Frugal Golf

Golf is getting more and more expensive, and because of that, some folks refuse to try it. Here are some ways for beginners to minimize their expenses.

You can get golf balls free, just stomp around in the taller rough, and chances are good that you will find them by stepping on them. Also you can borrow someone’s ball retriever and fish them out of water hazards.

Clubs can be very very inexpensive at most garage sales, where people just want to get rid of them. For example, since my wife loves going to garage sales, I tag along with no intentions of finding anything, but I always see clubs, balls, and bags for sale for dirt cheap prices. Recently I saw a full set of older Titleist woods and irons, complete with bag for $30, and although I did not need them, I offered $15 and they took it. I figure this could be a better than average starter set for a friend, or I can probably resell them for at least $100.

Practice could be mostly free, since most of your strokes come from the short game, and most courses have a free practice green, some of which allow chipping also. For pitches, you can practice at most open fields, baseball fields, or local parks, although some parks may not allow this. You can even take full swings at the park with wiffle balls.

When beginners are ready to play a real course, start with a par 3 course, they are usually inexpensive. Check for resident discounts at your local courses. Check for coupon deals on the internet and the newspapers, sometimes you can get 2 for 1 greens fees. Also, playing on weekdays is cheaper than weekends, and twilight rates are even lower. (see www.geocities.com/golfwithjoey)

Do Balanced Golf Balls Really Help?

In theory, a balanced ball will go straighter on all shots and putts than an unbalanced ball. To illustrate, take a cheap volleyball and roll it, and you will see that the ball will curve toward the side that has the air-fill hole due to the extra weight needed to support the hole. Golf balls however are much better balanced than volleyballs, yet most golf balls are not perfectly balanced. To prove this, partially fill a small bucket with water and keep adding salt until the golf balls float. Use a waterproof permanent ink marking pen to put a spot on the golf ball where it touches the surface. Then spin the ball in the water and see if the same spot arrives at the top. If it does, then the ball is not balanced because the heaviest side of the ball will always face down. I tried this with all of the balls in my bag and none of them were balanced, several different brands.

On the course, now that the ball is marked, the theory says that you keep the mark along the plane of the target line, and the ball should go straighter than if the mark were sideways to the target line.

If you do not like getting the balls all wet, there is another method using a small battery operated ball spinning device called “Check-Go”, available at many golf shops for under $30. If there is a heavy spot while the ball is spinning, that spot will work its way to the equator of the spin if you let it spin for several seconds. While it is spinning, you can lightly touch the ball with a permanent ink marking pen, and you will have the equator clearly marked to line up your ball for all shots and putts. This also is a good identifier for your ball on the course, because most other players do not do this.

Wilson has advertised their “True” ball as being perfectly balanced, so to test that, I put a few Trues on the Check-Go device and marked the equator, and then spun it again with the equator out of line, and it worked its way back to the same equator, which indicates to me that it is not really “perfectly” balanced. Hmmm! Well, in all fairness to Wilson, the balls may be better balanced, but nothing is perfect. Could the extra ink along the equator make that much difference? No, because I then put a fatter false equator on the same ball, but the ball spun back again to the true equator.

Then I wondered if the balance characteristics might change after hitting the ball for a few rounds. The results were, for all brands, that the equator arrived at the same spot again, so hitting the ball did not change its balance.

Any ball marked with the Check-Go equator, should float in salt water with the equator mark straight up and down. If that does not happen, maybe the ball is closer to being perfectly balanced.

Have my scores improved since I began marking the golf balls? Am I hitting the ball straighter? Are my wild shots any less wild than they used to be? Unless you swing with a consistency like Iron Byron, how can you really tell? Am I making more putts? Are my missed putts due to a bad read, or a bad stroke, or an inconsistent putting surface? Any or all of those factors are likely to be more significant than the precise balance of a ball.

We humans are imperfect beings. All we can do is to use as many factors to our advantage as possible. Therefore, here is the real benefit. Marking and lining up the balls to the target line not only helps your alignment while standing over the ball, but also lets you feel a little more confident, because you just eliminated a potential balance variable, however small it may be. (see www.geocities.com/golfwithjoey)

Hitters vs. Swingers – which are better?
In both baseball and golf we have hitters and swingers, but in baseball you do not have to play your foul balls, unlike golf where you have to play all those shots no matter where they go. Hitters are more likely to swing hard and contact the ball at all different areas of the bat such as the handle, the tip, and occasionally the sweet spot. Swingers usually hit for a better percentage because they can contact the ball more frequently on the sweet spot of the bat. The same ideas holds true for golf. The better players are swingers, not hitters, and for the same reason. Most golfers think of hitting the ball instead of executing a smooth swing with the ball just happening to be in the way. Usually, you can’t help being a hitter because you have the hitting concept ingrained into your subconscious. If you have reached a “plateau” in your scores, and you want to improve beyond that, you have to re-train your mind for swinging rather than hitting.

File your “hitting” swing away into your memory as your “Swing A”. This is the swing you have always been used to, and you can always go back to it if the following “Swing B” does not work for you right away. Meanwhile, keep working on Swing B, because the more you do the drill, the better it will work. On the practice range, always warm up with muscle stretches, and then take two clubs into your hands (or a heavily weighted club), and make some short lazy swings continuously just like a baseball player might do in the on-deck circle. Have a friend stand behind you to make sure your swings are on the correct plane or path. As you keep swinging continuously, little by little, lengthen the amount of backswing and follow-thru. Take it easy, never ever swing hard when you do this, the whole idea is to ingrain some motor muscle memory into your swing path, and the extra weighting will help.

As you are swinging, take notice of your lower body weight shift. During your follow-thru, all your weight must be on the front foot (left foot for right handers), and the back foot should only be touching the ground with the toe. Keeping repeating this until it becomes second nature and you don’t have to think about it anymore. Then do this on a practice mat that has a rubber tee that stays in place, and try to clip it repeatedly with your two-club swing.

After doing this as long as you can stand it, do the same with only one club, a short iron or wedge. If you are successful in clipping the tee every time, then place a ball on the tee and execute the same easy swing. Remember, you are not thinking about hitting the ball, you are thinking about executing a swing with the ball just happening to be in the way.

If you can do this, you are on your way to much improvement. If you cannot do this quite yet, you are probably so preoccupied with the RESULT of your swing that you’re forgetting how to achieve it. You are probably very anxious and tense to see if you will get instant results. You build this picture of worry in your mind about where the ball might go and this worry will interfere with your swing. This is no time for tension. You’ve forgotten why you’re here. You’re playing, not working. You’re here to have a good time and get away from the troubles of everyday life, so unless you are playing for money, don’t sweat it. Let someone else watch where the ball goes, while you follow the “no peeking” rule, which is the secret of this swing. This is a drill, do not watch the ball fly. Keep your eyes on the spot where the ball was sitting even after you your swing goes past it. Watch the pros on TV and in the magazines, you’ll see that at impact, every one of their faces is glued to where the ball is sitting at impact, and a little beyond! Start training yourself to count a beat before lifting your head up to watch the ball fly.

Practice these smooth swings in your MIND whenever you have a chance. Just visualize perfect, smooth, effortless swings along with the ball flying straight and true time-and-again. It’s a scientifically proven fact that this type of mental programming can really help. (see www.geocities.com/golfwithjoey)

Aaaarrrgh!!! Those of us who live in northern Illinois really have to watch our step. Canadian geese must have gotten the word that they are a protected species, because they have infested our parks and golf courses in droves, and are leaving their “calling cards” in copious amounts, especially near the water holes. There is nowhere to walk without getting this stuff all over your shoes and cart wheels. Taking your kids to the park to roll around in the grass is out of the question. Playing the ball as it lies is sometimes a messy proposition, and gives a whole new meaning to having a crappy lie.

These geese seem to have no fear. They slowly strut around like they own the place. Golf balls that narrowly miss them by a few inches do not bother them. You can drive your car right next to one of these geese standing on the road, missing it by a few inches and they won’t even flinch. Don’t go near their young ones, or else they will hiss at you and then attack you.

One of my friends hit an errant shot that accidentally struck a goose in the neck. The goose was in obvious pain, so it started running across the fairway with wings outstretched toward the water, and the entire flock of about 200 geese immediately ran along with it, an amazing sight.

I have heard that geese are afraid of swans, so some places have put swans in their ponds, hoping that this would keep the geese away. However, I have seen several ponds with a swan in the middle, along with flocks of geese on the shores. I would rather have the geese in the ponds than on the shores leaving their calling cards. The swan, who is no dummy, probably figures the odds are not too good on starting a fight with that many geese.

Some courses have hired dogs trained to chase away the geese, with some success, but I have another solution. Send these geese to the middle east for purposes of aerial bombardment and biological warfare, where they can poop all over Al Qaida, who then can either beg for mercy or wise up and realize they can feed their poor and hungry people with these geese. (see www.geocities.com/golfwithjoey)

Golf - A friend of mine recently moved to Japan. I asked him how the golfing was and here is his response:
Here is a typical round:
Wake up around 0430 for a 0830 tee time.
Get ready and leave the really small apartment around 0500.
Walk to the train station and catch a 0510 train for an hour.
In that hour I make two connections so there is no time to sleep.
I meet my playing partners at the train station around 0605.
We get in someone’s car and drive for an hour and 40 minutes to the golf course.
The round is always with a caddy, so that is nice. I have never had that experience before, so I think that I am a little spoiled.
The cost of the round is about $250 US, thus making playing every weekend a little difficult.
In Japan, golf is a little different in play style. Always there is a break between 9’s. We eat lunch in the clubhouse and that goes for about $20-25 US.
After that the round is over, we take a shower and sit in the hot spring for a little while.
After traveling home and doing everything in reverse, I get home about 1800 or so.
Needless to say, this makes for a long day and little room to do anything else. (see www.geocities.com/golfwithjoey)

Golf - What is the most important move a golfer can make during a golf swing?
If I tell you, I will have to shoot you. Oh, all right, here it is, Merry Christmas. You will get a lot of different opinions on this question, but here’s mine (assuming you are right-handed). On the downswing, move your right elbow in front of your hip before you strike the ball. This one move will help other good things to happen (without even having to think about them all). It helps your lower body weight shift from the right leg to the left leg. It promotes an inside-out swing path. It helps you hit downward at the ball. It helps to delay the wrist break until you really need it, like the power of a whip. Watch the slow motion replays of the pros on TV, and you will see they all do this elbow move, no matter how different their swings otherwise may look. (see www.geocities.com/golfwithjoey)

Golf - Why Is It That a Harder Swing Usually Results in Less Distance?
A harder swing has less of a chance to hit the “sweet spot” on your clubface. An easy swing that hits the sweet spot will send the ball farther than a hard swing that misses the sweet spot.
A hard swing may cause improper weight shifting, which may reduce your clubhead speed. Proper weight shift from the top of the backswing starts going from the back foot to the front foot before the downswing begins, setting up the power of a whip without extra effort.
Clubhead speed at impact is the sum of arm swing and wrist snap. A hard swing usually starts the wrist action too soon when the downswing begins, so there is no more acceleration added from the wrist by the time the clubhead gets to the ball, resulting an “all arms” swing and slower clubhead speed. For maximum distance, you must save the wrist action until just before impact. This is best demonstrated with a ping pong ball and paddle. How far can you hit the ping pong ball with an all-arms swing compared to using your wrist? Watch the slow motion replays of the pros on TV, and you will see the wrist snap is held back until the last possible instant. That is why most of the pros may look like they are swinging very easy, but they still generate a lot of clubhead speed with that last-second wrist snap. (see www.geocities.com/golfwithjoey)

Golf - What Are The Yips, and Can They Be Cured?
The Yips are like momentary brain cramps or panic attacks that cause you to mess up a putt or other shot. Many good golfers get the Yips after they have reached their peak. Most of the time, the Yips affect the putting stroke. Any “touch” you used to have just disappears. Your thought pattern is no longer “I think I can make this putt”, instead it is “I hope I don’t miss this putt”, and that thought pattern alone will reduce your chances of making it. Ben Hogan got the Yips so bad that he stopped putting altogether (apart from competition), he would just play the ball to the green, and then pick it up and go to the next hole. Many pros are starting to use belly-putters or super-long shafted putters because of the Yips. I myself have overcome the Yips with method I call the “Poor Man’s Belly Putter”, which simply uses your forearm as an extension of the shaft, and your elbow touches your torso (instead of the shaft touching your torso). However, my worst Yips come from short wedge shots, which I fear will either be bladed (hit too thin) or chunked (hit too fat). I am totally aware of how to cure this, and when my concentration is good, it works. Keep the hands ahead of the clubhead during the follow-thru. However, if I lose concentration only for a moment, the Yips return and the hands flip too early. It’s a never-ending battle.

Freezing over the ball is a form of the Yips. Keep moving (but not as long as Sergio Garcia). Have a pre-shot routine such as 3 waggles, or a forward press, and start your swing without delay. Before you address the ball, have a key swing thought in mind that you are going to execute. If you do not like to waggle, try taking a deep breath, and exhaling half way, and then execute. (see www.geocities.com/golfwithjoey)

Golf - Today’s Irons vs. Yesterday’s Irons
Every now and then I happen to play with people who brag that they can hit a pitching wedge 150 yards.
Seems impressive, right? On two occasions I asked to see their clubs (more modern than mine). I took my older vintage Staff blade 8-iron and put it side-by-side with their pitching wedges and challenged anyone to tell me if there was any difference in loft. Everyone said the lofts looked about the same. I usually hit my 8-iron 150 yards, so that explains it. Today’s modern irons generally have less loft than yesterday’s irons. In a recent tournament it was reported that Tiger was using irons with “older” lofts. Why the difference between old and new? It may be a good marketing gimmick to say a brand-x 5-iron will hit the ball farther than an older 5-iron, but if the lofts are different, you are not comparing apples to apples. After doing a little research on the loft angles of irons, I found the older specs were uniformly 4 degrees apart, starting with the sand wedge at 55 degrees, so the older pitching wedge should be 51 degrees. However, on their web site, Cleveland’s modern pitching wedge is only 45 degrees. No wonder it goes as far as my 8-iron, the loft is almost the same! That means, if you have a lesser-lofted pitching wedge, you might want to carry an extra wedge (a “gap” wedge) for the distance between the pitching wedge and the sand wedge. Those marketing guys are pretty clever, aren’t they? They made you buy an extra club, which may or may not match your other clubs. Then, also, you might have to get another extra club, a Lob wedge, because the extra “bounce” on the sole of your sand wedge may make it more difficult to hit that club from the fairway grass. With all these extra clubs (4 wedges) in your bag, you may have to decide which other clubs to remove (long-irons?) to stay within the 14 club limit. (see www.geocities.com/golfwithjoey)

Golf - A Poor Man’s Belly-Putter
Some pros, including Vijay Singh, have switched to the “belly putter”, which has a shaft long enough to press against your belly, thus making your putting stroke more consistent. However, specialty putters can be expensive, so here are two ways to use your own shorter putter with the belly-putter method. Grip firmly with the palm of your right hand (assuming you are right-handed). Take a posture that allows your right elbow (Method A) to touch your torso, and leave the elbow touching there for the entire stroke (you may have to adjust your stance to do this comfortably). This makes your right forearm an extension of the shaft. Method B would be to touch your torso with your left elbow, making your left forearm an extension of the shaft (again, you may have to adjust your stance). Have a 3-way contest between your regular stroke and these two methods. If your regular method wins, congratulations, your old method can take the pressure of a challenge! If not, you may have discovered an immediate improvement in your putting stroke! (see www.geocities.com/golfwithjoey)

Golf - How can I tell which putting grip will work best for me?
There are many acceptable grips to choose from. The most popular is the reverse-overlap, but you can also try regular overlap, ten-finger, stronger left hand control, stronger right hand control, shoulder control, and the “claw” (different variations used by Mark Calcavecchia and Chris DiMarco). One way to test what is best for you is to use a square tiled floor as a guide. Using a putter that has an aiming line on top, position that line along a floor tile line and take a stroke, while watching how the line on the putter follows the tile line. Whatever grip/stroke keeps you closest to the tile line may be best for you. It is normal for the backswing and the follow to travel slightly inside the tile line. The next step is to place a ball along the tile line and see if your stroke can keep the ball rolling along the tile line. You may be surprised to find that you have a tendency to pull or push your putts. If you cannot keep the putts straight! along the tile line, then try to keep the putter square to the hole all during the follow-thru. Have another person behind you to verify whether or not you are pulling or pushing your stroke off line. Also where the tile lines intersect, you can use the vertical tile line to check that your clubface alignment is perpendicular to the target line. First hide the tile line with a piece of paper, address the ball, and have someone pull out the piece of paper. You might be surprised to find you were not as correctly aligned as you had assumed. (see www.geocities.com/golfwithjoey)

Golf - What's a Game Plan?
For most of us, a game plan might consist of general ideas such as beat your buddies, grip it and rip it, hit every shot as far as possible, don't hit any bad shots, make every putt, all fairway shots must be as close to the green as possible, or make a move on the beverage cart girl. But what if you strike out with the beverage cart girl, the putts won't fall, you can't hit the fairways, or hit the greens? What does it mean to stick to your game plan?
First of all, you have to change the way you make your game plan. Forget about beating your buddies, just play against the course, not your buddies. You cannot control how well your buddies play (unless you are into mind games), so instead just control your own game. The right way to make a game plan is to establish a goal and assess your strengths and weaknesses. Let's say your goal is to break 90, and your 2 biggest weaknesses are wildness off the tee and half-wedge shots. Your 2 biggest strengths are full wedges and short irons.
The way to make your game plan here is to think ahead on every shot to avoid your weaknesses and use your strengths. That means whenever possible, put yourself into position for a 100-130 yard shot to the green (your strength or your “wheelhouse”). Avoid going much closer, because that means it's a partial wedge shot (your weakness). With this in mind, it is not always a good idea to hit the ball as far as you can on every shot. Just get the ball to your "wheelhouse" distance where you have the most confidence on the next shot.
If you are wild with the driver, only use it when there is no danger if you should miss the fairway. If you can use a shorter club to safely get into your wheelhouse distance to the green, then you are following your game plan. Even if you completely flub a tee shot, just get your next shot to your wheelhouse distance, and you have a good chance to avoid a double bogey, and you will possibly also make several pars along the way, and that means a you have a much better chance to beat your goal. (see www.geocities.com/golfwithjoey)

Golf - Strategies to combat the dreaded half-shot to ¾ shot.

Do you find that you either pull these shots or hit them too thin? Guess what? You are not alone. These are the shots where most people throw away the most strokes.

You have heard about The Yips? Most people think The Yips only pertain to putting, but I believe The Yips also apply, maybe more so, to the half-to-3/4 shots. Why? Because this type of shot is a departure from your normal swing, and the opportunity for error is magnified by the many different variations in the length of the backswing necessary to control intermediate distances. Then add the factor of twitching nerves as you hope to avoid hitting it fat or thin, and you already have too much to think about.

First, let's address the pulled shot. Most advice on pitch shots say to use an open stance and swing along the body line. This will lend itself to a pulled shot unless you keep the face of the club open during the follow-thru. You can only accomplish that by keeping the hands in front of the club thru impact. Sometimes you cannot help flipping the wrists during the follow-thru, but on a less-than-full shot, you must have the discipline to keep the face open all the way, or else the shot will be pulled. Of course, if you pull the shot every single time, just adjust your aim to a more squared stance.

The problem most people have is shots that are too fat or too thin. Here is a mental image to try, this is what I call the "wagon wheel". Your head is the hub, and your left arm is the spoke of the wheel where the club is attached. If the hub stays steady, and the spoke does not bend, the club cannot help but to strike the ball cleanly every time.

In summary, keep the hands ahead of the club thru impact while doing the wagon wheel, and you should see some improvement in consistency.
(see www.geocities.com/golfwithjoey)

Golf - Are long irons a problem?
Unless you happen to be a single digit handicap golfer, long irons may be more difficult to hit consistently than other clubs. In order to hit them consistently, you must be able to hit the sweet spot nearly every time. Of course, if you can do that, you probably are already a single digit handicapper, right? But what about the average golfer? By the way, everyone has a different opinion on what is an average golfer. Just for the sake of discussion, let's say the average golfer shoots in the 90's. If this is the case, what does this average golfer shoot on a par 3 course? I'm guessing an average of 4-5 on every hole. If that is the case, you might do better to work on the short game more than the long irons.

OK, OK, OK, you still want to know more about long irons anyway. It could be that your clubs do not fit you properly. Try to attend demo days and see if a different brand of club works better for you, or maybe a different shaft flex, or different design, blade or offset styles, muscle-back or cavity-back.

It could be that your problem is in your mind. Try to focus only on the leading edge of the iron without worrying about the amount of loft on the clubface. Hit down on the ball with the leading edge and see what happens. Convince yourself that if you can just strike the ball at the equator with the leading edge (with a downward blow), the ball will spin up the clubface no matter what the loft is.

If none of this works, try the new styles of utility woods, which are designed to take the place of long irons. They have a head design that is a hybrid between an iron and a wood, and some people say they are easier to hit than long irons.

To explore this any further, an instructor would need to know more specifics about the nature of the problem, is it consistently fat or thin shots, extra hooking or slicing, or general wildness? Depending on the answer, a swing change may be in order. (see www.geocities.com/golfwithjoey)

Golf - Some Day You May Need A License Just To Play?
Golfers, be thankful that you live in the good old USA, because if you lived in other countries where there are not enough courses, you might have to be licensed to play. Will this ever happen in our country? Well, maybe only in highly populated areas. Courses in less populated areas are probably happy to get business from any level of golfer. Of course, one can assume that pace of play is the problem with inexperienced golfers, but in reality I have seen some pretty good golfers who are awfully slow, and conversely some less talented players who play briskly. Nevertheless, you can't license people based on their pace of play, so a logical criteria would seem to be the player's handicap. Courses that are overcrowded and never have any trouble booking all tee times are candidates for this sort of licensing. Realistically, they could allow higher handicap players to play only during off-peak periods. If pace is the real issue, I would suggest that any course could create a local rule to abolish the stroke and distance penalty. In the name of pace, nobody should ever, ever, ever have to walk back to the original spot to hit another shot. That is just stupid, stupid, stupid. Don't get me started on what I think of some of the other ancient sacred rules that supposedly cannot be changed, I could go on forever. (see www.geocities.com/golfwithjoey)

Golf - Equipment Does Make A Difference
Sometimes I see people trying to change their swings just because they are having trouble with one or two of their clubs, even when they are hitting the rest of their clubs OK. Being able to hit most of your clubs OK is an indication that their swing is not that bad. Changing your swing to fit a certain club (especially drivers) could be a big mistake, a never-ending battle. There are many variables in clubhead shapes, weight, lie angles, shaft length and flex, grip sizes, etc., and the way all these factors come together can cause different behaviors from club to club, even in a matched set because of tolerance buildup. Keep the clubs that you hit well, and experiment with other clubs to replace your “trouble” clubs. You might even consider taking your best-performing clubs to a pro shop to have the specs measured, which will give you a basis for good decisions on getting other clubs. Borrow from your friends and try their clubs on the range. Visit some stores that allow you to try demo clubs. Some stores will allow you to try demo clubs out of the store with no commitment. Used equipment stores such as Play It Again Sports have a huge variety and may allow you to return clubs if they don’t meet your satisfaction. Try to attend “Demo Days” at ranges whenever they are advertised, because they will let you hit a variety of their clubs free of charge, and compare the results you get from different shaft types, flexes, lengths, swingweights, and other specs. Give yourself the best chance to succeed, before you try a swing change that may be unnecessary. (see www.geocities.com/golfwithjoey)

Golf - Practicing with the sand wedge

Most average golfers do not have a place where they can practice sand shots, so it stands to reason that greenside bunkers are to be feared. Either you have trouble with distance control, or you can’t get out at all. If you ever want to get over this fear, you need to find a facility that has a practice bunker. If there are no such facilities nearby, you might have to be a little creative, like looking around for a park or playground that has a sand box, sand volleyball court, or a nearby beach.

Without a ball, grip the club with the face wide open (this prevents the club from digging too deep into the sand), and try to hit the sand in the same spot every time. This will help your confidence a lot. Then place a ball 2-3 inches ahead of that spot and make the same swing. Vary the ball position and see what effect that has on distance control.

If you are still having trouble, try a sand wedge that has more “bounce”, which is the downward angle of the bottom of your club measured from front edge to back of the sole. Some sand wedges have zero bounce, which is good for fairway grass and for coarse sand, while other sand wedges have around ten degrees of bounce, which is better for finer grains of sand. The more bounce a club has, the less it will dig into the sand, so it will get you out consistently with less effort. Once you experience that, you can experiment with distance control by using the same easy swing and varying the ball position (forward usually works best), varying the amount of open face (after gripping the club), and varying how far behind the ball your clubhead enters the sand.

You may find you have a maximum range for these types of shots, so what do you do if you have a sand shot longer than your maximum range? Using a sand wedge having a lot of bounce, open the face about 45 degrees and try to pick the ball clean. Even if the club hits the sand first, the club will bounce off the sand and into the ball, sending it about a far as a pitch from grass. This takes a little practice, but it might come in handy some day. (see www.geocities.com/golfwithjoey)

In Search of the Perfect Round of Golf
Be reasonable, nobody is going to score 18 for 18 holes. No matter how good a player is, they can shoot their best round ever and still say there were a few more putts that they could have made. So perfection is an unrealistic goal. Instead, look at it in terms of expectations vs. “successes” or “good feelings” about having achieved something. Although there are exceptions, unless you play every day, you should not expect to shoot in the 60’s. Unless you play more than once per week, you should not expect to shoot in the 70’s. If you play less than once per week, you should not expect to break 90. Those who play only once or twice per month should be happy to break 100. So what brings the good feelings of success? If you have never broken 100, but that is your goal, it is a success and a really good feeling when you finally do it. Even if your score was not your best, but you won a match, that’s a success and a perfectly good feeling. If you don’t have a match, create your own against the course. If you had more good holes than bad holes, you won. If you hit more fairways and / or greens than you missed, you won. If you one-putted more times than you 3-putted, you won. If you avoided lost balls or penalty strokes, you won. Feel good about any successes like these. Even if you did not accomplish any of these things, your misadventures can always get a few laughs during the recap of the round afterwards with your friends. Laughter is the best medicine, a good feeling, and if you and your friends had a good time, what can be more perfect than that? (see www.geocities.com/golfwithjoey)

Golf-Paralysis of analysis…and what to do about it
Ralph Guldahl was on his way to becoming one of golf’s all-time greats. He won the US Open in 1937 and 1938, and he won The Masters in 1939. Then he was asked to author an instruction book. He went into great detail, which forced him into thinking about parts of his swing which had always come naturally to him. After that, he lost his game and never recovered it. The moral of the story: If you try to make your golf swing too complicated, you are doomed. It is not reasonable to expect golfers like us, who play once, maybe twice per week, to be expected to swing the same way as a pro who practices and plays every day. Pros also have personal swing coaches watching their every move, yet they all seem to swing somewhat differently. Is there such a thing as a mechanically perfect swing for all types of body builds? Unless you are built like Tiger Woods, trying to make a mechanically perfect swing may make you a worse ball striker than you are with your natural swing. No golf instructor should ever try to make you do something that your particular body build is not capable of doing. You have to admit that all people are born with different degrees of muscle flexibility hand-eye coordination. Pro golfers have outstanding hand-eye coordination, and they probably have always been more gifted in this area than you and I. So in order to get the most enjoyment out of the game, set goals that are reasonable. It is not reasonable to expect an overnight quantum leap of improvement just because you took one lesson or read some tips.
Reasonable goals can make you feel better even when your scores do not show immediate improvement. For example, we all know that sometimes we fix one part of our game, only to see another part of our game go sour, so your scores may not show improvement, but hey, you did fix one part of your game. What if your fix is a lasting fix, and then you fix another part of your game, and then another? In a normal round of golf, what if you 3-putt one less time than normal? What if you got up-and-down one more time than normal? What if you hit one more green in regulation than normal? What if you hit one more good drive than normal? What if you made one less mental/strategic mistake than normal? What if you had one less flub than normal? Each one of these improvements seems minor, but if you can put them all together, they can add up to several strokes improvement per round! These are only a few examples of goals, there are many other ways to set them. Start with small goals like these for yourself and keep track of them, and celebrate the ones you achieve. One day you will put it all together and have your best score ever.
(see www.geocities.com/golfwithjoey)

Golf: What are Recreational rules and when should they be used?
A: The vast majority of golfers are never going to be proficient enough to compete at a championship level, and they therefore should not be subject to the same strict traditional rules, many of which really slow down the “Pace of Play” unnecessarily. Golfers who have no interest in establishing a USGA handicap, and who want to speed up the game should use “recreational rules” instead, especially on courses that use “Pace Rules” where you will be kicked off the course if you are playing too slowly (they actually time you!).
The term “recreational rules” came up during the recent debate over the Callaway ERC driver, where Arnold Palmer mentioned the ERC driver should be allowed for “recreational golf”. Since most recreational golfers are not likely to ever compete on the PGA Tour, there is no harm in using the ERC or any other “illegal” club. Just as metal bats are illegal for major league baseball, but legal for all other levels.
It makes no sense to complain about Pace if you adhere to rules that slow the desired pace, and also the rules that make the game less fun, such as nit-picky penalties assessed for petty reasons that have little to do with a golfer’s performance, and ruin the spirit of friendly competition.
Friendly competition should be settled by relative skills, not by penalty strokes for reasons unrelated to skills. Otherwise, all of us should go to the nearest police station and insist on being penalized for every time we drove our car over the speed limit, and insist that everyone else do the same. Time can be wasted while golfers are in a petty debate over a rule interpretation. You should not have to hire a Philadelphia lawyer as your caddy to assure compliance. Here is a sample set of Recreational Rules:

…As a general rule of thumb, an infraction should only be a penalty if an unfair advantage was gained.

…Do not use the “honors” system. Instead play “ready golf” and hit whenever you are ready, as long as you are not distracting another player by doing so.

…To avoid confusion and time-wasting debates, all unplayable lie or lost-ball ball penalties should be only one stroke, not two strokes, and certainly never stroke and distance. This makes provisional balls unnecessary, thereby speeding up play. If golfer A loses a ball in a lateral water hazard, while golfer B loses a ball out of bounds, or unplayable lie, it makes no sense to have a one stroke penalty in one case, and a two stroke penalty in the other case. In all cases for our league, you drop another ball nearest the spot where the ball left the playing area (within 2 club lengths), with a one-stroke penalty, and this will improve the pace of play.

…Improving your lie is allowed within a 6-inch (arbitrary) radius. Pace can only be slowed by bad shots resulting from bad lies. It makes little sense to make recreational golfers hit from bad lies when they cannot even hit good shots consistently from good lies. Trying to hit from bad lies will only ruin whatever confidence they are trying to build. Recreational golfers usually play on public courses which are not as nicely manicured as the courses used for formal competitions, so they already at a disadvantage. Having to hit a ball from a divot hole is no reward for a good drive, and there are many more divot holes, crabgrass clumps, and dry-pans on public courses than on upscale courses. You may have noticed on some TV tournaments that due to unfavorable conditions, players were allowed to “clean and place” their ball in the fairways. To be realistic, their conditions are not likely to be as “unfavorable” as conditions !on public courses, so why can’t the average golfers do the same? Some pros have refused to play on courses where the grass is cut too high or the greens will not hold a shot as well as they are accustomed to. Average golfers have little choice but to accept such conditions, they have to carry their own clubs, read their own putts, judge their own distances, find their own balls without help from caddies and forecaddies, and pay their own fees, so give them a break.

…The rule for repairing greens should include the repair of spike marks or other types of damage. It makes no sense to allow repair of ball marks and at the same time not allow repair of spike marks. You should not be penalized for the carelessness of those ahead of you. Same thing for footprints in a sand trap. Golfer A and Golfer B both hit their balls into the same trap. One is in a nasty footprint while the other is not. That is not a fair outcome for two similar shots. The luck factor comes into play instead of shot-making. (Another example - your buddy is in the rough with a perfect lie, and you are in the middle of the fairway with goose poop all over your ball. This is supposed to be more of a game of skill rather than luck).

…Recreational golfers should be able to clean the ball anytime anywhere, except in a hazard. Getting mud on your ball is only bad luck and is not related to your skill. Hitting a muddy ball can only slow the Pace.

…The penalty for a ball hitting the flagstick on a long putt should not apply to recreational golf, as that can only slow the pace of play for the time it takes for someone to walk over and tend the flagstick for long putts, and then walk back to their own ball, while instead they could have been saving time reading their own putts.

…No need to assess a penalty if a ball accidentally strikes another ball on the green. Both parties are equally guilty for not getting the ball marked.

…Conclusion - In summary, many recreational golfers do not get to play as often as they would like, so why should they have a good round ruined by unlucky bad lies and unintentional rule violations? Let them enjoy the game, and at the same time give us all a quicker pace of play. (see www.geocities.com/golfwithjoey)