Erik’s Blog: Board Shorts and Business Suits

As promised I will continue to give blurbs about each blog that I have launched or will be launching in the near future. We haven’t settled on a network name quite yet, and I would love to co-post these at a dedicated network blog but for now this is what you get.

As you may or may not know one of my goals is to become a scratch golfer. Since making that goal, I have realized that it takes a lot of free time to get good at such a sport, and a lot of patience. I have bought many books, read tips online, and hit the driving range plenty of times. Since doing that I’ve become somewhat knowledgeable about the different golf strokes that are out there and to the physics of golf. My swing has improved and if I get a few weeks in a row to work on it, the scores show huge improvements. I just need to stick with it for several months.

I also enjoy, as I work towards my goal, keeping up with whats happening in the world of golf. As I read I also find myself wanting to voice some opinions and spread the word about how the game is evolving and who the new players to watch for are. This is why I have started the Golf Blog www.GettingToScratch.com. It’s a golf news and resource blog featuring tips on swing mechanics, club selection, rules, and general golf knowledge. Right now I am collection golf stories and will be featuring new ones as I get them in.

We will be implementing a featured Golf video as we collect them and posting it in the same video spot that this blog features it’s video. Look for new ones every couple of days. I hope to have a few up about the US Open and how it’s taking people down.

Head over and check it out if you like the game of Golf, or maybe if you want to learn about a new sport. Warning, golf can be addicting once you hit that first great shot. All it takes is one.

Well I finally joined the millions upon millions of American who belong to a fitness club. Let’s just hope I don’t join them in their quest to not use the membership.

Here in Hawaii we have quite a few 24 Hour Fitness clubs, which has recently taken over Bally’s as teh number 1 grossing club in America. I have been reluctant to join because I always had full access to weights and cardio machines in high school and college. Those come with tuition. I never wanted to spend the money to go and workout. Plus I could always do push-ups and sit-ups and go for a run.

As of late I have been working on getting back into shape running and biking as much as my motivation will take me. This past month it has literally rained every single day making my motivation not very high for me going outside and running. I must say though. I have had quite a few runs and rides in the rain, in my defense. My fiance on the other hand is able to go to 24 Hour whenever she likes and lift weights or use their cardio machines, not worrying what the weather is like outside.

Next, looking at what my physique or lack there of has become over the past few years is not fun, so I also decided I needed to lift weights again. Saying is one thing and doing is another. Therefor, I finally figured that if I spent the money on a membership it would force myself to use it. That and I enjoy getting into a lifting routine and have been missing that aspect of working out for quite some time, almost 3 years. This was the final push for me getting the membership. I know a lot of people use this as their reason and then never use it but I hope that spending money I dont’ really have will be motivation enough.

We’ll see how it goes but I think it will be a good addition to the things I am already doing and allow me to get back into the shape that I once was in and hopefully surpass it.

A quick hint for those of you wondering why a slice might have crept back into your drive.

Recently, with what little time I have been spending on golf, I have been working on my middle irons. Mostly my 5, 6, and 7 iron shots. These seem to be the most used by myself as I usually hit my drive leaving about 140 to 180 to the green. These are a little steeper back swings, again I’m using the one-plane swing, and the steeper the back swing with a longer club, the more difficult it is to bring back around to square.

When I went to hit my driver, which I haven’t been hitting, I have seen a slice come back into my shot. In order to remedy the slice I have determined that I need to flatten out my back swing concentrating on keeping the swing on one plane. If I bring the club back and then up over my head it tends to dip my left should (righty) and cause my swing to come outside-to-in. This brings about a slice.

What I need to remind myself when I draw the club back is to immediately angle the club on the same line as the club was on approach. This will give me the proper angle when I initiate my downswing and bring the club back to square hitting straighter shots. I tried this on the last few holes and was successful.

Too often I want to wind up and whack the ball as hard as I can causing errant shots from a poor swing plane. Think about flattening out your shot, keeping it on that single plane and you will help alleviate your slice and properly fix your golf shot. Hope this helps get you to scratch golfing.

When you’re golfing, why should you shoot for the hole? Sounds ridiculous right. Wrong.

Most golfers I play with or see have high handicaps. Like me they’re working down from around 100 and can’t seem to get anywhere. One of the biggest obstacles that I’ve had to overcome is shooting for the hole. What I mean is playing every shoot towards the hole. Since I don’t have a controllable fade or draw I cringe at going for spot right of the hole or left of the hole. My guess is so do you.

Playing on island courses and some of the most difficult in the world (slope and rating wise) I have learned you don’t always need to go for the hole. A lot of times the smart shot is to the right away from the bunkers 150 yards short! Most of the time I would take out my 3 wood and go for the glory. It was hard for me to justify hitting the ball short on my second shot into a par four and then trying to chip the ball close. That isn’t even laying up in most golfers books.

But it works! My scores have dropped quite a bit since I began to shot for a wide open patch rather than between two trees. Here’s some of the thoughts I go through when selecting a shot.

Play It Short on a Par Four

- One of the most helpful things I’ve done to improve my scores is to not go for the hole every shot on every hole. On Par fours where my tee shot has left me a horrible angle into the hole, or in a position where if I over shoot the hole it’s going to go long, dribble down a hill and end up OB, I lay it up. Of course I have worked also on improving my short game in the process, but laying up has shaved at least three strokes off some rounds.

Too often us duffers hit a tee shot to the left and leave ourselves behind a patch of trees that we need to either draw the ball around or shoot a perfectly straight shot dropping, with backspin. Both shots I don’t have in my repertoire quite yet. Instead, why not pull out a 4 iron take a half swing and pooch the ball low under the tree and out in the middle of the fairway. Chip the ball close you could save par, two putt and you get bogey. On your way to a 90!

Why Not Roll it Up

- Another shot that you should add to your bag-o-tricks is the seven or eight iron from 40 yards away. If there aren’t any bunkers in front of you why do you need so much air under the ball? Do you have the skill to drop the ball next to the hole? If I am within about 10-20 yards of the fringe with nothing in front of me I often take out my eight iron and look to get the ball just high enough to create some roll and get it on the green going towards the hole.

My guess is that most of you take out those brand new wedges you bought and skull the ball shooting it straight over the green and into the bunker on the other side. If you watch Big Break IV you noticed that a lot of them shot old English pitch shots where the ball would land 10 yards from the green but roll up in a good position. If you have no obstacles, some decent fairway in front of you, don’t work on your short game. Pull out the 8 or even 9 iron and use the much easier controllable pitch shot.

Long and Straight or Short and Open

- If you are like most you pull out your driver and go for the glory of hitting the long ball dead down the center of the fairway. Unless your playing from the back tees, you don’t need to let the big dog eat every single time. Especially if there is a patch of trees hanging over the right or left edge of the fairway.

On a lot of the island courses here in Hawaii there are short par fours but the designers placed a few trees about 100 yards out from the tee box blocking your route to the hole. You could hug the trees and go over them long or take out a 5 wood and shoot short to a big open patch. Hmm. I usually go hugging trees and shooting long, or at least try. Too often I find myself in the bushes trying to punch my ball at the hole (see previous). Might I suggest the 5 wood next time. 150-170 out is a lot better than 200 out and under a bush.

The biggest take away you should have from this is to not always go for the glory. Trust me. Look ahead to where your shot could be and then look at what some other options are. Start playing for bogey’s on every hole rather than playing for pars. You’ll begin to see the game in a hole new way and look towards scratch golfing like a reality instead of a dream.

In trying to become a scratch golfer I have learned that you need to practice body control as much as possible. Since I am not getting payed to do this, have many other goals, and work full time, I am unable to sit on the course or on the driving range working day in and day out on this. Body control is what I call keeping your waist, shoulders, and knees in their respective plane throughout the swing.

A key element to making sure you don’t dip or raise your body out of one of these planes is taking a proper back swing with only body rotation. Doing this will eliminate the need for your body to compensate and get back to a square position at impact from an out of plane rotation on your back swing. Since the swing I am using to become a scratch golfer is a one plane swing I try and just worry about body rotation and letting my arms go along for the ride. Therefore I have begun to use a quick and easy drill to work on my back swing or takeaway and keep all those planes level.

Drill
It’s a very simple drill that you can do anywhere; waiting for an elevator, the bus, grocery line, watching TV, anywhere. You first need to get into the proper golf stance, whatever yours may be. Then, as I have mentioned before, you need to begin your rotation back with just your shoulders, read don’t crash your helicopter for an explanation of proper shoulder turn. While you are rotating your shoulders focus all your energy on keeping your waist pointing straight ahead. If you have a belt buckle it should remain in the same position the whole time. You will begin to feel a strain in your mid to lower back. You may even begin to feel short of breath from the torque that is being built up.

Once you get back as far as you can go stop and hold it for a couple seconds. This will help stretch out those muscles giving you more torque with a greater body rotation. Keep doing this until it become ingrained in your muscles and you can easily repeat it while hitting golf balls. Once on the range your waist will turn slightly but you should do this drill without turning it at all.

You can also add the downswing practice after a while which all I do is straighten my left (forward) leg and my shoulders follow the uncoiling of my lower back and swing through the imaginary ball.

My hope with this drill is to make my swing more repeatable by eliminating all that extra motion in my back swing which makes my body try and adjust on the fly. Last week I had 5 pars on a tough course, Luana Hills, and still shot a 94. I should have easily been under 80, but had a 3 triple bogey holes due to duffs, slices, and fat shots. I also hope this drill will help you in your golfing goals whether its trying to get to scratch or trying to break 100.

Good luck,
Erik

This past week I was able to attend the Sony Open at Waialae Country Club in Honolulu, Hawaii. A former co-worker whose family belongs to Waialae gave myself and another employee Waialae guest passes good for the whole weekend. My main goal was to make it out to see two people, Michelle Wie and Vijay Singh. The first I really wanted to see to put my doubts to rest. I have heard many o’ stories about how this 16 year girl is able to launch the ball over large trees at her home course that I play at regularly (Olomana). Usually when I venture over there by myself and get paired up with at least one person they end up telling me all about the times they saw Michelle hitting buckets of balls off blah blah tee box.

Well mystery solved. She can launch it, and it’s not that she hits far, she hits it far and high, towering. Every player at the tournament hits the ball hi and far off the tee. I can usually do one or the other but these guys manage both. It was pretty amazing. Made me reconsider what the proper launch angle is. Anyway, I was able to follow her for 3 holes on Thursday during my lunch break (this was the day her short game wasn’t on). She was constantly right up with the other two in her grouping, at times out driving them. Her swing is very mechanical and her presence on the course professional. I was also able to watch a couple holes of the Singh and Appleby group but had to return to work before someone noticed I was taking a bit long to be eating.

Sunday, the final day, I surfed in the morning then wondered over to Waialae in time to catch the last three groups play the back nine. Vijay was in one, Appleby in another, and David Toms, the leader, in the last. It got a bit long in parts but there was a nice breeze from the east and enough shade to keep me cool. Toms was one the whole day and Campbell and Sabatini just couldn’t get close enough to make a good push to him. I finally got to watch the leader of a pro tournament walk up 18 with the crowds lining the hole clapping him in. It was a great experience and fun to see all the people enjoying the professionals.

As for what I will take away from watching them all, CONSISTANCY. Everyone had a slightly different way of hitting the ball, some looked really similar, but they all had one thing in common. They could repeat the swing with every single shot. Drive, fairway wood, or 9 iron in. I am sure there were tons of people who went home that night and tried to copy what they saw and probably went out today during the holiday and shot horribly. Rather than changing my swing, I strove to keep it consistent and follow the same steps I have been following to get the club face back around to square.

This is the key, I believe, to becoming a scratch golfer. Get a swing that is repeatable and gets the club face back around to square. Once you get one then you need to pick a few points out during the swing to think about while you are hitting. For example these are the key points I think about during the course of my swing (or at least try to think about.)

1. Keep my lower body still during my takeaway until it can’t resist turning due to the torque built up in my back. I think club straight back, angle same as address, turn shoulders 90 degrees. Never turn my hips.

2. Straighten left leg, turn my hips.

3. Leave my arms loose all the way through the swing and turn my right wrist over my left just after impact to make sure I close the club face.

4. Finish with the club pulling my arms out in front of me and gently taping the back of my head.

5. Throughout the whole swing I think about looking at the ground where the ball is. This keeps my forward body tilt constant.

These are just an example of the things I try and focus on while I’m on the course. I find it helps correct mistakes without completely changing my swing. Some people I have played with finish the round with a totally different swing than they started the round. The course is the worst place to change your swing. Warm up a bit before you play (all the pros hit every one of their clubs before the round), and work on swing mechanics here. Then once you feel ready, get on the course and repeat what you were just doing.

Enjoy and let me know if you saw me on TV.

Aloha,
Erik

In Paul Wilson’s book Swing Machine Golf you find out that the uncomfortable feeling you may experience when swinging properly can be a good thing.

The proper golf swing starts with the proper take-away. If you begin your swing incorrectly you spend the remainder of it trying to correct the mistakes and making a poor shot. Chances are if you’re like me you start your back swing by rotating your whole body. Hips, shoulders, and legs, all moving to get the club to the top. Within Swing Machine Golf I found out this is completely wrong. You need to resist full body rotation and just use your shoulders to rotate the club around your body. Doing this creates torque within your back that is painful at first but makes a noticeably smoother and longer shot over time.

To practice and perfect the proper takeaway there are only two key points to think about:

Coil from the top

In order to create torque in your back you must think about only using your shoulders to take the club away. Resist any temptation to rotate your hips or legs. At first this will seem really strange and will make you notice how much you previously used your hips to perform this task. By the time you make it to the halfway point your hips will begin to turn even if you try to resist. When this happens, keep resisting. When you are almost to the top of your swing your knees will turn slightly, keep resisting. The whole time you should be thinking about just using your shoulders to take the club back.

During the last half of the back swing you should feel tension building in your lower back. This is a good thing and that tension is the torque which gives power to your shot. The more tension you build the faster your body tries to uncoil and the further your shot goes. The uncoiling is done with your hips and will be talked about in a later post.

Push the club with your left hand (right if you’re a lefty)

Now that you know to resist your hip rotation you can think about taking the club back. When you first start to take the club back use only your left hand. Push the club to 45 degrees off center without turning your shoulders or hips. Continue moving the club back until it is pointing directly back away from your target on a line parallel to your pre-shot target line. During this whole process you should only be moving your arms. Your shoulders will have to rotate slightly in order to allow the club to get to this position. Remember though, you don’t want to start the rotation until your arms and shoulders bring your club to this straight back point. Just think “push the club back with my left hand.”

You can practice this by only using your left hand and bringing the club back to the 45 degree point. Do it while watching TV and it will help build your muscle memory for a proper swing.

Thinking about these two simple things while starting your swing will quickly help you improve your game. You should feel stressed at first which will be a big turnoff to this method. Don’t worry, it took me a few months to really start feeling comfortable with the resistance. Give it time.

Well I played twice in the last week and didn’t shoot that well either time out. When I had originally got the book Swing Machine Golf I practiced the form a lot and reread the book over and over again. Within the first two months of having the book I lowered my score into the mid to low 40’s. Since then I haven’t been practicing the positions, nor reading the book and it shows. I am back up in the low 50’s and my swing is ugly.

The good news though is that I am back on it and really thinking about my swing during the round. After 8 or 9 holes I have been able to figure out my swing flaws and try and fix the. Unfortunately I have only been playing twilight and getting in 10 or 11 holes.

Read How to read the score card to learn how I keep score and how it can help you.

Ko’olau Golf Course Oahu, Hawaii Rating - 71.7 Slope - 138 - Sunday November 13 2005 -

Now to my defense Ko’olau is the toughest course in the nation. Also it’s getting into rainy season and the course is a bit wet. But excuses aside, my swing was not good. As you can tell by the picture on the first post in this category my swing was all off. I was reverse pivoting and coming into the ball dipping my shoulder. Unfortunately I was able to correct it on my fairway woods and driver. However, my putting was way off as well. Anytime you four putt let along four putt two times things are going to be bad. Just have to focus more while I am on the course.

Mililani Golf Course Oahu, Hawaii - Rating 69.5 - Slope 121 - November 20, 2005

Don’t Crash your Helicopter

First time at Mililani Golf Course. Walked twilight. Nice course, relatively flat with generous fairways that I wasn’t able to hit all that often. I was coming down on the ball a lot and couldn’t figure out my problem until the 7th hole. In the book I am using to become a scratch golfer Swing Machine Golf Paul Wilson talks about not letting your helicopter crash. What he means is this. When you address the ball in the proper position your shoulders are on almost the same plane, think of them as being on a table. When you take your back swing, drawing the club back with only your left arm and not rotating your hips your shoulders should be on that same table, not tilted at all.

Now once the club is straight back you begin your shoulder rotation. What I was having the tendency to do and what I see a lot of other golfers do is dip their left shoulder while they bring the club up and over their head. This is completely wrong and is what I have been doing the last 4 or 5 rounds out causing my reverse pivot, outside inside swing path, and hitting fat. Instead at three quarters back the club shaft should now be on the same line that it was at address. What this does is make sure your shoulders stay on that level table and doesn’t allow your left shoulder to dip. Once I figured this out my ball striking improved dramatically the last 4 holes I played.

To remember this on the course just think of there being helicopter blades on your shoulder extending out to the sides. Now when you take your back swing don’t let the blades hit the ground!

Hope that helps some of you out. Keep practicing.

Acer XP Professional Golf Clubs

I just recently bought the Acer XP Professional Reduced Offset Golf clubs and in the process couldn’t find a very good review on them. Everything seemed generic and didn’t really help. I also wanted to know what the difference between reduced offset and progressive offset clubs and how it helped or hindered my game. Therefore I thought I would write my own review of these clubs.

Progressive Offset vs. Reduced or No Offset
First off let me say that I was originally using Ping Zing 2 knock offs called Z Model II. I got these clubs from a friend about 8 years ago and have been using them since. These clubs have what is called a progressive offset. This means that the point where the shaft and the club head meet becomes further and further set apart as the club number decreases. Therefore if you were a righty and were to address the ball with your club one would think the head and shaft would form a straight line down to the blade of the club (bottom of the face). But if you look at most clubs today the head (for a righty) is shifted to the right. There is a little bit of a bend in the club at the base giving it some offset from the club shaft.

This is supposed to help correct the most common mistake in golf which is the slice. The idea is that the club shaft and thus your hands are out ahead of the club-face and thus allows you more time to bring the club-face around to square. When the club-face is late in the swing most of the time it will keep the club face open (think of a forward slash as an open face with the o the ball like this, o/ .) This puts that spin on the ball creating the slice, and which is fixed if you have more time to bring the club-face around.

Take a look at some tour clubs also known as blades and compare them to yours. The tour clubs are straight from shaft to blade of the face.

Now having offset has its drawbacks. For one thing you loose feel. Now I suppose if you were to begin with offset clubs you could learn feel with these but I imagine that your swing would be tougher to master. Reason being because in order to move the golf ball deliberately your swing would have to be that much more out-of-whack from a good mechanical swing. You be the judge on that. Also these clubs make you loose distance in you golf shot. This I would imagine is because of the launch angle being different and club head speed being slower in the further back position. You’ve already begun your follow through while the club head is just reaching the ball.

Why I choose the Acer XP Professional Golf Clubs

Well, after not finding any reviews on the Acer XP Professional golf clubs I decided to go with them anyway. I was sitting on the fence for about 2 months using my Z Model II Ping Zing 2 knock-offs and heard the words that brought me to the other side. “I feel like I loose the feel of the shot with offset clubs.” With that a light bulb went off, baseball bats don’t have offset, tennis rackets don’t have offset, why should a golf club?

I had been playing golf off and on for a while and never quite felt like my arms were part of the club during the swing. I couldn’t feel that connection with the ball. I figured it was a good enough story for me to give them a try.

Review of the Acer XP Professional Reduced Offset Clubs

The Acer XP Pro golf clubs have a reduced offset that starts at half of regular progressive offset clubs, 3mm for the 3 through 7 irons, and goes down to 2 mm for the 8 and 9, then 1 mm for the PW and AW, with 0.5 mm for the SW. The clubs also have a cavity back which offers forgiveness for shots that are not struck on the center of the club-face. The cavity back distributes the weight to the edges so the club doesn’t twist and cause as errant shots.

From the start I could feel a difference in the two clubs. With my Z Model II’s I always felt like I was hacking at the ball and never really new where the ball was going to go. With the Acer XP’s it’s different. I imagine that it has a large part to do with the reduced offset. When I screw up a shot I can have a feel what the ball already did before I look up. This helps a lot with shot diagnosis.

When you make the change between offset and reduced offset you will also need to change some of your swing mechanics. Right now I am working on becoming a scratch golfer and using a very helpful book called Swing Machine Golf. One of the main things outlined in the book that I have found to help with making the switch is to initiate the downswing with your hips. You can do this by either straightening your left leg (right if you’re a lefty) or by just turning your hips. Along with this though you must also remember to keep your grip loose and bring your wrists through the shot.

I have found this method very effective at overcoming the slice that was supposed to be brought on by reduced offset clubs. This has also made me work on a much sounder golf swing.

The last thing that I noticed specifically with these clubs is the swing weight. By swing weight I mean the weight that it feels like you are swinging. Even though the Acer XP Professionals are just a few grams heavier they weight distribution feels remarkably different. Although this may not be the case for everyone I feel like it helps smooth out my swing and get a whoosh, rather than a clunk. Now this could be just switching to newer clubs and newer technology but the difference was noticeable.

All in all I would recommend these clubs to anyone who wants to begin the transition from progressive offset clubs to blades. The reduced offset gave me extra feel on all clubs especially the 3, 4, and 5-irons and have given me just another reason to get out and golf more.