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 […]
Owning your swing
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
Further Thoughts on the Full Swing
So what is the one element of the swing that separates amateurs from pros? Actually it’s a series of elements, which adds to its complication…and mystique. I do not have it all figured out–far from it–but I have observed that recreational golfers know little about getting the sequence of movements right. Pros often learn this […]
The Importance of Pace
It’s what is most different in the swings of touring pros. And it’s what can throw a swing out of kilter possibly more than anything else. Essentially it exists on a continuum of two elements: slow to fast. It is pace, and you can see it in the way people walk, eat, talk, pay for […]
Completing the Backswing: An Essential to Solid Contact
As I continue to experiment with the mechanics of the golf swing, I begin to realize more and more the importance of completing the backswing. There’s no cookie cutter formula for this, but there are some general guidelines. In addition to a one piece takeaway, which I’ve written about before, the hands and the club […]