It’s one of golf’s not-so-dirty little secrets. The pros all do it but few show you how. So at the expense of vilification from my betters, I will attempt to explain this technique that I’m sure goes back to Tom Morris and son in the bonny town of St. Andrews. The key to compression lies […]
Fundamentals
My Left Wrist: A key to consistent and powerful golf
The left wrist (right for lefties) is perhaps the most fragile and vulnerable of all of our bones. Though delicate, much is required of it–sometimes too much, and it breaks or sprains rather easily putting most of us out of commission for a good long period of recuperation. We golfers often take the left wrist […]
Tiger and Charlie
For me, it was uplifting, in this time of doom and gloom, to see Tiger and his son playing golf at the PNC father/child event, as well as others like 86 year old Gary Player, 82 year old Lee Trevino, ageless Tom Watson, Henrik Stenson and his 11 year old son, and the eventual winners […]
A Game for all Seasons…almost
Now I’m not suggesting you play golf as I did at 17 in Philly with temperatures hovering at 32 degrees, the ground frozen solid with patches of snow and ice on and around the creeks and ponds, and me wearing three sweatshirts, wool cap pulled down over my ears, and longjohns with heavy pants, with […]
Troubleshooting
We’ve watched Phil get out of trouble time after time. We’ve watched Tiger get out of trouble often. And before these two magicians, we watched Arnold get himself out of trouble. But few of us have the skills of these experts, and practically all of us, handicappers and pros, get into trouble a number of […]
A Recently Discovered Secret to Solid Contact
The other day I attended a LPGA event south of Portland and I paused to watch one of the participants warming up at the range. Actually I was about to leave when her swing and its results caught my eye and my ear. The solid sound her irons made was captivating. I stopped and watched […]
What we can learn from Patrick Cantley
Patrick “Iceman” Cantley may well be our modern Ben Hogan, who was also known as the “Iceman.” In the last two tournaments of 2021, Cantley took down two of the best in today’s game, Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm. Like David defeating Goliath, like the tortoise besting the hare, like the Trojan Horse deceiving and […]
The Element of Distraction and How to Overcome It
I had had a good practice session at the range the day before my round, and had high expectations for a major scoring accomplishment. But right from my first wayward tee shot, I could tell something was amiss, and, sure enough, I shot a rather miserable 47 front nine, pocked by bogeys and doubles and […]
Pace: Find your Model
When I was a kid, one of the pros I admired was Gene Littler who won the U.S. Amateur, scored 29 victories on the PGA Tour, including the U.S. Open in 1961. Gene the Machine, they used to call him, for his smooth, easy, repeating swing. For a time, he was my model for how […]