Chas

Apologies for the minor diversion but dak4n6, would you say this is true to some extent of chipping as well? Raymond Floyd likes to call a chip a "lofted putt" and I think he has a point. Chipping is perhaps less variable than putting but more so than full shots. I'm sucking at both right now, which is consistent with the theory. I'm considering left hand low myself. My younger brother is killing me on the greens right now and something must be done about it.

I'll have to try that.

I'm an all-shoulder, rigid arms no-wrist type of putter. Think Nicklaus but without ANY of his skill. When I was standing near the 1st tee at an invitational event at Pebble a few years ago, waiting for Stan Utley and 3 others play, I got chatting with him (no crowd at all there) and he asked me to demonstrate my action pretending to hold a putter. Nice fellow. So I did and he said, politely bit firmly, that I had it ALL WRONG!. "Much too stiff in the arms", "use more of the wrists - yes, hinge them a bit!" Thinks: hmmmmm (deeply skeptical) Stan then teed off and I walked behind the group on the fairways (it's a rather informal annual pro/am event, very cool) and he proceeded to sink a couple of 15-20 footers in the half dozen holes that I followed along on. His wrists are indeed soft and they visibly hinge. He also hit some very accurate approach shots - he isn't long off the tee but that guy is a target shooter. And a real gentleman. He was giving advice to two amateurs in the group and generally being witty and entertaining as play went on. I was having a great time as you can imagine tagging along behind the group (no carts of course), all gratis. But I'm still the same all-shoulder putter and I still stink much of the time on the greens. No way am I going to add wrist hinge though - I'd only get even worse lol. Please don't tell Stan .....

Probably because you accelerate down through the contact zone better with a shorter backswing. If you go too far back, as I sometimes do, the tendency is to start to decelerate too soon on the downswing (before contact) and lose lag. Not to mention the dreaded 4-letter f-word*. Don't ask me the physics and sychology of this exactly but I do it myself sometimes and I see it happening very commonly. When I make a shorter backswing I seem to be more aware of the need to accelerate fully and make a fuller finish. Daly can go way past horizontal and play well, the rest of us .... not so much. Now let's hear from the instructors. * flip

Exactly. I've started playing 2 or 3 balls per hole on a local Executive (par 60) course in the quiet mid-afternoon, mostly to improve my unfortunate chipping and putting. Now that my driving has improved the short game is killing me. I don't even write down my first-ball scores for the reason well explained above. Playing multiple balls gives you a much quicker feel for how the course is playing, and how YOU are playing, on that particular day, allowing for much better adjustment. Not that my chipping or putting seems to reflect that advantage in my particular case ....

What does that mean? I'm not "positioning" anything, just describing the situation as it developed. Obviously, he was making a high risk shot because of the potential rewards. For a living I conduct risk-reward type of analyses in Pharma using various statistical methods. False positive and false negative outcomes etc etc. Google "Receiver Operating Characteristic" and you'll get the idea. Just considering risk alone completely misses the point. Tell me you understand that, please .....

Another slow round yesterday, playing with a young guy with a huge slice who couldn't exit a bunker to save his life. Lots of water holes as well. Nice chap but I started to get annoyed in the back nine (my bad ...) and let it affect my game. I started rushing MY shots a bit, after waiting for him to hit 2 or 3 times before advancing ahead of me each time. The other guy in the group had a decent game and seemed to take it in stride - impressive. I had him on the first nine but it went the other way coming back. Lesson learned, hopefully.

So you're saying that Sergio always hits a ball EXACTLY where he's aiming. You must think he's an even better player than I do. Have you never slightly pushed a club, any club, twice in a row? The guy is not Superman. I make no excuses for his whining and 'chip-on-shoulder' attitude at times, and have said so repeatedly on this forum. Perhaps you didn't read those posts, let's hope so or there must be comprehension difficulties. The phrase "sucker pin placement" is irrelevant in this context, as you should know if you follow pro golf on Sundays and actually understand what you're seeing. You should reserve it for relative hackers like you and me. You may not appreciate it but to win a tourney like this, sometimes big risks must be take towards the end. If you're sitting on a lead it's different story of course. Like I say, most entertaining. I sure don't come to threads like this for insights into winning the game of golf.

Why do you think he was aiming to the right of the pin, rather than at or a tad left of it? He has birdied that hole before, including to win the tournament in 2008, and was running out of chances to win - only two holes left. So he decided to not aim for the middle of the green like everyone else. Some of you guys really amuse me. Never in your lives will you even remotely approach being in such a winnable situation in an event like that, yet you claim to know exactly what he should have done and what actually happened there, down to his state of mind. Most entertaining I must say. Dream on guys .... but keep your day jobs.

Well I can agree that self-sabotage can happen, the mind is a complex and mysterious thing, but I don't see the evidence for it in that particular case (the 17th on Sunday). As I said, there is good evidence for the opposite, I.e rational risk-taking in an ultra-high reward situation. For Sergio to have bested Tiger in that tournament, which was a real possibility in his mind, was the sort of inducement that the likes of you and I can only imagine. But I do get your hypothesis and of course it is possible. And of course he wouldn't know - true for everybody in theory. Thanks for the suggestion. I'll Google SoCal Golfers Group and play in the tournament - it will be my first! I played The Vineyard in Escondido yesterday and read something about it there.

Yes, I would get the rangefinder as well. I use GolfLogix and a ranger. The more I play the more I want accurate distances to everything that might be a factor. Even if you're shooting in the 80s it really helps to focus the mind and commit to the shot. You start to feel like you're managing the round like a REAL golfer :>)

Phil generates a certain amount of envy on the tour, I'm quite sure of that. No one likes to be reminded that they're a grinder by comparison. And he gets a lot of off-course news coverage, usually very positive. He was just in Target here in San Diego buying lots of stuff for local kids, photo in the local paper. Difficult for some to deal with perhaps. The guy does talk a lot, some may find him garrulous. Then again, some tour players do better the less they talk ....

Respectfully, spare us the pop psych. What makes you think you can see into the dark inner recesses of his mind? It's perfectly obvious to those with eyes willing to see: he took a big risk - you might say an unreasonable one but then again you might not if his object is WINNING THE PLAYERS FOR A SECOND TIME - and he dunked the ball. I say kudos to the guy for that shot, but not for Tiger-club-pull-gate. He needs to get over stuff like that, even when surrounded by buffoons like some of Tiger's fans. Tiger's earlier bath is harder to understand, given that he was grinding it out beautifully. He must have been more shocked than anyone to have hooked that sucker into the drink, including his mother who surely enjoyed his remarks about her and Mother's Day afterwards.

All I can say is .... Wow! Anything over 4:45 is slow to me, > 5:00 is molasses.

I'm just trying to provide some balance to this thread, in which some posters seem to have gone off the rails. I know, it's an Internet form, what should you expect ..... Sergio is the only guy I've seen hold the green on the 13th at Torrey Pines (long par 5, massive false front, well bunkered) from the right fairway bunker on his second stroke, with an iron. A shot I would hardly believe if I hadn't been standing there watching closely. When you're playing as well as that, it's easy to see how overconfidence can set it. Sergio had won the 2008 Players on the 17th with a birdie and had birdied it twice this year. He was playing to WIN on a hole with an absurdly tough pin placement, which is more than many of the grinders out there would have done. They haven't got the you-know-what's .... For someone to accuse such a golfer of self sabotage isn't just ridiculous, it's downright idiotic - IMHO of course. :>) I hate to remind you guys but we didn't do so well at the last Ryder Cup now did we. There are some pretty decent players over the pond.

Guy that I played with today (we were both walk-on singles) had a nice power fade going and must have hit 11 or 12 fairways. Yours truly was hitting them mostly dead straight but only had 6. Our carries were very similar. I'd take his driving over mine any day of the week.

Among tour pros, Tiger was well known for being unsocial during and right after events - he would just jump in the limo and leave. I overheard a certain player, now on the senior tour, discussing this with someone at Torrey years ago. Well we found out at least partly why that was. But you get the feeling his behavior is changing - if so it's about time he grew up some but no, it doesn't make him a jerk.

Sergio has also won 10 times on the European tour and 3 times on the Asian tour. The PGA tour isn't the universe of golf, even though some in this forum seem to think it is. Comparing PGA tour wins for Garcia vs Michelson was hardly the point, surely you understand that.

That is a very good suggestion. If I have the nerve I'll suggest it to him :>)

I was making a general remark about the Sergio-haters in this thread - no need to multiquote them. Pointless. No, the responsibility is on you guys to demonstrate that Sergio "sabotages" himself. How many pro tour events has he won? The irony of what happened on the 17th escapes many here apparently. He's a talented risk-taker, more like Phil than most other players, without his short game but usually better off the tee.

It's never justified but it can be hard to deal with, even in your own group. Last week, for the first time in my golfing career, my group was cautioned by the marshal for slow play. He was right to do it, the group two places behind us had complained apparently and I already felt we were slow at the third or fourth hole. I openly agreed with the marshal and said we'd try to speed up. He was very polite about it, whereas someone in my group was a bit rude in response - most unfortunate. But what could I do about it, other than suggest that we speed up and encourage "ready" golf, both of which I did? My brother and I played at a decent pace and shared a cart - we were almost always ahead of the other cart on the fairways waiting beside our balls, trying not to be in the line of fire but ready to play quickly when the other two finally came through. My friend in the other cart, who is shooting around 120-130 (more if you could the odd wiff), has never had a lesson but he does try to keep up. Yes, he should pick up his ball more often and move on, but actually he's a fairly decent putter and likes that part of the game best so rarely does pick up. The other guy was a walk-on single who had a decent enough game overall but was VERY deliberate or ponderous or whatever you want to call it. He probably shot in the mid-80s so it wasn't the sheer number of strokes that was the problem. He was not playing ready golf, not in the least. A difficult situation to be in, I'm hoping it doesn't happen to me again any time soon. Slow play is even worse when it's your group that's at fault! Maybe I should suggest Stableford rules to my friend - pick up at double bogey (score of zero).

Some of those on this thread seem to have forgotten that Sergio WON the event in 2008. Since then he's had a rough period it's true but lately he's been back on form. The guy is looking very confident these days, if petulant at times as seems to be his wont. Silly discussion. As to many in Tiger's camp on the course on Sunday - what a disgrace to themselves. Truly pathetic, and indefensible. Tiger does not deserve idiots like them.

So what? Quoting Nicklaus is bringing nothing meaningful to the discussion of Sergio as a golfer. If Sergio was going to choke he would have done so long before the 17th tee. He took a big risk on a difficult hole/pin placement in an effort to win the tournament, something I can admire. He failed on that occasion, by a small margin as it happens. This sort of thing happens in golf all the time - perhaps some people haven't noticed .... And it's part of what makes golf exciting to watch sometimes, though not exactly relaxing - a bit like watching show jumping as I was telling my wife last Sunday. If you want to win at that, you sometimes have to push your horse to what you hope is just within its capabilities. But Sergio needs to get that chip off of his shoulder. How it got there I can only speculate.

What does Mark Sanchez have to do with it? Are you seriously suggesting that Sergio wasn't trying to win? If Sergio had hit the ball just a bit harder on 17 but on the identical line he would almost certainly have come second at least and might well have won the tournament the way he had been playing. Tiger hit a much worse shot into the water a little earlier - a truly terrible strike. Was that evidence of Tiger choking under pressure? I think not. That was an exciting finish by two superb golfers - why not just admit it.

Sergio did not choke in that round, far from it in fact. He was playing with great confidence on the back nine and chose to go for the pin on 17 in hopes of making birdie and sharing the lead. Very ballsy play - to win, not to come second. He hit a pin-seeker that fell short a tad - them's the breaks. He says he was feeling very confident about his play at that point and his choice showed it IMO. Not many players would have the confidence or the skill to make the attempt. You can criticize his decision on 17, fair enough, but to consider him to be choking at any time on Sunday is just laughable. The problem with Sergio is that he over-reacts to certain events when others would suck it up and move on. But he remains one of the greatest ball strikers in the game and I enjoy watching him play as much as I do any player, including Tiger and Phil. Let's not be suckers to the media storyline and get carried away with this.