GOAT

With Tiger back in the news after his revealing interview with Lorne Rubenstein, once again we see just what a polarizing figure he has been in the game of golf.  While he has more than his fair share of detractors, there are also legions of fans who maintain that, whether he makes a comeback or not, he is the GOAT--greatest of all time.

Sam Snead, when asked about who was the greatest of all time, said that all you can really do is beat the guys you play against.  Tiger, without a shadow of a doubt, was the greatest player of his generation.  Should that not be good enough?

It seems that Tiger may never be fully fit again.  But I find it hard to imagine that he won't play again.  In fact, I've already suggested that he'll tee it up at the Masters in the Spring.  He has even talked, after his Time magazine interview, about being a playing assistant captain at the next Ryder Cup.  That doesn't sound like a guy who is about to retire from the game.  That doesn't sound to me like a guy who is ready to throw in the towel.

Tiger Woods was the greatest golfer of his generation.  He may not break Jack's record for Major wins.  He may not even surpass Sam Snead for most PGA tour wins.  He will definitely never win eighteen in a season and eleven in a row, like Byron Nelson.  But the guy was the best of his day.  He was in a league of his own.

That, I would think, should be good enough.

Method in Michelle's Madness?

I saw a photo of Jack on a Rolex commercial crouched over a putt.  It made me think of Michelle Wie's seemingly unorthodox approach to putting of late.  Suddenly, it seemed that perhaps she is on to something.  There just might be some method to her madness.

Were it not for her long legs, Michelle and Jack might not look so different over a putt.  They both get very close to their work.  If only Michelle could hole them like Jack.

Golf is a Walking Game

Because of injury, I haven't walked a round of golf for almost a year--until yesterday.  It was great to be out there with just a few clubs in a Sunday bag, walking the fairways again.  For me, golf is definitely not a good walk spoiled.  It was so nice to walk from shot to shot, taking the time to shake off any bad shots, and to size up the next one.

Golf is meant to be a walking game.  I can't imagine it was ever supposed to be a game where you jumped in a cart to race from shot to shot.  The golf cart is a wonderful invention for those who really need it because of mobility problems, but I have to believe golf courses that have a mandatory cart rule, like the majority of the courses in Myrtle Beach, are doing this for only one reason--money.  Golf carts don't, in my estimation, speed up play.  They also often do damage to the course, especially in wet weather.  And then, as if to add insult to injury, you sometimes get told you must play cartpath-only golf.  That's when you might be better off staying home. 

The unfortunate thing is that so many new courses are being designed as much to sell real estate as to promote the game of golf.  The end result is you have route marches between holes that make some courses damned near impossible to walk, even if you wanted to.

That was one of the things I loved about St Andrews in particular, and Scotland in general.  While I think they will make exceptions on most of the courses for those who have a disability and must use a cart, generally-speaking, if you want to play, you walk, laddie.  

I suppose, if you want to use a cart, that's your prerogative on most courses now, and so maybe it should be.  If the extra revenue helps keep courses going, and if it keeps more people playing the game, that's all good too.  All I know is, when you can't walk the course, you sure miss it.  I just hope I can get back to being healthy enough to walk again most of the time.  Heck, I don't know if it was because I was walking yesterday, but I even played better.

To the Hilt

I've been reading Arnold Palmer's book My Game and Yours.  It's quite an interesting read, dealing more with the mental side of the game than the mechanics of the golf swing.  He has one chapter entitled How to Reach Inside Yourself which, I think, contains some great advice for all golfers, regardless of their ability.

Arnie suggests that we should all play the game "to the hilt."  He writes: "Most amateurs give up too quickly when they get in trouble on the golf course."  He talks about the businessman playing a fifty cent Nassau with his buddies who gets himself in trouble and basically just gives up.

Arnie writes:

"If that same businessman was faced with ruin at the office, you'd never catch him taking his bad luck lying down.  He'd grit his teeth and start thinking.  He would concentrate so hard that he wouldn't know it was lunchtime...One way or another he'd weather the crisis and save the business.  Why not at golf?  Try it.  Start thinking your way around the course, calculating the risks and advantages of every possible kind of shot...And when you get in trouble, reach inside yourself.  You'll probably find more there than you ever knew existed.

"Sometimes, of course, you'll fail--miserably. (The pros do, too.)  Maybe you'll fail most of the time.  But until you've dared to try and brought off an impossible shot from the rough or from the water, or have salvaged a hole by laying a monster of a two iron stiff against the pin, you'll have missed golf's greatest playing thrill.

"I've told many businessmen golfers, in person, the things I have been saying in this chapter.  And sometimes I've run into a reaction that you may also have at this point.  'I just don't want to play the game that hard,' the amateur will say.  'I'm playing for fun and relaxation.  I don't want to make a federal case out of it.'

"Well, now, wait a minute.  Sure, the amateur plays for fun.  The question is: How can he have the most fun?  Only, in my opinion, by playing the game to the hilt.  If all you're doing is walking around the course and swinging the club aimlessly, without thought and without concentration, you may as well be taking a walk in the woods, which is cheaper and will give you an equal amount of exercise.  But if you're playing golf as a sport--and I'm convinced that most people play it as a sport, not just for the exercise, as is proved by the recent popularity of golf carts, which take most of the exercise out of it--you have to play to win in order to enjoy it.

"You want to have fun.  You want to relax and get away from your business woes, your personal problems, the tensions of everyday life.  The way to do it is to concentrate on the game, to think about golf and nothing but golf.  Your four hours on the course should take you into a different world, where you are totally absorbed in a form of thinking, action and strategy completely different from anything you do the rest of the week.  That's the way to get the utmost in pleasure and energy-restoring refreshment out of golf.  The harder you work at the game, the more it will relax you...

"So play golf to the hilt.  Win, lose or draw, good day or bad, you'll be happier for it and you'll live longer."

Thanks, Arnie, I needed that.

How to Play Golf

Golf really is a simple game that golfers, including myself, often feel compelled to complicate with a long list of dos and don'ts.  Fortunately, there have been some exceptionally practical and pragmatic golfers who have managed, for posterity, to capture the essence of the game.

Perhaps Chuck Hogan summed it up best when he said:

"Go play golf.  Go to the golf course.  Hit the ball.  Find the ball.  Repeat until the ball is in the hole.  Have fun.  The end."

I would really only add two further quotes to that.  The first is from Sam Snead, who said:

"Nobody asked how you looked, just what you shot."

The second is from Harry Vardon, who said:

"Don't play too much golf.  Two rounds a day are plenty."

Okay, perhaps golf should also come with the following warning from B.C. Forbes:

"Golf is an ideal diversion but a ruinous disease."

Arnold Palmer on the Golf Swing

I happened to come across Arnold Palmer's revised edition of the book My Game and Yours in a thrift shop.  I'm just starting to read it, but am really impressed with some of the things Arnie has to say. Of course, it should come as no surprise that I should be impressed.  Arnie was one of golf's greatest and most exciting players.  It should be little wonder that he should have an interesting and somewhat unique take on how the game should be played.

In the first chapter, entitled Golf is Easier Than You Think, Arnie begins by writing what has to be one of the best explanations I've read as to why golf is the greatest game:

"GOLF is deceptively simple and endlessly complicated.  A child can play it well and a grown man can never master it.  Any single round of it is full of unexpected triumphs and perfect shots that end in disaster.  It is almost a science, yet it is a puzzle without an answer.  It is gratifying and tantalizing, precise and unpredictable; it requires complete concentration and total relaxation.  It satisfies the soul and frustrates the intellect.  It is at the same time rewarding and maddening--and it is without doubt the greatest game mankind has ever invented."

Arnie was never known as a teacher.  And I suspect he would never claim to be one.  I also suspect that his simple view of how the game should be played, and how the club should be swung, remains shaped by the instruction he received from his father as a boy.  My view continues to be that we should always look to the great players to learn how to best play this game.  I think the best teachers also happen to be those who have been the best players.  They have been the ones who have most successfully put theory in to practice when it comes to golf.

From what I've read so far, Arnie's simple view of the "endlessly complicated" game is what is most appealing.  This is particularly the case when he talks about the golf swing.  Arnie might not be the guy you might think of if you were to talk about the ideal golf swing.  He was perhaps more of a hitter than a swinger.  But it is interesting to see that his views are very similar to those of Bobby Jones, Jack Nicklaus, and Sam Snead when it comes to swinging the golf club.

In chapter 4, entitled HOW TO SWING HARDER WHILE TRYING LESS, Arnie talks about his swing and the two rules that he believes will make anyone a better swinger of the club, provided they have developed a sound grip.  He first talked about his big turn, which, until injury and age modified it, caused him to rotate his body to the point that his back was turned to his target on the backswing.  When speaking of that huge turn, Arnie said:

"Did I plan my swing that way in the early years?  No, I never did.  Neither did my father when he was teaching me the game.  In fact, at one of my early professional tournaments when many of the other pros we're seeing me play for the first time, one of them nudged my father, who was also watching me, and asked, 'Did you teach him that turn?'  My father replied, 'Now wouldn't that have been a silly thing to do?'

What he meant was that a teaching pro should never urge his pupils to think one way or the other about the turn, and the golfer himself should never worry about whether he is making a large turn or a small one.  I certainly never worried about it.  I had this kind of turn because it came natural to me... A big turn is a wonderful asset in golf, for the turn generates your power, and the bigger the turn the greater the power.  But it's not something you should plan or worry about.  If your leg, torso, and shoulder muscles have the strength and agility to give you a big turn, you'll have a big turn.  If not, you'll have to settle for a little less.

As a matter of fact, almost everything that has been written or discussed about the golf swing--all the millions of words devoted to the turn, the pivot and the weight shift--have been unnecessarily complicated and confusing.  I urge you to forget them and start your thinking all over, for the truth about the swing is just this:

The swing is the easiest part of golf.  Once you've got the right grip, and if you hold your head steady, it is almost physically impossible to swing badly.  There are two rules, and two rules only, that you have to remember, and they are so simple and natural that you can make them part of your second nature in a mere half hour on the practice tee."

As I read this, I could just imagine how all the golf teachers, who make their living teaching the golf swing, might react to this statement from Arnie.  The swing is the easiest part of golf?!  That sounds almost sacrilegious.

And just what are the two rules--and only two rules--you must follow? According to Arnie:  

"Rule No. 1 is to take the club back, as you start your backswing, smoothly and without breaking your wrists.  You have to take it straight back 'in one piece,' as they say around the golf course, without any wrist action at all.  Do this for the first twelve inches that the clubhead moves...and you've got the swing practically licked."  

Okay, sounds easy enough to me.  What's rule number two?  Arnie says:

"Rule No. 2 is to keep the club under control at all times or, to use a phrase that I like, to keep the swing compact.  It's an easy, natural rule to follow--at least it should be.  Yet, strangely, even many pros violate it at times, and most amateurs violate it most of the time."

No way!  It can't be that easy, Arnie.  What about my right knee?

Pail of water

I don't know who first came up with the idea, but I like it.  The golf swing is like throwing a pail of water.  It really is, when you think about it.

If you want to hit a fade or a draw and you imagine throwing a pail of water and making the water go left or right, you wouldn't be far off.

If you want to have good tempo, and get the speed in the right place, just imagine throwing that pail of water and you'd be in business.  If you swung back too fast, or tried to accelerate too soon with that pail of water, you'd either get wet, spill the water too soon, or both.  

If you tried to throw that pail of water without making a good turn, or using your legs, you wouldn't make that water go very far.  You'd have a hard time throwing that water just using your arms.

If you wanted to understand how the hands work together, again the pail of water image helps.  Try to swing that pail with just the right hand moving towards the target, and the left side not pulling, and see where the water goes.

Throwing water from a pail can be very instructive.  So can throwing anything heavy.  Ben Hogan talked about thinking of throwing a medicine ball.  It's the same idea. The acceleration is gradual, with real effort happening at the bottom.  

I think I might try selling the idea--selling pails as a golf aid.  You could have people on the range practising throwing the water.  But then you'd have to have a tap, or a hose at the practice tee.  And it isn't good to waste water.  I guess the medicine ball is a better idea.  But then you'd get tired pretty quickly: throwing a medicine ball.  And you'd keep having to go and fetch it.

Okay, maybe it wouldn't work as a golfing aid.  But I think it's a really good image.  If you want a good swing, think about tossing that pail of water-- or the medicine ball.  To each their own.