Bobby Jones on Golf: Consistency

Every golfer wishes he or she could play consistently well. And yet, the most consistent thing about golf is its inconsistency. There are any number of teachers out there making a living, or a quick buck, by promising a swing, or a secret that, once learned, will take five to ten strokes off our game, or make us hit it thirty yards further, and make us play consistently well. Yet, even if we've tried their books, videos, gadgets, or even gone to them for lessons, all of us continue to struggle at one time or another; and often we find ourselves struggling more often than not. 

Bobby Jones, in his book Bobby Jones on Golf, offered some interesting insight into the problems encountered by anyone trying to play consistently well. It seems the pros are just like us when it comes to consistency. 

The following is an excerpt from Bobby Jones on Golf:

"Everyone who has played golf, however well or badly, has found how impossible it is to hold his best form, or anything like it, for any length of time. A chart of a player's golfing fortunes over an extended period would exhibit a series of peaks and depressions, with the peaks very sharp, the downward curves precipitate, and the up slopes long and arduous. There is always a long struggle, painfully won, from the bottom of each valley to the top of the hill, and then, after a brief travel along the crest, the touch or feel that was so hard to find vanishes in an instant and back we go to the bottom.

There are two real reasons why absolute consistency is so rare in golf, and an appreciation of them will show something of what the golfer's problem is and will give him a chance to tackle it with his eyes open. The only two things that will ever enable him to smooth out the curve of his game chart are, first, a thorough understanding of the fundamentals of the swing, and, second, an intimate and unprejudiced acquaintance with his own faults and tendencies to fault.

A golfer must play by feel, and I know that I am not the only person who has found that no feel, or conception, or idea, will work perfectly for very long. In other words, there is no one movement, or sequence of movements amenable to control, that being controlled, will continue indefinitely to produce satisfactory results. It is not possible to think through the entire swing when playing each shot. Sometimes by remembering to start the downstroke by shifting and turning the hips, highly satisfactory  results may be obtained. While this continues, we are enjoying one of the peaks of our chart. But soon, either because we begin to exaggerate this one thing, or forget entirely about something else, the whole thing goes wrong and we have to begin over again. Again, we set out to find another thought that will set things right. This is the time when we need our understanding of the swing, for without this we shall be groping in absolute darkness.

The other reason why it is so hard to hold form arises from the insidious nature of some of the faults that can creep into a golf swing without the player himself becoming aware of them. It has never been possible for me to think of more than two or three details of the swing and still hit the ball correctly. If more than that number have to be handled, I simply must play badly until by patient work and practice I can reduce the parts that have to be controlled. The two or three are not always the same; sometimes a man's swing will be functioning so well that he need worry about nothing; then, of course, on those rare occasions, the game is a simple thing.

But because we have not the capacity to think of everything while attention is directed elsewhere, a hundred little things can go wrong. Every year I played golf, I discovered more and more ways to miss shots, obscure and yet important mistakes I had never dreamed of making."

So, if you have been struggling with being consistently inconsistent, remember that everyone struggles with this game from time to time. Furthermore, when you see the advertisements for a secret, or a swing that will make you a consistent player; that, once learned, will work all the time; don't eat that, Arthur! Nothing works all the time. The only thing consistent about golf is its inconsistency. That's what makes it so damned fascinating. You can never totally figure it out.

The best we can hope to do is learn the fundamentals of the swing, come to understand our own swing and our tendencies to err, and, if we're lucky, find a good instructor, or unprejudiced and knowledgeable mentor, who can be another set of eyes when we are groping in the darkness. 

Bobby Jones on Golf: Golf as Recreation

I almost never practise. This is mainly due to my physical ailments, the absence of a proper practice area at our club, and probably a certain amount of laziness on my part, preferring to play, rather than practise. My failure to take time to practise, however, is doubtless responsible for some of my poor play of late. But my real problem is toys in the attic.

Yesterday, I played my worst nine holes of the year. I shot 43 on the front nine. I had arrived at the course with a plan. I knew the way I wanted to approach my round, but quickly, after missing a short par putt on the first hole and three putting the second hole for another bogey, I started to get into tinker mode. I started tinkering with my putting stroke. Then, after a poor drive on three, started tinkering with my swing.

When we were on the eighth hole, my partner, Radar, joined our threesome. He had not been informed of our tee time, so got there when he could. We waited to start our usual match against Bill and Carl until the tenth hole. In the meantime, I told Radar that I had some serious toys in the attic; that I had already tried at least four different swings today, none of which seemed to work worth a hoot. He laughed and said he felt my pain, because his attic was full as well. He was struggling with a hundred different swing thoughts; toys in the attic.

On the tenth tee, after learning just how bad the front nine had been, I announced that I was intent on just swinging easy for the rest of the round and giving my spinning head and aching back a rest. It worked reasonably well, and I cruised home with a relatively effortless, if unspectacular, 39. It was another frustrating day, ruined by my compulsive tinkering on the course. 

When I got home, I sought solace and advice from the book, Bobby Jones on Golf. I have read many instructional books about golf and never found any to compete with those by Bobby Jones. That is partly because of the man's golfing genius. It is also because he was so literate, and such a keen observer of golfers, duffer and champion alike. Despite being arguably the greatest golfer ever, he had the ability to relate to the recreational player, as well as the champion golfer. This was no doubt largely to do with his having played so many rounds with his father and his cronies, having the opportunity to closely observe what we mere mortals go through on the golf course. His common sense and practicality, as well as his empathy for those of us who struggle, really shines through in his writing. 

In the short chapter from his book "Bobby Jones on Golf," entitled "Golf as Recreation," Bobby gives some priceless advice to those of us who want to enjoy the game, may be struggling, and have not necessarily set our sights on winning championships, other than perhaps our club championship or one of the flights. Reading this chapter really reaffirmed what I already knew I was suffering from. Given that his books are not always easy to find, I intend to reproduce the chapter verbatim, because I think he has already pared his writing down to the absolute essentials and I wouldn't want to mess with perfection. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did:

"The golfer with a fairly good swing who never seems able to score well is a familiar figure on any course. In many respects, he is in the same boat with the tournament player who burns up the course in practice rounds, but does nothing in actual competition. Obviously, there is a great deal more to playing golf than merely swinging the club.

There is scarcely one golfer of the so-called average class who could not benefit from an effort to school himself in applying good sense, judgement, and a little intelligent thinking to his game; and this without reference to the mechanics of the swing. Merely by adopting measures that will help get a consistently high rate of performance from what ability he has, a surprising improvement can be made.

The trouble with all of us, who grumble over the game and thus spoil an otherwise pleasant afternoon with congenial friends, is that we do not understand the game, nor ourselves. In this, we could take a number of lessons from the dub. For no matter how good we may be, if we should fancy that we have mastered golf to the extent that we can go out day after day and play as we please, then we are greater fools than ought to be left at large.

A skillful golfer, who knows what he is about, can often play himself back to his game in the course of a round; but the average player, when he goes out for an afternoon, would best leave all his tinkering and theorizing behind. Too many come out eager to try some new discovery made while shaving, or lying awake in bed, and, instead of going to the practice tee to find out if the idea has any merit, they set out  hopefully to beat their record for the course. It would be difficult to think of a more infallible way of spoiling what might have been an enjoyable game.

The virtues of golf as a pastime and a means of recreation have been appropriately extolled. But no one, with more than the barest outside chance of being believed, is going to tell me, or any other golfer, that he gets any fun out of hacking around a golf course in ten or more strokes above his normal score. The ninety player does not expect to break eighty; he ought to be, and usually is, satisfied to play a game that is reasonably good for him. But when he plays a really bad round, and drags himself into the locker room, it is easy to see that he is tired and disgusted, and has done anything but enjoy himself.

It seems to me that there are two reasonable ways in which a man may take his golf. If he has the time and inclination to do so, he may set out to give the game a proper amount of serious study and effort, with a view toward elevating himself beyond the average-class; or, if he has only a very limited amount of free time, as many have, he may be content to knock around with his regular companions who play about as he does, in search of a little fun. But it will not do to mix the two, especially to hang the ambitions of the first man upon the labor of the latter.

When we come to the all-important matter of getting real enjoyment out of the playing of the game, I think we will find that all must employ the same set of rules. To find enjoyment, we must produce a round fairly close to our usual standard. To do this with a fair degree of consistency, no matter to which class we belong, we must avoid experiment, refuse to try anything new, and play the game instead of practicing it.

The best single piece of advice I could give any man starting out for a round of golf would be 'take your time,'not in studying the ground, and lining up the shot, but in swinging the club. Strive for smoothness, strive for rhythm, but unless you are something of an expert, save 'monkeying' with your hip turn, your wrist action, and the like, until you can get on a practice tee where you can miss a shot without having to play the next one out of a bunker."

Pack a Snack

I have come to learn the virtue of taking some protein along with me when I play. I have traditionally been from the John Daly school of golf, where nicotine plus caffeine equals protein. However, I started to notice that after twelve or thirteen holes I'd suddenly lose my mind and make a couple of stupid bogeys, or worse. 

I'd seem to lose the plot a couple of hours into the round and, soon thereafter, realize I was hungry. If you wait to feel hungry, you've probably waited too long they tell me. So now I always try to remind myself to eat something by the ninth or tenth hole. It seems to help me from having those let downs.

I don't intend to give up on the nicotine, or the caffeine, because I love my coffee, and there's nothing like a good smoke. I come from a long line of smokers, and have inherited the smoking gene. Bobby Jones liked a good smoke. So did Ben Hogan. So, call me old school. But a little protein definitely goes a long way. I'd probably drink more water too. The problem is, it tastes like water.

A Hook Won't Listen

The draw seems to generally be viewed as the superior ball flight because, among other things, it usually goes farther. My preference has always been a fade. No doubt, this was due to my favourite golfers having been Jack Nicklaus and Lee Trevino, both of whom preferred the fade, but were quite capable of playing a draw, or any other shot for that matter, when it was required.

Lee Trevino said, "You can talk to a slice, but a hook won't listen." I have always found this to be true. I've never liked to hit the draw, even though it's the way my ball tends to want to go if I square up and make my normal swing. I don't like to draw the ball because it sometimes becomes a hard draw or a hook, and a hook just won't listen. You don't have to hit many hooks before a potentially good round becomes ugly. You don't often get away with a hook. 

I played in the Quinte Cup this weekend and once again learned that hard lesson about a hook not listening. The Quinte Cup is a one day event and consists of three nine hole matches against players from three other clubs in our area. It is one of the oldest competitions still being played in Ontario and it's fun to play guys from other clubs, many of whom you see every year. 

In my first match, I found myself playing Rick, from Napanee, who has been their club champion numerous times and is certainly no slouch. We have played several times before and have enjoyed good matches. I have done reasonably well against Rick, and actually believed I was up one in our matches when we started the day. That gave me the confidence that, if I played well, I had a fair chance of beating him. After our match and over a beer, Rick assured me he had beaten me in our last match, so we may actually have been even in our matches to date. It's funny how you remember the wins and forget the losses. Actually, I guess that's positive thinking. In any case, all that positive thinking did me no good. Rick was definitely the better man this time, easily beating me four and two. This was down to his good play, my dismal short game, and a couple of hooks that refused to listen on a hard and fast golf course. 

One of those hooks was my first shot of the day and left me short-sided behind some fir trees on the steeply uphill par three of about two hundred yards. I made five after scooting a chip across the green and three putting from the fringe. Rick, who was able to win the first hole without even having to putt for his par, was off and running. I never recovered. Along with my poor putting, on another hole I hooked it just out of bounds. "Just out of bounds" is like being "a little bit pregnant." You either are or you're not. Nine hole matches are difficult if you make mistakes early because there isn't much time to recover, and Rick is not the sort to just give you a hole. You tend to have to earn it. If you are playing a nine hole match and hooking it, better you'd have just stayed in bed.

My next match was against a fellow named Gary from Roundel Glen, formerly the CFB Trenton club. I'd never played him before, and he had won his first match against Andy from the Trenton Golf Club, a nine hole course dubbed goat hills, who were hosting the event this year. I knew I was going to be up against it, and Gary played well, beating me two and one. Once again, I hooked my first tee shot behind the same trees on one, hooked the ball out of bounds on the same hole I'd hit it OB in the first match, and I almost hooked it OB on another hole, ending up under a tree but managing to escape with a half. 

In the final match, true to form, I once again hooked my tee shot on one and, stymied by a tree, clipped the branches on my second shot but eventually managed a good bogey for a half. A birdie on two put me one up, only to see the lead evaporate when Andy holed his wedge from a hundred yards for an eagle on three. I was really starting to sweat by this point, with visions of losing all my matches and contributing nothing to the cause. I was also sweating because I was now facing two holes where I'd hit hooks in the earlier matches. At least I'd finally made a putt for birdie, and I'd finally hit some decent chips, so there was at least a glimmer of hope if I could just stop missing it left.

I pictured Lee Trevino and played the rest of the round trying to imitate his push fade move. It actually didn't produce much of a fade for me, but it saw me to the house with no more hooks and a two and one victory. Sometimes, when the wheels have come off, you need to have that choke stroke. For me it's what is doubtless a rather poor imitation of the Trevino fade. It probably doesn't remind anyone seeing me swing of old Lee, but it's the best I can do, and it's turned things around for me before when I've been really gagging out there.

After this latest experience; I'm seriously considering going back to that "faux Trevino" push fade swing as my go to swing. Why should I wait until the wheels are coming off to use it? Old Lee is right; you can talk to a fade. As for a hook; forget about it!

Does Tiger Ever Wish He Could Have a Mulligan?

I keep finding myself getting caught up in the ongoing Tiger Woods saga. It's irresistible. He is such a fascinating character. Someone recently claimed that he was the smartest golfer ever. This was promptly followed by a rebuttal from Sam Adams, citing Ben Hogan and Jack Nicklaus as two players who were at least if not more golf smart than Tiger.

Whether Tiger is smart, or intelligent, particularly where golf is concerned, depends on your point of view. One thing for certain is that he is different. I was interested in his post round interview, after once again just making the cut on the number at the Memorial. In it he was asked whether, considering his erratic driving, he ever considered using a long iron or three wood in order to just get the ball in play off the tee. He replied, as though it was a silly question, suggesting he could revert back to his old swing and easily get the ball in play, but he didn't consider that to be "progress."  He went on to discuss release patterns and the importance of feeling and being committed to the new release pattern, even when the driver is sending the ball left, right, but rarely centre, and he is playing the worst golf of his career.

At the Players, after a particularly dismal round, he claimed that a positive thing was that he had scored as high as he could have possibly scored. How, pray tell, is that a positive? Furthermore, it wasn't even accurate. On seventeen, after barely clearing the water and nearly spinning it back into the drink, Tiger used a sand wedge to belly the ball in for a deuce. He made two when he was inches from making five and he yet he claims he couldn't have scored any higher. He also claimed that a positive thing about the week was that his warm ups were good. Since when are your warm ups even relevant? Tiger seems to have gone from judging his game by whether he wins or not, to how his warm ups are going.

Despite all the evidence that would seem to scream for a different approach, Tiger seems still to be committed to once again building a new swing that will  enable him to dominate the game again. If he succeeds, he will prove that he is truly amazing, but he will surely still have wasted so much time and energy building new swings when he could have been winning Majors with the one he already had. That is what he will have to live with. Had he not tried to fix something that was definitely not broken, Tiger would almost certainly have broken virtually every record worth breaking, shy of Byron Nelson's eleven in a row and eighteen in a season. Instead, he continues to struggle and search for perfection, and still chases Jack and Sam's records, when what he already had was more than good enough to have eclipsed them both.

You have to wonder, when he lays in his bed, alone with his thoughts, whether he ever asks himself why; whether he ever wishes he could have a Mulligan and just have that old swing and that lanky, sinewy body back. If he doesn't, he really is amazing.

It's All in Your Head

Golf has to be the ultimate head game. To what degree golf is mental, compared to physical, will always be debatable, but it's definitely a head game. There are loads of guys who can hit it great, but those who can get the ball in the hole when it counts are a different breed.

Watching Tiger Woods again this week makes me, and probably millions of others, wonder about what is happening with Tiger mentally. When Tiger was at his best, he was perhaps the most dominant, intimidating player ever to tee it up. He was physically dominant, but his mental toughness, and self belief made his opponents, men who were mentally tough in their own right, seem to fold like cheap suits. 

Once he secured the lead, Tiger expected to finish the job. It seemed inevitable. He believed he'd win, and his opponents seemed to believe it too. Just what sort of impact Y.E. Yang had on Tiger's psyche, when he went head to head with him in a Major and took him down, is also debatable. But I suspect it was almost as big a turning point in Tiger's career as his very public personal problems. Yang took him down. He wasn't invincible after all. It sent a message to Tiger and to everyone else. Tiger really was human after all. He actually coughed up a lead in a Major.

Tiger's swing changes continue to be the main subject of interest and debate. It seems to be Tiger's focus, or obsession, as well. Jack Nicklaus said yesterday that it's in Tiger's head. He was speaking more about Tiger's driving woes at the time, but I think the "it's in his head" remark runs deeper than that. We'll never know how Tiger is mentally, whether his confidence is shaken or not, because he isn't going to tell us. I'd be shaken. Most people would be shaken, but Tiger is not most people.

All the signs are there. It shows in Tiger's driving, his chipping, and especially his putting. This was a guy who could win a Major on one leg. Who can forget the putt he made to get into a playoff with Rocco Mediate? When he made it, he knew, and Rocco knew, it was game over. Tiger was that mentally dominant. 

Those days are gone. Tiger's mental edge is gone. He is visibly nervous with the driver, and he misses putts he never missed in the old days. Jack seems to think Tiger will get it back, at least in terms of figuring out how to get the driver in play and stop the two way miss, but I doubt Jack believes he will get that mental dominance back. I suspect Jack knows; the other players know; and, I fear, even Tiger knows that he will never dominate the game again.

This is, after all, as it should be. Every great player eventually loses his edge and moves over to allow the next great player his time in the limelight. It is the way of the world. Tiger's record speaks for itself. He is one of the greats of the game. His name will always be mentioned in the same breath with Jack and Bobby Jones as the greatest champions of golf's modern era. Tiger may not beat Jack's record for Major championships. He may not even beat Sam Snead's record for total victories, although I think it likely he will. He will definitely never win eleven in a row, or eighteen in a season, like Byron, but his record speaks for itself. He was great. 

We can debate about the swing changes. Should he have made them? Will his current search result in a better swing? We can argue about whether he'll win another Major, or whether he'll win twenty Majors. We don't know. What will be, will be. What Jack knows, and I'm sure Tiger knows, is that, at the end of the day, it's all in his head. Just like the rest of us. Golf is the ultimate head game.

Putting Won't Kill You

Putting can really mess with your mind. There are times when putting has just about driven me crazy. However, it may have driven me to distraction and even despair, but it hasn't killed me, or any of my playing partners. At least not yet.

I can vividly remember, after a stretch of particularly poor putting, I missed a two footer for eagle. I was absolutely livid, and took the ball and hit it like a baseball with my putter, the ball glancing off the cheek of my buddy who stood nearby. I could have killed him. It was one of my most embarrassing moments on the golf course, and I still shudder when I think about how close I came to seriously injuring, or even killing him in that moment of absolute madness. It was not my proudest moment, but it actually changed my golfing life. I will never let putting do that to me again. 

One of my golfing buddies is currently in the grip of the putting yips. It may not actually be the yips, but it's bad. He hits it great, at least until his putting woes cause him to totally lose it. If he didn't struggle on the greens, he'd be a solid four or five handicap the way he hits it. Lately, his putting is so bad it infects the rest of his game and he has trouble breaking 90. He's getting a bit long in the tooth, so he doesn't hit it as long as he once did, but he still hits it solid. However, give him a two footer to save his life and, better call the coroner, because he's gonna miss it. Then again, give me a two footer to save my life, and I'll probably miss it as well. 

That's really the problem with putting. If you've played good golf, and you've played long enough, you know just how easy it is to miss short putts. It's the short putts that really get to you, because you think you should make them all, and you don't. Everyone misses a short one now and again. That's golf. But my pal misses almost all of them when they count. He just can't shake them in to save his life. And yet, often times he'll sweep the putt back and knock it in after he's missed. 

Yesterday, he said to me, " I can make them when they don't count."

I replied, "That's just the point. You have to convince yourself that it just doesn't matter, that they don't count."

The attitude you seem to need to have when putting is that the outcome doesn't really matter. Naturally, this is difficult, because in reality it does matter. You don't want to miss short putts, but the more you want to make them, the harder they become. Give yourself a three footer to shoot your lowest round ever and see what happens. The reality is, all you can do is read the putt, pick your line, and make your best stroke. After that, it's in the lap of the golfing gods whether it goes in or not. You can hit a perfect putt and miss because of a spike mark, or a heel print, or some other imperfection in the green you couldn't even see. Greens are imperfect, so you can miss and it might not be your fault. It's just golf. Nobody ever said it would be fair, or easy.

However, if you can treat those two imposters, success and failure, just the same, and realize that neither outcome will cure or kill you, putting becomes easier. Putting may never be easy, but it will be easier if you can keep your perspective. You really can't will the ball into the hole, even though it seemed Jack Nicklaus could. You just have to make your best stroke and accept the outcome, knowing a miss won't kill you, unless of course you're playing a guy with no neck for more money than you can afford to pay if you lose.

Everybody misses a two footer at one time or another. But I've never heard of it killing anybody. These days, I try to just step up there, pick my line, try to make a good stroke, and let it be. I figure, if I do that, I've done my part. The rest is up to the golfing gods. I've missed more short putts than I care to remember, but it's never killed me, and so long as I never have to make one to save my life, I guess I'll be okay.