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The Goofy Game of Golf Executing the Answer

Another three round week, and again a repeat of the previous two weeks. The mid week rounds were good, 77 and 75, with the weekend round on Saturday this time, being bad shooting an 81. This was a good week in many regards. Putting was about as good as its ever been, since trying to execute the answer. There was one very good lesson learned this week.

I fell into the trap this week of falling in love with my driver ball flight. This goes against all the principles of trying to find your that day golf swing. I was hitting the greatest little power fade off the tee for the entire week. I found myself really relying on that ball flight pattern during the round despite what my opening drive was. This part of my game worked really well, as I hit many fairways and had good distance. I did this even when my opening drive was fairly straight with maybe a baby fade at the end. I kept to my plan of having an open mind and feel on the opening tee shot, but then kept going to fade way too quickly. What I should have been doing was playing a  straight drive based on the opening swing and result. This resulted in having an adverse affect on my fairway game. In fact most of my irons and fairway woods on my 77 round I hit with a draw. In my other two rounds I  was not hitting very crisp or accurate shots. My 75 round was the result of some very good putting. What’s interesting here is that I had no trouble of finding my that day swing in the fall and sticking with it, which brings up another good point. Those of us who have to go through the winter lay off , in this case for me was 2 months, we often emphasize getting our golf muscles into shape. There is no doubt that this is a good thing, but we need to get our golf thinking back in the groove, too.   This week, the weather in the middle of the week is looking very iffy, but hopefully I can still get a couple of rounds in between the thunderstorms. I will be playing in my first tournament of the year this Sunday. I better get my brain in shape fast.

My Masters pick: J. B. HOLMES he’s going back to back.

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The Goofy Game of Golf Trying to Execute the AnswerI

Another Monday blog due to another busy week, and that darn NCAA basketball tournament. The golf week was a carbon copy of the week before with some solid play on Tuesday and Wednesday and then a big fat number on Sunday. The bad round Sunday was mostly brought about by the simple fact, that I broke a cardinal rule and did not dress warm enough. I know, I broke the number one mother rule,” you can always take it off but if you don’t have it with you, you can’t put it on”. Once I got cold I could not really swing that well and this led to an 83. There were some other problems but being cold was not good. The Tuesday and Wednesday rounds were solid with scores of 78 and 76. The Wednesday round finished strong, playing one under par for the last 7 holes. This was also the warmest stretch of play for the season, with temperatures in the mid 60’s  The month of March has been good as I have played 7 rounds so far, and there seems to be about a 50-50 chance of playing tomorrow. I feel I am making progress in all three phases of the game in executing the answer. Lets look at each one up to this point.

Ball Striking: This is still the best phase of the game so far. The thing that has happened since the start of the new season, is that I have a harder time not trying to grab onto an anchor or swing thought. This I am sure was brought about by the long lay off and just very rusty golf thinking in general. It’s particularly hard after a few errant shots. I have also hit some really horrible shots in the middle of some pretty good play.  I feel a lot of this will work out as season continues, and I play more. Sometimes I get into working the ball more than I should. Again this is an example of trying to force an issue. You have to let your that day ball striking determine how you are going to play a certain hole. If the draw or the fade is not in your repertoire that day, then don’t try to do it even if that is what is call for. Take a more conservative approach and just make a par.

Short Game: For chipping and short pitching, two things have really helped me. Visualizing the shot seems to be very important for the short shots, even more so than the long game and putting. Getting the ball on the ground faster seems to be the other key for success. Using different grips on different days is still something that I think helps in executing the stroke. I have used various grips, ranging from the normal grip to my putting grip to chip and pitch.

Putting: This phase of the game is the most difficult not to go back to the previous days  thought or technique. But success in putting is as fleeting as the long game.  I still think the grip is the real key here but time will tell. A lot of the issues in all three phases comes from just a lack of concentration. This really shows up in putting.

So there you have it, this week’s update on trying to execute the answer. The week coming up looks like there will be more golf to be  played. Let’s hope the progress will continue.

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The Goofy Game of Golf Trying to Execute the Answer

The blog is a day late, because of good old March Madness, and a busy golf week, where I played 3 1/2 rounds. It was a very productive and learning week, for one so early in the season, so lets get to it

On Tuesday, I walked 9 holes at the Mt. Lebanon , under some harsh conditions, with temperatures in the low 40’s, and some strong winds. The very first tee, gave the example of thinking just a little too much, and not following the open mind plan. The first hole is a 160 yard slightly downhill par 3, that on this day was playing into a stiff wind. The first part of my thought process was very good. With the cold temps, and the strong against wind I took out my 7 wood on a hole I can hit with an 8 iron on a nice warm summer evening. But then I thought just a little too much. Instead of aiming dead at the pin, I thought with the first swing of the day, that I would be a little stiff, which would make me hit a little more of a fade than I usually do. I aimed about 5 yards left of the green, swung and hit it dead straight, 5 yards left of the green. The rest of day was not bad, but due to the conditions and a bulky putter the day was a ho-hum 5  pars and 4 bogeys.

On Wednesday, I went to Scenic Valley, and even though the temps were only in the mid 40’s,  plenty of sunshine made this day almost pleasant to play. My ball striking that day just evolved into playing a little draw, especially with the irons. My shots were going just slightly right to left. Since this was not a major misdirection, I decided to play the draw, instead of what I would usually do for shots that go way left. In a previous blog, I wrote that I would aim left and my swing would make an automatic correction. Since this slight draw was acceptable I played for it and this worked quite nicely.  I made 3 birdies but followed each birdie up with a bogey on the next hole. The one thing that cost me this day was that the wind was in a unique direction for this course and I failed to allow for it.The perfect example of being asleep at the wheel. My short game and putting were ok and managed to shoot a 77

On Saturday I went to Village Green and with temps in the 50’s under overcast skies and gusty winds I managed to play a very good round. My ball striking was spot on and I sunk a long putt on the very first hole for a birdie and I made a lot of 3 to 6 foot putts and shot a very nice 3 over 74. I made some poor decisions down the stretch due to wind and maybe just a little fatigue. I hit some great approach shots and if I had been putting a little better I might have shot even or better.

Yesterday it was back to Scenic Valley, with temps barely in the 40’s but with plenty of sunshine and not all that bad wind wise. However I was out of sync all day, and with the combination of some bad breaks, bad thinking, mediocre putting, and losing the concept of executing the answer I shot a lackluster 82. What do I mean by losing the concept. For the first time since finding the answer, I got back into the problem of trying to make my body do something, instead of allowing it to do what was necessary to hit the shot.  For about 11 and a half holes I was striking the ball pretty well. Then I got into some very poor ball striking for 2 and a half of the next 4 holes. Most of this was due to playing the wrong type of shot and then making my body move to what I thought I had to do in order to execute the shot. I should have kept more target oriented and paid attention to what my body did to play the shot.

After this week, this is what I have discovered. The short game and putting are going to require more than just the grip to get some real improvement. The grip is still a flexible and important part of finding your best short game and putting method but there is going to be a little more than that involved for sure. The early season shows how rusty your golf thinking can really be. I will have to do better in avoiding the trap of trying to fall back on what I was doing the day before. That was another reason for the poor score  on Sunday. Even though I already knew this, it is really hard not to do, especially early in the season. I have a new way of handling uneven lies, which there are plenty in western Pa. If this continues to work well, I will reveal it in a future blog. Despite the Sunday glitch the season has gotten off to a very nice start. My Saturday round was highlighted by an eagle chip in on the par 5 13th hole. This week looks good for some more golf on Tuesday and Wednesday. The weather get’s a little iffy toward the end of the week but we will wait and see. Progress is being made, I think, I hope , I pray, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE! See you next week.

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The Goofy Game of Golf Trying to Execute the Answer

Well, it is March 15th and the golf season has begun, with 18 holes of golf under some pretty brutal conditions, with temperatures in the upper 30’s, and just enough wind to make it just a bit colder. But you can tell spring fever is in full bloom, because when I left the course around 1 pm there were some 30 cars in the parking lot. It’s a good feeling when you  your not the only crazy dumb ass playing out there. Despite the conditions it was like I had never left the golf course. I drove the ball really well and the rest of the game stayed together enough to grind out a 78. I can’t say that I learned much on trying to execute the answer, but it was just real good to get out, and play some golf, after a two and half month lay off. I went into the round with my new open mind, but I must admit I went back to this little cold weather flat swing I developed late last year, playing under similar conditions, and it worked really well. It’s not to say that some old swing methods won’t work but again you don’t want to force the issue.  The weather is looking better in the beginning of the week so I am hoping to walk 9 holes tomorrow, play 18 Tuesday afternoon. The rest of the week is looking iffy but I might get another round in over the weekend. I am hoping to get the 8 courses in this year to get the number of courses I have played within 90 minutes of my house to the even number of a hundred. The round itself was boring with 12 pars and 6 bogies. Came close a couple of times getting the first birdie of the year but it was not to be. See you next week when hopefully I will have more to report on executing the answer.

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The Goofy Game of Golf Trying to Execute the Answer

Well, it looks like the start of the  golf season may arrive this week.  The temperatures are headed for the 50’s and with some rain on Tuesday, the snow will hopefully wash away. This will be a golf season at the crossroads. I will prove the answer this year, or golf will take a much lower priority in the scheme of things in the coming years. In August the blog will mark its fifth anniversary. In July I will  mark my 40th anniversary of practicing veterinary medicine. In April I will “celebrate” my 65th birthday. With the exception of two years off this will mark my 58th season playing this goofy but wonderful game. I don’t do much but when I do  something I do it for a long time.

How long am I going to give trying to execute the answer. I figure by July I should have a pretty good idea, if this is really the answer to playing the best golf you can play, on the day that you play. I think the putting and short game are going to determine how much success I have. Speaking of putting and the short game, there is talk going around right now, that this may not be as important to scoring, as it once thought it was. This is being all brought about by a book called, Every shot counts or something like that. I am in the process of reading it right now. It is golf’s version of the book Moneyball. This is why you are seeing this new term “strokes gained” in various parts of the game. It’s a fairly complicated method of determining who is really  the best in each part of the game. I am in the middle of reading the book right now and even though telecasts are already using some of the terminology, I’m not too sure I buy into it at the moment. This could be just some way to tap into the success of the new way to evaluate baseball stats. When I finish the book I will give a much more in depth review with the exact title too. We will see how this golf season plays out very very shortly. See you next week.

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The Goofy Game of Golf Executing the Answer

Coming from San Diego this week, where I am missing some pretty brutal Pittsburgh weather but I will be going back on Tuesday. It does not look like golf in the Burgh anytime soon. The family is doing well and I am having a great time with the grandkids and the new addition is doing nothing but doing well. It’s great being a baby, eat and sleep, eat and sleep.

This week I thought I would write about some  things about the golf swing and clarify some things, on what it means to find your that day golf swing. The other way I like to put this is, how to play your best golf on the day that you play. How do we go about this?

The first thing is, you must go into each new round with an open mind. Now, most of the time this is going to mean that you can not fall back on what was working the day before. However, if you just can’t help yourself, because you just really liked this swing thought, go ahead and try it on the first tee. If it does not work then abandon it immediately. Pay attention to what your body did and remember the way to get back on track. If it went left, aim left on the next shot and if it went right aim right on the next shot. I went into this is in more detail in a previous blog.

Now some of you may be wondering, should you make some in round changes if you start out well and then start to hit some bad shots. The short answer is absolutely. It depends on what caused the bad shot. It may not be always a swing issue. Many pre shot circumstances can cause a poor shot. These can range from selecting the wrong club, the wrong type of shot or not paying attention to the lie of the ball. However, if you think your swing was bad, again make the above adjustments to get on track. The thing to remember is to be a results guy on the course. What I mean by that, is that during the round your swing may begin to do something that your not that pleased with. Its getting a little quick or you feel you are getting out of balanced at the finish. If the results are good,  do not let this bother you or try to correct it. This is the way your swing is behaving today  and let it happen. This again is where I think a preconceived swing thought gets you in trouble. You are trying to get your body to do something that it may have felt fine doing yesterday, or on the range but under the heat of the round does not want to do anymore.

As I wrote before, I am heading back to the Burgh and the miserable weather, with not much golf in the future. You have to play in order to execute the answer, so I don’t know when the next blog will be. I am working on some other projects, and if they inspire me I will be writing again. Each new round will be an adventure and hopefully I will be playing in the not to distance future. See you then.

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The Goofy Game of Golf Executing the Answer

Naturally it is winter in the Burgh and not much happening on the golf front. In order to execute the answer you have to play the game and that is not happening in the near future. I thought I would write about two subjects today. The first one is one of the things I tried this past year to connect the mind and the body that work for a least a few weeks and to discuss a little more about trying to execute the answer in the short game and why I think the grip is the ticket.

The thing I did about in the middle of the summer that worked pretty well for awhile, was to swing at the ball as hard as I could, while maintaining my balance. Now I didn’t do any Happy Gilmore swings, but I went after the ball pretty hard. Let’s face it I thought this was the ultimate mind body connection. The body is always wanting to swing hard, but it is the mind that is telling us to keep it smooth, and at less than full throttle. Sam Snead said he felt he swung at about 85% of his power. Well for about 4 weeks I went at it full throttle, and the results were not bad. What was amazing, was I didn’t notice a great deal of increase distance with my woods, but I was hitting my irons a lot further. I would hit my 8 iron about 170 yards, with accuracy. I was scoring pretty well and I felt the game was really becoming fun. I don’t remember all the reasons I quit doing it, but I do remember it became physically taxing, and it was getting hard to control distances and finesse anything. For awhile though, the mind and the body were really connected.

Here is the reason that I think the grip may be the key in finding your that day short game and putting method. Lets look at all the putting methods. Here are the basics: The long putter, the belly putter, left hand low, claw grip, split grip, and for a lack of a better term the conventional method. There have been probably other bizarre methods, but with the exception of possibly the belly putter, these methods have one thing in common. They all change the position of the hands on the putter. One thing that may be interesting would be to use a 36 inch long putter but grip in the same way the players grip the long putter. It would be like a reverse claw grip. You would take your left hand and grip the top of the putter with the elbow pointing at the target, and the right hand would be more or less in the standard grip. This could be a solution for these guys once the long putter is banned. In trying to find your that day putting or chipping method you would grip the club in the most comfortable position for that day and the grip would change from round to round. Only time will tell if I have lost my mind, but it did work for 27 holes. I will be in San Diego next week to meet the new grandchild and who knows might get a little golf in. See you next week.

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The Goofy Game of Golf Trying to Execute the Answer

Today I am going to discuss the attempts I have made on trying to find the “that day method” for both the short game and putting. I am talking about shots that are just around the green and not pitches of around 30 yards or more. For those shots I think you can still use your full swing method for the day.  Speaking of short game how about Tiger Woods. I have only listened to a few of the comments concerning Tiger’s short game problems, but I have not heard anybody say the dreaded word. Tiger has the chip yips. Some of the commentators have said that it could be mental. DO YOU YA THINK? As a man who has battled the chip yips off and on for the last 2 years, you can practice all you want Mr. Woods but you have got the biggest challenge of your career coming up. Maybe Tiger can find the cure for the yips and help all of mankind. Wouldn’t that be something. I guess the other question might be would he tell us?

Now getting back to finding the best method for shots around the green and putting on the day you are on the golf course. There are some unique challenges. On one occasion, I started off my round with some great ball striking and hit the first 10 greens in regulation. The 11th hole was a 190 yard par 3 and i pulled my shot about 5 yards left of the green. So here I was 11 holes into the round and my first short game shot of the round. Since I have started trying to execute the answer in all three phases of the game, my putting has been mediocre. What was interesting is, that I never  had a really bad day on the greens, one of those 38 to 40 putt rounds which really ruins the way beer tastes.  My chipping and short pitching around the greens was also just mediocre and yips were few and far between. Both chipping and putting are very simple procedures with very little body movement, unlike the golf swing which has a multitude of body actions which can give many feels.

What I am about to explain I only did the last 27 holes of golf I played and I usually don’t reveal this kind of stuff without a lot more playing time doing something. This is more of an up to date progress report and this could change as new season develops.  My last round in San Diego my chipping and short pitching were excellent to good and then my last 9 hole round was my best putting round since finding the answer. In previous rounds  trying to find my “that day method” to chip and putt always involved trying get a feel of what my body was doing just like my full swing. What helped get better results in those two areas of the game was to get a feel for what my hands were doing. I used a unique grip in both the short game and putting. I’m not going into what these grips were, just yet, but I allowed my hands to do what they wanted to on the golf club just like I allowed by body to to what it wanted to do on the first swing of the day. These grips were nothing exotic or weird, they were just different from the way I usually gripped the club when I putted and chipped.

Here we are on Super Sunday again and just like Christmas, since the Steelers aren’t playing I will be glad when its over. Unlike last year, I don’t see a blowout but defense wins championships and unfortunately I think Seattle wins it 20-10. I would say unfortunately too, if I thought New England was going to win. See you next week.

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The Goofy Game of Golf Executing the Answer

This week I am going to delve into the full swing, and how to go about finding your that day golf swing. What is interesting is, that since I have found the answer, I have had very few really bad ball striking days.  I have had enough of an issue at times, that I think I have found a process that will get be back on track faster than usual. This process goes against some of things that have been said about how to manage a round. The standard advice is to play the mistake. In other words if you start out by slicing the ball, then you should just play the slice. Of course it is just the opposite if you are drawing the ball a little too much. Then the advice is just to aim a little more right to allow for the right to left movement. I have found many times, if I follow this advice I just wind up hitting a bigger curve. Let’s go back to two times my ball striking was not good.

The first one was about 6 weeks ago at Lindenwood and I started out the round by hitting everything high and to the right. Now there can be lots of reasons why you hit this shot. This is one of the most common misses we see on the PGA tour. I do not think it is important to know why this shot happens. Look, if Greg Norman and Butch Harmon couldn’t figure it out, who am I to try? It took me 8 holes to come out of my funk and what got me out of it? I tried to hit ball  from right to left and all of a sudden I started hitting the ball much better. Essentially what did I do? Even though I was hitting everything right, obviously in order to hit a hook  I started to aim to the right. In other words I was aiming at my miss and hitting a draw. Now I could go into a lot of swing theory here on why this worked, but who cares.

My next opportunity  to try out the theory was in my last full round at Benardo Heights Country Club in San Diego. I did not have my clubs and I was playing in a little best 3 out of 4 event and the first hole is a solid 400 yard+ par 4 that doglegs to the right. With the normal first tee chitters. I pulled my first drive left with not much hook on it, got a decent kick to the right and was still in play but about 230 from the center of the green. I only had a 17 degree fairway wood in the bag. I did not hesitate for one second. I aimed about 20 yards left of the green, took my “normal” swing, making sure I stayed down through the ball and hit this nice little low fade that rolled right up into the middle of the green. The next hole I aimed a little left again and hit the ball right where I was aiming.  On the next hole a par 3, I aimed left again and hit it left of the green, right where I was aiming. The rest of the round I aimed right at the target and hit the ball pretty straight all day. On my good shots I was aware of what my body was doing and did not try to change anything, even though at times I thought my swing was out of balance.

Let’s go though the process. You must approach the first tee with an open mind and no preconceived  swing thoughts. Picture your shot from behind the ball. Take the opening practice swing and feel the motion of your body. Get comfortable over the ball, pick out your target and make a swing being aware of what the swing felt like but not trying to control it. If the results are good, then continue with that feeling and do not over analyze it. If you hit it left then aim left on your next shot. If you hit it right then aim right on the next shot. I feel this is correcting the problem not playing for it.  We usually all have a basic shot. Some of us hit the fade and some of us hit the draw. For me it is the fade. So if I have to aim left of the target on my next shot then I feel that I will take a normal swing. But if I have to aim right of the target then I feel have to try and draw the ball. It should be the opposite for someone who normally draws the ball. I have not had a lot of time to further prove this process, so how I feel about finding your that day golf swing may change, but for right now I think this is it. So if you are in a golfable area give it a try and let me know. Next week I will discuss putting and the short game which I have had even less time to figure out but I think I may have something. Will also discuss some more things about the full swing.  See you next week.

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The Goofy Game of Golf Executing the Answer

The blog is back after a month, and a busy month it has been. Like all stories, lets start at the beginning. The last blog was when I had just arrived in San Diego, the Sunday before Christmas. The Christmas holiday was great and watching those grandkids opening their gifts was wonderful. Christmas is definitely for kids. On the Saturday after Christmas I got to play golf at the Bernardo Heights Country Club. What is wild is that I started the 2014 season there, and now I have ended it at the same golf course. Even stranger, I shot the same score, 76 both times. That however, is where the similarity of the rounds end. In my opening round of the year I hit the ball only fair at best but had a great day putting, making about 8  putts of 8 feet or more for par. The December 27th round I hit the ball beautifully but only putted so so, and missed some really good birdie looks, and shot the same score. I may have found the answer, but this does not make the game any less goofy.

I arrived back at the Burgh on December 28th, and got emerged  into the college football bowl season and watched all 39 bowl games. It was a wild and wooly bowl season with plenty of great plays and some pretty strange coaching decisions. The two toppers were the decision of the one coach in one of the lesser bowl games to ice the kicker on the extra point by wasting 2 timeouts with 50 seconds left in the game when a field goal would have won the game, when his team got the ball back. Needless to say the extra point was made. The team with only one time out could not get into field position to win the game, and then went on to lose the game in overtime. The other one, was where Baylor had a 41 to 27 lead over Michigan State with about 4 minutes left in the game. Instead of trying to milk some time off the clock, Baylor tried to get a “bigger win”, even going for it on 4th down on the MSU 45 yard line. This allowed MSU to come back and win the game 42-41. Of course, the big highlight, was my Ohio State Buckeyes winning the first college football play off and becoming national champions. I must admit, I didn’t think they would beat Wisconsin  in the Big Ten championship game, let alone go all the way. Even the third string quarterback didn’t bother me as much as the Buckeye defense. For whatever reason, that defense just came alive in those last three games. It was one great way to top off the bowl season. In the midst of all the football, I managed to play 9 holes of golf on January 4th in balmy 55 degree temperatures but with some very strong winds. Having my best putting day since finding the answer, I managed to shoot an even par 35.

And now for the big news. On January 16th 2015, Carson Michael Gloff, my third grand child came into this world kicking and screaming. After a brief visit to the neonatal ICU of 4 hours mom and grandson are doing great. I am truly blessed. As the blog will get back into the full swing, no pun intended,  I will discuss things I have done in trying to execute the answer. Some have been more tested than others, but I am going  to discuss them all.    I will discuss each facet of the game, the full swing, the short game, and putting. See you next week.