"The Art of Scoring" by Stan Utley

Wait a few days. I just ordered it from Amazon, along with

I'm glad my opinion is so valued. I got the book in the mail today, and will read it during the week and write something about it.

There's always a lot to consume in these books, at least for me. I've been obsessed with him for several years now. Some of it is definitely review material from the first two books, which might put off some folks, but I don't care because things are elaborated on somewhat differently, and for me that just means more clarity. Anyway I need to hear it again and again in order to sink in. There's an interesting section about creating a "short game handicap" which I still need to fully absorb. There's a cool way to simply annotate your scorecard to capture what is going on with your short game. Sometimes the smallest idea can make a huge difference. I really liked a suggested approach he has for most troubleshots near the green -- to mainly with a standard bunker technique instead of trying to improvise shots and how the "average leave" would probably be better. Also, his discussion of the concept of "leave" was definitely enlightening. I would say that if you like Utley then you'll like this and you should get it, and you should also buy anything and everything with the guys name on it. Anyway, these books are really cheap so if you don't like it, you can always use it for ...

I too have had fantastic results with his bunker technique. Also chipping, and greenside recovery shots.. I feel really good about now... all stuff I learned from him. The only thing that I struggled with was pitching, particularly. from tight lies... and I actually had to learn some other things from other sources in order for it all to eventually click. The other thing I would say is I absolutely needed his online videos for it all to gel, and the books alone weren't enough. But no big surprise on that... you can only learn so much from a book imo.. you need to see it being done.

Wrote that in Oct.09. I dusted this book off today and am giving it another go-round. It makes a lot more sense the second time around. Awesome stuff. Stan Utley is a genius. I've been putting out of my mind at the par 3 course.

This is my dreaded miss as well, but it usually only happens at the range. It happens often during the Weight Forward-Stop and Hit aka Flying Wedge Drill that I do often. My assumption is that the face is wide open and the pivot was bad, but I'm not sure. It could be a heel, hosel, or toe hit as well (coupled with an open face)- hence the ball going dead right. Would love to know exactly what's going wrong, but I think we'd need video for that.