The Goofy Game of Golf/Life Searching for the Answer

Another good week, and a very productive week, as I did course numbers 66 and 67. The first course was North Park, which is the county course north of the city and about a 40 minute drive. North Park and South Park, which we played earlier, are very similiar courses with greens that are exactly the same in the way that they look and putt. The day we played, the greens ran about a 5.5 on the stimp meter and were very smooth. North Park played 6400 yards from white tees which we played and about 6800 yards from the blues. I feel that North Park plays harder than South Park but the course rating and slope are higher at South Park. Many holes are tree lined and the course is hilly but there are not as many blind shots at North Park so maybe that has something to do with the lower rating. The fairways were good and the rough did not have many bare spots.The one other thing that I think makes North Park harder is that the greens have more undulations in them, than at South Park. North Park was in much better shape than South Park when we played there, but I think that has more with the fact that we have had one of our best springs, compared to the terrible spring we had last year. North Park was definitely worth the trip with very reasonable fees. The hot dog at the turn was just ok but the lady who served it was very nice. She was nicer than the starter who told us before we signed it that it would be a 6 hour round. The course didn’t seem that crowded to me when we drove in and I couldn’t figure out why he would say that unless he was trying to discourage play. Well the starter should become a weather forcaster because he was about as right as they are, as the round took only 4 hours and 6 minutes to play. When I turned in the cart key I told him he only missed it by and an hour and 56 minutes. He did chuckle so maybe he isn’t so bad after all. The game is coming around as I shot a 75 and Pete had a pretty good day with a 79. Today we went to Birdsfoot golf club in Freeport Pa. about a 55 minute drive. This is a solid golf course, that can be stretched out to 7000 yards but we played the tees that play 6500 yards. This course is  newer,  so there are not many trees, but they don’t have too much of that heather around, so the course is enjoyable to play. The greens were very smooth but a little slow at 5 on the stimp. The fairways were excellent and rough was not too bad with some bare spots. The course has a great variety of holes and is very hilly. This course is worth the trip, although their green fees can be a little steep at times. The hot dog at the turn was good, but it could head into the top five by a condiment, that was called vegetarian chile sauce. It made the hot dog taste just like a chile dog with a little spice but only better. It added 5 yards to my drives on the back nine YUMMY! This course is pretty tough and my 76 here was even better that the 75 at North Park. Pete had a one of those days that I have talked about before, when you are not playing well and even your luck is bad and struggled with a 90 and Tony had a 79. This week I had a 9 hole 39 and a 77 at Indian Run. The ball stiking is getting better and even the short game has had its moments but there are still struggles. The putting has been a solid good. I haven’t made many putts of length but I haven’t 3 putted much. I have tried some new things putting and chipping more on the mental side and they seem to be working out pretty well, but too early to tell if this is something worth sharing. I tweaked the “swing thing” a little but the basic principal is still the same. Progress is being made. The search will continue and the numbers will tell the tale. Sixty seven courses down and twenty three to go.   

A good golf week this week, as the play improved, and I got in course no 65 this week. We went to Suncrest, which is just south of Butler, Pa. and was about a 50 minute drive. The course plays 6300 yards from the mens tees, and has very small greens, and no sand traps. Even though the greens were small they had some good slope from front to back, and vice versa. The ran a 5.5 on the stimp, and were very smooth. Overall, the course was in excellent shape and the roughs were good, with little or no bare spots. It has many holes that are tree lined and is more of a rolling course rather than a hilly course. This was a very enjoyable course to play, with many interesting and challenging holes, despite only being 6300 yards. The par 3’s were particular good, with the last one being 219 yards uphill. I shot 80 and David shot 91 as we both had troubles off the tee, making some of the  easier holes play much more difficult than they had to be. I particularly butchered the par 5’s on the front with back to back bogeys. The hot dog at the turn was just fair, but the overall day was quite nice as we had a cool, but beautiful day to play with very little wind. There are many courses very close together on Route 8 and we haven’t played many of them yet but this course was worth the trip and hopefully it could be tandemed with another course for a very nice day. My scores this week were 39, 80, 78, and lookout 75 today. Today was the best ball striking day of the year and even though I 3 putted 4 times today I had some fortunate encounters with trees today, that made the round just about what it should have been. I hit 14 greens in regulation today and 2 of my missed greens were right on the fringes. The short game wasn’t bad and the putting really was not as bad as it sounded but that kept it from being a really good round. However, I had trees spit my ball back in play not once not twice but three times. WOW. Obviously though I let things happened today and trusted my swing totally without trying analyse things too much and the ball striking except for those tee shots was right on. So we will see what happens as we continue with the goofy game and hopefully will add some courses this week. Sixty five down and 25 to go.  

Well another weekly wrap up on a Monday but the weather has turned bad and I knew I would have this afternoon to do the blog. Another disappointing week with scores of 44 80 80 and 82 and each one of those were worse because the courses were easier with each round. There are many possiblities that the game has fallen on hard times. The short game still continues to be a problem. I think the biggest reason is that I am trying to analyse this new thing I am doing too much. I still am having a hard time believing that something this simple is working as well as it once was. I am still debating how much to incorporate it  into my short game and even my putting. The other thing that is happening is that I am runny through a period of bad luck where every bad shot ends up in something that is worse than it could be. It ends up right behind a tree or in a terrible lie in the rough and lip outs are routine. Every golfer has had that experience when you are shooting a really good round. You hit a bad shot and it hits the tree and comes back in play or in the woods and is in a perfect spot to give you a clear shot at the green. Everybody remembers when Fred Couples hit the shot at no. 12 at the Masters and his ball did not roll back into the water. When Vjay won his first PGA he hit a shot in the last round on a par 5 that rattled around the trees and came right out on to the green for an easy 2 putt birdie and he went on to win his first major. When you are going bad everything just seems to bounce wrong at times but it will even up in the end. Despite these recent struggles I still think I have got something here but only time will tell. One thing about golf, the numbers never lie. Despite the early week being quite bad it looks like the rest of the week will be fairly nice. Hopefully we will be getting to course no 65 soon.

The weekly wrap up is one day late as a busy Easter Sunday did not allow me to blog. The week was rather disappointing, which could be another reason I was not too fired up to put the week into print. The scores were 35, 80, 79 and 81. The 80 was the best score as it was done at St. Clair Country Club which is a pretty difficult course. In a nut shell it was an up and down week on all levels. I still feel I am on the right track but execution just does not seem to there, at  least for now. It was a great Masters. What a great golf course. It is the best designed course in the United States. I am not talking about it being the toughest by any stretch of the imagination but the possibilities on each and every hole is phenominal. The course is what makes this tournament so great. Going out to San Diego to see the grandkids for about a week on Wednesday so golf will be taking a back seat for awhile. The answer will be coming.      

It might be awhile before we hit one of the 26 remaining courses with Easter on the horizon, and I am out to California to see the grandkids from the 11th to the 17th. I thought I would start doing a weekly wrap up on Sunday nights covering what I did during the week and some inane observations of whats going on in the world of golf. I played 2 and 1/2 rounds of golf this week shooting 77, 36, and 81. It was a particular disappointing day today as I took a step backward on the process of searching for the answer. I think what I am doing is sound but today was a lack of execution especially in the tempo department. I am still having the short game blues which does not help as I am trying to incorporate this new swing thing into the short game with mixed to terrible results. I don’t want  to say that this is starting to get to me but I threw my sandwedge into the woods today. Later in the round I was between clubs. The one in my bag and the one in the woods. Even though this has been a physical search for a better way to swing the club, maybe it should be a search for the mental approach, which if you been watching the PGA tour lately has not been discovered. It was nice today to watch nobody choke down the stretch today. I don’t like that word choke even though I just used it because it is the popular term to use when someone either messes up down the stretch or screws up the entire round on the last day. It seems no one is immune to it. Even Ernie Els a couple of weeks ago missed 2 short putts and hit a terrible shot on a par 3 to blow a tournament. The only player that really seemed not to blow tournaments was Jack Nicklaus. I have read most of Jack’s books and I don’t find them all that enlightening on the subject. Even Tiger has taken the big Apple but sometimes he gets away with it. Even though he made that unbelievable chip on 16 a few years back at the Masters, he still finished bogey,bogey and if Demarcos chip goes in on 18 instead of lipping out they would still be talking about the Masters that Tiger let slip away. I think it boils down to some kind of disconnect between the mind and the body. In the last 15 years there have been 3 golfers who made triple bogeys on the last hole to get into a playoff  when a double bogey would have won the tournament. Just what the hell happened there. I bet you could give Ernie Els that putt he missed on 18 a hundred times and he would make it a hundred times. But when it counted he did not even touch the hole. There is no question the answer has not been found.         

Finally we get to part 2 of practicing. Jack Nicklaus use to say you should always practice with a purpose. This blog will explain what’s the purpose of practice. This is what you should expect from practicing and why you should go to the practice range.

1. It is the best the thing to do for your golf muscles. Even if you work out, a golf swing is so unique, that the only way to really get  those golf muscles in shape is to swing that golf club. You get to hit a lot of shots in a very short period of time.

2. Practicing is a way to learn. Beginners learn the basics of the swing. Once you start playing awhile this is the place to learn to hit the ball low, high, left to right, and right to left. Many players don’t think they have the capabilities to hit these shots but if you do not try them on the practice range you will never get better. This is also the place to learn short game shots.

3. Experimenting. There are certain aspects of the golf swing and address position that have to be very exact. You will never be a good player if you have poor posture at addrees. However, there are many things you can change at the address position that can have a positive impact on your game. Turning your hands on the grip a little to the right or left can help you square the clubhead. Playing from an open or closed stance can have a positive effect. Remember, Ben Hogan the great fader of the golf ball played all the longer clubs the driver down to the 4 iron with a closed stance. If he had followed normal golf thinking he would have hit all shots from an open stance. Ball position is another area which can be moved around. Playing the ball a half ball forward or backward in your stance can make a big difference in how you hit the ball. These are all things you can try on the practice tee. All you have to lose is strokes.

4. Checking those static positions in golf. Remember 85% of golf swing problems happen before you swing the golf club. This is the place to check posture, alignment and distance from the ball. You can not do this enough.

So there are the reasons you should go the the practice range. Just remember practicing is not playing, practicing is not playing, practicing is not playing. 

  

Yesterday we went to Beaver Valley Golf Club which is about a 35 to 40 minute drive. It was another unbelievable March day with plenty of sunshine and temperatures near 80. The course plays 6300 yards from the back tees to a par of 72. It is a very interesting golf course that has some very difficult and long par 4’s but the par 5’s are short and easy. They also have par 4’s that are almost driveable and the par 3’s are all solid golf holes. The greens were running a 5.2 and for early in the year were very smooth. The course is hilly and not very narrow but there is trouble to be found with enough trees and water. The fairways and rough were good. The only negative more for the course than for us, was despite the beautiful day they were not very busy. We got there at 9 am and left at about 1:40 and I don’t think there were more than a half dozen foursomes that went out during that time. Because the course was not busy there was no hot dog at the turn. I had played this golf course before about 6 years ago but I liked it a lot better this time. Is it worth the trip? I would say if you do not have to drive more than 50 minutes then yes. We had a threesome today. I had a bad front nine but settled down on the back and shot 80. Tony was in midseason form with a 72 and Pete shot 78. I am back to hitting the ball much better, but now I have to get my brain in order and hopefully the scores will come. A very enjoyable day for March 21st. Sixty four courses down and twenty six to go.  

Those that are expecting part 2 to practicing, will have to wait as we took advantage of this unusual March weather, to get in course no 63. We went to Cranberry Highlands Golf Course which is about a 35 to 40 minute drive. While it may be a little unfair to rate the condition of a golf course this time of year, we could not pass up the winter rate of 30 dollars with a cart. This golf course was built by the municipality of Cranberry, Pa., and they give their residents very reasonable  green fees. They charge a much higher than normal rate for non-residents. Under clear skies and temps in the 70’s it was a beautiful day for golf. This golf course  plays about 6500 yards from the tips to a par of 70. I have played this course in the regular golf season and it is usually in very good shape with greens that are good, but no spectacular. Today, early in the season, the fairways and roughs were very good and the greens were bumpy barely running a 5 on the stimp. This golf course has many interesting holes, and is designed very well. The course is not overly narrow but it has many good challenging holes. If you are a Cranberry resident, this is a great golf course to have near your home. For those of us not in Cranberry, then this golf course,although very enjoyable to play, is not worth the trip unless you are fortunate enough to get the winter rate like we did today on a nice day.The hot dog at the turn was just ok, as it was another one of those fat hot dogs that your not quite sure is cooked all the way through. The condiments were good with a very tasty mustard. We had a threesome today, with Pete and his nephew Matt. I took a backward step in ball striking today as this was my 3rd 18 hole round of the year and I just could not get it going. I was chipping and putting pretty well or my score of 84 would have been worse. Pete shot a nifty even 35 on the front but staggered in with a 43 for a 78 and Matt shot 95 getting the early season kinks out. Even though this was a discouraging day of ball striking, I still think I am on the right track with this latest swing thing so to speak. I think any time you are doing something that is so totally new even though you have some early success, you are going to have a setback. The practice blog will be coming soon. Maybe I should go out and practice. Anyway, 63 courses down and 27 to go.   

Today I am going to discuss practicing, that thing that we all do to improve our games. Everything I am going to talk about today, pertains to people that have played the game for awhile. Certainly, anybody who is just starting to play golf is going to have to hit balls and practice to learn the game. The biggest myth about practicing, is that there is a way to bring your range game to the golf course. In fact there are books and articles that say, let me show you how to bring your range game to the golf course. These same people, probably have some nice swamp land in Florida, that they would like to sell.  Let me just say, so everyone can end their frustration, that it is impossible to bring your practice range swing to the golf course.  What would you think of an article that would claim that it would show how to bring your interstate driving into the neighborhood. You would think that the author of that particular article had lost their mind. Thats the way to look at practice. On the range you are hitting shots every 40 to 60 seconds even if you are taking your time. On the golf course you are lucky if you are taking shots every 5 minutes and sometimes the time between shots will be even longer. There are so many differences between hitting balls at a range, and hitting them playing golf that there is not enough space in this blog  to go through them. Its just like driving your car on the interstate at 65 to 75 miles an hour in open or even somewhat conjested traffic and getting off the interstate and driving in your local neighborhood. If you even tried driving 65 to 70 miles an hour you would either get arrested or kill somebody before you got very far. This idea of practice not equating with results is not new. Even the pros will talk after a really low round that at the pactice tee they couldn’t seem to do anything right but then when they got to the first tee something just clicked and they started to hit the ball great. The reverse will be true when somebody else has a bad last round and talks about how great they were hitting it on the range and then when they got on the first tee everything just fell apart. Even in other sports you will hear the losing football coach talk about how his team seemed to have a great week of practice only to be blown out 31 to 7. Players get very frustrated when they have a really have a good session at the range the night before and then when they play, the game just gets worse as the day progresses. So forget it, practicing is not going to automatically make you into a better player and it is not surprising. You should play a least 3 times as much as you practice if you want to have any chance of improving. Its not that your practicing wrong or the wrong things, its that you can not fool your brain into thinking that the two things, playing and practicing have anything to do with each other. The brain knows that when you hit a bad shot on the practice tee that you are going to pick another ball up and make the adjustment right away without moving. On the golf course you are going to have to chase that errant shot and the next time you have exactly that same shot may be 24 holes from now. So should we practice at all. Of course we should and in the next blog I will tell you how to get the most out of it and what the true benefits of practicing are.

Now I am going to discuss the one thing I tried with my golf swing, that when I started doing this, I described as possibly real meat. I did this longer than the other things I described in the last blog. I ended up the last 5 rounds of 2010 and the first 9 rounds of 2011 trying this technique. Even though the golf swing is a fairly unique endeavor there are other sports that golf is compared. The first one that comes to mind is baseball. Hitting a baseball and even pitching with it’s wind up and follow through, is often compared to the backswing and downswing in golf. In both instances there is a shift of weight from a back foot to a forward foot. You could say the same thing in throwing a football, slapping a hockey puck and serving a tennis ball. In all of those examples anytime the weight is shifted from the back foot to the front foot the head moves with it. All except golf, where the head is held back, as you shift your weight to the forward foot. I thought why not try letting the head go forward the same amount as the forward shift of the hips that usually is the initiating start of the downswing. The hips slilde about 2 to 4 inches forward and then they start to turn, with everything else, the shoulders, arms and hands following. Traditional golf teaching says to keep your head back as the lower body is moving forward. This to me is a totally unnatural act,and I think is a big reason that people never really get off their right side. You are trying to get the lower part of your body to do one thing and your upper body to kind of hang back. I started letting my head come forward right along with my hips. The number one benefit of this move was that I really maintained my spine angle coming through the ball. The only thing I did to compensate for the move forward was to play the ball a little more forward in my stance, about 2 balls. When I first started to do this on the course the results were very good especially with the driver. Not only were my drives a little longer but the accuracy of my driver was amazing. However my iron play was rocky at best. I tried different ball positions and other things but the irons remained very inconsistant. Sometimes the transition got a little jerky and obviously as time when on the results were just not there and I stopped doing the moving the head forward with the swing. The only thing I will say about this technique it took a lot of strain off the back. I’m doing something right now, that seems to be working quite well, that is a little more traditional, but what I call the first true anchor of the golf swing. In other words to think of one thing that would control the entire golf swing.  Another end of season find that I have had to stew over all winter but play time is right around the corner so we will see what swing no. 312 brings. In the next 2 blogs I am going to talk about practice which seemed to stir a bit of interest. In the first blog I will tell why it is impossible to take your range swing to the golf course and then what’s the real purpose of practicing.