well it just didn't matter Sunday. I had hit the putt that I wanted to hit and it just didn't drop. And that's just golf. And golf is just a game, not significant in the grand scheme. Pars on 11 and 12 put me on the 13th tee still even for the round.

Now, prior to this point in the round I admit to having allowed myself to wonder if today was going to be the day that I achieved my long time golf goal of shooting par. That thought came into my mind several times but never brought with it even so much as a raised heartbeat. If it was going to happen, it would happen, and if it wasn't it wasn't. Either way, it didn't really matter - not in the big picture.

So I stood on the par three 13th tee just as unburdened by emotion as I had been for each of the prior 12 holes.

That's when God stepped in.

I shanked my 7 iron into the closest bunker to the tee, and then - my lack of skill combined with poor execution of the skills that I do have - found me tapping in for a triple bogey just a few moments later.

My emotions then?

Same thing. My score remained inconsequential. Prior to each shot played during the disaster hole I had planned what I believed to be the right shot and then performed it to the best of my ability. I just didn't possess the ability to do any better than I did. I hadn't tripled the hole because emotions got the better of me. I just lacked the skill to do better. A shank. A slightly fat first sand shot. A misunderstood second sand shot. An unfortunate lie. A "best I could do" blast of a third sand shot. A well struck 20 foot putt that didn't fall. A tap in triple bogey.

On other days I likely would have reacted differently I'm sure. But Sunday it just didn't really seem to matter. How could I get angry with myself for not possessing the skill and hand/eye coordination I needed to recover from my shank?

I realized that I couldn't blame myself. And so I didn't.

And since my emotions remained in check I proceeded to play the last five holes as I had the first 12 - in even par - for a round of 75. Equal to my best ever at my home course.

So, on reflection I'm left with:

- A score of 3 over par - a mystical reminder that I played 17 holes of golf at even par and only the one at 3 over.

- A lesson that my skills, left to work themselves without my usual emotional baggage, can lead to some fairly good golf.

- A few reminders of where I need to improve those skills.

- An experience of what it is like, finally, to play an entire round of golf without any emotional baggage.

- A confirmation of the lesson that I had thought was true before but now know is fact. That, in golf, focusing on the process - staying in the moment and devoid of emotional baggage - leads to the desired outcome.

- And, of course, the big lesson - a reminder of how unimportant this silly game is in the big picture of life.

And, now that I see how inconsequential the matter really is I'm left to wonder if this is a seminal moment in my golf game.

How ironic would that be?

Round Report: 07/08/07

2007-07-08T17:21:00.000-07:00

Well, my strategy of "making every shot" worked, not to perfection, but to about eighty five percent of perfection.

Turns out that this exercise was quite enlightening. I made "making the shot" my swing thought on every shot, and it usually worked to keep my emotions from wrecking any havoc on my swing. Prior to every swing I was convinced that I was focused, but I found that when I assessed my pre-swing state of mind after each swing, I could sometimes identify times when my emotions did affect my shots.

For example, on a par five, after a good drive I decided to go for the green in two. I was easily within 3-wood distance, but I had a slight downhill lie and the shot was over water. Prior to the swing I thought I was in good emotional shape - "don't worry about the outcome" I told myself, "just give it a loose swing and live with whatever happens". But then during the swing, "outcome worry" crept in and I tensed up. This resulted in a poor swing (and yes, a poor outcome as well).

I'm encouraged enough, though, to keep at this. I've been working on this technique with my putting for several weeks now and today my putting was phenomenal. My lag touch was off just a bit, but I "made" (and holed too!) all but one short (8 feet and in) putt, and I also holed a couple of longer putts. Actually, I counted only two putts that I didn't "make" during the entire round. I'm very please with that performance!

And yes, the exercise did translate to a pretty good scoring round - a six over par 78, including an even par 36 on the back.

Goal for Sunday: Make Every Shot

2007-07-06T07:28:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, emotions kept me from playing my best golf. If I'm to reach my goal, I have to do a better job with emotions. Not controlling them, because emotions are part of golf, but playing the game the right way regardless of the emotions that I'm feeling.

So Sunday, I'm gonna try a little experiement...

A little while back I heard Dr. Joe Parent, author of Zen Golf discuss the idea of "making every putt" on a GolfSmarter podcast.

By "making every putt" Dr. Parent doesn't mean "holing" every putt, he means that we should try to roll every putt along the intended line, at the intended speed and consider that to be a successful putt. In other words, in order to keep emotions from interfering with the putting stroke, remove the desired outcome of holing the putt from the definition of success.

Easier said than done to be sure, but I have had some success with this on the greens recently.

In my next round this Sunday, I intend to extend this thought to my full shots too. Except that I'll have to revise it just a bit for full shots. "Success" on a full shot will mean that I played the shot without any emotional baggage.

Emotional baggage could mean, as with putting, concern about the outcome of the shot. Or it could mean playing a shot too quickly because I'm still miffed about my score on a prior hole. Or it could mean playing a shot that I don't really believe I'm capable of pulling off just because I want to make up for a prior poor shot on the hole.

Playing the shot without emotional baggage will mean playing within my routine; planning the shot and swinging the club in the manner that I believe will produce the shot that I've planned. Each shot that I play this way - in the present and free of emotion about the past or the future - will be counted as a successful shot.

The result of the shot will not be a factor in whether or not the shot is considered a success. So a skull, shank, top, chili dip or whatever could be a successful shot as long as I play the shot without emotional baggage affecting my preshot routine or my actual swing.

If I can pull this off then I can honestly say that I played the best golf that I was capable of playing that day.

Taking it to the course

2007-07-05T11:46:00.000-07:00

Why do so many of us have trouble with this?

Yesterday I was warming up on the range prior to my round and found that I was just striping the ball. Every swing was excellent, and it wasn't because I found a groove with a single club. Even as I moved from club to club the swing was there.

The positive thoughts carried to the course - through the 1st nine at least where I was just two over par. Then came the back nine where I lost confidence in my swing and struggled to bring it home at nine over par.

So what is it? I know what to do. I know to swing in a relaxed manner. But doing it consistently continues to evade me.

I think I might care about the outcome too much.

We're all Hokies today

2007-04-18T10:03:00.000-07:00

I'm having trouble watching and reading the coverage of the VPI massacre.

Death at any age is tragic and death on a large scale is always horrifying.

So many of these victims were just kids. Just kids. So many with such promising futures.

And most of these young people left behind two parents, each of whom would have without a second thought offered up their own lives if it would have saved their child's.

Then there are millions of us, parents ourselves, who can so easily imagine how they feel. Devestated doesn't begin to describe what these parents are feeling today.

Let's not forget these victims and their families so quickly.

And while we're at it, let's not forget the equally tragic loss of young life that continues in the middle east.

Plane Truth Redux

2007-04-02T16:53:00.000-07:00

So I've been reading Jim Hardy's second book on his two different swing theory, The Plane Truth for Golfers Master Class.

As with the first book, I'm seeing some success.

Hardy's detailed description of the one plane swing is evidently sinking into my thick skull. While I had little success during a driving range session last week, I took the concepts to the course with me Sunday, and hesitantly pulled them out of the bag during warm ups.

Eureka! Something clicked and I started hitting solid shots (for the first time in months I might add.) While my on course play wasn't stellar I was pleased with my shot making overall.

Tonight at the driving range brought even greater success.

Time will tell.

Back on Track

2007-01-16T16:08:00.000-08:00

Over the past few months my golf obsession has been replaced by a fitness obsession.

Fortunately, I think the two obsessions are mutually compatable.

My new diet and exercise lifestyle change has had an impact on my game. For instance, I've noticed that I've been more laid back about my game, and really in regards to life in general. For some reason, I'm feeling less stress and that translates to a happier life in general.

The 50 plus pound weight loss has also had an impact. For example;

I have greater flexibility.
I'm less tired towards the end of a round.
And I don't have to work to suck my stomach in when the cute cart girl comes around!

In time, I'm sure my new found fitness will also translate to lower scores.

Mini Me

2006-11-21T14:59:00.000-08:00

In my last post I talked about the Big Belly Challenge (BBC), the weight loss contest that helped me lose 26 pounds. Since the end of that contest on Labor Day I've lost an additional 24 pounds, putting me down 50 pounds from my starting weight of 230.

So I've managed to go from an obese Body Mass Index (BMI=31) right through the overweight category and all the way to a normal weight (BMI = 24) in a little less than four months!

It hasn't been easy.

When we started the contest on July 24 I immediately began an intensive exercise program. Inspired by the "two a days" that the NFL players were going through at the time, I pursued an exercise program that, looking back on it now, was extreme.

A typical day for me went like this:

Upon waking, a brisk walk around a 2 mile route in the neighborhood.
Breakfast, followed by a 30 minute "program" on the treadmill.
Off to work, and if the weather and my schedule allowed it, lunch followed by a 2 mile walk.
Upon returning home, dinner, followed by walking the dog with my wife (1.2 mile route), followed by another 30 minute program on the treadmill, followed by another "cool down" 2 mile walk around the neighborhood.

Yea, okay, kinda crazy. But I was determined to win the BBC. I paid for it though - with blisters that turned to nasty calluses on my feet.

I also changed my diet somewhat during this time. First I bought Nutrition for Dummies and started looking for ways to cut down on my food intake. After dinner snacks were the first to go - and this change was actually fairly easy since I was so busy exercising after dinner. By the end of the final walk each day I was just bushed. I'd typically just take a shower, lay down to read, and fall asleep. So I had little time to stuff my face with unhealthy snacks.

I also changed my normal lunch routine - which had been a trip to the food court in the mall for Chinese, or Cajun, or Italian fast food. Instead, I started eating a salad from the lunch room at work before setting off on my lunchtime walks.

So, by the end of the BBC I had lost 26 pounds, or over 4 pounds per week! While I lost the contest, I was thrilled with my progress, and in no mood to stop there.

So the BBC2 was born.

Over the next several weeks I continued to exercise, but not at quite the same pace. I stopped the early morning 2 mile walk, increased the treadmill work to 40 minutes and started interval training, and kept the lunchtime walk and the nightly dog walk.

I also starting making more changes in my diet. After Nutrition for Dummies, I picked up another diet book - The China Study - which turned out to be much more than a diet book and which has changed my eating habits in dramatic fashion. If you haven't read the book, well, just do. The author, nutritionist and researcher T. Colin Campbell, makes a fairly convincing case for a strict vegetarian diet.

Now I'm a skeptical guy, and I've been eating meat for 51 years, so Campbell's recommendations called for further study. I followed up on some of the studies that he referenced in his book, and then read two other books by fellow veggie travelers, MDs and authors Fuhrman (Eat to Live) and McDougall (The McDougall Program). I also read two other more mainstream nutrition books - The Realage Diet, and Eat, Drink and be Healthy, by highly regarded Harvard nutritionist, Walter Willett.

By the end of all of this reading I became convinced to make big changes in my diet. While these nutritionist quarreled about a few things, there was amazing consensus on a number of major dietary recommendations. Namely;

Plant based whole foods should be the foundation upon which our diets are built.
We should consume much more; vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts and whole grains than we do now in the typical American diet.
The consumption of animal flesh and fish should be minimized, if not altogether dropped from the diet.
Trans fats should be avoided by all humans.
Plant fats, which tend to be monounsaturated or polyunsaturated, are more healthy than the saturated fats found largely in animal flesh and dairy products.

So my diet changed. So much so, in fact, that in the last week of September I asked my wife to participate in an experiment with me. I made her the following offer, which she quickly accepted. If she'd go completely vegetarian with me for the month of October, I'd do the grocery shopping and cooking for the month.

For the record, we didn't go completely veggie - we did still have fish once or twice a week and she ate chicken or beef sometimes when we went out - but otherwise we cut out all meat in our in home eating, and we dropped all dairy from our diets.

I was surprised at how easy this change was. I've found that I actually enjoy replacing the skim milk on my morning cereal with soy milk. The soy milk actually tastes better and it doesn't spoil. I also switched from cold "bran flakes" to hot oatmeal or other whole grain cereal. I very much look forward to this for breakfast now, along with a couple of servings of fresh fruit; bananas, grapes, apples, pears, or berries of some type.

Also, I've seen that the vegetable and fruit based diet is far more filling that the meat-centric diet that I had followed my entire life. I find that I can eat as much food as I want, and snack whenever I'm hungry, so long as I eat healthy.

Surprisingly, I have continued to lose weight at a clip of over 2 pounds per week, even though with the weather change I've had to cut back on the outdoor walks. On most days now I exercise for 60 minutes just prior to work, alternating between a 5 mile run/walk on the treadmill and a weight lifting program. Lately, I've been working in a pilates program during the evenings - building strength in my "core" and increasing flexibility.

And today was a special day. I stepped on the scale this morning and it read 179.6. Fifty pounds down and only a few more to go!

I haven't seen this territory since, well maybe my college days!

Adjustments

2006-10-13T16:52:00.000-07:00

Wow! It's been quite some time since my last post.

Okay, so I'm a man of fleeting passions. At least I have passions.

While it hasn't been golf as of late, my latest passion is sure to help my game... once I adjust.

It all started in mid-July, when I challenged Roger to a weight loss contest - a six week test that would end on labor day weekend. The prize - a round of golf at the course of the winner's choice (within a reasonable price range.)

Well I lost, but I lost. The contest, but the weight, that is. Twenty-four pounds in fact, from 230 to 206 in just six weeks! Since then I've lost an additional fourteen, which puts me at 192 and within striking distance of my "healthy" weight (wherever that is).

There have been effects on the golf game, of course.

First, I feel great! I'm more energetic and I haven't been tiring out at the end of the round like I used to do.

Also, the absence of the extra belly has changed my backswing. Yep, I can take the club back to places not seen in years! A straight left arm is a possibility again!

On the downside, that extra width in my swing has thrown off my timing just a bit. But I'm working on that and once I get it down I'm sure I'll be fine.

And most importantly, I am scoring better. My handicap dropped to 6.3 in September, the lowest it's been in maybe five years!

Twelve Holes of Golf!

2006-08-28T17:29:00.000-07:00

Sunday. For twelve holes, I was playing golf. I mean really playing the game.

Don't worry, I'm not going to bother you with the details, only the highlights.

After two holes, I was two under. After five, three under. After nine, one under. After twelve, two under.

Okay, I do have to tell you about my shot on eleven. It's a short par 3 over water. My friends hate the hole but I love it. I could have put my first born through college on the money I've won on that hole.

On Sunday, I aimed my nine iron about ten feet right of the pin, since it was cut on the left edge of the green, close to the water on the left. I pulled the shot, but only slightly... right at the flag. The ball landed four feet behind the flag and sucked back to two inches from the hole!

It was that kind of day. Or more precisely, that kind of twelve.

Because over the final six holes the wheels fell off and I gave back ten shots to par to shoot 80.

I hate to shoot 80 and above. For some unknown reason - and I do mean unknown because I've tried to figure it out but haven't come up with a valid reason - I think of a round less than 80 as a good round, and anything 80 and above as poor.

So after playing those first twelve holes so well and those last six so poorly - and especially after striking my fifteen foot bogey putt on 18 (my putt for a 79) right at the hole only to have it hit the back of the hole and stay out - after that you'd think I'd be ready to put my clubs in the corner of my garage and give it up for six months.

But I'm not. Oh I was disappointed after the round, but surprisingly, not all that much. The poor golf that I played over the last six holes was overshadowed by the exceptional golf I'd played for the first twelve.

Not only was I not ready to give it up, I was ready to go out for more - to find the magic that was there and that I know still is there - to be found again. And soon. Maybe this weekend!

Golf. What a game!

In the now

2006-08-23T14:41:00.000-07:00

In On Golf, speaking about attitude towards short putts, Bobby Jones wrote; "Hit the putt as well as you can, and do not allow worry over the outcome to spoil the stroke."

On first reading, this seemed so obvious that I skipped right past it without thinking. But on a second reading, and with reflection, I concluded that this is a profound piece of advice.

I've always stressed over the short putts. Those 3 to 5 footers are knee knockers to me. But Jone's statement made me ask myself why, and my conclusion was this; because I think I should make those putts I get nervous about missing 'em, knowing I'll be upset if I do. And that thought itself is what makes those putts so hard!

Another way to look at what Jones was saying here is that we need to stay "in the now" in order to play our best golf. As soon as we start to think about the future (the outcome of the stroke) we can stress ourselves, and that will usually affect the actual outcome of our stroke in a negative way.

Coincidentally (or maybe not?) this is the main theme of another book I'm currently reading - Fred Shoemaker's Extraordinary Putting. In fact, I've come across this theme in not only these two books, but in several GolfSmarter podcasts of late.

Somebody, somewhere, must be tryin' to tell me sumpin!

So... last Sunday I took this thought to the course. While my full swing ball striking was less than extraordinary, this might have been the most enjoyable round of golf - putting wise - that I've every played. Because my putting was simply extraordinary. Extraordinary in this way; every putt I stroked all day long was stroked perfectly. I wasn't nervous about a single outcome, and so I was able to concentrate totally on the mechanics of the stroke.

But by "mechanics", I don't mean that I had 30 thoughts crossing my mind before and during each stroke. My only thought, (and I'm not even sure it was a conscious thought), during my stroke was to putt into the hole, (or close to the hole - with the longer lag putts.)

And the results were simply amazing. Oh I didn't make every putt, but I didn't miss any putts due to a poor swing. Every swing was perfect. I missed when I misread the putt - that was it. I didn't stress over a single putt, or get upset at a single miss.

Because, if you read the putt, stroke it perfectly, but it turns out that you misread it and missed.... well how can you get upset at yourself for that?

All you can say is; "Great job Mr. course architect. You fooled me... this time. "

The Axe

2006-08-08T18:00:00.000-07:00

Well I suffered through another sub par (not literally, unfortunately) round on Sunday. Once again my swing was off and no matter how much I searched for it I was unable to find the magic of a couple of weeks ago.

So upon arriving back home I grabbed a quick bite and headed for the driving range near my house. I bought a bucket of 62 balls and set to work to find whatever it was that I had lost.

After about 50 balls I had made no appreciable headway and sat down to rest. I was tired. My pre-swing routine is now to take two or three practice swings, so including the golf, the warmups on the range prior to playing, and the 50 balls at the range I must have swung the club four or five hundred times. That, added to an extra morning workout made me one tired puppy.

After a brief rest I went back to the stall and, well, a funny thing happened. I can best describe it this way...

As I stood over the next ball my body took control from my brain. My body was tired, and it said to my brain; "Look here. If we're going to hit these last dozen balls we're going to do it in the most efficient manner possible. No wasted energy here dude, 'cause we're damn tired."

So that's what I did, with my 8 iron. I watched the ball sail high and land just in front of the 150 yard marker I was aiming at. A second shot sailed along the same arc and landed within a few feet of the prior one.

As I contemplated what had just happened, I came upon a swing thought that perfectly captured the feel of the prior two swings.

I imagined that the club in my hand was actually an axe, and that I was swinging the axe into a log perpendicular to my line of flight and just in front of the golf ball. I was swinging at the exact speed, and in the most efficient way possible, in order to cut the log as deeply as I could while still maintaining the control necessary to place the blade in the exact same cut as the prior swing. I estimate that I was swinging at somewhere between 80% and 90% of maximum. But I was doing so almost effortlessly. My lower body was involved in adding power to the swing, as were my arms, but the real speed of the swing came from the centrifugal force of the club head (axe head) as I released the club head to do it's job on the log.

With this swing thought I proceeded to hit 10 perfect golf shots in a row. All of my shots were high, long, and straight. I estimate that I must have added nearly 10 mph to my swing speed.

The coup de grace was the final shot, made with my three hybrid, a high draw that landed three feet left of my target 200 yards away.

I can't wait to play again!

Out of the zone

2006-08-05T16:18:00.000-07:00

If a golfer can have days where he's "in the zone" then it stands to reason that he can have days where he experiences golf at the other extreme. "Out of the zone" days.

Yesterday was such a day for me.

I had such high expectations for my morning round. I took the day off to play with a good friend who has had some recent health issues and is just now able to get back into golf. We scheduled an early time to beat the oppressive heat wave this area was experiencing. On the first tee we were paired up with a very nice elderly couple from Florida. I ripped my tee shot long and down the middle of the first fairway. All seemed to be going as planned. It was going to be a great round!

But it wasn't to be.

I pulled my approach shot badly into a trap left of the green. But I managed to get up and down for par - all was still good.

On the second hole, a par five, I flared my drive wide right, pulled my second badly, and thinned my third into a trap in front of the green. Again though, I was able to get up and down to save par.

Okay, I think, maybe this is going to be a special kind of round.

Oh yea, things got very "special" from that point.

There's no need to say much about the rest of the round except to say that the wide range of bad shots that I hit may have set a new personal record for one round. Chunks, thins, slices and hooks - you name 'em, I hit 'em. In spades and with creative variations.

But there were a couple of positives. First, I never lost my cool. Second, though I played exceptionally poorly, (e.g. I hit more sand traps than GIRs!), I scrambled to shoot an unembarassing 82.

I think these two positives are related. But I don't know how I managed to play so badly.

So... I'm gonna just try to put this round behind me and look forward to a better ball striking round next time.

Fortunately, I don't have to wait long - only until tomorrow!

Losing "it", and getting "it" back

2006-07-26T18:53:00.000-07:00

Another trip to the range tonight to prove to myself that my swing, so trustworty two weeks ago, has indeed return.

It hadn't.

For the first bucket I was beside myself, trying every change I could think of to get my swing back. My shots were weak or fat - just ridiculously shitty.

Finally, halfway into the second bucket I came across the problem. My sway was back.

So I concentrated on the weight shift on the backswing - especially keeping my weight on the inside of the heel of my right foot.

Voila. Suddenly I was able to push off the back foot again and really go after the ball. My shots turned crisp and long.

I'm back!

Swing Maintenance

2006-07-25T16:32:00.000-07:00

A short vacation followed by a business trip means two lost golf weekends. So upon my return I was naturally worried about having lost the swing magic I had for the two prior rounds.

Sure enough, a quick visit to the range on Monday revealed that my swing had lost some crispness, and to make matters worse all of my shots were moving left to right - not my normal shot shape. But the wind was blowing that way, so I wasn't in a panic.

Another visit last night - this time with the wind blowing the other way - revealed that it was indeed my swing. But after about a half bucket I figured it out, and corrected the out-to-in swing path by focusing on firing the butt end of the club into my right hip pocket. By bringing the club in the dowswing closer to my body I was able to change the swing path to in-to-out.

And I read tonight that this swing change is consistent with Jim Hardy's one-plane swing fundamentals.

Guess I'll just have to memorize that book.

One Plane Success

2006-07-15T08:39:00.000-07:00

Another solid round on Wednesday, again focusing on maintaining a 35 to 45 degree spine angle at setup.

A 76 this time, with 12 pars, 5 bogeys and a birdie.

Again, I was able to get substantial extra distance with my drives. Really, with all clubs.

I'm finding that I can swing with more force than before. I'm also still able to keep the right side of the hole out of play.

One downside appears to be that I've lost some accuracy with my short irons - especially with the wedge. I suspect it may that I have to adjust the clubface angle to the new, more upright swing path. Might also be that my alignment has to change.

All in all though, I'm thrilled with the newfound length and sold ball striking!

Eureka!

2006-07-09T19:35:00.000-07:00

I found something!

When I saw my swing the other day and compared it with Hardy's "one plane" fundamentals, I noticed that my shoulders were turning on a flatter plane than Hardy recommends. Hardy suggests that the one plane golfer bend at the waist at a 35 to 45 degree angle. I was bending maybe 20 degrees at the most.

Today I concentrated on bending over more than usual at address. I found that this helped me in two ways:

It took the right side of the hole completely out of play. (It felt almost like playing a shot with the ball above my feet. Very easy to keep that shot from going right!)
I was able to swing harder - much harder - and still control my ball. My drives were longer. My irons flew higher and longer.

As a result, I played my most solid round of the year, shooting a 77 with 14 pars, 3 bogies and one double.

The Plane Truth

2006-07-03T12:27:00.000-07:00

There are numerous "also ran" instructional manuals among my collection of books on golf, the contents of which are either long forgotten or dismissed.

Then there are those that introduced solid instruction that I - with varying degrees of success - attempted to synthesize into my golf game.

But then there are those wondrous books that were exciting to read as they contained shiny new concepts, some of which helped me reach new plateaus - books like; Fred Shoemaker's Extraordinary Golf, or Manuel De LA Torre's Understanding the Golf Swing, or John Jacob's Practical Golf come to mind.

Over the weekend I picked up another book which might fit this latter category - Jim Hardy's The Plane Truth for Golfers.

Hardy introduces a radical new concept (radical to me at least). He postulates that there are not one but two sets of swing fundamentals, because there are two different golf swings.

I've heard of a two swing theory before - in the context of a suggestion that there is a different swing for the driver and the irons.

But that's not what Hardy is talking about.

Hardy differentiates between a "one plane" and a "two plane" swing. The "one plane" swing is characterized by golfers who swing the club along the same plane (or very close to the same plane) as their shoulders, while in the "two plane" swing golfers swing their arms up at a more vertical angle than their shoulders are turning.

What makes Hardy's theory interesting is his suggestion that there are different sets of fundamentals for the two swings. While he favors the "one plane" swing, he says that - with practice - either swing is capable of achieving the desired result - consistent ball striking.

Hardy's recommendation is to pick one swing and groove those fundamentals.

After reading the first few chapters I had to find out which swing mine resembled, so I set up the camera in the back yard and took some practice swings. I concluded that my current swing is closer to the "one plane" swing, though my shoulders turn on perhaps a bit more horizontal plane than they should. My setup fundamentals - strong grip, square to closed stance, level shoulders - are also in line with the "one plane" swing.

Since I don't have to change much at all I think I'll give Hardy's "one plane" swing fundamentals a shot. It'll be interesting to see if any of his suggestions for grooving the "one plane" swing lead to improvement.

Clearing the mind

2006-06-24T17:42:00.000-07:00

I heard something interesting yesterday on a Golf Smarter podcast. PGA pro Seth Glasco was discussing how we golfers tend to get in our own way mentally by overthinking.

He pointed out that this is easy to do in golf since the golf swing is one of the few athletic actions where we have time to think about the action. There are a few other examples of this in sports - the serve in tennis and the foul shot in basketball - where the ball is stationary and the athlete initiates the action. But these athletic actions are atypical. In the typical athletic act - catching or throwing or kicking - we are reacting, and as a result we have less time to think and if we're at all athletic we tend to perform well in these situations.

Of course the problem with having time to think is that we can think of all the things that we can screw up. Witness Shaquille O'Neill at the free throw line, or the many times we've observed a tennis pro double fault at the least opportune time in a match. Or witness your average golfer on the first tee - especially when others are around to observe.

Or, witness your "driving range pro" who is unable to take his game to the course. As Seth Glasco points out, that's because on the practice range the golfer is able to simply swing away without worrying about where the ball ends up, wherease on the course he sees all of the trouble in front of him - the water to the right, the bunker and trees to the left - and if he thinks about all of this then he tightens up and hits lousy shots.

So the fact that we have all of this time to think before our shots is one of the things that makes the game so hard. Unfortunately, there's really no way to not think at all, but what we can try to do is to think positively, and to focus on staying loose and athletic as we start the swing. We want to get as close as we can get to a reactive athletic move when we start our swing.

I know that when I play my best golf I'm doing exactly that. When I'm most confident in my game I'm not thinking about hitting the ball in the water to the right or the trees to the left, I'm thinking about nothing but striping it exactly where I want it to go. I feel loose and I actually know as I set my tee in the ground that my golf shot is going to be a good one. I just visualize the shot, take a practice swing or two to feel the swing that I'm going to put on the ball, then just step up and swing.

So my swing thought for my round tomorrow is going to be exactly that. I will not start my swing until I have cleared my mind of all negative thoughts and am thinking only of hiting the great golf shot that I visualized.

Course Management

2006-06-18T22:15:00.000-07:00

The Mickelson and Monty meltdowns at the US Open yesterday, plus mental mistakes I made in my own round, have me thinking about course management tonight.

Yesterday I shot an unsatisfying 10 over 82, with a triple bogey, two doubles, five bogeys, eight pars and two birdies. The triple and the two doubles were each set up by poor drives, but then exacerbated by attempts to salvage the hole by trying dangerous second shots.

On the triple, I pulled my tee shot into a deep fairway bunker on a par 5. Rather than just wedge out I tried to advance my ball with a less lofted iron - hoping to put myself in position to still be able to reach the green with my next shot. Instead, my shot lodged in the side of the bunker, requiring my next stroke to be a drop back in the bunker. In the end, I did well to triple the hole.

Same thing with the two doubles. Rather than just take my medicine I tried to do more with the second shot than I should have and in both cases this led to more trouble and to dropping additional shots on both holes.

But here's what has me scratching my head.

In each case, I weighed my options and played shots that I thought I could pull off. I thought that they were all high percentage shots.

So, did I mishit these shots badly?

No, none of them were perfect but neither were they terrible misses. So maybe I overestimated my ability on these three shots.

Phil Mickelson is kicking himself tonight for trying that tough recovery shot on 18. If I can't learn from my own mistakes maybe I can learn from his.

Maybe today's lesson is to be more realistic about the likelyhood of pulling off the tough recovery shot, and at the same time to be a bit more accepting of taking the medicine - difficult as it is to swallow sometimes.

Graphing Progress

2006-06-11T14:59:00.000-07:00

I once was successful losing a bunch of weight by charting my progress with a graph like this one. The idea is to chart your weight (or in this case, handicap) against a goal line that maps a way to your desired goal. By charting my handicap each month on this graph I'll be able to measure my progress as compared to my goal line.

There are two lines on the graph. The blue line represents my handicap, charted by month. (I entered monthly handicaps for the past two years for historical perspective.)

The orange line represents the planned goal line, which maps a way for me to reach my desired handicap over the next 60 months.

As it turns out, I have to drop my handicap by an average of .155 strokes per month over the next 60 months in order to reach my goal. (The plateaus on the goal line represent the four months per year during which we do not post our scores.)