When I was 14 and just starting learning golf, I used to practice, during Philadelphia winters, with a Whiffle ball in our living room. Sort of half swings with a Bobby Jones blade 9 iron. I got pretty good knocking that Whiffle over the living room couch and against the curtains…until…one day…when I got a […]
Practice
The Stretch for Added Distance
I must admit, I get lazy with my golf swing and can easily fall into a kind of default when it comes to the top of the backswing. For that is the point when my body needs to stretch to its maximum capacity. And those last few words are most important because what you don’t […]
Shaft Lean and Lag: More important pieces of the compression puzzle
Shaft lean is a sacred cow to tour pros, but is not well known or practiced by handicappers. And when done correctly, it is the main avenue to properly compressing the golf ball off the face of the club. But many handicappers are flippers, a term Lee Trevino uses to describe golfers who flip their […]
Compression Obsession
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 […]
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 […]
LPGA: Why You Should Watch These Players
I submit that the LPGA Tour is more interesting to watch than the PGA or the European Tour. Simply said, its players play more like us mortals, while still playing at a professional level. What I mean by that is their driving distances are more like ours, and their driving accuracy is more like we […]
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 […]
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 […]