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Hints ArchiveJuly 2005December 2005 Tempo and Rhythm Ball striking is usually not the culprit for our high scores, but the short game is the problem. The fine touch around and on the green seems to allude us when we do not incorporate into our practice sessions. Golfers must take the “bull by the horns” and regain that elusive touch. Touch is truly based on Tempo and Rhythm, so here are couple simple drills to heighten your awareness of both. Drill #1- Take a golf ball (or similar object) and put it in your dominant hand. Let it hang at your side and take all tension out of your arm. Now swing your arm back and forth letting gravity provide the acceleration. Now toss the object forward maintaining the “gravity flow” that you have produced. Do this a few times to “get the feel” and notice that the ball has traveled the about the same distance. Do the drill again tossing the ball a bit farther. You should realize that to throw the ball further you should lengthen the swing, not increase the effort. This is the KEY to GREAT TOUCH. Drill #2- Now take your putter, and approximate the same Rhythm as tossing the ball, swinging the putter to and fro. Notice that the handle and the club head are traveling at the same rate. YES! Golf produces a putting tool that emphasizes this feel called the Rhythmizer. It is a putter with an extremely soft shaft that truly gives one the feel of a good rhythmic stroke. Padraig Harrington swears by it and has used it to vault himself to the top of the putting stats. Try these simple drills and I promise your touch and scores will improve. Hole them all and great golfing. By Mr. Doug Wherry,PGA Director of Harold Swash Putting Schools of Excellence USA www.slammersgolf.com Happy New Year (2006) Perspectives on Golf The best definition of Golf is an endless series of tragedies obscured by the occasional miracle, followed by a good bottle of beer. Golf?! You hit down to make the ball go up. You swing left and the ball goes right. The lowest score wins. On top of that, the winner buys the drinks. "I wish I could play my normal game...just once." "Golf is harder than baseball. In golf, you have to play your foul balls." If you find you do not mind playing golf in the rain, the snow, even during a hurricane, here's a valuable tip: your life is in trouble. Golfers who try to make everything perfect before taking the shot rarely make a perfect shot. The term "mulligan" is really a contraction of the phrase "maul it again." We define a "gimme" as an agreement between two golfers ... neither of whom can putt very well. An interesting thing about golf is that no matter how badly you play: it is always possible to get worse. Golf is a hard game to figure. One day you will go out and slice it and shank it, hit into all the traps and miss every green. The next day you go out and for no reason at all, you really stink. I play in the low 80s. If it is any hotter than that, I will not play. If your best shots are the practice swing and the "gimme putt,” you might wish to reconsider this game. Achieving a certain level of success in golf is only important if you can finally enjoy the level you have reached after you have reached it. Golf is the only sport where the most feared opponent is you. Golf is like marriage: If you take yourself too seriously, it will not work … and both are expensive. The best wood in most amateurs' bags is the pencil. To some golfers, the greatest handicap is the ability to add correctly. In golf, some people tend to get confused with all the numbers... they shoot a six, yell fore and write five. Swing easy. Hit hard! If you find yourself pleased that you locate more balls in the rough than you actually have lost, your focus is totally wrong and your personality might not be right for golf ... it is also just a matter of time before the IRS investigates your business. Why is it twice more difficult to hit a ball over water than sand? "The greatest sound in golf is the Woosh, Woosh, Woosh, of your opponent's club as he hurls it across the fairway." ANONYMOUS The Original Rules of Golf When Were the First Rules of Golf Developed? There must have been rules known to golfers dating back to the origins of the game. Otherwise, how could players have squared off in competition? What those rules were, nobody knows. At least not until the mid-18th Century, when the first known written rules of golf were put into writing by the Honorable Company of Edinburgh Golfers. The rules were written for the Annual Challenge for the Edinburgh Silver Club in 1744. There were 13 of them, and here they are (with a few of my explanatory comments in parentheses): 1. You must tee your ball within a club's length of the hole. (Editor: Tee boxes are still one club length in depth.) 2. Your tee must be on the ground. (Ed.: Tees, back in these days, consisted of little pyramids of sand.) 3. You are not to change the ball which you strike off the tee. (Ed.: Look at that - the "one ball condition" way back then!) 4. You are not to remove stones, bones or any break club for the sake of playing your ball, except upon the fair green, and that only within a club's length of the ball. (Ed.: Hmmm, bones?) 5. If your ball comes among water, or any watery filth, you are at liberty to take out your ball and bringing it behind the hazard and teeing it, you may play it with any club and allow your adversary a stroke for so getting out your ball. (Ed.: Origins of the 1-stroke penalty for a water ball.) 6. If your balls be found anywhere touching one another you are to lift the first ball till you play the last. (Ed.: Balls touching each other? Write your own joke.) 7. At holing you are to play your ball honestly at the hole, and not to play upon your adversary's ball, not lying in your way to the hole. (Ed.: Don't do something petty such as trying to hit your opponent's ball with your own.) 8. If you should lose your ball, by its being taken up, or any other way, you are to go back to the spot where you struck last and drop another ball and allow your adversary a stroke for the misfortune. (Ed.: Stroke plus distance.) 9. No man at holing his ball is to be allowed to mark his way to the hole with his club or anything else. 10. If a ball be stopp'd by any person, horse, dog, or any thing else, the ball so stopp'd must be played where it lies. (Ed.: Play it as it lies.) 11. If you draw your club in order to strike and proceed so far in the stroke as to be bringing down your club, if then your club should break in any way, it is to be accounted a stroke. 12. He whose ball lies farthest from the hole is obliged to play first. 13. Neither trench, ditch, or dyke made for the preservation of the links, nor the Scholar's Holes or the soldier's lines shall be accounted a hazard but the ball is to be taken out, teed and play'd with any iron club. (Ed.: The first written rules also include the first local rule.) The Rules of Golf continued to be developed over time, taking a huge step forward in 1897 when the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews formed a Rules Committee. Since 1952, the R&A and the United States Golf Association have met every two years to set down a uniform code of rules. Source: British Golf Museum, Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, and others To A Perfect Putt
I've tried on my own, but there's just no way!
Golf Truism: During a
discussion among the club's membership board at St. Andrews in 1858, one of
the members pointed out that it takes exactly 18 shots to polish off a fifth
of Scotch. By limiting himself to only one shot of Scotch per hole, the Scot
figured a round of golf was finished when the Scotch ran out. Now you know!!
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