The Recreational Golfer™

Dr. Frank Jobe (1925-2014)

2014-03-07T08:00:00.001-08:00

You know who this guy is. He is the one who invented Tommy John surgery to repair the elbow of baseball pitchers. John, a pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers, had a useless left elbow until Jobe took an unneeded ligament from John's right wrist and grafted it in place in John's left elbow. After healing as complete, John went to win 146 more major league baseball games.

The real name of the procedure is "ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction while using the palmaris longus tendon." Let's just stick with Tommy John surgery.

But this is a golf blog, so where's the connection? Jobe did pioneering work in the role of different body parts in the golf swing. You can look them up at PubMed, a clearing house for medical journals.

He also wrote a book of exercises for golfers, titled, 30 Exercises for Better Golf. Golf is an athletic event. You need to have the right muscles developed to play it well, and to play it injury-free. This book tells you how to do that.

Golf is hard on the back. It's hard on the elbows and shoulders, too. As we age, we loose flexibility, especially in trunk rotation, which causes us to lose power, which causes us to try to make up for it harmful ways. Keep the golf muscles string and flexible, and the effects of aging are diminished.

All these are good reasons to be prepare for golf by being in shape for it.

I have read all the golf exercise books I can find, but this one is by far the best. Get it, use it. And thank Dr. Jobe for helping us stay healthy.

The Importance of the Golf Swing

2014-03-03T22:26:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I make a shot-by-shot record of a round I just played. I dug into those sheets and found four complete rounds and a nine-holer from about ten years ago that averaged 90 (93, 87, 88, 91, 46). These are the average numbers of long shots, short shots and putts in those rounds (there were also four penalty strokes).

Long - 34.7; Short - 21.8; Putts - 32.7

Then I found notes on 45 holes where I averaged 79 (80, 76, 41), from seven years later.

Long - 36.0; Short - 12.0; Putts - 30.8

This is a small sample, and you could put +/- a stroke or two behind each one.

The biggest change by far is the number of short shots, dropping by almost ten strokes. The reason why is the improvement in my swing, which led to more greens hit, and, therefore, no short shots on those holes. I hit about the same number of long shots, but they were better shots.

There was a contribution due to short game improvement in that I would not take more than one short shot to get the ball on the green so often. But most of that ten-shot difference is swing improvement.

Heck, a few weeks a go, I played nine holes and on the last four, hit every fairway and every green and got four pars. Who needs a short game when you hit it that straight? (And yes, I know you don’t always hit it that straight. Just sayin’.)

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

Building a Recreational Golf Swing - At Impact

2014-03-03T20:04:00.000-08:00

Everything you have done so far in the swing is designed to lead to an ideal position of the clubhead at impact -- square, centered on the ball, headed toward the target, still descending.

Here's where you want to be at impact:

Your left wrist is flat.

Your weight is on your left side and moving leftward still.

Your left arm is straight.

Your hips are turning.

Your right elbow is by your right side.

Your right knee is above the ball.

Like this:

It's not hard to get there. The best way is to hit chips with a lofted club, with your left hand only. Except for your right elbow, you will be doing all these things in order just to hit the ball decently.

Short and sweet, it's that simple.

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

Special Offer for Breaking 90 (or 100, or even 80)

2014-02-27T21:06:00.003-08:00

Better Recreational Golf has been revised and is now available on Amazon. Certain concepts are explained in more detail to help you play even better.

As part of this announcement, I am making you a special offer to lower your score even further.

Buy a copy of BRG and forward me, at olp@wvi.com, the e-mail message you got from Amazon confirming your purchase. I will send you, by e-mail, my FREE guide to breaking 100 (or 90, or 80), the next time you play.

If you’re close, shooting just a couple of strokes over these threshold scores, but not breaking through, I’ll tell you how to do it. FREE!

I watch the people I play golf with, and I see just what they need to do to shave three strokes off their score, which is all it takes.

This offer is valid for purchases made through March 31, 2014.

Thank you very much!

Building an Ideal Golf Swing - Left Hand Leads at Impact

2014-02-24T08:32:00.003-08:00

There is a race in the downswing between the left hand and the clubhead to get to the ball first. The left hand ALWAYS has to win that race.

For any shot hit off the ground, the golden rule is hit the ball first, the ground second. Getting the left hand to the ball before the clubhead gets there is the surest way for that to happen.

What most recreational golfers do is the opposite. The clubhead gets to the ball first because they hit with their right hand. More often than not the clubhead is coming upward, which frequently leads to hitting the ground first.

In addition, the right hand is flipping the club through the ball, taking the clubface out of line. The result is shots hit fat, off line, or both.

Those rockets you hit occasionally come when, by accident, the left hand does get there first.

Watch this video on how to learn this move, and practice what it tells you. I feel this move is the biggest difference between a consistently good ball-striker and everyone else.

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

Building an Ideal Golf Swing - Transition From the Top

2014-02-17T00:30:00.000-08:00

The second transition in the golf swing (the first being the takeaway in which we transition from a static to a dynamic state), is not the start of hitting the ball, and golfers who think it is ruin everything they have done right up to that point. We are still preparing for the hit, even when we are coming down into the ball. We do this by making the start of the downswing a gravity move.

By that, I mean the club drops down without any direct effort applied to it, being only carried by the body turn. Do not ring the bell (pull down with the last three fingers of the left hand). Certainly, do not push the club down with the right hand. Remember what we said in a previous post about pushing things.

By letting the club go along for the ride, we let it begin accelerating naturally, so when the moment comes to swing the club into the ball, it will already be ripping through the air. To push the club downward at the start actually slows the club down.

A good way to coach yourself to let the club fall on its own is to monitor the feeling you have on the inside of your hands, the part touching the club. When the club reaches the top of the backswing and is suspended momentarily, the grip feeling should be quite light, and should not change when you start down. The right thing to do is to carry that light feeling into the downswing--well into it. That way, the club cannot be forced into the ball.

Another drill you can do, even more extreme, but certainly not wrong, is to swing to the top of your backswing, and, as you start down, relax your grip and let the club fall out of your hands as you continue your swing motion with your body and arms. You can get no more effortless than that. Try this a few times, then swing one more time and keep hold of the club, but swing through the ball with the same light feeling as you had when you let go of the club.

I believe you will shortly find your clubhead speed increasing, and it might even be scary fast. Because you are not forcing anything, you will not lose accuracy, and might instead gain some.

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

Play Golf Your Own Way

2014-02-13T14:45:00.002-08:00

I am not shy about taking golf lessons. I don't over-do it, but I have one when I need one. I read things on the Internet (I can already hear you saying, "Uh, oh.") and give them try if they make sense on the face of it. But enough is enough. Enough might even be too much.

I have been playing golf for over 50 years. In that time, I've gotten a pretty good idea of how I want to swing a golf club. But I was pushing shots, mainly drives, so I had a lesson to fix it.

Also, I lost distance because of my back surgeries two years ago, and I wanted some of it back. I saw a video on the fact that touring pros take one second to go from takeaway to impact. That's pretty fast, so I spent a few weeks building up the tempo of my swing because I thought it might help.

We had a big snowstorm, so I couldn't play for a while, but today I was finally able to go out and try out my new (!) swing over nine holes. Oh, brother!

In the first five holes I had one good shot. I was six over par after five and even that was because I was chipping and putting like a champion. This is not how I play golf, so I decided on th sixth tee to quit all that nonsense.

The position the pro had put me in was technically correct, but from that position at the top of my backswing, I couldn't find the ball again. Know what I mean? As for the one-second swing, it didn't add speed, it subtracted speed because all the speed was in my body. I had no time let my swing accelerate the clubhead.

So on the sixth tee, I decided to play golf the way I wanted to, to swing the club the way I wanted to. The result? I hit the next four greens in regulation and walked off the course with four straight pars. That's a bit more like it.

When you buy clothes, you're buying clothes that fit a generic model. Many times you have to have them tailored to fit you. Golf instruction is the same. The pro can get you close, but the instruction has to be tailored, and you are the tailor.

There comes a point when you have to take all of the advice you have sought out, and the lessons you have taken, and re-package them into something that fits you -- how you move, how you think, how you feel that the golf you play is your golf, and that it works (there's no point in being possessive of something that doesn't work).

Golf instruction points you in a general direction. From there, find the exact direction on your own. It's the only way you'll play your best.

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

Building an Ideal Golf Swing - Backswing

2014-02-10T00:30:00.000-08:00

The purpose of the backswing is to get the club into position to be swung into the ball. A consistent backswing finds the body in the same conformation every time, and at the same place every time. Here's how to achieve those two things.

Many authorities tell you to take the club away by pushing it back with your left side. Whenever I hear that, I think of the old saw, "You can't push a rope." Neither can you push your golf swing. The way to get something into the proper spot is to pull it there, not push it there. (You know why they're called "tow trucks," and not, "push trucks"?)

Take the club away, then, with you right side, specifically your right hand. Being right-handed, you will be using the hand you normally use to get things done, in this case to put the club where you want it. What could make more sense than that?

When you pull the club straight back with your right hand, eventually everything else will follow. It will be much easier to get to the same place every time. What place is that? I call it, control.

Take the club back to the spot where you still feel you can come back into the ball without your swing having to search for it. For me, that means taking the hands to about shoulder height. That's a shorter backswing than most, but it has far more accuracy and really does not lose any punch.

The angle in your left wrist at the top of the backswing needs to be the same as it was at address. Taking the club back with you right hand also makes it easy to preserve the angle in your left wrist, which is a key to keeping the clubface aligned.

If you increase the angle, by "cupping" the wrist, which is most common, you have opened the clubface, and you must close it somehow on the way down, and by the exact amount you opened it. That's a lot to ask. How about just leaving that clubface angle where it is by not changing the angle in the left wrist? Taking the club back with the right hand does this.

One move, two extraordinary results. You still have to practice it, but this is the easiest way, the surest way to get into good position by the end of your backswing.

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

Newsletter - Controlling the Speed of Your Putt

2014-02-04T15:42:00.000-08:00

The Recreational Golfer's February newsletter will be published on Thursday, February 6. It will feature his latest YouTube video lesson on how to make green reading much easier by having the putt approach the hole at a consistent speed regardless of the length of the putt.

Sign up to receive the newsletter at www.therecreationalgolfer.com.

Building an Ideal Golf Swing - Takeaway

2014-02-04T08:39:00.003-08:00

The first movement in the golf swing plays a large role in determining everything else that happens. Just as the proper setup puts you in the right position physically, the right takeaway puts your swing in the right position.

There is a particular arc your swing would travel through if you were to hit the ball with maximum efficiency. Only if you start the club off along that arc can it continue along that arc. Granted, the takeaway only governs the backswing. But the purpose of the backswing is to get the club in the right position for the downswing. The right downswing only comes out of the right position at the top of the backswing, which is governed by its very first movement--the takeaway.

By "takeaway," I mean the first few feet of the backswing, before the club head has even gotten to the height of your hip, before your body has even started turning. Just that small movement should feel like is moving along along the line extended behind the ball along which you want the ball to start off. By doing this, you program your swing to return along this line through impact. You give your unconscious mind the directions it needs to bring the club back through the ball along the starting line.

Now there are two things about this that are true. First, the swing is an arc, and has no straight lines in it. When the clubhead meets the ball at impact, it might be traveling along a line that is straight for only a few inches at best. But there is an overall orientation of the arc that must be parallel to the starting line. If we extend the swing arc to make a complete circle, like a giant hula hoop, a line running across the center of the hoop, parallel to the ground, would be parallel to the starting line, too.

This is what we are trying to achieve with our swing, and starting the club straight back makes this much easier to do than otherwise.

The second thing that is true, is that many top-flight golfers do not take the club straight back. Many of them take the club back inside of this straight line and come back to the ball swinging from the inside to out. These golfers have, however, learned how to compensate for this and still hit marvelous shots.

As recreational golfers, without the time available to learn compensations, our best strategy is to learn how to take the club back straight.

The best place to learn how to do this is in your kitchen, since that room is the least cluttered with furniture, allowing you to swing the club back a few feet without hitting anything.

Take a golf stance with the toe of your club up against the baseboard. Now take the club away as if to start a golf swing. (Be in no hurry doing this. Clubhead speed gets built up on the downswing, not the backswing.) You should hear a brief scratching sound, like striking a match. That is the sound of the club moving straight back against the baseboard for a few inches before your body turn arcs the club inward.

If you hear no sound at all, you’re taking the club back inside. If you feel like you are pushing against the baseboard when you take the club back, then you are trying to take it back outside. If your kitchen is not appropriate for this exercise, go outside and rest the toe or your club against a block of wood, at last a foot long, which is firmly supported so your club doesn’t push it out of the way.

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

Six golf stroke constants

2014-01-27T00:30:00.000-08:00

There are six things you need to do in every stroke you make at the ball, from drive to putt. These constants should appear in your longest drive and a six-foot putt, and every shot in between.

1. Start the club back straight -- the body turn takes it inside.

2. Start the through-swing with a gravity move.

3. Have the left hand lead the clubhead into the ball.

4. Hit the shot with both hands -- one does not take the major role.

5. Swing through toward the target.

6. Use the 3:1 rhythm.

Over the next six weeks, I will explain each one of these points. If you already know what they mean, please start working right away to make them part of the way you play golf.

There are certainly more things that need to be done to hit good golf shots consistently, but if you make these your new habits, you'll be doing a lot of things right.

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

A Simple Cure for Golfers Who Hook

2014-01-20T00:30:00.000-08:00

If watching the ball curve left too many times is driving you nuts, try this cure. Maybe it's all in your grip.

It's possible that you're doing everything right in your swing and you still hit those draws that get out of control. If that's so, the reason is likely that your right hand is overpowering your left just before impact, which makes both hands rotate counter clockwise, closing the clubface. Hello, hook. If you have what is called a neutral grip, with the palms facing each other, and the Vs between the thumb and forefinger of each hand point at your right shoulder, keep reading.

Your left hand is too weak. It's in a position where it cannot resist the rotation of the right hand trying to hit the ball. As well, the right hand cannot resist rotating counterclockwise in the effort to hit the ball. Both hands are to blame, so we have to correct each one. First, the left hand.

Put your left hand out in front of you, thumb up. Now push gently on the base of the thumb, pushing to the left. You will notice that the thumb rotates away from the push quite easily. This is exactly what's happening in your swing. the right hand pushes on the left, and the left hand cannot resist. To cure that, Turn your left hand on the grip clockwise, strengthening it, so you can see three knuckles on the back of that hand. Keep the right hand where it is. Do NOT rotate it to match what you did with the left hand.

Now, the left hand is acting as a buttress against the right hand. Now push against the left hand, at the base of the thumb, in this position. The left hand does not move because it cannot. Even if your right hand is pushing hard against it, the left hand will hold its position and keep the clubface square.

See photos of this grip at A Grip Fundamental.

When you try this new grip, rest the clubhead on the ground, take the grip, and look at it to make sure it's right. Then step up and hit the ball where you're aiming.

Now let's correct the right hand.

We do not have to change the position of the hand, but its action. Reduce the function of this hand to nothing more than holding on to the club. Do not try to hit the ball with this hand. That causes problems that go beyond the point of this article, but what is relevant here is that if it does not push against the left hand, the left hand will not feel the need to push back.

Your hands are supposed to be working together to hit the ball, not fighting with each other. If you reduce the right hand to a passive role, you will find that you hit the ball with a squarer clubface, and hit it farther, too. And, it goes straight, which was our primary goal.

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

How far do you hit your irons? - 3

2014-01-13T00:30:00.000-08:00

You really need to know how far you hit your irons so that you can start zeroing in on the pin. Hole-high beats short or long all day. There are several posts in this blog about ways to determine this question. It's such an important issue, I keep coming back to it. Here's my latest hot idea that I had fun with one day.

Go to the course by yourself. Tee off, and when you get to your ball, decide which club you would use. Take out that club, and one more, such as if you decided a 7-iron would do, take out your 6, too. Hit a shot with both clubs and see which one does better for you. The longer club might not be the better one, but you'll know, because you tried it, at least from this distance.

Write down those results, and do the same on holes that follow. Feel free to drop the ball at different distances from the flag on different holes, if you have to, to get a broad sample of club combinations to try out.

Pay special attention to par 3s. You might find you hit the ball a different distance with a given club when the ball is on a tee rather than on the ground.

Take advantage of elevated and depressed greens, too. Most golfers know they have to make an adjustment, but how much is something they never figure out.

If you do this enough times, from distances where you can compare all possible neighboring club pairs, you will get a good idea of what club to use and when. Having a firm grasp of your iron distances is how you start hitting them close, which is the real key to shooting low scores.

My earlier posts on this subject are found at:

How far do you hit your irons?

Golfers: How to know how far your clubs carry

Johnny Miller's article, "10 Rules for Sticking Your Irons," speaks to this subject, too.

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

Reading Subtle Breaks in the Green

2014-01-09T00:30:00.000-08:00

Subtle breaks can easily be read if you know how to look. This new video shows you.

See the rest of my YouTube videos at my YouTube channel.

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

The Recreational Golfer's January newsletter

2014-01-06T17:23:00.001-08:00

The January Recreational Golfer newsletter will be published on Wednesday, January 8. Sign up now, if you haven't already, at www.therecreationalgolfer.com.

Find Your Golfing Potential

2014-01-06T00:30:00.000-08:00

You know you leave strokes on the course, maybe too many, but you still hit the ball pretty well. Want to find out how good your game really is?

Play eighteen holes solo, under these two rules:
1. You may take as many mulligans as you want, but only one per shot location. Then you have to move on.
2. If you take a mulligan, you have to play your next shot from where the mulligan ended up. You can't take a mulligan on your mulligan.

What this will show you is how good you are if you hit every shot up to your potential. True, sometimes your mulligan won't be very good, either, but that's wrapped up in your potential. It includes a few misses. Everybody's does.

The second shot should be hit with a more relaxed mind, though, so it should be a better shot almost every time. You also might realize that you didn't think though the first shot as well as you should have.

When you're finished with the round, the score you tally up is the scoring potential you have. The shots you took mulligans on are the ones you need to practice to get there. Note that often it will not be your shot-making technique that failed you, but your mental processes--you made a wrong decision, or your mind was not fully present when you made the stroke.

Finally, part of being a better golfer is perceiving yourself to be a better golfer. If you shot a mulliganed score of, say seven strokes below what you normally shoot, then think of yourself as being that much better, because you are, and work on making that score a one-ball reality.

Do this exercise once a month or so. It's a better appraisal of your game than all the stats you keep during the round.

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

What I learned on the course - 4

2014-01-02T00:30:00.000-08:00

1. Hit the shot as if you didn't care. I mean just take your swing, without any idea of where the ball is supposed to go, or what trouble might be lurking if you make a mistake. Make a carefree stroke at the ball is about the best I can describe it. The calmness that approach creates allows your body to flow into the swing without tension causing deflections from its proper course. This applies to putting, too.

2. Hit short shots with an easy, flowing swing. Putting tension in the swing, jabbing at the ball, trying to hit it sharply, all these things are what cause mishits. So does not paying attention to item 1, above.

3. When chipping onto the green, focus on the landing spot. Pick the club that will release from there to the pin, but your target is the landing spot, not the pin.

4. There is nowhere that the idea of having your hands lead the clubhead into the ball will pay off more than with your driver. It seems you are taking all the power away when you do this, but what you are taking away is the powerful feeling of the right hand hitting, which is actually a power drain, and which pushes the clubface out of alignment.

5. Do you use the alignment mark on your ball when you putt? If you line it up with your starting line (and don't take all day to do that), you will sink more makable putts than you have been, and miss far fewer of those shorties.

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

Golfers: How to Know How Far Your Clubs Carry

2013-12-30T00:30:00.000-08:00

To play accurately around the course, you have to know how far you hit each club. Here's how to find that out.

Driver: Step off the vertical distance between your ball and the 150-yard marker for drives that stay in the fairway. By vertical distance, I mean the distance along a line connecting your ball and the green.

Irons: If you have a laser rangefinder, find the distance to the pin. Select your club and hit the shot. If the ball lands on the green, step off the vertical distance between the pitch mark and the hole. Here, vertical distance means the distance along a line parallel to the axis of the hole between perpendiculars at your ball and the hole to that line. Write down the club and distance, and after a few rounds, you will have a pretty good profile to work with. Bonus: from the same spot, take one more club, grip down one inch, and make another shot. By recording these gripped-dwon shots, you will come up with two working distances for each club.

Wedges: Do this at the range. Pick a flag and hit different wedges to it, using your standard pitching swing, until you find the wedge that hits the ball closest to it. Use the same swing every time. Move to different places until you find a place where that wedge gets the ball right to the flag. Then measure the distance to that flag with a laser rangefinder. That's your distance with that wedge. Continue to this procedure until you have a distance for all your wedges. If you want to get finer, you can measure what you get when you use a standard shorter swing and standard longer swing. Or a standard faster swing and slower standard swing.

Chipping: Take out your lob wedge and hit five chips, with the same swing, and step off the distance you get. That's how far a chip with your lob wedge goes. Do the same with each club in progression down to your 7-iron. Important! Use the same swing for all the shots you hit with all the clubs. You want the club to be the only variable.

Putter: This more subtle. You're looking for a way to putt the ball different distances. You do that by taking the club back to spots where you feel different muscles get strained. That's the stopping point for that particular swing. For example, if I take the putter back to the point where my left forearm touches my abdomen, that stroke will hit the ball 15 feet. If I take it back farther, to a point where I feel a slight strain on the right side of my lower back, that stroke will send the ball 22 feet. And so on. These distances were determined on a medium-speed green. If the greens you play on run faster than the ones on which you calibrated your stroke, just increase the distance of your standard strokes by an appropriate amount.

None of this is to say that you play strictly by formula. Feel counts for a lot, but you need some place to anchor your feel. It can't be out there by itself. And, on days when your feel isn't working, you can still play well.

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

Good golf is all in your head

2013-12-24T08:40:00.001-08:00

Three days ago I played in an end-of-the-year scramble. I hit the ball flawlessly for about the first six holes, then had a small collapse, but got it back again for the finish of the round. There was nothing wrong with my swing. It was all in my head.

At first, all I thought about was swinging the club, just letting the ball go where the swing sent it. But I started thinking about hitting the ball little farther, or a little more intentionally somehow, and that's when the problems started. Only until I went back to letting the swing do the work did things get better again.

Part of it is that when you swing the club, you don't have the satisfaction of you hitting the ball, of you making the shot happen. Golf is paradoxical in that way, that we have to cause a very precise thing to happen, but we have to give our entire body, not our sensitive hands and fingers, the job of getting it done. That means giving up controlling the club and the ball, something we find hard to do.

So when I said to myself, just swing the club, because that is enough, things go better again. A lot better.

So many golfers, especially at the start of their golfing career, think that hitting the ball is the object of the game. When they learn otherwise is when they start to get better, and in a hurry.

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

Home-stretch Christmas Gifts for Golfers

2013-12-19T07:24:00.002-08:00

It's getting down to the wire, but you can still order one of Bob's books and have it arrive before Christmas. It not only makes the perfect stocking stuffer, it's the perfect impulse purchase, and it's a lot cheaper than a new iPad.

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

How not to practice putting

2013-12-18T07:30:00.000-08:00

See what I have to put up with when I try to practice putting at home?

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

Last-minute Christmas shopping for golfers

2013-12-16T19:38:00.000-08:00

It's getting down to the wire, but you can still order one of Bob's books and and have it arrive before Christmas. It not only makes the perfect stocking stuffer, it's the perfect impulse purchase, and it's a lot cheaper than a new iPad.

http://www.therecreationalgolfer.com/bobsbooks.html

Thirteen golf clubs, one swing

2013-12-16T00:30:00.000-08:00

Many advisors say you would be better off leaving your driver at home and teeing off with a 3-wood. I am completely opposed to that idea. The driver is one of the most valuable clubs in your bag. Instead of avoiding it, learn how to use it.

The reason the driver is so hard to hit is not because it is so much longer than the other clubs, or has less loft, but because of the way you approach it. The driver hits the ball father than any other club, and you see the touring pros absolutely bombing it, so you think you have to do the same, that it's a distance club.

That makes you swing it differently from your other clubs, asking your swing to do different things, and the driver to different things, than they were designed to do.

You don't think that way with your 9-iron, do you? With that club, you're trying to hit an accurate shot to a target. No one tries to bomb their 9-iron. So why not do the same with your driver? Hit an accurate shot to a target. A very long time ago, the driver was called a "play club," meant only to get the ball in play at a distance, with "in play" being the part that mattered.

The way to hit your driver well is to hit it the way you hit all your other clubs. Here's a drill that will show how that feels.

Take two clubs to the range, you driver and your 9-iron. Warm up with your 9-iron and get to the point where each shot is a good one. Then, lay down that club, pick up your driver, and swing it with the same swing you've been using with the 9. That swing might feel a bit small, so open it up a bit, but stick to that 9-iron feeling. Hit three balls (no more!), and go back to the 9 and hit it with the driver swing you were just using. Now you will have a bit of driver feeling in your 9-iron. Hit a few balls with that swing, then go back to your driver and hit three balls with your new 9-iron swing.

What you're doing is bringing aspects of one club into the swing of the other. You're making your driver a little more like a short iron, and your short iron a little more like a driver. You keep going back and forth, one club borrowing from the other, until there's nothing left to borrow. At the point where both swings feel the same, you've done it.

At that point, you should be hitting smooth, straight drives, and 9-irons that have real authority. This is the place where you want to be with your swing, where you have one swing for thirteen clubs.

In your daily life, you don't run into a problem area and avoid it. You would figure out how to solve the problem and make that area a new strength. Do the same in your golf. Learn how to hit the driver and leave your 3-wood at home. That would make room for another wedge!

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

Christmas shopping in high gear

2013-12-14T06:17:00.002-08:00

Here are two reasons why you should buy Bob's books for Christmas presents:

1. If you do the things that are in these books, you will become a better golfer.

2. It's the easiest thing in the world to do! Just click on over to The Recreational Golfer and there they are, just waiting for you.

Go ahead. You can do it.

Practicing golf in cold weather

2013-12-09T00:30:00.000-08:00

It's cold where I live, too cold to even go outside for much time at all. Forget about playing, how do we practice? Well, it's not too hard, and you can end up practicing some things you should have been practicing, but never do.

Putting on the carpet. Everybody knows that one. I like to putt at a tin can lid. You need something to align the putt to, to know that you're not pushing or pulling the putt, but hitting the lid isn't the important point. Making a smooth stroke is. In fact, don't even watch the ball until you know it has gone past the lid.

You can practice your chipping stroke, off a carpet remnant so you don't damage the good carpeting. Plastic golf balls make good targets, and you're practicing making good contact with a consistent stroke. Chip with a number of clubs, too, from you 5-iron to your lob wedge.

Your swing? You can swing inside the house. You won't hit the ceiling. Use a 7-iron or less, and there won't be any problem.

As for those things you should practice, but don't? Get a block of wood to practice your takeaway. The club should start back straight for the first few inches. Toe the club against the block of wood and take the club back. You should hear a quick scraping sound, like striking a match. No sound, you're taking it back inside. Long sound, you're trying to take it back outside.

Practice keeping your hands ahead of the ball at impact. My YouTube video on this point shows you how.

Invent. Think of something. There's lots you can do.

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com