Dr. Strangeclub

I think this is the ticket for better scoring in general. Like the pros always say, "One shot at a time..." If you habitually play the best shot you can, no matter where you wind up, is much better than trying to "force" things after a mistake. It keeps your emotions under control a bit, since thoughts like, "I can't afford a bogie on THIS stinking little hole!", or "Wow, this is going to be an EASY birdie!", don't surface quite as often. They are replaced by, "That's going to be interesting..." And the spastic play that results from "Just three more pars and..." can be kept at bay.

It's amazing how far they hit it in the clubhouse, isn't it!? I generally outdrive the people I play with, and some of them are pretty big hitters for amateurs. I can't keep up with truly long hitters, not even a little bit, but there really aren't tons of them out there. I think a better measure of how far you hit the ball is how far you fly it. I can carry a totally flushed driver, no wind, temperatures over 70, and my astrological signs favorable, close to 260, but 90% of the time, it isn't more than 240. This translates into playably long drives if there's any roll at all, and downwind I might get 290 or more out of one (if the fairways are like concrete), but for some reason I'm generally in front of the people who claim to hit 270-280. And, on a corollary note, I'm always amazed that higher handicappers greatly exagerate how far *I* hit it! Hey, I know what long is, and I'm not it! People who DO hit it 270 or 280 are pretty long in my book! And then there are those guys I play with who AIRMAIL my best tee shots! And I think it's easier to keep up with the "big boys" with a driver than with the irons. I've often played with good players who are not hitting it much longer than me at all off the tee, but when we step up to our shots, side by side in the fairway, he's hitting a comforatble 7 iron and I'm pounding a 5 for all I'm worth! (By "big boys", I mean people who are "full size". I am 5'7", 135 lbs.)

At LEAST half the time, when the leader is repairing a ball mark after consulting with the rules official and the camera zooms in to see the problem being remedied, the method used is precisely what the videos have complained about. But it doesn't matter, because an army of greens engineers will descend on the course after play and make the greens look like they'd never been played on. Most of us don't play at Augusta National and the ilk (although I see a lot of sandtrap members do). I often see touring pros repairing ball marks with all the skill of your average weekend golfer. It's really funny sometimes, though! Here he is, Fineshot McPounder, carefully lifting and dithering to make the area level and worrying it to death to make sure it won't screw up the putt, when all he has to do is take a few seconds and do the whole thing correctly and there would be no problem whatsoever! Hmmm...come to think of it, every time I've seen them zero in on a ball mark problem, they do it wrong!

I think a tee works reasonably well, too, especially one of the longer ones, at least when the greens aren't too dry and the mark not too big. (I sometimes forget to get mine out of the bag and will use a tee until I can remember to take one out.) For a large ball mark on a soft, wet green, the tee is pretty ineffective -- like serving beer with a teaspoon. I think the "too big a hole" point really only applies when the greens have a lot of clay content; on sandy or thatchy surfaces (ie, really good courses and really bad courses ), it wouldn't make any difference, but the tool is always faster and easier.

My favorite is one like the one in the middle, to the right of the tee. One sometimes sees the big fat plastic jobs free in the pro shop. REALLY awful! A tee is better! The next basket at the pro desk you see full of these greens-keeping atrocities-in-the-making, take them all and toss them in the recyclable plastic when you get home.

Emphasis with capitalized words is in the original, not something I've added to make MY point. From _Five Lessons_, pg. 41-42, Ben Hogan: "THERE IS ONE BASIC STANCE: THE RIGHT FOOT IS AT RIGHT ANGLES TO THE LINE OF FLIGHT..." I was 14 years old when the first installment of The Modern Fundamentals of Golf arrived at our house in Sports Illustrated. I had never broken a hundred. I read that lesson and the next four like I was discovering the secrets of the universe or something. Oddly, as it happened, I WAS, in the golfing universe! By the end of the summer I was consistently playing in the '80s. The next summer, I shot a 73 in the Savanna City Junior Amateur, taking second place. I hope you understand why I might think Hogan had the right idea. The lead up to these capitalized words is: "Some tournament-caliber golfers, as you may have noticed, choose to stand with the toes of both feet pointed out. It has always struck me that these players succeed in spite of the placement of their feet, for I have been convinced since my early days in golf that THERE IS ONE BASIC STANCE: THE RIGHT FOOT IS AT RIGHT ANGLES TO THE LINE OF FLIGHT AND THE LEFT FOOT IS TURNED OUT A QUARTER OF A TURN TO THE LEFT. I think the left foot can go to 45 degrees, personally, but it's a minor quibble with the thrust of what he is saying. As he writes a little further down page 42: "As a matter of fact, you can tell just from looking at a good golfer's stance exactly where he is aiming to hit his shot...On the other hand, a golfer who stands with both feet turned out makes you wonder to yourself, 'Is this fellow going to hit the ball right-handed or left-handed?'" You said, in classic straw man format, "If that were the case all anyone would have to do to fix their slice is to square up their foot," While there's obviously more to the problem (as explained in the Five Lessons), I would say squaring up the right foot is a very good start.

Bravo! I even brought this up on another thread, ie, people repair ball marks incorrectly more often than not, so complaining about people not fixing their ball marks really misses the "mark". I suggested, tongue in cheek, but quasi-seriously, that there should be designated ball repairers, and that unless you had a club badge as a qualified repairer, you shouldn't mess with it and mess it up. Playing at a course should involve an agreement. The first time you play a course, you should be required to watch this video before you can tee it up! TWICE!

Well, okay then. But I still don't think I'd pick those ugly, heavy fence post things. Seems like a cheap wooden molding strip would be a little easier to deal with. And you could write the swing thought of the day on it! Or keep stats on your practice! The left foot should splay out for biomechanical reasons. (Exactly what Dr. Mann claims for the railroad tracks approach, but I'll stick with Hogan, even though sports and biomechanics is Mann's claim to fame -- there are not two correct opinions about this, if you ask me.) As the hips open to the hole (your power source, if you're doing it right), the club naturally comes inside the line after impact. The weight shift isn't down line, but to the left in the follow through. With your left foot square, you tend to move laterally into the shot with your hips and lose big power. Your shoulders should stay on line longer (viz. the old tip, "Don't let your right shoulder move toward the ball", aka as, "Keep your right shoulder under", aka, "Point your right elbow at your right hip", aka, "Drop your right elbow into your side", aka, "Don't let your right elbow fly", aka...), but your hips should not, and it's your hips and feet that have to transfer and bear the weight. Basically, you set your left foot square to where your balance point will wind up in your finish: looking directly at the target, belt buckle pointing at the hole, back straight, weight on the side of the left foot, right spikes showing, etc. It's almost a matter of balance and grace. If your left foot isn't splayed out, there seems to me to be a lot more tension and effort to the whole operation.

The right foot should be perpendicular the swing line. I think this is one of the most important aspects of the setup and is almost never emphasized. I have yet to see any of the deep breathers on TGChannel say anything about it when talking us through all those slomos of the pros, possibly because almost none of the pros do it wrong. Sometimes they talk about somebody like Greg Norman dragging his right foot through the shot or Woods spinning out on his left foot, but nothing about how they set up to the ball with their feet. Yeah, there's "aiming left" and "open" and all that, but they never actually say where the feet themselves, individually, are pointing. Hogan laid down the law on this, and until human anatomy changes dramatically, it is what it is. Other than the eccentric Dr. Mann, who advocates the "railroad tracks" approach (shudder), with BOTH feet square to the line, I don't think the point is much in debate. So...what is it? The right foot DEFINES the line along which the club will be traveling at the bottom of the swing, at impact. Simple, huh? So, do it. Pretty much anybody can set their right foot down perpendicular to a target. The rest pretty much takes care of itself, as long as your ball position is decent. Above, tterrag said to buy rods from Lowes or HDepot to use on the range. Why wouldn't you just use your golf clubs? I agree that marking the line with something when you practice is important, but using a couple of irons has worked just swell for me for over 50 years.

There is also arc width to be considered. Arc width is more important than arc length, since that's what defines your "gear ratio", so to speak. There's more power in wide than long. If you can do both, then you'll be very long -- maxing out for your size and speed as it were. The biggest problem I see in players trying make a "big swing" is that they basically lose their structure and their arm swing gets disconnected from the shoulder turn. Now it's just an arm swing, and the power of from the hips opening into the shot doesn't actually "deliver". A lot more pros work on shortening their swings than work on making it longer, I'll bet.

Yeah, a cutoff club is great for indoors, especially around here in Central NY in the winter. (You really can't do a lot of swinging outdoors when there's 4 feet of solid snowcover and it's 10 below zero.) Just use a swing doughnut! I have a an old persimmon 4 wood I use. Cut off the shaft, stuck a grip on it, and with the swing doughnut it feels just like swinging a regular club!

One of the problems with a decent game is that we become complacent about hitting good shots and forget how it all came about to begin with. It's easy to panic! Usually, it's best to fix one thing at a time and see what kind of ripple effects set in, but I'd start with my right foot. Keep it flat on the ground, weight on the inside, until impact, and only then finish with your spikes showing. Lifting it early destabilizes you vertically: you'll spin out, go past the ball, lift up early on the right side...all sorts of things can go wrong. Watch Kenny Perry, old clips of Ben Hogan, or Nick Faldo. The guys who do it right are almost always really good ball strikers. The ones who do it "wrong" are frequently sprayers. (Actually, pros rarely make this mistake, and when they do, it's like, "Oops...") For this to be maximally effective, keep that right foot perpendicular to the swing line. Splaying the right foot behind you at address is a recipe for a clumsy follow through and repetitive stress injuries to the ligaments on the inner side of your knee. If you're doing that okay already, I'd take a look at my right hand grip. If you are holding it in the front of the hand, the whole operation can get flippy and out of whack, as the right hand simply takes over into the shot. You wind up casting it a little or coming over the top a bit. The left side just can't support that kind of action and has a tendency to collapse into the ball; now you either have to try to compensate by going down after it or stay put and thin it. Pull hooks, balloon balls, thin ugly things that slither out there. The game can become "rich and strange" leveraging onto the shaft with the side of the index finger of your right hand. Instead, hold the club with the middle two fingers and feel the impact more in the meat of your hand. Just guessing...

You can unscrew it. You can still actually take it out of the hole, it's just that players aren't allowed to do it. The other disagreement about all this seems to be that people think it wouldn't save time. How can it not save time? There can be rather a lot of dawdling around with the flagstaff, even in an experienced foursome, players from off the green wanting it taken out and replaced by turns. It's something else that has to be done. Even asking the question, "Want the flag in or out, Doc?" takes up a few seconds, and I've seen single digit handicappers mull the question for minutes on end, especially if there's a team bet. Let's see -- admonish a guy for bad flagstick etiquette, who has just crammed it ruinously back into the hole after missing a short putt. Texas -- the guy shoots you and his foursome throws your body over the OB fence. The DA decides it's justifiable homicide and no criminal charges are filed. The group is fined for littering. New York -- "Hey, Dominick, gimme the phone...Oh, hello Lou, I gotta a little job for your brother..." Georgia -- "Howdy, Reid. Is Sherriff Harley there? Ah, Lane! Got some yankees here givin' us a lotta citified lip on the golf course. Maybe you could keep your eye out for a New York license plate...uh,wait a minute...they tell me it's a rental. I'll get the license when we get in."

Hmmm...sounds familiar somehow. I can picture Gene Sarazen and Jimmy Demaret, Demaret in a sleeveless shamrock green sweater and matching shoes, Sarazen in a wool vest, both in natty plus fours and matching green ties: "Well, Gene, here we are in beautiful Ireland, in scenic Limerick." "That's right, Jim, and you don't have to be poet to love this place! Today, it's a match between Christy O'Connor of Ireland and Jay Hebert of the United States, at the Limerick Golf Club. It's going to be an exciting match on a great old course!" "Yes, Gene, and it's right here on SHELL'S WONDERFUL WORLD of GOLF! We'll see you on the first tee, right after these messages!"

Wow, some of you guys started on really nice courses! I didn't play much on "nice courses" until I was in college. Hey, Big Perm! I used to live in Dallas, so I played a lot of courses around there -- I think there was one in Plano...wasn't there? Two even? Golf in Dallas was BRUTAL in the summer! A golf cart just made it hotter (they hadn't invented the golf cart roof yet), the dry 105 degree air blowing in your face felt like you were sitting in front of a giant hair dryer with a giant heat lamp over your head while you were rolling along. Umbrellas were strictly for shade. I can't remember for sure, but it might have been in Plano where I shot the weirdest 9 holes of my life, playing in the Rockwell International Golf League (we played a different course each week). Six birdies, three double bogeys, no pars, no bogeys. A very strange round. Very strange.

I KNEW there was a bar in here!

True, but according to Dave Pelz it happens the other way more often. A lot of those putts that might have motored past for a miss-able 4 footer can turn into tap ins. I generally handle that with, "Here. Let me get that for you..." But, okay. Since my new cup and pin design already incorporates a screw in fitting, let's add a little bulb on the stick that you can squeeze to fill a little balloon at the bottom of the cup, pushing the ball gently out and off to the side, then deflating. (I'm on the phone to my patent attorney, even as I type!)

Actually, it would be more useful to require ball mark training before permitting people to repair them. Responsible players, like forum moderators, should be able to repair a half a dozen per hole -- I do! (Well...would you believe my own plus a few in the vicinity?) Bad repairs do more damage than the ball marks half the time. It's hard to fix a bad repair after a day or so. You should have to have a "Volunteer Ball Mark Repair Team" badge or take a drop to get the ball mark out of your line.

[Foghorn Leghorn]It's a JOKE, son. Ah say, it was only a JOKE![//Foghorn Leghorn] Tell you what...I'm always up for a challenge, so maybe I'll start a thread where you can say without a doubt that it's the most useless argument you've ever seen here. Stay posted for my standard diatribe on professional caddies! Hey, isn't there a bar in this clubhouse, where we can throw back a few beers and break the overhead lights copying each others' bad swings and stuff?

Yeah, same at my course. They often start out in the middle of the course when the first tee is backed up, too, jumping on your next hole while you're putting out. Now you have to wait for them to get out of the way before you can hit your tee shot. Since we invariably catch up with the field, anybody we let through merely clogs up the space in front of us, so we have to take an extra half an hour to play the course so they can get around faster. It's like cutting in line. Letting these guys play through also slows not only our group, but all the groups behind us, assuming the group playing through does get out of the way -- which doesn't always actually happen. I've let twosomes through in a cart that actually played slower than we did, once they got in front of us. But the most annoying part of cart players in how fast they get to their ball. Let's say the course is playing slow, and I'm waiting on every shot. Nowhere to go, period. No more than 10% of the players out there will be able to catch one of my good tee shots (I'm not a *big* hitter at all, but I'm not a short hitter, either). I'll get to my ball and the hackers behind me can see that I'm WAY out of range. True enough. There is no danger at all. But now, as I step up to hit the shot I've been waiting on, HERE THEY COME! Storming down the fairway, clubs banging -- and there they are, 50 yards away, laughing, clanking the brakes, getting in and out of their carts directly behind he, selecting clubs, driving around in circles in the rough looking for balls, all while I'm trying to hit my second shot. In their minds, they did nothing wrong. In their minds, it's okay because I was WAY out of range of where they could hit to. The worst about this are players my age (67) and older, and women. Younger guys usually think they might "catch one", I guess. If rthey were walking, A) They wouldn't be moving toward me at warp 9, so B) Most of the time, I will have hit my second shot before they get to their shots, and C) Walkers don't have to scream over the sound of the golf carts to carry on conversations as they move along, so I don't have to listen to that either.

I propose the following rule: The flagstick cannot be removed from the hole at any time, for any reason. (The flag will be seated in the cup by screwing it in and only the greens crew need be concerned about it at all.) There are good reasons why this rule should be adopted forthwith: 1) The rules regarding tending the flagstick can go away -- there are far too many rules anyhow. 2) People damage the cup taking the pin out and putting it back in. 3) People won't be able to stick their putters in the hole to retrieve their balls and mess up the cup -- I HATE that!). 3) It speeds play. 4) People don't damage the green dropping the flagstick on it or gouging the surface. 5) It won't come out in the wind, so the group hitting up will be able to see it. 6) People won't forget to put it back it when they leave the green. 7) Sometimes dirt or sand gradually gets into the place where the flag seats in the cup, so it starts going in crooked or leans, and becomes difficult or impossible to put back in straight. This will no longer be a problem. 8) The penalties involved with hitting a flag lying on the green go away -- there are far too many rules anyhow. 9) Tending the flag will no longer be part of the game -- get that guy by the hole out of my line!

You got that right! It's like they're afraid to be alone when they hit a shot. And I LOVE IT when they look for a ball while riding around in circles in the rough, play the shot, then head for the other side of the fairway together to ride around in the rough together again. It rarely seems to occur to anybody that they could actually take a club or two and WALK to their ball while the cart goes elsewhere. Cart golfing tip: Put the slicers in one cart, the pull-hookers in the other. You know you're in for a long day when the carts keep turning around and coming back in your direction.

I started here: http://www.sheringhamgolfclub.co.uk/home.htm My father, a USAF pilot, had been transferred to Sculthorpe RAFB, in 1954. We lived in West Runton, Norfolk, about 2 miles or so from this course. My mother had just taken up the game. I was eleven and I would hit shots on a little (3-hole?) practice course outside the clubhouse while she took her lessons. Sometimes, I would walk around with her when she played and I would hit the occasional shot, but I didn't really "play". I think when I was twelve, my father took us on a trip into Scotland, so they could play the really nice courses. We stayed at the Gleneagles Hotel. (Yowzah!! Now THAT'S a nice hotel! Americans were pretty rich in 1950s England, even captains in the air force...Holy accommodations, Batman! ) They had this indoor heated swimming pool that was eNORmous, so I spent all my time swimming while my parents went on golf safaris. One day while we were there, my father came into my room and told me I had to come play golf. I wanted to swim, but back then we did what our parents told us to, more or less, and off we went to St. Andrews. My first full 18 holes of golf was a misery of blue hands, chapped cheeks and a runny nose, cold and bleak and wet and windy and horrible. But he was right, that I would thank him later! It's kind of cool to have played your first full 18 at the Royal and Ancient, and he knew it would be!

I pretty much have the same complaint against all forms of motorized entertainment: snowmobiles, ATVs, jet skis, et hoc genus omne. The quickest way to do that is to get rid of the carts.

Agreed, and I've done a few sitting on the couch tubing out, but if you're regripping a set or more than a couple of clubs, it's so much easier using a vice. Admittedly, it's merely a nicety. And the grip cutter tool is easier to use than a box cutter, and a little safer maybe. Worth getting one for a few bucks, I think -- they're cheap. Really easy. There's a reasonable chance that you'll do it poorly the first time, but once you get the picture, it's no big deal.