How not to dress on the golf course – Volume II

I haven’t done any posts for my new “How Not To” category for a while, so I’ve been on the lookout this week and caught some new material. Below is the 2nd installment of “How not to dress on the golf course.” I wasn’t golfing when I shot this pic. I was at my family

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How not to dress on the golf course Volume II

Zach’s Grip

By now, you have heard from most commentators about Zach's grip and how he angles the shaft slightly behind the ball at address. I want to thank Ian Baker Finch, Nick Faldo and Jim Nantz from CBS for taking the time to talk to me about it. I appreciate that it is unusual, and I will explain why. This is a picture I took of Zach's grip Wednesday of Colonial. Little did I know that I would be commenting on it again by Sunday! I took it because he made a small adjustment on his off week, where he placed a little sliver of his left heel pad on top of the grip. This gave him a “locked in” feeling, without tension of course, and I wanted to document it for future reference. If you are familiar with my teaching, this is not the grip that I advocate. Below is my grip. My left heel pad is more on top, and my right heel pad covers more of my left hand fingers. I believe you have better leverage with the left hand this way, and the left wrist is less likely to break down through impact. The right hand is less likely to dominate as well. For more, go to earlier posts on the grip or have a look at my DVD . The main similarity between the two is that both of us have our forearms square to our target line. Zach turns his right hand more under to achieve this, and it matches the feeling he has in his strong full swing grip. When we first started working together, in 2001, I let him keep his grip out of comfort and familiarity. I did, however, remember a tip that Payne Stewart told me when he putted his best in 1999. He felt a slight cup in his left wrist at setup, and he maintained that angle throughout the stroke. When I told Zach this, he liked the feeling and it has remained that way ever since. If Zach were to keep his grip and get the shaft and his hands even with the ball, or slightly ahead of the ball, there would be way too much wrist play on the backswing. He would create too much shaft angle, taking loft off of the putter. He would then have to put that loft back on the putter before impact, or get a putter with 6 degrees of loft as a compensation. His left wrist would break down or cup on the way through, giving a scooping sensation. This is exactly why people go to left hand low, or the claw, because they are tired of the sensation of the right hand taking over and the left hand collapsing. So, in essence, we start with that cup and we maintain it. He has 2.5 degrees of loft on his putter. He probably starts with 4 degrees and it is the same at impact. When we put the ball on a camera,it rolls the way we want it to. That is about as technical as I get. I probably get beat up on the technical forums, but I'm ok with that. Putting is an art, not a science. If you told me I could not grip the putter the way I wanted to, I would use Zach's grip. It obviously works for him, and I am proud of his reputation from his peers as one of the best putters on tour. Although his style of grip is not what I teach, everything else he does is textbook. I am smart enough to recognize that he is special, and my thanks to the late, great Payne Stewart for preparing me to teach Zach, in a way. I do not think that any of this is coincidental- the big Man upstairs gets all the credit!

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Zach’s Grip

Tiger Woods’s Indefinite Leave from Golf Supported by Sponsors

With Tiger Woods taking an indefinite leave from golf, companies that have endorsement deals with him will have to evaluate whether staying with Tiger is in their best interests. For Nike, Woods's biggest corporate partner, that decision has seemed easy. A statement from the company last night said, “Tiger has been part of Nike for more than a decade. He is the best golfer in the world and one of the greatest athletes of our era. We look forward to his return to golf. He and his family have Nike's full support.” For Woods, it was yet another sign that Nike is going to stay by his side. The company had previously released three statements in support of Woods. However, Tiger's image has been removed from the homepage of Accenture , a financial services company and another of Woods's main sponsors. Visitors to the site had previously been greeted with an image of Tiger standing in a desert behind a cactus. The caption read: “Opportunities are not always obvious.” In its place are alternating images of speedskaters and a skier jumping from a cliff. On Friday, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that watchmaker Tag Heuer was removing signs featuring Woods from stores in Australia. But according to the article, Tag Heuer's Australia general manager said the move was unrelated to recent events. “We change out campaigns probably four or five times per annum,” he said. In New York, behind the cash register at Tourneau in the Time Warner Center, a large sign of Woods pensively staring over an expensive chronograph was still hanging on the wall. CNBC's Darren Rovell reported that EA Sports, maker of the Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2010 video game, released a statement Friday saying, “At this time, the strategy for our Tiger Woods PGA TOUR business remains unchanged.” I was asked Friday night during a radio interview which of Woods's sponsors would be most likely to walk away. I don't think any will, but AT&T would seem the most likely candidate. The company doesn't use Woods in advertising (no signs and billboards to remove) or feature him on its Web site. In exchange for having the company's logo on his bag, it's reported that AT&T makes a substantial donation to the Tiger Woods Foundation. Even if AT&T and Woods were to part ways, the telecommunications company would still have significant ties to golf. The company is the title sponsor the PGA Tour's annual AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, as well as the AT&T National, which benefits the Tiger Woods Foundation. Mark Steinberg, Tiger's agent, said in a statement: “Although there has been considerable inquiry about Tigers sponsorships, it would be both premature and inappropriate to comment on the status of specific business relationships. Suffice it to say, we have had thoughtful conversations and his sponsors have been open to a solution-oriented dialogue. Of course, each sponsor has unique considerations and ultimately the decisions they make we would fully understand and accept.”

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Tiger Woods’s Indefinite Leave from Golf Supported by Sponsors

Ask the Experts: Scotty Cameron

The second installment in our series “Ask the Experts” gave you a chance to ask questions via Twitter to Titleist putter guru Scotty Cameron. Here are his answers. I have a mallet putter and two different blade-style putters. Is there any chance you might develop an interchangeable putter-head system? There are companies out there that are working with interchangeable driver parts, and I'm keeping an eye on them. But at what point would we become a component company versus a golf club company? Right now, you can send your putter to us and we can add weights if you want to make your putter heavier or lighter. But you have to send it to our shop to do the work. Why?

DeMystifying the Putting Stroke, Preventing the Yips

Having just watched The U.S. Open, I want to share some observations on the putting stroke. I hear announcers constantly talk about the stroke and what should happen. They reference keeping the putter low, releasing the putter and acceleration, to name a few things. Frankly, I have heard enough and I feel compelled to offer a little common sense on the stroke. If you follow the advice about keeping the putter low, you may develop the yips or already have them. Here is why: You simply must understand the design of the golf club, or in this case the putter. It is essentially a weight on a stick, and the shaft goes into the head at an angle, usually around 70 degrees. What that means is that it is supposed to travel on an arc, and it should be allowed to come out of the ground. The headof the putter will travelup on the backswing, and come down into the ball before eventually going back up. If you keep the putter low on the backswing, you are putting downward pressure on the club. The bottom of the arc moves inches behind the ball. At this point, you have two choices; you can let it swing and hit the ground behind the ball, or you can accelerate the putter with the right hand and arm to try and get the bottom back to the ball. The finish will be severely high. If you continue to rely on your right side to bail you out, a motor pattern gets established between your brain andthe firing of theright hand. It may take years, but eventually the right hand is ready to go before the stroke happens. It knows that it will be pressed into service momentarily. A twitch develops. All because the putter has been kept too low and the bottom of the swing has moved behind the ball. Add in tension and anxiety, and the putter is kept even lower going back. A vicious cycle has occured. I recently wrote an article for Texas Links Magazine talking about some of the ways pressure is applied to the putter at set up. I will post it when it comes out. For a quick video demonstration, look to my post on the article from The Dallas Morning News and there is a link. The PGA Tour is full of players who keep the putter low going back. It can be done, but it takes impeccable timing and steady nerves. Loren Roberts comes to mind. However, strokes like these have their good and bad days, even good and bad holes. They tend to not hold up under pressure. If you are an astute watcher of professional golf, the evidence is everywhere. Peter Kostis did a nice job of illustrating the differences in the strokes of Brian Gay (correct) and Robert Allenby (too low to high.) I enjoy watching Phil play, and I am certainhe could dominate me in ping pong or pool with his hand-eye coordination. Yet primarily because of his tilt at setup to his left, his putter goes back much too low and he tends to pull and push putts under pressure. He is simply out of position and has towork too hard to square it up at impact. Jim Furyk is so far over the ball at set up, his eyes are slightly outside his line. He puts a great deal of downward pressure on the shaft and his putter goes back extremely low and with resistance. He is forced to rush it forward. Same thing with Ricky Barnes, hence the claw. Sergio now uses a belly putter, with a fixed point for the butt of the club. He must be leaning on it, or “kickstanding” it, because he is defying the odds by having his putter go back too low. Show me a guy who is struggling with the putter at any level, and I will show you a backswing that is too low. It goes against the design of the club! If you want to see less effort and more freedom, look no further than Tiger, Geoff Ogilvy, Zach and Anthony Kim, to name a few. They allow their putters to swing freely. They do not try to keep the putter low. Remember, there is no try in golf. It equates to tension and effort. Putters are accelerated from the weight of the club swinging. It is natural if your backswing is free. There is no need to force acceleration. Finally,from a “physics for dummies” standpoint, ofwhom I am clearly one, theputter head has the farthestto travel in a swing, followed by the handle (hands,) followed by the shoulders. They should not all travel together, there is a sequence that needs tohappen. The shoulders move, but they respond to the swinging of the head and the hands. If the wrist joints are free (see the grip), the head will travel further than the handle. I will continue to preach that the set up determines EVERYTHING. When you are set up correctly, the stroke happens as it should, based on the design of the club. Let it work for you. The best strokes are the ones you don't remember…

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DeMystifying the Putting Stroke, Preventing the Yips

Annika Sorenstam is pregnant

Annika Sorenstam announced on her (not so easy to navigate to) blog that she is pregnant! Mike and I are very pleased to announce that we expecting our first child.We have had a lot of exciting changes in the past few months, and adding a new addition to our family later this fall will certainly be

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Annika Sorenstam is pregnant