Scorecard ~ Friend or Foe?

Posted on June 15, 2012 by Cathy

Throughout my golfing career, whether while playing on the mini-tour or teaching amateur golfers of all skill levels, I have found that the SCORECARD seems to loom over golfers everywhere.  I think if we change how we view this seemingly innocuous piece of heavy stock, sometimes vertical sometimes horizontal road map to the course, we would feel better about our round and our score. So this will be the first of a series of articles about your score, the scorecard and how to get better without even trying! Here we go!

I hope you’re ready to hear this….It is great news…..are you ready….wait for it……

You are not your score! You are a fantastic human being who has much to offer the world! You are not your score. Ahhhh…..just that alone feels better, doesn’t it?
OK, that being said, we sometimes feel like we are “our score.” When one asks, “so what did you shoot today?” You may ponder for a minute and respond with…”It was a beautiful day out there and sure beats going to work!” Translation? Get out your abacus, calculator or other adding device that can work with large numbers! So how can we move to better scoring in general? Here are a couple of ideas.

The first idea is to re-frame your scorecard. What I see more often than not is that golfers let the whole scorecard overwhelm them. During my Futures Tour days, I worked with Annette Thompson, coach/sports psychologist. She shared this fantastic piece of scoring strategy with me and I’ve spread the word ever since. It’s a great way to keep things balanced. Break up your one round of 18 holes into 6 rounds consisting of 3 holes each. Draw heavy lines to mark where each round ends and the new one begins. After your first round (holes 1-3) you’re on to the next round. You are either going to build on a good round and continue the momentum or if your first round wasn’t the best, you get to start fresh on round number two! I would do this and report back in. We would talk about the event, weather conditions, course layout, pre-round warm up and practice time. Then we’d talk about how I played and what I scored. “Well,” I would say, “I had four great rounds, one not so great and one round that was about average.” We would go over where I performed well and where things were less than desirable. After reviewing the round, I might discover that I ended up in several green side bunkers and that happened to be the weakest part of my game. In the end, by turning one round of eighteen holes into six rounds of three holes each, the pressure to perform took on an entirely different feel.

Now for the second idea. Take a page out of the tour player’s book. When playing competitive golf, scoring is everything. Tour players don’t care how it gets in the hole, they just care that it gets there in the fewest strokes possible. They don’t try to fix their swing during the round, they just play the best they can play. And they never complain if a ball hits a tree and bounces to the middle of the fairway, or if they hit a 400 yard drive because it cruised down the cart path! Remember, there’s no description area on the scorecard…just a box for a number. Tour pros realize this better than most. Just ask the guy on the Nationwide Tour who got into a playoff via a wayward shot and ultimately won the event! Scenario: He has to par the last hole to get into a playoff. The wayward shot: He swings, the ball screams wildly left, hits the roof of a hospitality tent, bounces high up in the air, comes down on the fringe of the green and rolls to within ten feet of the hole! The Result: He makes the putt, goes into the playoff and wins the event! So, next time your shot hits the tree and bounces into the fairway, say hurray, head on over to it and hit your next shot! Just remember to give it a good wipe before you putt….there might be just a tiny bit of tree sap on the cover!

Posted in Articles | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

The Fatigue Factor During Play

Posted on June 2, 2012 by Cathy

Do you ever play a round of golf where the wheels seem to start falling off around the 14th or 15th hole? Are you starting to hit shots  thin AND heavy? Is your direction off?  Distance shrinking?  You start to wonder what’s happening with your swing, what’s going wrong and then you say to yourself, “it’s lost…my swing is gone!”  Well, here’s the good news…your swing is not lost, in fact it never left you! It could simply be that you’re tired and you don’t realize it. Even though golf is not a sport where you chase a ball to hit it or hit a moving ball and then run, it can be very taxing both physically and mentally. When fatigue sets in, the body conserves energy. The larger muscle groups start to work less and the arms and hands start to take over. After all, we’re doing our best to make the ball go from point A to point B and finally to the bottom of the cup in the fewest number of strokes possible. What we find however, is that we’re starting to have more shots than what is typical, the quality of the shots have diminished and the bottom of the cup seems a bit elusive. Oh, and all the holes seem to get longer and longer. Recognizing that you’re getting tired is not always obvious and our first “go to” reason for missed shots is that something is wrong with our swing. If you first understand what is likely to happen to YOUR swing when you get tired, you’ll be more likely to notice when the fatigue factor is starting to infiltrate your game. Most people, when tired, stop turning. They also tend to stand up early through the shot and start hitting it thin. The reason? The body, when conserving energy, likes to do things that are easy. If you stand up nice and tall and all your weight is positioned over your hips and knees and feet, the body says, “ahhhhh……this is much easier than bending from the hips and standing in a golf posture.” Golf posture takes more effort with the abdominals, hips, glutes, lower back etc.  So the quicker you get out of that the better. The body likes to get to this less taxing posture as quickly as possible because it takes less energy. During a swing, this could mean a topped shot. As for turning and loading…it takes more energy to turn the chest, shoulders and arms in the backswing than it does “just the arms” so when fatigue is setting in, the arms take over during the swing, and when this happens, direction and distance are compromised.  When fatigue is a factor, for whatever the reason, the results of play are very likely to be, higher scores than what’s typical, shots that are less than desirable, and maybe a visit to a hazard or two. So what can you do to combat fatigue? One thing to do is to be smart with your time before the round.  Pre-round range time should really be warm up time not “practice for an hour or so in order to work on something” time.  You want to warm up your swing, spend a bit of time pitching and chipping and find your way to the putting green for putting. If you arrive hours before to practice, you really have to consider the energy you just spent at the range and how it will affect your overall play for the day, because it will. Another thing you want to do is  to make sure you hydrate and fuel up before and during your round. Electrolytes over water is always a recommendation and complex carbs for sustained energy gives you a good base. You also want to have some good brain food mixed in to your snacks as well. We want to have the best mental acuity while playing, so protein is great…peanut butter and apple, nuts and dried fruit and any other brainy treats you can stash in the golf bag. If you wait to long before refueling, the body won’t be able to access the energy the food provides, so eat early and eat often, you’ll be surprised at how your energy level improves. And last but not least, if you’ve had a long week, been out the night before and you have an early morning tee time, this might be the day you ride instead of walk. You might also want to reset the expectations you may have had on breaking your personal best that day. Just relax and enjoy being out on the course with your friends, take in the beauty and be thankful that you get to play the most amazing game on earth.

Posted in Articles | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Slow Play Delemma

Posted on May 21, 2012 by Cathy

If you watched the LPGA Sybase Match Play Championship over the weekend, you were witness to the slow play “incident.” Morgan Pressel was 2 up in her match against Azahara Munoz when, after winning the 12 hole with a par which would have put her 3 up on the match, she was informed by the rules official that in fact, she was being assessed a slow play penalty for a “loss of hole.” Yikes! It seemed so sudden! Ahh…but there’s more to every story. They were warned of their slow play after nine holes and put on the clock at the 11th.  They should have picked up the pace at the turn. They might have avoided the dreaded clock. I can say from personal experience, having been put on the clock once myself during competition, that it is absolutely no fun to have the “RULES OFFICIAL” cart follow you around. And yes, the lettering on the cart is in all caps and it’s very large…it has to be something like a 500 point size at the very least. Let’s put it this way, you can’t miss it. So, if this were the case for them, along with a warning at the turn, a verbal “you’re on the clock” at the 11th, one would think it would instill a fire under their feet to move it along. Morgan just didn’t seem to be overly inspired to giddyup. So, the LPGA assessed the penalty and Munoz went on to win her first ever LPGA tour event. I will say, “hats off to the LPGA for sticking by the rules!”  They realize that slow play is an issue, as it is for the PGA tour, and they are going to do their best to speed things up. The impact of adding strokes to a player’s score  results in real money lost not won.  Interestingly enough, the PGA Tour hasn’t assessed a slow play penalty since 1995! They just fine players behind the scenes rather than publicly adding strokes to a player’s score. I imagine if they did,  it would have to impact their 5:45 – 6:00 hour rounds. Yes, that’s right folks, close to 6 hours to get around the course and that’s for 3 players per group!! If you watch from home, you have the luxury of the multi-camera  cutaways that take you from player to player and hole to hole. If you happen to be there, then be sure to bring some snacks because it will be a long day. As for the LPGA tour, they are leading the pack in “example setting” by assessing penalty strokes during play. Players will keep pace or they will have a larger number on their card at the end of the round. The PGA? Who knows there, only time will tell. And for the rest?  For those who play golf not to earn a living, but for the sheer enjoyment of the game, you should be considerate of others, do your best to keep the group in front of you in sight and see if you can finish a round somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 hours. If you can do that,  you’ll have the rest of the day to watch the LPGA tour!

Posted in Articles | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Pull The Trigger! and Other Commands From The Gallery

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Cathy

We all remember watching Nomar Garciaparra at the plate don’t we? Adjust one glove then the other… then again then again then again…tap the toes then again then again. How about the trot to the field? Out of the dugout..one foot on the step then the other foot on the same step..repeat for each step. WATCH OUT for the base line! Don’t step on it. Then coming off the field…a toe drag then another to drag… and WATCH OUT for the base line! Yikes…it was painful to watch number 5 go through his tics. Well if you watched any of The Player’s Championship this weekend, you witnessed the golf equivalent of Nomar with Kevin Na.  The poor guy has more waggles than a Labrador retriever has wags! And they have a ton. This guy was actually trying to play fast on the last day. At times, he was driving it past Kuchar and running to his ball so he wouldn’t hold up play. He got warned the day before for slow play and was afraid he was going to be on the clock again for the final round. His “pull the trigger” issues even started to creep into to his putting which was rock solid for the prior three days. It pained everyone who watched. He was heckled from the crowd and even from twitter and Facebook. I imagine you may have even barked at the tv…”c’mon just hit the ball!” He was not only fighting the thoughts in his head but possibly one of the most difficult courses on the tour schedule. And he had to finish. He couldn’t just say to his foursome, “ya know, I think I’ve had enough…I’ll take my max on the rest of the round, I’m heading in and calling it a day.” “where’s the 19th hole?” No, he had to finish…and he did, swing demons and all. Good for Kevin Na, now let’s hope he has an appointment with his mental golf guru sooner rather than later.

Thoughts ~

There’s  a lot to be learned from this weekend’s event, on both the player’s side and on the playing partners side. First let’s talk about the player. Kevin Na did the wild air swing, waggled to get comfortable, stutter stepped, backed off and started again more times than we can count.  His gyrations on the tee were historic. However, there’s something to be said for backing off, and I agree, if you’re not comfortable better to back off than to hit a lousy shot. I completely support and recommend backing off if you don’t feel comfortable. You WILL have a better shot because of it. Even the commentators couldn’t believe how good his shots were after the balked routine.  Not only will you have a better shot, you WILL have a LOWER score. Why? because you’ll have fewer shots. If you rush and make a bad swing, and the ball goes dribbling off the tee or flying into the woods, you have just added another shot which slows down your round.  If you re-set yourself and feel better at address, your swing will benefit. Rather than say to yourself, “I’ve been here so long, I better just hit it,” step back take a deep breath and start your pre-shot routine again. If you feel like that might cause the group to be slow, then you can always play ready golf or just walk a bit faster to your next shot. Whatever you do, take your time during your swing. You can make up time elsewhere during play. Take care to feel balanced and comfortable on the tee and you’ll play better for it.

As for the players in the group… You’re playing with someone who has a zillion waggles, strange tee rituals and just takes forever to pull the trigger. It seems like they’re going to hit it this time…and….swoosh…air swing with a step back. It’s driving you crazy! The solution? Don’t watch them swing. No, really…don’t watch. Stand to the side as you  normally would, but glance down the fairway rather than watch the player. When you hear the crack of the club as it strikes the ball, give a glance toward the fairway and watch it fly. If you feel so inclined, say nice shot, if not then just start strolling down the fairway. Your stress will surely be reduced when you listen to the shot rather than watch the swing!

Posted in Articles | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Orange You Glad Rickie Fowler Won?

Posted on May 10, 2012 by Cathy

Ok…I apologize, but couldn’t help it… I had to throw the orange in. Rickie always wears orange on the final day of an event. It’s his signature outfit for day 4. It’s his power suit! He loves wearing it, he feels good in it and he exudes confidence while strolling up the fairways. Not unlike Tiger and his red shirt/black pants combination on a final round. That was his power outfit. The funny thing is, Rickie, similar to Tiger in his hey day of dominance, always seems to stroll up the fairway with confidence. His head always held high, never hanging low as if to indicate he just dumped it in the hazard for the second time or perhaps carded a snowman on the previous hole. No, on the contrary…he walks as if he has birdied or at least parred the previous hole. There is something to be said for appearances. Rather than drop kick a club because of a yanked tee shot or worse, throw a club at your unsuspecting golf bag while it stands at the ready, take a deep breath and then take another. If you walk with confidence you start to feel confident. If you walk with your head held high it just feels better. We can very easily be our own worst enemies out there with all the negative self talk, living in the past and the confidence busting “I can never make that shot anyway” banter. The more we say it…whatever it is…the more we believe it. It was Henry Ford who once said, “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t…you are right!” This quote, is something to ponder! So, take a page out of the book of orange and wear a power suit, walk with a bit of confidence…it’ll make you feel better.

Thoughts ~

How often have you arrived on a tee box with a water hazard near by and said, “I always hit it in the water!” and Viola! Splash! And your response to the ripples in the once shimmerless pond? “See..I ALWAYS hit it in the water.” “Next time, I should just walk up to it, throw the ball in and THEN take my drop.”  The negative self talk will permeate your game and your swing. Change your self talk and you will start to change your outcome. “I CAN get over the water”…”my drive is GOING to go in the fairway”…”I WILL do my best to hit a good shot.” All these little phrases just feel better when you say them. And, they are aligned with your intent. Many folks think that the thing causing the wayward drive has something to do with their swing. Well in some cases, maybe. But interestingly enough, it is not often the case. There are two things that have to happen however, and they must coincide in order to play good golf. They have nothing to do with swing, swing mechanics, elbows, hip rotation, kinematic sequence, stance or anything else “swing” related. Once you know these two things, your golf game will start to change. Are you ready? Here they  are…..the two things that must coincide are….. your INTENTION AND ATTENTION. That’s it, it’s that simple. If you INTEND the ball to go in the fairway, then your ATTENTION must be on where you want the ball to go…THE FAIRWAY. If your attention is on what you want to avoid ala the water hazard, then that’s exactly where your ball is going to go. Why? Because your attention is on the hazard so the brain connects to it and the ball ends up in it. The focus has to be on what you WANT to do rather than what you DON’T want to do.  The simplest explanation is that the brain and the word DON’T…well…don’t really mix. Due to its inability to form an image /relationship with the word “don’t”, the brain latches on to whatever words follow in the statement. AKA..DON’T think of the pink elephant. Oops, there it is, the pink elephant.

So, the next time you go out to play, change your language to what you WANT to have happen. Start saying things like,  “I WILL hit the ball in the fairway” or “I WILL hit the ball on the green.” Change your language to positive self talk rather than negative self talk, align your INTENTION AND ATTENTION and see what happens. You will certainly feel better when you play and you may find that the ball will start to go where you want it to go. Oh, and don’t forget the power outfit!

Posted in Articles | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

The Fastest Way to Lower Your Score – Improve Your Putting

Posted on May 1, 2012 by Cathy

Putting has been the hot topic lately. It seems as though the recent events on both the PGA and LPGA tours have had drama on the greens. And the reality of putting as it relates to total score is huge! It can be over 40% of your score! In fact, let’s just for a moment describe the perfect round of golf as the scorecard describes.  It’s the perfect day at the perfect course. You do everything…well…perfectly. You play each hole just as it is designed. You hit every fairway off the tee and every green in regulation. When you arrive at each green, you roll the ball within in inches on your first putt and have a tap in for the second. The score in the end… 72…even par! This would give you a putt total of 36 which would be 50% of your score! Take a minute and think about that one. Golf, played exactly as designed and you would shoot even par with 50% of your score in putts. The funny thing is, the best putters on all the tours, the LPGA, PGA, Champions Tour etc., average way below 36 putts per round. In fact, the best putters average just under 29 putts per round! Of course, they should average well below 36 putts per round because they play golf for a living and should be very good at putting. So what does that mean for the rest of the non-professional golfing population? It means we too can lower our putts per round and  improve our scoring average just by spending a little more time on the practice putting green. If we look at how we spend our time practicing, it never seems to portion out the way it is reflected in our score. We spend the majority of time trying to conjure up the perfect swing, trying to make corrections for even the slightest missed shot while on the range and repeating to ourselves what we “just did wrong”. After the range session, we go to the putting green for a few strokes before heading to the tee, and only if the putting green is close to the first tee box. What is the moral of the story?  Putting is important! So evaluate how you spend your practice time and make sure you are spending enough time on your putting. It is by far the quickest way to lower your score and bring more confidence to your game.

Posted in Articles | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

The Most Important Thing to Do on Each and Every Shot

Posted on April 23, 2012 by Cathy
It was a very interesting week this week with many questions and comments swirling about.Thanks to Bubba’s stellar performance at the Masters, I too received congratulatory remarks for “another win for the lefties.” There were even high fives between “us lefties” with a “how about that! and not bad for a south paw” etc.  As one could imagine, I had a few requests on how to hook the ball like Bubba, how to hit it out of pine needles and other loose ground cover like Bubba and finally, what I thought was the most important thing to do on each swing. If I had to name one thing, what would it be? So, I thought about it for a minute and without vacillating much at all, my answer was simple and clear. It’s the one thing everyone should do on every shot before every swing no matter where there are on the course or what type of shot they have….are you ready? It’s the pre-shot routine!! I know, not very sexy but extremely important. It is so important in fact, that it inspired me to bring my Pre-Shot Routine golf tip to the main page. It deserves center stage, a full cast, an orchestra, top billing…the works. It is the most important thing to do before you even move the club. It creates the foundation with which you swing your club. Without good posture, good alignment, great balance and a sense of calm, your swing will surely suffer. So without further adieu…..Here, on center page……maestro if you please……Introducing!!!!

Create Your Own Pre-Shot Routine

A Pre-Shot Routine will set the stage for success.

How do you become more present when there are distractions everywhere? How do you calm the nerves? The Pre-Shot Routine provides the foundation for success and better shot making every time. It helps calm the nerves and allows you time to get into good balance and posture before you pull the trigger. Here’s a simple routine that you can do before each and every shot.

Find Your Target – stand behind the ball and while looking at your target, create an imaginary line that runs from your target through the ball. Select a spot on the ground within two feet of the ball that is on your target line. This becomes your intermediate target.

Get Into Your Stance – Set up to the ball and get in a balanced athletic position. Aim your clubface at your intermediate target.

Reconnect to Target – Once you’re comfortable and in good posture, take a look at your target again to reconnect to it.

Breathe and Swing – Take a nice deep breath..inhale then exhale then swing.

This is just a framework for your routine…the key word here is YOUR…make it your own routine. If you want to waggle the club, then give it a waggle, whatever you do, do it the same way each time for consistency. Watch the pros on TV and you’ll see them all do it. They may have their own style, their own unique way about them, (Boo Weekley comes to mind) but they ALL do it. The Pre-Shot Routine is one of the most important components of a successful shot. So next time you go to the range…create your routine. It’s easy to do and you’ll look just like the pros on TV!

Posted in Articles | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Build A Solid Foundation With Good Alignment ~ How An Open House Inspired This Post

Posted on April 16, 2012 by Cathy

It just so happened that on the way to the golf course this Sunday, I drove past an Open House sign in front of this charming old Victorian. It’s rich blue exterior with white-painted shutters and well manicured lawn practically beckoned passers-by to stop in for a stroll. Not unlike the way beautiful fairways and greens cast their spell on unsuspecting golfers as they drive by on a beautiful spring day.  The car almost always pulls toward the course entrance, and with the clubs in the trunk… Hmm, why not stop in for a quick nine and a nice stroll! Well in the case of the open house, the car drifted to the side of the road,  we parked in front of the house next door and out of the car we hopped, up the stairs we bounded and into the house we went! Now from the outside, this house looked perfect! It was well established and looked solid as a rock. Once inside however, we noticed something a bit peculiar. As we walked from the front of the house to the back of the house, we noticed a distinct down hill-right to left break starting at the living room just off the entry way. If you were to make a putt from just in front of the couch to the back dining room window, with the cup located just below the center of the sill, you’d have to play it out to the right about 10 inches and hope it didn’t pick up too much speed as it passed the TV! I commented on the right to left break, the real estate agent overheard my remark and reassured everyone within earshot that the owners had it inspected, and said the foundation was solid. Oh, and they didn’t THINK it would shift anymore. So, up to the second floor we went. As soon as we arrived on the landing, we could feel that the floors in each room had what one could only describe as a “multi-tiered” floor complex.  The break got worse the higher we went. Now, on the second floor, you had a double breaker from back to front that ran through all the bedrooms. I was starting to get queasy. I couldn’t go up any higher. Down we went to the wonderfully level pavement of the street.  Once the vertigo subsided, I thought to myself…this is EXACTLY what happens to people when their swing foundation and alignment is off. It gets worse from the bottom to the top! If it’s a little bit off with the stance, by the time you get to the shoulders, it can be WAY off and when you swing, the ball can go anywhere. You start correcting with your hands through impact and end up with missed shots, thin shots, fat shots…the works!

THOUGHTS ~

Create a solid base with your feet shoulder width apart and aligned parallel to the target line. Now you can flex your knees slightly, bend over from the hips and add a bit of weight toward the balls of the feet. Get athletic in your stance and feel solid. With the feet aligned correctly, your knees will flex and they too will be correctly aligned as will your hips and shoulders. Remember, if you start off with your feet pointing somewhere else, the rest of your body will get a bit twisted and continue to be misaligned from bottom to top.

Build your stance like a house…from the bottom to the top and be sure that the bottom is correctly aligned to your target line. This will produce more consistent ball contact and better overall shot making. And here’s the good news….it won’t induce vertigo!

CM

Posted in Articles | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Video Tip On Chipping

Posted on April 12, 2012 by Cathy

Here’s a quick tip on how to set up for and execute a successful chip shot every time!

Posted in Video Golf Tips | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Masters ~ Unexpected Win for the Uncoventional Bubba

Posted on April 12, 2012 by Cathy

The Masters Tournament had all its familiar pomp and circumstance. It also had a little bit of politics per usual, but that topic is for another time perhaps. In the end, for those who watched, it turned out to be quite the page turner! Or rather, quite the DVR saver with lot’s of…”go back…I want to see that shot again!” along with, “Put it on pause….I need another beverage!” In any event, it was something to watch. The historic “shot seen ’round the world” double eagle was a highlight without a doubt. The cast of familiar, and expected to possibly win characters, were there.  They were hoping to find the bottom of the hole in the fewest total shots so they could add the first, fourth or fifth green jacket to their collection. Yet, in the end, it was the white wonder, the other lefty who was left standing with the jacket. And he did it “his” way! (no pun intended on any level..musically or otherwise!)

He was creative, inventive, unconventional (but not to him, by the way) and typical. He was typical for himself. He was quoted as saying he grew up playing from the pines, so he’s used to it. In fact, his amazing shot from deep in the needles was similar to a shot he had earlier in the day. Besides, he can make the ball do anything he wants. And the analysts were quiet. There weren’t many references of Bubba “dropping in the slot” or “trapping the ball” or “swinging on a single plane” etc. There were only references to how well he makes the ball go where he wants it to go. And he did! Congratulations Bubba! Job well done!

Thoughts ~

To play your best round, you just have to be true to yourself. Play one shot at a time to the best of your ability at that time. Don’t try fix anything, change anything or work anything out while you’re playing. Just play. Another thing Bubba said was how much fun he has when he plays. He loves playing golf. He loves PLAYING….golf. You need to put the PLAY back into golf…take it from Bubba, it’ll be more fun!

CM

Posted in Articles | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment