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 […]
golf and the mind
Learning from Lexi’s Letdown
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Learning from Fabulous Phil Mickelson
Taking over five hours, with time between shots and holes, golf requires mental focus, perhaps more than any other sport. From three-foot putts to irons over water to drives down tight fairways, you need to stay focused to insure all your relevant body parts are in sync with your brain’s neurons; for anything out of […]
The Essence of a Good Lesson
As with any instruction, there are lessons which are effective and lessons which are not. I might be a concert pianist today if I stuck with lessons when I was six, but just didn’t connect with the teacher and his methods. On the other hand, my first golf instructor, though far from a top 100, […]
Swing Speed: The Good, the Bad, and the Hyperbole
From the talking heads on TV to the touring pros themselves, swing speed is all the rage. Bryson DeChambeau is the current focus of the discussion, although he’s just doing his thing in order to win more tournaments. I don’t think too many others will take the time to put on 40 pounds of muscle […]
Match Play: For pros and perhaps for recreational players as well
It was fun watching the pros competing one on one this past weekend. Match play involves more strategy, with each match, indeed each hole, a tournament within themselves. There was more of this format many years ago, and that’s too bad. I’d like to see more of it. I kind of picked and choose which […]
What We Can Learn from Matt Jones
When I was a youngster, my childhood hero was Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier, as the song went. Read his bio four times, had a coonskin hat, watched Fess Parker and the Disney flick, the works. After many adventures, Davy made his way to the Alamo and fought to his death among all […]
The Lesson
Well, I finally did it, thanks to a gift from my golf bud, Steve P. I took the plunge and saw the very able pro at Tri Mountain in Ridgefield WA, Michael Parker. Essentially, he diagnosed this old fart with a kind of old-fart kind of a swing. This was a bit of a rude […]
Go, Jordan, Go!
A hole in one for Jordan at the Arnold Palmer! And last I looked he was tied for first. His driving still needs some sharpening, but his putting is starting to look like the Jordan we all remembered him by. He’s coming out of his slump, for sure, as the last three events and this […]