Keep The Ball Rolling
Customers have called Perfect Practice Putting Mat the gold standard of putting mats, a must have and a go-to rainy-day practice tool, but this product has genuine fans you can look up on YouTube or Instagram. Check out @GolferGirlEm, for example. Among the numerous PGA Tour player endorsements, you will see Charles Howell III, Vijay Singh, Taylor Gooch, Marc Leishman, Lydia Ko, Jimmy Walker and Nelly Korda, along with Dustin Johnson, who is the product’s official endorser and spokesperson.
The original Perfect Practice Putting Mat that has received such acclaim is the 9’ 6” (2.9 m) standard model, but the company has just
released an 8’ (2.44 m) compact and a 15’ 6” (4.72 m) XL version. However, buyer beware…the XL version seems even longer when you are putting to the small hole for a bet. I was really close! It should have gone in, actually, and we never shook hands. You can’t bet real money on an elbow bump.
PuttOUT Pressure Trainer
People like learning through games. Take a difficult task like striking a ball with the equivalent consistency of hitting a bullseye on a dartboard, and you can imagine what the PuttOUT Pressure Trainer is like. One difference is, you can hit a bullseye with a throw that is
excessively hard or easy but arced, whereas you cannot make the ball stay on the ramp of PuttOUT with a putt that is too easy or too hard. very now and again we receive a complaint that the product doesn’t work, which always makes me chuckle and think to myself, “Being good is harder than you think.”
Give a PuttOUT to any young player, and they will become obsessed with mastering it. If you want to teach line and speed, start your layers one foot away and let them take the ten-putt challenge. Allow them to move one foot back each time they can get a ball to stay on the ramp within ten balls. If they can make one ball before their ten run out, they get to move back a foot. This PuttOUT drill is simple, engaging and super fun! PuttOUTs come in a range of colors, great for creating team challenges or stations with easy identifiers.
The company that makes PuttOUT has always had a vision of creating an indoor putting studio. Last year they introduced their ultra smooth PuttOUT Pro putting mat, but new in 2020 are their Putting Gate and PuttOUT Putting Mirror. The company is meticulous about both the design and construction of their products. For example, their mirror features a scratch-resistant coating, a stainless-steel
base so the mirror will not warp, a textured bottom so the product will not slip, and magnetic rails that may be configured for stroke patterns
and drills.
Other products have helped us through the crunch, as well. Nearly every article I seem to make mention of Martin Chuck’s Smart Ball, which is still going strong. We also picked up Jamie Brittain’s Swing Plate, along with the line of Sure-Set products from Dan Frost and Martin Hall, which are all excellent. That said, it has definitely been putting products that have helped us keep the ball rolling so far in 2020.
By Melvin Blair USGTF Member Tampa, Florida
Over the years, I invested in the launch monitor FlightScope, and now the Mevo+ is another part of the family. Now, things are better than ever! At BlairsGolf.com, we have the right numbers. The pros only play with the numbers, and you and your students can, as well! Students ask me all the time, “What element of my swing do I need to change?”
My first question is, “How much knowledge or understanding do you have of the ball flight laws?” You would be surprised how many students and coaches say, “Not much,” and that the numbers are confusing. My answer is, “Without the numbers, your golf swing is confusing!”
Something I learned: the ball is an object! It cannot see how pretty your swing looks or how tall you are or how much you weigh or whether you are playing well or poorly. It knows and responds to only one thing – impact, from the moment the clubhead strikes the ball to the moment they separate. The ball collects all the information that it needs to determine which direction, what distance and what trajectory to take. If the golf club strikes the ball with 120 mph of swing speed in the center of the clubface with same loft, clubface angle and swing path, it will go in the same place regardless of who is hitting it.
Ball flight laws are the most important information in which a teacher or student should have at least a reasonable level of knowledge. The knowledge gives us a great understanding of why the ball goes in the direction it is going. Without this knowledge, we can’t give such information as the true angle of attack, clubhead speed, club path, face angle, face-to-path or smash factor. I tell students, if you notice your golf ball when it is in the air for a long time with your slice, there is a good chance your spin is high. If your golf ball lacks rollout and seems to stop immediately when it lands, you are probably playing with high spin. If it seems like the ball lands softly and reacts immediately when it hits, there is a strong indication that you have high spin. And understanding how spin works and where your spin needs to be is the first step in fixing your slice, which is the evil of golf!
Golf instructors now know the important relationships between two critical things – the clubface angle and the club swing path. They know this is the key to understanding the slice. This can be done only with a launch monitor, because your eyes are not that good!
Club Data
• Club Speed
• Attack Angle
• Club Path
• Swing Plane
• Swing Direction
• Dynamic Loft
• Spin Loft
• Face Angle
• Face-to-Path
Ball Data
• Ball Speed
• Launch Angle
• Launch Direction
• Spin Axis
• Spin Rate
• Smash Factor
• Height
• Carry
Coach Melvin Blair is the golf coach for BlairsGolf.com, is a coach for the First Tee of Tampa Bay, ran the Disabled Veterans Golf Association, Inc., passed the V1/PGA Education Teaching and Technology advanced course, and is a member of the USGTF. Blair credits the USGTF for changing his golf life and giving him the tools he needed to teach and play golf at a high level. 
By Mike Stevens USGTF Member Tampa, Florida
Early golf in the United States was a gambler’s paradise, from legitimate wagers to more seedy pots controlled by mobsters. On the professional side, it was common for players to barnstorm the country, challenging locals to a money game backed by wealthy businessmen or scoundrels with several side bets among the gallery. It was pretty much a necessity, as professional tournament winnings barely covered expenses. Despite the so-called purity of amateur golf, some of the largest transfers of cash occurred at private clubs in Calcutta pools. It was just the way of the times, and one person was adept at taking advantage of gullible blue bloods around the country.
Alvin Clarence Thomas, aka Titanic Thompson, born on November 30, 1893, in southwest Missouri, became the most storied gambler in American history. Abandoned by his father, Alvin grew up on a farm in Rogers, Arkansas, with his mother and stepfather. An unruly child who disdained education, he left at age 16 with no money and entered the school of hard knocks. His street smarts would see him through a life of hustling and wagering on just about everything involving a gamble from cards to dice to pool, and even horseshoes. He spent hours on end honing his skills and could deal off the bottom of a deck of cards with both hands.
His card throwing skills were legendary, but many of his bets were set up skillfully to dupe the poor rube he suckered into a wager. He took special pleasure in swindling the rich and famous. One time he bet Al Capone he could throw a lemon over a five-story building. Capone picked a lemon from a nearby fruit vendor, but little did he know that Thompson’s sleight of hand changed out the lemon for one he had filled with buckshot. Capone handed over $500 as the lemon flew over the building.
Golf offered Titanic everything he loved: wagers of every kind and incessant hours of solitary practice. His relentless repetition with right- and left-handed clubs made him equally proficient from both sides of the ball. He spent a year just honing his skills before he set about challenging his marks at exclusive clubs of the rich and famous. All the while, he continued raking in cash from his flair with cards and pool cues. One day in the company of Capone and his entourage, Thompson declared that he could hit a 500-yard drive with a hickory club. Eager gamblers were ready to take him up on it, but he declared only when he was ready, “I have to feel it,” he said. So, one day in the middle of winter he announced that this was the day. Off they went to the local club and Titanic teed up the ball. There was as much as $50,000 on the line. Thompson addressed the ball and then turned around and launched the ball down the frozen lake behind the tee. The hoodwinked mobsters could only pay up as their convoluted code required them to honor the bet even if snookered.
Another story involves a time when Thompson said he could mark a ball with an X and hit it into a nearby pond and dive in and come up with the same ball. Little did the poor marks know that on the previous day, he hit several balls marked with an X into the pond. It was easy money. Now you understand the man and why the odds were always in his favor. Over the course of his golf life, he teamed with some of the most famous professional golfers of the era in big-money matches including Ben Hogan, Sam Snead and Byron Nelson. It was Thompson who arranged a famous match involving Ray Floyd and Lee Trevino with $100,000 on the line.
Wherever big money and gambling were, Titanic Thompson was around. When mobster Arnold Rothstein was murdered after a poker game where he refused to pay up, thinking the game was fixed, Thompson was one of the players at the table. Whether you approve or not, his life story is fascinating and worth the read. He’ll be forever known as the man who would bet on everything.