A Simple Lesson Learned from Stats

29 07 2010

The coach from a top women’s golf program was talking the other day about how the detailed statistics from MySmartGolf helped one of her players in a very simple but important way.  This particular player was not getting up and down from off the green as often as a player of her ability should.  That could have been seen using any stat program but only a unique feature of MySmartGolf pinpointed the problem.  The shot tracking showed very clearly that virtually all of the player’s chip shots finished short of the hole.  This was a simple problem with a simple solution which the player quickly addressed.  As a result, her up and down percentage increased accordingly.  Sometimes we just need someone or something to help point out the important information and MySmartGolf can do that.

Most golf statistics programs tell you only what percentage of the time you get up and down successfully.  MySmartGolf gives you much more information such as where your short game shots finish and why.  This is the information you need in order to improve your short game.


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Categories : chip shot, game improvement, golf, golf instruction, mental game, short game

Balance

20 07 2010

“Balance Daniel son, must learn the balance!” For those of you old enough to remember the movie “The Karate Kid” you remember those infamous words of Mr. Miagi teaching his student the importance of balance. I feel like Mr. Miagi on the lesson tee sometimes as I stress balance to all my students. Balance is a fundamental you will find in all great golf swings. The swings make look different, but they all seem to finish like they are posing for the camera.

Your vestibular system and your nervous system equip you with tools for balance. Solid swing fundamentals also lead to better balance. Try this next time you go to the driving range. Don’t make a backswing and simply swing from your set up into a perfect, balanced finish position. Hold it there for ten seconds to allow your brain to understand the feeling of a balanced finish. Now set up and try to swing into that finish. It’s amazing how your swing plane and body motion starts to come around. Often times, as players, we get caught up in the minutia of the different parts of the swing. There is not enough time during the swing to think about all those details! Make it your goal to finish in balance and a lot of the swing faults will start to melt away.

As I mentioned in the video, slowing down your swing is not the solution to your balance problem. Slowing down may help your balance but now you are hitting it shorter. I have taught golf for 16 years and I have never had a student who wants to hit it shorter. Lets fix your golf swing and then speed it up! The average PGA Tour Player swings his driver at 112 mph. Have you noticed, they all pose at the finish while in perfect balance. Mr. Miagi would be proud!

Josh Zander


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Do the Opposite to Improve

10 07 2010

If you do the exact opposite of what you are currently doing in your golf swing, you will improve. It sounds bizarre but it is absolutely true. I spend my day on the lesson tee diagnosing swing faults and figuring out what the opposite is to come up with the correction. I am all for fast results. I don’t believe in my students getting worse before they get better. If they are able to rehearse the opposite move of their mistake, they are on their way to improving their swing. There are many drills and exercises that I may prescribe but they all have the same intention, to get the student to feel the opposite of what they are currently doing until they get to a neutral impact.

John Jacobs, a famous English golf instructor, explained that the sole purpose of the golf swing was to make a correct impact and that the method employed was not important as long as it was repetitive. The bottom line is that anything you do in your golf swing will affect your impact. If your impact is too steep causing fat shots, toe hits, pulls, and slices, you need a shallowing move to neutralize it.  If your impact is too shallow causing thin shots, heel hits, pushes and hooks, you need a steepening move to neutralize it. The good news is that you don’t need to remake your entire swing to hit the ball well.

Those of you who have endeavored to fix your swing understand how difficult it is to change. You have to exaggerate the correction in order for it to appear in your swing. This is one of the reasons why video is a teacher’s best friend. The student may feel like you are making a drastic swing change, but when viewed on video, the change appears very subtle. You have to feel like you move a mile to move an inch. The body likes to revert to old habits and subtle change does not break a habit. If I show you what a correct position is during a swing, and you rehearse to that position, the change will come very slowly, but if I exaggerate and show you the opposite, you will arrive at the correct position very quickly. Fast improvement is a student’s best friend. I may show you what I want the swing to look like in the end so you are familiar with the goal I have in mind, but I will get you to that goal by making you rehearse the opposite.

The key to this process is to get the correct diagnosis of your swing fault. Once you determine what it is, the opposite move will get you to the correct position in the shortest period of time. Do not be afraid of overdoing the correction. If you do, it is a lot easier to get back to neutral. I like to get my students who slice to hook it right away. From there, hitting a straight shot is easy. Most of you have full time jobs and practice time is precious. This method will get you to your swing change faster. Get on the road to a correct repetitive impact!


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Accuracy

3 07 2010

Most people think about accuracy as missing left and right.  The truth is that you need to look at accuracy in three dimensions.  Missing short and long is as common as missing left and right.  In the short game where misses left and right are less common than in the long game, distance control is what separates low handicap golfers from the rest.  I’d rather miss a short game shot 3 feet left but pin high than 4 feet short and online.  I’m better from three feet than four and I’m sure you are too!

We can’t ignore that distance control and direction control are in fact, inter-related.  Left misses for right handed players tend to go longer as the clubface is de-lofted when closed.  Conversely, right misses tend to go shorter as the clubface has more loft when it is open.  Golf course architects take this into account when they are designing golf holes.  For example, the short 12th hole at Augusta tends to be the hardest on the course relative to its par.  Why is this?  Well, the green is designed where it penalizes a shot that goes long left (into the azaleas) or short right (Ray’s Creek).  So if a right-handed player does not hit it with a square face, his misses are severely penalized.  Phil Mickelson and Mike Weir play the 12th hole at Augusta very well.  After all, a lefty’s miss on this hole ends up just fine.

The bottom line is that both distance control and direction control are important.  However, you should try to hit the ball solidly in order to get the ball pin high.  When you are sitting 175 yards from the hole, you are looking to get the ball in the hole in three shots.  If you get it down in two, it’s a bonus.  In order to get it down in three, solid contact is the most important thing and solid contact comes from getting your divot past the ball.  I work on this with my students all the time.  Contact your local professional and have him teach you how to get the bottom of your swing arc past the ball and you will compress the ball and make that great sound you hear when a tour player strikes the golf ball.

When people ask me about my teaching philosophy, my answer is short and simple.  There are so many different ways to play golf successfully.  The bottom line is that anything I say about your swing needs to positively affect the quality of your impact position.  Next time you are struggling and your playing partner offers you advice, ask him how this will improve your impact.  If the answer makes sense, go for it.  If not, see you PGA professional and ask him the same question before you adjust your swing.  I do not like the idea of taking a lesson and getting worse before you get better.  You should get better right away!


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Hitting From the Rough

16 06 2010

They call it rough for a reason. It’s not easy! You really have to put your thinking cap on when you find your ball in the rough. From a nice lie in the fairway, most golfers think about yardage to the green, the correct shot shape to approach the flag, wind conditions as well as numerous other variables. When you are in the rough, the lie dictates what you can do. Just because you are 150 yards from the green doesn’t necessarily mean you can reach the green if the lie is down too much.

Think of this as a chess move. You want to assess the situation and plan what you can do to improve your position for the next shot. As my coach said in college, don’t try to be a hero. If you try to pull off a miracle shot, the most you can ever save is one stroke. If you don’t succeed, it often costs you two or more shots.

Most golfers have experienced the US Open lie where you just have to hack the ball out into the fairway. They have also experienced the lie when the ball is down a little bit limiting the distance they can advance the ball. The least understood of these shots is the flier lie. This is the one that looks like the ball is up on a tee. This ball will come out of the rough like a rocket. It flies farther, has less spin, and does not curve. This occurs because the moisture and grass promotes a slippery surface on the clubface that lessens the friction on the clubface. You will see even more flier lies on tour this year because of the new grooves. Again, there is less friction which means less spin. Flier lies can be great when you are trying to advance the ball as far as you can up the fairway but they become dangerous when you try to approach a green. Missing the green long tends to lead to high scores. My suggestion is to err towards the shorter club and if you miss the green short, you tend to have an uphill chip or pitch which is not that bad.

Every golfer will hit it in the rough many times during a round. The one that is armed with he knowledge of what can be accomplished with each lie has a significant advantage. Unfortunately, driving ranges are not set up to allow golfers to practice these lies, hence golfers tend to really struggle out of the rough. Next time you get a chance to  play golf by yourself, throw some balls into the rough and experiment what you can do. With good decision making and experience the rough will become less…rough!


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Controlling Your Emotions, the Key to Mental Toughness

28 05 2010

We all know that mental toughness is part of what makes a good golfer.  When you look at any great athlete at an elite level, their mental toughness is awesome.  Nobody personifies this better than Tiger Woods.  All you need to do is look at how well he performs under pressure and how he is still able to finish in the top ten when he has a bad week.  I could write a novel on mental toughness and many sports psychologists have.  I want to focus on one small but crucial part, how to react after hitting a shot.  Some sports psychologists call this a post shot routine.

We cannot escape the fact that we all hit bad shots.  Ben Hogan, one of the best ball-strikers of all time, stated that he could count on one hand the number of shots he hit exactly the way he wanted during a round of golf.  The rest of the shots were misses.  Since most of us can’t hit it as well as Ben, we need to understand how to react when we hit a bad one.  I am going to give you a formula for playing your best golf but before I do, you need to promise yourself that you will do it before you read on.  Did you promise?!!!

Here is the formula:

1) Fall in love with the shot at hand (this will keep you in the present)

2) Emotionalize (celebrate) the shot if it is good

3) If the shot is bad, simply observe it and DO NOT SHOW ANY EMOTION

4) Replay the shot in your mind the way you wanted it to be and emotionalize that shot

The formula is simple but not easy to do.  Most of us are accustomed to getting upset if we hit a bad shot. In other words, we are emotionalizing the bad shots.  Emotions help us store memories in our brain so why would you ever want to store bad shots.  If you only emotionalize good shots, you will be storing those shots in your brain which will fill you with confidence.  Have you ever reached the tee of a hole that is your nemesis and you have no confidence?  The reason is that you have stored those memories when you emotionalized a bad shot there in the past.   Have you ever reached a tee where you remember hitting a great shot?  You stored that the same way, through emotion.

So start celebrating your good shots.  Pump your fist like Tiger or rattle your saber like Chi Chi Rodriguez!  Find your own way to celebrate.  Remember, you can’t always control the result of your shot but you can control your emotional reaction.  If you follow this formula, you will play the best golf of your life.


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Shot Shaping

17 05 2010


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Categories : ball flight, full swing, game improvement, golf, golf instruction, video

Putting Rhythm

4 05 2010

Do these seem like some of the thoughts you have when you are over the ball?  I need this putt to save par.  I have already three putted twice today.  If I two putt, I can finally break 80.  My partners will think I stink if I can’t make this three-footer.  I hope I take the putter back straight. I hope I make it.  This line does not look right to me.

This is your conscious mind interfering with your stroke.  None of these thoughts will help you putt better.  Putting to a beat will keep your conscious mind occupied and let you make an athletic stroke.

I always count when I putt.  I count to 5.  The count is as follows:

1)    I put my putter next to the ball

2)    I look at the hole

3)    I look at the ball

4)    I make my backswing

5)    I make contact

Buy yourself a metronome and find a beat that you like.  Start the metronome at 72 beats per minute and see if it fits your internal rhythm.  If you are a faster paced person, increase the beats per minute and if you are a slower paced person, decrease it.  Once you find your personal beat, stick to it and simply count when you putt.

This applies to all length putts.  The rhythm is always the same.  Your stroke will be shorter for short putts and longer for long putts.  Putting to the beat will free your mind up to perform.  All golfers experience pressure when they play.  A routine allows golfers to perform even when they experience extreme pressure.

I had a downhill-sidehill 4 foot putt for par on the 11th hole at Pebble Beach in the 1992 U.S. Open.  The greens were so fast that if the putt missed, I was going to face a 45 foot come-backer from the front fringe.  In short, the pressure was on as I was fighting to make the 36 hole cut.  As I got over the putt, my conscious mind started to think about the consequences.  I backed off the putt and committed to count to the beat.  I nailed the putt right in the center of the cup.  I was also willing to live with the consequences if I missed as long as I was committed to the routine.

Find your beat and enjoy some great putting experiences.


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Take My Advice

19 04 2010

Have you noticed that golf is as game with almost as many teachers as players? Everyone seems to know what to tell you when you hit a bad shot. They all have a tip that is going to turn your game around. This is even more prevalent if you are a woman. A friend of mine once said that he was going to design a woman’s golf shirt with the words “Don’t tell me what to do” printed on the back. The tips I hear friends giving friends are keep your head down, keep your left arm straight, swing slower and a slew of others. When golfers are playing poorly, they become so desperate that they will listen to anyone. Stop!!!!! The only person you should listen to is your own professional. Would you take legal advice from someone who is not an attorney? Would you take medical advice from someone who wasn’t a doctor?

Here is my professional advice and remember, I am a golf professional. Only take the advice if it will improve your ball flight or your impact. Just doing something because the best player in your club does it or because you heard it on TV does not mean it is right for you. Even if it is something Tiger does, it may not be right for you. When someone gives you advice, ask them the following question: “How will this tip help my impact position and my ball flight?” If they can’t give you a reasonable answer, don’t try it. You should ask your own teacher the same question. It is their job to know cause and effect.

The only reason “tips” from friends work sometimes is that it frees your mind from the other 10 other things you were thinking about during your swing. Believe me, playing golf from tip to tip is a recipe for disaster. Your mind will become so confused that you will be paralyzed over the ball. Keep it simple. Listen only to your teacher and stick to the plan. My mentor Jim Hardy once said that one of three things is happening if you are not getting better after receiving advice. First, you understand the advice but simply did not execute. Second, you did not understand the advice. And third, the person gave you the wrong advice. I’ll leave it to you, what are the chances that your friend gave you the right advice? Friends have great intentions but their advice usually leads to having to book another lesson with your instructor.  -jz


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Releasing the Putterhead

10 04 2010

There are so many ways to putt well.  Bobby Locke hooked his putts. Billy Mayfair slices his putts. Crenshaw has a long, flowing stroke.  Azinger has a short, pop-like stroke.   And Tiger has perhaps the simplest stroke I have ever seen.  All of the aforementioned putters have made their fair share of putts and all have one fundamental in common.  They all accelerate into the ball.

All golfers know that it is important to accelerate into impact.  This is an important fundamental in the swing as well as in putting.  If we all agree that acceleration is important, then we should all understand that accelerating the putter means that the putter has to release past the hands.

Too many golfers believe that the stroke is controlled by the shoulders and that the hands need to stay quiet.  Keeping your hands and wrists locked produces a block which leads to poor contact and deceleration.  Your hands are your only contact with the club.  The key is to use your hands and wrists correctly rather than eliminate them from the process.  When throwing a ball underhand, the hands and wrists remain soft and active in producing the throw.  This is an athletic motion and so is putting.  To feel the correct motion, simply anchor your putter to your belly and let the putterhead swing.  Can you feel what is happening to your hands and wrists? This is a release!

I personally can’t believe that USGA has allowed belly putters as they make putting so much easier.  You can’t block your putts if you let the putterhead swing while keeping the grip end anchored to your body.  If you have a short putter, I recommend building a belly putter to match so you can practice the release.  All you have to do is take your short putter to a club builder and have him use the same lie angle and build one long enough to reach your belly. Once you learn the feel of the proper release, your putting will improve tremendously.


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Categories : game improvement, golf, golf instruction, putting, short game, Uncategorized, video

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