Toughest obstacles on the course

Rushville · Post by **Rushville** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 6:35 pm

The more I teach this game, the more it fascinates me what people are intimidated by. Sure looking at a pond between you and the green can get into your head. Trying to chip over a sand trap can really be a problem for some people. But a ton of people that have come to me over the last few years have had a big problem looking at something that you wouldn't think should cause a big problem... ...the ball.

I can get anybody to swing the club in a nice fluid motion with proper body turn and swing plane, in a practice swing. Then they step over the ball and they suddenly look drunk. Their setup changes. Their hands twist on the grip. Their wrists flip the club back on the take-away. Their body stays stiff while their arms work alone. It's the toughest part of my job as a golf instructor to get itno somebody's head and turn that anxious dial down once they step over the ball. I bet I spend about 3/4 of every bucket of balls during a lesson telling the student between the practice swing and the address to the ball to "make that same swing."

Example:

I just had my 6th lesson with a lady in her 50s who is just picking up the game. The first 5 lessons went really well. I took her out the course twice. In the first round of her life she made a par. In her second round she made a birdie. She called me back for some more instruction saying that practice wasn't going very well. I had her take a few swings to looen up, all were very fluid and looked great. She then put a ball into place and, as I taught her, took one practice swing that looked very relaxed and smooth, finishing on her left foot.. Then she stepped over the ball and, as she is stumbling to catch her balance in her follow through, watching the ball roll 20 yards out into the range she asked, "What did I do?" I said, "Well you just made 6 beautiful swings. Then you stepped over the ball and you looked like someone else."

After having her take about 20 swings at the rubber tee with the only focus being to finish on her left foot and pose for the cover of Golf Digest, she then began to pop the ball out into the range as if it was lesson two all over again. But even so, before every single ball I would say, "Now make the same swing." As soon as I would stop saying that to her, the anxiousness came right back when over the ball.

Dinsdale · Post by **Dinsdale** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 6:55 pm

If I owned a course, I would make a rule banning all practice swings. If the picture-perfect, instructional-video-esque, Golf Digest-cover practice swing you take bears no resemblance whatsoever to that ugly, viscous hack you take at the ball, then why bother.

Not that I haven't been that guy...but it's annoying when others do it. And the better my score is towards the end of the round, the more "afraid of the ball" I get. Even though I know better. Just gotta dance with them's that brought you, when you're looking at a deece round, eh?

Felix · Post by **Felix** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 6:56 pm

Preaching to the choir bro---

For some reason people I play with always ask me what goes wrong during one of their swings. Maybe it's because I play a lot maybe it's because I have an ability to see their flaws.

In any event, I'll start paying attention to a persons swing and it's exactly what you said--they'll make four or five great practice swings then vapor lock when the address the ball. You tell them this and they always reply "I thought I was making the same swing" to which my reply is always "well, you thought wrong".

Another thing I've noticed is that people tend to hit to the ball and not through it. I always tell them imagine hitting the ball six inches past where it actually is. It's remarkable how much a simple suggestion like that will help them, til they inevitably fall back into their old bad habits.

Do as I say, not as I do

Dinsdale · Post by **Dinsdale** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 7:05 pm

Felix wrote:they'll make four or five great practice swings

Not if they're in my group, they won't.

Nobody I play with takes more than one or two. If they group any of us with an "imaginary driving range" guy, things usually don't go well. Everybody who takes 5+ practice swings has one thing in common -- they all suck badly. I may not tear a course up, but I get to my freaking ball and hit it. Only thing more annoying than Mr. TwentyThree Practice Swing, is Mr. If I s Stare At It Long Enough, It Will Make My Shot Better.

MEMO TO PRACTICE SWINGERS -- the place for practice is the range, or your backyard, or the chipping green. A practice swing is for you to envision your shot, and get a feel for the stance and the grass. It IS NOT "practice time." I'm offended that you have so little respect for my time on the course that you think I want to sit there and watch you practice. Hit your ball, douchebag. Those extra swings....what are they going to do -- make that all-important difference between a 97 and a 98?

Get over yourself, and hit the freaking ball.

Thanks for letting me rant, Rush and Felix. I'm pretty darn sure I'm not the only one who feels this way...I think the marshall does too.

Felix · Post by **Felix** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 7:44 pm

Wow. Someone take these mod controls away from me -- I hit "edit" instead of "quote." Sorry, Felix. My way bad.

-Dins

Dinsdale · Post by **Dinsdale** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 8:16 pm

Freaking nazimods.

I suggest a rebellion.

Felix · Post by **Felix** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 8:56 pm

All right Dins'spray, knock that shit off.....

Dinsdale · Post by **Dinsdale** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 8:59 pm

Apparently, my biggest obstacle is hitting the right freaking button.

BSmack · Post by **BSmack** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 9:02 pm

Dinsdale wrote:Apparently, my biggest obstacle is hitting the right freaking button.

Maybe if you cut out the 6 practice posts...

Just sayin.

Rack Fu · Post by **Rack Fu** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 11:17 pm

Dinsdale wrote:If I owned a course, I would make a rule banning all practice swings. If the picture-perfect, instructional-video-esque, Golf Digest-cover practice swing you take bears no resemblance whatsoever to that ugly, viscous hack you take at the ball, then why bother.

I agree. I stopped the practice swing once I realized that it was always better than my actual swing at the ball. I think that realization process is missing from a lot of people. "Grip it and rip it."

King Crimson · Post by **King Crimson** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 11:57 pm

if people practiced sandshots and learned the basic open face"splash shot"/flop swing... it would not be such a big deal. they are MANY times when being in a greenside bunker is a better place.

Mr T · Post by **Mr T** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 7:33 pm

Dinsdale wrote:If I owned a course, I would make a rule banning all practice swings.

Rack!

I only take practice swings to loosen up or to see what I am doing wrong in my swing. Fuck doing a practice swing everytime.

Felix · Post by **Felix** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 8:45 pm

I'm inclined to ask why all those who've expressed as much have a problem with somebody trying to work out some swing problems by taking a few extra swings......it seems you all are in a hurry to get up to the next shot so you can spend some additional time waiting for the group ahead of you.

Qbert · Post by **Qbert** » Sun Jul 10, 2005 5:03 am

Felix wrote:......it seems you all are in a hurry to get up to the next shot so you can spend some additional time waiting for the group ahead of you.

Indeed!

btw...the most intimidating obstacle on the Golf Course is the Beer Cart Girl.

period.

(if you are "thinking" about swing thoughts while on the course....you're screwed.)

get over it...double chip...3 putt and move your ass along QUICKLEY!

DRUNK People are right behind your 'slow-playin' ASS!!!! ~ and they're not Happy about shooting 90 either!

Hit it...find it...and Hit it when you are READY....don't wait for Billy Bob to slip his lemon-lime Lifesaver under his ball for the umpteenth time...then waggle another 12 times before he KACKS it off into the Trees.

slow playin'muthah fuckaaah's must die!

Felix · Post by **Felix** » Sun Jul 10, 2005 8:38 pm

Qbert wrote:
get over it...double chip...3 putt and move your ass along QUICKLEY!

So what you're saying here is that for you it's not about the shot or the score-it's about getting through the round as quickly as possible.

Qbert · Post by **Qbert** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 5:00 am

Felix wrote:
Qbert wrote:
get over it...double chip...3 putt and move your ass along QUICKLEY!

So what you're saying here is that for you it's not about the shot or the score-it's about getting through the round as quickly as possible.

ABSOLUTELY!!!

if I quack it THAT BAD..i'm putting that fucker in my pocket.

you can only take probably triple vs. your handicap anyways.

not that you would know...Mr greenjeansScratchshooteranyhow! :wink:

Slow Play BLOWS...and, i'm not about to contribute to it. AND, your SMACK aside...back to the POINT--->everyone should do the SAME. :wink:

Felix · Post by **Felix** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 2:49 pm

Qbert wrote:
if I quack it THAT BAD..i'm putting that fucker in my pocket.

you can only take probably triple vs. your handicap anyways.

Agree--if you're eyeing a 20 footer for a nine it's good by me--pick er up.

not that you would know...Mr greenjeansScratchshooteranyhow! :wink:

I wish--last time I looked it was a 5.3

Slow Play BLOWS...and, i'm not about to contribute to it. AND, your SMACK aside...back to the POINT--->everyone should do the SAME. :wink:

Slow play kills the game and I blame television for that.

BSmack · Post by **BSmack** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 3:02 pm

Qbert wrote:Slow Play BLOWS...and, i'm not about to contribute to it. AND, your SMACK aside...back to the POINT--->everyone should do the SAME. :wink:

Slow play sucks. But so does being rushed by the foursome behind you that the starter sent out the nanosecond after your 2nd shot left the club. And don't even get me started on stupid course design. Let's just say that if you have a 6500 yard course loaded with water hazards and sand ,open your course to all skill levels and then expect rounds to play in 4 1/2 hours, you are freakin high. It ain't going to happen.

As for practice swings, anything more than two half swings to set your swing plane is unnecessary IMO. But the real problem is not the practice swing. It's the player who doesn't even have the club in hand when it is his turn and the player who hasn't hit the ball more than 200 off the deck waiting for the foursome ahead to clear the grean when the green is a 250 carry.

My advice? Play during off hours.

Dinsdale · Post by **Dinsdale** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 5:13 pm

Felix wrote:Slow play kills the game and I blame television for that.

I think I see your problem -- you need to leave the TV at home.

Rushville · Post by **Rushville** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 5:41 pm

BSmack wrote:But the real problem is not the practice swing. It's the player who doesn't even have the club in hand when it is his turn.

Couldn't agree more with that. Dins wouldn't even notice that guy's 5 swings if he did them while others in the group were hitting their shots.

At the same time Dins made me think of another angle on this area, practice swing obsession.

One guy I worked with a few years ago was so obsessed with perfection of his practice swings that he once threw his club at his bag during a lesson because a practice swing wasn't perfect. This guy had a set pre-shot routine which was two practice swings and then fire. I told him that was a good routine. Then I discovered as he went through balls that he didn't stick the number 2. His goal was to have one "perfect" practice swing before he hit his shot. And that one out of two was almost always perfect. I asked him what a "perfect" practice swing was. Well, by "perfect" he was listening for a particular sound as his club hit the grass. If he didn't hear that sound, it wasn't "perfect." That explanaition threw me. But since it wasn't the wierdest quirk I had ever heard, I let it go.

Then he ran into a period where he couldn't get that sound. 2 practice swing became 3. Then 4, then 5, then 10. He was pounding his club into the ground with each successive non-"perfect" practice swing. I wanted to say, "What the hell are you doing?!" But being professional I said, "Those swings look good. What's frustrating you?" He said he just wasn't getting the sound he wanted. I told him how he has pretty much scraped the sod off the entire practice tee with all his practice swings and that the sounds of the contact with the grass is naturally going to change.

To him, not acceptable. He kept swinging at the grass. And after about 5 more, WHAP! Club into the bag. After giving him about 5 minutes to calm down, I emphasized what a preshot routine is supposed to do. It's supposed to get your mind into the right place to hit a good shot and to create consistency in the shot-making process. It's not there to be perfect or to work on the swing.

Ken · Post by **Ken** » Sun Jul 17, 2005 12:51 pm

Dinsdale wrote:I'm pretty darn sure I'm not the only one who feels this way...I think the marshall does too.

The day a marshall gives more of a fuck about speeding up play on his course rather than lazily toolin' around in his cart watchin' the world while away is the same day my dog doesn't enjoy lickin' his own bunger anylonger.

Fucking retired lazy-asses would be better suited manning kiddie rides at the traveling circus.

al? · Post by **al?** » Sun Jul 17, 2005 4:05 pm

I can never golf with any of you guys.

I'm not a slow player, but I do like my practise swings. I take two to get loose & get a feel for how I want to hit it, a third that is the swing I want to make, then I address the ball. If it doesn't feel right, I will back off and do it again.

It's not 'grip grip grip grip re-grip grip grip milk the cow grip grip grip', but I did have one guy commenting on it last year.

Maybe it's because he was down $80.

fix · Post by **fix** » Sun Jul 17, 2005 4:46 pm

BSmack wrote:
Qbert wrote:Slow Play BLOWS...and, i'm not about to contribute to it. AND, your SMACK aside...back to the POINT--->everyone should do the SAME. :wink:
Slow play sucks. But so does being rushed by the foursome behind you that the starter sent out the nanosecond after your 2nd shot left the club. And don't even get me started on stupid course design. Let's just say that if you have a 6500 yard course loaded with water hazards and sand ,open your course to all skill levels and then expect rounds to play in 4 1/2 hours, you are freakin high. It ain't going to happen.

RACK!

The only good marshall is one that keeps his fucking mouth shut unless there are more than one group waiting and one complete hole open in front of a group that is holding up play.

From another board, dealing with the jackasses at what is supposedly, according to them, Canada's premier golf facility a few weeks back....

Otis wrote:I was part of a tournament held there today and with 60 players entered, I'd say that Glen Abbey made more than a few bucks off us today.
The only problem with it was that they obviously don't give a shit about the golfers once they have your money.

Let me preface the rest of the story by stating that most courses, WANT your business and respect the fact that you have 15 blocks of tee times reserved which might entail 4.5 - 5 hour rounds of golf because it is a tournament.
But not the arrogrant pricks at Glen Abbey, oh no...

The event today was ruined for more than one foursome because of the arrogant and harrassing treatment of us by Glen Abbey's marshalls.

Starting off on the 2nd hole they began threatening us to either speed up the play or be forced to pick up and move to the next hole.
Well I hate slow play as much as the next guy but the jackass couldn't recognise the fact that there wasn't a hole open in front of us. In fact, the group ahead of us were putting out while we were waiting in the fairway to hit our approach shots.
When we got to the 3rd tee, the group in front of us were just teeing off because the group in front of them, had just moved on to the 4th tee.
So all in all, everyone's moving along fine. The group behind us aren't exactly breathing down our necks either.

Fast forward to the 5th tee, marshall drives up and again tells us we need to pick up the pace.. :roll:

On the 8th fairway he's telling us that he's made the 4th group ahead of us pick up because of slow play and that we should now close the gap (even though there is none)

No stopping at the halfway house.. got to keep things moving...

So now we're on the 11th tee getting ready to start the valley holes and appreciating the scenic view and who should come driving up.. ya you guessed it.
Now not only is he bitching again, he's doing so while the 2nd member of our foresome is teeing off. So much for silence on the tee...

Again, we pointed out to him that the group in front of us had only just cleared the fairway but does this mensa get it?
Nooooo...
The only thing he gives a shit about is that we're allegedly 45 minutes behind pace, which was bs.

After once again appeasing his power trip, we move on down to the valley and Barney Fife drives off to give a display of his big bad attitude to another group belonging to our tourney.

Fast forward to the 13th fairway now... Barney Fife is driving back from the green towards us after speaking with the group in front of us.

"Gentlemen, I have repeatedly asked you to pick up the pace, this is your final warning and if you don't we will make you pick up your balls and move to the next hole. I have just ordered the group in front of you to skip the 14th hole and proceed directly to the 15th tee".

Well at this point I was seriously considering that the best way to end this problem for him once and for all was to wrap a 5 iron upside his skull but I couldn't bring myself to damage a perfectly good club on his worthless ass.

So I informed him that as far as I was concerned, we were well within our reasonably allotted time and in fact that if it weren't for his constant interrupting our game with his horseshit power tripping, we'd probably even be ahead of pace to finish in less than 4.5 hours.
But we did have 5 more holes to complete and by god, at $200 plus to play this course, I was going to play every god damn one of them, like it or not.

Barney Fife must have figured that it would be a wise decision (smart decision on his part) to move on at this point because he turned his cart around and headed back towards the groups behind us.

To top off this wonderful round of harassment, the 15th green it turns out is not even playable. Oh you can hit your tee shot up onto it, it's not a temporary green, it's the same green that was there 2 years ago and the same one that was there 5 years ago when I played it. Only now, it isn't fit for putting on and they have a local rule, 2 putt max.

So if any of you were serious about playing Glen A$$ey, then for $200 plus, you're not going to find a better deal in or around the GTA if you're into jackasses constantly harassing you over the pace of play.
I mean hell, I've played Angus Glen, Lionhead, Wooden Sticks, Osprey, National Pines, Royal Ontario and just about every one of the courses listed in the Bogeyman's top courses and been mistreated by all of them showing us the respect, courtesy and decency that a golfer asks for when paying top dollar.
How dare they...
Not a one of them can hold a torch to Glen Abbey when it comes to having a big screw you golfer, we're Glen fucking Abbey attitude.

Oh, and from the time we teed off to the time I walked out of the clubhouse after putting my clubs in my car, turning in my scorecard, grabbing a drink and using the washroom facilities, the total elapsed time was a whopping 5 hrs.

Then the following week at a different course we had another jackass driving around bitching at anyone that parked their golf cart even one foot off the cart path and ordering everyone not to drive their carts into the rough (rough, not fescue).
Meanwhile, the genius's that run the course had cut their greens, not bothered to water them, the fairways or tee boxes and the course was as brown and burnt up as the Nevada desert after a good dust storm.

I'll give the people at Eagle's Nest a whole lot of credit... after dealing with the other jackasses, playing there was a nice break from dealing with idiots.
They space tee times out with their minimum of 10 minute intervals between tee times policy to which they strictly adhere too. Plus their marshalls aren't up in your face and the course was in pristine condition.

As far as practice swings go, I generally take 2 of them unless one of them is so bad in which case I will take a third swing.
But then, I've always practiced the etiquette of playing 'ready golf'.