Hogan Clubs

Just for fun, I decided to play with my Hogan Apex blades, old Hogan persimmom woods--driver, three and four woods, and my Bullseye putter.  With the Hogan irons I also used a Cobra Phil Rodgers 56degree wedge that my father had used for years.  The bounce is just about worn off, so it suits me fine.

I played Salt Creek Golf Links near Warkworth, Ontario.  It's a short course--less than five thousand yards.  But it has some very tricky holes, small, domed greens, and fairways lined with evergreen trees.  It's a par 65.  Using my antiquated gear I shot 67, which included me hitting an eight iron out of bounds on a short par three.  Not too bad for an old, fat guy.

Interestingly, I played Salt Creek a few days ago with my modern clubs and shot 72.  The point of all this is that you don't need the modern equipment to play reasonably good golf.  You just need to keep the ball in play and chip and putt reasonably well.  In fact, I may just stick with these old Hogan clubs.  I was no hell with the driver, but the rest of them performed about as well as any of the new stuff I've used.

By the way, I bought all the clubs second hand, except my father's old sand wedge.  I also bought the retro golf bag at a second time around place.  Total cost for the whole set and bag was just under fifty dollars American.  Just goes to show you that golf needn't be that expensive.  It's always second hand clubs for me now.  Actually, I may use these antiques for the rest of my days.  Hogan made great clubs and you really can't beat a Bullseye putter.

Good Riddance

Nike is getting out of the golf equipment business.  It isn't making them enough profit.  Well, as far as I'm concerned, good riddance to them.

Nike rightly recognized that signing Tiger Woods and getting into the golf biz was a good move.  Even handing Tiger forty million for the first five years was, for them, a bargain after Tiger proved his mettle as a pro and dominated the golf world.

Then they threw ten million at Michelle Wie before she'd won anything bigger than a junior tournament.  It might have made them money.  It might have been a bust.  But it convinced me to continue avoiding Nike products like the plague.  Who do you think pays for those huge endorsement deals?  The consumer does.

Nike throwing money around like water just forced the other golf manufacturers to do the same.  Who's paying for it?  We are.  The competition has now become such that every club manufacturer has to keep coming up with a new model club, often reinventing the wheel in the process, and we, the consumers, have lapped it up.  But eventually even golfers perhaps start to get the message.  All those new clubs haven't changed their game a lick, despite all the testimonials by golfers shilling for their sponsors.

As far as Nike and Adidas--and anyone else for that matter--looking to extricate themselves from the golf business goes--good riddance.  They haven't grown the game, they've made it worse in my estimation.  

Grand old courses are being made obsolete because these "entrepreneurs" have made equipment that the top players can use to hit the ball way farther and straighter than the good old days when men were men and the sheep were nervous.  Courses start to get judged by their length instead of their shot value.  And the average golfer just remains average but pays more.  

I may sound like some sort of Trumpian character talking about making golf great again, but golf was better in the old days before golfers only want to play if they can use a motorized cart and listen to the radio.  Golf might be in trouble.  But it isn't in trouble because Nike, or Adidas, or many golf operators have decided it isn't profitable enough.  Golf is in trouble because golf wasn't ever intended to be about profit.

Smoothness and Rhythm

The one thing we can say about all good players, regardless of how they actually swing the golf club, is that they possess excellent timing and rhythm.  Some of golf's greats have swung the club so smoothly, and with such a relaxed, fluid grace that we can't help but admire and wish we could imitate their action.  Granted, others, like Arnold Palmer or Lee Trevino, seem to have swung the club harder and more violently, and might tend to be viewed as hitters more than swingers.  Regardless, all good players must have great timing and rhythm to consistently strike the ball well.

When writing about timing and rhythm in his book Golf is my Game, Bobby Jones provides us with some excellent information that I think is worth remembering. Once again, in Bobby's inimitable way, he stresses what is vital to the golf swing and what is not.  He wrote:

    "Apart from the intention to deliver the blow in a proper way, there is nothing more important to the golf swing than that it should have the qualities of smoothness and rhythm, and I can conceive of no reason why it should not possess both these qualities so long as it is not interfered with by the conscious effort to pass by rote through a series of prescribed positions."

When you consider this opening paragragh in Bobby's chapter called Timing and Rhythm, we see two very important points being made.  The first, and most important, point is that the swing must be made with the intention to deliver the blow in a proper way.  It always comes back to the strike.  Our swing must be made with the definite intent to strike the ball in the correct way to produce the shot we are trying to hit.  Without this intention we are in trouble, because the prettiest, smoothest swing in the world is of no value if it doesn't deliver the club to the ball in the correct way.

The second important point Bobby makes is that thinking about mechanics, or trying to swing by rote, or by the numbers, is the surest way to interfere with our natural timing and rhythm.  It is actually quite amazing what we, as humans, are capable of doing with a bit of practice, provided we are focussed on the right thing.  The surest way to hit a crummy shot is to think about whether or not you are keeping your left arm straight, or whether you are bracing your right knee, or whatever, when you should be thinking about striking the golf ball.  Sounds obvious, but it obviously isn't when you consider what is going through the average player's mind when he's swinging the club.  Often the strike is the last thing on the golfer's mind--particularly if they've just had a lesson or read the latest tip in Golf Digest before they teed it up.

I hate to keep repeating myself, but Bobby Jones was not only one of the greatest players to have ever played this game, he was also, for my money, the greatest teacher of the game--even if he never considered himself one.  If you get the chance, read Bobby's books.  They contain pure golfing gold.

Hair Ball

Playing in South Carolina, I was introduced to the "breakfast ball."  Lots of players agree to a breakfast ball--a Mulligan--on the first tee shot.  It isn't golf, but it has a certain southern charm.  

Yesterday I played with Spiros and Ken at the Bay of Quinte in Belleville.  Spiros drop-kicked his first tee shot into a ditch about sixty yards in front of the tee box.  I told Spiros he was welcome to take a breakfast ball, which he readily accepted.

Ken said, "It shouldn't be called a breakfast ball.  It should be a hair ball."  He then did his best imitation of a cat retching up a hair ball.  I'm not sure Spiros appreciated the connotation, but he took his hair ball and made bogey.

When we were marking the scores at the second tee box, Spiros said, "I made five."

I replied, "Five, with a hair ball."  

Spiros just grimaced.  No more breakfast balls for us.  From now on it's a hair ball.

It Ain't the Fiddle

There has been a concerted effort on the part of golf equipment manufacturers to convince us that, in order to improve, we need to continually upgrade our equipment.  Every year--sometimes perhaps even more often--the big name club makers come up with a new "improved" model guaranteed to have you hitting it longer and straighter.  It has worked, thanks to the touring pros being willing to shill for them and change their equipment for the right price.  

However, despite all the advertising and the money-back guarantees being offered, most golfers still struggle to break 100, or 90.  At least they struggle to do so playing by the rules.  The reason for this is really quite simple.  It ain't the fiddle, it's the fiddler.  Hand me a stradivarius and I can make it sound like a wounded parrot.  Hand a real fiddler a cheap fiddle and they will make it sound good enough that you won't run for the door.  It's the same with golf clubs.

A couple of years ago I had the idea that I might need a new three wood.  So I went to the big golf store and asked the guy at the hitting bays if I could conduct a Pepsi challenge.  I came equipped with four or five of my old three woods--some of them quite ancient--and said I wanted to test them against the new models.  I told him I would purchase yet another three wood if he could provide me with one that made a significant difference.  

Suffice it to say that, after hitting my antiques and the assorted new-and-improved models he brought me, the machine could not provide enough difference for the sales person to even try to sell me a new club.  I hit them all pretty much the same.  In part that is because I'm probably about as good a fiddler as I'm ever going to be, and in part it's because, in my hands at least, the improved equipment doesn't make that much difference.

For the top players, the new improved stuff makes a difference.  In fact it makes such a difference that we keep having to make golf courses longer and longer.  But for the weekend player, he might better stick with his old fiddle.  Unless he has money burning a hole in his pocket, or he just loves the look of the new tools, he might better save his money and spend more time working on his short game.  That's the only way he's going to start shooting lower scores.  Those new PXG's won't do it for him.

Could It Be the Golfing Gods?

I don't know how much talk there has been about golf's top male golfers electing to skip the Rio games.  I haven't heard that much.  But I'm certainly not impressed.  

All the effort to get golf back in the Olympics, and the brightest stars say, "No thanks."  It stinks.  I've certainly lost some respect for these guys, regardless of what excuse they might have used for not going.  

On the heels of this we see another first-time Major champion crowned, and  Rory and DJ missing the cut at the PGA championship, I find myself wondering.  Could the golfing gods be involved?  I'm a great believer in the golfing gods, and I can't help but think they weren't too pleased with the stars who failed to support golf's return to the Olympics.  If you want to grow the game, what better way to do it than make it an Olympic sport?  Have the top players not go, and you have to wonder how long golf will remain an Olympic sport.

Perhaps the golfing gods have decided that those top players are going to have a tough end to their season.  As far as I'm concerned, it would serve them right.  I hope Henrik, Rickie, Bubba, and all the guys that saw the importance of competing in Rio have a great time, give us a great show, and have a great end to the season.  As far as I'm concerned, it would serve them right as well.  Can you imagine Arnie or Jack missing the Olympics?  

You Don't Hit the Ball With Your Backswing

Golf is a simple game that has been made extremely complicated.  Golf involves hitting a ball with a stick towards a target.  It's as simple as that.  Now, while the ball has improved significantly from the days when we used featheries, and the sticks we use are better, the game remains the same.  We are still hitting a ball with a stick towards a target.

So to be the best golfer we can be, we need to be able to pick the right target and then figure out how to hit the ball in such a way that it flies, or rolls, most consistently towards the target. One of the mistakes I think we make when trying to learn the game, particularly as adults, is that we choose as our models world-class players.  If we don't happen to be blessed with tremendous timing, dexterity, strength, and flexibility, our efforts to mimic the swings of these world-class players inevitably falls way short.

In order to hit the ball straight at our target only two things are necessary--actually I guess there are three.  At impact the clubface must be aimed at the target.  The clubface must also be moving towards the target, or along the target line, and we must strike the back of the ball.  That's it.  What happens before or after impact is of little real consequence as long as those three conditions exist.  

Regardless of the differences in the swings of all the best players, they all look pretty much the same at the moment of truth when they are striking the ball.  And yet even at impact the great players might still look slightly different.  What looks the same, however, is what the clubface is doing.  For a straight shot it is moving down the target line, it is aimed at the target, and it is striking the back of the ball.

Now this may sound simple--perhaps even too simple--but it is the truth.  Not every top player holds the club the same way.  Not every top player keeps their left, or lead, arm straight.  In fact, not every top player does anything exactly the same as every other top player except strike the ball.  Because the results, good or bad, are all down to the strike.  

That's why Bobby Jones said that during competition he focussed intensely on the strike.  He trusted his swing to take care of itself.  Bobby, like all golfers, occasionally found himself thinking about his swing.  But he had a very special teacher in Stewart Maiden to occasionally remind him of the simple truth about the game.  He told him things like, "You don't hit the ball with your backswing, laddie."

After being distracted by swing thoughts, I eventually get back to just trying to hammer an imaginary nail right into the back of the ball at the equator, straight down my target line.  When I do my ball-striking instantly improves.  My shots are much straighter.  The ball flight is more piercing.  And I have far fewer fat or thin shots.  This works just as well for chipping and putting.  It's a thought that I've seen work like a charm for others as well.  You just hammer the nail.

Why don't I hammer the nail all the time?  Because It's probably too simple, and because I'm obviously not the sharpest knife in the proverbial drawer.  I eventually get distracted and start thinking about my shoulder turn, or whether I'm bracing my right knee, or whether I'm taking a big enough backswing...  It's not very smart.  But then, no one ever accused me of being smart.