david_wedzik

Hear me out. Suppose that the Rules Official correctly (IMO) ruled that Dustin Johnson earned a penalty stroke on the 5th green for causing his ball to move. I think there is a good chance - not a certainty - that he collapses a bit and/or Lowry plays well enough at that point that the outcome changes. Maybe they tie, maybe DJ loses outright… something. Consider that DJ probably played the last 13 holes not thinking he'd be penalized because he doesn't understand the rule, and how his mind set and decisions might have changed if he had been penalized. At the time, he'd have only been -3 while Lowry would have been -6. I will say it this way again. There is a good chance that because a penalty was not assessed initially and DJ thought he would not incur a penalty, it affected the play of DJ, Lowry, and others over the remaining 13+ holes. In other words, DJ might have LOST the U.S. Open if he had been assessed a penalty at the 5th hole instead of after he'd won by 3/4.

Fun video I did yesterday analyzing Donald Trump's golf swing. You may even find some political references here and there . Anyway... enjoy it for what it is, don't turn this into anything political, and feel free to share! Hopefully The Donald himself sees it at some point! Abridged version: Full Version:

I'll just fly off the cuff here... he says: “maybe, like a 5”, “might be a 7”, "putting... it’s gotta be a 9”... c'mon you are Dave Pelz, can you give us some actual research? Can’t blame him for doing this as he’s hitched to short game but wow... just not backed by anything. Then let's look quickly at his stat re: 60% that tour players get it up and down vs. approx. 10% of 20 handicappers. Without even taking time to look at some of our research to confirm accuracy at this point, if the 20 handicap misses 16 greens and gets it up and down 2 times vs. the tour player 10 times they lose 8 shots... that's still NOTHING compared to what they are losing with the full swing. Tour players are picking up multiple shots EVERY hole on 20 handicappers with the full swing.

Haha... I'll take the amateur 20 handicap who goes by the name of Mark... if that's his real name

I'm taking Joe here. Sample size of one 9 hole round is too small of course but I'd be backing Joe if I had to wager $100. I'm confident in my pick btw :-)

Golf is hard. I don't want this to "sound" the wrong way but of course S&T; is "easier to remember". It's description of ONE way to swing a golf club. You don't have to consider the many things that might be going on within individual players (again, golf is hard, and you really need to consider those things) as you give them singular instruction. 5 Simple Keys® was specifically built to keep things as simple as possible for players learning the game while instructors learned to understand the things that go on to make those 5 Keys attainable. It's not as easy (for an instructor) as just hearing them once and remembering them... but for a golfer it is exactly that easy. That's the beauty of the system. Easy for golfers to understand and prioritize while the instructor (the one who, if he is worthy, gets paid by the golfer) has to grasp the why and how and variables that make things work.

Putter fitting is certainly a small factor here but it's much more the mindset. Understanding the stats can change that. I would also say that if you find yourself leaving a larger percentage than normal short from inside the 10-15 foot range it may be because you lack confidence in the 3 foot range for some reason. Another reason why spending practice time on the 3-8 foot range is beneficial.

One addition that needs to be reiterated for sure. From inside 15 ft-ish (maybe even 10-12 feet depending on player level) focus on trying to make them all as typical distance control will leave most players only 1-3 feet past the hole anyway and that is a very high percentage make zone. The reason I mentioned some players moving this "go for it" distance down to 10 feet is that they may not all have "typical" distance control :-). I'll agree with Erik that the putts per round is a bad benchmark though I'm not even sure if these matching with an "eye test" carries any weight. I'd throw it out there that we have always seen this list of players with lower putts per round than most and then "look" at them as the best putters. Consider when you buy a new car and then notice everyone else who has one of those cars (never happens to me as I drive a Lotus...err... a SMART car with Golf Evolution wrap :-D). You hear all the time how great of a putter Faxon is because people have seen the stats and then you "notice" him making more puts than others. A quick glance back at the statistics of Pavin, Frost, Crenshaw and Faxon show them as FAR BELOW average in the GIR category (Furyk had some very good years mixed in with not so great years early on). Many years during that stretch they had rankings b/w 100-180 in that category. So, the number of putts clearly shows them as relatively good putters (since there were also a number of other tour players in the same range in GIR ranks) but saying they are the best 5 is misleading at best IMO. I realize that nothing I bring up here is backed with 100% certainty but, at best, this is a surprising use of statistics from Broadie. The important stuff in the article is clear. Go for it inside 10-15 feet (depending on skill level) and hit the ball the correct distance outside 25 feet. You shouldn't care if you make those... just NEVER three putt.

Just read through a fair amount of this thread quickly... do me a favor. Go to the range as soon as you can and lay an alignment rod on the ground to be CERTAIN you know where you are aiming your body "lines"... then put an alignment stick down into the ground (standing up) about 15 feet in front of you and just a touch to the right of where you are aligned. Hit some drivers from this alignment starting the shots to the right of the alignment stick. I would like to hear a report back which informs us how many of the drives that started RIGHT of the stick hooked too much. Start there and that will help everyone trying to help you. Be anal about your alignment and the alignment of the stick as I explained above. You have to do this right. Dave

We have recently begun filming for a DVD release of Lowest Score Wins and once complete there will be a large scale marketing campaign begun on Golf Channel and elsewhere. We would really love to hear from those of you who have read the book and begun putting the principles to work. What we'd like from you, if you'd like to see yourself on Golf Channel in a commercial for LSW, is your best heartfelt short testimonial for LSW. Here are some guidelines for filming the video: Don't mention "the book" - just say "Lowest Score Wins" or equivalent (you don't have to say the title - people will know what you're talking about since it's the rest of the commercial - just don't say "this book" or something), because the book will still be available but the commercial is for the DVDs primarily. Make as many clips as you want saying as many things as you want, but keep them to three to ten seconds or so in length (the actual speaking part - we can trim out extra). Video and audio quality matter, so better is better. Please try to eliminate wind noise, etc. Location matters. Ideally, at the course is best. Videos of some guy on a couch probably won't make the cut. :D Try to say as many different things as you want. If nine videos all say the same thing, we can't use all nine. You never know what will sound best. Be creative. Many of the reviews that you've already written have been pretty great, and said things quite well, so read your review (and some others) and consider repeating a sentence or two from them. Be overly enthusiastic. Emotions come across as surprisingly flat on TV. We've filmed an example video below. You've seen the "Holy Moses!" and "That's the most innovative approach to golf instruction that I've EVER heard of!" clips. We may not have covered everything above, but feel free to ask questions and we'll answer them. Video is uploading (very slowly): Anyone whose video clip is used will be a famous TV star, will have casting agents calling you non-stop, and will receive a small cool prize and thanks from myself and @iacas .

To follow up on Erik's thoughts I'll just say I'm not surprised by this comment. I think a fair percentage of people who read the section may feel that way. We discussed these types of comments being made, in fact, while writing the book. However, I believe that it's far more perception than reality as it seems, after reading, like this is the common sense way to look at things. I actually like to hear this type of comment as I think it adds great credibility to the concepts. The GamePlanning section is definitely not typical risk/reward strategy and since this thread is for people who've read the book I don't need to hit on all of those details. Thanks for the thoughts and I, too, thought the Par 4 example you gave was a very good one.

Nice job on the analysis @iacas - I'll add that this is not uncommon to see this type of transformation in an hour once the person understands how to do it properly. We hit shots one handed (right hand) for a while and she was quickly better one handed than she had been two handed previously. Right hand only shots are one of my favorite ways to get the feel of the backswing and the way the club "falls" across to a student. Something telling from the before swing was how much she dipped the right shoulder and moved her weight back a bit through impact. This was nothing more than her attempt to add loft and bounce as I had asked her to hit a shot that was just slightly higher than normal. Attempting to add loft with the body motion through the shot generally leads to bad contact. In the after she changed the trajectory she was going to hit the shot through a setup change and then allowed the proper technique to expose the bounce and keep the loft on the club.

This is not that uncommon and I wish I had an answer that you'd really like to hear -- you've learned what you need to do and how to work on the things to improve your motion and your start lines -- but you are in a bit of limbo. What I mean is that you are still most likely doing things in your "previous manner" but your mind is filled with the thoughts that it takes to do things correctly (with some more practice and time to get things right this gets better, trust me). Add to this the fact that your alignment is in the same limbo type state and you can see where the scoring problems lie. On the alignment side...can you play golf laying down an alignment stick quickly to see how much the alignment is an issue on the course? Again, mostly this comes down to having thoughts in your head trying to do this correctly but the changes aren't there yet. Thoughts in the head are an ok tradeoff if they are getting the results you want...but otherwise not so great Last thing: I know you aren't able to make tons of time to practice so get in a mirror at home and work on the things we discussed. The slow motion type work at home or in your backyard will pay dividends.

Hi Bill - I spoke with Erik earlier today and told him I'd have a look at your swing. Really nice job overall and your structure is certainly solid. The biggest priority for you is Key 3 (Inline Impact) and working on this will help Key 4 (Sweetspot Path) as well. It will take care of a the issue with the fades and the added loft/higher shots pretty quickly. Notes are on the images which I exported from my Analyzr Pro software. Dave

I think that is a fair plan. And I think it is fair to say that there are small adjustments to be made with any strategy. The problem is that the potential variables for SMALL adjustments are just too many to list here. That is why broad scope advice is difficult to give. That said, most people, without an in person GamePlan structure (which we will be offering with schools, etc. btw once the book is released) should heed this advice to shoot lower scores. It is easy enough to pick an exact target in line with your start line in order to finish your ball in the center of the green. The statistics, very much, speak for themselves. This makes you almost exactly as good as a tour player. Your perception of yourself can be misleading. Sometimes you will get hot/lucky and make more but, in itself, this shouldn't change how you look at the advice. Not to mention that your score will improve if you worry more about making pars (less bogeys) and less about making birdie.