General

Build A Winning Golf Warm Up

One of the biggest differences between recreational players and professionals is the latter’s attention to warming up properly. It’s incredibly common for weekend golfers to show up to the golf course with 15 minutes to spare, check in, hit a couple putts, maybe hit a few balls, and then go to the first tee. This is a big reason why most players need a few holes or even the front nine to feel comfortable. If you want to play better, give the following golf warm up a try and see how much your scores improve.

Giving Yourself Enough Time to Prepare

Even 30 minutes isn’t going to be enough time to ensure that your body is loose and that you have a feel for your touch on and around the green. However, there is also potential trouble if you show up too early and either wear yourself out or spend most of your time at the course lounging around. If you decide to eat before your round at the golf course, give yourself a full 75 minutes after you’ve eaten to warm up; if you eat before you arrive, allow up to 90 minutes just in case there’s a line in the golf shop to get checked in.

It’s All About the Sequence

When it comes to warming up like a professional, the sequence in which you prepare matters as much as what you do. Even the right actions in the wrong order can be detrimental to feeling relaxed and ready to go. The following list is best when done in the order below:

Practice Putt First

Anyone who has spent any time on the practice putting green knows that after about 15 minutes, your back and shoulders can start to get sore, which is the last thing you want to feel before you start your round. By taking care of your practice putting first and finishing with full swings, you’ll be better prepared for the round and limit any potential for stiffness.

Here are the keys to a proper putting warmup:

Your focus should be on getting the speed of the greens dialed in from short, middle, and long range.
Warmups are not the time to work on mechanics. If you have a simple training aid to get a feel for your stroke, that’s great, but try to hit most of your putts like you would during a round.
Keep your putting practice short—no more than 10 minutes. Save your good putts for the golf course!

Stretch

Making any kind of golf swing without stretching can be troublesome. A great article to read on the best stretches is Katherine Roberts’ Golf Tips article, Stroke Saver: Seven Key Stretches. A simple five-minute stretching routine can make all the difference in the world. Once you’ve stretched, you’re ready to move onto chipping.

Short Game Warmup

For the rest of the warmup, you will swing the club in some manner. Getting a feel for your short game will also help your full swing when you head to the range. Start with some basic bump-and-run shots. Then, depending on the course’s short game facility, try some pitch shots from the fairway and rough, as well as some bunker shots. If you just have a chipping green, the bump-and-run alone will help your warmup immensely. Even the best players miss several greens and getting the ball close to the hole from around the greens will save you a ton of strokes over time. Take up to 20 minutes for your short game, which will leave you about 20 minutes for the full swing.

Don’t Overdo It On The Driving Range

The practice tee is where most recreational golfers go awry when it comes to warming up. A typical warm up may look something like the following:

A few wedges
A few irons
A bunch of drivers

A typical round of golf features no more than 14 holes that require a driver, but irons and wedges are needed on every hole. Spend more time hitting wedges and short irons instead of drivers and you’ll quickly notice the difference.

Another area where golfers have counterproductive warmup sessions is the number of range balls they hit. Remember, a round of golf will usually have no more than 35-40 full swings, and you want to save as much energy for the golf course as possible. Limit the number of range balls you use to between 40-50. Here is a sample breakdown of how many balls to use with each club:

Take your sand wedge and hit about 5 half shots, then hit 5 full shots
Grab your favorite short iron and hit 10-15 full shots
With a mid-iron, hit 5-10 full shots
Take your 3-wood and hit 2 off the ground, then 3 off a tee
Hit about 5 drivers, then hit the remaining balls with whatever club you plan to use on the first tee

Don’t Worry About the Little Things

There are two more areas to address regarding the warmup that many amateurs struggle with. First is the tendency to focus on what their warmup shots are doing. While you want to try to hit your range balls as well as possible, your main concern is to get your muscles warmed up and get a feel for your swing. Save the focus on execution for practice sessions. Second is the propensity for players to work on their golf swing during a warm-up. The last thing any golfer should do is have a head full of swing thoughts when they’re about to play. Again, analyzing your swing is something that should be done during practice, not before a round of golf.

Have Fun — Remember You’re Playing Golf

The last five minutes should be spent purging anything from your mind that isn’t about playing golf. Crack jokes with your friends, listen to some soothing music, take in the views of the course, anything to clear your head and be ready for your round. When you stand on the tee, keep the club swinging in your hands and your body moving; once it’s your turn, you will be ready to go.

Follow these steps and you will have warmed up just like the pros!

Paul and Tony Liberatore are the founders of Golfers Authority, where they provide unbiased reviews, guides, tips and advice in order to help other players improve their game. Tony is also the founder and inventor of the Accuhit, one of the most recognized golf training aids in the world. The Accuhit has been recognized by Golfweek, Golf Tips Magazine, Asian Golf Monthly, and many other publications as one of the most cost-effective golf training aids in the market.

Get The Correct Golf Grip

Few aspects of the golf swing hold more fascination for struggling club golfers than how to achieve the correct golf grip.

Swing plane, pronation, supination, re-routing, downswing transition, leg drive, and hip resistance on the backswing are some of the more elaborate theories investigated by golfers who habitually slice or hook. Yet more often than not the real cause of wayward shots lies in the way a golfer places his hands on the club. So, before you start making extreme changes to swing mechanics, you should first simplify the golf swing technique by making sure the grip is correct. Following are three of the most important aspects of the grip that affect the takeaway, swing path, plane, and control.

Correct Golf Grip Golden Rules and Tips

The ‘V’s created by the index finger and the thumb of the left and right hands must point to the right shoulder.

Although this is extremely well known, it’s surprising how many golfers have trouble achieving this orthodox hand position. A golfer who slices normally has a weak grip where the left hand is too much underneath the shaft. If you slice, the first thing you should check is that the left hand is turned more to the right, with three knuckles visible after taking up the stance.

Conversely, a golfer who hooks should check that the left hand is not in a “strong” position where it is turned to the right too much.

How the Grip Affects Golf Swing Plane Mechanics

The path of the golf swing takeaway is directly affected by the grip. If the left hand is twisted round to the right too much in a ‘strong’ grip, it generally sets the left arm higher than the right – this leads to a swing path that is too inside and a swing plane that is too flat, which results in a hook. If the golfer’s left hand is on the club in a “weak” position, the right arm is set higher than the left at the address which leads to an outside swing path, a steep swing plane and invariably a slice. Although you may know that you swing the club too flat or upright, before you try to swing onto a more effective plane, check that the hands are placed on the club in a neutral grip.

The Grip Right Thumb and Index Finger Position

correct golf grip 2 — Photo: www.pixabay.com

Topping the ball is a very common fault. In many cases it can be cured with the correct placement of the right thumb and index finger on the club of the right hand. As the club comes into impact the index finger of the right hand is responsible for accurately squaring up the blade and must be in the most efficient position to guide the club. The thumb is responsible for driving the clubhead down into the ball. It is vital for the thumb to be set on the left-hand side of the shaft — not on top of the shaft, which may seem logical but is wrong.

Backswing Control and the Long Left Thumb

One of the most common causes of mis-hit shots is the loss of control at the top of the backswing. An overswing means a loss of control but with good placement of the left-hand thumb on the club, unless double jointed, an overswing becomes almost impossible.

correct golf grip 3 — Photo: www.pixabay.com

When taking up the grip, allow the left thumb to sit naturally on the club and not stuck down the shaft, which creates an ugly gap between the thumb and index finger. With the thumb in this position, it is much more capable of controlling the downswing transition, when leverage is at its maximum.

Brian Jame is editor of lasergolfrangefinder.com

Making Golf Goals That Are Realistic

Is my child good enough to play in tournaments?” That’s a very common question that I get on a weekly basis. I usually follow the parent’s question with one of my own: “What does your child want to do?” And that means making golf goals that are realistic for everyone.

It is very important to talk with your child first and get their perspective on things. Supporting how he or she feels is the number one priority. Pushing your child to be in a situation he is not ready or not willing to be in can result in both a negative outcome and an unreliable relationship between you and your child. She looks to you for support and guidance first. In order for children to feel ready and comfortable to play, they need to understand some basics of course management, setting their personal par, and keeping statistics to monitor in real time their weak-nesses and tendencies.

With so many development tours designed for the youth, there are plenty of options to introduce and expose your child to the tournament world. It’s a different experience than just playing with their friends or family. Pressure mounts and with pressure, any flaw in the mechanics or planning will be exaggerated.

THE VALUE OF STATS

To start recognizing the strengths and weaknesses, teach them to keep statistics. You can start off with simple categories such as fairways hit, total putts, and how many left and right shots. This will give you some idea on direction control, putting priority, and diving accuracy. From there you can evolve as they do. With my higher-level students in high school and college we break down a round of golf into as many as 50 categories. We then monitor them in a graphing program like Excel and start showing graphs based on percentages and averages. This makes it very easy for them to then utilize their practice time according to their weaknesses. It will also show them that when they track and apply, results happen, both good and bad. I am a little old school in my approach and prefer to keep things by hand and input them manually, but today there are plenty of programs that do most of the work for you using GPS and club attachments. So, all you do is play a round of golf and the application or program will produce all those statistics for you. It is much easier, but to me less involved for the student. Do it the old way!

COURSE MANAGEMENT

Once you get your statistics leveled out, next comes course management. In my academy I teach students to play the hole from the pin position back to the tee — to think about the entire hole and where to they want to be at any given time. Using the statistics that showed their strengths, they then can plan around those strengths. Nothing irks me more than when I see one of my students just grab a club and swing without any planning or thought. I have seen some interesting choices, and most high scores are made because of mental mistakes. Start keeping track of mental or physical mistakes. If the mistake costs you a stroke, then that mistake needs to be addressed.

Most golfers make more mental mis-takes than physical ones. You can play a solid round of golf with just a 6 iron. It will force you to think and limit your damages by utilizing that club’s full potential. Most young golfers need only five or six clubs max. They can actually play better with fewer clubs as it will limit a lot of the guesswork — and you will start to feel more confident in them.

Course management is an art form, and 90 percent of juniors have hardly any such skills. Before the start of a tournament, far too often I see parents with their child on the driving range, hitting 200 balls and working on swing mechanics — tiring the child out and confusing them rather than discussing a game plan. Most damage is caused by the parents who quite honestly can’t play golf themselves or understand what it takes to play good golf. Please seek the help of a reputable PGA instructor, and trust in what they do.

PERSONAL PAR

Finally, after all the statistic-taking and working on course management, comes the par system. To me par is the worst enemy. I am not a huge fan of par, but do understand we need it for handicapping purposes. Personally I feel the handicap system is flawed, but the “pope of slope” Dean Knuth did his best in preserving a way to handicap our golfers to have a good, competitive match between them. In reality we are asking our golfers to bowl a perfect score of 300. If your standard in bowling was 300 every game, and you kept bowling a 150, you would think you are horrible. In all reality 150 is a respectable score. In golf, don’t even look at the course par, rating, or slope. Start to set you own personal par. Juniors and parents need to realize they have their own person par in them. When they first start maybe it will be double par. If they come to a par 5, play their par as a 10. It takes a lot of pressure off of them, and they now realize they can take shorter controlled shots instead of swinging a longer, harder club, which it easier to miss. When you swing a club that is easier to miss and has a bigger discrepancy, the result includes producing higher scores while decreasing confidence — and the understanding of scoring.

I hope you have enjoyed this series on the introduction and guidance of junior golfers. The things that I mentioned in all of the articles have been based on what I have seen and experienced over the years. Good junior programs exist in most cities, so I encourage you to contact them. Seek an academy with a big base, open approaches, and one that creates a community. Communities support each other, and it is important to involve your student in both academy classes, development tournaments, and if need be private classes. Feel free to contact me or my staff and we can also help you find a good academy in your city. I hope you have gained a little more insight to junior development.

Tony Brooks is a PGA Master Professional and owner of Lion Golf Academy in Diamond Bar, California. Reach him at www.liongolfacademy.com. Explore Tony’s “Teach Them Young” series here.

How To Keep Golf Fun And ‘Real’

In past columns we have covered how to work and grow with your child’s ability, strategies to help them achieve goals, and making sure we keep it fun. This time, let’s discuss how we can put it all together, keep golf fun and real, and recognize when you as a parent have overstepped your boundaries.

PLAY VS. PRACTICE

First things first: I get this question a lot from parents — “when should they play, and when should they practice?”

To answer that question, we need to think about what they consider playing or practicing. A lot of times I see students practicing on the golf course, and playing on the range, or vice-versa. I think it comes down to the concentration, ability, and level of the student. A six-year-old would rather play more, keep it fun, and slowly adapt as they get older. A 16-year-old may look at it differently and focus on practicing more than playing. The bottom line is you can play or practice on either the golf course or range but learning how to play the game is the difference.

Learning how to score is an art form. Some are born with that instinct to take advantage of golf course weaknesses, and others take a long time to learn it. Start them young with understanding how to take advantage of hole weaknesses by taking them out to the course and asking them, “Where is the weakness of this hole?”

In Photo 1 you can see me asking my students just this question. We start at the green and work backwards in our minds. After we talk about a strategy, we may change clubs, so we discuss the options as you can see in Photo 2. I get my students to talk to each other independently as teams of two (Photo 3) and then discuss what they will do together. Usually the teams have very different approaches then each other. It is a great way to expand your mind. I usually find that artistic students are great scorers because they have the imagination. Linear students have a hard time because they let the course architect guide them. Remember we are playing a course architect’s mind that is anywhere from brand new to hundreds of years old. I find that fascinating.

KEEP COMMUNICATING

Bottom line is talk to your child; it will always come down to the goal of the student in question. Are they good enough to have to practice religiously to get to a school or college team? Are they unrealistic in their goals? These are the types of things that you as parents should be considering.

Knowing how to practice is important as well. I see far too many times the failure of communication from coaches to their students (of any age) HOW to practice. Many students turn into driving range pros where they are able to hit the ball nicely on the range, but once they step foot on a golf course they collapse. They have not been taught the art form of the game; sadly this is the case for many juniors. We are so worked up on d-plane, spin rate, stats, cause and effect, and looking perfect, that we forget the vision and art form required to SCORE in this game. A caddy once told me years ago, “It is not a postcard, it’s a scorecard.”

This has stuck with me for a long time. Think about that one. I don’t care how pretty your swing is, or effective you may think it is, golf is about adapting to unique situations that require a different approach, finding a way to get the ball into the hole, and that sometimes the situations are so different that without the ability to adapt, the student collapses.

My next subject is a touchy one: Dealing with parents who are overbearing and pressure their children, making things worse. Most of the time your child is trying to please you; regardless, if you add pressure and get mad if they miss a shot, or putt, it cannot free them up to make the mistake naturally and learn how to recover. The funny thing is that most of the parents I see who have this negative attitude with their children can’t even hit a ball, yet expect their child to be perfect in an imperfect game. Let me shed some light on parents who are reading this. Hopefully you don’t shout at your child for missing putts, but if you do, please read these stats and realize that the odds of any student reaching college level golf is hard enough, let alone becoming a tour pro. That is almost impossible.

Your child has a 2/100 chance of being a standout golfer in High School. (Here come the college recruits)
Your child has a .002/100 chance of being a standout in college. (Here comes a possibility of the tour)
Your child has a 0.00000375 percent chance of playing on a tour at a level where it is a successful job.

I think the odds of becoming the U.S. President is only slightly worse. Would you yell at your child for not becoming the President of the U.S. every chance you get? Probably not, or at least I would hope not. Why put so much pressure on them at the youth level? The game of golf is here to help us get a head start in life and learn how to use the secrets of the game of golf to our advantage for life. Not to mentally abuse your child and put them further away from you and the treasures of the game.

In conclusion, be nice to your child and allow them to make mistakes. If they are not learning from their mistakes, that may be a different issue entirely. Work with your local PGA profes-sional, as the PGA is one of the oldest associations in the game and every PGA professional with that PGA logo has gone through years of training and hands-on experience to tackle these issues.

Until next time … for our final issue:

Course management
Drills to help everyone get their personal par
Should your child play tournaments?
Keeping statistics to grow (both for juniors and adults)

Tony Brooks is a PGA Master Professional and owner of Lion Golf Academy in Diamond Bar, California. Reach him at www.liongolfacademy.com

The Most Important Golf Lesson

An Important Golf Lesson-Grout and Nicklaus

Editor’s Note: Following is The Most Important Golf Lesson, the second of several planned excerpts from A Wonderful Run at Life: The Stories of Pandel Savic, published in 2016 by Orange Frazar Press. An immigrant from Macedonia and star quarterback for the Ohio State Buckeyes who led them to their first Rose Bowl victory in 1949, Pandel is the 30- year chairman of The Memorial Tournament and is well known throughout PGA and USGA circles. The Savic and Jack Nicklaus families lives have been intertwined for decades. According to Nicklaus, Pandel has taken more lessons of any human being in the history of the game, perhaps over 10,000. Many of those lessons came from the greatest teachers and players of the game … Hogan, Nelson, Grout, Leadbetter, Flick, and of course Jack himself.

I was becoming a pretty good golfer. I took more lessons from Jack Grout. I played every chance I could sneak in a round. Mr. Grout would meet me at the OSU course very early on Saturdays, something like eight o’clock. He didn’t want me to move on to other fundamentals until I was good with the first three. It cost me something like ten bucks a lesson.

When he thought I understood and applied the first three fundamentals to my swing, he started on his other three.

“Now it’s time for a little footwork instruction, Pandel.”

“Sure.” I was hitting the ball better than I ever had and really didn’t want to think about my feet.

“Set up for me again.” I did.

“What I’m talking about now is rolling your ankles while keeping your knees in position. It promotes a full swing.”

“I’ll try it, Mr. Grout.”

He took a couple of swings demonstrating his footwork philosophy. As I remember it, legendary Coach Robert Kepler of the OSU golf team was standing behind us. I remember the oak trees swaying in the summer wind.

I did what Mr. Grout told me to do. It was difficult at first, clumsy even. He watched me for a while, encouraged me to keep at it, and then left for his commitments at Scioto.

Coach Kepler and I had a nice chat, mostly about what I thought of the Buckeye football team that was close to starting their pre-season training.

Later that afternoon, after my round at Scarlet with my pals where I tried out the new ideas on the course, a good-looking young man ran out to the practice range and told me Mr. Grout was on the phone. My teacher wanted to know if I could drive over to Scioto and spend a few minutes on the range with him. He said it was okay with the club manager and the club’s professional so I agreed immediately. I’d never imagined a day with a lesson, play, and then a lesson again. Though I didn’t know it at the time, I would have many more days like that one.

When I got to Scioto, Mr. Grout was showing a boy of about ten years old how to hit from the practice sand bunker. Mr. Grout gave me a wave, the kind that says he’d be with me in a few minutes.

That lesson with Jack Grout was the most important lesson I ever had. It consisted of a quick review of how I was doing with his first four fundamentals. I hit about thirty balls for him and it seemed he approved of my progress.

“Now let’s talk about two other things,” he said. “I’m all ears.”

Jack and Jack Grout. Courtesy Jack Nicklaus Museum at Ohio State.

“The next thing I want you to concentrate on is the fact that you need to have ‘full extension in your swing arc,’ the widest and longest you can make it while your arm is still fully connected to your shoulder and upper body.”

“Okay. I’ll try that.”

I took a few practice swings and got the feel for the idea. My first couple of swings were just okay. I lifted my head on one so that didn’t count in my mind. The connected full arc idea clicked on the next twenty swings and each one felt perfect. It indeed was the most important golf lesson I’d taken to date.

“Now, for one more thought.”

I listened and watched while he demonstrated what he called ‘quiet hands’ from the top, from the very start of the downswing.

After another fifteen minutes of reviewing all I’d learned from him, he said I would have to use the fundamentals I’d learned from him to make corrections on the golf course. He said all the great players were able to do just that.

“I’ll work with you any time you like,” said Mr. Grout.

Next: Business-Card Golf Wisdom

Donald Holmes Lewis is an author and son-in-law of Pandel Savic. He has an MFA in Creative Writing from the Iowa Writers Workshop

Six-Spoke Series No. 6: Simple Technique

Editor’s Note: Following is the sixth and final instruction piece in digest form from Top 30 instructor Tom Patri’s 2005 book, The Six-Spoke Approach to Golf. Tom is one of the most respected teachers and coaches in the game, and we’re honored to add his deep passion and knowledge to Golf Tips.

Looking back at my book Six-Spoke Approach, which was published in another century, the thing I’m most proud of is that it has stood the test of time. You see, fundamentals tend to do just that: they are both constant and lasting.

If you ever have the opportunity to acquire and read The Six-Spoke Approach, what will ring true about Spoke Six is that it may come across as a bit “old school” in a modern world of instant gratification. Good, sound fundamentals and getting a bit dirty by digging answers out of the ground through the sweat and blood of hours upon hours of repetitive movements will never be a mindset I’ll apologize for as a coach.

I say often to my most dedicated student I’m a coach, not a crutch. Practice doesn’t make perfect, perfect practice does, and plenty of it.

After 36 years of standing on the lesson tee with over 50,000 lesson hours under my belt, I believe more now than ever that 99 percent of all swing ills can be traced back to the setup (I like to call it The Launching Pad). I feel strongly that a miscued ball fight and most swing faults are in fact the effect, that within the setup lies the answer — i.e., the cause.

A bad grip, a bad ball position, poor alinement, poor spacing: all can cause a major golf swing malfunction. If I were to change one thing about Spoke 6 today, I would be much more aggressive about preaching setup, setup, setup!

When I walk down the practice tee at LPGA, a Web.com, a PGA or Champions tour events, I almost always see players with an alignment stick, umbrella, or club shaft on the ground working on their alinement. When I walk down the tee line at any of the three clubs I teach at, I rarely see an alignment aid on the ground. The best players in the world think they need to continually work on the fundamental of alignment. The club member rarely understands the vital impact of that long-standing fundamental.

I will never stop preaching fundamental compliance. I tell all my regular students that if, during any hour session, I don’t coach some aspect of the setup, fire me!

During any golf lesson, as the session begins before your coach gets rolling, ask he or she first to please check all aspects of your setup condition. Bill Strausbaugh Jr. one of golf’s all time great fundamentalists (former PGA National Teacher of the Year) used to often say to me “from tiny acorns giant oak trees grow.”

Spoke Six is also a collection of a great drills and “how-tos.“ I’ll repeat another Strausbaugh Jr. pearl: “I may bore you, but I’ll never confuse you.” From that I often tell my students the No. 1 trait of all great players is that they are boring. Confused? Don’t be. By “boring” I mean they do the exact same thing over and over again.

In closing, please go on a mission to build a rock-solid set of fundamentals.

I would like to thank all the loyal readers of Golf Tips. I have received so many wonderful e-mails full of kind words. Thank you again. I hope my Six-Spoke Approach can become your blueprint for success — that you will use it as a fundamental reference manual.

Though this special Golf Tips series winds up, I’ll stick around. Please tune in each issue for more articles from yours truly.

Spoke 1: The Body

Spoke 2: The Mind

Spoke 3: Analysis

Spoke 4: Time Management

Spoke 5: Club Fitting

Tom Patri is founder of TP Golf. He teaches at The Esplanade in Naples, Florida. He also spends limited time both on Long Island, New York and Maryland from June to October. View his teaching and coaching bio at www.tompatri.com and reach him directly at tpatri@mindspring.com or (239) 404-7790

The Six-Spoke Approach: Analysis With Perspective

Long before I wrote the Six Spoke Approach, long before I met Peter Sanders who turned me onto Shotbyshot.com, I had a gentlemen in my life who taught me the importance of monitoring my “real stats” and what they meant. His name was Charley Matlock, my coach at Florida Southern College.

Sadly, as I write this we are just a few weeks removed from my old coach and dear friend passing away. I’d like to dedicate this month’s article to the life of Charley Matlock. Charley loved the game of golf and loved coaching it as only he could. He was an old school stat freak. What I mean by that is that Charley wasn’t a computer excel spreadsheet or stat program guy. Charley was a paper spreadsheet and pencil and hand-held calculator guy.

Charley didn’t force guys to record stats, but if you wanted to keep an eye on your numbers and would fill in a stat sheet, he would transfer them to his spreadsheet and share the running averages with you. This allowed you a focus you time to a more structured and directed practice sessions. I took my stat numbers to heart and they drove my practice time. Charley instilled in me that players are not good at looking at their own games without prejudice . People lie, numbers don’t.

After school, as I continued to compete, as a professional, I continued to track my stats myself on paper, by pencil, as Charley did. I have to tell you I enjoyed watching the numbers in specific categories evolve.

After my playing career ended and I began to teach and coach, I was blessed to coach one particular LPGA Tour player — Missie Berteotti. Missie was a wonderful student who had great passion for the learning process. It’s no wonder today that she does a wonderful job teaching and coaching in the greater Pittsburgh area herself. It was Missie who introduced me to Mr. Peter Sanders, founder and wwner of in my opinion the greatest stat program on the planet, ShotByShot.com.

Peter is yet another person who blessed my journey, opened my eyes and educated me as to both the truths and lies stats can present. Peter’s program is stand-alone awesome. However, it becomes more valuable in the fact that when you call ShotByShot with a question or concern, 99 percent of the time Peter himself answers the phone and loves to talk golf stats!

Here it is, plain and simple. ShotByShot did certain things for me from day one.

ShotByShot told me the truth.
ShotByShot allowed me in many ways to plan my lesson time with greater efficiency for my students.
ShotByShot kept myself and my students on point. It kept us focused on specific goals (weaknesses ) as the numbers related to exact areas in each student’s golf game.

Please feel free to check out ShotByShot.com. You’ll be glad you did. Tell Peter that TP sent you .

•••

As my knowledge of the importance and accuracy of a well-designed stat program grew, I insisted that my competitive and recreational players kept stats during their rounds. I also counseled with my players and insisted they stat their rounds and share them with me on a bi- weekly basis. This kept us connected and allowed me to better evaluate their chances to score based on the ShotByShot.com feedback — and the student’s desire to excel.

Stats are the brick and mortar that hold together your golf journey.

Stats — the “real numbers” — should open the student’s eyes as to what in fact (not opinion) is occurring during their golf journey. It allows the student to efficiently dedicate valuable time to the weakest link .

Allow me to make one very important closing comment. I’m a big believer in stats. Please strongly consider employing an accurate and efficient stat program to guide your journey. Use the program to structure your practice sessions and always remember that numbers don’t lie! That said, never sacrifice a chance to capture data that will help direct your golf journey .

Best of luck on the rest of your journey.

Spoke 1: The Body

Spoke 2: The Mind

Spoke 4: Time Management

Spoke 5: Club Fitting

Spoke 6: Simple Technique

Tom Patri is founder of TP Golf. He teaches at The Esplanade in Naples, Florida. He also spends limited time both on Long Island, NY and Maryland June-October. View his teaching and coaching bio at www.tompatri.com and reach him directly at tpatri@mindspring.com or (239) 404-7790

Editor’s Note: This is the third of six in-depth instruction pieces in digest form from Top 30 Instructor Tom Patri’s 2005 book, The Six-Spoke Approach to Golf. Tom is one of the most-respected teachers and coaches in the game, and we’re honored to add his deep passion and knowledge to Golf Tips.

Taste A Better Game At French Lick

french lick golf packages - Donald Ross Course

French Lick Resort in southern Indiana has been a golf destination where legends and champions have played since 1917. Now you can improve your game and experience the same shots and walk the same fairways as the legends by booking one of the resorts 2016 golf academy packages.

For golfers looking for game improvement or who are in need of a quick fix with the golf swing or short game, then make sure to check out the French Lick Golf Academy where the resorts highly acclaimed teaching professionals will guide you down a path to shooting lower scores through the following academy options:

French Lick Game Changer Golf Academy – Golfers who attend this three-day, three-night “Game Changer” academy will receive personalized golf instruction covering all aspects of the game including full-swing, short game, as well as on course management. French Lick’s leading golf instructors, with a 4:1 student ratio, will provide computerized swing analysis with the games leading technology as well as custom club fitting through the Taylor-Made fitting system.

In addition, academy guests will enjoy the resorts world-class amenities including lodging at the historic West Baden Springs or French Lick Springs hotels, unlimited golf on the historic Donald Ross course, as well as premier dining and spa experiences. Academy package price starts at $919.

The Rapid Repair Golf Academy – For golfers looking to knock the rust off the golf swing after a long winter, then make sure to check out the “Rapid Repair” academy. This flexible golf academy will allow you to work with the resorts leading golf instructors and fix what you want in one day. Whether it’s a full-swing issue with the driver or irons, short game, or putting, this academy will provide the resources and get you ready to play your best golf.

The one-day, one-night academy features lodging in the historic French Lick Springs hotel, four-hours of instruction utilizing the games leading technology, golf on either the Valley Links or historic Donald Ross course, as well as premier dining and spa experiences. Academy package price starts at $435.

Whether it’s improving your entire game or a quick fix, the French Lick Golf Academy will guide you through the process.
www.frenchlick.com/golf/package

Florida’s PGA Center Offers Great Winter Rates

The PGA Center for Golf Learning and Performance (CLP) at PGA Village in south Florida has unveiled a new Season Access Pass at savings of up to 60% off standard rates.

Owned and operated by the PGA of America, the CLP is an innovative, performance-enhancing golf facility featuring more than 100 full-swing practice stations, a world-class fitness and performance center, multiple pitching and chipping areas, 7,000 square feet of USGA-certified putting greens and a three-hole teaching course.

Valid from Jan. 1 to March 31, the Season Access Pass grants guests unlimited use of the 35-acre property.

The Season Access Pass is ideal for snowbirds and other part-time residents who flock to the Sunshine State during the winter months, says Jeremy Wiernasz, PGA Director of Golf Operations. Conveniently located near I-95 and the Florida Turnpike, the CLP is the place to practice in south Florida.

Also in time for the holidays, the CLP pro shop is offering a $20 Bonus gift card for every $100 gift card purchased. Available for a limited time and good for purchases of all instructional programs, merchandise, equipment, club fittings and more, the cards are perfect holiday stocking stuffers. Cards may be purchased here.

Nearby PGA Golf Club boasts 72 holes of championship golf (Wanamaker, Dye, Ryder and St. Lucie Trails golf courses), as well as a new 20,000-square-foot clubhouse enhanced and expanded by Tom Hoch Design. The state-of-the-art centerpiece includes a completely revamped and modern golf shop; the American-British fusion Taplow Pub featuring a cozy, welcoming interior with cutting-edge audio / video components; and NINETEEN-SIXTEEN Bar & Grille, a members-only restaurant adjacent to the 18th Hole of the Wanamaker Course.

Additionally, the PGA has relocated notable trophies and artifacts tracing its nearly 100 years to the new PGA Gallery area of the clubhouse. The display of major championship trophies of golf includes the PGA Championship’s original Wanamaker Trophy. The Senior PGA Championship’s Alfred S. Bourne Trophy and the Vardon Trophy, with its iconic overlapped hands sculpture, are also prominently displayed.

For more information about the PGA of America, visit PGA.org. For more information about the PGA Center for Golf Learning and Performance visit www.pgalearningcenter.com, 772.468.7686.

The Annika Way

Annika Sorenstam never does anything halfway. She’s all in, all the time. Seven years after sinking her last competitive putt on the LPGA Tour, she remains one of the biggest and most respected names in golf, overseeing a growing business empire that encompasses everything from apparel to wine, course design to financial planning. She’s also a wife and mom, and in every area of her busy life, she’s as focused, balanced and hard-working as she was during a professional golf career that puts her among the best female players ever: Eighty-nine victories worldwide, 72 on the LPGA Tour, 10 majors, eight Rolex Player of the Year awards, six Vare Trophies for low scoring average and more than $22 million in winnings. Impressive indeed.

Winning is the Annika way, the only way. Luckily for golfers who aspire to her level of excellence, she and a top-notch crew of teachers – including her sister and fellow LPGA veteran Charlotta, longtime personal coach Henri Reis and fitness trainer Kai Fusser – have distilled the essence of her formula for success into the Annika Academy, a boutique golf school based in Orlando, Florida, with several satellite schools slated throughout the year in places like Lake Tahoe, Chicago and South Carolina. None of its four levels of three-day sessions (an abbreviated one-or two-day visit is also available) accepts more than eight students at a time, with no more than four students per instructor. So if Annika herself is onsite, you just might get a personal lesson from the only woman to fire 59 in tour competition.

I’ve learned how to balance my life, she told Golf Tips during a recent late-summer break. I spend time there October through April, at least a day a week, either with guests or with our team. In the summer it’s more sporadic, since they go on the road and I’m involved in some and some I’m not. It’s all about making the most of it while I’m there. It’s something we’re very proud of.

It all came about in 2007, as she was preparing to hang up her LPGA battle spikes. The background is I worked with Henri Reis, my swing and workout coach, and we enjoyed working together, and thought, ‘Why not share our philosophy with other golfers who want to reach their potential. We have a model here.’ My role would be to play golf with them, talk about the mental aspect of the game, have lunch and share stories. That’s what our brainstorming session was all about.

Annika, Charlotta and Reis set to work coming up with a framework that would turn the quest for better golf into much more than a series of mechanical, time-tested lessons that some more traditional golf schools might stick with. They help guests develop not just better play and practice habits, but a new life plan they can follow in their own way and take back to share with family, friends and fellow golfers.

To be a good golfer you have to do more than hit a 7-iron and make a putt, Annika says. Clubfitting is important, course management, nutrition, the mental aspect – it’s a holistic approach in a boutique-type setting. I’ve traveled around the world to some beautiful places, and these are things that I like – I want it to be private, personal, and feel like it’s me. We have my trophies, my coaches. It’s like a second home. That’s how we all started.

Adds Charlotta, who runs the academy’s day-to-day operations, We don’t just teach golf, but fitness as well. One lady lost over 100 pounds, and has stayed there, so that’s pretty cool. It’s not only changing golf swings, but changing lives and attitudes about life – living healthy and to the fullest. Of course there’s handicaps lowered, club championships won or tour qualifyings one, making it on the LPGA and so forth. Most academies have that. But I love it when you change somebody’s attitude about training, attitudes, fitness.

A successful player on the LPGA and European Tours in her own right, Charlotta has been part of the academy from day one. She remains in charge of all programming for the Orlando school and takes part in most road academies as well. Nearly a decade running the school has led her to a new appreciation of what it takes to be an effective teacher and, more importantly, learner.

Like most instructors will say, it’s all about the fundamentals, but also trying to make it basic – explain it in a way that you understand it yourself. I’ve been a student, I know how it is to stand there and listen, but also to perform at the same time. It’s also important to be able to modify the lesson to the student – their learning ability or capabilities, but also the time frame you have. It’s about being able to adapt to the student. Not everyone will react the same way or sync the same way. That’s the tough part about being an instructor.

All Annika Academy instructors have access to a litany of key drills that, through trial and error, can be geared to each individual guest’s tendencies and needs, how they process information and synthesize it into something that will guide them into the future in a productive way. It’s personal, and that’s the point. We want it to be personal, Annika says. If you have eight, you can divide them into two groups. Four will get a quick fitness session, the other goes to the range to learn the basics, then we switch. Then one group will do chipping, the other putting. Then the next two days we go on the golf course, four and four.

A big highlight of the Annika Academy’s top-of-the-line three-day tour, aptly named the Soren-Slam, is nine holes of golf, lunch and a clinic with the Hall of Famer herself; with the Major it’s a clinic and lunch, and the Platinum offers lunch only with her. The most popular program is Championship, which features Annika’s team of instructors. Whatever program a guest chooses, he or she – it’s about a 50-50 male-female split these days, Charlotta reckons – will get a brand of instruction they can’t get anywhere else.

What I offer is a big part of it, Annika says of the higher-end options, but my coaches help me. I’ve been with Henri since I was 16, Kai for 15 years now, and there’s my sister. It’s a close-knit family with a passion for what we have. A lot of schools have bigger programs as far as more people, but they might not have all the components we have, such as clubfitting and nutrition. When we started nobody offered fitness as part of their golf schools seven years ago. Some focused on short game and other lessons. We do all of those things, then take them on the course and discuss course management, and we do it in a boutique setting. And another unique thing is we take it on the road. That makes it fun.

Before folks even arrive in Orlando or wherever road stop the choose, they fill Annika’s team in on where their games stand, and where they can stand to improve. The biggest want: Length off the tee. No big surprise there.

They want distance. We send out a form – their golf today, how much they practice – so we can set up their expectations, too. How long they’ve played, injuries, their goals. Distance is the main goal, consistency is another. Some are more specific, such as bump-and-run. But they want more distance, especially women. When we get to 50 or 60, we lose muscle mass, and it seems like all clubs go to the same distance. That’s why clubfitting is important. We see a lot of women who just inherit their husbands’ old clubs, and they’re too heavy, the grips are too thick, so they just swing with their arms.I t’s hard to get any leverage or rotation. We work on getting the right clubs in their hands.

We also work on getting the right grip. So many people grip the club in their hands rather than their fingers, so they can’t hinge in the backswing. We get them to relax to generate that power. That happens with 50 percent of their guests or more. A lot of it is, the longer you want to hit, the more you use your arms, and there’s less rotation – so it goes shorter and shorter, and you get madder.

The deep desire for distance among students, men and women, won’t abate anytime soon. That doesn’t stop Annika, Charlotta and the entire teaching from working hard to leave everyone with a more fulfilling, well-rounded game to take home and keep honing throughout their lives. And that includes the oft-overlooked short game, especially putting. Annika won a lot of money and hardware with the flatstick, and she makes sure her guests know it.

Overall, people spend so much more time on the range than on their short game. They want to see long, big hits, then head for the first tee. Most don’t know the speed of the greens when they go out. They haven’t had a chance to make a putt. And they focus too much on line, and not enough on speed. I play in a lot of pro-ams, and we say, ‘Oh, there’s this break here, it’s a ball right,’ and then they hit it 10 feet by. That’s why speed is so important. People three-putt because they hit it halfway or too far past. If you can get it in tap range, you don’t have to spend so much energy on three-footers. That’s a lot of energy over 18 holes. Technique is important, but if you don’t have feel on the greens, it doesn’t matter.

In the end, what does matter in an effective golf school is giving people the tools and attitude to put golf in its proper perspective – as a lifelong pursuit powered by passion, joy and friendship. We have a slogan: ‘Friends for Life,’ says Charlotta. We stay in contact them with them, and them with us.

And like any good teachers, the Sorenstam sisters keep learning, too. I have learned that it takes time, for anybody, Annika says. It’s really a complex game, so we try to simplify it as much as possible, stay to the fundamentals. It’s not until you become a single digit that you start talking about clubhead speed, ball speed – people are too technical. Just focus on the basics. Because it is a hard game. I’ve been playing since I was a little girl, and I’ve learned some things, but this is a hobby for people. They don’t do this for a living. Focus on your strengths and don’t see all the negatives.
Play simple golf.

www.theannikaacademy.com

For a look at Annika’s favorite drills and the Sorenstam sisters’ philosophy on golf, pick up the Winter issue of Golf Tips magazine at your local Barnes & Noble, or subscribe here.