"The Art of Scoring" by Stan Utley

[shortgamewiz]

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.

it's a shank. ball hitting hosel. nasty buggers. I struggled with them and I too found it mostly happened in wedge practice. The best thing I could come up with is you simply loose feel for the clubhead and where it's contacting the ball. I think once I get a little tired and loose a little concentration, which may happen sooner then I'd like to think with the wedge practice it tends to crop up. Not sure why exactly. I developed my own set of remedies which seem to help me but no guarantee they'll work for you. They are: instead of standing square as stan suggests, I stand a little open (use a reference club on the ground) and I firm up my grip esp. my left hand, but also my right. (I try to do that without over tightening up my shoulders or arms and losing fluidity) and then I make sure I'm addressing it and ultimately hitting it more towards the toe than the heel. Since I'm a little open the action is more 'cut' ( a la phil/seve) then 'draw/straight' (a la stan). I also make sure my posture is very good and back is straight and chin and neck aligned to my back. Lazy posture seems to breed the problem. Also I noticed that a backswing and stroke that is too slow or lazy seems to breed it as well, so I firm up and speed up the backswing and stroke. I make sure my backswing is very short and compact as well. I think we get in trouble when we watch players like utley or couples because they look so smooth to us but what they're actually doing physically might not be exactly what it looks like to us, so we tend to slow down, over lenghthen the backswing, hold it too loose and simply get too pretty.

You may not completely grasp all that stuff if youre a beginner which is understandable. Good luck with this problem, it's very annyoying. The other things you can try are: taking a break when it starts.. sitting down in the shade and drinking some water or something. Or if you're on the range, switching to another kind of shot/club. What's particularly annoying about this problem is once you think you got them licked they come back another day of short game practice. Very annoying. That's why i think it's mainly a feel/awareness problem. You can try doing silly swings/shots, one handed shots or radically wierd shots to help regain feel too. nasty problem.

[shortgamewiz]

I found that phils video helped me with this prob. I love utley but I think you need different perspectives in golf and in life. Phil likes to keep these shots compact, firm, from mainly a slighly open stance with some cut spin on it. That's how seve does it on his videos on the web too. Seve even says "keep it short".

[MMouse]

For those of you who have his books, would you recommend Art of Scoring over putting and short game? Does it combine the two nicely or does it miss the mark being combined into one book? I'm looking to give one of his books a read, and right now both areas of my game could use some attention.

[danwalk]

I think that of the three, The Art of the Short Game is the strongest. While The Art of Scoring does indeed distill the essence of both of the other books, I don't think it provides quite enough information to truly get your head around Utley's short game techniques.

[CoupleOfFew]

I agree. The Art of the Short Game has helped me tremendously and while The Art of Scoring is a very good read, its not on the same level as his short game book.

[Beady]

I received my copy and have started reading it. I see now what was meant by not going too in depth with technique, but I think it's a good read for any golfer. I think it could have used a different title though. Maybe something like " Hey dummy, do you really think you're going to make that shot? How about you play it safe and make a shot you'll actually hit? See I told you so " by Stan Utley

[CoupleOfFew]

LOL...so true.

[Beady]

I think it should be noted that many mid to high cappers would benefit from reading this book and applying the strategy to the entire course. My last round I birdied a par 4 that the other 3 guys I was playing with got pars and bogeys on. They all hit driver off the tee while I hit a three iron. One drive went in the long grass, one in a bunker and the other behind a big grassy mound to the left of the green. My 3 iron? Laid up to the fairway bunker in front of the green, pitched it on and putted it in.
I know I can hit a fairly accurate 3 iron off the tee. I also knew where the trouble was and that I couldn't reach it. Strategy is over looked by so many people. Everyone seems dead set on hitting their driver a million times in a round. If you shoot a good score and only use it 6 times, then so be it.
Don't get me wrong, when there is very little trouble or I am confident about my shot shaping that day, I 'll hit driver as much as I can. Pick the shot with the club that you KNOW you can hit and has the LEAST probability of getting in trouble.