The best players in the world use yardage books and greens charts to help them prepare for battle each and every round.

The yardage books give them precise distances from their ball to virtually any location on the hole.  The carry to the front and back edge of fairway bunkers, the front, back, and sides of the greens, landing areas in the fariway and a whole lot more.

The green charts tell them the break and the degrees of break of every single putt!

How may strokes could you improve if you had this information!

Well here is an example of how to make a green chart.

First, draw an outline of the green like this picture.

Then roll some golf balls and make notes of how much and where the break starts and ends.

Or you could do what a large number of PGA Tour players and caddies do.

Use the Breakmaster to measure precisely how much and where the breaks are from any given angle.

Gathering this information can be time consuming but USING this information can be priceless!

The majority of the Tour Caddies use a device called the Breakmaster.  This device accurately measures and tells the player the degree(s) of break on any given putt.  If you’ve ever seen those blue lines on TV at the Tour events that show the line and break of the putt, this device is one of the tools used to measure that.

Going into his senior year of high school golf Brett Ochsenreiter and FWB High School golf team had high expectations with the return of all its starters.   Wanting to go out and just try to play no pressure golf and enjoy those last high school moments, Brett has shown that at some point in this game one must see ball, see hole and put ball in hole.

Leading the field and earning the low medalist round of 3 under 69, Brett and teammates advanced to the regionals in Tallahassee Florida. Anticipation was high but again Brett did not disappoint as he met the challenges and again earned medalist honors by shooting a 4 under 68. With that fine showing Brett has now lead his team to the Florida High School 1-2A State Championships.

The state tournament will be played Tuesday and Wednesday at Silver Springs Shores, The Country Club in Ocala, and the Vikings are excited after turning in their best overall performance of the season. With a “just let go” and enjoy your final high school golf rounds mentality, we are confidant of a fine showing by Brett.

Congratulations Brett and Vikings and good luck at state, we are proud to have you in our Player Development Program!

Over the years I have seen many players that “look” like they could be world beaters but when the bell rings they stumble out of the gate.  These players have not learned HOW to score!

You can have the best mechanics in the world but you still need to be able to score.  A perfect example of this is Seve Ballesteros.  Over his great career he averaged 6 fairways a round and won 54 times including the British Open and the Masters.

If there was ever a player that could score it was Seve.

Of today’s players Tiger would have to be considered the ultimate scoring machine.  With the driver being so inconsistent he still manages to be in the top 10 for the “greens in regulation” stat.

But what does all of this mean.  Players today get too concerned about “golf swing” and not about scoring.  A player can be in all of the “right” positions mechanically but be brain-dead when it comes to scoring.  Every player hits poor shots, no exception!  Your job is to minimize the misses.  Miss on the correct side of the fairway or green.

If you are going to every become a good player you must BELIEVE!

When you miss a fairway BELIEVE that you will get the ball on the green, or close to it.  On the green BELIEVE that you will make the putt.  If you miss a green BELIEVE that you will get it up and down.

Years ago I was talking with the great Moe Norman and asked him where he aimed on certain shots.  He looked at me in total disbelief and said,

When you hit it as straight as Moe you can aim at every flag.

When a player starts having trouble with certain shots, or clubs, they subconsciously start “steering” the ball.  This is absolutely the worst thing you can do!  Steering only leads mis-hits, bent plane line, erratic clubface alignments and more.  Swing with reckless abandon but in control!

There will always be flags you can fire at and others that you don’t.  But if you are having trouble scoring take dead aim, pull the trigger and see what happens.  The worst thing that can happen is that you miss your target.  So What!  Rely on your short game, use your imagination and BELIEVE that you will knock it in!