The WeekEnd Golfer

Here's a long list of reasons why golf is "better" than other sports.

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I've seen this approach to pre-setting the club in the 3/4 backswing position. It makes a lot of sense to me.

If pre-setting the bat is OK for baseball players why isn't it for golfers? I think it's because golfers think there is some magic in the path of the club going back - and so many golf teachers reinforce that (erroneous?) idea.

Obviously what matters is where the club ends up at the top of the swing and how you bring it down into the ball. As Jim Suttie explains, most swing problems actually originate in the way a golfer takes the club back. Since we seem to think it is one seamless motion from beginning to end, how we take it back is directly relevant to where we end up at the top and how we bring the club down to the ball.

The "no swing backswing" tries to get rid of the variables at the beginning of the swing and get you ready to swing from the common position that (almost) everybody agrees you should be in - the 9 o'clock position (to use Dave Pelz's terminology).

This "no swing" approach also shortens the total length of the backswing by encouraging you to hit from about a 10:30 position. "Just pump and hit" as Suttie tells his demo-guy Scott Sanderson.

The problem - and you can see it with Sanderson - is that until you're really used to doing this you're not quite sure how to get the swing going. You can see him hesitate as though he's trying to figure out how to start.

There was an article in Golf Digest by David Leadbetter about a year ago proposing a similar routine. But that seemed to get little response and seems to have been forgotten by Leadbetter.

You can see more articles and commentary about the "no backswing backswing" here.

Here's a great instructional video demonstrating some of the finer points of golf cart driving.

For more funny golf videos see The WEG Funny Golf Videos

Many weekend golfers are told they will not improve if they do not play more than once a week. There is obviously something to that, but a golfer does not have to actually play rounds of golf to work on his or her golf swing.

With one swing on the Dancin Dogg golf simulator you'll learn more about why your shots do what they do than with any other simulator on the market.

How often have you purchased a golf training aid, used it once and never used it again? But effective golf swing training means training your muscles specific to the golf swing by using a swing analysis system and applying well-known golf swing knowledge to make adjustments to your golf swing.

I finally got around to looking through some of the pics I took of our golf trip to Alberta this summer. Hey, it's only been about 5 months! Judy wanted to send her dad some of the pics so she forced me to look through them and get some prints. I hope to do a feature on the four different courses we managed to play at during our 10 day trip. Here's a few from Banff Springs, the famous Stanley Thompson course built in the 1930s.

Our regular foursome plays Glen Abbey just about every Saturday morning and we usually honour really memorable shots as "shot of the day" - informally of course, no points are awarded for shot of the day.

Well last Saturday I hit what may be the shot of the year. It was a dream scenario. We were on #7 which is a "simple" par 3 if you hit it right, but a sure double if you don't. We were hitting into a fairly brisk wind, and it's all carry over the water to a fairly steep bank. If you come up a bit short and hit that bank the ball will almost always roll into the water.

Well, that's what happened to me. I hit a pretty good six iron, but it got hung up in the wind, hit the bank and trickled down the bank into the water. I jokingly said, "Hey, I'm not dead yet that might be playable." I was only half joking because I could see the water was very low, and I knew it is quite shallow right there in front of the green.

After the other guys hit we went over to the green and I took a look at my ball. There it was about two feet out from dry land, fully submerged with the top of the ball about 1 1/2 inches below the surface.

Now Fritz will confirm that I just wait for this kind of situation to try out these "shots that can't be made". But this one didn't look too hopeful.

I know from past experience that a partially submerged ball is pretty easy to get up and out. One that is just below the surface can work too. But when it is that far below the surface you need a big swing and a lot of luck to pull it off.

The other problem was there was no place to stand. I didn't really want to do a Jean Van de Veld (take off the shoes, roll up the pants, flail away at the water). Fortunately there was a rock of just the right size sitting by the shore. I just rolled it out to where my back foot should be and tried standing on it. Perfect! "This should work" I said to myself.

About ten seconds later the SW came slicing down at the ball followed by a mighty splash (fortunately it was fairly warm) and the other guys started hooting and hollering. Of course in the great gush of water I couldn't see it, but the ball came out beautifully, rolled slowly past the hole and came to rest about five feet away.

I missed the putt of course, but that was beside the point. The shot of the day was in the books and will live in golfing lore for ever more.

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In this video the guy from Blendtech puts some "bad" golf balls in his blender and turns them into golf chips.

Other things he's "blended" - an iPod, Coke can, crow bar, hockey pucks... you get the picture.

Last night Judy and I headed out to Glencairn to hit some balls on the range. It was a beautiful evening and when we got there around 7 there were only 3 or 4 other ball strikers going at it.

This was pretty unusual. Judy has never been much for hitting balls on the range. But on Sunday after our family outing at Blue Springs we stuck around for a while on the range there. She started having really good results with her driver - a recent addition to her compliment of clubs - so we just kept on hitting until they kicked us off the range.

Last night it was more of the same. We kept hitting until all the balls were gone and even went out into the range and hit some back a couple of times.

Judy doesn't get to play much - only 6 or 7 times a year for the past few years - so it always takes her a while to get back into the groove. But I'm always impressed by her swing. Teaching her the subtleties of the golf swing has been a pet project of mine for quite a few years and it is interesting to see how she has progressed. These past few days working with the driver she has taken a couple of giant steps forward, and given her a new awareness of some of the potential.

I guess that explains her eagerness to get out there and hit some more.

Sunday just happened to be Father's Day. But even more importantly it was Judy's birthday - and a fairly remarkable one at that. So we got the family together for a little golf outing at one of our favourite places - Blue Springs in Acton, Ontario.

This was the first time we'd all been golfing together in quite a few years. And it was definitely the first time we'd played with Peter's kids, Alex, Amanda, and Nicole. So it was a special day in more ways than one.

In fact it was the first time on a real course for Amanda and Nicole. They've both been taking lessons at the local "golf academy", so this was a chance to see how they would do.

We split up into three groups (we were playing the 9 hole par 3 course) and I was with Amanda and Scott.

The first thing I noticed about Amanda's swing is that she could actually hit the ball. Wow! That's quite an accomplishment. Of course she'd learned that big John Daly like swing that instructors like to encourage kids to use. But she was actually hitting the ball with it - something that always amazes me about kids and golf balls.

Of course it didn't take long before I felt I should show her the little partial pitch swing. "Just take it back about here, and hit the ball...'poop' like that..."

My choice of words maybe wasn't the best, but it stuck. The next time I said "you should probably use that little 'poop' swing here..." Amanda cracked "Ok, but do I have to say 'poop'...?"

Of course. It wouldn't be a 'poop' swing if you didn't.

OK, I'll admit it. There have been a couple of occasions in my golfing life when I've been frustrated enough to actually throw a club.

I know. You're not supposed to do it. While club throwing was a common occurrence 50, 30, 20 or maybe even 10 years ago, it is definitely not acceptable now - although I did hear some geezers talking about it on a recent visit to an old established private club. (Note: a "golf geezer" is anybody who either is, acts, or looks more than a couple years older than me.)

Anyway, to get back to the point. I was having a particularly bad few holes during a round a couple of weeks ago. And there I was, about 20 yards from the hole with my lob wedge in hand. Predictably I pitched it short ...or maybe it was long (I can't really remember)... and I ended up in the gnarly rough above the hole.

Since I was already looking at double bogey there was no way I was going to walk all the way over to the cart to get a different club. So I tried chipping with the LB.

One double-hit later I was steamed enough to let it fly.

Yes, that's right. I'm sorry to say I actually threw the thing. It was quite a calculated throw of course, well away from any of my fellow golfers. But en route it wrapped around a tree and snapped in half.

I can't say I was sorry it broke. I've never had much luck with the LB anyway, and am quite content to just open up my sand wedge when I need more loft. But I'm not proud about getting angry like that, and I've promised myself never to let it happen again.

As luck would have it, on the next hole - a medium length par 3 over water - I hit my tee shot into the pond. And then proceeded to chip it in from the drop area with my sand wedge.

That's right - a par. I don't think my broken lob wedge liked that one little bit.

Thursday night is the beginning of the weekend for our little golfing fraternity. Fritz and I usually head out right after work and try to get going by about 5:45. We can usually get in 18 - depending on who's in front of us - but almost always we're coming down 18 in the semi-darkness.

I've been doing the late afternoon thing for years and have played lots of 18s in the semi-darkness, so have become pretty good at controlling my swing so it is more or less straight, listening for where it lands, and then marching down the darkened fairway until the little white thing emerges from the black.

I can usually feel whether I've pulled it, pushed it or, heaven forbid, sliced it. When you play in the semi-darkness you learn that a slice or hook is usually the result of swinging too hard. So backing off on your swing is the first prerequisite for actually being able to find the ball after you hit it.

Yesterday it didn't work out for some reason. I had a pretty good round going and when we hit #17 I thought "No problem." At this course 17 is a fairly short par 5 that I've birdied a few times. It requires a drive over the main entrance roadway into the course, and when I hit my drive Joe said "It's down the middle." OK, I thought, we're in business.

But when we got out there it was nowhere to be found, and I had no idea which side it should be on. The fescue at Glencairn makes it almost impossible to find if you don't know where to look. The same thing happened with my next shot. It felt like I pulled it out of the primary rough and it went zinging across to the other side. Never to be found again. Too dark to see where it went out.

#18 worked out a bit better. My drive just cleared a sod-walled bunker and since I was still about 180 out and had to clear two "burns" to hit a green I couldn't even see, I just hit an easy 9 to plunk it between the burns. It didn't sound too good when it landed, but sure enough when we got down there it was right where I thought it should be.

A sandy to the green and I was finished. By then the sprinklers were on so we just left it there on the green for the next lucky guy...

The other day I signed up for a set of free online golf videos and I must say they're pretty good. They feature Bobby Eldridge, a golf professional who has a site called PurePointGolf.com.

You can sign up for the free videos (emailed to you one at a time) here.

Follow this link for information on the PurePoint Golf System. I haven't yet purchased these videos, but since I like Bobby's style of teaching so far, I'm going to give them a try.

One thing I've noticed about my golf game is that my chipping has gone down hill this year. I used to practise chipping quite a bit, and my short game reflected that. But starting last year it got more difficult to get out to the range and my short game really suffered as a result.

After one particularly bad round when I flubbed a number of chips that ended up costing me several strokes, I decided a bit of dedicated practice was in order. So last Friday I headed out to a local range with just one club - my sand wedge - to see if I could figure out my problems (and yes, I know the sand wedge is not always the best club to chip with.)

That little bit of practice helped a lot. The next day I even made two fairly unlikely chip-ins.

So yes, the short game is very important when it comes to scoring. And yes, it is relatively easy to make major improvements to your short game - much easier than straightening out your driver or your irons.

golf swing, golf practice nets

I've mentioned in a couple of posts that a few weeks ago I started using a backyard net for working on my swing. Since the net is only about 8x8 you can't really use anything other than a low lofted club, otherwise you end up hitting balls onto the road and into neighbours' yards. Also, unless you're OK with chewing up your grass you can't really use a lot of irons.

So I'd been using it for 15 or 20 minutes a day to work on some "improvements" to my driver swing.

Well, the results showed up almost immediately. I pretty much lost my driver swing for two or three days. One round was particularly annoying. Fritz and I were visiting with a friend of his at a course I'd never played before. I didn't hit a fairway until the 9th hole. And it was very tentative for the rest of the round.

The same thing happened the next day. And it wasn't a coincidence. I already knew that hitting into a net can be misleading because you can't see the results of sidespin. Even if it feels and sounds good, that's no guarantee it isn't going to be hooking or fading or slicing when you're on the course.

Well sure enough after about 6 or 7 sessions of working on "improvements" I was hitting terrible weak fades.

After a short session on a real range I threw out the changes, stopped using the practice net, and things were more or less back to normal.

So what good is the practice net? I'm not sure.

stack and tilt swing, Andy Plummer, Mike Bennett

The June issue of Golf Digest features a lengthy description of the so-called "Stack and Tilt" swing being promoted by golf coaches Andy Plummer and Mike Bennett.

In a classic overstatement, the author of the article, Peter Morrice, says "Their secret...contradicts almost everything being taught in the game today." But is it really that different?

The most significant difference (as far as I can tell) with the "Stack and Tilt" swing is that it advocates keeping your weight on your front foot in the backswing. In other words it does not encourage the "weight shift" that almost everybody talks about when taking the club back.

The result is what almost looks like a "reverse pivot" at the top with the head and spine tilted much more towards the target than in the typical modern swing (TMS).

The differences are subtle. For one thing with the STS (Stack and Tilt Swing) the back leg does not remain flexed as in the TMS. If you look at the photos featured in the article you can see that when the club is at the top of the swing (p.122), there is almost a straight line running thru the back leg along the torso neck and head. And this line is angled about 10 degrees towards the target.

In other words, the front sided of the body is "stacked" above the front foot, and the back side of the body is "tilted" towards the target.

For a comparison look at the photo of V.J. Singh's swing on page 43 of the same issue (Golf Digest.) At the top of his swing his weight is "stacked" (more or less) over his back leg, and his torso is (more or less) perpendicular to the ground.

While this may sound radical if you have been listening to the constant self-assured chatter from most of today's golf coaches, teachers, magazines and television channels, the fact is, there has always been an alternative school of thought that has questioned the simplistic "weight shift" idea. Look at these photos, for instance, of John Anselmo (one of Tiger's early teachers,) Jack Nicklaus, Ben Hogan and Tiger Woods. Hogan clearly does not "post up" over his back leg.

Or look closely at this video of the 1930s swing of Bobby Jones. He does not shift his weight to the back. Nor does he shift it to the front. He remains centered over the ball.

Still, there are some aspects to the STS that are of special interest to me, since I have experimented with all of them in the past.

The first is the idea of keeping your weight forward, on your front foot, and pressing into the front foot as you take the club back. To me this has always seemed like a good way to force a steeper approach to the ball and a way to eliminate topping the ball. It also results in a lower trajectory since you are effectively de-lofting the club face. Unfortunately I have found it puts more strain on the front knee, and in my case usually results in aggravating an old knee injury.

The second has to do with the position of the back elbow and the flatter swing advocated by Plummer and Bennett. I'm not sure why a flatter, rounder (less vertical) swing is part and parcel of the STS, but I suspect it has to do with the relative difficulty of getting the club going when you have your weight forward. So the idea is to maximize club head speed by taking advantage of the rotation of the torso.

And third there is the intriguing idea of the "pelvic thrust" which the STS guys claim is necessary for a couple of interesting mechanical reasons. The most important reason is that since one's weight and shoulder position are forward, the approach to the ball will be significantly steeper than normal. In order to "shallow out" the swing you have to whip your hips around and thrust your lead hip up and towards the target. This makes you feel like you are almost jumping up and striking the ball while on your toes. Have you seen those photos of Natalie Golbus or Sergio, or a younger Gary Player? That's what they're talking about.

Like I said, for most of us these will seem like very subtle differences. But if you actually try this swing you should find that it feels quite different. The biggest difference in your game will probably be fewer thin hits. But for me it tends to result in pushes, especially with the longer clubs. I also find it more physically taxing - requiring more body contortions - and I don't think that can be a good thing.

When we were in Dallas late in February for some early power golf I stopped in at the Golfsmith store and bought a few components. First on the agenda was a 52 degree wedge -- something I haven't had for about five years. Yes, I've had that famous 8 degree gap between the PW and the SW, and I felt it was time to plug it.

Then there was the hybrid issue. I've been watching a couple of my buddies hit their hybrids for a few months, and decided it was about time to take the plunge. I'm one of those guys who actually likes hitting the long irons, but it's something you have to do regularly or you really lose confidence in them. I suspect it is a lot easier to just pick up a 19 degree hybrid once or twice a round and hit it nice and solid.

I finally got around to assembling these two clubs before our weekend rounds last week. And then had a chance to hit them quite a bit on the weekend. I really like the look and feel of both of them, and so far they've been working really well for me.

Apr 17, 2007 - Golf Travel >>>

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Bulgarian golf in its developmental stages - Golf course development has essentially reached the point of saturation in North America and many of the traditional golfing countries.

Yes, there are lots of absolutely gorgeous sites that could be converted into golf courses. But who is going to play on these courses?

As a result, investors and golf course developers are looking to "underdeveloped" countries in Europe and Asia for greener pastures. There the hope is to capitalize on the thriving tourist trade as well as turn some of the largely non-golfing local population into golfing fanatics.

Bulgaria is just such a country. With its recent entry into the EU, Bulgaria's development promises to be rapid and significant in the very near future. The same will likely be true for the development of the infrastructure required for extensive travel - airports, highways, hotels, tourist destinations, and golf courses.

Currently there are only two golf courses listed on GolfEurope.com:

Ihtiman Golf Club - the original Bulgarian golf course. Ihtiman Golf Course is rated by the rating committee of USGA. 18 holes, 6345 yards, rating is 71.3 and slope 131 from the back tees.

Sliven golf course was opened on May 24th, 2004. It is a par 71, 6563 yards. It features spectacular views to the Balkan mountain.

The Bulgarian Golf Federation hopes to gradually build more golf courses throughout Bulgaria. Golf courses in Razgrad, Varna, Burgas, Plovdiv and Sofia are in the planning stages, and other developers are planning golf course developments as part of larger tourism projects.

Apr 2, 2007 - Golf Articles >>

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Now that spring has arrived in southern Ontario the clubs have already been dusted off for another season.

Actually Fritz, Sean and I did a five day trip to Dallas last month for some power golf -- 8 rounds in 5 days. But that doesn't count. The real golf around here is about to begin over the next couple of weeks.

Well, that's not true either. Fritz and I were out last Friday (March 30) for a round at Carlisle near Burlington. It was a balmy 10C, and apart from being dead tired from the walk (after a very unathletic winter) it was great to be out again hacking the ball around.

As I said, the real season begins over the next couple of weeks. Most of the courses around here will be open by April 15. I even went out and bought one of those collapsible practise nets so I could hit balls in the back yard. My basement range had to be dismantled a couple weeks ago because I needed the drop sheet for a reno project we're doing. So I've actually hit very few balls over the winter.

But that's about to change. After a couple of years of very little practice time -- either at the range or in the back yard -- I've decided to get a new net (my old one seems to have disappeared), and make a concerted effort to work on my swing.

We'll see how it goes.

Mar 10, 2007 - Linknet Golf Blogs

Golf Digest article looks at dominance of China in golf club manufacturing - There's an excellent article in the April 2007 issue of Golf Digest that takes a close look at the extent to which golf club design and manufacturing has be virtually taken over by the Chinese.

Although low wages and a huge, hard working work force are important factors in this incredible shift, it's much more than just cheap labour that sends these manufacturing projects to China. It's the ability of the Chinese to consolidate massive capabilities in a few large factories, most of which are located within a few hundred miles of Hong Kong and Taiwan.

In the process these companies have developed manufacturing techniques that speed up the process of going from concept to finished product. And at the same time the quality of the end product has been improved. That makes it possible for major manufacturers to bring out new products more often; and for "boutique" companies to produce their own distinctive lines of clubs. The Chinese can take a concept or rough 3D model and turn it into a finished club within days. Or a small company without its own design team can start with "open" designs and put their own distinctive graphics and colour schemes on them.

To a large extent this has happened within just a few years. For instance, a California company, Coastcast Corporation, that was making a million+ titanium heads in 2004 was out of business two years later. Virtually all that business went to China.

As a result, of the roughly 45 million golf clubs sold every year about 75% have some Chinese content.

Pretty amazing.

Feb 25, 2007 - Linknet Golf Blogs >>>

Can improper spin have a detrimental effect on driving distance? The other day Andy asked me this question in light of a demonstration he had seen on TV. Some long ball guy demonstrated two drives: one with "spin" and the other with reduced "spin". The one with reduced spin went further. Since this demonstration came with virtually no explanation it was difficult to know what he was referring to, and, in any event this was not something I had thought or read about much, so had very little insight into the matter....

Apart from the obvious of course... If you put side spin on the ball it will curve left or right. If you top the ball and put top spin on it, the ball will sail low and dive into the ground with more than usual run. And if you put bottom spin or "back spin" on it, the ball will tend to rise up, drop softly to the ground and not run a good deal. Too much back spin and it will balloon up into the wind and drop down like a stone.

Ok, that much most golfers know. But is it possible to modify your swing, change your club, or use a different ball to achieve less spin and therefore more distance? I think it is a fairly safe bet that these things can be adjusted and make a difference. But just what the optimal situation would be I am not sure. An hour or so checking on the web yielded some interesting theory, but not a lot of practical advice.

Most of what I found had to do with ball technology. Here is a pretty good article explaining some of the aerodynamics of ball flight. And here is another similar article about ball spin. I will continue to look for more information that might be helpful.

Feb 18, 2007 - Win with Linknet >>>

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Nicklaus urges golf ball to be "rolled back" - There's a very interesting article by Jack Nicklaus in the March issue of Golf Digest called "I've Been Thinking." One of the points he usually makes in articles like this is that, in his opinion, the modern ball goes too far and has changed the game for the worse. As he says in this article, "My greatest concern, because I believe it has the most effect on the most parts of the game, is the golf ball."

According to Nicklaus, after about 60 years in which the game (and equipment) stayed pretty much the same, in the 1980s and 90s the game of golf started to change dramatically. In the 80s it was the introduction of metal headed drivers and "woods", and in the 90s it was changes in golf ball technology. Both changes let players hit the ball farther.

Golfers at all levels like to have their egos stroked, but the truth is, a guy like Fred Funk does not add 30 or 40 yards to his drives by working out or by improving his swing. These increased distances are mostly a result of "technology" changes. It is a familiar refrain, but for guys like Nicklaus who design courses this has meant the classic old courses aren't long enough anymore.

We lesser mortals have come to take these ongoing "improvements" for granted because we think it levels the playing field between good players and not-so-good ones -- it makes us think we can become better golfers by simply buying new clubs or using a different ball.

The irony is that just the opposite has happened. It is a well-known fact that high handicap players do not get the same benefit out of technology improvements as do better players. While a pro might be able to hit different balls different distances, your average hacker doesn't see these increases because he or she doesn't have a consistent enough swing and can't generate the club head speed required to take advantage of the new balls.

It is a bit different with clubs, since larger metal heads and game improvement irons mean fewer duffed shots. But I suspect this advantage is again over-estimated for higher-handicap players. For a bogey golfer playing a 380 hard hole driving the ball 200 yards rather than 180 still won't produce very many pars. Why? Because he still can't make the 180 yard approach shot. So he's just as far ahead using a 5 iron off the tee.

So technology improvements have actually widened the gap between the pros and the schmos. And to add insult to injury courses are now being made tougher and longer to accommodate the 5 or 10% of golfers who are "big hitters."

At the root of the issue is the way golf is driven by marketing at all levels from recreational to professional. The inability of the golfing poobahs at the USGA and R&A to control the "improvements" has meant that golf has become a consumption driven sport like no other. And the chance of this changing in the foreseeable future are slim to none.

Feb 10, 2007 - Linknet Golf GiveAways >>>

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In the current issue of Golf Digest David Leadbetter talks about something he calls "swing chi." My first reaction was to sneer and say to myself -- "another useless gimmick from Leadbetter." But possibly I was being too hasty. Maybe this idea isn't as dumb as it first sounds. I think the idea he is trying to get at is that there is a natural sequence to a golf swing that results in the maximum explosive transfer of energy when striking the ball. Sounds simple enough.

He calls this "swing chi" because "chi" (or "qi", or "ch'i") is a concept used