Improving Your Performance in Any Golfing Course in Tristate

 

Though it does look simple and easy on the outside, any experienced golfer will tell you golf is exactly the opposite of those. Requiring a steady hand and a keen eye, golf is best experienced whenever you let the ball fly to its intended target at all times. The question is: how can you improve on your performance in the fields? Below are a few tips to remember.

Body Position

The right posture can determine whether the shot you will take will be an on-target hit or a very frustrating miss. The key to a right posture lies in putting the body in a position where it moves with every shot. Make sure that your legs are wide apart and parallel to your shoulders to give your entire body the stability it needs. Next, keep your knees slightly bent and your back straight. This will help the body shift its weight forward as the club makes contact with the ball, resulting in an accurate shot.

Grip

Once you practiced on your stance, the next thing to focus on is the way you hold your club. For beginners, the best grip is always a neutral position wherein the arms hang loose in front of your body and their dominant hand holding the club’s handle. This position allows for near-perfect accuracy while also letting them build on their strength for more challenging tourneys.

When holding the club, make sure that your thumb firmly closes on the index finger and its tip reaching half of the middle finger. Also, you should hold the club firmly until you slightly see the knuckles in your index and middle fingers. Once you have gripped the club firmly, let your non-dominant hand rest over the dominant hand and make sure that it follows the club in every shot.

Temper

The key to a successful day in any golfing course in Tristate lies in your ability to controlling your temper. As such, golfers with hot heads tend to get progressively worse in every shot they miss due to the buildup of rage and frustration. By keeping yourself calm and cool, you are able to retain your focus and recover. 

Always remember that perfecting your golfing performance will take time and practice. By controlling the way you react to any mistake at the field, you are able to optimize your training and become a dependable golfer as soon as possible.

Remember…The Haig’s First Open Win

A cocky young professional begged a few days off from his club job so he could play in the U.S. Open and though not a “name” player the 20-year old was full of confidence. He was playing well and even dressed-the-game in a pure silk striped shirt, white flannel pants with a red bandanna casually knotted around his neck and white buckskin shoes that set him back ten whole dollars.

The year was 1913 and the stylishly garbed pro was Walter Hagen in his first venture on to the national stage where he displayed his high self-opinion while introducing himself to defending champion, “You’re Johnny McDermott, aren’t you? Well, I’m glad to know you. I’m W.C. Hagen from Rochester and I’ve come over to help you boys take care of Vardon and Ray.”

Certainly quite a beginning for Hagen in championship competition, especially against a future member of the World Golf Hall of Fame, Ted Ray, but more impressively in the same field was Harry Vardon, inarguably the best golfer in the world.

Everyone knows the story of the 1913 Open at The Country Club in Brookline, Mass. when unknown American amateur Francis Ouimet soundly beat the English superstars Vardon and Ray in an 18-hole playoff. Most people though don’t know the brash future superstar Hagen finished three strokes out of the playoff after a triple bogey on the 14th hole in the final round.

The next year the Haig, after declining a contract with the Philadelphia Phillies, made the trip to Chicago for the Open being staged at Midlothian Country Club. All was not to smooth sailing however as the night before play began Hagen and a friend decided to try lobster and oysters for the first time…a lot of lobster and oysters. Horribly sick (Hagen believed it was ptomaine poisoning) and with no sleep, he could barely walk. However he managed to tee off in the first round, posting a course record 68 that was followed closely Ouimet with a 69.

After four rounds and battling his gastronomic problems the entire time Hagen prevailed with a score of 290 which tied the lowest 72-hole Open score to that point and won him all of $300.

Hagen’s first U.S. Open triumph was life changing. It gave him the “name” and fame (he already had the personality!) to build a lucrative career playing exhibitions in addition to competing in the sparse schedule of tournaments that would eventually become the PGA Tour. By forsaking his club position at the exclusive Country Club of Rochester he became the first of the modern golf professionals, banking instead on his money making ability on the course.

Ultimately Hagen had 45 tour wins including two U.S. Opens (1914 and 1919), four British Opens, (1922, 1924, 1928, and 1929) and five PGA Championships with an amazing run of four in a row plus he played for America on the first five Ryder Cups teams and captained the sixth.

The Haig’s was a superb competitor perhaps best reflected in in one of his most famous quotes, “Nobody remembers who came in second.”

ED TRAVIS | Golf Opinion & Commentary

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“It’s So Easy Being Green”

Chrome, shiny, white, black, brass are just some of the finishes putter makers use on their flat sticks but they all have something in common, they are in contrast (sometimes vivid contrast) to the green grass of putting surfaces.

Mantis Golf however believes that’s the wrong approach.

They think the proper way is not high contrast with greens but to be green. First they introduced a mid-sized mallet model and this year have a ‘B’ Blade that like the mallet has a green finish because, as the company says, and along with the design, “…combine to instill greater putting confidence by increasing a golfer’s ability to watch the ball, not the putter.”

At 355 grams the ‘B’ Blade is right in the middle of modern putter weights and heel and tow weighting is engineered for a higher than average resistance to twisting which is a big help to those of us that don’t hit every putt dead in the center of the face. The face insert is white polyurethane and gives a soft feel at impact, a feel that is certainly confidence producing. There are two alignment aids, a white line perpendicular to the face on the top edge and a second on the head that standout nicely against the green of the head.

I tested the Mantis ‘B’ Blade thoroughly, for 10 rounds and found it very well suited to my shoulder-and-arm stroke plus there’s no question the weighting really helped when I happen to miss the sweet spot. The matte green color did seem to help my focus, more on the ball and less on the putter head though it took a little time to adjust to the different look.

Bottom line, if you are in the market for a new putter you should add the Mantis ‘B’ Blade to your short list of possibilities. The ‘B’ Blade is available on MantisGolfCo.com for $159.99 and there’s a 30-day money back guarantee.

ED TRAVIS | Golf Opinion & Commentary

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Nicklaus Golf Balls

Golf’s greatest champion Jack Nicklaus has many diverse business interests and earlier this year added golf balls to his lineup of products. And though not strictly a new idea, Nicklaus is pitching them for golfers to pick the ball that suits the set of tees they play.

The idea is golfers usually playing for example the most forward set or white tees don’t especially hit the ball a long distance and have driver swing speeds of less than 90 mph. According to Nicklaus they would enjoy playing the Nicklaus White ball. It has a soft Surlyn cover and gradient core with a mantle formulated for less spin…in other words just what someone needs who doesn’t hit his or her driver over 200-yards.

The other balls, Blue for blue tee players and Black for those on the tips, have different construction to reflect the higher swing speeds typical of golfers playing the longer tee sets. The Blue is of 3-piece construction similar to the White but made for swing speeds from 90 to 110 mph while the Black is a urethane cover 3-piece for driver swing speeds over 95 mph.

As part of their ongoing charitable effort the Nicklaus Companies will donate a $1 to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the Nicklaus Children’s Health Care Foundation for every dozen Nicklaus Golf Balls sold. Plus if shipment is made using FedEx an additional $1 will be donated.

Nicklaus Golf Balls are available for sale on Nicklaus.com and more information about the partnership with St. Jude is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhxyTaxaGGU.

ED TRAVIS | Golf Opinion & Commentary

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“We Don’t Feel We’ve Found the Bottom”

Dick’s Sporting Goods CEO Ed Stack made the pessimistic assessment in the headline during a call on May 20 with financial analysts discussing the sharp drop in sales of golf equipment during the first quarter of the year at Dick’s and Golf Galaxy stores.

Stack’s full comment was, “The more concerning and unpredictable issue is the golf business. We anticipated softness, but instead we saw significant decline with Golf Galaxy down 10.4% and the Dick’s Sporting Goods golf business off by high single-digits. Our overall golf business missed our first quarter 2014 sales plan by approximately $34 million. We don’t feel we’ve found the bottom yet in the golf sales number.”

Now two months later, the company laid off more than 500 PGA Professionals marking a major retrenchment of the its efforts in the golf business. For the past several years a significant portion of every store’s floor space was devoted to the sport and almost every one of their approximately 560 stores had a PGA Professional on staff. The large merchandise display footprint (including hitting bays in many stores) and professional assistance were factors in Dick’s growth as an equipment seller, in many markets overwhelming small golf shops and on-course shops with aggressive advertising and service.

Stack also said in the call with analysts, "We are selling drivers in our stores this spring for $99 that were approximately $299 20 months ago,” and this was a big contributor to the financial results and there was no end in sight.

As an example, in comparison with first quarter 2013 Golf Galaxy and Dick's sold two percent fewer drivers, the most expensive club in a set. However in first quarter this year the price of drivers declined 16 percent and with golf accounting typically for 15 percent of company sales the impact was significant.

Overall sales for the first quarter of 2014 increased 7.9 percent to $1.4 billion and same store sales increased 1.5 percent, with Dick’s stores increasing 2.3 percent and Golf Galaxy decreasing 10.4 percent.

ED TRAVIS | Golf Opinion & Commentary

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Tom Watson Lessons of a Lifetime II

I reviewed Tom Watson’s original DVD Lessons of a Lifetime when it came out over four years ago and said in part:

“There are hundreds of golf instruction books, tapes and videos; some of doubtful value and a few, a very few really worth the purchase price. On that extremely short list of instructional classics are books such as Ben Hogan’s “Five Lessons” (1957) and Jack Nicklaus’ “Golf My Way” (book published in 1974 and VHS tape in 1983).”

Well, that’s still true. I went on to say Tom Watson’s Lessons of a Lifetime DVDs were excellent and I instantly added them to my “must-have” list.

Now the two original DVDs have been reissued with 22 additional lessons or if you already have the 2010 DVDs you can buy a DVD with just the new lessons covering three areas: Advanced Lessons to Lower Your Score, More on Chipping and Putting and Teaching Young and Old.

Watson’s presentation of the 22 new instruction segments is excellent and production values are as good as the first two DVDs.

To give you an idea of what Watson covers, the first of the new lessons builds on the information presented in the first set and is entitled “The Secret” #2 Keeping the Hip Crease. Whether it should be called a “secret” or is a secret on the same mythic level with “Hogan’s Secret” is open to debate but maintaining the angle between the hips and spine—the so called “crease”—is certainly of major importance to hit the ball powerfully and on line.

A second lesson that struck a chord with me was his clear way of explaining, if you want to use his method of putting (and who wouldn’t), the critical components of the proper pre-putt routine, set up, posture, grip and stroke. Watson’s explanation of the thinking behind what he does and the demonstration of how he puts it all together was a real light bulb moment for me. It has significantly helped my putting.

Watson makes the point that even after playing all these years and a World Golf Hall of Fame career, “I’ve been experiencing the game for half a century, and I promise you I’m still learning.”

Enough said…if he is still finding out new aspects of the swing and game, we can help our games by listening to what he has to say.

ED TRAVIS | Golf Opinion & Commentary

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4 Tips In Improving Your Golf Swing Quickly

Though it can look gentle and easy on the outside, golf is anything but. Whenever you are in a Tri State Golf Course Area, you are required to have a steady hand and a high level of accuracy in order to let the ball fly to its intended target. To make this possible, you need to improve on your golf swing. The question is: how does one exactly improve on their golf swing to have a rewarding day out in the field? Below are a few tips to keep in mind.

Get a Grip

The very first thing to do in improving your swing is to pay attention to how you hold the club. The best way to improve your swing to hold the club in neutral position as it increases your chances of hitting the ball accurately. To do this, you must let your arms hang loose from your shoulders and clench your hand in a manner that your entire index finger is covered by your thumb and the thumb’s tip covering part of the middle finger.

Now, gently bring the top of your lead hand (your dominant hand) to the club and hold it firmly. You should be able to see the knuckles in your index and middle fingers. Finally, place your trailing hand firmly below on your leading hand, making sure that it maintains its neutral position. This neutral grip will allow you to hit the ball at the center of the club head, allowing you more control as to how hard the ball flies and where it lands.

Mind Your Stance

You could be surprised at how you position your body during a swing will make difference between an on-target shot and an embarrassing miss. The first thing you have to do is to spread your legs in such a way that your feet are parallel to your shoulders. This will give you a wide base support which will improve your mark. Next, slightly bend your knees and keep your spine straight. Keep in mind that a slouching body can throw off your aim, leading to a poor performance.

Move with the Swing

Fortunately, the concept of swinging a club perfectly is simple. Whether a backswing or a downswing, the key to an accurate shot lies in the way you move your body in every shot. Make sure that you pivot your shoulders towards your spine and shift your weight to the back of your foot as the club is bearing down on the ball. Keep your motion smooth and flowing so as not to waste your body’s energy.

Relax

One of the most important tips in creating a perfect in developing your swing is to always keep your calm before and after every shot. Keep in mind that perfecting your swing will take a lot of time and practice which means you might get frustrated in the process. Experienced players know that too much frustration will make any golfer progressively worse in every shot. Thus, it is best that you do not blow your top off in every miss. By keeping a calm demeanor, you are bound to improve on your swing which will result in an impressive performance in any Tri State golf course area.