Tag Archives: golf tip

Learning is Like Reading a Stock Chart – the Trend is the Key.

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Most people who take golf lessons are impatient. They believe that their instructor has a magic wand and can fix their swing flaws in an instant. This is a myth. There has never been a student whose handicap has gone from 15 to scratch after a single lesson.

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When you have a golf lesson you will get solid information from your instructor on why your shots do what they do, and then you’ll get equally good advice on how to fix the problem. After that it’s mostly up to you. Are you willing to change and put in the time and effort? If you hit a few bad shots and get frustrated then revert back to your old bad habits, you won’t improve. If the only time you practice the new technique is when you have a golf lesson you won’t improve very fast, if at all. If you only play rounds of golf and don’t hit balls on the range, change is not likely to happen.

It is proven that it takes 28 days of practice for a new motor skill to feel natural.

That means you need to practice away from the course so you won’t be influenced by outcomes like score. When practicing, you also need to be patient with yourself and your progress. You must have faith in the process and stick with it. As I tell my clients when frustrated while trying to learn a new skill, “The old you is fighting the new you, and one is going to win. If you allow the old you to win, this is as good as you will ever be. BUT if you stick with it, the new you will eventually win out and then you’ll go to another level. But it will take time an patience.”

Print

The other thing I impress on my students is that improvement is not a constant. There will be ups and downs. The analogy I use is a stock chart. The stock I will use to illustrate my point is Apple. Perhaps the best company in the world. As you see in the chart, even Apple doesn’t go up every day. Each little spike on the stock chart represents a day.

Learning works the same way. Some days are easy, others are a struggle. That is because what you are doing is uncomfortable and/or you just don’t trust those new feelings yet. This will especially be the case on the golf course. These “dips” in your learning are learning opportunities.Print Wise investors don’t panic and sell when this happens. They understand that this is completely natural and if they stick with the stock, over time they will see a tidy profit. Also, you can be assured that following the dips, as shown in the chart, the stock rises to new highs as new skills are ingrained. That being said, notice the TREND of the stock. The trend is very positive. If you were in the market for a good stock, this would most definitely be a BUY! You need to look at yourself and your progress in the same philosophical way.

Practice 1Progress may not be happening as fast as you would like, but it is happening. Focus on your trend.

Often you’ll hear a tour pro in an interview when he/she is working on a swing change say something like, “I know I’m working on all the right things, I just have to be patient and wait till it all comes together.”

Why not take that same approach. Work on the right things. Don’t revert back to what frustrated you in the first place. Take a long term approach. Don’t expect it all to happen instantly.

If each time you practice you only improve by 1% then over 20 practices you’ll be 20% better! That is enough to see some real improvement. 

Go Pins and No Fly Zones – Everyone Has Them.

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During post round interviews you’ll often hear tour pros talk about “Go Pins.”

fruisen dec 17 nz golf article final

A “go pin” is an approach shot that compliments a player’s natural shot shape. It allows a player to begin the ball safely toward the middle of the green and let it curve toward the pin. Everyone has go pins, regardless of handicap.

Simply put, drawers of the ball don’t feel comfortable fading the ball nor do faders trust their ball to draw. Which is why some hole locations make you feel uncomfortable. If you are flag hunting a pin you shouldn’t, your brain senses this and mid swing will say, “I don’t want to do this!” That is why you make an uncommitted swing. The next thing you usually see is your ball flying toward an undesirable location. We’ve all done it.

Accepting your tendencies and being disciplined in your strategy will allow you to swing confidently, thus increasing your chance to shoot your best score. When you hear a winning pro say, “I tried to stay really patient out there today.” It means he or she wasn’t going to hit a shot that could get them in trouble or allow them to lose a shot. Meaning not going after pins they shouldn’t.

If you are a fader of the ball your “go pins” are in the center or on the right side of the green. This way you can comfortably start the ball on a safe line and have the ball curve toward the hole. The pins you should NEVER go after are on the left side of the green. That is your No Fly Zone! On those pins hit to the middle of the green and be happy with two-putting. You’ll have chances to be more aggressive later. That’s called patience!

If you curve the ball right to left, the exact opposite is true. Your “go pins” are in the middle or left side of the green. Your No Fly Zone is a pin tucked on the right side of the green.

If you can be disciplined, you’ll see without doing anything special, your score will magically come down.

Is Your Mental Game Unstable or Rock Solid?

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There are 3 distinct factors that determine the strength of your mental game and your ability to play solid, consistent golf.

 

1. Attitude. Attitude is everything. Golf is a tough game. If you let your attitude get bad, it’s just a matter of time before your round unravels AND you become an unpopular playing partner because you’re bringing everyone else down. If you can keep a good attitude, good things seem to happen eventually, or at the very least you’ll be better able to cope when bad things happen.fruisen dec 17 nz golf article final2. Belief. Your belief in yourself and how you think the game should be played are also a huge factor in your ability to score consistently. Do you have belief in your skills? Do you believe in taking risks or are you more comfortable playing the safe shot? All play a huge part in how the round will play out.

 

3. Circumstances. These change constantly during the round. Example: You have to hit from under a tree, it starts raining, you go through a rough stretch, you get a bad break, your playing partner is a tool. The list of these irritants is endless. Changing circumstances can affect the decisions you make.

 

Mentally-weak golfers are controlled by the one thing they can’t control – their circumstances. Playing golf this way is a lot like being in a casino. You can never predict the outcome from day to day. You will find you will play your best golf when you don’t allow circumstances to determine your decisions, actions and attitude. This will eliminate the rollercoaster effect out of your round. The graphic shows that if circumstances are your foundation, golf is an unstable and volatile game. If your attitude or belief waver in the slightest, then everything falls apart.

A mentally-strong golfer’s foundation is based on the things that he or she can control – Attitude and Belief. Circumstances have little affect on their attitude and belief, so they make better decisions. They can cope with whatever comes knowing that, in the end, they will succeed. It’s like investing, rather than gambling. The mentally strong golfer is disciplined and has a strategy. This allows a golfer to have a high degree of self-belief and a good attitude, even if things aren’t going well.

And, when you play golf, you’re sort of signing up for some degree of misery. Also, remember it happens to everyone. So, if that is the case, why get chewed up over what is inevitable. Adapt and overcome. It’s really your only choice.

Commandment #6: Love the Fat!

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After decades of coaching I have noticed that almost all golfers, regardless of skill level, make the same silly mistakes over and over again. Many of these mistakes are not swing related. Most result from a lack of awareness of course design, or a failure to play the odds.

love the fat 1

Long ago when I was a university coach I began listing the most common mistakes I saw golfers make on the course. I created 11 rules—known as “The Commandments”—to help my team eliminate common mental mistakes that cost them valuable strokes. Each Commandment was our do’s and don’ts list. We knew if we did not break one of these Commandments in competition that we would be successful. Following The Commandments gave our team a definite competitive advantage and had an immediate and lasting impact on our success year after year. In future articles I’ll discuss other Commandments. This month, I give you Commandment #6: Love the fat! In other words, aim for the widest part of the green. The area where the pin usually isn’t. The rationale: If most of the time you aim for the middle of the green, you will avoid short-siding yourself in bunkers, ponds and grassy areas. You will see your scores drop– dramatically and consistently. I know that aiming for the widest part of the green seems simple, but it takes discipline. Another added benefits of adopting this philosophy is that it will increase the odds of your ending up on the green by as much as 200-400%–- odds you should like! Because you’re hitting to a much bigger area! It allows you to post a good score, even when you’re less than perfect. Your rounds will have less stress and be more fun.

love the fat 2

Here’s a story from when I was a collegiate coach to illustrate the impact of this Commandment. One year my team was fortunate enough to qualify for a prestigious tournament called the Gordin Classic. Only the top 13 teams from the previous year’s NCAA National Championships are invited to play. That year we had an advantage: one of my golfers, Clint Colbert was the #1 golfer in NCAA Division III.

The tournament was a 54 hole event. The first day, the field played 36 holes. In the first round, Clint fired an effortless 7 under par, 65. AND he had to assess himself a stroke penalty because his ball moved on the green after he addressed it! Between rounds he revealed to me that he forgot to pick up his pin sheet. While collecting his scorecard from round one, I asked him if he wanted the pin sheet for the second round. I’ll never forget his response. In his Oklahoma twang he said, “Nah, I’ll just keep hitting the center of the green. I figure I can’t miss everything (putts)!” We both laughed.

Clint went on to shoot 69 in the 2nd round, and had a 7-shot lead on the field after the first day. Remember, this was the best field in the nation on a tough course. He went on to win the tournament easily. His 36-hole and 54-hole score are still a record for that tournament to this day.

A version of this article also appears in the February 2018 issue of New Zealand Golf Magazine.

Let’s Be Realistic About Your Chances of Making That Putt.

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The PGA Tour’s Strokes Gained Putting Statistic shows how often tour players make a given putt. In this graphic I’ve flipped the numbers to show how often they actually miss, hopefully to provide a fresh perspective of what you should expect of yourself on the greens.

2nd putt

Notice that the pros seldom miss a short putt of 3 to 4 feet, but the odds of them missing a 10-foot putt jump to a whopping 62%! And surprisingly they only make a 30-footer 7% of the time. I don’t want to be a downer, but if you play once a week and practice putting for 10 minutes before you tee off, your expectations should be lower than the pros who practice 8 hours a day and play golf with millions of people watching. So, don’t beat yourself up for missing most of your putts outside of 6-feet. Even the pros miss…A LOT! What they don’t do is miss the next one.

Become a Master of Your 2nd Putt.

If you want to putt your best, practice hitting your putts the correct distance. Then really hone your skills from 6 feet and in. Eliminating 3-putts is your way to shoot lower scores.

How to do this:

This is how I started practice everyday when I was a college coach. The first thing my players did when they arrived at practice was to take their driver and stick the head in one of the holes on the practice green. Then, they would place a tee in the ground at the end of the grip. They would then remove the driver. This would leave a putt of a distance somewhere between 3 and 4 feet. They would then have to make 30 of those putts in a row. Nothing else would happen at practice for them until they completed this drill.

It becomes as much a mental drill as a technical one.

As you get into the drill it become pretty easy to make the first 20 in a row. Then as you get closer to the end you start to feel your heart pump and your hands shake a little. You’ve come all this way and you know if you miss you have to start all over again. That was exactly the point of the drill…to replicate tournament pressure.

My players became so good at this drill that on the course we would almost never miss a short putt. It was the difference between winning and losing.

You don’t have to do 30 in a row. Since your playing time is limited start by making 10 or 15 in a row. Then as you get good at the short ones increase until you get up to 30 in a row. After a time my golfers would usually complete this drill in usually 5 to 10 minutes. Become good at this drill and you’ll start to see a massive difference in your score.

 

This article will also appear in the December 2017 issue of New Zealand Golf Magazine.

So, What Should You Be Practicing? Here Are Some Facts.

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One of the most common questions I get as a golf coach is, “So, what should I be practicing?” That is a great question and the answer is determined by two factors. First, I always ask, “What do you struggle with?” I’ve noticed that in my 25 years of coaching golf that most golfers avoid practicing the thing they need to practice the most. This is flawed thinking because your weaknesses will always be exposed during a round of golf, and when they are, your score goes up…a lot. So, what I like to do with my students is to attack their weakness and turn that weakness into a strength.

The second factor that should be considered is simple statistics. Numbers don’t lie. So, what is most important in golf? It’s ALL important, and all parts of the game are linked but here are some undeniable facts that will help you make the most of your practice time.

cog what should i be practicing

This graphic should be very useful in helping every individual make the most of their practice time. One note: The yellow wedge (Trouble Shots) shouldn’t be overlooked. I see many golfer make a mess of these shots which absolutely wrecks their score. I’ll write a post on those shots soon.

This article will also be featured in November issue of New Zealand Golf Magazine.

A New Series: How to Actually PLAY Golf.

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A view of the spectacular par 3, 14th hole at Titarangi Golf Club in Auckland, New Zealand.

An Introduction to a new lesson series.

There are literally countless articles and videos on the many ways you should swing a golf club. Learning how to swing a club efficiently is vital if you are going to enjoy your current golf and keep playing this great game in the future. However, when golfers are put in real-life situations on the course, many times their practice of “golf swing” doesn’t lead to lower scores. Lets face it, a lot of bad things can happen to good swings on a golf course. There is a disconnect between what was taught on the practice tee and what one can produce on the golf course. We’ve all either said or heard the phrase, I can’t take what I do on the range to the golf course. This is the universal lament of the golfer who wants to get better, but never seems to. What I have found in my lifetime of teaching and coaching is that there just isn’t enough information for golfers about how to navigate themselves around the course to help them lower their scores.

Its frustrating for you, the golfers who put so much effort to go into improving your golf via practice and lessons, only to be disappointed with results when you actually play. Its frustrating for me as an instructor for my students to suffer needlessly—and as I say, to not get paid. Most times I see scores balloon not because of technique, but because of a player’s poor planning, trying to do too much with a shot, a bad decision, panic, or just hitting a shot out of pure frustration.

cog graphic how to playOnly about 4% of all golf lessons given are playing lessons. I believe that this is one of the big factors preventing golfers from improving as much or as fast as they should. Golfers aren’t given the knowledge to know what to do—or more importantly, what NOT to do—on the golf course. I see this as a recipe for failure. So, in some ways your poor score is not your fault. The fact is, you haven’t been trained on how to PLAY golf. In fact, years ago I was going to give a talk about this very topic at PGA training and they told me straight out, “You can’t give this talk.” I was stunned when I heard this. Anyone who knows me won’t be surprised to know that I gave the talk anyway.

The bottom line is this, strategy and having a set of rules for what you will do or won’t do in a given situation is biggest key for scoring. If you follow these strategies your scores will go down, regardless of how you hit the ball. My goal is to arm you with the knowledge to go on the course and lower your handicap so you can beat your mates!

So lets learn something useful and apply these principles. And by the way, if you have certain situations you’d like to see discussed mention them in the comment box and I’ll get to them either individually or in a future article.

Look for the first installment of How to Actually Play Golf in the following days.

How to Make More Short Putts, Because a “Gimme” Isn’t a Real Thing.

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three footers

Short putts terrify many golfers. This is one of the main reasons, “the gimme” as become so common. Most casual golfers aren’t required by their equally scared playing partners to hole out their short putts. By the way everyone, no where in the rules of golf is the concept of a “Gimme” ever mentioned. Yes, in a match play format you can concede a putt or hole, but how many of you are playing match play? This is a sore subject with me because I am a golf purest and the entire object of the game of golf is to get the ball in the hole! When I hear someone say, “pick it up, that’s good.” I have to bite my tongue. It drives me absolutely crazy! Getting the ball in the general area of the hole is not good enough! In the rules of golf it clearly states, “In stroke play the hole is complete once the ball has been holed.” That means the ball comes to rest in the bottom of the cup.

I hear all the reasons and excuses as to why people play, “gimmes”. Sorry, none of them are legit. “But it speeds up play.” “They would have made it anyway,”… blah, blah, blah. Sorry, it all amounts to one thing… you’re cheating.

This will give you a good explanation why you shoot far worse scores in tournaments than you do day in and day out. It’s because you don’t get any practice making short putts while playing under pressure. How different would your score be if you putted all the short ones? A good putters score wouldn’t change but a bad putters score would be very different.

Forgive me, I’m trying not to get to preachy, but the reward for all the hard work it took to get your ball so close to the hole is to hear the wonderful sound of the ball rattling around the bottom of the cup. Also, making the close ones are a demonstration of ones skill, nerve and focus. “How many times have you seen a major championship decided by a player making or missing a 3-foot putt? How about EVERY ONE!”

I get it though. Once confidence that you can make a short putt is gone, fear is the next emotion that dominates the mind. A mind full of doubt is obviously terrifying and most times ends in embarrassment. Because when standing over a short putt with little confidence, you know and your playing partners know you’re probably going to miss it, and sometimes you’ll miss the following putt also resulting in you raking up the ball with your putter and walking quickly off the green mumbling insults at yourself.

So, lets make more short putts. Try this easy drill:

two eyes

Get a bunch of balls and put a tee in the ground about 3-4 feet away from the hole. This way you can practice the same putt over and over to develop muscle memory and confidence.

one eye

Once over the ball and you feel you are aligned properly, close your left eye (if you are a right-handed golfer) and keep it closed while you stroke the putt. The reason you do this and I believe a big reason some people miss short putts is that it takes away peripheral vision. I believe strongly that seeing the hole out of the corner of ones eye is the distraction that prevents golfers from being able to focus on making a quality stroke. I have found that if I take peripheral vision away, a golfer can completely focus on watching the putter come through the stroke on a quality path and focusing completely on seeing the putter contact the ball without ones attention wandering or trying to guide the ball to the hole. As Gary Player would say, “you should LISTEN for the ball to go in the cup.”

I believe that in golf you can’t be scared of something you can’t see. If you can’t see the hole it will free you up. I’ve introduced this drill to hundreds of golfers. Some even do it while they play. This drill will help golfers focus on putting a nice roll on the ball, learn to keep the hands moving through the stroke, keep the head steady, and more importantly, calm the mind.

So, NO MORE GIMMIES!” Putt them all!

_____________________________

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Fred Fruisen is the author and illustrator of punchline‘s new book, 50 Reasons to Hate Golf and Why You Should NEVER Stop Playing! Click here to order your copy today!

Don’t Hit the Ball!

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Here is a great tip to hit longer, straighter tee shots!

Do you hit low drives? Do you hit drives that curve a lot left or right? Are most of your friends longer off the tee than you?

If your answer to any of these questions is YES, it could be because you’re focused on hitting the wrong thing. If you want to smash longer, straighter drives then don’t hit the ball. You read this right– don’t hit the ball! Focus all of your attention on hitting the TEE!

If you look down after a drive and see the tee hasn’t moved there is a great chance you mis-hit your drive.

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Anyone who has taken lessons from me has heard me say countless times, “HIT THE TEE!” It’s a very simple way to hit better quality tee shots. I tell my students, “I don’t ever want them to hit the ball, I want them to hit what’s under the ball.”

Here is why:

If you focus on hitting the ball there is a very good chance you will lift up during impact and the ball will hit the lower half of the club face. Hitting the ball low in the club face will result in lower, shorter drives that spin more which cause the ball to curve a great deal more left or right.

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Something most people don’t know is that all of the top club manufacturers have built a “Hot Spot” on face of your driver. This spot is high on the face. If you do hit the tee, the ball will hit high on the driver face (in the hot spot). If you hit the hot spot the ball will spin far less. The result–the ball carries farther and because it is spinning less, when it hits the ground the ball will jump forward like it hit pavement. That is how the pros get the impressive distances they do. Yes, they do carry it far but much of their mammoth distance comes from the ball bounding down the fairway after it lands.

Sounds good, doesn’t it? Ok then, how do we do this?

  1. Make sure the ball is teed up properly. We want to have half the ball higher than the top of the club.

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2. Your main goal on the swing is knocking the tee out of the ground (or at least have it leaning forward) after your tee shot. If you look down after the tee shot and the tee hasn’t budged, UGH! Try again.

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One thing I can promise you– the next time you’re on the first tee feeling nervous, if you ignore the ball completely and focus on hitting the tee, you’ll start off your round with a much better tee shot.

This article will also appear in February 2017 issue of New Zealand Golf Magazine.

Photographs courtesy of Elizabeth Witton.

Are You a Shotgun or a Laser ?

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I have found over the years that poor alignment is the root cause of many issues that golfers have with their game.

We all know that mental focus is a very important aspect of playing good golf; focusing the body is also essential.

shotgun

Alignment points are located from your head to your toes. Your body has six important parts that need to align together in order to hit crisp, consistent and predictable golf shots. These six are the feet, knees, hips, elbows, shoulders and eyes. If any of these are not aligned to the same target, the effect is much like firing a shotgun: the pellets go everywhere! Some pellets will hit their target, but the majority of them will miss. Not a solid strategy for shooting lower scores. Now, if all six parts are focused on the same target—that’s powerful! That would be like focusing many rays of light on the same object, much like a laser. The concentrated focus of the rays become so concentrated and unified that they can actually cut through metal! That’s the kind of power and concentrated focus that we are looking for during the pre-shot routine.

All too often I see a golfer’s feet, for example, aiming off in one direction—say right—and another part like the shoulders, aiming to the left as shown in the green graphic. In this case the feet want the ball to go right and the shoulders want the ball to go left. Opposition has been created within the body. This opposition makes it very difficult for the body to focus on a single target. This opposition creates confusion, which kills focus, which then affects the physical action of hitting the golf ball, which directly affects the outcome, which in turn kills confidence. What is the result? You hit the ball everywhere, especially on important shots! The effect will likely be magnified even more because of excessive side spin that poor alignment puts on the ball.

Simply put, the entire body must be in agreement on where the ball should go. Otherwise, it’s far less likely that you will hit your target.

laser

So, lets talk about how to do this easily at address so that we look more like the blue graphic…

FEET: Align your toes parallel left of the target (if you are a right handed golfer). Very often I see golfers make the mistake of aiming their feet at the target, which actually aligns the feet right of where you want the ball to go. We want the clubface aimed at the target. The feet should be set up parallel to the target line.

KNEES: Make sure you look down you have the same amount of knee flex in each leg. You should be able to see the same amount of each of your feet.

HIPS: If your knees look good, then your hips should be good.

ELBOWS: All of our six alignment parts are important, but aligning the elbows is absolutely crucial to success. I can tell my students all day to work on their shoulder alignment, but it’s very difficult for them to feel what’s right, because you can’t see your shoulders at address. They can, however, see their elbows. So if I ask them to make sure the the line drawn from the elbows match their toe line, then matching up the upper body and the lower body becomes easy. Another thing about the elbows– if you have too much tension in your right arm (if you are right handed) it will usually lead to setting up with your shoulders open.

SHOULDERS: The shoulders will follow the alignment of the elbows.

EYES: This is a part of alignment that is often overlooked. Many of my students unknowingly have their head tilting to the right which throws off their perspective of what proper alignment is. Make sure you check your eyes.

So, now you are aligned properly. Providing that your clubface is also properly aligned you’ll find it much easier to hit your target because the club will start and continue on a better, more reliable swing path.

Result: You’ll hit far fewer off-line shots. This should really help lower your score.

So, now you are aligned properly. Providing that your clubface is also properly aligned you’ll find it much easier to hit your target because the club will start and continue on a better, more reliable swing path.

Result: You’ll hit far fewer off-line shots. This should really help lower your score.

This article was also published in the October 2015 issue of New Zealand Golf Magazine.

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