pierce

Hi, I’m currently faced with a decision to make in relation to coaching. It is coming to the end of the golf season here and I intend to spend the off-season working on my swing. There are two Pro’s near me that do lessons. One is old school and one is more hi-tech with ‘Trackman’ and computer analysis etc. As personalities I like them both. I am considering doing a few lessons, alternating between the two! Do you think having two teachers will cause more problems than it’s worth? Should I just pick one and go with it or could the two teaching styles benefit my game? Thanks for any suggestions….

Nice job Michi. I was put off the putting tutor by the price myself. I decided that I would do my own too! I have a putting matt in my house and decided to mark the lines onto that instead of making something seperate as I didn't see myself using it on a proper putting green. The practice green at my course is always too busy to get the opertunity to use such a device! These are a couple of pictures of how it worked out. I heated a nail and burnt a small hole in the matt so the ball always goes into the same spot each time!

Where are you losing most of your shots? The tee, approach, short game or putting?

Hi all, I looked up a few websites and forums etc. and came up with a list of what seem to be the most important things to note and do during a practice round. Hope others may find this helpful General Notes for practice round; Note holes to be aggressive, and holes where par/bogey is going to be a good score. What should you hit off each tee to hit the safest part of the fairway? Which side of the fairway is safest/ most dangerous? Which side of the fairway gives you the best angle to approach the green/bail out area you intent to hit to and the no-go areas you intend to avoid? On par 5’s set a "lay-up distance", meaning if you're more than 230yards out you will lay-up (obviously wind can change a game plan). What club options have you from the tee on to Par 3’s depending on pin location? Around the Greens; When you walk up to your approach shot in the fairway, you should be analyzing the green for “hard positions”. Note where not to miss every green. Start with the big ones: penalty strokes. If you make a mistake, are you going to be in a lake, or in an unplayable lie? The other hard positions relate mostly to two factors- places where you can’t get a club on the ball cleanly and, places where you don’t have much room on the green to land your shot. Is there one side of the green that has deeper grass that could snarl the club head as you swing, or a deep bunker with a high lip? Is one particular area around the green a low point where water always drains? The grass is usually lusher there, and you could get a lie with grass on top and mud below- another tough one. Which way does the green tilt? Note down all of the ridges in the greens, breaks and if some greens are noticeably firmer/faster than other greens. You’d obviously want to favor the side where the ball stays below the hole, especially when the greens are running very fast. At the end of this process, you should essentially have a rough map of the green complex in your head with color-coded areas blocked out. The green areas are places where it’s ok to miss. Yellow areas are the iffy ones that come into play when you need to be aggressive, and red ones are simply dead. Never ever EVER keep score in a practice round. Expectations are always bad and a bad round is death in a tournament for confidence.

I've just had my entry to an 18 competition accepted on a course I've never played before. The course is a fair bit from where I live so I was thinking I'd drive there, play a round, stay overnight, play another round and then return home. Have any of you guys got good advice on how to get the most from my practice rounds? I remember reading a section in 'Paper Tiger' where he describes how all the other players knew what they were doing and he was just playing a round of golf! Any help would be great....

Hello all. I was thinking of booking a 3 rounds of golf holiday in the Algarve this April. I was looking at booking through Oceanico so that accommodation and golf would be taken care of in one booking. With this in mind, what are the 3 best Oceanico courses to play? Also, are my doing the right thing or are other Algarve courses worth the further hassle of individual bookings? Thanks for the help

Too long!

How do I add pictures?

Thanks for the advice. Is there any good sites where I could get instructions on building your own?

I need help locating a good quality driving net. I'm in ireland so if it UK or American based web site it must do Irish delivery. I have come across a few but they seem either poor quality or very expensive as in "PGA Pro Size Driving Net" for £65 or the huge jump to "Rotanet" for £399! Is there no middle of the road? Thanks for any help

Monte had 5 world class players and only 3 picks! If he had picked Casey and Rose people would question how can he leave out ???? It was something he couldn't get right or looking at it a different way, something he couldn't wrong! IMO

Having seen it on Phil's dvd I was very interested in getting one. They are very expensive though so I decided to make my own! I have a lot of experience using AutoCAD so I drew up the principal lines & marble markers and printed them on A3 paper. I transfered these onto my putting practice mat using a white marker and making small holes for the marbles to rest on. It works great and I prefer that I'm not putting off plastic

I think Harrington got the pick because of the players who had qualified Lee Westwood had 6 caps and the rest of the team had combined had 6! Experience is very important for the atmosphere that is at a Ryder Cup

I found the dvd's excellent! As a lefty it made a big difference to be getting the instruction the right way round for a change!