Hooked on Golf – Some More Tips & Tricks from a Golf Addict

OK, so the festive season is over again & you’ve decided to get serious about golf. You’ve been to a beginner’s class & have picked up some clubs, so what’s next?

Realistically, you need to practice before you expose yourself to being savaged by the course. Sure, by all means go out with friends for a social knock around at your local course, but that is not the same as proper practice at a driving range or at some suitable venue near you, like a park (although most local authorities forbid golf practice in public parks), or a field.

As kids, our aim was to hit the ball as far as possible and we experimented with a variety of grips and stances that would achieve that, copying as much as we could from adults we saw hitting the straightest and longest ball.

Fortunately, these days young people are taught from the outset that a proper setup, ie stance, grip and alignment, is vital and that the short game is the most important part, so you see youngsters out around the practice greens chipping and putting.

I do not believe these basics can be learnt properly from articles or books. You cannot see what you are doing, so what you think you are doing may well be quite different from what you are actually doing. If you doubt this statement, get someone to video you.

Thousands of articles and books have been written on various aspects of the game, many of them contradictory, or espousing new methods, or resurrecting old ones, so you should only use these after you have been taught personally by a professional and have tried what you have been taught for a while. And no, I am not a professional trying to drum up business!

However, I recently came across a book which I found most interesting & which I feel would be of value to a beginner even before they have lessons. I have tried out some of the tips in it & they work for me. It is ‘The Inner Game of Golf’ by W. Timothy Galwey, which can be obtained from Amazon here

My next article will cover putting, because this is a part of the game which doesn’t need too much space, but which will save you shots when you get it right.

Hooked on Golf – Some Tips & Tricks from a Golf Addict

In my last article, Hooked on Golf – A Slice of a Golf Addict’s Tale (part 3), published on 10th September, I finished describing my inexorable slide into addiction to this exhilarating, fascinating, humbling, infuriating game & I promised to cover some tips & tricks that I have picked up over the years.

Some of these have helped me to overcome the depths of despair into which I have been plunged into from time to time by the vicissitudes of the game, when I couldn’t seem to get anything right & my handicap was steadily moving out.

Others have helped me hold the game together when I’ve started off well, but then found my game falling apart in the middle of a competition round.

Still others have lifted my game to new levels, unfortunately usually only temporarily, as without constant practice the effect of a new technique seems to wear off, or the technique is forgotten over time & the bad old ways sneak back!

This process must inevitably be spread over several articles, as I should really start with advice for potential newcomers to the game. They may have been drawn to it after watching it on TV, or hearing friends talk, or because they have no interest in team games, or because they have retired and have time on their hands, or their doctor has advised them to get some exercise, or their wife wants them out of her hair for a while (more on that later), or any number of other reasons.

The first thing they need to understand is that the idea behind the game of golf is simple, the object being to hit a small ball from a starting point (the tee) over a variety of terrain & get it into a hole in the ground some distance away in the least number of shots using a variety of clubs.

That is not to say the game is easy! There is a vast difference between the idea and the practice, so we’ll go straight into practicalities.

I am firmly of the opinion that a beginner should not spend a vast amount on equipment. After all, you may decide after the first few weeks that it is not what you were looking for. However, bearing in mind Abe Lincoln’s advice that “If you have 8 hours to fell a tree, spend the first 6 sharpening your axe”, professional tuition at the start is a must.

Friends who play the game will be able to advise you which club professional in the area offers the best tuition. If you live in a country area with only one club, then you may have no choice, but any professional tuition at the start is better than none. Tips from well meaning friends, however low their handicap, will only confuse until you learn the basics.

This need not be expensive either. Most club professionals have beginners classes where, for a reasonable fee, a group class is tutored once or twice a week for a few weeks & the professional may supply the clubs too from hire sets (at least in Australia in my experience).

Once you decide that the game may be worth further investigation, you have several options. You can pick up a few cheap clubs & a bag from friends or at car boot sales & hone your skills on the practice range until you feel reasonably confident to go out with friends for a social round. Or you can go on eBay, or see if your local golf shop or professional has any cheap sets available. Used balls can be obtained cheaply at the golf club, or found on the course if that is allowed.

Eventually, however, you should see a professional to get measured for clubs, as the lie angle of the clubhead and the length and flex of the club shaft have a significant effect on your game. As in every field of endeavour, some professionals are better than others at measuring & fitting you out, so discuss this with your friends who play. You should not be talked into buying a new full set at this point. If your pro is any good, he will give you some options. These could include buying a decent second hand set which can be altered to your measurements, or buying a new half set made to measure. What bag you need will depend on which option you take, or how close it is to your birthday or Christmas!

Hopefully you will feel that you know enough now to make a decision whether to investigate this wonderful game further. The next article will cover common beginners problems & what I found useful to fix these. Meanwhile if you want some light reading over the festive season try Hot golf books or for swing tips Click Here!.

Hooked on Golf – A Slice of a Golf Addict’s Tale (part 3)

In part 2 I described how my interest in golf became fascination, which was one step from addiction! This article describes the final slide into addiction & how I dealt with it.

The second tee of Stirling golf course faced what was to us a huge crater filled with thick rough. It was a severe challenge for a 10 year old to drive over, with only a narrow path throught the rough on its left edge leading to the fairway beyond.

The right edge was guarded with gorse and broom bushes and, of course, that was where most beginners who managed to avoid the crater itself ended up, as we tended to either aim left and/or tried to force the shot with too much right arm, which led to the inevitable slice. However, there were compensations in ending up in the crater or amongst the gorse, as that was where balls were to be found, apart from our own, thereby saving some of our precious pocket money.

Having negotiated the crater, the hole was quite straightforward. A broad fairway led to a green situated part way up a rise. As beginners, we merely hacked our way around the course without paying much attention to how the ball behaved as long as it eventually went into the hole!

However, after a while our competitive instincts began to kick in and we started to compare scores to see how few strokes we needed to get the ball into the hole, which after all was the object of the game. We began to take notice how the ball behaved as we struck it in certain ways.

The first observation was that if we tried to leather the ball to get it over the crater by hitting it as hard as we could with our right arm, as was natural for a right handed person, it tended to take a fairly sharp left to right turn, ie fade or slice. This was compounded if we aimed to the left to try to avoid the crater by following the path. This was a puzzle and was our first intimation that golf was counter intuitive (although we had no words for it at that age). We had played hockey and a good swipe with lots of right arm worked well with a hockey stick, so why didn’t it work with a golf club? It took quite a while to discover that the left arm was the key to keeping the shot straight; the right arm was merely along for the ride.

The next problem was deciding how to attack the green. Should one try to pitch the ball onto it or play a chip & run shot?

We soon discovered that much depended on the time of day and the season. In winter, particularly after frost, the ball would react as if the green and its approaches were concrete! Consequently a chip & run was the way to go. In summer, the approaches would be fast, but the green & its surrounds soft, particularly in the morning after watering, so a pitch shot was the answer.

You will recall from my second article that the clubs used were a half set, with the Mashie-Niblick being equivalent to a 7 or 8 iron, often with a flange which made it similar to a wedge to play. However, around the green one had to learn to play it with a very open face to get it to stop quickly. It was very easy to fluff a shot by trying to play it too softly.

The final problem was how to putt the ball into the hole. Should one use a wristy stroke, which was common in those days, or play it stiff-armed, which we heard was the modern method?

The grass used on courses in those days was often the same as that on the fairways, just cut shorter on a more prepared surface with good drainage and a watering system. Consequently it had a definite grain which affected how the ball ran, both as regards speed and direction, ie how the ball took any break. We discovered that a wristy stroke on the green was not as effective as a stiff armed one.

As the above demonstrates, we learned a lot in the first few weeks of play. Some came to the conclusion that golf was a stupid game and reverted to the team games that were encouraged. A few of us decided that there was a lot more to the game than we had first thought and began to take a serious interest in it.

That was the final step into addiction for me, as the more I played, the more I discovered I had to learn and the more I learnt about the game, the more I discovered about my own character and abilities, and after 52 years I am still learning!

My next article will cover some tips and tricks I have picked up over the years.

Golf Instructional Courses

Having spent last week spotting at the Australian National Veteran Golfers Championships held here in Paradise (Cairns, Queensland if you need to ask!)I was struck at the wide variety of golf swings exhibited.

Some of these looked very ungainly, if not downright weird, but nevertheless were quite effective. On reflection it was obvious that many of those of my vintage or older had achieved those swings because they, like myself, had either not had access to professional coaching, or had not been able to afford lessons when they started playing. They had to observe existing players and try to put into practice what they deemed to be the most efficient strokes for the shot being played.

As video cameras were not available/affordable 50 years ago either, they had to rely on a mirror or feel to refine their swing. Naturally, there were some good ball players who achieved a ‘natural’ swing, but many made do with what worked for them, putting up with a fade/slice or draw/hook and playing for it. They usually made up for defects in their long game by becoming deadly around the green.

These days there is simply no excuse for beginners to go through this trial & error process which was, if we are honest, downright disheartening and frustrating at times. (This was graphically illustrated by some of the language overheard on the hole I was spotting on at the Vets Championships!) In fact many may have quit the game as a result, which is unfortunate. Many more keep struggling, trying this or that temporary remedy & using the excuse that ‘You can’t teach an old dog new tricks’ to avoid making a determined effort to get back to basics.

I’ve ever only had 3 lessons in my 52 years of playing. Two helped me temporarily. One completely threw me off my game for 6 months until I reverted to my old swing. None bothered to explain basic principles behind the swing or the role the big muscles were supposed to play in it. They only addressed my particular problem of the time, namely a slice.

From these experiences I came to the conclusion that before taking any lessons you really need to check out the professional you are intending to go to. He needs to:

– be prepared to actually LISTEN to you,
– be prepared to take you through the basics of why & how the swing works,
– not overload you by changing dozens of things at one time (particularly if you have been playing for years), and
– VIDEO you to demonstrate what you are doing compared with what you should be doing.

Believe me, a 2 minute video of your swing is better than an hour of instruction in that your mind doesn’t really take in what you are told until your eyes actually see it.

However, if you can’t afford a series of lessons, or can’t find a decent instructor, or just plain prefer to do things in your own time at your own pace, there are dozens of golf instructional books, DVDs, tapes and sites out there.

One I discovered recently is by Don Trahan at http://www.peakperformancegolfswing.com.

I consider it the best because it explains things in simple terms, illustrates the swing and various variations, like bunker shot and lobs, and is based on scientific principles. Moreover, if you like what you see on Don’s blog & decide to buy his course, he has a very fair refund policy if it doesn’t work for you within a year. You can’t say that of many courses.

Hooked on Golf – A Slice of a Golf Addict’s Tale (part 2)

In my first article, I described how my interest was aroused in this frustrating game called golf. This next article describes my slow descent from interest to fascination, which is only a step away from addiction!

At my boarding school, all sports periods were taken up with team games apart from one day a week when we were permitted to play a sport of our choice. I chose golf, as the second tee of Stirling golf course in those days (it has since been remodelled) was directly across the road from my school. Junior membership of the club for the year cost two shillings and six pence and juniors were only permitted to play during the week at certain times. New golf balls cost two shillings, so in order to afford to start play, most of us had to find some.

My first golf clubs were adult cast offs consisting of a Brassie (2 wood), Mashie (5 iron), Mashie-Niblick (7/8 iron) and a putter, which were roughly cut down to size. A Cleek (roughly any straight-faced iron, often one you could also putt with) was added later. I acquired a 6 inch bag at the same time, as most players in those days carried their golf clubs, then went looking for golf balls on the local course.

Golf balls were not difficult to find, as the golf courses in Scotland in those days had narrow fairways some 25 yards across (as some do even today), and the rough, which was about 6 inches deep, was deceptively dense and often liberally sprinkled with very prickly gorse. You had to brave the thorns or virtually stand on a golf ball to find it. Consequently all we had to do was to watch where the adults usually sliced or hooked their balls and when the coast was clear, go there and brave the thorns or stamp through the long rough picking up all the golf balls we stood on.

(Check out some of the old equipment on the web at http://www.golfforallages.com or http://www.antiquegolf.com, or in books at http://tinyurl.com/mx283a.)

Did I but know it, that was a tentative step down the slippery slope of addiction to golf, as there is a certain thrill associated with finding a golf ball in difficult terrain,knowing you have just saved yourself the cost of several tasty items in the school tuck shop. Such were the economics practised by ever hungry pupils at a Scottish boarding school in those days!

Unfortunately, at that time, coaching of juniors was unheard of. We relied on watching adults play and attempting to copy the better shots we saw. We also occasionally had tips passed onto us by a passing adult who saw us play, presumably out of pity for our efforts, so in my next article I will describe further my steady descent from interest into addiction.

Hooked on Golf

This is a first slice of the sad tale of how an addict became hooked on golf, a game invented by sadists for masochists, which should really be called flog.

In 1955 I was staying with my Aunt & Uncle in Scotland prior to attending boarding school. Whilst exploring a garden shed, I found some hickory shafted clubs and small balls with rectangular dimples. On inquiry, my Uncle explained the clubs were for playing golf which consisted of hitting the small ball into a hole some distance away.

He demonstrated the action by hitting a ball into a neighbouring field, and informed me that good players were supposed to play around courses in a certain number of strokes determined by the degree of difficulty of the course. I spent the rest of the day attempting to copy him, which resulted in large lumps being taken out of the lawn until I was banished to an adjoining field.

That was how I became hooked on golf, an addiction which persists to this day despite all my attempts, conscious & unconscious, to overcome it by becoming good enough to play around a variety of courses in the designated number of strokes, preferably also getting a hole in one to demonstrate my superior skill, and therefore having no further need to play the game.

For some books on the early days of golf see Early days of golf

For some prints of the early days of golf see Early golf prints

Hello Fellow Addicts!

Since golf has become so popular in recent years, everyone seems to have an opinion on ‘how to’ do, fix or otherwise stuff up everyone else’s game, including my son, I thought I’d have a go too!

Keep an eye on this blog for future developments & I may get you so confused you will probably give the game away & leave more room for the rest of us to pick up a trophy on weekends, or at least complete a game in under 5 hours.