Blog

12 Sep 2019 admin

Why I Believed Tiger Would Be Tiger Again

By Mark Harman USGTF Course Director Ridgeland, South Carolina Brandel Chamblee said he couldn’t compete with today’s young guns. Greg Norman said he’d never return to his previous form. Woody Paige said he’d never win another tournament ever again. Jemele Hill said he should retire. Hank Haney said he had the chipping yips. Pundits everywhere had a field day doubting Tiger Woods the past few years. And yet here we are again as Tiger has returned to the winner’s circle in a major championship, capturing his fifth green jacket this past April at Augusta National. If nothing else, Tiger’s return to glory should remind all of us that prognosticating is often a worthless exercise, especially when it comes to what other people can and cannot do. How many times have we read stories about people who have suffered some serious injury and doctors telling them they would never again (pick one: walk, run, play golf, play tennis, go bowling…), only to see people defying what their own doctor, who’s supposed to be an expert, said. While Tiger’s tale isn’t as dramatic as perhaps someone being told they’d be in a wheelchair for the rest of their life only to run a marathon, it goes to show that the will of a strong-minded individual is often no match for what reality supposedly tells us. As Yogi Berra famously said, “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.” In the February 2017 edition of our monthly e-newsletter, I wrote the following of Tiger: “I think at minimum he will win two more majors before it’s all said and done, break Sam Snead’s Tour record of 82 victories, and become a top-ten player again…and I would not bet against him regaining the #1 spot at some time.” Unfortunately, in April of that year Tiger had spinal fusion surgery and made my own prediction look somewhat shaky. He even said himself later that year he was unsure if he would ever come back. But even then, I always thought he would come back and be a major factor again. Part of my reasoning was that Tiger is, well, somewhat of a drama king. I read about other pro golfers having the same surgery and they came back to play well, so I figured Tiger could, too. And with our modern medicine and fitness knowledge, I thought Tiger would be given a way to fully function again. Another factor in my belief that Tiger would become Tiger again is based on my own personal experience. In 2005 I won the United States Golf Teachers Cup for the fifth time at The Quarry in San Antonio, Texas, and in my victory speech, I said this might well be my last victory, as younger and better players were coming up through the ranks. Players like James Douris and Christopher Richards proved me right, as they captured multiple USGTF and WGTF titles the next few years. I was wrong on the younger part, though, as septuagenarian Bill Hardwick of Canada showed he was still capable of winning against the young bucks. However, I didn’t really believe what I said in San Antonio; I was merely trying to give credit where credit was due. Surely, I thought, I would win again. But year after year went by, and my old anxiety issues resurfaced around 2010 at the U.S. Cup in Primm Valley, Nevada. They stayed with me for the next five Cups after that, and I often was no factor in our national championship event. I really did start to believe I was done. And then in 2016 at Talking Stick in Scottsdale, Arizona, I teed off and my mind stayed surprisingly calm. I shot 71 the first round, and opened the second round with three straight birdies. When I learned I had a six-shot lead after 35 holes (I deliberately didn’t pay attention to what anyone else in my group was doing), I realized my own personal comeback was complete. Since then, I’ve been fortunate enough to win the U.S. Cup again, along with the World Cup and World Senior Cup. I say this not to brag, but to point out that we are capable of doing things we either used to be able to do or thought were impossible. So it was with all this that I thought Tiger, if he stayed healthy, would return to being a dominant force in professional golf again. The final piece to the puzzle of my belief system was that Tiger has been doubted over and over throughout the years, and yet always found a way to prove the doubters wrong. I realized that many people dislike Tiger for what he has done in his personal life, for his lack of decorum at times on the course, and for public acts like tipping servers poorly and being cold with the fans. I get that and cannot fault someone for not liking him for those reasons. But I also consider him an artist in the mold of Da Vinci and Michelangelo, and a generational athletic talent along with Babe Ruth, Muhammad Ali, Wayne Gretzky and Michael Jordan (and I’m sure Geoff Bryant would want me to add Tom Brady to the list, so I will). We should all feel fortunate to witness such greatness and to awe at what’s possible in human achievement. I know I am.      

6 Sep 2019 admin

Windows

You hear golf commentators and swing gurus mention it all the time: “He’s got the dreaded two-way miss going.” The two-way miss is a player’s tendency to miss shots both left and right with equal unpredictability.

Eliminating the two-way miss for a tour player means almost everything. Some will say, “I’ve taken the left side out of play so I didn’t have to worry about the water over there.” You might consider that eliminating the two-way miss is something that only a good or even a tour player can do, but in fact, it is also something that an average player is capable of.

A lot of amateurs are under the impression that if they didn’t hit a ball close to where they were aiming, the shot was automatically a poor one. To a certain extent, they may be right. And too many teachers may fall into the same trap of believing that a shot that did not end up close to where the student was aiming was a poor shot. One of the reasons for this is that any less-than-perfect contact is easily felt by anyone who is a bogey shooter or better. But was the shot really that poor?

Instead of striving for no misses – which is impossible, of course – or even fewer misses, it might be better to strive for the “one-way miss.” With a one-way miss, it is easy to plot course strategy and tactics.

Take our hypothetical tour player who doesn’t have to worry about water to the left of the fairway. Maybe he has honed a reliable fade so that the ball never goes left of its starting line. Or maybe he has a draw but knows how far left it will go in the worst-case scenario.

Jack Nicklaus was a wonderful example of the latter. He played a fade, and using the example of a fairway that is 40 yards wide, he said (paraphrasing), “When you play a fade or draw, you can aim down the edge of the fairway and have 40 yards to work with. When you play a straight ball and aim down the middle of the fairway, if it goes left or right you only have 20 yards to work with.”

Nicklaus makes a great point, and one that is often ignored by amateurs. A lot of slicers always seem to aim down the middle of the fairway, and how many times have we seen a right-handed slicer wind up in the right rough? Plenty. And yet, if they were to aim down the left side of the fairway, they can watch their ball curve back into the fairway most of the time. When you ask a slicer why they just don’t aim down the left side, some of them will actually say that the point is to hit a straight shot, and allowing for the slice is mentally allowing for failure!

This brings up the concept of knowing where your ball is going to wind up, not only if you hit a good shot but also a bad one. It’s called a “window,” and is really possible only if a one-way miss is happening. Slicers actually have a great advantage if they only would swallow their ego and allow for their natural curve to work to their advantage. For example, on an approach shot with the pin on the right side of the green, a slicer has a green light to curve the ball into the pin. But as with tee shots, too many of them might aim at the pin, hoping against hope that this time the ball will fly straight. Of course, more often than not it will wind up right of the green, short-sided, and now they face a difficult up-and-down.

What about our better students who can and do hit a straight ball most of the time? For them, it is imperative to know which way their predominant miss tendency is and plan accordingly. Many tour layers have a ball flight that is incredibly straight on a solid shot, but they also know which way the ball will go if they do not hit a perfect shot. Suppose one of our students, a good player who hits it relatively straight, faces a long approach shot with the pin on the left side of the green. His “window” should be from the pin to the right edge of the green. Let’s say he knows his miss tendency is to the left. In this case, it would be foolish to aim at the pin. The better play would be to aim between the pin and the right edge of the green. Conversely, if his tendency is to miss to the right, he can go ahead and aim at the flag stick with the confidence that the ball will not wind up left of the green.

All execution errors cannot be avoided, of course, but developing a reliable shot that rarely misses both ways is critical for players to play their best golf. At some point, players and teachers may need to abandon the quest to hit straight shots and realize that a reliable fade and draw, and sometimes even reliable slices and hooks, can be very playable.

26 Aug 2019 admin

I Tested It: Equipment Beliefs

By Mark Harman USGTF Course Director Ridgeland, South Carolina

We’ve all heard teaching pros and regular golfers alike expound on and repeat beliefs regarding golf equipment: “Regular shafts go longer than stiff shafts, but stiff shafts are straighter”…“Tour balls are shorter than ‘distance’ balls,” etc.

There are a number of equipment beliefs and sayings that are taken as gospel. Some are grounded in sound science, while others may be more anecdotal. Being naturally curious about this, I decided to test some of them out. Keeping in mind that I am not a robot, I tried to introduce some sort of consistency in each of the tests I did so that they, while not being perfectly scientifically precise, will allow some real-world insight into how equipment differences affect a real person.

Belief: Tour balls spin more than distance balls

Tour golf balls are made with softer urethane covers, while distance balls have firmer ionomer covers, usually consisting of Surlyn®. (As a side note, golf balls back in the day were often marketed as having Surlyn covers, but the material became associated with hardness, so the term “ionomer” is used today.) They may also differ in core construction and material. I tested the belief that tour balls spin more than distance balls. For this test, I hit balls with a 56° wedge and all balls landed between 51-55 yards, using a GC Quad launch monitor. Only solid strikes were recorded, three shots each.

Conclusion: The two tour balls, the Callaway Chrome Soft and Bridgestone BX, had the highest spins rates, which was to be expected. The Bridgestone e6 Speed and Callaway Superhot, the distance balls, had lower spin rates, but surprisingly, the Superhot had a spin rate very comparable to the premium tour balls. I hit the Superhot three more times to see if this was some sort of aberration, but came up with similar results. There are likely other balls considered “distance” balls that also offer good spin on wedges.

Belief: Clubs with regular shafts go farther than clubs with stiff shafts

For this test, I used a Titleist AP2 7-iron and a Ping G400 Max driver to test both iron and driver shafts. I used the stock True Temper AMT White shaft for the iron test and a Ping G400 Max 10.5° with the stock Alta shaft. Three solid shots with each shaft were recorded. Results of the iron test:

For the driver test, I made sure my clubhead speed was between 94-95 mph each time, again using three solid strikes for each shaft.

Conclusion: There were virtually no differences in performance between the iron shafts. The peak height of the balls for both shafts was identical, 31 yards. There was also no difference in dispersion, either. As for the driver test, my swing speed averaged 94.9 mph with the stiff shaft and 94.5 with the regular. The stiff shaft’s ability to lessen backspin was the main factor in increased distance. Why there was a difference here and not in the iron shafts is something on which I can only speculate.

Belief: Lower-kickpoint shafts launch the ball higher than higher-kickpoint shafts

Here, I used the same Titleist AP2 7-iron with an AMT Red shaft, which is the lowest kickpoint shaft in the AMT family, while the White (used in the previous test) is the highest.

Conclusion: Surprising! The shaft with the lower kickpoint actually launched lower and with less spin than the higher kickpoint shaft. But again, I am not a robot, although I felt like I made similar swings with each shaft. The shaft did produce a higher ball speed and lower backspin, and thus more distance.

Belief: Choking down on the grip reduces distance

Choking down on the grip lessens the swing radius and theoretically should result in lower clubhead speed and distance. Using the Ping driver with the stiff shaft, I choked down 1 ̋.

Conclusion: Choking down does indeed result in a loss of clubhead and ball speed, but if control is gained, this may be a good tactic in given situations.

Belief: Distance balls go farther than tour balls

The driver tests already mentioned were conducted using a Callaway Chrome Soft ball. Because the Bridgestone e6 Speed spun noticeably lower in the wedge test, I used that ball for this test. I used the stiff shaft, and I made sure the three swings I used had a similar clubhead speed as with the above test to make sure I was testing the ball and not the club. (Please refer to the driver shaft test for tour ball data.)

Conclusion: Given similar ball speed and launch angle, the lower backspin literally carried the day for the distance ball, producing four more yards of carry distance.

Belief: Iron lie angles influence left-right ball dispersion

Iron lie angles that are too upright will result in a clubface that is aimed more closed, while iron lie angles that are too flat will result in a clubface angle that is more open. I used three different lie angles in this test with that being the only variable. I was drawing the ball this particular day, but I did manage to record three good shots with each lie angle.

Conclusion: Iron lie angles definitely affect the direction the ball takes because this is a geometric fact. Although it is theoretically ideal to have a lie angle that produces a flat clubhead to the ground at impact, some players may need to deviate from this to produce the desired ball flight.

Summary

These tests produced some results that conformed to long-held beliefs and some that did not. It is always good to question these beliefs and better yet, test them in a real-world setting. As we are all individuals with different reactions to the equipment in our hands, these results will not necessarily apply to every golfer we come across. It is quite possible – indeed likely – that another golfer will obtain different results than I did. This experiment shows that our students must test equipment before they buy…and we should, too.