WGT Golf News

By John Diekmann

I’m going to let you in on a little secret about improving your golf game. I’ve validated it based on my own game, my friends’ games and PGA Tour pros.

First we start playing golf and after a period, let’s say a couple of years, we reach a plateau. This plateau is more than a scoring range, it’s also how much golf you play and where it fits in your life.

Let’s take a fictional golfer named Doug who is a 12 handicap, plays once a week in a nine hole league and gets out, on average, for another 18 holes a week. He might hit a bucket of balls once a week, practice putting for 20 minutes and maybe even get 15 minutes of greenside chipping.

New technology or swing ideas or anything else won’t improve Doug’s game unless he plays and practices more. There are no magic bullets that will help him that don’t require more time invested in golf each week. That’s the truth plain and simple. If Doug wants to get to the next plateau, say an 8 handicap, he is going to have to commit more time to playing and practicing each week.

If you’ve been playing golf for any length of time, you know this to be true. I’m not saying that you won’t ever have an outing that is much better than normal, but you won’t sustain it for any period without more time on the course and practice area.

Sure it’s OK to read tips, buy new equipment or even invest in one on one instruction, but don’t expect to get to the next level without spending more time playing and practicing. If you don’t believe me, just look at the likes of Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson.

As soon as they cut back on playing and practicing time, their games go down a notch. They know it and expect it. After a winter break, even the best in the world have to spend more time on a weekly basis at playing and practicing to get back to the highest level of play.

By Peter Kessler

Tiger could have skipped the first three events of the Fed Ex Cup Playoffs and still been seeded 3rd for the finals. He didn’t know it, the Commissioner of The PGA TOUR, Tim Finchem, didn’t know it. Oh, boy, I hear tomorrow’s news.
 
Which Beatles album should you buy to see if you like the new redigitized versions of their catalogue? Abbey Road.
 
If Monty, the 2010 Euro Ryder Cup Captain, doesn’t stop trashing his players and the media, no will be speaking to him by the autumn of next year.  And if he doesn’t get selected to the World Golf Hall of Fame for 2010 he will howl and scream and kick and squeal and be a big target for us to throw barbs and darts at.
 
The big question this year about the playoffs was: does golf lend itself to playoff formulas and the answer is that it does. Here’s why: every great player in the world showed up for seven of the last nine events. We don’t care what the events are called, we don’t care where they are, we don’t care about the prize money or the trophies or the gathering of points, we just want the great ones to be there and they were.
 
In the second to last playoff event Brandt Snedeker, one of the TOUR’s best putters, four putted from twelve feet to throw away a cluster of major appearances and millions of dollars. This tells us that the players think the playoffs are important and therefore so should we.
 
The Playoffs were structured so that one player could have had a putt worth $11.35 million on the last hole of the last tournament of the season. No one has ever putted for that much money before.
 
Winning a major championship doesn’t get you an automatic invite to the President’s Cup team. Lucas Glover won the US Open but has to rely on a wild card selection to get in. Time for a rethink of how the team is put together.
 
I still think Tom Watson should have been a selection for the U.S. side. More people will show up to watch Watson play than to watch Hunter Mahan play. It’s that simple. Watson is much more fun, more telegenic, a better story, and in many ways has had a better year.
 
I was once kicked out of the USGA museum for spending too much time in their library.
 
Is Michelle Wie the future of the LPGA? Is Paula Creamer the goods?  Is Natalie Gulbis ever really going to win tournaments?  We can say all of the politically correct things we feel we need to but what is going to happen to the popularity of the LPGA if the best players in the world, say the top five, are from outside of the United States?
 
There are no fifth majors. The Players Championship is the first Players, not the fifth something, the Fed Ex Cup is the first of its kind, The Ryder Cup and The President’s Cup unique.  Nicklaus and Palmer should play all 18 at Augusta National next April instead of hitting one shot off of the 1st tee. Everyone wants to see them play, so let them. Up tees, carts, zillions of fans.  Brittany Lincicome and I are fast friends on Facebook. Eat your heart out.
 
Other than you get an Olympic medal and you get to say you were an Olympian and walked with the other American Olympians in the stadium what selfless reasons are there to have golf in the Olympics?

By Ryan Ballengee

I'm sure you've heard of a marathon.  You may have heard of a phone-a-thon.  But, have you heard of a golf-a-thon?

There's a charity event down in North Carolina at the TPC Wakefield Plantation course on October 12 to benefit the Jack & Jill Late Stage Cancer Foundation.  The concept is simple.  Thirty-six player register to play as much golf as they can on a single day.  Beforehand, they ask for pledges from folks who will support them with a donation of so many dollars per hole.  The event's goal is $2500 per person, or about $2 per hole from 18 people for 36 holes.

Well, if you live in the Raleigh area or are interested in playing in the event, check out the registration website.  I thought this was a great idea and should do a lot of good for the Jack & Jill Foundation.

By Peter Kessler

Kenny Perry is not everyone’s favorite player, I know that.  He basically didn’t show up for the majors last year, he improved his lie very clearly earlier this year; he made silly excuses when he blew the Masters this past spring. He is not entertaining by a very long shot in a game meant to entertain. He is not the fun bunny. But no one wants to see the guy implode today, or do they?

Early in their television coverage, NBC did not make it clear that Perry would not automatically win the Fed Ex Cup by winning the Tour Championship. It made the early proceedings confusing.

Johnny Miller said that Padraig Harrington was the best player in the world out of the rough yet his play from greenside rough yielded two recent “eights” in critical situations.

Jimmy Roberts said if Fed Ex had not sponsored the Fed Ex Cup there would be no Fed Ex Cup. No kidding.

I think I have it. If Kenny Perry wins the Tour Championship he wins the Fed Ex Cup if Tiger finishes tied for 3rd or worse. No wonder they didn’t tell us.

NBC’s worst dream looks possible after two holes. A romp by Kenny Perry. Fed Ex can’t secretly be thrilled either. Where’s the remote? How are the Patriot’s doing?

Johnny Miller. “Phil could be tough next year.” Next year?! Next year?! Next Year??

Stop already with the good plays! Stop. There are no good plays in golf. There are no plays at all in golf. There are good intentions. There are good strategies, well-planned shots, well-executed ones, bad shots, indifferent shots, stupid shots, hideous shots, embarrassing shots, and laughable shots.  But there are no plays.

Johnny Miller on Sean O’Hair. “The best swing on tour.” Oh, boy.”

In six years of working together on Phil’s putting, Phil Mickelson and Dave Pelz have never worked on Phils’ putting technique. Are you kidding? They worked on reading greens and strategies but they never worked on how to putt? No way.

Now that Kenny Perry has stopped making 20 footers for pars is it possible that Phil and Tiger could end the season with the shootout we’ve prayed for for years?

It was hard enough to watch Kenny Perry miss shot after shot, approach after approach, only to save it with bombs on green after green, but now that the putts are missing…this is very hard to watch with both eyes open.  I want someone to win it, not save it.

And now here comes Phil, putting like the genius we keep hearing he is but waiting for him to prove it. Every putt today goes in or looks like it might go in. Now that is the sign of a great putter-when it looks as though they might all go in.

Through 11 holes Tiger has no birdies and Kenny Perry has hit two of the 11 greens. Yike!

I love these 30 man fields. It means that statistically Tiger and Phil have a greater chance of head to head battles on Sundays. Same for Tiger and Padraig, and Ernie and Sergio and well, you get it.

Guys are starting to hit some poor shots (see, it’s not make poor plays!) on the back nine on Sunday at the Tour Championship. They feel some pressure. The Fed Ex Cup is gaining some traction.

Tiger and Sundays haven’t gotten along on more than a few occasions this year. We’re not used to that. Either is he. Get over it. He is.

Geeze, what a rough day for Kenny Perry. His whole game is gone yet his family is there smiling, the kid is on the bag smiling, Kenny is smiling, head held high like he was looking over the horizon. They haven’t forgotten that golf is a game, cruel sometimes, but still a game.

Every once in a while in final rounds Phil hits all the fairways with big bombs and hits precise approaches into little platforms on the greens. Three quarter swings. Crisp chips. He’s going to keep doing it today, you can tell. That’s my signal. I’m going out to play.

Two things Johnny Miller just said.
One.  ‘Phil could be player of the year next year.” Gotta love Johnny.
Two.  He said good chipping means the right hand works down through the chip.
I am going out to try that right now.
I am back.
Gotta love that Johnny.
It works!!!!

By Ryan Ballengee

As part of Tim Finchem's State o' the Tour address yesterday, he was asked about the possibility of losing sponsorships and tournaments for 2010 given the economic halting this year (that may be thawing now).  His response was, well, murky.

I think it's possible we could lose a couple of events. It's probable that we're going to lose some sponsors. They're two different things, really. You lose a title sponsor to an event and you can't replace—you can't keep that particular tournament going -- well, Buick Open going to the Greenbrier is a good example. In losing the Buick Open sponsorship, we also lost a tournament, and we replaced it with a new tournament. There may be some more of that ahead, I don't know, but it most likely will be some more sponsorship loss.

Despite that, he answered a follow-up question on that by saying that it is "unlikely" that the total number of events in 2010 will be lower than in 2009.  Prying further, he was asked if some Fall Series events would transition to the big boy FedExCup schedule.

[Y]ou have a tournament that starts out as an event opposite World Golf Championship or something, and then it blossoms into something that is deserving of its own date just because it's demonstrated strength, et cetera, et cetera.

But, that didn't work out for the Turning Stone Championship—the tournament with the richest purse and best field in the Fall Series, and the event most clamoring to get into an open FedExCup date.

By Stephanie Wei

South Korean native Yang, the ‘09 PGA Champion and the man who took Tiger down, has jumped on the Twitter bandwagon. Hooray. He’s taken to it pretty well and “@replying” fans. I’m not going to lie, I was pretty pumped when he responded to me after I welcomed him.

Several people questioned whether it was really him because he speaks through an interpreter for interviews. I was skeptical, too. But in my experience, I know it’s sometimes easier to read and write in a second language than speak it (especially in front of a large audience). Still, some of his tweets were a tad too grammatically correct.

Yang answered our doubts last night when he tweeted:

Yes its me. My agent gets to type in the stuff in English. Yes My English needs improving

Surprise! And he’s honest. And he gets an A for effort. And I like his tweets. Follow him.

Happy Monday! Here are some great new game tips from our community:

• Full club set recommendations
• Learning the speed of the swing meter
• Stopping the ball on Kiawah #5
• Using backspin

By Josh Zander

Have you ever hit balls at the range next to someone who made an awesome sound when they hit the ball? That sound is compression. It makes other players turn and watch because obviously this is a great ball striker. The player has made his divot past the ball and transferred the energy efficiently from the clubhead to the ball. Distance control is one of the keys to scoring. Great golfers don’t always hit the ball accurately but they often hit the ball pin high which means they are making solid contact.  Proper hip action on the backswing plays a major role in compressing the ball.

A common swing thought is to transfer your weight to your right side on the backswing. Unfortunately, most players sway their hips back to do this causing fat and thin contact. The key is to allow your hips to truly turn, not sway. Think of your belt buckle as the center of your hips. If your hips turn around this center, your right hip will actually move towards the target during the backswing. This does not mean you are reverse pivoting as your spine angle should not tilt towards the target during this movement. In order to make sure of this, make sure your head is still or even moves a little away from the target during the backswing.

The focus of this video is the hip turn on the backswing but compression will only occur if you move your hips correctly on the follow through. The downswing should start with a slight bump of the left hip towards the target. You will hit the ball even longer if you can get this bump to happen before your upper body completes its backswing turn. This will set up the proper kinematic sequence for the downswing. Like any sport where you hit a ball with a stick, the movement starts from the ground up. Proper hip motion on the backswing will help you set up this efficient downswing sequence. If you do, you may just be that guy on the range who causes heads to turn.

By Peter Kessler

The Masters with Winnie

By the time I went to the Masters Tournament for the first time I knew Arnold and Winnie Palmer well. I’d had dinner at their homes; I’d walked Arnold’s Irish Setter King past Arnold’s grad school, played golf with Arnold enough to have lost a few hundred dollars to him.

Winnie and I walked the back nine at Augusta National as Arnold played while his adoring fans screamed his name and woman swooned and men cheered and boys called out “Arnie!” We talked about how Arnold had never packed for a trip, had never unpacked. We talked about his dad’s temper, about Arnold’s putter collection.

As we walked the final hole I had trouble catching my breath and Winned started laughing at me. I couldn’t figure it out. Finally Winnie told me we were walking straight uphill. And so we were.

That’s one of the things you can’t see on television. Augusta National is built on the side of a hill and the final hole plays straight up to the top of it. The other thing about the course is that the greens are smaller than you expect and much more undulating.

When we got to the top of the hill Winnie told me to bring Arnold to her under the big oak tree behind the clubhouse after he signed his scorecard.

I waited behind the ropes for Arnold to leave the scorer’s tent and hoped he would spot me. He did. And then he walked up to me and put an arm around my shoulder and I did the same to him. He told me to bring him to Winnie under the big tree. We talked about golf and girls for a minute and then I released him to Winnie. I slipped into the crowd and let his fans have him again. His never ending army of fans and his loving general, Winnie.

Remembering Winnie

Arnold always knows, always knew, what the audience wanted and needed from him. Even in moments of grief Arnold always has one eye on his fans to see if he’s delivering the goods.

After his wife Winnie died in late 1999, I didn’t see Arnold after the funeral until January of 2000 when we did a television show for the Golf Channel. If you hadn’t seen a friend since a loved one of theirs passed away the first thing you would say was “I’m sorry for your loss.”  And that’s exactly what I said to Arnold and the only difference from normal life of course was that this was on live television.

I knew Arnold might have trouble speaking or catching his breath and that I might have to buy him some time. He began to cry.  He couldn’t speak. He held up his hand as if to say,” no more, not yet, I’m not ready.”

So I reminded him that when Winnie came to the studio to watch our shows she would knit, she would write letters, she would read books, she would do anything but pay attention to anything we were doing or saying. Hundreds of thousands of people were sitting at home listening to every word Arnold had to say and there was his wife Winnie sitting fifteen feet away bored and looking at her watch.

Arnie recovered and the show went along just as I had hoped thanks to him and his great stories and his laugh and his twinkling eyes

When the segment ended and it was time to go to a commercial break I leaned over and whispered in his ear. I asked him if he was ok. He leaned in close and whispered back. “This is what they wanted,” he said.

He always knew he was on stage.  He always knew his lines, he always got them right. He always knew how to deliver them, no matter what was going on. This month as we celebrate his 80th birthday it’s our turn to get it right for him, to say the things he needs and deserves to hear. Happy birthday, Arnie.

By Josh Zander

September seems to be a popular month for Member-Guest tournaments and Club Championships. I am getting a lot of frantic calls from students who need a tune up as they feel pressure to perform. Of course, you would like to play well in your club championship and you don’t want to play poorly at your buddy’s member-guest. You may not be invited back!!

While your swing may need a tweak or two, the real question is how to deal with pressure. The first thing to understand is that pressure in 100% self imposed. The golf ball has no idea if you are on the first tee of a tournament or if you are out for a casual Sunday round. From my point of view, pressure can be summed up in one thought: What will they think of me? I’ve got news for you, your friend will still like you even if you don’t hit a good shot. Your competitors will still respect you as long as you observe good etiquette and handle yourself well. The truth is that your friends are probably worried about what you think of them. Don’t worry about what others think and you are well on your way to diffusing the pressure.

Instead of stressing about your swing breaking down because of the pressure, learn how to handle pressure. First, know that the worse thing that can happen to you if you hit a bad shot is NOTHING. Johnny Miller is known for calling people out when they “choke” under pressure. Decision making gets clouded and swings get tight under pressure which is a formula for disaster. Next time you feel pressure, take a deep breath. Inhale deeply through your nose and say the words “alert mind”. Then exhale through your mouth and say “calm body”. If a negative thought comes into your head, let it cycle through and get back to the task at hand. Get back to your calming breaths and enjoy yourself.

Never let that little white ball tell you how to feel! You are in charge and make a decision to enjoy yourself regardless of how you play.  If so, you just may be hoisting that winner’s trophy. If not, you will still be ok. In my book, you have won if you have enjoyed the experience.