Tag: sports

Posted on

The Goofy Game of Golf Searching for the Answe

Well, its been four months since the last blog, which is one of the longest periods in awhile that I have not blog.   I really do not have any good reason that I have not written anything for a long time.  I have been playing golf like I usually do, as this past Monday I just completed my 112th round.  My play as been ok.  In Western Pennsylvania, the handicap season ended on November 14th and I finished the year with a 4.7 index.  Which is not bad but no major improvement.   I really did not prove some of the concepts that I wrote about on that blog 4 months ago.  So today I thought I would review the last year and the last 4 months in particular.

The one constant over these last 4 months was that the weather was lousy.  In 112 rounds of golf I would say I saw the ball roll any amount distance in only about 15 rounds.   This was by far the wettest most humid year of golf I have ever played and I have played for 50 years.  You rarely could play the ball down and course conditions suffered mightily.  If fact one course, Village Green closed down permanently and the weather contributed to it’s demise.  It was difficult to evaluate one’s game under those conditions. The weather just got worse as we headed into fall, which most of the time is fairly dry.  In mid September we got about 20 plus inches of rain over about a 7 day period. I have come to detest the word mud.

I could not quite grasp the concept of golf being 100% mental when you are a single digit handicap.   I still believe this, but it can be very difficult to put into practice, because I feel we are brainwashed into thinking that bad golf play can be fix with some physical correction.   This can be ranging from anywhere to “fixing” your grip, stance, transition, swing plane, weight distribution, and anything you can think of about the physical execution of the golf swing.    Part of the problem is that you hear every week on the PGA tour that a player is working on some part of his swing and it is helping him.  I think this is wrong.    Having  problems with your golf game at that level and I believe at the level of the single handicapper  is strictly mental and any physical correction is only temporary and in the long run no help at all.   However this is so much easier said then done.  I will elaborate more on this in future blogs, and yes, they are going to be more frequent than one every 4 months.

The albatross in May was the highlight of my season and was easily the shot of the year and probably in my life.  I did not have an even par round this year and had only 2 that were one over par.  I was consistent and had a pretty good putting year and have putted very well the last couple of times out. I am determine to prove the 100 % mental theory. One of the best things that I have done over the past year and half is that I have played golf with no swing thoughts.  It has freed up my game and has made golf so much more enjoyable.     Developing my own putting style has contributed to my overall good scoring and was the main reason that I came out of an 18 month slump from the beginning of 2016 to the end of June  2017, which saw my index climb to 6.9.  My index would have been even higher if there was not a limit on the strokes you could take on one hole for handicap purposes. I had some really high numbers during that stretch, where I proved the axiom, its not where your good shots go, but where your bad shots wind up.   So my game is where it’s mostly been over the last 30 years when I started to play a lot of golf again, between a 3 and 5 handicap.  Next blog will be about swing thoughts, why they work and why they stop working.  The amazing thing is golf instructors were writing about swing thoughts in the 1930’s.  See you then.

 

 

Posted on

The Goofy Game of Golf Searching for the Answer

I am not one for suspense. ALBATROSS  ALBATROSS  ALBATROSS.  Yes, on May 3rd 2018 I got that elusive bird on the 503 yard par 5 10th hole at Highland Springs Golf Course, near Wellsburg West Virginia. I hit a little bit of a pull hook drive and was in the left rough about 240 yards from the center of an elevated green, with the pin cut on the middle right.  I hit a 3 wood out of the rough that came out a little low, with a slight draw, but was hit solid.   I saw the ball take one big hop up the hill. It looked like it hopped up to the green, but with these 68 year old eyes it was hard to tell. I thought it might be a little short and off to the right of the green.  Naturally when we drove up to green we could not find the ball.   When you can’t find a ball around the green, just for the hell of it someone will always look in the hole.  This time it was my friend Andy, and sure enough, that’s  where that sweet little ball was found. Needless to say that was one of the biggest thrills of my golfing life.   I have had a few close calls with getting the albatross, but this was the first and makes my golf life complete. There won’t be any debate on what was this year’s, shot of the year. More like the shot of a lifetime.  My golf game other wise has been up and down as usual, with the weather being more of a factor than in any recent years past. Have not been blogging all that much, but will try to step it up a little bit here, as golf gets into full swing.  But I had to write about this and share the ALBATROSS.

Posted on

The Goofy Game of Golf Searching for the Answer

Winter continues in the Burgh, but a little more up and down and there would have possible been a time to play, but I am on a self imposed rest, so no play for me. Today, I am again going to lampoon golf instruction, as I googled, how does the downswing start.  The answers I will list below.  There are a dozen by the way.  What’s interesting, it only took me 14 videos to get these 12 different answers.  Now many will argue some are saying the same thing but in a different way, but I respectively disagree. I will list all twelve with my final commentary following. Here they are.

Shift your weight from the inside of the right foot to the inside of the left foot while turning the hips back to the target.

Move the lower body forward, while feeling that the left foot is driving into the ground

Feel the weight moving from the left heel to left toe while lowering the arms

Feel you are starting the downswing from the floor upwards with the left knee turning toward the target and the right knee turning toward the ball, with the hips turning toward the target

Shift the weight to the left and turn the hips toward the target at the same time, like a throwing motion of a ball

Turn the right knee towards the ball from a position where the weight is on the inside of the right foot at the top of the swing

The left leg straightening with the goal being that the right knee will touch the left knee when the swing is finished

The step drill  where you step toward the target like a baseball swing that will teach you how to start the downswing

The entire lower body shifts toward the target

Laterally move the hips toward the target and then turn the body toward the target

Push up from the ground with the waist pushing through to the target first

From the top of swing work the right shoulder down

Is there any common thread here?  One thing I did not mention, is about 9 out of 12 did mention that you must have a good backswing in order to make the first “correct” downswing move.  Much of this does indeed have to do with movement of the lower body first.  That’s about it. The two about the knees seem to be similar but they are not really.  I had to be as concise as possible here and if you saw the videos they are different, with one more complicated even though they talk about the knees. Even though all of these videos were titled how to start the downswing, many I felt talked about the entire downswing and were not all that clear what the first move really was.   All of this is from fairly well known instructors, that have large golf schools or written books on the subject.  None of this stuff is from what I call Sam Fertilizer golf instruction.  You have seen these videos, where the guy is in his back yard, the kids are running around, the dog is barking, and this guy is going to show you how to play golf.  The purpose is not to critique which of the above is correct, or a better way to do the first move of the downswing.  It is to show just how confusing this can be to someone trying to improve their 25 to 30 handicap or to someone trying to learn the game from scratch. No wonder people give up on it. This is just the tip of the iceberg. I am sure if I had gone through the torturous process  of looking at 30 videos of how to start the downswing I would have found over 20 ways to do it. I think the point has been made.  It’s a very confusing golf instructional world out there, and that is a shame. More coming soon.

Posted on

The Goofy Game of Golf Searching for the Answer

The new year is upon us and I haven’t blogged for awhile, so with winter really here this year in the Burg, I thought it might be time to put a few thoughts down and update what’s happening,  since the last blog, about 2 month ago.  The holidays were great as I went out to San Diego to see the grand kids and Christmas morning with 3 kids, ages 10, 8, and almost 3 is priceless. I finished off the golf season around the 9th of December and really never did much the rest of the year.   Once the handicap season was over, I tried various experiments and none really amounted to much success.  The weather has been normal you might say and it looks like winter golf will be at a minimum this year, when compared with last year when I had played 10 rounds before March 1.   For me this is a good thing right now, because it is allowing some nagging injuries to hopefully heal up to 100%.  I have been reading  a lot over these last 2 months more than I usually do, which is a lot, and it is very difficult to read and write at the same time.  What have I been reading ?  Brain books baby brain books.

What I would like to write about today is watching golf on TV.  There are a lot of people out there, golfers and non golfers alike, who don’t like to watch golf on TV, and really don’t understand why anybody would want to watch golf on TV.  We golf tournament watchers have to defend why we watch this game that, according to the non watchers, is slow and boring and you can’t see where the ball is going, etc. etc.   We, who watch golf, talk about the scenery and following the super stars who play the game.  Here is one reason that I watch golf on TV, that you may find unique, but it may get non golfers to watch the sport.  It is to see human ineptitude at it’s highest level. Let me explain.   There are only 150 golfers that can play in a PGA tour event each week.  That can also be the subject of another blog on why that is.   Just think, if other sports only had 150 to 250 players at the highest level.  There would only be 6 football teams in the NFL, 6 Baseball teams in MLB, 8 Hockey teams in the NHL and 12 basketball teams in the NBA.  The quality of play would improve dramatically in all of those sports. There would only be 6 NFL quarterbacks.  Every week would almost be like watching an all star game but they would be playing  for real.  You could say this about every Major league sport.  Golf is considered a world sport but still only 150 people are allowed to play at the top level on the PGA tour.  Despite such small numbers you see shots and mistakes that the average player makes everyday.   It would be like Tom Brady throwing 3 consecutive passes to the referees.  Not throwing interceptions, just throwing the ball to the refs.  It would be like watching Bryce Harper strike out 27 straight times or dropping  3 straight routine fly balls.  That is how bad some putts and chips and bunker shots are on the PGA tour.  I do not know the reason for these horrible shots.  People like to blame this on pressure but come on.  I can see missing a 6 foot putt to win or tie a tournament but an 18 inch putt. Some full shots are really bad also.  Drives going into people’s yards, irons missed way left or right and pitch shots in the middle of the fairway hit fat and go only 20 to 40 yards.  Remember were talking about 150 people here, that are allowed to play. It’s not that tough, really, is it.  The toughest thing in sports is hitting a baseball and getting a hit.  Compare that to making an 18 inch putt. If you watch golf you will see an 18 to 24 inch putt missed in every round.  You’ll see a green side bunker shot skulled over the green.  I could go on and on and it doesn’t make any difference if it is the first round or the final round you will see ineptness at the highest level.  So the next time someone bugs you about watching golf, tell them you don’t know what you’re missing.

The blog will be popping up more often now, with some more great insights on this goofy game and when I find the answer you will be the first to know.

 

 

 

 

 

Posted on

The Goofy Game of Golf Searching for the Answer

Welcome to October and fall golf is here.  My game continues to improve with the Oct 1 revision down to 3.9. This is down 3 points from a high of 6.9 on May 15 and 6.1 on July 15.   It’s dropped for many reasons, but putting is without a doubt responsible for about 75% of the improvement.  Driving the ball longer has helped and the  short game is still the big issue from keeping me getting even lower, but I am working on it.  I will discuss my game and the improvements in future blogs, plus I still feel this is a work in progress, as the handicap season has another month to go, and the golf season has hopefully another good 2 months to go.

Today I want to discuss what must be a new philosophy in the national media golf instruction.  For some reason over the last 6 months or so, I have been receiving both Golf Digest and Golf Magazine for free. I probably bought something that included some perk, that gave me this great honor of receiving these magazines every month at no charge, but I don’t remember it.   Since I don’t really like either publication I just skimmed them every month, and every once in awhile I would find an article of interest, like Phil Mickelson’s  inside trader story, and barely avoiding going to jail. About 2 months ago, I began to notice something that I did not pick up on when I first started getting these magazines. The high number of instructional articles in each magazine every month, especially Golf Magazine(G). So this past month I counted all the instructional articles in each magazine.  G had 17 instructional articles and GD 12.  Just to hit an even number of 30 that would be 360 instructional articles a year. Let that sink in for a moment. Granted some articles are only one page long but some are anywhere from 3 to 5 pages long. Your talking about a 400 page magazine year book. Every phase of the game is covered including the mental game and strategy. What’s the philosophy here?  Quantity over Quality for sure.  Some of the articles even contradict each other. Now granted, this is only one month that I really looked at these articles and critiqued them, and I will follow this a little more closely the next few months.  Believe me I will only be able to do this for the next 3 or 4 months tops, because of shear disbelief but I will do my best. I know it is difficult to write for a general populous on trying to give instruction that will be helpful.  G does try to become more specific for specific classe of player but they fail miserably at providing any worthwhile content. There were 29 articles in these magazines that covered driving the golf ball, working the golf ball,  wedge play,  iron play,  chipping, putting, bunker play , trouble shots, how to play certain holes and talking to horses to improve ones play.  Were all the articles bad? No.  But there was a lot of information and  showed different ways of going about a certain aspect of golf, and not addressing the fact that there are some other effective ways to deal with the same thing. The one page articles are the worse because they make the reader feel that this method is the gold standard for resolving an issue with your golf swing, when in reality it is not. Three months of reading these articles and I would be running for the tennis courts or the bowling alley and thinking you can never be any good at this game.  I will be following this more closely in the future and giving some prime examples of the confusing that these magazines are creating .

Hopefully my game will continue to move forward, as I become a little less confused about this game.  Short game look out, here I come.

Posted on

The Goofy Game of Golf Searching for the Answer

Well, the summer has come to an end as we head into the first of  September, and this has been a good summer, at least the second half,  for my golf game. Early to mid June my handicap was at its high of 6.9, and now with the new revision, it is 4.2.  I am not quite ready to go into detail, of how I was able to bring it down almost 3 strokes, but I am going to discuss one new aspect of my game,  at the end of this blog.

Today, I want to discuss one general aspect of the golf swing.  First, you must agree with this one statement.  The golf swing is a very physical demanding athletic process.  All you have to do is watch the swings of Dustin Johnson, Rory McElroy, Ricki Fowler, and Justin Thomas to believe this.  For the average or even a low handicap golfer these swings are really physically impossible to repeat, unless you want to first spend a year at cross fit and then go and try to play golf. One of the main problems with the golf swing, is that you can get into positions of the swing by using your arms and legs, that look pretty good, but are really ineffective when it comes to providing power and accuracy. So what’s a golfer to do?  The solution is to make sure you are making a full hip turn.  What is a full hip turn?  The hips should at least turn 45 degrees on the backswing. That is the minimum.  If you can turn them more fine.  Can you over turn your hips? No, as long as you obey one simple rule.  You must make sure that your weight is on the right side at the top of the swing. As long as you do this, then your hips can turn as much as you can turn them. The more you turn your hips on the backswing  the farther you will hit the ball and your accuracy will improve dramatically.  It is the purest definition of completing your backswing. By turning your hips fully you will put much less stress on your back muscles and get a much fuller shoulder turn in a very natural way.

Getting back to my own golf game, a couple of blogs back, I mentioned that I am playing the with no swing thoughts, which is what I am still doing. It has really freed up my swing and has contributed to my scoring improvement. I play now with what I call swing feels.  What’s the difference.  Well according to our language experts, a thought is a mental process, and a feeling is a process of the heart.  Now this may be getting a bit sentimental, as far as golf is concerned, but don’t knock it until you try it.  My playing golf from the heart has made a huge difference.  No more  swing thoughts.  No more low and slow, pause at the top, smooth transition, get wide, shut face or square, and nice and smooth. I’m feelin it man.  Will see what the next month brings.  Happy golfing

Posted on

The Goofy Game of Golf Searching for the Answer

After about a 6 week hiatus the blog is back and it has been a very very busy 6 week period, especially for an old guy.  I have cut back my work schedule and I am playing more golf than ever.  Yesterday I completed my 74th round of the year.  This should be a record breaking year for the number of rounds. So how am I doing you might ask? In a word better, not great but better. I am still experimenting around, searching for the answer, but I have settled into a good routine. I will get into some of things that I have been doing, that may, or may not have contributed to a certain amount of resurgence in my game, that has been mired in an eighteen month slump.

Before I discuss that,  I did do something that  I have always wanted to do, but never could pull it off, until Monday June 26th. My young friend David and I played 54 holes in one day on three different golf courses.  We teed off at 7:44am at Fort Cherry golf course,  moved about 15 miles down the road to Indian Run for the second round and went another 3 miles down the road to Highland Springs and pulled out of their parking lot at exactly 6:30pm. Beating the dark was no problem.  There were two major factors that helped make the day go smoothly.  The weather was perfect, in the mid seventies with a little breeze and no humidity.  We never had to wait for one shot.  There was nobody in front of us the entire day.  The scores weren’t great, ranging from 79 to 86, but it was one the great golf days I have ever had.  There is no question, that hot dogs increase your stamina, especially when you put chili on them.

Last year at this time I was in the midst of a run where I did not break 80 for almost the entire summer.  This month I have had one 74, and two 75’s, with some 78’s and 79’s sprinkled in. I still feel that I have a ways to go but progress is being made. The first big difference is, I have found a way to putt.  Am I going to discuss this method? NO. Why? Because it is too goofy to write about at the moment. It goes against every putting principle that was ever written, but it is working for me. I have been putting this way for about 3 weeks, and it has held up in various pressure situations.  If it continues to work, then I will write about it.  I made it up and it is totally unique. There are three other things I am doing and I am going to discuss two of them. I have improved my posture at address and I am making sure my aim is correct.  Posture is by far the most important and I think even low handicap golfers get a little lazy in that respect. We have a tendency to get a little slumped in the shoulders and this has a very negative effect on our swing. The third one is a unique take away I am doing for each club and  I may delve into that later, if this continues to work. There are few other things I am doing different which I will discuss in later blogs. One thing that is not a factor is my increase play. Believe me, if your game is messed up and my game is, it doesn’t make any difference how much you play, your not going to improve.

I am going to leave all the  frustrated single digit handicappers who are trying to get to scratch, with one final thought.   It you want to get closer to 0 handicap, you must become Jim Furyk. Some day I may explain what that means. If I continue to make progress then the next blog will be sooner than later.  Please don’t hold your breath.

 

Posted on

The Goofy Game of Golf Searching for the Answer

The blog is back after about a months absence and today I am going to go through each of the 16 conflicting viewpoints on golf instruction, and give my opinion on each one.  I have cut back my work schedule and playing more golf than ever, which I am not to sure is good for my mental health, but we will see. Each of these points were blogged, so to see them in more detail just go back to the previous blogs, beginning in January.  So here we go.

You should keep your left heel on the ground or you should raise your left heel.  To me this is something that should just be a natural thing. If you need to lift your left heel to make a fuller swing then do it.  I do not think you should raise your left heel deliberately. You should feel it is being dragged off the ground by the turn of the body

The putting stroke should be straight back and through, or it should be an arc, like the golf swing. Again this is something that does not make a difference as long as you know how to do the straight back and through stroke. If a lot of your putts are off line then this stroke could be for you.

The left arm should be straight throughout the swing, or it is ok to bend the left arm during the swing.  It is fine to bend that left arm during the swing. In fact you may even be able to hit the farther with that little bend at the top of the swing.

Keep the ball position the same for all shots or move the ball back in the stance as the clubs get shorter.  Try anything and do anything, when it comes to ball position until you find something that works.

The weight should be on the balls of your feet, over the arches just in front of the heels or over the heels.  Over the arches and favoring the heels is where you want your weight. Stay off the balls of your feet or you will restrict your body turn.

Restrict your hip turn or do not restrict your hip turn.   DO NOT RESTRICT YOUR HIP TURN UNLESS YOU ENJOY HAVING YOUR BACK OPERATED ON.

Your shoulders should turn 90 degrees or more if possible or they do not have to turn 90 degrees.  They should turn 90 degrees if possible and an increased hip turn will help this.

Your swing should be compact or your swing should be nice and long.  This is personal preference in my view.  A shorter swing should have a faster tempo and a longer swing should have a slower tempo.

You should pause at the top of the swing or you should not make a conscious pause at the top.  You should not make a conscious pause.  It happens naturally.

Take the club back low and slow or this is the worst thing you can do.  Again makes no difference. Find your method

Chip like you putt or do not chip like you putt.  Chip like you putt, much easier

You should change your grip to help square your clubhead or you should not change your grip to square the club.  Definitely, experiment with the grip to square the clubhead.

Hand position at address, many are advocated.    Find yours and stick with it.

The first move to start the downswing, too many to mention.  Find one, but be open to change if it does not seem to working.

Head movement.  Don’t worrying about, but know what yours is doing and why.  This has a lot to do with knee flex and the left heel.

Natural golf.  Nothing natural about it. Forget about it.

What I find amazing about all of this is this is not even a complete list about the conflicting viewpoints of what it takes to hit a golf ball accurately.  No wonder people find it difficult to play this game and even low handicappers seem stuck. Other than Natural Golf, I haven’t even included the other so call methods that are out there. I don’t know maybe we need some kind of federal regulation. I can see it now, the Federal Golf Commission (FGC), headed by Bob Toski.  More discussion in future blogs.

 

 

Posted on

The Goofy Game of Golf Searching for the Answer

For the past 3 months of so, I have discussed the conflicting viewpoints of various aspects of the golf swing.  Is there anything that practically all golf instructors agree upon. There are a few but not many.  Before we get to today’s subject let me briefly delve into how my own golf game is coming along in the new season. SUCKS. Now on to today’s subject.

If you read any golf instruction or take a lesson, what can you  expect will be a common under lying theme, no matter who you read or have direct contact. You must have a correct or good grip.  Now there may be some differences in what constitutes a good grip but the good grip is a must.  The address position or what you do before you swing is more important than the swing itself. However, there is one thing that all golf instruction seems to obsessed with, and that is square.  I do not care who you read or watch on the internet, the one thing that is pounded into you mind is that your feet, hips and shoulders must be parallel and square to the target line. There is even the square to square method.  I suppose the thinking here is, if everything is square, there is more of a chance to make square contact with the ball down the intended line. After all of that, the comment is made, that the hardest shot in golf is the straight shot, and you should play your tendency  to curve the ball. If your shot pattern is left to right, then you should play down the left side of the fairway and let the shot curve back to the middle, which gives you a bigger margin of error to keep the ball in the fairway. You would reverse this of course, if your tendency is to hit the ball right to left. Now let’s think about this for a minute, and take it to the tee box.  Here we are on the tee, and we are looking at a straight away fairway  about 40 yards wide.  If we are a left to right player and follow the plan we would aim 10 yards from the left side of the fairway, with the objective of curving ball back to the middle of the fairway. But do any of us curve the ball that consistently. We are only allowing ourselves 10 yards of error on the left side. How many times have players double crossed themselves and then pulled the shot or even pulled hook the shot into deeper trouble. If you aim right down the middle of the fairway you are allowing yourself 20 yards on either side to keep the ball in the short stuff. If curving the ball is the thing to do, which everybody seems to think so, then why should everything be square. Even though it seems that this is one point everybody agrees on, square, it still is a very confusing situation to someone who is trying to learn the game.

In the next post I am going to go review all 15 of the conflicting areas of golf instruction and give my opinion on what’s important, not important, and what you really need to do to hit that little ball.

Posted on

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.