How To Draw The Golf Ball

How To Draw The Golf Ball

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My understanding of the game of golf is that you’re trying to get the ball into the hole in the least number of strokes possible. Whether it's for your own personal satisfaction or if you’re in a golf tournament – you’re a winner if you have taken the least amount of strokes.


How you play on the golf course isn't judged by how beautiful your ball flight is. It isn't like American Idol or Dancing With The Stars where you get voted off the golf course if you're not hitting a perfect 1 yard draw.


Do you agree?


If you do agree – then why are you worried whether you draw or fade the golf ball? Does whether your golf ball curves a little to the right or a little to the left make a difference in your score?


Golfers get easily sidetracked from the meaning of the game of golf. Golfers fret over whether their golf ball is going a little this way or a little that way - when the game is based solely on getting the ball into the hole in as few strokes as possible.


Have you ever gotten confused about your swing on the golf course? Have you ever been working on a draw on the driving range and then tried to bring that swing to golf course only to hit some terrible shots that left you more confused and frustrated?


Hitting the golf ball better is just as important as putting better in the quest for lower golf scores. You need to work on your golf swing to improve your scores. And when Golfers come to see us - we work very hard on improving your golf swing and helping you to become more consistent. Though, we don't necessarily try to help a Golfer develop a draw.


If a draw develops as you're improving your golf swing - excellent! If it doesn't, but you have developed another ball flight (straight or a fade) that you can consistently rely on - excellent! Golfers that try to rework their swing for the sole purpose of developing a draw are on the road to Frustration City. Have you ever made a trip to Frustration City?


What you should be working on is your golf swing. And whatever ball flight that gives you - take it!


What's going to affect your score more - learning to draw the ball or hitting more greens in regulation?


What’s going to affect your score more – learning to draw the ball or eliminating 3 putts?


What’s going to affect your score more - learning to draw the ball or getting out of the sand onto the green on your first shot?


Did you know that Jack Nicklaus didn’t hit a draw shot (a shot drifting to the left for a right handed Golfer) until the 1970’s – after he had already won 7 Major Championships and the US Amateur twice?


What’s going to affect your score more - learning to draw the ball or hitting the green 10 out of 10 times from 40 yards away?


What’s going to affect your score more - learning to draw the ball or not topping a 15 yard shot over the green?


What’s going to affect your score more - learning to draw the ball or knowing your tee shot is going to curve 15 yards and aiming for it?


Colin Montgomerie – won the European Order of Merit (leading Golfer in Europe) 7 years in a row from 1993 to 1999 – and I don’t believe Colin could draw the ball if you paid him to do so. He plays a slice, but if you want to be politically correct, you could call it a Power Fade.


If you’ve been reading Golf Improvement Weekly for a while, you know that each week we feature two Testimonials from Golfers that have come to see us. And as we have been doing this weekly for 204 Issues – we have yet to have a Testimonial speak specifically about hitting a draw. We have 100’s of Testimonials about Golfers hitting the golf ball better, but no one speaks about learning to draw the golf ball. They just speak about hitting the golf ball better.


What's more important - hitting the golf ball better or learning to hit a specific shot? If you're trying to break 100, 90 or 80 - your thoughts should be on hitting the golf ball better.


Does this mean that Golfers that come see us can’t draw the ball or that we discourage it?


Of course not!


We help Golfers to understand their swing. If your consistent shot is a little to the left – good. If your consistent shot is a little to the right – good. Regardless of whether you draw or fade the golf ball – the key is to know which direction it’s going to go 8 out of 10 times so that you can aim for it. Once you can do that – you’ll learn to care less if you draw or fade.


Make your PLAN, say your “Tick Tock” and swing. Hitting the golf ball well is important to scoring – though whether your predominant ball flight is a little to the left or a little to right has no influence on your score.


The Monkey is trying to change and manufacture a swing


The Player is making their swing better


Go Ahead, Be A Player!


Regards,


Marc Solomon -Your Instructor For Life

www.GolfMadeSimple.com

Hit Your Driver Straight

How Straight Is Straight?

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How straight is straight? How straight can you hit your golf ball off the tee with your Driver? How straight should you hit it?


Is there anyone in the world who can hit the ball perfectly straight?


The constant cry of the Golfer is that they want to hit the golf ball straighter. For the Monkey – if their tee shot curves more than 10 yards, they’re complaining that they’re not hitting it straight enough. Yet, the Player expects for their tee shot to curve at least 10 yards.


Isn’t that funny? The Golfer that’s not happy with their game gripes when their ball curves more than 10 yards – yet the Golfer that’s happy with their game has no problem with their ball curving over 10 yards.


A lot of it has to do with your PLAN. Now I write constantly about having a PLAN. And some people might be getting tired of hearing about it. Though, your ball striking and how you feel about it is directly affected by how you PLAN.


The Golfer that knows that their golf ball is going to curve 15 yards to the right, yet continually aims down the middle - obviously has no PLAN. They’re still playing golf on the assumption that on one swing something magical will happen and their 15 yard curve to the right will be gone forever. And they end up going 3, 7, 11, 15 years of tee shots with the same hope on every tee shot.


It’s not going to happen!


The best Players in the world – the LPGA and PGA Tour Players all have at least a 10 yard curve on every tee shot they hit. They can’t hit it straight if they wanted to!


For example – if you know that you’re going to hit a golf ball off the tee that’s going to curve 15 yards to the right – why not aim down the left side of the fairway. If you haven’t hit many straight balls off the tee, why force it – play it. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.


The Monkey has this fascination with being in the middle of the fairway. They believe this is the best place to be. Though, on most holes, it might not be the best place. It’s just that they’ve heard other Monkeys talk about being in the middle and they start to believe this is where they need to be.


Tiger Woods is ranked 163rd on the PGA Tour as far as the number of Fairways Hit. He hits just barely over 50% of his fairways – yet out of the 8 tournaments he’s played this year, he’s won 3 times and came in 2nd once while averaging 3 under Par per round.


Phil Mickelson is ranked 153rd on the PGA Tour as far as the number of Fairways Hit. He hits only 1% more fairways than Tiger does – yet out of the 13 tournaments he’s played this year, he’s won 2 times, came in 2nd once and 3rd twice while averaging 2.5 strokes under Par per round.


So these two Players – two Golfers that will go down as legends, two Players that you would give just about anything and everything you have to be able to hit the golf ball half as well as they do – don’t hit the ball anything close to being straight. Yet, the Monkey thinks they should hit their golf ball straight.


So if they don’t hit their golf ball straight – how are they so successful? They have a PLAN to avoid trouble on the golf course. For example – if your ball has a tendency to curve 15 yards to the right and there’s water down the left side and trees down the right side – where should you aim?


The Monkey would possibly say either down the middle to avoid both the water and the trees. Or down the right side to avoid the water. On the other hand the Player would say they’d aim down the left side at the water.


And what might happen is that the Monkey would be so worried about hitting it straight between the water and the trees that they would possibly top the golf ball about 50 yards barely making the fairway. Or they would aim to the right and then watch their ball start down the right side and curve into the trees. On the other hand - the Player will aim down the left side and watch their golf ball start towards the water, but because their golf ball curves 15 yards to the right – their golf ball will end up on the fairway or if it curves a little more than normal, they’ll end up in the right rough.


So as the Monkey only hit their golf ball either 50 yards and now has a long way to go – or has to waste a shot out of the trees (if they can even find their ball) – the Player has kept their golf ball in play and has put themselves in position to score. And this has nothing to do with your ball striking skill. The Monkey didn’t mess-up because they made a bad golf swing. They messed-up before they even put their tee in the ground by not playing to their PLAN. Because they had such an unrealistic PLAN – either hitting it straight down the middle or aiming right and hoping the ball wouldn’t go in the trees – that their chances of success were maybe 10%.


What’s more important – keeping your ball in play or keeping it in the fairway? The answer is neither – and that even goes for the US Open with its notorious rough.


In the 2006 US Open – the winner Jeff Oglivy was ranked 21st in Fairways Hit – hitting just over half the fairways. Colin Montgomerie, who tied for 2nd place was also ranked 21st in Fairways Hit. And Phil Mickelson, who also tied for 2nd place was ranked 51st in Fairways Hit – hitting only 43% of the fairways.


So stop working so hard to hit the golf ball so straight. It’s going to curve and there’s nothing you can do about it! So stop griping and just ‘Play for your PLAN’.


The Monkey is waiting for a miracle – a straight shot – and is racking up strokes waiting for it to happen


The Player has a PLAN


Go Ahead, Be A Player!


Regards,


Marc Solomon -Your Instructor For Life

www.GolfMadeSimple.com

What's Your PLAN On The Golf Course?

What's Your PLAN?

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Your ball is in the trees again and you have a couple of options. You could “punch-out” sideways to the fairway or you could try to squeeze the ball between the two trees about 15 yards in front of you.

“But there’s plenty of room between those trees. I can get it through there. Besides, if I hit it out sideways back into the fairway – I’ll still have over 200 yards to the green!”

So what are the next words you usually say after you try to squeeze your shot through the small gap in the trees? “I knew I should’ve just chipped it back into the fairway!”

Double and Triple Bogeys are usually not written on your scorecard unless you do one of the following: Ball in water, ball out of bounds, lost ball or saying ‘there’s plenty of room between those trees’.

Making smart decisions is the first step in developing your PLAN. Your PLAN isn’t easy – nothing important is easy. You’re going to have temptations to get away from your PLAN – like trying to squeeze between those trees. Just like someone on a diet that has temptations to have a chocolate chip cookie instead of an apple.

And just like the dieter that fights temptation and picks up a carrot stick – the Player that hits back on the fairway is going to feel better about how they managed their game. Players are Players because they have strong minds – and as tempting as it can be to go for that shot that you might succeed only once in 4 tries – the Player sticks with their PLAN. As opposed to the cookie eater that will say to themselves after their last bite – “was it really worth it?”

To put it kindly – if you can’t hit your ball off the best lie available (sitting on top of a tee) between two rows of trees that are a minimum of 50 yards apart (the fairway and rough), how can you expect to hit your ball off a bad lie (pine needles, leaves, soft dirt, hardpan, tree roots or limited backswing) through an area that’s only 3 yards wide?

And there are many times that Golfers will try to go through this “squeezed” area for what will amount to as helping you get only 30 yards closer to the green than if you went out sideways. Yet you’re not going to make a triple bogey going out sideways.

I would say that about 10 out of 10 articles I see on improving one’s golf game is devoted to the mechanics of the golf swing (or putting stroke). Yet, the national handicap in the United States is the same as it was in 1972. And this is with better golf clubs, better golf balls and better conditioned golf courses.

Trust me – it’s a lot easier hitting a new Titleist Driver than it was a persimmon McGregor Driver from 1972!

Maybe one reason that there’s no change in scores is that Golfers don’t put enough effort into their PLAN. Maybe they don’t have a PLAN. Though, what’s confusing to me about the national handicap staying the same since 1972 is that I know hundreds of GMS Golfers that have improved their handicaps. Not just by a few strokes – I know hundreds that have improved their handicaps by double digits.

You would think our Golfers would’ve moved the needle a little lower – then again, maybe all those other Golfers that are working on their one plane swing or two plane swing, going through all that video analysis, buying gadgets like the swing jacket or inside approach and/or trying every tip in Monkey Digest are probably more confused than ever with their swing. And when they have a chance to “squeeze” the ball between a couple of trees – well...they’re probably making enough triple bogeys that things balance out.

The Monkey hits and hopes (to get through the trees)

The Player is too focused on their PLAN to even consider hoping

Go Ahead, Be A Player!

Regards,

Marc Solomon -Your Instructor For Life

www.GolfMadeSimple.com