Deryck Griffith

I'm sure you can "massage" the strategy in those severe cases. Maybe on the hole with the severe back to front slope, if center is 150 yards out but that's at the apex of the slope, you aim for the center left/right but try for a 140 yard shot that will still land close to center but trickle down to the front where the pin is. However also though keep in mind, on that same green, if you go pin hunting at the front pin, you could bring the false front into play and end up with a very difficult, 40 yard chip back up to the green. I would take the slippery downhill putt everyday instead of that chip.

Aren't we all on this forum to debate our thoughts? Opinions? Heck, we are all crazy golf fans and when two high profile people split after a short time, it's interesting and somewhat fun to speculate on what happened.

I think you are on to something. Someone to validate what he is already doing. One on hand, Foley can be very technical and being that Westwood is, as he said "old school," the technical nature of Foley's teachings probably just didn't jive for him. Then again on the other hand, I have seen Foley say that he takes different approaches with each student. He said Rose loves lots of technical information and Mahan, for example is the opposite. He responds better to more "big picture ideas" and approaches Mahan accordingly. So, if this is the case, how come he couldn't find the proper communicative balance with Westwood?

I don't know why but I find this to be very interesting. Maybe there wasn't a synergy in personalities? Maybe Sean's coaching style didn't match what Lee was looking for or "hoping" at all? Thoughts? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/golf/10635262/Lee-Westwood-splits-from-coach-Sean-Foley.html

Don't forget about Calvin Peete. Started playing Golf at 24 I believe. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_Peete

I couldn't agree more! Great post.

For me, the biggest challenge getting to scratch from where my handicap is now is hitting fairways with the driver. Even though I hit the driver long, it is by far the weakest club in my bag. Why is it the weakest? Well, like Mike said, the 5SK keys are what we can look at when asking the question and I'm certainly weak in a couple of them. Key #1 - Steady Head Got it covered pretty much. Can get a little sloppy at times but for the most part, I'm OK here. Key #2 - Weight Forward I can get my weight forward a bit more but it's certainly more forward than most people I play with and enough forward to have consistent, crisp contact with the irons. The result are my divots happening after the ball is gone. Key #3 - Flat Left Wrist Can be a bit better which leads to... Key #4 - Diagonal Sweet Spot Path This is the one key that I struggle to be consistent with the absolute most. My diagonal sweet spot path tends to be slightly above the desired sweet spot position/line and I can get away with it on my iron shots. However, with the driver, it kills me. Considering the driver is much longer than my irons, my diagonal sweet spot path being slightly over the line creates ball striking issues when the path isn't matching my face properly (Key #5). There are days when my sweet spot path is great and the driver is on and on those days, I'm low 70s. Unfortunately however, I haven't been able to harness the sweet spot path consistently which, I feel, is a huge factor in keeping me from achieving the topic of this post. In looking at my swing on numerous occasions on video, I have a huge flaw in my wrist action from A3, to A4, A5 which leads to a weak Key #3 in my game. All things that can be addressed and what I plan on addressing this year. Key #5 - Club Face Control I get shaky with my clubface control once I can't harness my diagonal sweet spot path; creating, two way misses. Key#4 is absolutely the "key" pun intended to get me to get lower with the handicap.

Looks like Butch and Rickie are trying to reduce the amount of in to out path Rickie had. While under pressure, he has on numerous occasions yanked shots to the left. His old swing required lots of timing and flip hooks were definitely his miss. The stills so far show a bit less of the in to out path. He is in a nice position at the top right now but it's still early. It will be interesting to see how the new swing develops throughout the year. I still think his right foot on the downswing jumps off of the ground way too much causing the club to shallow out a ton. It'll be nice to see him roll it towards his instep more rather than lift up on his toes so quickly (reminds me of Paul Casey).

Awesome pictures Mike, thanks for sharing. My boss is actually there right now and is going to be part of the Pro-Am part of the tournament. In fact, my bosses Caddie at the tournament is the same caddy that caddies for Joe Durant. He called my boss on Saturday from Hawaii at the Sony open, where he was caddying for Joe, to confirm they will be working together (of course, my boss was super excited).. It's Kinda cool because Joe Durant won this tournament when it was the Bob Hope Classic in 2001.. My boss should have some interesting stories when he gets back which I will be sure to share when I get to talk to him about it.

How can you claim you would've beat Tiger when he couldn't even beat Faldo, Fuzzy Zoeller, Raymond Floyd, Bob Tway, Larry Mize, Mark Cakcavecchia, Paul Azinger, Corey Pavin......should I keep going? Norman should keep his mouth shut and check his memory because it's pretty short.

Thank you for sharing David. That is an amazing experience and I thoroughly enjoyed reading all that you wrote about the day with Graeme. A lot of what you wrote is lot as golfers we can learn from. I'm sure from just observing Graeme, you picked up some nuggets that you will apply towards your game. The thing that I take from this the most is the reinforcement of how much Ball Striking / Long Game dominates a golfers ability to play very well. It's funny because based on what you explained of the round, Graeme's "short game" wasn't really needed at all. Say's a lot to how we should all practice. Also, we can take the importance of mastering a single shot shape. I'm sure you saw Graeme play draws on holes or pins that would be best suited with a cut. He stayed with his shot shape and as Erik said in the shot shape thread, the pros OWN their shape (whatever that shot shape may be). These are all excellent lessons that we should all consider if we want to get better. It's also great to hear how nice of a guy Graeme is! What a day man and we are all lucky to have a fellow SandTrap friend there that was able to share it with us.

Everything will be crystal clear when you take the class. Trust me, you are going to wish you took the class sooner after you do it.

I just found this. Looks freakishly similar

Tiger has always had nice things to say about other people's swing during the years. Specifically as it pertains to Justin Rose, at the Tavistock Cup this year, Rose and Tiger were interviewed together after one of the days and Tiger had some very nice things to say about Justin's swing while Justin was standing there next to him. Tiger has also mentioned good things about Rose's swing other times as well. I agree with Mike and am sure Tiger on occasion will glance over at Rose's swing with the driver during practice rounds together with Foley to see what movements he can apply to his own driver swing. I'm not sure if Tiger would pay much attention on anything else besides the driver swing though... As it pertains to the cut shot, Tiger has always detested the hook shot no? Even with Haney. I found it interesting in Haney's book that on several occasions, Haney had Tiger rely on hitting a somewhat botched soft cut shot with the driver when he was under extreme pressure in tournaments where he had to hit the fairway while in contention to win. He feared and continues to fear the ball "curving" uncontrollably left that much. Personally, I think Tiger's tempo, rhythm, everything completely falls apart during the round and especially during the weekends while in contention. He gets super aggressive and can't control the need to "hit it hard" and comes out of his positions. If you watch Tiger on the range with the driver, every shot is perfect with a perfect tempo throughout the entire swing. He JUST can't translate that same "calmness" with the swing under pressure while in contention.

I almost lost my lunch watching the Rage monster. Seriously, I almost died...hahahaha. The whole video is awesome. On few occasions, I have been the shadow guy and borrower guy.

That's ball striking

This qualifies to be in the comics thread. Unbelievable....

Really, there is only really one word that makes the pros "so good." Ballstriking. We can talk about short game all we want, but when you really look at it, getting up and down from where they leave the ball when they miss the green is in a WAY EASIER spot to get up and down from than where the everyday Joe has to get up and down from. Making "putts" from where the pros hit their iron shots to are MUCH EASIER putts than where the average Joe has to make a putt from when he hits the green. Think of it this way, when average Joe has an iron in his hand, he swings and prays to the almighty to just hit the green. Usually the result is a long putt in a poor position on the green. When a pro stands over the same shot, he hits it to a specific spot on the green where the slope may be less OR in a spot when he he/she has an uphill putt underneath the hole, and so on. So the "putt" itself is more of a result of the "ballstrike." In an experiment, if all of us had a pro hit our long shots and all we were responsible for was putts and short game, I would be willing to bet our short game and putting execution would improve dramatically solely based on where the pros "shot" left us. Ballstriking is King and it's their superior ballstriking that separates them from the rest of us.

Phil did express his arthritis issues with everyone very openly and we all had to watch it affect him. Gary Woodland was twisting his wrist on Saturday almost the entire round because he "hurt it." Why doesn't he get the boo ho? Give me a break Phan. Of course many others have injuries...the difference, they don't have the camera on them every single damn second they take a step. I'm sorry but the 80th player in the world wincing on an injury isn't news and we don't SEE IT on camera. But when Tiger winces in pain, bring out the cameras everyone because it's the hottest news right now! Tiger was feeling great the first 11 holes and on #12, the spasm came which happens with spasms. They come and go. There was a natural progression. That 3 wood shot on #13, I'm sure he didn't think the spasm would attack him fully at that moment. But it did and we all saw the result. The difference with Tiger, he is a competitor with a burning desire to win AT ALL COSTS. So you better believe he was going for that shot. Anyone else but Tiger, and we say that took guts, took balls or whatever description of courage we want to express. Put Tiger there and we play armchair critics. The guy can't win no matter what the hell he does. Tiger didn't make an excuse. He was honest with what he was feeling at the moment. We want honesty from Tiger right? He is always sooo guarded right? So he gives an honest response and BOOM, everyone pounces because they are experts and have all the answers. Disgusting.

Let's forget what Tiger says about Majors (which is his OWN goal) for a second. Am I the only one that looks at 79 wins as the true metric? Tiger has won 79 times over 18 years while Jack won 5 less tournaments over 25 years. Snead won 82 times over 30 YEARS. And I'm sure half of those 82 wins were bullshit tournaments with bullshit competition and 4 or 5 (I forget the exact number) of those 82 wins were in team events. Tiger is a victim of his own personal major goal and we have all jumped on him. Forget what Tiger SAYS his goals are and let's all use a bit of common sense here. He has won more tournaments than Jack, will win a TON more than Jack and will win and TON more than Snead. Really, that's the only metric that should be used. While I feel Majors are important, I also feel we all have gone WAAAY overboard on using majors as the ONLY metric on someone's career (especially Tiger because he has been a prolific winner). Back to the majors, he's got another 35 majors minimum to win 4. Way to early to make the call on GOAT right now if we are using THAT as the metric. Lastly, it's much easier to win majors when you aren't chasing a particular number. Jack had the freedom to play in majors without the non stop scrutiny of reaching a "number" like Tiger has to deal with. Every time Tiger tee's up at a major, there is unprecedented WORLDWIDE coverage, WORLDWIDE press, and WORLDWIDE negative talk on if he is capable. We all have NO IDEA the level of stress and expectation that can put on an individual. Jack NEVER had to deal with that, EVER.

Exactly. Out of 185 people Luke is still top 50 in scrambling. He issue ISN'T lack of short game, it's piss poor ball striking; especially, off of the tee...short and crooked.

Just broke 70 for the first time. Shot 69! http://www.mississauga.ca/portal/discover/championshipcourse Black Tee's Par - 72 6395 Yards 71.5/129 Slope The course is at the top of a hill so it plays VERY VERY windy. Probably played, with the wind, easily 6600 yards.

I just heard last week that Luke Donald dumped his old golf swing coach Pat Goss and hired Chuck Cook (Jason Dufner's coach). Luke apparently first asked Sean Foley for his services but Foley is full so he recommended Cook. Interesting to see the player who arguably has the best short game on Tour barely make a top ten because he's hitting it all over the park week to week. Short game isn't saving him right now......

Precisely

Lee Westwood - Had a moment, and apologized. I can accept that. Jeff Overton - Who? What? Where? When? Ian Poulter - He has a point!! That's my quick assessment