saltman

If you cannot hit a reliable flop shot, there is little sense in trying to hit one on a difficult downhill lie. The natural tendency will be to suddenly feel like you are going to blade the shot resulting in dipping the back shoulder and catching too much grass or sliding under the ball or even bouncing and blading. This is the type of shot that requires a lot of practice and in the meantime, you are typically better off using your normal chipping technique, pick a spot to land, knowing it will run out and play for a 15-20 foot uphill putt coming back. In other words, don't try to be a hero. Once upon a time, this was a stock shot for me. Unfortunately, despite the fact that I know "how" to hit it, my hands are no longer soft enough to execute consistently so I typically just take my medicine in an effort to avoid a double or triple. That said, if you are going to go practice, I suggest the following tips: 1 - slightly open stance, ball will prbably be middle, back of your stance. Good deep athletic knee bend and wider stance. 2 - shoulders must stay parallel to the slope 3 - club selection is probably going to be a 56/60, I will pancake the face. Wide open, with my hands well in front of the ball at address. 4 - just like a flop, I will immediatly cock the wrist in the back swing to ensure a steep angle coming back through. 5 - not like a flop, I shorten my follow through so as to avoid a double hit. It's like a flop/stab. After hitting about 1000 of these shots with the same technique you will develop a feel for how to deaden your hands. Its hard to explain how this feels, but for me it will almost feel like I am decelerating to the ball, which isn't really true but it feels like it. On the really delicate shots I just let gravity drop the club to impact and will finish one handed sometimes. This is very very hard however and requires a TON of practice. Find a slope to practice on and pick a target 20 yards away that you want the ball to fly to, once you have mastered, pull it into 15 yards, 10 yards and then 5 yards and 1 yard. Allow your mind to explore ways to make your hands softer. Develop your golf creativity. This is type of shot turns a golfer into an artist and makes practice really fun. Good luck!

Those that need to take an approach such as this should first ask themselves if they are playing from the appropriate tee boxes. If you are playing from the tips and find yourself hitting hybrids into 400yd par 4s, you are playing from the wrong tee boxes. If you are playing from the tips on a 400yd par 4 you should be hitting 7-irons or less into the green assuming a reasonable drive. If you have a low to mid-iron in your hand I would say 5-iron or less, you should almost never be thinking about laying up.

I guess I think its abnormal because the guys I play with that know far less about the fundamentals of a golf swing somehow find a way to put the ball in the fairway much more consistently. I get the "throttle down" advice constantly, usually from these guys! But if I "throttle down" my tempo is even worse. I have to swing aggressively and I try to pick conservative targets, but this only really works if you can eliminate half of the golf course. I don't have any identifiable miss (left or right), I can go either way. I will admit my biggest fear is the snap hook however, but I have so many anti left devices in my swing the snap hook is almost impossible anymore. It's interesting what you say about the hands. I have heard the old saying, its great to be able to use your hands in a golf swing, its terrible to have to use your hands! I did grow up playing golf, tennis and baseball primarily and I know I have a lot of hand action in swing. I wouldn't say I am closer than you by the way, I am going the wrong way with my handicap. I was low single digit in my best days, even touching scratch for a short period. Amazing that someone can be a scratch at one point in their lives and then struggle to break 90 just a decade later. What a game!

Does anyone else "flush" the ball all over the place?? Last week, I played a wretched round of golf (for me), shot 94, hitting the ball everywhere but in the fairway. Hit 4 fairways and 1 green, 1 green!! This isn't all that rare for me, I tend to spray the ball all over the place, but this was on the bad side of bad. At the end of the round, my playing partner who shot 81 was shaking his head in disbelief. When I inquired as to why he was shaking his head......his response was....."I have never seen someone shoot 94 without topping, chunking, shanking, blading or even toeing a single shot in an entire round." For the record he was wrong I bladed 1 and toed 1. Since this is my game nowadays, I had never really thought about. But yeah, give me a bucket of 100 balls and I will probably hit 90 of them "flushish". But point out a target and I will flush it 15 yards left or right of it 7 out of 10 times! The sad thing is, yeah I can go 72-75 low, but I can also go high, like 95 high as I did in this round. I don't really have a typical round. Anyone else have this issue? What did you do to find consistency?

I find it highly unlikely that BB "changed" the rules midway through the show. I suspect each player (perhaps unknowingly) upon signing whatever contract agreed to this type of producer's discretion. At the end of the day the show is NOT for the produced for the competitors it is for viewers. They were given a tremendous opportunity, to be griping about fairness was pretty weak.

Oren is a really classy guy, very sad to seem him leave. I can't understand why the competitors are so pissed about Petey. This kind of stuff happens on reality shows ALL the time, you should have expected it. Furthermore, as a team they missed the circle 4 times from less than 140yds. They didn't put up much of a fight! Will remains perplexing, kudos for not letting his emotions get the better of him. Carl continues to show incredible mental toughness despite "amateurish" technique and I don't mean this is a backhanded compliment. He is an incredible athlete and defies all odd against him. I would never bet against this man. Kent seems to have relaxed now that Justin is gone. Perhaps Justin brought out a bad side in his personality, which is certainly understandable. David has a nice wedge game, he might be flying under the radar a bit. Bottom line, if combining mental toughness and ability, I think the best players remain. Even Shanker is starting to get a bit more focused.

Hmmm....did I really bash you? I deeply respect what you have done for our country, THANK YOU! That has NOTHING to do with you skill and accomplishments on the golf course relative to Robert. All my comments are relative to GOLF as you are on a golf realty show. I am not going to resort to calling people names. I wish you nothing but the best, I just didn't think your personality came off well on the show. If you are suggesting editing had something to do with it, that is fine but you still made some fairly rude comments. I have no hard feelings. Your game looked much sharper in that last episode. Good luck and in the meantime stay safe.

A little surprised by all the positive comments about Russell. I get that he posts here and is a decorated soldier, but his false bravado was getting on my nerves last night. Even my wife commented on it. Robert has chops on the golf course, the guy made the cut and finished T-48 at the 2008 AT&T;, that's not a fluke and is more than Russell has ever done. A lot of these guys sitting back making comments on poor shots need to learn how to shut their mouths. Justin, Kent and yes our dear friend Russell are the biggest culprits. The little bit about who could or couldn't be a Marine was ridiculous, although I suspect it wasn't his idea. Russell, are you trying to tell everyone else how tough you are or yourself?? Petey watched the same shots Robert hit and acted with a lot of class by keeping his thoughts to himself. Its apparent to anyone who has ever played high level competitive golf that Robert has lost his confidence entirely. It was difficult for me to watch as I have battled the same issue. Until you have been there you don't know what it feels like. I battled driver yips that ultimately took the joy completely out of the game. Robert standing over the ball with something on the line is probably the last place he wanted to be right there. Other notes, Petey is a player. No doubt about it. That said, Will's reaction to the comeback challenge was perplexing.

Agreed. My point is he is already in sudden death, I guess he gets insurance, but past events do not impact the probability of the future. He would go into a second sudden death with the exact same odds of winning as the first. To me that = no value, so spending even $1 is a bad bargain. The format that Shank played in was entirely different, Shank effectively got a head start which was an enormous advantage. IIRC in his format it would be similar to a 100m run in which one runner started 1/3rd of the way down the track! Certainly that is hard to think about right then and there. I would be inclined to take any advantage offered in a competition like this, so can't be too hard on David. Thus far the money board has not really proven to be a big advantage to the leaders. In blackjack, allowing players to buy a mulligan ] may have made things interesting.

My thoughts so far: Not terribly impressed with the golf yet, but its hard to determine how good any of these players really are based on single shots. That said, there are several technique issues that I wouldn't expect to see from a 5 handicap player much less a scratch. -Carl comes in very steep with his irons, but I guess so does Bubba Watson, so what do I know? Dude is mentally tough though! -Russell flips his hands on chips which looked very mid/high handicap. I've seen quirkier, but it looks like a technique that will break down under pressure. -Oren's decision to hit driver was a head scratcher, actually a lot of them made head scratching decisions. That hole could not have been more than 330yds, why not leave yourself a nice controlled wedge as opposed to bringing those bunkers into play? -Shank blading a tight lie? Hopefully thats just nerves. As for the buying a half point, it varies by challenge. Shank was probably wise to buy another point last week as it was a challenge in which it gave him a clear advantage. David last night, not very wise. Somebody explain to me the situation where David's half point isn't the exact same advantage as his full point? That said, being a money leader doesn't provide that much of an advantage week to week. From a personality perspective, I think this cast has some pretty nice characters. Justin and Kent I can do without, both are pretty classless thus far. Russell, if you are reading I am contemplating taking you up on your offer, if for no other reason than to see your full game! Good luck to you and thanks for what you do!

I love all the armchair experts. There is absolutely no evidence of a correlation between Tiger's injuries and running.

I believe the rule states that the cut-off is teeing off the next hole. He had no choice at the time but to play another ball, he simply did it at the wrong place.

Where did he say he hit the wrong ball? The way I read the situation he took a penalty drop because he never found his ball. They only found 1 of the 2 balls. The playing partner then played from the wrong place by taking a "penalty drop" instead of taking the appropriate stroke and distance penalty, however this is moot because they learned with certainty that his ball was moved by an outside agency on the green.

Seriously?? Its pretty obvious that stat is incorrect. He is currently a 7 handicap! If he is hitting 9 GIR per round and nearly 4 putting he is recording about 8-9 double bogeys per round. That means on the other 9 holes he is making birdie or better without hitting the green, so basically this guy would be chipping in or 4 putting for double.

I believe it should be handled as such: You get a 2 stroke penalty and have to go play your correct ball, (assuming you didn't already tee off of the next hole). If you cannot find the correct ball, you have to go back to the tee and play it as a lost ball with an additional 1 stroke penalty. So effectively you would be hitting 5 off the tee. Your playing partner's ball was moved by an outside agency (you). He incurs no penatly (also assuming he hasn't teed off the next hole), but must go back and play his ball in from the spot you played it from. If you both teed off the next hole you would both be disqualified. You for playing the wrong ball and he for playing a ball from the wrong place and not following the rules for doing so (which would mean an additional 2 shot penalty) prior to teeing off on the next hole. He should have assumed his ball was lost and re-teed hitting 3.

FWIW - This makes absolutely no sense to me. Are you sure you are entering the stats properly? Does the program give you the option of entering putts on individual holes and are you doing so? I don't know what purpose a program would spit out 3.8 putts per GIR, something is wrong. If you are simply entering in your total putts per round, perhaps that is the issue. In this case the programmay be taking say 36 putts and dividing it by 9 GIR. Usually if the output doesn't make sense, the input is the first place to check. With respect to your game, while I am currently an 11 handicap, I was once a scratch and have broken 70 about a dozen times (though not in the last 15 years). I simply don't play/practice enough. That said, I can clearly see where the issue is in my game and that is giving myself birdie opportunities. There is more than 1 way to skin a cat, but you need to be putting for birdie 13-14x per round in my opinion. Ask yourself what is holding you back from that on your home course? If your home course is 7,000yds and you hit the ball 250yds off the tee you are looking at a lot of 3/4/5 irons into the greens. Those aren't scoring irons and you may need to find a way to add length. If you course is tree lined and you are only hitting 45% of your fairways, you are probably wasting a lot of shots by having to punch out, which is basically a penalty shot. Unless you are Luke Donald, we can all improve our putting, but in all my playing days I have rarely seen someone shoot sub-70 and not hit at least 10 greens that day. Best of luck!

Yep, the chippie chunks are my nemesis. I am an 11 handicap with a 2-3 handicap swing and just a wretched short game. My playing partner calls my wedge game either perfect or awful, there is no in between. Maybe if I played more than 7 rounds per year it would be different??

Wrong the rule isn't absolutely certain, its virtually certain.

Virtually certain is still judgmental and many times depends on course knowledge. Considering the "relative" rarity of a lost ball in a non-hazard, if the ball is was clearly heading toward a known hazard and is subsequently never found, I don't know how you could not consider that "virtually certain". If you walk up and spend 5 minutes looking EVERYWHERE else without finding it, I would argue its a virtual certainty the ball is in the hazard, but its certainly debatable.

I believe you can always request GUR. In fact, I believe Michelle Wie benefit from this ruling over the weekend.

Pretty clear to me that she had more talent than anyone else on the golf course last week. She was impressive, young but impressive.

many moons ago, I had 8 putts in 9 holes with 2 two-putts. I chipped in 3 times over the course of 4 holes and managed shoot just 1 under. Still a very fun round.

Tiger Stricker Zach Mahan Cink

Well according to him he did grind it out, but I didn't watch the round I assume you did. That being said, I know there is a fine line between grinding it out and staying out of the way of your fellow competitors. We've all grinded, but based on your comments to this thread I can assure you haven't mentally been in the place I am referring. You are lucky. I am talking about the place where you stand over the ball and see out of bounds 3 fairways over to the left and guard against it so violently that you hit it in the water 3 fairways to the right.