Category: Golf

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The Goofy Game of Golf Searching for the Answer

Today, I am going to finish up this series of conflicting viewpoints  in certain aspects of golf instruction.  In future posts I will give my opinion on some of these ideas on golf instruction, depending if you are just beginning to learn the game or if you are a single digit handicapper.  I will also discuss the things, or maybe its just one thing that all golf instructors agree upon, and at least one thing that they may be obsessed with.  Now let’s finish this thing up.

You should change your grip to help square the club face up, or you keep the grip the same and correct the swing flaw that is making you slice or hook the ball. The main proponent of changing your grip to help square the clubhead was the famous British instructor John Jacobs.  The theory goes that if you are slicing the ball, you should turn your hands slightly to the right and you will see more of the knuckles of your left hand as you look down the shaft.  If you are hooking too much, you turn your hands slightly to the left and you will see less knuckles of the left hand.  This should produce straighter shots.  The majority of instructors feel that the grip should be a neutral or natural grip where the hands are positioned on the club in a similar manner, as they would be hanging down by your side. In their view, slicing and hooking is a swing problem only, and the grip should never be changed.

Hand position at address in relationship to the ball.  The traditional viewpoint is your hands should be slightly behind the ball at the address  position for the drive and then get ahead of the ball as the clubs get shorter.  Sometimes this detail is even ignored in some golf instruction.  Some people feel the hands should be about even with the ball for all shots.

What is the head doing during the golf swing, besides thinking why I am I playing this stupid game.   Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer both felt that the head should remain as still as possible during the golf swing.  In fact there is the famous story of Nicklaus’s instructor Jack Grout, holding on to Jack’s hair as he swung, so he would have minimal head movement during the swing. In the more modern swing it is shown that the head has a distinct downward move during the downswing.  In some  swings there is a definite movement to the right on the backswing. Curtis Strange had this move on his backswing, which is the influence of Jimmy Ballard.  On a lot of swings and preswings there is a definite rotation of the head to the  right which gives the appearance that the golfer is looking at the ball with only the left eye. Videos of today do show that Nicklaus and Palmer moved their head more than they thought they did, but they did not move their head as much as Tiger Woods or V. J. Singh do on  their swings. Some people feel that by trying to keep your head still during the swing creates too much tension to swing freely. Again we have a lot of conflicting viewpoints.

Lastly I have to mention Natural Golf. Their poster boy is Moe Norman, who is considered one of the greatest ball strikers of all time. I read Norman’s biography and he was an interesting character, to say the least. Even in his biography, it’s a little unclear what came first, Natural Golf or Moe Norman.  I think it was a mutually beneficial partnership, that probably compromised both methods to sell a few books.  I am not going to go through the Natural Golf Method, you can easily look it up, but I think it is about as unnatural as you can get to try and hit a golf ball.  It is a very distinct way on how to try and hit a golf ball.  I have played a lot of golf in my lifetime and I must say, I have never met anybody that played golf this way.   I would like to  see if I changed my mind about the method, if I saw it up close and personal.

So there you have it.   Conflicting golf instruction that you can find on the internet or when given a personal lesson.  So it goes back to one of my original questions, is everybody right or everybody wrong?  For something that only takes about 1 to 2 seconds to complete there are more opinions on how to do it than there on ways to fix the national debt, and I think that is just slightly more complicated. The next blog, I am going to  focus on things that all golf instruction seems to agree upon, but does even that make it right.

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The Goofy Game of Golf Searching for the Answer

After a brief res-pet from blogging for a trip to see the Grand kids in San Diego back with another in a series of instructional conflicts. Yes, I am going to comment briefly on the Lexi Thompson incident.  This blog is going to concern itself with chipping. The two points of view.  You should chip like you putt, or you should not chip like you putt. First we need to define a chip, which to some, has changed.  In Utley’s book on the short game he has his own definition of a chip, which I am going to ignore. My definition is that a chip is a shot with little or no wrist action.  In other words,the chip has nothing to do with distance. You could chip a ball 5 yards or you can chip it 40 yards or longer.  A pitch by my definition is a shot where the wrists will cock from 45 to 90 degrees.  Again you could pitch a ball 5 yards or you can pitch it 40 yards or longer. This post is going to discuss only chipping

The first view point is, you should chip like you putt. Since there is little wrist action in both chipping and putting this would seem to make a lot of sense. However, the clubs, ranging from anywhere from a 4 iron to a lob wedge, that are used for chipping, have nothing in common, in design,  with the putter. There is going to be some adjustments, you are going to have to make. The first, you must make sure the bottom edge of the club is square. This  will put your hands ahead of the club, sometimes as much as 6 inches if you are using the lob wedge. A lot of instructors advocate using the same grip you use for putting, to execute these shots.  The weight should be on the left foot a little more. Even though you are using your putting stroke to execute these shots, they still must be hit with a descending blow and not swept along the ground. You must have a good lie to execute a chip.  With any method you can not chip from the rough with the ball down a little in the grass.

Some instructors feel you should not chip like you putt. The leaders in this group are Phil Mickelson and Stan Utley. Mickelson has his hinge and hold method and Utley tries to get his hands leading the club head on his chips to deloft the club. You can read or watch their videos to get more details on their respective methods.  There are other instructors who have a more handsy   approach to chipping.

Now to the Lexi Thompson debacle. The one thing that has got lost in the shuffle is the second penalty that was accessed for the incorrect scorecard. She may have been done in by the new rule change this year on signing for a lower score than you actually made. The LPGA should have  never assessed her that 2 stroke penalty, and they had the perfect precedent of the Tiger Woods incident 2 or 3 years ago at the Masters. After Tiger’s ball hit the pin and went into the water on 15, he dropped the ball in an improper spot. The next day he was charged a two stroke penalty, but was not disqualified for the incorrect score card on the technicality that at the time he signed it, the score was correct. If the disqualification rule would have still been in effect this year, do you think the LPGA would have walked up on that tee box and disqualified Lexi Thompson, no way.  I am sure the Tiger incident would have been cited. Because now it is a 2 stroke penalty, they in my view went ahead and  penalized her those 2 strokes incorrectly.  Technically, and its all technicalities, she signed a correct score card when she signed it, just like Tiger Woods. Obviously with only a 2 stroke penalty she would have won the tournament out right and there would have been no play off. Shame on you LPGA.

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The Goofy Game of Golf Searching for the Answer

Today, I am going to discussed three aspects of the golf swing with various viewpoints.  The take away, the top of the swing, and the start of the downswing. The last one will just be fun because how to start the downswing is pretty much endless, but we will list the main ones. Most of what I am going to post today will involve some of Jack Nicklaus’s opinions on the golf swing.  I am not saying I agree  with everything that Jack says about the swing, but I don’t think you can go wrong by adopting many of his swing suggestions. However, in the main stream of golf instruction most of the things that Jack advocates is pretty much dismissed, as not the way to play golf.   I am not going into great detail, here but I think the reason for this is Jack made conventional golf instruction look pretty silly with his so called flying right elbow.  He took a lot of flak for that early in his career, to the point that many said he would never be a great golfer. Talk about being very wrong. Let’s begin.

The take away should be low and slow, or is that the worse thing that you can do?  Nicklaus was a low and slow advocate and his own backswing did seem to start in a very deliberate manner. Today most instruction says to start the backswing smoothly in a more rhythmic manner and do not start the swing in a jerky manner. Instruction today feels that you can start the backswing too slowly, which robs you of any rhythm and timing, and makes you rush the rest of your swing. Try either method you may find you like one over the other.

At the top of the swing, should you make a conscious pause, or is this something that you do not have to think about. Trying to pause at the top will cause more problems with your swing.  Nicklaus summed up his feelings on the subject with an instructional chapter titled”There is no pause that refreshes in the golf swing,” taking a slogan from a popular soft drink. In order for the club to change direction in the golf swing it has to stop or pause or whatever you want to say, whether you think about it or not. There is no question that you can see differences in this pause at the top. Some Tour players have a very distinct pause at the top of their backswing, and others with very fast swings, it is very hard to detect. There are players everywhere between these two extremes.  Pick your poison, you may find something your like.

Now for the fun part, How do you start the downswing. OMG are you kidding me. The first one is the Nicklaus method. Obviously you have to lift your heel on the backswing. The rest are just listed but these are all from legitimate instructors.

Plant your left heel on the ground, turn your right knee to the ball, drop your right elbow slowly into your side, bump your left hip toward the target, shift your weight to the outside of the left heel(this is for the heel that stays on the ground during the backswing), raise your left shoulder from under your chin, drive the left hip back and begin straightening your left leg, pull down with the last three fingers of the left hand like you would be ringing a church bell, drive the left knee toward the target, while remaining the flex in the knee, and only allowing it to straighten well after the ball is struck, and finally slowly dropping the arms while allowing the hips to unwind. This list has 10 ways to start the  downswing, and people say that golf instruction is confusing, you have got to be kidding, what could be more clear then that. The list is not even complete but I think the point is made. So what’s a mother to do?  My suggestion for now is try em all, you may find one that really fits your swing and can help you hit the ball better.  It looks like we are going to have winter in March, so another blog on the swing won’t be far behind, as we are getting close to the end of conflicting ideas on how to hit a golf ball.

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The Goofy Game of Golf Searching for the Answer

Today’s post will be slightly different, in that I am going to cover three aspects of the golf swing, that have conflicting viewpoints, plus I am going to put in my two cents worth on the subject.  I am going to look at hip turn, shoulder turn, and the backswing, which are so interconnected that it would be difficult to discuss one without getting involved with the other. First, the various viewpoints on each aspect.  You should restrict your hip turn or you should not restrict your hip turn.   You should turn your shoulders at least 90 degrees or you do not have to turn the shoulders 90 degrees.  You should keep your backswing compact and avoid over swinging, or you should make a nice long backswing, which will give you plenty of time to accelerate the club and keep your swing very smooth.

So in order to start the discussion, one has to start out with the famous X factor of Jim Mclean’s, which started this whole mess.  The X factor states that the more you can turn your shoulders, without turning your hips, the farther you will hit the ball, plain and simple.  The standard difference between you hip and shoulder turn is about 50%  You turn your shoulders 90 degrees, your hips should turn about 45 degrees.   According to the X factor,  if you could make that 90 degree shoulder turn with only 35 degree hip turn, then you would increase your distance.  If you can make a greater than 90 degree shoulder turn, with less than 45 degree hip turn you would  hit the ball even further. Is this true? It is absolutely true. Should you swing a golf club like this? Absolutely not is the correct answer. If you want to play golf past your 50th birthday then this is not the way to swing a golf club. Watch Greg Norman’s swing  in the late 80’s and the early to mid nineties. He had minimal hip turn and maximum shoulder turn. Played very little golf after age 45. Same thing can be said about Tiger.This swing is so hard on your body you will see more and more of the modern player fall by the way side.So many of todays players swing this way, that you can bet not many of them will be playing on the senior tour.     It is no coincidence that Phil and V.J. who have larger hip turns have played great golf well past their 45th birthday.

Now let’s move to the shoulders where there is another swing method call the limited shoulder turn golf swing by Don Trahan. This swing is easy on your body and depends more on a vertical lift of the arms with the shoulders probably turning about 70 degrees. I don’t have a lot of problem with the theory here but this swing is harder to time than what Mr Trahan would lead you to believe. It is way too specific in making certain moves in the golf swing. At least this swing won’t put you in traction.

Finally, should your backswing be compact or should it be longer and no worry about “over swinging”.  I think this is a personal preference, but which ever way you decide to go there is one key factor. .If you decide to take a more compact swing then your tempo should be rather quick. If you are going to take a longer backswing then you should have a slower more languid tempo.  A slower short swing and a fast long swing just will not work.

My take on all of  this is very simple.  At the top of the backswing, the top part of your back or shoulder blades if you prefer, should be facing the target. I don’t care how you get there to do it. The thing that makes your swing compact or long is the arms, and how much the wrists cock.  The golf swing is a turn and the only thing that should limit the turn, is your physical capabilities. So if you have to turn those hips to get that back to face the target,  go right ahead. Do you think  Bobby Jones and Jack Nicklaus did all right with a big hip turn? Next post will be should you start the swing low and slow or is low and slow the worst thing you can do?

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The Goofy Game of Golf Searching for the Answer

Today’s post is about where your weight should be distributed at the address position of the golf swing.  We are not talking about between the right and left foot, but where on the bottom of your feet.  Again, there is more than one theory  in golf instruction. There are three ways that are advocated: 1. The weight should be on the balls of your feet at address. 2. The weight should feel like it is over the arches of the foot or just in front of the ankles. 3. The weight should be on the heels or towards the heels of your feet.  There is only one thing that everyone is in agreement. Your weight should not be on your toes.  One thing that you should be able to do at address is wiggle your toes.  So now look at each one.

The proponents of having your weight on the balls of your feet like to say that this gets you into an athletic position and gets you ready to move and gives  your body a lively feel. This is by far the most popular instruction. The big negative here is that the balls of your feet are not that far away from your toes. This instruction also likes you to shift your weight into the heels to try and prevent you from going on your toes during the swing.  The inside of your right heel on the backswing and the outside of your left heel on the downswing.

Now lets go to having your weight toward the heels at the address position. You hear about this recommendation the least, but none other than Ken Venturi wrote this as one of the  key fundamentals of the address position.  With your weight on the heels, Mr. Venturi felt that this kept you from standing too far away from the ball, and allowed the body to make a turn a lot easier. The biggest negative of having the weight favoring the heels is sometimes keeping your balance during the swing could be a problem. It is by far the least given advice but obviously has it’s advocates.

Finally having your weight over the arches of your feet or just in front of the ankles, is real popular on the golf channel instruction.  This, you could say is the compromise between the first two.  Your arch is farther away from the toes and getting closer to the heels but you don’t put the weight on the heels. The big positive here is that you should have no problem keeping your balance during the swing.  How much this frees your body up to turn is debatable but again shifting your weight into heels during the swing may help that.

Well hear are some rhetorical questions and you can give your own answers or just food for thought.  Do we really need to be in an athletic position to make a golf swing if we really are not moving off the spot where we are starting?  Do the heels really give us enough of a base to make a golf swing?  Can you really feel pressure in your arch to feel that this is where you are putting most of your weight at address? Something to think about and we will cross that bridge later.  Next up hip turn, do you or don’t you.

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The Goofy Game of Golf Searching for the Answer

Today’s post is going to discuss ball position. It is a much less complicated part of the golf swing discussion, but none the less, an interesting subject. There are two schools of thought concerning ball position. You should keep the ball in the same place, preferably off the left heel for every club in the bag. None other than Jack Nicklaus is the major advocate of this view. The other viewpoint is the ball should be played off the left heel for the driver, but then the ball should be moved back gradually toward the center of your stance, as the clubs get shorter, with the wedges being played right in the middle of your stance.  There is a third view on ball position, by another all time great, which I will get to at the end of this post.

Here is the interesting part.  Both advocate their position for the same reason. They say that their method of ball position allows you to swing the same for every club in the bag. Instruction  to play all shots off the left heel, says that since the ball is in the same position for every club, your swing does not have to change in order to hit the ball cleanly. Instruction  to move the ball back in your stance as the clubs get shorter, says that this is where your arc of the swing will make contact with ball naturally on a descending blow. This way your swing stays the same, and you catch the ball at the proper point, with out making any adjustments of your swing.  So who is right.  I will let you decide on that one, because that is not the purpose of these posts.

Now for the third view on ball position by the great Bobby Jones. He felt that ball position could be one of the things that you could change on a day to day basis depending on how you were playing. He felt this was one method to try to get back on track if you started out with some poor ball striking.  He felt you should play the ball forward in the stance, opposite the left heel as a general rule, but he would move it forward or back if he opened with a few bad shots and magically his game would return.  He would not move the ball position on any particular pattern of bad shots. It would be an instinctive move forward or backward until he just started hitting the ball better. Another method he used to get the feel back in his game was to choke up and down on the club. He salvaged many a round by playing all shots with his hands just an inch or so about the steel line of the shaft. He would wait until the end of the round to go to the practice range to try find the swing issue. He never tinkered with the swing during the round.

Well, there you have it ball position. Another bevy of information on something that should be so simple but lots of view points.  What’s a golfer to do. Next week will be weight distribution of your feet at address. Now that’s a real good one. When I first listed that one I wrote thank God are feet are not bigger or there might be more than the three opinions on this.

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The Goofy Game of Golf Searching for the Answer

Well, its been about 2 months since the last blog with good reason. My game has completely hit the crapper. I went the entire months of June and July without breaking 80. I am still playing about 3 to 4 times per week and I am in good health physically. Mentally I think I’m OK but death is looking pretty good right now. Just kidding. I finally did break 80 three times so far in August. So whats been the problem. Well a couple of experiments went very bad, obviously and one I stuck with for about 3 to 4 weeks because it looked like it might be worth something and it was worth about 800 dollars in lost bets, and tournament fees. Right now I am going back to a swing that I used from 1986 to 1994 and have had some success but my putting has been really bad. Its like anything else when you hit a period this bad its always something. I am not discouraged and just keep repeating the mantra there’s a reason for everything.

So while I was out there the hacking away, the USGA was making fools of themselves at both the men’s and women’s Open. There’s been plenty written about both events but here is what has to happen in golf, whether it is the PGA tour or major USGA events.  To make my point lets go to other major sports. Let’s look at football, namely the NFL. The New England Patriots are the playing Cincinnati Bengals and lets rev up the stakes a little bit and say it is a play off game. About midway through the 1st quarter the New England player returns a punt 75 yards for a touchdown down the sidelines. Because of camera angles and players bodies, even on instant replay the player looks like he stays in bounds, and the touchdown stands. New England kicks the extra point and kicks off to the Bengals for a touch back. Cincinnati runs one play gains 3 yards. Now all of a sudden it is brought to the attention of the TV booth that a side line camera man has a still shot which shows that the runner on the punt return barely hits the out of bounds line at the 20 yard line. There is a brief time out and the referee makes the announcement of what just happened and declares that the touchdown and extra point will be taken away from New England and the game will continue with the Bengals 2nd and 7 on the 23 and the score 0-0. Now as ludicrous as this sounds this is exactly what happens in golf time after time and this is what has to change. At the very least golf has to assess any penalty before the players start the next hole. This idea of golf trying to go back in time and undo grievous mistakes is ridiculous and really makes the game  worse not better. The way they informed the players of the rules infraction at the Women’s Open, you could argue that the USGA put the fix in to make sure that Lang won the event. You don’t know what was going through her mind at time when she thought she was tied for lead. She may have been feeling fatigued and may have tried a riskier shot to make birdie to end it right there. If Nordqvist had known she was 2 shots down at the 18th tee box she would have hit the riskier driver off the tee to try and reach the green in two. Inadvertent rules infractions happen all the time in golf. Do I think Anna Nordqvist should have been penalized for barely touching that grain of sand, absolutely. But she should have been penalized before she stroked her putt on 17 or not at all. Until the ruling bodies of golf realize that golf is played by human beings, and mistakes happen that should not be corrected 15 minutes to 24 hours after they happen, the game will always be tainted.

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The Goofy Game of Golf Searching for the Answer

Well, its been two months since the last time I have blogged about my game. I have been playing the same amount as usual, about 3 to 4 times a week. Since the first of April I have played 26 rounds, with some 9 hole rounds thrown in. The golf, overall, has been mediocre at best and sometimes pretty horrible. I have had about the same number of rounds in the 80’s and 70’s. At least no more rounds in the 90’s although one was close, 89. My four tournament rounds have all been in the 80’s with one birdie in 72 holes.  Naturally, I have been trying all sorts of things to bring me out of this funk, that I have been in, since the middle of March. I have had just enough good rounds, one 74 and two 76’s, with a couple of 77’s and 78’s thrown in, to keep my handicap in the mid 5’s. The new rule about not counting rounds when you play alone is also helping. So with heading into the summer months here is what I think may bring back.

If there is one thing I have learned through this down time is that the swing is not the problem. That can be said about any golfer with a single digit handicap, and any pro tour golfer. The proof of this is the current analysis of Jordan Spieth’s golf swing. Spieth has had some 4th round issues since his infamous Masters collapse. Naturally, this has led Spieth to be on the slow motion camera more than any golfer in history. Watch his right knee, watch his left knee, watch his follow through, and blah blah blah. This past week Spieth wins the Colonial. Now let me ask you something. Did he really hit the ball any better in this 4th round than the 4th rounds where he did not close the deal? HELL NO. What he did do of course, is putt better than humanly possible for the last 10 holes, plus a chip in. How much do you think that had to do with his right knee or left knee. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

Here is the final conclusion. One of my mantras even 6 years ago has been that 85% of all bad shots are caused before you start the swing. I revised that just last year to 90%. Now I can say with certainty that it is 100%. I am talking here about golfers with single digit handicaps. There are some swing fundamentals, of course. If you are shooting in the 70’s then you have that down pat. There are so many things you can do wrong at address. I will discuss these in future blogs, especially if I am right about this. I can tell you that this is all I will be working on in the next few months. As I always say the numbers never lie, so we will see what happens. Maybe this game is not as goofy as I think.

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The Goofy Game of Golf Searching for the Answer

THE MASTERS, THE MASTERS, THE MASTERS, the talk of the town after the great Spieth collapse. After reading a cajillion articles about the subject, I still feel there were some things that were missed, and/or not emphasized enough in the reporting of the event and the aftermath.

First the event. I think the key spot, which led to the 12th hole debacle is what happened on the 11th hole and immediately afterward. After bogeying the 10th, he hits his drive in the trees, hits a smart recovery shot and then an absolutely brilliant wedge about 8 feet to a very dangerous pin. This is the type of putt he had been making the whole tournament to save many a par. He missed this one. Now walking to the 12th tee, I think he had to feel he still had a 3 shot lead at the worst. The big scoreboard right behind the 12th tee showed his lead had suddenly and I do mean suddenly been cut to 2 shots, when not to long ago he had a 5 shot lead. All of a sudden it was a golf tournament again and I think this threw him off just enough to butcher the 12th hole.

Second the SHOCK. Everybody expressed shock and disbelief. If we were paying attention should we have been that stunned. When Jordan Spieth walked off the 9th green on Sunday did I think he would win the Masters, absolutely, but I added, I bet he will make it interesting. Well, he made it a lot more than interesting, he lost the tournament. Why did I think he would make it interesting. He did the same thing on Friday and Saturday. Twice he could have taken this tournament by the throat and each time stumbled down the stretch. If he would have parred the last three holes on Friday and Saturday, he would have had anywhere from a 6 to 8 shot lead going into Sunday, and it would not have made any difference, if he had hit it in the water on 12 His double bogey on 18 on Saturday was particularly UG-UG-UGLY.

Third will he be able to recover from this collapse. Most people feel that he will come back and win as much, just as if he had won the Masters. They write about he’s young, he’s mentally tough and he’s a great player period. I think it’s a flip of the coin and it may not even be that good if two things don’t change. The first one is just a mental thing. He has got to get out of this we mode.   It sounds gracious when you win but when you lose it sounds a little weird. What was more disturbing was when he said that we will prove that we can close the deal on a tournament. What are you talking about? You have already shown you can do that. Two major wins last year and numerous other victories. It would have been more appropriate to say I had a bad day and I will learn from it. Your the boss man. There is one thing that Jordan Spieth will have to change about his game. He doesn’t get much flak about this from the media and Faldo touched upon ever so briefly, but the bottom line is this, Jordan Spieth is SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW, OH SO SLOOOOOOOW. On Friday his group got put on the clock and despite the fact that Rory was hitting shots almost before Spieth’s ball stopped rolling on Saturday,  walking off the 17th tee they were the only group on the course. From taking forever to make some decisions and backing off short putts one two or even three times you wonder how long his nerves will last. Lets face it, every time he makes a 3 footer, it’s like he’s making it 2 or 3 times. Let’s hope he does come back, because Jordan Spieth is great for the game of golf, but some re-evaluation is in order.

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The Goofy Game of Golf Searching for the Answer

Well, it’s been 25 days since the last blog, and a lot has happened. I have been able to play 8 rounds of golf, which makes 11 for the year. This is the most I have been able to play, this early in the season. Now, here are the scores, and hold on to your hats. 76, 90, 92, 94, 90, 85, 78. Yes, that’s right 4 straight rounds in the 90’s. I haven’t had a stretch like that since I was probably 13 yrs. old. Now, some of this was due to experimentation, but I have done this before, and never saw scores like this. The first 90 score even had 2 birdies. These scores could not be blamed on the weather. The conditions weren’t perfect but they weren’t that bad. The scores can not be blamed on early season rust. You can see, I shot a 76 which featured a one under 35 on the back nine. As usual there was something to be learned and there were some interesting facts from these horrific rounds.

The first thing was my over all reaction to these rounds. I did not fret or worry about them at all. You might think that this is real easy to do because it is early in the season. Let’s  see how you react, if you did this in June or July. But this is four straight rounds in the NINETIES. Two of the rounds were partially due to some horrendous putting of 40 putts each. It made me aware of how easy this can happen and how a prolonged slump can be just around the corner.

I don’t know if I really needed to be made more aware of this, but it really brought home the fact that it’s not where your good shots wind up but it’s where your bad ones go. During this 4 round stretch I hit a lot of quality shots, but I hit a lot of horrible shots, that ended up in hazards and entirely off the golf course. The quality shots caused some swing experiments to last longer than they should have.

Because of this bad stretch, I found a major swing flaw that I had, and I mean major. I will discuss this in a future blog, but let’s just say for now it started my small comeback in the last 2 rounds. The 78 was highlighted by quite a bizarre finish. The last 6 holes went like this: Birdie, Double Bogey, Birdie, Double Bogey, Par, and a 30 yard pitch in for an Eagle.

Lastly I would like to write about two golf related items. Naturally the Masters is coming up and I am anxious to watch it as much as anybody else. Do I think I know who is going to win? Hell no. My bold prediction is this. The scores will be high. Any time the Masters scoring record is threatened they set the course up to be impossible the next year. Just look it up. I don’t think this will be an exception. So expect another U. S. Open kind of Masters and I think that is a damn shame. Do I think the best golfer in the world will win the Masters. NO. WHY. Because the best golfer in the world won’t even be playing in the Masters, Lydia Ko. Chew on that for awhile.