I told you it was easy. (click on image for larger view)

If you remember, at the end of the 2010 season, I set a goal to improve my iron play as I felt that was the biggest flaw in my game.  My scoring on par threes and par fours was much worse than my scoring on par fives. I use my range time to really focus on my irons, especially the mid to long irons. I feel as though I have improved in that area of my game.  I also feel like the TaylorMade hybrids I added to my bag have really helped in my long game. I also set a goal to break 70 this season, as it had been a few years since that happened.

Well, let’s look at the numbers.

	2010	2011
Rounds	50	55
Average Score	76.1	73.7
Low Round	70	67
High Round	84	83
Rounds Under Par	4	5
Break 80	84%	96%
Fairways Hit	59.2%	59.3%
Green in Regulation	55.9%	59.9%
Putts per Round	31.5	30.8
Sand Saves	31%	45.9%
Scrambling	n/a	45.7%
Up and Downs	n/a	51.8%
Bounce-Back	n/a	72.9%
Par 3 Scoring	3.3	3.6
Par 4 Scoring	4.3	4.2
Par 5 Scoring	5.0	4.8
Birdies per Round	2.2	2.5
Pars per Round	10	10.6
Bogeys per Round	4.9	4.3
Others per Round	0.9	0.6

I am definitely hitting more greens this season which is why my scoring average is down. I am a little disappointed that my average on the par threes increased this season as that, to me, is a true test of how well you hit your irons.  I was able to make up the difference with better par five play and one third less “others” per round. Every golfer knows it is the others that can kill a golf round.

Overall I am pleased with my performance this season. I definitely saw improvements in many areas of my game. I think that the new equipment I added, moving away from my blades and into a more forgiving iron (TaylorMade RAC LT) made a big difference in my iron play.  I also credit the Phil Mickelson short game video for helping me to improve my short game. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it. Considering that Phil plays so many different shots around the green, he has a pretty simple philosophy – and it works.

My new tracking software (Strack.com) added a few new categories this year so I will be looking to improve my scrambling and bounce back (making par or better after making a bogey or worse) percentages next season.

The R11 irons had a good feel to them. The ball seems to jump off the face, as it does the hybrids. I only hit them into a simulator, so I was unable to see the actual ball flight.  However, the simulated flight was high and long. I would recommend you give them a try. They are marketed as irons to help the low to mid handicap player. I can see that after hitting them. They are not so forgiving that you can’t work the ball at all, but do give you a very generous sweet spot. If you are looking to invest in a new set of irons, I don’t think I will need to tell you to try these. The TaylorMade marketing department will do that for me.

I personally switched to the TaylorMade RAC irons from ’05 this season and still maintain that those are the best irons that TaylorMade has ever built. I think everything after them is just a copy of those RAC irons. If you want to save yourself a lot of money, go onto eBay and search for RAC irons…I got mine for about $160.

Until next time…

OK, I will admit that I enjoyed watching Jim Furyk win the playoffs last season – mainly because he is just a good guy. And there is some suspense in who will win this year. But isn’t that the same suspense that we get every week now in golf. There is no dominate player these days so every week there seems to be someone else beating the field. I think that is the way golf should be. It is the only sport where performance is not limited by age and sex. The only sport where a college kid can be beaten by a senior citizen. We shouldn’t be surprised that no one really dominates the sport like Tiger did…or Jack did in his day.  They were the anomaly in the sport and we should not expect that to happen every year.

So this week the playoffs continue at Cog Hill in Illinois. The top 70 players are battling to make it into the Tour Championship in Atlanta. Only the top 30 finishers in the playoffs get to play in the Tour Championship so this week we will be having a tournament within the tournament. It is not only about winning at Cog Hill, but about moving into the top 30 so you have a chance to win the playoffs the next week in Atlanta. Wait…I guess this is sort of exciting.  Maybe we should be talking about Playoffs!

The Masters: Another ho-hum year at The Masters.  Schwartzel played great, but I will admit, I was hoping that Day would win.  Honestly, I wanted McIlroy to win, but at least his collapse was epic.  The Masters will always have a hard time living up to my expectations.  I watched Jack Nicklaus win in ’86 and I am not sure anything will ever live up to that year.  Even Phil’s big wins are no where near as good as the 86 Masters.

The US Open: I would say this was also a boring event, except that McIlroy showed that he had recovered from his collapse a few months earlier in the Masters.   He absolutely dominated all four rounds and made the course look very easy…and since no one else was even close, I assume the course wasn’t that easy.  McIlroy has led after 7 of the 8 major rounds this season.  Will he continue his dominance at the Open.  I wouldn’t bet against him.

The rest of the PGA tour tournaments:  Who cares…

More to come.

I have always thought that the grip and set up were fundamentals of a good golf swing. But how can they be fundamental if everyone does them differently? Players use strong grips, weak grips and everything in between.  Players set up open, closed and square. Other things that people have told me are fundamental to a good golf swing, tempo, alignment and posture. If you can vary all of these things so drastically and still be one of the best players in the world, how can it really be a fundamental to the success of a good golf swing?

This question was raised in a new book I am reading, “The Stack and Tilt Golf Swing.” The questions are very valid and are starting to make me question what I believe about golf. The authors, and inventors of the swing, suggest that a real fundamental of golf is being able to strike the ground in the same place every time. Every professional strikes the ground consistently in the same spot allowing them to strike the ball solidly. Us amateurs, well, not so much.

They believe that there are truly only three fundamentals, the things every golfer must do to play the game well.

1. Striking the ground in the same spot
2. Generating enough power to play the course
3. Matching the clubface to the swing path in order to control shot direction

If you think about it, this makes complete sense. Every great player does these three things consistently and there are really no variables to these three fundamentals. You either do them or you don’t, hence they are fundamental to a good golf swing.

Now, whether or not the Stack and Tilt Swing will help you and I perform these fundamentals consistently, well that is yet to be seen. As a student of the game, I would recommend the book as a good read. You will have to decide if the swing is right for you or not.

Rounds: 50
Index: -.5
Average Score: 76.1
Low Round: 70
High Round: 84
Rounds Under Par: 4
Rounds that broke 80: 42
Under Par for Nine Holes: 8
Hit Fairways: 59.2%
Hit Greens: 55.9%
Putts Per Round: 31.5
Sand Saves: 31%

Average Score to Par:
Par 3’s: 3.3
Par 4’s: 4.3
Par 5’s: 5.0

Holes Per Round:
Birdie: 2.2
Par: 10
Bogey: 4.9
Other: 0.9

All in all not bad stats for the year. When I started the year, I set a goal of at least one round under par and six nine hole sub-par instances. I was able to shoot four rounds under par this year after not having one for two years. I compared these to the PGA tour and found that my Driving Accuracy is good enough to be 148th on the PGA tour, granted they are hitting to much smaller fairways, but they also have many more opportunities. My GIR and putting of course is nowhere near Tour averages.

I think that these stats show that I really need to focus on my iron play this year. The high par 3 average (3.3 per hole) shows that I miss those greens a lot as I don’t three putt much. Par 3’s are a good indicator of your iron play.  The par 4 average (4.3 per hole) is probably also higher because of my iron play. I put the ball in the fairway off the tee enough that I should be able to score better on the par 4’s. I am able to compensate for the mediocre iron play on par 5’s with my length and short game. I have to give myself more birdie chances on the par 3’s and 4’s.

I feel as though my putting has come a long way in the last few years. I am a much more confident putter and as I said, I don’t three putt very often (1.8 putts per hole). I want to continue to improve my putting, and I feel the best way to do that is to improve my ability to read the greens. I am hoping that the Pelz Putting Tutor from Dave Pelz will help. This is the only tool that Phil Mickelson endorses from Pelz, so that says something about it.

I feel as though my game is as good as it has ever been and that includes back when I was trying to qualify for the US Amateur and US Open. I played more back then so although my swing wasn’t as good, it was more consistent from round to round. I am not as consistent as I used to be in the past, but my short game and putting are better, allowing me to make up for inconsistent play.  Consistency is definitely something I need to work on and that is only accomplished through practice. I now have a driving range across the street from my office and five minutes from my house. This year I will need to use them both a lot more often. But since beating balls is not very helpful without a plan, I also feel like it is time for me to take some more lessons. It has been about 5 years since my last lesson, so I am ready for a refresher.

I highly recommend that, if you are serious about improving, you need to start tracking your game. Statistics like these will help you focus your practice and see better results. I use a simple program on Facebook from SI Golf Nation. It tracks my stats and allows me to see how my buddies are doing at the same time.

Well, I have a new favorite golf book.  I recently read “The Golfer’s Mind” by Dr. Rotella and it has changed the way I approach every shot. I can’t recommend it highly enough to all serious golfers, no matter your skill level. This is not a new book, as I think it was published in 2004, and it is available in most book stores or online here.

The nice thing is, unlike making a physical change to your golf swing, making a mental change can lead to immediate results. You don’t need to spend hours beating balls at the range, just spend a few hours reading and you can see great changes in your game.  I personally saw the immediate effect this book can have this weekend.  I gave the book to one of my golf buddies to read as I thought he would truly benefit from its principles. He was already a good player, carrying a 7 handicap, but he tended to get in his own way on the course, especially if things started to go bad. I hoped that the book would help him to stay in the moment and capitalize fully on his talent. He read it last week while on a business trip. We played on Saturday and he accomplished two milestones during the round. First, he shot under par for nine holes for the first time in his career, and, more importantly, he was able to finish the day even par, another first in his career.  He credits the book for helping him focus on every shot and maintain a calm during adversity.

According to Dr. Rotella, he wrote this book because many of his students expressed a desire to have a handbook to refer to once they had stopped working with him directly.  For that reason he put together a very easy guide to the ten principles he teaches for his former students, and for those of us who can’t afford to hire him for private counseling, to refer back to as a refresher.  An excerpt from the book after the jump:

Often what I hear from readers of those earlier books is something to the effect that, “Your ideas were really helpful right after I read them, Doc, but lately they don’t seem to work well.” What that tells me is not that the ideas have gotten less effective. It tells me that over time, the reader has forgotten some of them. Or he’s reverted to old ways of thinking, perhaps without realizing it.

This doesn’t surprise me. The players with whom I work individually are prone to the same problem. If the issue is trusting the swing for instance, they might be able to do it very well in the months after we have our initial session. It’s one of the things I stress. But over time, a golfer is exposed to a barrage of contradictory ideas. People are telling him to think about the way his hands cock the club or the ratio between his hip turn and his shoulder turn. If he’s a professional, he gets this sort of advice from renowned instructors on the practice range at Tour venues. If he’s an average player, he gets it from magazines and television. Pretty soon, instead of trusting his swing and thinking about his target, he’s thinking about pronation while he’s on the golf course. He’s trying to swing while his mind sorts through bits and pieces of conflicting advice. That’s difficult to do.

When this happens with one of my established clients, I review the essentials with him. This book is an effort to do the same thing for readers. It’s a distilled version of what I teach.

So often, in those telephone sessions, I return to ten fundamental points of good golf thinking. If Moses hadn’t already copyrighted the name, I would be tempted to call them my ten commandments for playing great golf. I know that if a player adheres to them, he can find out exactly how low his skills are prepared to take him on any given round. Here they are:

1. Play to play great. Don’t play not to play poorly.
2. Love the challenge of the day, whatever it may be.
3. Get out of results and get into process.
4. Know that nothing will bother or upset you on the golf course, and you will be in a great state of mind for every shot.
5. Playing with a feeling that the outcome doesn’t matter is almost always preferable to caring too much.
6. Believe fully in yourself so you can play freely.
7. See where you want the ball to go before every shot.
8. Be decisive, committed, and clear.
9. Be your own best friend.
10. Love your wedge and your putter.

These ideas may sound obscure or strange to you. If you finish reading this book, they won’t. I intend to explain each of them, and by the time I’m done, you will understand why they’re so important. I hope you’ll want to re-read them often.

Now, I don’t think that the book will make everyone a scratch player, but it certainly will improve your game. In my buddies case, he was able to focus on every shot and not worry about the outcome of the day. When he started the back nine with three bogeys, he didn’t give up, instead he focused even more and was able to pick up two birdies coming in to finish even for the day. He was more mentally tough that day than I have ever seen him.

I have also seen the benefit of the message in the book on my golf game recently.  Since reading it, I have managed to put together two rounds under par, my first in over three years.  One was also on Saturday, as I could not let my buddy beat me, no matter how good a day he was having. Get the book, it might change your game forever.

When I tried the Backstryke in Golf Galaxy, the first thing I noticed was how easy it was to set the face square to the target line. I really like being able to see the entire face as I set up to the ball. I also noticed that the putter forces your hands to be pressed forward at address. For golfers that tend to keep their hands even or behind the ball at address, the Backstryke may be a bad option. However, having a hands forward set up will definitely promote a tighter, more consistent roll. Like my Scotty, this putter definitely sets up square and is very easy to align to the target. Overall the Backstryke passes the set up test.

On the practice green, I immediately noticed that the ball was rolling much tighter with the Backstryke. I think this is due to the forced hand placement as well as the fact that this putter is very easy to release. Odyssey claims that the hand press promotes an upward stroke imparting faster top spin. I don’t know about all that, but I do feel as though my ball is rolling better than ever.

The putter definitely has a different feel than any of the putters I have used in the past. Maybe this is due to the fact that the shaft is disconnected from the face. It could also be the insert. Either way, the feel was a bit odd with the first few putts, but I was able to get used to it very quickly.

I have played four rounds with it now and I feel very confident standing over any putt inside 10 feet. The roll of the putter is very consistent and I am definitely making better strokes. However, I am still struggling a bit longer putts. The ball seems to fly off the face on putts over 25 feet and I am having trouble consistently lagging the ball close. I think the weight difference of the Backstryke and my Scotty may be a contributing factor in my poor lag putting. The tighter roll could also be causing me to hit longer putts farther than I did with my Scotty. During my last round I lagged the ball better on  longer putts, but this is something that I need to work on.

Although I can’t say that my putting stats have decreased since changing putters, I am still averaging 32 putts a round, I will say that my confidence in the Backstryke is growing. I really feel like I am going to make more putts, especially from within 15 feet. For us amateurs to make more putts, we need the confidence to putt aggressively. We don’t play on the speedy, perfect greens that the pros get week in and week out, so imperfections in the greens contribute more to us missing putts. We need to be more aggressive so that the ball will stay online causing more 3-4 footers coming back. The more confidence you have in making those short comeback putts, the more aggressive you can be with your first putt. With my new Backstryke, I feel as though I can make every short putt I stand over.

Overall I like the concepts behind this putter, improved alignment as the shaft is not in your eye sight and a hands forward set up. I think the combination of these two items will lead to better putting. I would definitely recommend the putter.