Going away on a golf holiday with a group? Need a golf draw that pairs each player with each other player exactly once? or twice? or not at all? I have developed draws that meet those requirements. Take a look at them by CLICKING HERE, Golf Draws.
Purchase a Swing Speed Radar and I'll throw in a complimentary pair of Putting Glasses AND Swing Like a Genius T-shirt. Both are valued at $29.95. Or, purchase more individually below at reduced prices.
Purchase a set of 1-iron Golf Clubs and I'll send you both two pairs of glasses and two T-shirts.
Get Your Mental Game Assessed
Did you know you can lower your score by 3-6 strokes (not to mention have more fun on the course), just by improving your mental game? Well you can, and I've found a great program that will show you how.
My colleague and excellent mental trainer, Michael Anthony, has joined forces with MindMeasures Golf to create a Total Approach to lowering scores that focuses specifically on your mental game.
Your journey to lower scores starts with the MindMeasures Golf Assessment, a fun and easy to take online tool that will measure the strengths and weaknesses of your individual mental game. After you take the Assessment, you receive a detailed Report telling you how you scored in 8 key mental traits, such as concentration, resilience, emotional control, etc. In the Report, Michael gives you specific personal insights to understand your scores and improve your mental game. Along with your personalized Report, you also receive e-copies of Michael's classic books, "The Mental Keys To Improve Your Golf" and "Michael Anthony's Mental Golf Tips."
If you are serious about lowering your score, and want to have more fun on the course, now is the time to work on improving your mental game.
"This is one of the first assessments of the golf game I have seen easily available to the average golfer. All you need to do to start is do an online questionaire about you and your game and the assessment will identify your mental strengths and weaknesses. Then, two great e-books will help you learn how to improve!!"
Sinking Short Putts
Improving the percentage of short putts you sink is a sure way of lowering your score and reducing your handicap. Why?
Because you can't recover from a short putt. Missing by even a quarter inch is a miss, period. One can recover from missing a fairway or missing a green. But one cannot recover from missing a putt ... especially a short one.
This page is all about how to sink more short putts. How can you improve your putting so that you can sink putts like the pros?
How many 5-6 foot putts do you have each round, on average? If you don't know, keep track over your next 5 rounds. How many of them did you make? Now, if you sank just 20% more of those short putts, how many strokes would you save each round?
Below is a graph of putts made for PGA Tour players and amateur handicap golfers. I've drawn in the best fit curves to match the real data. The putt distances are in metres. 1 metre = 3.3 ft so 3 metres is about 10 feet.
Even PGA Tour players on sink on average 60% of their 6 foot putts.
One putt percentages don't give a true reflection of overall putting ability. Two players may sink 10% of their 15 footers, but one may 3 putt more of them. A better statistic is the average number of strokes taken from different distances. Here is a sample of stroke averages.
Putt Length
Pro
Hcp 0-4
Hcp 11
Hcp 26
Me
3 feet
1.07
1.22
1.35
1.50
1.15
6 feet
1.32
1.46
1.62
1.86
1.42
10 feet
1.54
1.63
1.83
2.10
1.62
15 feet
1.75
1.76
1.98
2.29
1.72
20 feet
1.86
1.86
2.10
2.43
1.92
30 feet
1.96
2.00
2.27
2.61
2.02
40 feet
2.00
2.10
2.38
2.77
2.07
50 feet
2.10
2.20
2.50
2.91
2.39
For myself, a 2 handicapper, my overall putting is better than the average 0 - 4 handicapper. My putting is one of the main reasons I remain a low handicapper. On 10, 6 foot putts, I'll take on average 14.2 strokes while a 26 handicapper will take 18.6 strokes; that's a 4.4 stroke difference. And remember, these are averages. One day I may take 18 strokes and on others I may take 10 strokes
I encourage you to keep your putting statistics like I do above so that you can monitor your progress. It will give you an accurate measure of how you're doing. You can compare your stats to the table above. All you need to do on your scorecard for each round is record the length of each putt and how many strokes it took to hole out. Pace out your distances trying to take 3 foot paces. As you gain experience, you'll be able to estimate many putts without pacing
I've written a little spreadsheet program to keep track of your putting statistics. Make a purchase of anything I sell from my site and I'll send it to you as a BONUS. Just send me an email after your purchase to let me know you'd like it. OR, you can purchase it for only $9.99.
Increasing the percentage of shot putts that you sink will make a world of difference to your score. What are the keys to improvement?
To sink more putts, one must:
1. Read the amount of break, if any, that the putt will experience.
2. Align the putter face perpendicular to the intended line of the putt.
3. Stroke the putt with the right amount of speed for the amount of break so the putt has the greatest chance of landing in the hole.
Here is some guidance in dealing with these points.
1.
Other than for fairly severe slopes, short putts won't have a lot of break. Golfers can learn how much putts break through trial and error experience. What also can help is being able to see slope in a green. Plumbing can give you a general idea about what way a putt will break. I have quantified the effect and developed a matrix to determine the amount of break given a plumb read. Read here for more information on reading greens by plumbing.
2.
Aligning the putter face can be quite difficult, especially for the novice putter. The putter face angle is a greater determiner of initial direction than the path along which the putter swings, so it's essential that the golfer master the alignment of the face.
Misaligning your putter face by only 2 degrees will cause you to miss a:
30 foot putt by 12.6 inches
15 foot putt by 6.3 inches
5 foot putt by 2.1 inches
The golf hole is only 4 inches wide. Many of your missed putts are likely due to misalignment of the putter face.
Proper alignment can be learned. It can be mastered. You just need to know how you're aligning. You need a measuring tool to let you know.
You need a Laser Putting Alignment System.
Take a look at the Laser Putting Device that I use and consider getting one for yourself
Order yours TODAY! Only $49.95
3.
The proper speed to give the ball depends on the lenght of the putt. The longer the putt, the more speed the ball will need. The golfer needs to learn how long to make the stroke to give the ball the desired speed. It's on trial and error. It takes practice. It takes patience.
Obviously, ball needs enough speed to get to the hole. Too much speed, however, and the ball will not fall, even if it goes over the center of the hole.
What is the optimum speed of the ball which increases the chance of it dropping?
If the ball is moving towards the center of the cup (as the red arrow marked 1), then it can still be moving fast, hit the back of the cup, and fall into the hole.
If the ball is moving towards the outside of the hole (as in 2), it's maximum speed to still drop is lower.
Direction 3, of course, would only result in success if the ball speed were very low, otherwise the putt would "lip out."
A number of golf science researchers have investigated this problem (A.R. Penner and Geoff Mangum being two that come to mind). The optimum speed is one that is somewhere between the maximum speed of 1 and 3 above.
Consider the 4 scenarios below (images from Geoff Mangum) depicting four different ball "entry speeds." The faster the entry speed, the less distance the ball falls before hitting the back of the cup. The highest possible entry speed for the ball to be captured by the hole (with the ball staying in the cup) is depicted in scenario 3. This is assuming the ball is online with the center of the cup, as in Direction 1 above. If off center, the ball has a shorter distance to travel to the back of the cup and thus the slower it must be moving for capture.
1. Low Speed
2. Medium Speed
3. High Speed
4. Really High Speed
The physics and mathematics is pretty complex, but as a general guideline, the maximum speed for capture is about 1.6 m/s (if online with the center of the hole) which is comparable to the ball rotating at 12 revolution per second. On a medium speed green, if the ball missed the hole at this speed, it would roll about 4.4 feet past the hole. We don't want such long putts if we happen to miss.
View this video of a "Holing Out Test" using a type of stimpmeter to measure the consistency of a green.
I'd recommend a goal entry speed of about 0.8 m/s or 6 rev/s. If you miss, the ball will end up about 1 foot past the hole. And, if you're not online with the center of the hole, the ball can still get captured by the hole at this speed. You chances of capture are greater at even lower speeds, but at low speeds, the ball is much more susceptible to imperfections in the green which could throw the ball off line.
On all short putts (and longer putts as well) attempt to hit the ball about 1 foot past the cup.
The slope of the green is the single biggest factor in how much your putt will break on the way to the hole, but the fact is: most golfers have a hard time reading break.
The number one tool chosen by more and more Tour Pros and Caddies to measure greens is the BreakMaster Digital Green Reader.
If you value scoring as low as possible day in and day out, it's important that you play a ball with great spin and feel. You need significant spin to stop the ball on the green, close to the flag, especially with the wedge (your scoring club). You also want significant feel around and on the green. A softer covered ball that will give you the added feel necessary, especially on fast greens.
So, if you can afford it, you want to play the top of the line golf balls.
Used golf balls, however, are a economical alternative. They are much cheaper, and ..... as you'll read below, don't suffer in performance, especially distance.
Used Golf Balls -- Can they still be longest golf balls?
Golf Digest did an interesting study a few years ago. They had Golf Laboratories test several balls with their launch monitor and computer-controlled robot using a 10-degree Callaway driver and Titleist NXT golf balls. The balls varied in condition, though.
In the table below are the results for the different conditioned balls. All distances are in yards. Dispersion is the yardage off-line, left or right of the target.
New
Range
Scuffed
Grass
Mud
One Round
Carry
225.0
223.7
219.3
221.3
218.8
223.1
Total
250.3
251.8
244.5
250.3
246.3
250.6
Dispersion
4.6
6.3
2.7
7.9
10.8
4.9
You may have purchased my statistical analysis study on the "Longest Golf Ball." In it, I compare different golf ball distances (when hit by a mechanical hitting machine; Iron Byron) statistically. Golf Digest did not provide the number of balls hit and the individual distances of each trial, so one cannot determine the statistical significance of the difference between balls.
For instance, the total distance for a New ball is 250.3 yards while a Scuffed ball is 244.5 yards, a difference of 5.8 yards (or 2.3%). How much that distance is by chance (not all balls are the same and conditions vary) and how much is due to the "scuffs" on the ball, cannot be determined with confidence.
From my experience with golf ball testing, typically a difference of at least 3% is required before one can declare some likelihood in there being a signficant difference. None of the ball distances in the above table are significantly different from one another by more than 3%. These differences could be due just to chance. See my page on the "Longest Golf Ball" for more detail on what is meant by significant difference due to chance.
The long and short of the Golf Digest test is that no one ball (brand new or used and scuffed) is significantly longer than the other. If there is any significant difference, it's between the amounts of dispersion. The "Grass" and "Mud" balls tended to have significantly more dispersion than the others. Balls that have significant grass or mud on them would have non-symmetric dimple patterns and weightings (one side of the ball is slightly heavier than the other). Such asymmetry would cause the ball to "wobble" and go offline more.
So, just make sure you keep your golf balls clean whenever possible. There is really no significant advantage to playing a new ball over a used ball, as long as you're aware of how used it is. The Golf Digest tests only tested one round old balls. Over the course of many rounds, a golf ball will lose its ability to compress and expand efficiently and will go less far. Most golfers don't need to worry about that because they lose their balls before they get too old.
If you find a ball or by used balls, beware that they may not be as long for the following reasons:
† The ball may have spent a significant time in water. The covers of golf balls are pourous and will absorb water; this changes the viscoelasticity of the cover and the golf ball will fly significantly less far.
† The ball may have spent a winter while "lost." Large temperature changes can alter the elasticity of the golf ball.
† The ball may be significantly used (many rounds) even if it doesn't have a lot of scuffs. Well used balls will likely travel shorter distances (although, Golf Digest did not test this).
Over the summer, I completed an algorithm for determining how far an uphill or downhill putt plays compared to a flat putt. For example, let's say you have an uphill 20 foot putt. How long will it play compared to a 20 foot flat putt? 3 feet? 5 feet? 10 feet?
It depends on the speed of the green and the slope of the green.
Here are the results for a uphill putt on a 1.0 degree slope with a stimpmeter reading of 12 ft (quite fast).
Slope
Distance
Speed
Normal
(ft)
(ft/s)
(ft)
1.0
5.0
4.50
6.7
1.0
10.0
6.36
13.2
1.0
15
7.80
19.7
1.0
20
9.00
26.2
1.0
25
10.07
32.7
1.0
30
11.03
39.2
1.0
40
12.74
52.2
1.0
50
14.25
65.2
1.0
60
15.61
78.1
1.0
80
18.02
103.9
The 'Distance' column displays the physical distance to the hole. the 'Speed' column displays the ball speed required to travel that distance uphill. The 'Normal' column displays how far the ball would roll given the speed on a level green (0 degree slope).
So, a 20 footer uphill would need to be struck with enough speed so that it would travel 26.2 feet on a level green. Thus, one would want to aim about 6 feet past the hole on this uphill putt.
Just a short note about something which really annoys me. The title of this topic was on the front cover of a recent golf magazine meant to entice you to open the cover and buy.
Sorry, but even the best in the game cannot hit every fairway (unless of course they hit a wedge off the tee). The best on the PGA Tour this year is Jim Furyk with 71%.
Dead Center Putting Test -- Dave Pelz
I love the research that Dave Pelz does. In some of his more recent work, he found that in practicing your putting, you need to ensure you are hitting the sweet spot consistently. If not, then the reason for your misses are almost impossible to diagnose.
Pelz says your goal should be to hit within one eighth of an inch if your sweet spot. Take a look at the images below from an experiment using pressure-sensitive impact tape available in most golf shops or you can purchase them from me here:
The initial direction of a putt is greatly influenced by the putter face angle. Hitting the ball away from the sweet spot causes the face to open or close. Consistently pulling putts could be because the contact point is towards the toe of the putter. Aligning the putter face more right or aiming more right is not the way to correct the problem in this case.
Plus, distance control is crucial in putting. It is difficult to learn correct feel if you are not hitting the center of the putting face.
Looking for a new start this season. How about a set of irons that are all exactly the same length and weight? You'll only need one swing and one swing plane.
Enter the code 10504 and receive a complimentary e-book
For a short time, One Iron golf clubs will have free worldwide shipping. And, notify me of your purchase by email, and I'll send you a complimentary 2 Swing Like a Genius T-shirts AND 2 pair of "Putting Glasses."
Free shipping ends soon! Save $125. Get your 30-day free trial.
To learn more about Intermediate Focus Golf, CLICK HERE
Stages of the Golf Swing
Review the different important stages of the golf swing. Are you getting into the proper positions?. Click on the links below.
No shipping charges on orders over $75. If you want some more details about a Golf Digest Study of Used Golf Balls in which they had Golf Laboratories use their Golf Robot to hit the balls, click on this link:
1. Go to my Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page. There's a link to it on my pages from the left hand menu near the top of the page, just below the Search icon. It's called "FAQs." You then click on the graphic icon and you'll be taken to my database page. For your convenience, here it is: FAQI've answered hundreds of questions over the past 6 years and have created a fairly large database. You can search it out. If you can't find the answer you're looking for, submit a question and I'll answer it.2. On all of my web pages, there is a search feature in the top left section, right underneath my LOGO. Just place your search keywords in the search box, select "This Site" below it, and then press "Search." What will come up is a Google search of the pages on my site with relevance. You can also search the entire internet by selecting "Web" instead.
Go to my main page now: Home or just check the top left menu of this page. 3. Also, directly under the Google Search area, you'll find a pop down menu called "Your Topic." Select the topic of interest and press "Go."I would suggest you bookmark my main page and/or your specific areas of interest so that you can find them easily in the future. On each page at the very top, there is a link you can click on:
"Click here to add this page to your favourites"Hope you find all you're looking for.You can learn more from NEW Titleist Pro-V1 by clicking HERE.
A list of resources that have been used to produce
this newsletter can be found on my web site here.
Hope I provided some useful ways for you to
become better prepared for you best golf season
ever.
Ken Tannar
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