Free Advice

I love P.G. Wodehouse's quote.  He said, "I always advise people never to give advice."  If you are looking for advice, there is no subject on earth that has more words devoted to advising others than golf.  Even the worst golfers are inclined to try to help other golfers with words of wisdom.  I can certainly be accused of spending an inordinate amount of time and energy offering advice that I often fail to take myself.  But then, no one ever said that all golfers are inclined to practise what they preach.

Actually, however, there are some golfers who have successfully put into practice what they preach.  They are the great champions.  That is why the majority of the advice I pass along comes not from the famous golf instructors, but rather from the great golf champions.  They are the guys, and gals, who have proved by action that they know whereof they speak.  

All of us want to play our best.  And, whether we always remember it or not, golf is about getting the ball in the hole in the fewest possible number of strokes.  It isn't about looking pretty while doing so.  "The secret of low scores," Bobby Jones said, "is the ability to turn three shots into two."  We see it every time we play.  The days we score well are not necessarily the days when we hit it long and straight.  But they are definitely the days when we made putts and managed to get the ball up and down when we missed greens.

Many people still want to focus on hitting the ball farther.  And some prominent teachers, to the delight of club manufacturers, still promote distance off the tee, and distance in general, as being vital to good golf. The great players, and the teachers who are more interested in helping players improve than selling videos, know and preach that it is the short game that most of us need to be focussed on improving.  As Harvey Penick said, "The short game.  Those are the magic words."

It seems to me that there are two areas where most golfers let themselves down.  The first is off the tee, by just automatically reaching for the driver.  The reality is that many players would hit the ball longer and straighter off the tee with a three wood.  But, if you occasionally tag one, and you've spent four hundred bucks on the latest driver, you want to let the big dog eat as often as you can; even if, as Harvey Penick said, "The woods are full of long drivers."

If you drive the ball reasonably straight, that is an advantage.  If you drive it really long, it's a big advantage; but only if you have a good short game.  It's up to everyone to do a regular post-mortem after they play to see if the driver has helped them or hurt them.  If the driver routinely hurts you, forcing you to take three off the tee, or play your next shot from the trees, it might just be time to listen to what one of the game's greatest drivers of the ball had to say.  Greg Norman advised, "If you can't hit the driver, don't."

The second area where we often let ourselves down is from a hundred yards and in.  That's where the average player really starts to fritter away shots.  Tony Lema recognized this fact when he said, "Heartaches usually begin when you're 50 to 75 yards out from the green.  This is the vale of tears."  From 75 yards and in is where I am sorely deficient.  I know this, and yet I still spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about my full swing, rather than my short game.  Oh well, no one ever accused me of being particularly bright.

This winter, circumstances have made it likely that I will spend most of my time in the north country, snowed under.  That being the case, I intend to spend my time chipping and putting in my man cave.  This may actually help me in the long run.  As my hero, Bobby Jones, said, "The chip is the greatest economist in golf."  

And Bobby Locke is credited with being the first great player to utter the famous words: "You drive for show, and putt for dough."  If I spend some more time and energy on chipping and putting, I just might play some golf when the snow finally melts.

In the meantime, besides chipping and putting, I'll watch the real golfers play in sunnier climes through the magic of the Golfchannel, I'll try and spend some time on the Total Gym, and I'll probably spend lots of time offering up free advice that I am often guilty of not taking myself.  

The Number One Disease in Golf

I have no idea how many golf balls I've hit.  I've made three holes in one. I've made a double eagle.  I've holed out from the fairway, I don't know how many times.

I've shot as low as 65 on a par 72 course, and still am able to shoot par or better when the putter is working.  And yet, I still find myself thinking about how to hit the ball.  And there are many much better players than I who suffer the same affliction.  Why after all the thousands of golf balls I've hit should I still feel compelled to think about how I'm going to hit it, instead of where I want to hit it?  And I am not alone.  This disease affects many, and I'm not sure there's a cure.

I played the other day with Steve and, after tinkering most of the day with my swing, ended up disgusted and discouraged.  I finally said to Steve that I was just going to hit the damned ball.  Sure enough, I played much better.  

"It's like an illness," I said to Steve.  "I can't seem to stop tinkering, and thinking about my swing."

He agreed that it was a ruinous disease, and reminded me of his brother, Bobby, who had started playing with me as a kid.  Bobby became a very good player and eventually found himself suffering from paralysis by analysis as well.  He has apparently cured himself of the affliction and is back to "just hitting it."  I hope Bobby stays cured.  Because, I think the compulsive tinkerer will always be one bad shot away from tinkering again.

The problem with golf is that the ball just sits there.  We have too much time to think, instead of just reacting, as we must do in virtually every other sport where we hit a ball with a stick, or a racquet, or a bat.  As Sam Snead said, "That little white ball is always staring back at you, daring you to make a mistake."

Sam Snead understood the affliction.  Whether he ever suffered from paralysis by analysis himself, I don't know.  Certainly, if he did, he didn't suffer as long, or as often, as so many of us.  Sam said, "Thinking, instead of acting, is the number one disease in golf."

Of course, Sam was absolutely correct, if by thinking, he was talking about swing thoughts.  Golf is a game where we do need to think.  We need to have a strategy for playing the course if we are going to play well.  Golf is a bit like chess in that respect.  But we need to act, or better yet, react.  Once we pick our shot, and our target, we have to stop thinking and act or react to the target.  If we've played the game long enough, we know how to hit the ball.  So why do we not just do it, instead of thinking about how to do it? Why can't we stop thinking about how to hit it and start thinking about where we want to hit it? If I had the answer to that question, I'd probably be able to sell it, and I'd be a much better golfer.

When we're learning the game, we may need to do some thinking about how.  Bobby Jones said that we had to come to understand the golf swing in general, and our own swing in particular.  If we don't develop a basic understanding of the golf swing, and an intimate understanding of our own swing, we will be lost when things inevitably start to go wrong.  Sometimes we must have some swing thoughts.

We have to use our head in golf.  We have to think.  But I like what Bobby Jones said:

"When I think about three things during my swing I'm playing poorly; when I think about two things, I have a chance to shoot par; when I think of only one thing I could win the tournament."

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."