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The problem with golf instruction books

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“When I came to this seminar, I was confused. I’m still confused but on a higher level.”  Enrico Fermi

I have worked with many great teachers in my life; men and women who really understood the nuts and bolts of teaching golf. Together we learned to correct golf swing errors. We learned that every golfer was unique, with their own personal learning style, swing problems, physique and habits. We understood there is no one way to play golf, and the more we allowed for individual differences, the more effective we were in helping them.

But the field of golf instruction is not unlike the academic profession, where the motto is and always has been “publish or perish.” Teachers feel the need to write a book, publish a video, or somehow get their message out to their devotees to be successful or to reap some gain, financial or otherwise. The result of this is often a deviation from their original approach to teaching. Authors choose a title, let’s say How to Swing or How to Set Up, and they set about expressing their belief in the best way to go about that task. When the same teachers are on the lesson tee, however, they’re dealing with a variety of ways to swing or set up, all based on the needs of the individual in front of them. And I think this problem is exasperated when the authors are former players, who are suggesting things almost entirely based how they achieved success at golf.

This is when instruction books and tapes are at their most vulnerable and, in my opinion, are least helpful.

Let me cite one very well-known example to make my point. There is perhaps no more famous illustration in golf books than Anthony Ravelli’s wonderful drawing of Ben Hogan’s grip. There is one very big problem with that picture, however. While Hogan’s hands are positioned perfectly for his swing, they demonstrate a position that may be too much to the left (weak) for many golfers. That grip can be very effective for those who fight a hook, perhaps 15 percent of the people who play golf. And of course, it is the way Mr. Hogan learned to hold the club to offset his own tendency to hook the golf ball early in his career. But the vast majority of golfers may very well slice from that “weaker” grip.

Ben Hogan was perhaps the finest striker of a golf ball who ever lived, very few people in our game would take issue with that at all, but by advocating his personal preference he is not taking into account many of the people who, of course, do not have his talent, his swing plane, his lag, his ball position and so on. And, what’s even more harmful is this: because the great man said it, it became the bible for many readers.

Alex Morrison said golf is a left-sided game, but Ben Hogan said he wished he had three right hands. Ernest Jones said swing the clubhead, but Eddie Merins said swing the handle. Jimmy Ballard teaches moving off the ball, but Andy Bennet wants you to stay on the ball. John Redman suggested a strong grip, but Tommy Armour a weaker one. On and on, ad infinitum… but here’s the catch. I’m willing to bet that every one of those great teachers would make exceptions based on the student that was in front of them on the range. That’s because in golf instruction, there is nothing that’s for everybody.

Some instruction manuals are decidedly more “choice” in their approach. Jim Hardy has always taken the more alternative approach in his work. “The Plane Truth,” criticized by some for taking an only-two-ways-to-swing approach, still offers a choice. In it, Hardy explains that IF you swing one way, THEN you should do this to to complement it.

John Jacobs wrote the seminal work on this subject in his book “Practical Golf” many years ago. Although science has gone on to disprove some of the findings in the book (the initial direction of the golf ball is NOT the result of the path of the golf club, for example), the information is still invaluable from an alternative approach to swinging the club.

If you are attempting to learn to swing from a method-oriented book, you must be very careful to get the whole picture before attempting to incorporate the method into your golf swing. This is one of the most common reasons I see players get stuck in the mud in their improvement. If you are reading a certain book and NOT getting anywhere, there is one of two reasons: the book is spewing misinformation OR you are not doing ALL the book suggests.

When the teacher becomes an author, he or she is entering another realm; an area often removed from the craft of teaching people to play golf and into an area of teaching golf. There is a quantitative difference between the two. Myself and many teachers like me teach people to play golf; we do not teach golf. If you read through my writings on GolfWRX or anywhere, really, they are always written in an if-then format. If you tend to do this, THEN try this… there is no other effective way, at least none that I’m aware of. And if anyone knows of one, I’d be happy to hear it.

Those of us who dare to teach must remain students of our individual disciplines, and our continuing education needs to be shared on a case-by-case basis. Offering universal prescriptions for individual problems is a dead end in my work, and unfortunately many golf instruction manuals are written in this way.

I have an online swing analysis program that many GolfWRXers have tried and enjoyed. If you’d like a diagnosis an explanation of exactly what you’re doing, click here for more info, or contact me on Facebook.

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Dennis Clark is a PGA Master Professional. Clark has taught the game of golf for more than 30 years to golfers all across the country, and is recognized as one of the leading teachers in the country by all the major golf publications. He is also is a seven-time PGA award winner who has earned the following distinctions: -- Teacher of the Year, Philadelphia Section PGA -- Teacher of the Year, Golfers Journal -- Top Teacher in Pennsylvania, Golf Magazine -- Top Teacher in Mid Atlantic Region, Golf Digest -- Earned PGA Advanced Specialty certification in Teaching/Coaching Golf -- Achieved Master Professional Status (held by less than 2 percent of PGA members) -- PGA Merchandiser of the Year, Tri State Section PGA -- Golf Professional of the Year, Tri State Section PGA -- Presidents Plaque Award for Promotion and Growth of the Game of Golf -- Junior Golf Leader, Tri State section PGA -- Served on Tri State PGA Board of Directors. Clark is also former Director of Golf and Instruction at Nemacolin Woodlands Resort. Dennis now teaches at Bobby Clampett's Impact Zone Golf Indoor Performance Center in Naples, FL. .

37 Comments

37 Comments

  1. stephenf

    Feb 16, 2017 at 11:25 am

    “Exacerbated,” not “exasperated.”

    Anyway…of course your idea is basically right. It’s hard to write an instructional book that allows for different inclinations and different habits a student might bring, but some have done better than others. Even with the best, though, it gets really difficult not to end up trying to cover all possibilities, so that the book becomes encyclopedic and (sometimes) overwhelming. Leadbetter’s stuff has been criticized for this, but the truth is that any individual player who goes to take a lesson with Leadbetter is going to get a couple of critical things to work on that will probably improve his game, not the whole range of possibilities, as ends up happening so often in a book.

    I think this is why some of the best instruction books are often those that limit themselves to a specific approach or a specific problem. One that comes immediately to mind is Peter Kostis’ _The Inside Path to Better Golf_, which to me is the best almost-completely-unknown golf instructional book of all time. When I was teaching I almost never found a player who wasn’t, or wouldn’t have been, helped tremendously by both the concepts and the drills. Kostis (this is back when he was working with the Golf Digest schools, before he was a TV commentator and ended up glurging a variety of contradictory instructional approaches into one big ball) advances the specific and relatively limited idea that most amateurs do things in their swing that get them outside and steep on the downswing, and it kills their games, so the aim of instruction ought to be an inside and shallow approach to the ball, with a free and full release. Anything that helps that is good, and anything that hurts it is bad. That’s the simple mode of the book. He addresses the elements that contribute and those that impede, and he has the student go through organized stages of development, starting with the release of the clubhead from the hands, then adding the rotation of the arms that supports and adds to that release, then the movement of the trunk and legs that supports and enables the swinging elements (hands-arms-club), then the timing that makes it work.

    In fact, the principles from that book (I had a live teacher who recommended it, actually) were what got me from being a sort of scrambling scratch-to-two-or-three handicapper — and I wouldn’t have been anywhere near scratch if I hadn’t had a ridiculously good short game (out of desperation and need, actually) — to a plus-2 and beyond (better than that when I was playing as a pro) who could actually, and finally, strike the ball as well as the other good players I was playing against, which had never been the case before.

    It’s true that any approach like this is overdoable, and eventually you might have to do things to moderate the degree of the inside path and so forth (Kostis covers that possibility briefly at points, but doesn’t let it sidetrack him), and that in fact is what happens with a lot of pros and explains why what works for them at an advanced stage in their development might be literally the opposite of what works for a 12-handicapper. A pro who has already trained himself to swing the club from the inside with an emphatic and free release of the clubhead might need some adjustments that keep him from turning a draw into a hook or from getting so shallow the ground gets in the way (Haney had to cover that with O’Meara at one point, in fact), but almost any amateur who does the same things that pro does to address the opposite problem from what the amateur has is going to be driving the wrong way down a one-way street. (In my specific case, I _never_ had to stop working on shallow-and-inside, and still am to this day, probably because of basic physical characteristics — 6’3″, long arms and legs, etc. — and various natural inclinations. Some people will, some won’t.)

    Anyway…that’s just one example of a book that avoids the “encyclopedia of everything” approach, instead preferring to focus on a specific solvable problem, in my opinion to great — and very underrated — effect.

    Of course, you can be a true genius and write the kinds of books John Jacobs did, too, which manage to boil down a range of possibilities into simple explanations and conditional statements without being confusing or overwhelming at all.

    • stephenf

      Feb 16, 2017 at 11:30 am

      Sorry, have no idea why hitting the enter key twice doesn’t space paragraphs apart.

      Also a good example of a “limited and specific focus” book: Ernest Jones and his ideas about swinging versus levering. Or Eddie Merrins and “swing the handle, not the clubhead.” Ironically, both were talking about essentially the same thing, even though they put it in superficially contradictory terms — Jones advising to swing the clubhead, Merrins to avoid swinging the clubhead. If you read the substance of both, though, you’ll find that by “swinging the handle, not the clubhead,” Merrins is talking about avoiding a throw of the clubhead with a levering action, while Jones is talking about a true swinging motion that ends at the clubhead.

      • stephenf

        Feb 16, 2017 at 11:32 am

        Also, of course it’s a good point about Hogan, corroborated by others. I forget who it was who said Hogan’s book should’ve been retitled “How not to Duck-Hook, by Ben Hogan.”

    • stephenf

      Feb 16, 2017 at 11:40 am

      As for Jim Hardy, he’s a smart guy who has had a good influence on some teachers (notably Hank Haney) and says a lot of true things, but the basis of his “two categories, 1P and 2P” idea is really flawed. Almost every tour pro and every great player in history, including the ones 1P devotees cite as being 1Pers, actually swings the club on two planes to some extent. Really it’s a matter of a continuum. If you’re exactly perpendicular to your spine angle and exactly across your shoulder line (assuming it’s also perpendicular) at the top, it’s true that you can do certain things and emphasize certain actions more than somebody who is dramatically off perpendicular. But the truth is that very close to 100% of good players are off perpendicular to some extent. It’s a matter of _how_ much they vary from perpendicular, and what they do to accommodate that. It’s also true that forcing a swing into that exact-perpendicular configuration isn’t possible for most players without creating a list of other necessary compensations or problems.

      It’s a good example of a theory that is oversimplified (in posing a bright line between the “two types of swing”), and yet a theory that has helped some players and is useful in certain ways.

    • John Mule'

      Aug 1, 2023 at 8:08 am

      I’ve been playing the game for decades – have read hundreds of instructionals – and taken lessons/advice from known teaching professionals but this is the single best, most helpful series of comments on the golf swing I’ve ever encountered. Only wish I’d have met someone with your insight and expertise much earlier in my development as a player. By the way, the Kostis book is brilliant. I now recommend it to many who want to improve (though I do get funny looks when recommending a 40+ year old golf book to them…).

  2. baudi

    Oct 25, 2016 at 4:36 am

    Nice article! What I like is the reasoning behind your thinking. Following ideas may/will lead to situations where the player gets stuck with his game. To solve this problem there are many possibilities but not any solution fits in as a solution. It takes hard work and a holistic view to get back on track. To get a holistic view on a swing expanding knowledge of certain types of swings is useful. Hence a lot of golf books to be studied.

    However, the chosen examples of Hogan and Jacobs do not make your point. My study of golf books lead to the following futile remarks.

    The grip as demonstrated by Hogan/Ravielli/Wind is not just a picture. It is explained, demonstrated in a full chapter of 19 pages! There is a complete and very consistent motivation behind it. Pages 67 and 102 will contain vital information related back to this chapter. These are the very best pages I’ve ever read on gripping the club.

    Concerning John Jacobs: you write the initial direction of the golf ball is NOT the result of the path of the golf club.
    There is no such claim in Practical Golf. Jacobs’ description and drawings of balllfight/impact geometry are very precise and clear. In the introduction he states : the direction in which the clubface looks is the most important of the four impact elements that determine the behavior of every shot you hit. In the early 70’s Jacobs was not aware of Jorgensens D-PLane but I am sure Jacobs’ would have acknowledged his ideas.

  3. Steven

    Oct 20, 2016 at 1:16 pm

    Great Article Dennis. I 100% agree. A major problem is that most amateurs don’t have the time to ingrain the entirety of a “method”. Many golfers will also give up when getting the full method doesn’t happen quickly. I believe it is much better to work with the good parts of a swing that is natural for the person and then make adjustments for consistency, etc.

    The classic example for a non-traditional swing is Jim Furyk, but you can also look to Dustin Johnson. His bowed wrist and closed clubface at the top are not advised, but he clears his hips fast and gets the face square when it matters. Jordan Spieth has a modified chicken wing finish. No one is the Iron Byron, so we all need something that works with our natural tendencies. The smaller the adjustments to our natural swing, the easier it is to take to the course.

    Keep up the good work Dennis.

  4. Bilo

    Oct 20, 2016 at 6:44 am

    Hogan 5 lessons and Stan Utley was all I needed to become scratch. Reading is fundamental!

  5. Riggie

    Oct 19, 2016 at 7:35 pm

    Many, like me, start with one or two golf instruction books, do not like what they read and end up buying more and more till the golf books are not really teaching nothing but becoming a hobby collecting golf books…my reason trying to find the same ideas in two different books…while after about 60 instruction books I gave up….no two teachers seem to highlight the same principal ( I even have 3 different versions of the Moe Norman single plane SIMPLE single plane swing). Just go to the driving range and find a way to take the club back and bring it back so club face points where you want to hit the ball..once you can hit it where you can find it you can figure out how to hit it higher, lower, farther.. or better yet one you can hit it “more or less” toward the green go and practice putting for hours and hours..that will lower your score..

  6. Grizz01

    Oct 19, 2016 at 3:58 pm

    Periodicals are pretty much useless as well. Once you have 6 months worth they just start to repeat themselves. Seriously, this is not rocket science. Very few things are new to golf/golf swing for the last 40 years. In fact I think most average golfers are dying from information overload. Just hit the ball.

  7. Stevo

    Oct 19, 2016 at 12:17 pm

    I have bought many instruction books (Nicklaus, Leadbetter, Watson, etc.). I agree that each one taught something different and were generally not much help.

    I have gone thru 5 instructors (multiple lessons from some) who said I had a decent swing, but never really offered anything different to try. Of course, as often happens, I hit the ball pretty well when I was with them. But on the course, I never knew where the ball was going, usually not where I wanted it to. Scared of the hook, so I might over-compensate with a slice, and then vice versa. I tried every kind of swing change (including some useful info from Martin Hall on GC), but never found the magic elixer.

    Ready to give up the game at 69, I recently decided to go back to the beginning, the grip. I felt I was all over the place at the top. I dug out my Ben Hogan Five Lessons, and used his grip concept. Wow, for the last 4 rounds I have been hitting them where I am aiming. I rarely lose a ball, whereas I could lose 10 a round before. Looking forward to practicing and using Ben’s concepts, recommend you at least give it a try.

  8. ooffa

    Oct 19, 2016 at 9:14 am

    I would much rather read and study a book then work with a golf instructor.

  9. dapadre

    Oct 19, 2016 at 6:18 am

    Great article as always Dennis and so very true! I was having this sort of conversation in the clubhouse the other day. Since every individual is so unique (long arms , short arms, flexibility levels, eye dominance etc etc) there is not perfect swing for everyone. I love BH 5 fundamentals an he was without doubt one of the greatest ball strikers BUT………….He fought a hook so his whole mind set was avoiding that left side. He set up pretty closed on his mid to long irons/woods, Trevino on the other hand setup crazy open with a strong grip in a time mind you they said with strong grip you couldnt win. Scott Percy uses a baseball grip, Steve Jones used a reverse overlap to win the 1996 US Open. I could go on and on. I believe you need to find that which works for you as it revolves around you based on sound golf basics. At the end of the day, im a firm believer that IMPACT (ZONE) is everything. Take all swings and see the impact position……..the same.

  10. Mat

    Oct 19, 2016 at 6:16 am

    I guess that’s why Bobby Clampett’s stuff resonates with me. In a lot of ways, he isn’t teaching the “swing”, rather he’s focusing on making sure the student understands what the club head is supposed to do *at impact*. It’s something that 95% of players don’t fully grasp to a material level. You don’t have to know trackman stuff, but you do have to understand “compression” / the feel of proper impact, how your path affects it, and how to achieve it within your body’s abilities.

    I’ve read many how-to-swing books, and most demonstrate what works for them, or a “majority”, or whatever. Perfect detail. But when a player reads it with a terrible idea of how to hit a ball, it engrains the wrong thing. It makes you better at hitting a bad shot!

  11. Tim

    Oct 19, 2016 at 12:54 am

    Dennis, I get what you are saying, but don’t you agree that, ideally, biomechanics and physics would create swings that look very similar among golfers without viable physical handicaps or serious mobility issues? Other than small variances, we are all made the same with muscles that contract the same way and we all work within the limitations of the laws of physics. My point being that there should be and is a “best” way to swing that works within these scientific laws. This would give everyone the highest odds of making a repeatable swing that creates the greatest accuracy and distance possible given your physical make-up. I get that there are thousands of ways to play golf well. Hopefully I have made it somewhat clear that scientifically there should be a best way to swing that could be applied to the masses because of our shared, slightly varied, biological factors and the laws of physics that we are forced to operate in.

    • Dennis Clark

      Oct 19, 2016 at 3:43 pm

      Tim, I agree to this extent: Biomechanics and the resulting physics of ball flight are universal but the programming of those motions is individual. In my experience as a teacher, i have observed that the neurons activated to direct the physical motions are highly individualistic. Everybody I teach internalizes the result of an unwanted outcome differently. To some it is an abject failure and to others a learning opportunity. Therefore they will DIRECT their body to activate a quite different set of motions. Yes these too have existential limits as you noted, but if we, as teachers, disregard the mind’s effect on HOW to program muscle, tendon, skeletal movement, we are removing the “human element”, as Homer Kelly said. I have learned not to take that risk. That is what I meant by teaching people to play golf, not teaching golf. If I isolate the instruction to simply the motions and not the person, I’m on shaky ground…brain dead people unfortunately do not move. The uniqueness to which the article makes reference, is more neuroscientific than scientific, I suppose. I wonder if Jim Furyk learned to program his muscles to first lift the club straight up, OR did he first learn to drop it way behind him? It really doesn’t matter, does it? Thoughts? Thx

    • Bob Pegram

      Oct 20, 2016 at 2:39 am

      Tim –
      You are not considering that people learn physical performance habits from other sports or even other physical tasks before they ever get serious about golf. Those physical performance habits become second nature and are often difficult or impossible to get rid of when learning the golf swing. They affect what methods work. Sometimes only unorthodox methods work.
      There are also physical variations that greatly affect a golf swing. For example, there is no way a golfer on the loose-jointed end of the spectrum can swing the same as a golfer with very little flexibility. Their ranges of motion are extremely different, therefore their methods of swinging a golf club have to be different to be successful.
      Arnold Palmer learned to slash at the ball when he was very young. Even though, when he was middle aged, he could swing smoothly and gracefully when relaxed, as soon as it counted, the slashing swing overwhelmed any other type of swing he knew how to perform.
      We all have tendencies like that and so there will never be a standard swing for successful golfers. We all have to adapt our swings to our physical quirks.

      • Dennis Clark

        Oct 20, 2016 at 4:02 pm

        True Bob. Many boys for example start with baseball; the biggest habit learned at a young age is “step into the pitch’. This “habit” often equates to what Brian Manzella calls “handle dragging” and…of course slicing!

  12. Rmauritz

    Oct 18, 2016 at 9:23 pm

    Faldo’s A Swing For Life is the best golf instruction book I have read.

  13. Pingback: The problem with golf instruction books | Swing Update

  14. Tom Stickney

    Oct 18, 2016 at 6:10 pm

    Great article Dennis

  15. Tom

    Oct 18, 2016 at 4:40 pm

    Swing the club head through the sweet spot with a square (ish) face and a straight (ish) path at a high rate of speed.

  16. Mike

    Oct 18, 2016 at 4:11 pm

    So do you think the BioSwing guys are closer to getting it right describing various difference characteristics and coming up with screening tests to see where players fit?

    This is not a pitch or a b*%#& about BioSwing either. I know little about it.

  17. farmer

    Oct 18, 2016 at 2:53 pm

    The biggest problem is that feel is not real. What you think you are doing is not necessarily what you are doing. If you could video your swing and play it back on a life sized screen, you would see what an instructor sees, at least to scale. It is unlikely that a hdcp player could accurately identify where they go off the track, and even less likely that they could identify the cause.

    • Philip

      Oct 18, 2016 at 4:48 pm

      Except even video is not necessary “real” – I can change how a swing looks by changing the angles used to take the video, or lens/camera combination, or f-stop. I think one just needs to use consistent perspective when evaluating their swing and understand how to compare it to anyone else if they want to. I used to think my swing was really flat and that I had very little back swing because I was viewing it by turning my head versus from a mirror in front of me.

      • Dennis Clark

        Oct 18, 2016 at 6:40 pm

        True Phil. moving the camera even a few inched can make a difference. Radar better but 3-D Best! Look into GEARS eval, it’s well worth it!

    • Dennis Clark

      Oct 18, 2016 at 6:44 pm

      Feel and real are not only NOT the same thing, in golf, they are not even close!

  18. James Lahey

    Oct 18, 2016 at 2:12 pm

    Nice article.

    To me this underlies the importance of taking from a variety of sources. That way, any one teacher’s bias will be balanced out–not all that different in how we build our life values and philosophy. Just another way our the path through our golf lives mimics our real lives.

    ~JL

    • Dennis Clark

      Oct 18, 2016 at 6:38 pm

      True JL, golf is a microcosm of life. Have you read “Golf in the Kingdom”?

    • Dennis Clark

      Oct 18, 2016 at 8:36 pm

      Old Percy, turn-in-a-barrel, Boomer…Great contributor in early days of golf.

      • Greg V

        Oct 19, 2016 at 8:07 am

        Dennis,

        I think that “turn in a barrel” is an over simplification of Boomer’s concept. What is lost in that, is that Boomer wanted the hips to turn “high”; if they sink, they can get stuck in the barrel – which can happen when the legs flex too much, or when the spine angle is lost.

  19. Bobalu

    Oct 18, 2016 at 11:49 am

    Spot on article!

  20. Greg V

    Oct 18, 2016 at 10:58 am

    Excellent article.

    This is precisely why I love to read, and re-read Percy Boomer’s book “On Learning Golf.” It is precisely because Boomer taught by feels, and not by “do it this way.”

    Fortunately for me, Boomer’s “feels” are still relevant today: the braces, the feeling of keeping the hips and shoulders “up” but the arms “down” and others.

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19th Hole

Vincenzi’s 2024 Texas Children’s Houston Open betting preview

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As the Florida swing comes to an end, the PGA Tour makes its way to Houston to play the Texas Children’s Houston Open at Memorial Park Golf Course.

This will be the fourth year that Memorial Park Golf Course will serve as the tournament host. The event did not take place in 2023, but the course hosted the event in 2020, 2021 and 2022.

Memorial Park is a par-70 layout measuring 7,432 yards and features Bermudagrass greens. Historically, the main defense for the course has been thick rough along the fairways and tightly mown runoff areas around the greens. Memorial Park has a unique setup that features three Par 5’s and five Par 3’s.

The field will consist of 132 players, with the top 65 and ties making the cut. There are some big names making the trip to Houston, including Scottie Scheffler, Wyndham Clark, Tony Finau, Will Zalatoris and Sahith Theegala.

Past Winners at Memorial Park

  • 2022: Tony Finau (-16)
  • 2021: Jason Kokrak (-10)
  • 2020: Carlos Ortiz (-13)

In this article and going forward, I’ll be using the Rabbit Hole by Betsperts Golf data engine to develop my custom model. If you want to build your own model or check out all of the detailed stats, you can sign up using promo code: MATTVIN for 25% off any subscription package (yearly is best value). 

Key Stats For Memorial Park

Let’s take a look at several metrics for Memorial Park to determine which golfers boast top marks in each category over their last 24 rounds:

Strokes Gained: Approach

Memorial Park is a pretty tough golf course. Golfers are penalized for missing greens and face some difficult up and downs to save par. Approach will be key.

Total Strokes Gained: Approach per round in past 24 rounds:

  1. Tom Hoge (+1.30)
  2. Scottie Scheffler (+1.26)
  3. Keith Mitchell (+0.97) 
  4. Tony Finau (+0.92)
  5. Jake Knapp (+0.84)

Strokes Gained: Off the Tee

Memorial Park is a long golf course with rough that can be penal. Therefore, a combination of distance and accuracy is the best metric.

Total Strokes Gained: Off the Tee per round in past 24 rounds:

  1. Scottie Scheffler (+0.94)
  2. Kevin Dougherty (+0.93)
  3. Cameron Champ (+0.86)
  4. Rafael Campos (+0.84)
  5. Si Woo Kim (+0.70)

Strokes Gained Putting: Bermudagrass + Fast

The Bermudagrass greens played fairly fast the past few years in Houston. Jason Kokrak gained 8.7 strokes putting on his way to victory in 2021 and Tony Finau gained in 7.8 in 2022.

Total Strokes Gained Putting (Bermudagrass) per round past 24 rounds (min. 8 rounds):

  1. Adam Svensson (+1.27)
  2. Harry Hall (+1.01)
  3. Martin Trainer (+0.94)
  4. Taylor Montgomery (+0.88)
  5. S.H. Kim (+0.86)

Strokes Gained: Around the Green

With firm and undulating putting surfaces, holding the green on approach shots may prove to be a challenge. Memorial Park has many tightly mowed runoff areas, so golfers will have challenging up-and-down’s around the greens. Carlos Ortiz gained 5.7 strokes around the green on the way to victory in 2020.

Total Strokes Gained: Around the Green per round in past 24 rounds:

  1. Mackenzie Hughes (+0.76)
  2. S.H. Kim (+0.68)
  3. Scottie Scheffler (+0.64)
  4. Jorge Campillo (+0.62)
  5. Jason Day (+0.60)

Strokes Gained: Long and Difficult

Memorial Park is a long and difficult golf course. This statistic will incorporate players who’ve had success on these types of tracks in the past. 

Total Strokes Gained: Long and Difficult in past 24 rounds:

  1. Scottie Scheffler (+2.45)
  2. Ben Griffin (+1.75)
  3. Will Zalatoris (+1.73)
  4. Ben Taylor (+1.53)
  5. Tony Finau (+1.42)

Course History

Here are the players who have performed the most consistently at Memorial Park. 

Strokes Gained Total at Memorial Park past 12 rounds:

  1. Tyson Alexander (+3.65)
  2. Ben Taylor (+3.40)
  3. Tony Finau (+2.37)
  4. Joel Dahmen (+2.25)
  5. Patton Kizzire (+2.16)

Statistical Model

Below, I’ve reported overall model rankings using a combination of the five key statistical categories previously discussed.

These rankings are comprised of SG: App (24%) SG: OTT (24%); SG: Putting Bermudagrass/Fast (13%); SG: Long and Difficult (13%); SG: ARG (13%) and Course History (13%)

  1. Scottie Scheffler
  2. Wyndham Clark
  3. Tony Finau
  4. Joel Dahmen
  5. Stephan Jaeger 
  6. Aaron Rai
  7. Sahith Theegala
  8. Keith Mitchell 
  9. Jhonnatan Vegas
  10. Jason Day
  11. Kurt Kitayama
  12. Alex Noren
  13. Will Zalatoris
  14. Si Woo Kim
  15. Adam Long

2024 Texas Children’s Houston Open Picks

Will Zalatoris +2000 (Caesars)

Scottie Scheffler will undoubtedly be difficult to beat this week, so I’m starting my card with someone who I believe has the talent to beat him if he doesn’t have his best stuff.

Will Zalatoris missed the cut at the PLAYERS, but still managed to gain strokes on approach while doing so. In an unpredictable event with extreme variance, I don’t believe it would be wise to discount Zalatoris based on that performance. Prior to The PLAYERS, the 27-year-old finished T13, T2 and T4 in his previous three starts.

Zalatoris plays his best golf on long and difficult golf courses. In his past 24 rounds, he ranks 3rd in the category, but the eye test also tells a similar story. He’s contended at major championships and elevated events in the best of fields with tough scoring conditions.  The Texas resident should be a perfect fit at Memorial Park Golf Club.

Alex Noren +4500 (FanDuel)

Alex Noren has been quietly playing some of his best golf of the last half decade this season. The 41-year-old is coming off back-to-back top-20 finishes in Florida including a T9 at The PLAYERS in his most recent start.

In his past 24 rounds, Noren ranks 21st in the field in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee, 30th in Strokes Gained: Around the Green, 25th in Strokes Gained: Total on long and difficult courses and 21st in Strokes Gained: Putting on fast Bermudagrass greens.

In addition to his strong recent play, the Swede also has played well at Memorial Park. In 2022, Noren finished T4 at the event, gaining 2.2 strokes off the tee and 7.0 strokes on approach for the week. In his two starts at the course, he’s gained an average of .6 strokes per round on the field, indicating he is comfortable on these greens.

Noren has been due for a win for what feels like an eternity, but Memorial Park may be the course that suits him well enough for him to finally get his elusive first PGA Tour victory.

Mackenzie Hughes +8000 (FanDuel)

Mackenzie Hughes found himself deep into contention at last week’s Valspar Championship before faltering late and finishing in a tie for 3rd place. While he would have loved to win the event, it’s hard to see the performance as anything other than an overwhelming positive sign for the Canadian.

Hughes has played great golf at Memorial Park in the past. He finished T7 in 2020, T29 in 2021 and T16 in 2022. The course fit seems to be quite strong for Hughes. He’s added distance off the tee in the past year or and ranks 8th in the field for apex height, which will be a key factor when hitting into Memorial Park’s elevated greens with steep run-off areas.

In his past 24 rounds, Hughes is the best player in the field in Strokes Gained: Around the Greens. The ability to scramble at this course will be extremely important. I believe Hughes can build off of his strong finish last week and contend once again to cement himself as a President’s Cup consideration.

Akshay Bhatia +8000 (FanDuel)

Akshay Bhatia played well last week at the Valspar and seemed to be in total control of his golf ball. He finished in a tie for 17th and shot an impressive -3 on a difficult Sunday. After struggling Thursday, Akshay shot 68-70-68 in his next three rounds.

Thus far, Bhatia has played better at easier courses, but his success at Copperhead may be due to his game maturing. The 22-year-old has enormous potential and the raw talent to be one of the best players in the world when he figures it all out.

Bhatia is a high upside play with superstar qualities and may just take the leap forward to the next stage of his career in the coming months.

Cameron Champ +12000 (FanDuel)

Cameron Champ is a player I often target in the outright betting market due to his “boom-or-bust” nature. It’s hard to think of a player in recent history with three PGA Tour wins who’s been as inconsistent as Champ has over the course of his career.

Despite the erratic play, Cam Champ simply knows how to win. He’s won in 2018, 2019 and 2021, so I feel he’s due for a win at some point this season. The former Texas A&M product should be comfortable in Texas and last week he showed us that his game is in a pretty decent spot.

Over his past 24 rounds, Champ ranks 3rd in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee and 30th in Strokes Gained: Total on long and difficult courses. Given his ability to spike at any given time, Memorial Park is a good golf course to target Champ on at triple digit odds.

Robert MacIntyre +12000 (FanDuel)

The challenge this week is finding players who can possibly beat Scottie Scheffler while also not dumping an enormous amount of money into an event that has a player at the top that looks extremely dangerous. Enter McIntyre, who’s another boom-or-bust type player who has the ceiling to compete with anyone when his game is clicking on all cylinders.

In his past 24 rounds, MacIntyre ranks 16th in the field in Strokes Gained: Off the Tee, 17th in Strokes Gained: Around the Green and 10th in Strokes Gained: Total on long and difficult courses.

MacIntyre’s PGA Tour season has gotten off to a slow start, but he finished T6 in Mexico, which is a course where players will hit driver on the majority of their tee shots, which is what we will see at Memorial Park. Texas can also get quite windy, which should suit MacIntyre. Last July, the Scot went toe to toe with Rory McIlroy at the Scottish Open before a narrow defeat. It would take a similar heroic effort to compete with Scheffler this year in Houston.

Ryan Moore +15000 (FanDuel)

Ryan Moore’s iron play has been absolutely unconscious over his past few starts. At The PLAYERS Championship in a loaded field, he gained 6.1 strokes on approach and last week at Copperhead, he gained 9.0 strokes on approach.

It’s been a rough handful of years on Tour for the 41-year-old, but he is still a five-time winner on the PGA Tour who’s young enough for a career resurgence. Moore has chronic deterioration in a costovertebral joint that connects the rib to the spine, but has been getting more consistent of late, which is hopefully a sign that he is getting healthy.

Veterans have been contending in 2024 and I believe taking a flier on a proven Tour play who’s shown signs of life is a wise move at Memorial Park.

 

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Opinion & Analysis

Ryan: Why the race to get better at golf might be doing more harm than good

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B.F. Skinner was one of the most important psychologists of the 20th century, developing the foundation of the development of reinforcement, and in doing so, creating the concept of behaviorism. In simple terms, this means that we are conditioned by our habits. In practical terms, it explains the divide between the few and far between elite instructors and college coaches.

To understand the application, let’s quickly review one of B.F. Skinner’s most important experiments; superstitions in the formation of behavior by pigeons. In this experiment, food was dispensed to pigeons at random intervals. Soon, according to Skinner, the pigeons began to associate whatever action they were doing at the time of the food being dispensed. According to Skinner, this conditioned that response and soon, they simply haphazardly repeated the action, failing to distinguish between cause and correlation (and in the meantime, looking really funny!).

Now, this is simply the best way to describe the actions of most every women’s college golf coach and too many instructors in America. They see something work, get positive feedback and then become conditioned to give the feedback, more and more, regardless of if it works (this is also why tips from your buddies never work!).

Go to a college event, particularly a women’s one, and you will see coaches running all over the place. Like the pigeons in the experiment, they have been conditioned into a codependent relationship with their players in which they believe their words and actions, can transform a round of golf. It is simply hilarious while being equally perturbing

In junior golf, it’s everywhere. Junior golf academies make a living selling parents that a hysterical coach and over-coaching are essential ingredients in your child’s success.

Let’s be clear, no one of any intellect has any real interest in golf — because it’s not that interesting. The people left, including most coaches and instructors, carve out a small fiefdom, usually on the corner of the range, where they use the illusion of competency to pray on people. In simple terms, they baffle people with the bullshit of pseudo-science that they can make you better, after just one more lesson.

The reality is that life is an impromptu game. The world of golf, business, and school have a message that the goal is being right. This, of course, is bad advice, being right in your own mind is easy, trying to push your ideas on others is hard. As a result, it is not surprising that the divorce rate among golf professionals and their instructors is 100 percent. The transfer rate among college players continues to soar, and too many courses have a guy peddling nefarious science to good people. In fact, we do at my course!

The question is, what impact does all this have on college-age and younger kids? At this point, we honestly don’t know. However, I am going to go out on a limb and say it isn’t good.

Soren Kierkegaard once quipped “I saw it for what it is, and I laughed.” The actions of most coaches and instructors in America are laughable. The problem is that I am not laughing because they are doing damage to kids, as well as driving good people away from this game.

The fact is that golfers don’t need more tips, secrets, or lessons. They need to be presented with a better understanding of the key elements of golf. With this understanding, they can then start to frame which information makes sense and what doesn’t. This will emancipate them and allow them to take charge of their own development.

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19th Hole

Vincenzi’s 2024 Valspar Championship betting preview: Elite ballstrikers to thrive at Copperhead

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The PGA TOUR will stay in Florida this week for the 2024 Valspar Championship.

The Copperhead Course at Innisbrook Resort is a par 71 measuring 7,340 yards and features Bermudagrass greens overseeded with POA. Infamous for its difficulty, the track will be a tough test for golfers as trouble lurks all over the place. Holes 16, 17 and 18 — also known as the “Snake Pit” — make up one of the toughest three-hole stretches in golf and should lead to a captivating finish on Sunday.

The field is comprised of 156 golfers teeing it up. The field this week is solid and is a major improvement over last year’s field that felt the impact of players skipping due to a handful of “signature events” in a short span of time. 

Past Winners at Valspar Championship

  • 2023: Taylor Moore (-10)
  • 2022: Sam Burns (-17)
  • 2021: Sam Burns (-17)
  • 2019: Paul Casey (-8)
  • 2018: Paul Casey (-10)
  • 2017: Adam Hadwin (-14)
  • 2016: Charl Schwartzel (-7)
  • 2015: Jordan Spieth (-10)

In this article and going forward, I’ll be using the Rabbit Hole by Betsperts Golf data engine to develop my custom model. If you want to build your own model or check out all of the detailed stats, you can sign up using promo code: MATTVIN for 25% off any subscription package (yearly is best value). 

Key Stats For Copperhead

1. Strokes Gained: Approach

Strokes Gained: Approach grades out as the most important statistic once again this week. Copperhead really can’t be overpowered and is a second-shot golf course.

Total SG: Approach Over Past 24 Rounds (per round)

  1. Tony Finau (+.90)
  2. Nick Taylor (+.81)
  3. Justin Thomas (+.77)
  4. Greyson Sigg (+.69)
  5. Christiaan Bezuidenhout (+.67)

2. Good Drive %

The long hitters can be a bit limited here due to the tree-lined fairways and penal rough. Playing from the fairways will be important, but laying back too far will cause some difficult approaches with firm greens that may not hold shots from long irons.

Golfers who have a good balance of distance and accuracy have the best chance this week.

Good Drive % Over Past 24 Rounds

  1. Brice Garnett (+91.3%) 
  2. Zach Johnson (+91.1%)
  3. Sam Ryder (+90.5%)
  4. Ryan Moore (+90.4%)
  5. Aaron Rai (+89.7%)

3. Strokes Gained: Ball Striking

Adding ball-striking puts even more of a premium on tee-to-green prowess in the statistical model this week. Golfers who rank highly in ball-striking are in total control of the golf ball which is exceedingly important at Copperhead.

SG: Ball Striking Over Past 24 Rounds:

  1. Xander Schauffele (+1.32)
  2. Keith Mitchell (+1.29)
  3. Tony Finau (+1.24)
  4. Cameron Young (+1.17) 
  5. Doug Ghim (+.95)

4. Bogey Avoidance

With the conditions likely to be difficult, avoiding bogeys will be crucial this week. In a challenging event like the Valspar, oftentimes the golfer who is best at avoiding mistakes ends up on top.

Gritty golfers who can grind out difficult pars have a much better chance in an event like this than a low-scoring birdie-fest.

Bogey Avoidance Over Past 24 Rounds

  1. Brice Garnett (+9.0)
  2. Xander Schauffele (+9.3)
  3. Austin Cook (+9.7) 
  4. Chesson Hadley (+10.0)
  5. Greyson Sigg (+10.2)

5. Strokes Gained: Total in Difficult Conditions

Conditions will be tough this week at Copperhead. I am looking for golfers who can rise to the occasion if the course plays as difficult as it has in the past.

Strokes Gained: Total in Difficult Conditions Over Past 24 rounds

  1. Xander Schauffele (+1,71) 
  2. Min Woo Lee (+1.39)
  3. Cameron Young (+1.27)
  4. Jordan Spieth (+1.08)
  5. Justin Suh (+.94)

6. Course History

That statistic will tell us which players have played well at Copperhead in the past.

Course History Over Past 24 rounds

  1. Patrick Cantlay (+3.75) 
  2. Sam Burns (+2.49)
  3. Davis Riley (+2.33)
  4. Matt NeSmith (+2.22)
  5. Jordan Spieth (+2.04)

The Valspar Championship Model Rankings

Below, I’ve compiled overall model rankings using a combination of the five key statistical categories previously discussed — SG: Approach (27%), Good Drive % (15%), SG: BS (20%), Bogeys Avoided (13%), Course History (13%) Strokes Gained: Total in Difficult Conditions (12%).

  1. Xander Schauffele
  2. Doug Ghim
  3. Victor Perez
  4. Greyson Sigg
  5. Ryan Moore
  6. Tony Finau
  7. Justin Thomas
  8. Sam Ryder
  9. Sam Burns
  10. Lucas Glover

2024 Valspar Championship Picks

Justin Thomas +1400 (DraftKings)

Justin Thomas will be disappointed with his finish at last week’s PLAYERS Championship, as the past champion missed the cut despite being in some decent form heading into the event. Despite the missed cut, JT hit the ball really well. In his two rounds, the two-time major champion led the field in Strokes Gained: Approach per round.

Thomas has been up and down this season. He’s missed the cut in two “signature events” but also has finishes of T12 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, T12 at the Waste Management Phoenix Open, T6 at the Pebble Beach AT&T Pro-Am and T3 at the American Express. In his past 24 rounds, he ranks 3rd in the field in Strokes Gained: Approach and 6th in Strokes Gained: Ball Striking in the field.

Thomas loves Copperhead. In his last three tries at the course, he’s finished T13, T3 and T10. Thomas would have loved to get a win at a big event early in the season, but avoidable mistakes and a balky putter have cost him dearly. I believe a trip to a course he loves in a field he should be able to capitalize on is the right recipe for JT to right the ship.

Christiaan Bezuidenhout +6000 (FanDuel)

Christiaan Bezuidenhout is playing spectacular golf in the 2024 season. He finished 2nd at the American Express, T20 at Pebble Beach and T24 at the Genesis Invitational before finishing T13 at last week’s PLAYERS Championship.

In his past 24 rounds, the South African ranks 3rd in the field in Strokes Gained: Approach and 26th in Strokes Gained: Ball Striking. Bezuidenhout managed to work his way around TPC Sawgrass last week with minimal damage. He only made five bogeys in the entire week, which is a great sign heading into a difficult Copperhead this week.

Bezuidenhout is winless in his PGA Tour career, but certainly has the talent to win on Tour. His recent iron play tells me that this week could be a breakthrough for the 35-year-old who has eyes on the President’s Cup.

Doug Ghim +8000 (FanDuel)

Doug Ghim has finished in the top-16 of his past five starts. Most recently, Ghim finished T16 at The PLAYERS Championship in a loaded field.

In his past 24 rounds, Ghim ranks 8th in Strokes Gained: Approach and 5th in Strokes Gained: Ball Striking. In terms of his fit for Copperhead, the 27-year-old ranks 12th in Bogey Avoidance and 7th in Strokes Gained: Total in Difficult Conditions, making him a great fit for the course.

Ghim has yet to win on Tour, but at one point he was the top ranked Amateur golfer in the world and played in the 2017 Arnold Palmer Cup and 2017 Walker Cup. He then won the Ben Hogan award for the best male college golfer in 2018. He certainly has the talent, and there are signals aplenty that his talent in ready to take him to the winner’s circle on the PGA Tour.

Sepp Straka +8000 (BetRivers)

Sepp Straka is a player who’s shown he has the type of game that can translate to a difficult Florida golf course. The former Presidents Cup participant won the 2022 Honda Classic in tough conditions and should thrive with a similar test at Copperhead.

It’s been a slow 2024 for Straka, but his performance last week at the PLAYERS Championship surely provides some optimism. He gained 5.4 strokes on approach as well as 1.88 strokes off the tee. The tee-to-green game Straka showed on a course with plenty of danger demonstrates that he can stay in control of his golf ball this week.

It’s possible that the strong performance last week was an outlier, but I’m willing to bet on a proven winner in a weaker field at a great number.

Victor Perez +12000 (FanDuel)

Victor Perez is no stranger to success in professional golf. The Frenchman has three DP World Tour wins including a Rolex Series event. He won the 2019 Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, as well as the 2023 Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship, which are some big events.

Perez earned his PGA Tour card this season and enters the week playing some fantastic golf. He finished in a tie for 16th in Florida at the Cognizant Classic and then tied for third in his most recent start at the Puerto Rico Open.

In his past 24 rounds in the field, Perez ranks 11th in Strokes Gained: Approach, 1oth in Strokes Gained: Ball Striking, 6th in Good Drive % and 15th in Bogey Avoidance.

Perez comes in as a perfect fit for Copperhead and offers serious value at triple-digit odds.

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