Cure the yips. Putt like Arnie.

I’ve had a breakthrough on the putting green.  Finally!

I can attribute it to Arnie’s 80th birthday celebration. Those old clips of Arnie in his heyday were an inspiration.

They say he was one of the best putters of all time, and yet his stroke was nothing anyone would ever teach. (kinda like his full swing.)

Relative to how most guys putt,  Arnie stabbed at the ball. It wasn’t a silky smooth stroke, it was a hit. A thwack. A surly little poke that put nice overspin on the ball and kept it online, despite rough greens. So I decided to forget about my stroke, for once, and just hit the damn thing at the hole.Like Arnie did.

No more worrying about the tick-tock of tempo. No more “straight back and straight through.” No more Dave Pelz. No thinking at all.

Just make contact. Everything after that is out of my control.

It’s amazing how much better that works for me. The long ones are tracking straight at the cup, with uncanny distance control. The short ones are going in, with authority. (Well, not every short one, but a lot more than before.) 

I’ve shifted my focus entirely… Away from the mechanics of the stroke. Away from the outcome of the shot. And away from all the tips I’ve read for the last 10 years. It’s a short, quick solution to a long-standing problem called the Yips.

Diary of a reformed hooker.

I started hooking when I was in junior high school. Seemed perfectly natural at the time… my mom was a hooker and all the good players hit a hook. My dad, on the other hand, hit a slice. (I didn’t want anything to do with his golf game.) Besides, right to left ball flight went further, and for a scrawny 8th grader, distance is everything.

For 30 years that’s all I knew… the hook and all its ugly relatives: The hideous snap hook. The pull hook. The high, flippy hook off the back foot. And, his ugly second cousin, the push.

I played with all these characters, and I developed a decent game. But now, all these years later, my coach is introducing me to a fade. Because as Lee Trevino put it, you can talk to a fade, but a hook won’t listen.

Now I know what Trevino was talking about. It’s amazing see the ball land so softly and behave so well. Long par threes are much less intimidating. Pin positions I’ve struggled with for years, seem ripe for the picking. And entire golf courses look more promising. Especially those with firm, unreceptive greens.

Of course, I’m not completely reformed. Not yet. You can’t undo 30 years of habit with a few buckets of balls and a couple rounds of golf. Forget-About-It! this is like training a rat terrier to behave like St. Bernard. It’s going to take time and a 60-lb bag of positive reinforcement.

Luckily, I have a coach/friend/teaching pro who’s willing to keep an eye on my progress. Andy provides encouragement. Repeats himself frequently. And prevents me from falling back into my old style of hook and hope golf. I can’t imagine making this change without his help. It’s just too easy to get discouraged… the old swing still creeps in, and when combined with my new set-up, produces a disastrous double-cross that makes my old hook seem downright friendly.

I figure it’ll be winter before the power fade is a fully ingrained, go-to shot for me. Then I’ll hang up my clubs for four months and hope I find it again, come spring.

Until then, I have to be careful… I don’t want the fade  to deteriorate into a weak slice. And there’s the issue of hitting the old hook when I really need to. Will it be there for me? 

So far, the signs are good. My short-iron play has already improved,  but the process is going to test my patience like never before. Whenever I get really frustrated, I’m just going to think of Charles Barkley. Then my effort doesn’t seem like such a big deal.

The Whack-a-Mole approach to learning golf.

It’s Saturday afternoon at the driving range of your local muni. People are lined up, buckets at their feet, hacking away at their latest swing flaws.

Like a never-ending game of Whack-A-Mole. Every time they solve one little problem, another pops up.
Whack. Whack. Whack.

Nineteen out of 20 people on that range have no idea what they’re doing wrong. (Or right.) They’re not addressing the real problem, they’re just reacting to the ball flight and compensating with each hit. So when one goes left, the next goes right. They hit one thin, then hit one fat. They’re just replacing one problem with another.

Forget-About-It! You’ll never see tangible improvement if you keep playing driving range Whack-a-Mole. That game is based on guesswork. Good golf instruction is based on fact.

Most people don’t know the facts of their golf swing. They just guess… They see a tip in a magazine or on the golf channel and they think, “Hey, maybe that’s my problem. I’ll try that.” So they go to the driving range and start experimenting.

Whack. Whack. Whack.

The only way to get the facts is with a trained eye on your swing. An experienced teaching pro or coach will provide the perspective you need to get at the root of your problem. Not the symptoms, but the true, fundamental flaw that you’ve probably never addressed.

Video can be helpful, but without a trained eye, you won’t know what you’re looking at. You gotta have someone else take a look. That’s what the tour pros do. Even Tiger… he knows how hard it is to assess his own swing. That’s what he pays Hank Haney to do.

So hire a golf pro to help you out. It’s better than guessing. Better than whacking moles.

Improving your golf swing… the do’s and don’ts of drills.

By John Furgurson

I was doing a drill the other day that my instructor, Andy Heinly, recommended. It’s a simple little, three-o’clock/9 o’clock drill. Just turn back and turn through. No problem.

Under Andy’s watchful eye I was executing it perfectly… Just a pretty little half swing, effortless and pure. But on my own, I just couldn’t recapture the magic. Something was completely out of sync, and I didn’t know what. It was very frustrating.

Sound familiar?

The first rule of drills: If it’s causing you frustration, Forget-About-It! Don’t keep grinding, just move on to something else. Put the drill on the back shelf until you have help from someone who can tell if you’re doing the drill properly. Because if you’re not, it can do more harm than good.

Drills are useful for ingraining new habits and instilling certain feelings that you’re missing in your golf swing. For instance, that three-o’clock/9 o’clock is designed to improve your position on the take-away, and the follow-through. It’s also good for your timing, if that’s an issue.

But there’s the rub. How are you supposed to know what the real, underlying issue really is? It’s almost impossible to self-diagnose your swing. Why do you think tour pros have coaches to keep an eye on things… because it’s hard to see and/or believe what you’re really doing wrong. Even with the help of video.

“The pros go back to drills all the time”, Andy Heinly says. “But they know which ones are important for them. Some drills simply don’t apply. If you start practicing a drill that has no relevance to your real swing problem you could just introduce a bigger variety of bad results.”

Golf Digest published a golf book with nothing but drills in it. There’s the anti-wayward-cut clock drill. The anti-sweep hook swing left drill. The anti-heel shot whiff drill. And 117 others. One reviewer on Amazon.com said it quite well:

“The chief problem is that a person who buys this book at random looking to shave a stroke or two off his score is liable to end up with his weekends stopped up with him doing drill after drill for problems he has absolutely no need of fixing. Worse yet, as with drills even your pro teaches if you do one or two things wrong you can even ingrain new faults into your swing. -T. Enst

Here’s something else to consider: A lot of drills are designed to dis-assemble the golf swing, break it down, and isolate certain pieces. But keep in mind, the golf swing is a swing. All the pieces have to come together on the golf course, so doing a deconstruction drill before a round is probably not the best strategy. Save the drills for practice sessions, not pre-round warm-ups.

Bottom line: Doing a good drill is way better than randomly pounding balls . But don’t get carried away. And don’t start using one just because you “think” it might help you. Get some professional help instead. And make sure it’s the right drill for the problem.

Golf is a game of subtraction.

By John Furgurson

I started fiddling around with my golf swing the other day. It’s a rite of spring actually… almost as predictable as the azalias blooming at Augusta. I get all fired up to play, but my game isn’t what it was last October.

The drives aren’t predictable. The irons, not sharp. The putting, pitiful. So in an attempt to find that elusive something that’s missing, I start fiddling around on the driving range…

Hit a ball. Watch the ball flight. Hit the next one with a minor correction. Watch what happens to that. Repeat until the bucket’s empty.

Sound familiar?

It’s nothing but experimentation and compensation. It’s not fun, and it never produces noticeable improvement. It does, however, introduce new problem shots that I’ve never seen before.

“Wow, where’d that come from?”

It’s frustrating to feel like you’re starting over every spring. But there’s a flip side to that: There’s nothing better than the feeling of overwhelming relief I get from spending 10 minutes with my coach. That’s usually all it takes to get me back on track.

“Oh yeah, I remember now. I really do have a natural golf swing that works when I’m not messing around with it, second guessing myself.”

Andy’s very good at reminding me of that. He’s a master of subtraction… For him, effective teaching isn’t about adding things to do. It’s about subtracting bad habits. Reducing complexity. Limiting swing thoughts. And just plain simplifying everything.

Unfortunately, it’s human nature to add complexity, not subtract it. We scoff at solutions that are too easy and we resist the path that doesn’t involve a lot of hard work and self flagellation.

Maybe that’s why so many of you choose the do-it-yourself approach to begin with. You have a good, old American work ethic, and you like the pain. Besides, most of you don’t have a go-to guy, like Andy. All you have is the The Golf Channel, the internet, and the monthly magazines chalk full of tips that may or may not apply to you.

But one thing’s for sure: Knowledge doesn’t always translate to performance. It’s like me, trying to figure things out on my own. I can apply all sorts of drills and theories, but I don’t really know which ones will help, and which ones will hurt. It just feeds the cycle of experimentation and frustration.

So forget about it. If you’re falling into that same old pattern of over-analysis, stop it. Do something different. Anything but beating balls!

Play an entire round with just your 8 iron. Get a lesson. Go to a chip & putt course. Forget all the nuances of the swing, and just start the season by having fun out there.

Next thing you know, you’ll be right back to where you left off last year. You might even start subtracting strokes from your handicap.

Step away from that ball! — Golf Etiquette 101

It still feels like winter here. The skiing’s been great these past few weeks, but there have also been some sunny, 60-degree days. So it’s time to dust off the sticks and get back at it. 

My first round of the year produced predictably erratic behavior, especially from my driver. Four holes in and I was already visiting some neighboring fairways, attempting to pull out some miraculous, Seve-style pars.  

But it’s hard to scramble well when your ball dissapears into someone’s front pocket. 

I don’t understand these guys who think they can pick up any golf ball that appears in their fairway. As if they own the rights to anything that lands within 1000 yards. As if no one ever deviates from the recommended landing areas. As if there’s no one else on the golf course. Wake up!

It’s funny to watch, in an irritating sort of way. 

Case in point… The 4th hole on Saturday played from an elevated tee box, so we could see the whole thing unfold. Sadly, my cousin and I had two balls sitting pretty in the 7th fairway. Definitely off line, but not out of play by any stretch. We could both reach the green from there. Game on!

Here comes a guy, bee-lining it up the 7th fairway. He walks up to my ball, checks the brand, takes a quick look around, and pockets it like a clepto in a convenience store. By the time we get down there he’s scurrying off toward the green.  So we whistle, and yell, and give chase.

“Was that your ball you just picked up?” I asked.

“Uhhhhh. No, uhhh I don’t think so. Well, maybe,” the guy stammers.

“Srixon 4?” I asked.

He digs around, and pulls out a brand new Srixon 4. “Oh, uhhhh…”

“Yeah, that’s mine.” He reluctantly tossed it to me. 

“Thanks. You know, as a general rule of thumb, don’t pick up any ball that’s not  yours,” I offered.  

He mumbled something about staying in our own fairway and holding up play, etc etc. Give me a break. Probably the same guy who fishes ten balls out of the pond every time he hits one in the water.

I rushed my next shot, put it in the greenside bunker, and then missed a curly 5-footer for par. Lost the hole too. Was that my bad, or can I blame it on the cheapskate hacker who tried to pocket my ball? 

Most courses have at least two fairways arranged side by side. Forget-About It. Some crossfire is inevitable, but there are a lot of newer players who simply don’t know the rules of engagement, or older guys who forgot them. Like, it’s not an easter egg hunt!

Maybe we should post signs in the clubhouse, on the first tee and in the golf carts:  If it’s not YOUR ball, don’t pick it up!  It’s probably the simplest rule in the entire USGA rule book, and compliance would  speed up play, save you penalty strokes,  and help avoid conflict and embarrassment.  

If money’s the issue there are plenty of good sources for inexpensivve golf balls. But if you’re buying  a bunch of random brands out of the dollar bin,  spend a few minutes before the round to mark your balls. Use a sharpie, and  put  your initials or something on it so you can easily identify it.  Then don’t play, pick up, or interfere with any other ball on the course. No matter what fairway it’s in.

10 reasons to stop listening to Tiger Woods.

The newest issue of Golf Digest includes an article on the current state of Tiger Woods. It’s a recap of his superhuman accomplishment in the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines. A testament to his strength and fortitude. And confirmation of something I’ve been thinking about ever since I read his book, “How I play golf.”

My conclusion is this:  I should stop listening to his advice. He’s fun to watch, and inspiring in many ways, but his approach to the game, and his natural skills, are so far beyond my comprehension, well,  forget about it! And let’s face it, there aren’t many other guys who would benefit from his chapter on “How to hit the 2-iron stinger.”

Here’s a list of what Tiger has that you and I don’t have.

1. Genetically-ingrained discipline. His dad & mentor was in the Special Forces! He was raised by military guys who believed you get the job done, no matter what. Even if you’re shot you can “still operate.”  Hoo-Ha. My dad was a pastor, my mom a grade school teacher. I don’t have a killer bone in my body. And if you’ve ever seen my dad swing a club, you’d say it was a God-given miracle that I can get the ball around the course at all.

2. Physical superiority. Earl Woods once said Tiger could have been a world-class sprinter or an Olympic decathlete. His legs are long, his torso perfectly proportioned and his biceps cut like a belt-wearing welter-weight.  The guy works out with the Navy Seals! Even with concerted pushing from my personal trainer I’ll never touch that. My legs are too short. And I’m too much of a wimp to play 91 holes with a broken leg and blown-out ACL.

3. An Analytical Approach.  Tiger’s always been one to analyze things. As Lee Trevino said, “He’s the most intelligent player I’ve ever seen about the golf swing.” He always has to know the reason why something worked, or didn’t work, and he believes that gives him an advantage over other players, especially feel players like me. My strength is creativity. The minute I start analyzing things is the minute it all starts to unravel.

4. Mental Toughness.  If you’re going analyze the cause and effect of every little detail, you better be tough! Tiger’s intensity and his ability to out-think the competition is what makes him so great. Unfortunately, my brain doesn’t work that way. I can relate more closely to Phil Mickelson’s la-dee-da mental approach.

5.  Competitiveness. On a scale of one to 10, with one being “totally laid back and 10 being “Ultra competitive,” Tiger’s a 10.  He’s the guy who brought killer stares and fist pumping to a leisurely, gentleman’s game. I’m more like a three.  Okay, five. Six at the most.

Bridging the gap between knowledge, learning and performance.

by John Furgurson

You know how many lousy players there are who have a wealth of knowledge about the golf swing? They’re out there, believe me. They read a lot, and they’re quick to give advice, but they can’t score worth a hoot.

On the other hand, there are many perennial contenders who know very little about the golf swing. You’ve probably been beaten by one of these guys… unorthodox swing, but he keeps the ball in the fairway, seldom makes a big number and always makes the big putts.

Andy Heinly says the difference is disciplined practice. The learning process is entirely dependant on practice. Without good practice, your knowledge won’t amount to a hill of beans. Conversely, without some knowledge, your practice won’t be constructive.

“The people who win on a regular basis, at any level, know how to practice without over-analyzing things, Henly said. “They have a reasonable amount of knowledge about the fundamentals but they don’t concern themselves with too many details. They’re able to just forget about the technicalities and focus on the skills they need to get the ball in the hole.”

That’s what it’s all about. Skill, not knowledge.

Knowing how to hit a flop shot is a far cry from having the skill to do it consistently. Somehow you have to translate your knowledge into a physical sensation. You have to develop the “feel” of hitting the shot by doing it over and over again with positive results. Learning to trust your training is probably the hardest part of the entire process.

So if you want to bridge the gap between knowledge, learning and performance, you’re going to have to commit to practice. And not just any kind of practice, lots and lots of focused skill-building with a good coach looking on. Otherwise, it’s all just hit and miss.

The hunt for longer drives… is it in the hips???

I worry about people who are constantly searching for more distance. They pick up the latest magazine or go to google.com and start hunting for “keys to more distance.”  And there’s no shortage of answers…

One tip says “pause at the top and hit the hell out of it.” But wait a minute…  Stewart Appleby advises us not to pause; just pull the club down, stay coordinated, hit it flush and you’ll be “sneaky long.”

Sure, no problem.

One article says it’s in the hips. Another says it’s in the hands. Keep you heel on the ground. Let your heel come up. Stack and tilt. Bomb and gouge! Forget About It.

The results of all the reading and experimentation are predictable… not only does the player not get much more distance, he also loses his sense of direction. A normally straight hitter starts missing fairways and stops having a lot of birdie opportunities. Pretty soon, he gets tired of that and goes back to his short but straight method that worked pretty well.

This is particularly common for older players who are fighting the effects of aging. Even the guys who are in great shape at the age of 65 start losing a little distance, and it it hurts.

My coach & colleague, Andy Heinly, says the most important thing is to identify the biggest power leaks.

“There are dozens of  subtle little things that can rob you of power,” Heinly said. “Maybe you’re not quite as limber as you once were, so you’re not turning as far. Or maybe you’re casting the club, and not holding the angle as long. Maybe you’re not hitting it in the middle of the clubface consistently. Most people can’t fix the problem because they don’t know what’s really causing it. It’s almost impossible to self-diagnose that.”

One of the most common problems is also the easiest to fix: A lot of men are still playing with a driver shaft that’s way too stiff.

“A lot of times you can pick up ten or 15 yards just by putting the ego aside and going with a softer shaft.You won’t have to change your swing at all,” Heinly said.

As far as the hips are concerned, look at it this way: The hips aren’t connected to the club, your hands are. If your hands and arms are lagging behind you can spin your hips a million miles an hour and still have very little clubhead speed.

Besides, if the secret to more distance is in the hips, our wives would be hitting it 20 yards past us every time.

Falling into a great round of golf.

by John Furgurson

This is one of those times when the planets just don’t seem to be aligned quite right. People are out of work or out on strike. The stock market’s bouncing around like a Pinnacle down the wrong cart path. There’s economic uncertainty, political uncertainty, and in many parts of the country, seasonal uncertainty.

It’s times like this when you need golf more than ever. Mother nature’s not decided yet, so you get to cherish these last, glorious days of autumn. (If only the Chamber of Commerce could bottle these up.)  It’s the perfect time to just get out and enjoy it. Breathe the air, bathe in the colors, and forget about all the nonsense that’s been hindering your game through the peak of the golf season.

If every round of golf is like a little vacation, this is the time to take one. Here are a few, helpful hints on how to get the most out of these last few rounds of the year.

• Put all the stressful work stuff in a little compartment in your office, and slam the door on your way out. It’ll still be there when you get back.

• Take a break from the honey-do list, the kid schlepping and all the other family-related drama. (There will be plenty of time for that during the upcoming holidays.)  

• Go out of your way to visit a golf course you don’t normally play. The unfamiliarity will help heighten your senses almost as much as the color of the trees.

• Put the scorecard away and shift your focus to something more artistic, more pleasing, than just the final numbers.

•  Stop analyzing, and start appreciating what’s right there in front of you. Get out of your head, and into the game.

Then, when you’re all done, you might be amazed at how well you actually scored.

Humpty Dumpty Golf

by John Furgurson

If you’ve played this crazy game for any length of time you’ve surely experienced a humpty-dumpty moment. It’s when you’re out on the course and all the pieces of your swing just seem to fall apart.

Your shoulders are doing one thing, your arms another. The southern hemisphere — hips, legs, feet — are racing ahead, counteracting the positive gravitational forces of the Northern hemisphere. And to top it all off, your hands are more active than a hyped-up kindergartener.

The results can be quite painful.

So what do you do when all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t put it back together again?

The natural tendency is to start analyzing the problem. You tap into that vast databank of tips in your head and try to recall a swing thought that’ll help sync everything up. Forget About It! Sometimes that works for a hole or two, but it’s seldom sustainable. And often it just introduces yet another variable — another detail in an already cluttered mind.

Instead, try this:  Take a practice swing and hold your finish. Zero in on a very specific, memorable target and just stand there, staring at it until it’s burned into your head like a bad tat. Shift ALL your focus away from the mechanics of the swing, and onto that target. Then do whatever it takes to get the ball out there. After all, a good swing is not the object of the game.

If you can maintain that razor-sharp focus on the target for more than just a few holes, you’ll be amazed at how well you can score even when your swing feels completely disjointed. When you start slipping back into that analysis mode, which you will, hold your finish again and refocus on the target.
If you need a swing thought in your head, keep it squarely focused on the target as well. Dumb it down to something like “go there ball.” It’s a powerful departure from how most of us think on the golf course, and a good way to get yourself back in the game.

So even when your swing is off, the story can have a happy ending. Relatively speaking.

In golf, knowlege can be a curse.

My friend Craig beat the pants off me a couple weeks ago. No big surprise, because he doesn’t know as much about the game as I do. He scores better, because he knows less. 

We were playing Tetherow, a spectacular new David McLay Kidd golf course in Bend, Oregon. If you’re not up on the hottest golf architects, Kidd designed Bandon Dunes and just completed the Castle Course at St. Andrews. That’s Scotland, The Holy Land of golf. 

Now, I love links golf and the traditional “roll it over the crazy swale” school of golf architecture. I had been anticipating the round ever since Tetherow’s preview event last year, where we walked the course with Kidd.  I was dying to see if it would live up to its reputation as the toughest in town, and boy was I pumped up! 

Craig was happy to be there, I guess. Ho hum. That’s the thing about Craig… He’s happy to play anywhere. He doesn’t care. It could be Augusta National and you’d never notice a difference in his demeanor. He’s totally unflappable.

So while I was admiring the architecture and exploring parts of the course that were never meant to be in play, Craig was swingin’ easy and scoring well. Either he didn’t know enough to be enamored with the course, or he was just really focused on playing one simple shot at a time without thinking about all the danger lurking in the “Scottish nubs.” 

Even though the first five holes were a disaster — and I didn’t get to experience the course as it’s meant to be — I found some enjoyment in that round of golf.  But I have to admit, it would  have been more fun had I given Craig a run for his money. 

I’m always envious of how he can put everything else out of his mind and just play his shots. It’s nothing fancy. He just pokes it out there, keeps it in play, and gets it on the green. Nothing to it.

I know Craig could hit it 50 yards past me if he’d just hold the angle a bit longer, delay his release a tiny bit and make a bigger shoulder turn ala John Daly. But Craig doesn’t think like that. In fact, he doesn’t think much at all, which is precisely why he plays well. The only swing thought I’ve ever heard Craig mention is to just “slow it down.” 

In this game, ignorance Is bliss. The less you know about the tecnicalities of  the golf swing, the more likely you are to play to your potential.

Craig just won low net in his club championship. On a horrible golf course! We’re going to find a spot for him on staff at Forget-About-It Golf.

Golf Instruction — Using your time wisely.

Time seems to be the big issue these days. According to the trade pubs, that’s why the golf industry is in a funk… because no one has Time for a 6-hour round of golf these days.

But pace of play isn’t the only culprit here. What about the pace of learning? PGA teaching pros waste tremendous amounts of Time feeding us information we don’t need.  Obsessing over mechanics we’ll never understand. And starting us on a merry-go-round of experimentation that never goes anywhere.

No wonder golf has such a high attrition rate. Most of the lessons we take do more harm than good.

Thankfully, there are some notable exceptions.

On Saturday I spent some Time on the driving range with my friend Andy Heinly. He’s a PGA Pro & Henry-Griffitts clubfitter. My go-to guy for anything that ails my game. He once again demonstrated how simple and efficient teaching can be.

Andy has a gift for getting to the heart of a student’s problem, and it’s almost always grip, aim or stance. For him, every lesson starts with a simple check of those three critical elements.

He doesn’t address swing mechanics when the student’s aiming 10 yards to the right with a wedge in his hands. It’s a waste of Time.

Unfortunately, most instructors miss — or purposely skip — those basic steps. Maybe it’s just too boring for them, or maybe they’re just too fixated on the mechanics of the “perfect” golf swing. I don’t know.

Here’s what I do know:

The video lesson I had a couple summers ago, where a big-name pro compared my swing to Adam Scott’s, was a total waste of my Time. I already knew that Adam Scott’s swing was prettier than mine. I didn’t need to spend Time and $150 bucks to be reminded of that.

I know that experimenting with all those tips we read in the magazines is a waste of Time. For every little fix that I accomplish, three more faults pop up.

I know that hitting balls without some sort of purpose is also a waste of Time. That’s why I turn to Andy for direction.

I know that I’m hitting the ball dramatically better than I was before my session with Andy. And I only had to spend 10 minutes with him.

If I choose to tee it up on a busy Saturday and spend 6 hours playing 18 holes, that’s my choice. And it’s only one day. But if an instructor messes up my game, that’s months of Time and frustration. That’s the time sucker that really irritates me!

The PGA of America needs a better training program for teaching pros. They need some kind of systematic effort and quality control program that will streamline the process and eliminate a lot of the nonsense that wastes our Time. Until that happens — and club pros learn to teach more like Andy teaches — this game will continue to struggle. And so will most players.

Besides, where do you think 6-hour rounds came from?  It’s all those people trying to remember all those things they  picked up on TV or “learned” in their last lesson. Forget-About-It!

Pointless Pounding — When to forget about the driving range.

I went to the driving range today, more for the exercise than anything else. I knew one bucket couldn’t possibly cure the problems I’ve been having with my driver, but I needed to pound something.

I’ll bet you’ve done the same.

Some days you just go out there for therapeutic reasons. Or because it beats working. Other times, you hit a bucket hoping to find that magic swing key that will unlock Tiger-like power and pinpoint accuracy. Totally different objectives, same results: You get your heart rate up, but that’s about it.

The fact is, there’s very little learning going on at the typical American driving range. For most people, it’s just a series of experimental swings where you try something, look at the results, and then correct that mistake with another equally bad idea. Occasionally you might actually happen upon a compensational move that provides immediate satisfaction, but it’s never anything you could replicate the next time you tee it up.

It’s a merry-go-round of guesswork, and the only way to get off is with some professional help.

For me, that means 15 minutes with my friend/coach/co-author Andy Heinly. That 15 minutes will be more productive than 115 visits to the driving range.

Like all good instructors, he won’t waste time trying to explain why Mr. Snappy is haunting me on the tee. He’ll just give me some simple drill that’ll fix the problem in no time. He’ll add purpose to my practice and eliminate the chances of me making things worse than they already are.

Andy says, “In golf, practice doesn’t make perfect, it makes Permanent.” In other words, if you don’t know what’s really wrong, and you keep practicing, all you’ll end up with is more bad habits.

“My job is to get people out of the fault and fix mentality that’s holding them back, and give them something more constructive to work on,” Andy says. “I give them tangible things they can work on that doesn’t invite a lot of analysis… stuff that will translate directly to the course.”

So I’m not going to waste any more time ingraining my newest bad habits on the driving range. Forget About It! I’m not going to practice any full swing shots until I get the guidance I really need to move forward.

I want off this merry-go-round of experimentation!  It’s really no fun.

The Scramble Mentality

A lot of golfers I know hate playing in scrambles. They poo-poo any event where you get four tries at every putt and a couple of mulligans for ten bucks.

They’d rather play in a nerve-wracking Chapman where you’re guaranteed to succumb to the pressure at some point and infuriate your partner by missing a simple little downhill, double-breaking fifteen footer.

These so called “serious” golfers are missing the point.

If they’d just lighten up a bit, they could actually learn a lot from an afternoon charity scramble or corporate couples event.

First of all, in a scramble, it’s much easier to forget your wayward shots. Say you blast a drive over the tree line and into a neighboring fairway, no worries. You don’t even have to endure the embarrassment of walking over there and picking up the guilty little Titlest.

Last time I played in a scramble I didn’t look for a single golf ball the entire round. On the first hole, I suggested to my teammates that we shouldn’t waste time searching. If it’s gone, it’s gone. Forget About It! Besides, it was a desert course that I play frequently, with lots of sand, rock, sage and bitterbrush. And I was sick of picking cheatgrass burrs outta my socks.

That’s the scramble mentality that you need to take to your normal, Saturday morning game. Hit a bad shot? Just let it go and start over.

A scramble is also a great format for building teamwork and camaraderie. You’re rooting for all three of your partners, and they’re rooting for you. Rather than that half-hearted “good shot” you normally get, they’re all genuinely happy when you make a miraculous par from nowhere. Maybe Paul Azinger should use the format for some pre-Ryder Cup practice rounds.

Another thing you can learn in a Scramble is the limits of your power. It’s very tempting to swing outta your shoes when you already have the short ball safely in the fairway. It takes discipline to throttle it back, but what you’ll find is that less effort, with good contact right in the middle of the clubface, works better than swinging for the fences. And it’s always nice to have four good drives in the fairway to choose from.

Most of all, a good scramble will remind you of why you play golf in the first place… To have fun! To relax. To enjoy the golf course and the people you’re with. That’s what it’s all about. 

Observations from the Jeld-Wen Tradition

The Q-Tip tour came to town last weekend for their last major of the year.  As an “honorary observer” I had a unique perspective on the action. What I learned confirms many of the points we made in our book:

• I have to quit swinging so hard.
As one the old saying goes, you need effortless force, not forceful effort. Not once did I see a herculean, bust-outta-your-shirt type of swing that’s so common on the bomb & gouge tour. Forget-About-It! Most of the senior tour players don’t even seem to be taking a full cut at it, even on the wide-open, 600-yard par-5’s. For them, it’s just balance, rhythm, tempo and contact. Length never seemed to be much of an issue, even on a 7300 yard course.

• The highball belongs in the bar.
I didn’t see any high, towering, shots — even with the short irons. Instead, a smooth, three-quarter swing produced consistently low trajectories that worked amazingly well in breezy conditions. It was a spectacular display of good, old-fashioned shotmaking. I could tell they were hitting it right smack dab in the middle of the clubface every time because their distance control was dialed in to the inch. And accuracy was never an issue.

• Short game. Short game. Short game.
In the rare occasion when the seniors missed an approach shot, they just took it as an opportunity to show off their skill around the green. Getting up and down is easier for them than reading the fine print on a scorecard. And putting… there are a lot of different methods being used on that tour, and they all seem to work. Every long put has a good chance to go in the hole. And the short putts seem to have no chance of missing. Wouldn’t that be nice.

• Scrambling is way overrated.
When I was young Seve Ballesteros was my hero. These days, it’s fun watching Tiger make superhuman recovery shots from the trees at Torrey Pines, and I pride myself on being able to scramble pretty well. But the old guys proved that boring golf is good golf.  If I want to score better, I need to follow their lead… Straight down the fairway every time. Stick it on the green. Roll it in. Or — worst case scenario — you leave yourself eight inches coming back for a routine par. It’s not the least bit exciting, until you add up all the numbers at the end.

All in all, I’d say the big difference is experience and wisdom. You just don’t see the players on this tour making rookie mistakes. They don’t compound their problems, like club players do, and they never seem to get too up, or too down. They just go about their business, post a score of 15 under, collect their six-figure check, and move on to the next venue.

Putt Better In Just 6 Seconds!

Chapter 6 of the Forget-About-It Guide To Better Golf is all about putting. It’s a must-read for anyone who’s ever yipped a three-footer, but that takes a little longer than six seconds.  So here’s a condensed version of one of our most important points:

In putting, routine is EVERYTHING!

On Saturday I scratched and scrambled my way around the new Tom Fazio course at Pronghorn in Bend, Oregon. What a treat! The greens were rolling faster than an olympic speed skating oval. Survival out there demanded that I forget about the outcome of the putt — because some three-putts were a given — and focus all my attention on the routine of putting.

For me, it was six seconds that saved me several strokes.

Most decent players have a routine of sorts, but when the pressure’s on, we tend to forget. We linger over the line. We take an extra practice stroke or second look at the hole. We do a lot of silly little things we’d never do on the practice green.

So on Saturday, my only goal was to have a blast and stick to my six-second routine. Once I had a reasonable idea of the line, I followed these six steps precisely, even counting in my head:

1. Aim the putter head

2. Set my feet

3. Look at the hole

4. Look at the logo on the ball

5. Take it back…

6. And through.

It worked for me, and I guarantee, it can work for you. By focusing on the process of putting you occupy the part of your brain that gets in the way of a good putting stroke.

But don’t try following my routine to the letter. Everybody has his own natural process and tempo. The trick is to find it on the practice green, write it down, and then stick with it, no matter what.

One thing’s for sure… the winner of this week’s PGA championship at Oakland Hills will be the guy who sticks to his routine when the chips are down. Because according to GolfWorld, they’re some of the most severe, challenging and exciting green complexes anywhere in the country.

Kinda like that Fazio course at Pronghorn.

-John Furgurson

Co-Author of the Forget-About-It Guide To Better Golf

When Golf Gets Too Serious

Welcome to the Forget-About-It Golf blog. This is the first in a series of articles  written with one objective in mind… to help you have more fun with the game of golf.  If you’ve ever been frustrated with your game, or if you feel like you’re constantly working at it and grinding away on the course, we think you’ll enjoy our approach. So come back often. And, of course, read the book. 

Normally, we’ll keep the topics lighthearted and helpful. Even humorous at times. But this week, I’m compelled to touch on an incident that was downright depressing.  

Here’s what happened, according to the Seattle Times: Seems somebody was playing too slowly at a municipal course in Auburn, Washington. After 15 holes, a guy in the group behind got so infuriated, he attacked the guilty player with his 6-iron. Hit him in the head so hard, it bent the shaft of the club and caused serious brain damage.

Our thoughts go out to the victim, and to his family. He was just trying to enjoy a nice, leisurely round of golf like all the rest of us. Even if he was on a 6-hour pace, he didn’t deserve that. 

And what about the guy who was enraged enough to commit assault with a deadly weapon? Chances are, he’ll have plenty of time to work out his anger management issues while he’s in the slammer. Maybe we’ll send him one of our books. 

I hate slow play as much as anyone. I once walked off the course, miles from the clubhouse, after fourteen holes in four and a half hours. And in later posts, we’ll touch on some solutions to that problem. 

But what can you say about that incident up in Seattle?

Forget-About-It. I’m at a loss.