A Great Golf Blog

Here is a link to a new blog started by an unamed golf pro:

http://lifeisgolf.blogspot.com/

It is a blog with fictional accounts of life in the business of golf.

Enjoy...

Check out these guys!!!!

My New Job!!!

I recently received some great news. I will be brought on as 1st assistant at The Oaks Course in Covington, GA. It is very close to my hometown and is one of the best kept secrets in all of the southeast. All of the greens have been recently refurbished with Champions Ultra Dwarf grass and have the reputation as some of the best in the state. We are open to the public and offer clinics, events, and a great selection of apparel and equipment in our golf shop. We also offer memberships and encourage any type of event or outing you can think of.

My new boss, Andy Bowman, has been the Head Pro at The Oaks for the last 15 years, and it will it will be a lot of fun working together with him. We have some plans for possible golf schools and academies in the future, so keep an eye out here if you want to sign up.

I am also kicking around the idea of a day in the life of a golf pro, for all of you people out there that might be interested in the not so glamorous, but full of drama, life that us pros lead. So check back for updates.

Do You "Steer"?

Have you ever heard of the term "steering"? Steering is when a golfer that is under pressure changes their swing in order to keep the ball in play. This is usually done when a golfer is on a narrow or tight hole and doesn't want to hit it OB or in a hazard. Phil Mickelson might have been guilty of this on the 18th tee at the 2006 US Open. He was under pressure, tried to hit a shot that he had not practiced a lot, and sliced it off the planet. By trusting your swing and developing a pre-shot routine, you can take the "steering" tendency out of your golf game.

Watching the pros on TV, you will notice that they do the same exact thing before every shot. This ritual allows their body and mind to go on autopilot when they are about to execute a shot, which helps produce a repeatable swing even under pressure. All golfers should have a unique routine that they follow. Quick tempo players usually have a quick routine and slower paced players have a more deliberate routine. By developing your own and doing it prior to each shot (even on the driving range and putting green) your swing will become much sturdier under pressure.

Treat your golf swing as a good friend or a spouse. These are people that you rely on under stressful situations, and you rely on them because you know they will support you no matter what. So, next time you are on a 420 yd par four tee box with OB right and water left, rely on your swing. This is a hard thing to do at first, but forget about the consequences, surrender to the golf gods, and trust your swing. If you change your swing and start playing safe to protect against mistakes, it reflects a lack of confidence in your swing, and low confidence on a golf course is a recipe for a high score.

A good pre shot routine can put your body and mind on automatic and if you trust your swing and execute it in a tension free and confident manner the results will be very pleasing.

PGA Tour Gets Smart on Steroids!!!

"PGA Tour to Test Golfers for Steroids" At first glance you might think this is a headline from an April Fools edition of a newspaper, but it is reality. The general public might not understand why this is necessary. Until recently golfers have been viewed as anything but athletes, and have a bigger reputation for ingesting non-performance enhancing drugs. Just take a look at John Daly or Tim Herron. The closest thing to a performance enhancing drug that John Daly takes is the 300 Diet Cokes he drinks in a 24 hour period. Golf as always is staying ahead of the curve with this issue so it will retain its honorable reputation as a gentlemen's game.

Did you see the pictures of Barry Bonds in his first few years in the big leagues, and then compare them to now. It's pretty obvious what is going on, or is it? Take a look a Tiger Woods his rookie year on tour and look at him now, the same can be said for Annika Sorenstam. Have you seen the guns on Camilo Villegas, or how lean and mean Charles Howell III is? The media has a way of stirring up controversy and Tim Finchem is going to stop it before it begins.

Golf has become a big money sport and is in the public eye now more than ever. In team sports, steroids might help out your stats, but it won't necessarily win you a championship.(see Barry Bonds)Golf is different because it is the golfer against the golf course, and if a competitor can gain even the slightest advantage over the competition it can mean millions of more dollars and wins in the bank for them.
Tim Finchem should be applauded for his proactive attitude towards this issue. By testing for steroids he will discourage any players out there who are currently using or thinking about using them, and he will prevent golf from becoming a part of this sickening trend that has infiltrated professional sports.

High Golf IQ = Low Golf Scores

“If I wouldn’t have hit it in the water on #9, I would have shot an 85 instead of 90.” “If I would have laid up short of the water on #3, I could have made a par instead of a triple bogey”. Do these statements sound familiar? Most golfers are haunted by the “ifs” and the “ifs” come from poor course management. Sure, you will have some bad breaks during the course of a round, but you will shave strokes off of your scorecard by playing with your brain instead of your heart. You can do this by managing the course you play instead of simply playing it.

The first thing to consider when playing smart is to think in percentages. Is a basketball player going to make more shots shooting three pointers all the time, or dunking the ball? Of course he will make more shots dunking the ball because it is a higher percentage shot. So, the next time you are tempted to try and carry a 5 wood over water onto a green the size and shape of a Volkswagen ask yourself if that shot is a three pointer or a dunk.

Most of the time if your ball is atop short grass you will have a high percentage shot. All of us have played with the old man who pokes the ball down the fairway and eventually on the green. Then he proceeds to drain each and every putt she steps up to. In the meantime, you have been driving the ball way past him, but couldn’t pay much attention to her score because you have been looking for your ball in the woods or hidden deep in bunkers. At the end of the day as you are adding up the scorecard, you see he has beaten you by 10 shots. He smiles that sweet old man smile at you as he takes the money from your hands. The moral of this story is that if the ball is in the short grass, you will shoot lower scores.

Even if you do play the percentages, trouble will find you. If this happens you should go into “damage control” mode. Stay calm, asses the situation, and do not let your emotions influence your decisions. Figure out the path of least resistance to get your ball out of trouble. Sometimes this might mean playing away from the hole. Jack Nicklaus, while playing the British Open, once tried to advance the ball towards the hole in one of the deepest bunkers on the planet. After many attempts, he finally decided to play the ball out sideways and into shorter grass. If he would have done this in the first place, many strokes and a lot of energy would have been saved.

Have you ever played a round of golf and felt like you hit the ball great, but your scorecard said otherwise? If so, it was probably due to poor course management. A good person to emulate is Tiger Woods. He doesn’t hit driver off of every hole and he will never try to hit a shot that he hasn’t practiced first. He often shoots low scores and wins tournaments even when, by his standards, he has hit the ball terrible. You might not win your Club Championship, but you will have more fun, and score lower if you think your way around the golf course.

Bunker Play Made Easy

Do not hit the ball!!! There is only one situation when you are on the golf course that you want to have this as your swing thought, and this is when you are in a greenside bunker. The bunker shot is one of the easiest shots in golf to master once you learn the proper technique. Most golfers can get a leg up on the competition by acquiring this specialized shot. The bunker shot is different from any other shot in golf, because you don’t actually hit the ball with the club head. A fundamentally correct bunker shot requires a golfer to extricate the sand around and underneath the golf ball, splashing the sand and the ball onto the green in an explosive manner. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? Well, if you can adhere to the following fundamentals and promise to practice them until they become habit, you will no longer be discouraged if your aggressive approach shot falls into a greenside bunker.

First, get to know your sand wedge. Look at how it is designed and you will notice that the trailing edge of the club is lower than the leading edge. This is called bounce. It is also more rounded and wider across the bottom. The bounce of the wedge and the wider sole allow the club to slide, or bounce, through the sand by creating less resistance for the club head. So, basically the club does the work for you.

When you set up to the shot you will want to set your feet, hips, and shoulders a little left (or open) to the target line. You also want to point the club face a little bit right (or open) to the target line. Doing these two things allows your arms to swing more freely through the sand and allows the ball to jump out a little higher. Wiggle your feet to set your stance in the sand. This will reduce slippage and give you a solid base to swing from.

The swing is where this shot becomes different from any other. You will want to swing the club a little outside the target line on the way back cocking the wrists as soon as you can. Once you have set your wrists on the backswing you will swing the club forward along the line of your feet maintaining the angle of your wrists. Make contact with the sand about an inch behind the ball, depending on sand conditions, and accelerate through the sand trying to keep your wrists from turning over, or releasing. The sand should explode, or splash, out of the bunker and the ball will go along for the ride. A good drill is to practice this splashing without a ball in the bunker. Then once you feel comfortable with this, place a ball down, but remember to ignore the ball and just splash the sand out. You will be pleased with your results.The sand wedge is called a sand wedge because it is designed specifically for sand shots. So brush the dust off of yours, set up open to the target line, open the face, and blast the sand right out of that bunker, amazing your friends with your new found skill. If you are a golfer who has a bunker phobia, these fundamentals will help you gain an advantage over competition. Always keep in mind though, that the only way to become consistent is to practice these techniques regularly.