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.
