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10 Little things that will make a BIG difference in your game

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What I find again and again with my students is that they believe the keys to better scoring lie in hitting their drives farther or adding another 10 yards of distance to their irons. And of course, I’d be the first to agree that distance plays an important role in scoring, but there are so many other contributing factors. Below are 10 tips for better scoring, which are going to help you score better right away.

10) Your first putt

The problem with long-putting is that you may at times become preoccupied with the line of the putt without paying the proper level of attention to speed, which dictates distance the ball will roll out. As the line of the putt is of secondary importance, your focus should be on those factors that affect speed. Your final thought before striking the putt should be speed with only a general concern for the line of the putt.

9) Bunker Play: Get out, get on, get in

In bunker player, there are three levels of expertise. The first level is the ability to get out of the bunker on a regular basis. The second level is the ability to get the ball out of the bunker and have it finish anywhere on the green. The third level is the ability to play a shot from the bunker that ends up close to the pin. You must work through each of these stages, one at a time, to eventually become an expert bunker player.

8) Greenside shots

In earlier days, the chip-shot played an important role in the game. But with the change in today’s maintenance practices, it has become virtually extinct. The grass around the greens is now allowed to grow considerably longer, dictating a different approach than in the past. The best club to use for these shots is not the traditional 7-8-9 irons, or even the pitching wedge, but a sand or lob wedge. The clubs (56-60 degrees) are heavier, allowing them to cut through the grass while at the same time, because of their added loft, allowing you to be more aggressive when playing these shots.

7) Let go of score

A major impediment to scoring is keeping track of where you stand with par on a moment-to-moment basis. Should you be a player who is constantly concerned with score, looking forward or back, you are making the mistake of not staying in “the now.” You must learn to control your thought process, which takes mental discipline. The proof of that discipline is at the end of the round. You should be surprised at the exact total of your score.

6) Elevation affects distance

The ability to adjust for elevation is to a large degree instinctive. The best approach is to think in terms of determining, to the best of your ability, whether the differential is one, two or three clubs and then commit to your decision. The shot will play longer going uphill and shorter going downhill.

5) Playing from sidehill lies

In the case of sidehill lies, the ball is inclined to curve in the same direction as the hill slopes. Should the ball be ABOVE YOUR FEET, it will tend to curve to your left. Also, because the ball is physically closer to you then from a level lie, you must effectively shorten the length of the club. The best approach is to choke up on the handle or stand a little taller at address. In cases where the ball is BELOW YOUR FEET, the ball is physically further from you, dictating that you must maintain your forward posture as you play the shot. The ball will tend to curve to your right.

4) Avoid the big number

A number greater than 3-over par on any given hole could be considered a “big number.” There are several reasons why you or other players mix in a big number with their score, even when penalty shots are not a factor. The nature of the game dictates that at some point you will play a poor shot. The question is how you react to that shot mentally and emotionally. Are you able to immediately put it behind you, or do you allow your emotions to spill over into the next hole causing you to play a succession of poor shots?

The basic rule after hitting into trouble is to get out of trouble with your next shot. You should choose a LOW RISK option that gets you “back down the road.” You may be tempted to play the “hero shot,” which often backfires into an even larger score. You should practice trouble shots on the range and on the course learning how to hit the ball high or low, while at the same time having the ability to curve it in both directions.

3) Playing in the wind

The wind adds another dimension to the game. The difference between playing on a windy day when the gusts are over 20 mph and playing on a day when there is no wind is like the difference between chess and checkers. The two games use the same board, but they are vastly different in their complexity. A player who consistently strikes the ball in the center of the club-face will have an advantage over other less skilled players, as his ball will be less affected by the wind.

2) Make your misses count

You may only hit a few “perfect shots” during your round. The rest will be “misses” of varying degrees. A percentage of these shot will fall under the category of “good misses,” which are shots that are eminently playable. Do you find this concept hard to accept? You may be looking through the “prism of perfection.” A ball that goes a reasonable distance and in the intended direction should be not be accepted as good fortune.

1) Play the course for shape

In the game of billiards, a skillful player is always looking at least one shot ahead while making sure that the next shot is as easy as possible. In golf, this means finding the best angle off the tee — one that is both safe and proves the best access to the pin. In preparing for competition, walking the hole backward in your imagination can be helpful in seeing what the architect intended when he constructed the hole. From there, you can develop a comprehensive “game plan.”

What now? I would suggest that you systematically work your way through each of the 10 steps on the practice range while observing the outcome, and then as you become more confident, test them out on the golf course… and watch your scores come down.

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As a teacher, Rod Lidenberg reached the pinnacle of his career when he was named to GOLF Magazine's "Top 100" Teachers in America. The PGA Master Professional and three-time Minnesota PGA "Teacher of the Year" has over his forty-five year career, worked with a variety of players from beginners to tour professionals. He especially enjoys training elite junior players, many who have gone on to earn scholarships at top colleges around the country, in addition to winning several national amateur championships. Lidenberg maintains an active schedule teaching at Bluff Creek Golf Course Chanhassen, Minnesota, in the summer and The Golf Zone, Chaska, Minnesota, in the winter months. As a player, he competed in two USGA Public Links Championships; the first in Dallas, Texas, and the second in Phoenix, Arizona, where he finished among the top 40. He also entertained thousands of fans playing in a series of three exhibition matches beginning in 1972, at his home course, Edgewood G.C. in Fargo, North Dakota, where he played consecutive years with Doug Sanders, Lee Trevino and Laura Baugh. As an author, he has a number of books in various stages of development, the first of which will be published this fall entitled "I Knew Patty Berg." In Fall 2017, he will be launching a new Phoenix-based instruction business that will feature first-time-ever TREATMENT OF THE YIPS.

17 Comments

17 Comments

  1. millennial82

    May 14, 2018 at 12:37 pm

    Rod Lindenberg is a Sr. Jedi in golf. Thank you for the lessons, i will surely train in all 10 this weekend.

  2. Bob Jones

    May 14, 2018 at 12:32 pm

    Fabulous list. I would add the importance of doing whatever it takes to get the ball in the fairway off the tee. The pros can drive the ball anywhere and still make par; we can’t.

  3. ButchT

    May 14, 2018 at 12:07 pm

    Very good article!

  4. Sherwin

    May 13, 2018 at 11:28 pm

    I believe this is one of the best article written for GolfWRX. Why the negative responses? I don’t get it. I think the author is spot-on.

  5. Albert

    May 13, 2018 at 7:22 pm

    Okay, let’s get this straight:
    11. Cheat
    12. Imbibe
    13. No x-e-s
    14. Void
    15. Page Sp.
    16. ??????

  6. BParsons

    May 13, 2018 at 3:41 pm

    15. Take Paige Spirniac out for a photoshoot before and after round.. BOOM BABY

  7. ogo

    May 13, 2018 at 3:10 pm

    14. Void yourself so that your lower bowel is unburdened of waste material. A glycerine suppository does wonders to start the process. You will have that floating feeling throughout the round while others labor absorbing their contaminate material. 😮

  8. ogo

    May 13, 2018 at 3:05 pm

    13. Avoid x-e-s first thing in the morning as it will drain you of essential fluids needed to pulverize the ball off the first tee and thereafter. Save and store your energy for the game, not the gal.

  9. Tom

    May 13, 2018 at 11:58 am

    great article Mr. Lidenberg. Many facts over looked by golfers,mostly weekenders and some I forgot about.

  10. larry

    May 13, 2018 at 9:57 am

    maybe the worst i’ve ever read! Shank

  11. ogo

    May 12, 2018 at 10:35 pm

    12. Imbibe before the first tee. Alcohol is a depressant and will eliminate all your first tee jitters and keep you from a panic attack. Bobby Jones and Moe Norman all took a wee dram of Scotch whiskey to settle their golfing nerves. Many still do.

    • James T

      May 12, 2018 at 11:29 pm

      I subscribe to sipping an Italian Sports Drink during the round to keep the swing lubricated. i.e. A pinot grigio from Tuscany.

  12. Obee

    May 12, 2018 at 7:32 pm

    Wow! Somebody understands the elements of scoriing!! 🙂

  13. KAndyMan

    May 12, 2018 at 2:40 pm

    Great article! Simple, to the point and great things to always have in the back of your mind at all times. I personally think the first putt and playing the hole backwards are the 2 best. They come into play on almost every hole. My dad beat into my head at an early age to “get your line close but most important your speed even closer on your first putt”.

  14. James T

    May 12, 2018 at 2:29 pm

    Pursuant to #4. Be emotional before the shot. Be emotional after the shot. No matter if something good or bad just happened. DURING the shot be a robot, unaffected by human emotions, because good or bad emotions can ruin the current shot.

  15. ogo

    May 12, 2018 at 2:20 pm

    11. Cheat. Ignore the USGA/R&A Rules of Golf, particularly after slicing your drive into the deep rough. Don’t play stroke and distance back to the tee. Carry a second ball in your pocket and quietly dropping it and saying you found your ‘lost’ ball.

  16. apple support

    May 12, 2018 at 1:27 pm

    Those who are playing Golf or love to play this at some point in time should follow these rules and things that are mentioned here. If anyone wants to be a pro in the game, then all the aspects of the game should be known.

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Instruction

The Wedge Guy: The easiest-to-learn golf basic

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My golf learning began with this simple fact – if you don’t have a fundamentally sound hold on the golf club, it is practically impossible for your body to execute a fundamentally sound golf swing. I’m still a big believer that the golf swing is much easier to execute if you begin with the proper hold on the club.

As you might imagine, I come into contact with hundreds of golfers of all skill levels. And it is very rare to see a good player with a bad hold on the golf club. There are some exceptions, for sure, but they are very few and very far between, and they typically have beat so many balls with their poor grip that they’ve found a way to work around it.

The reality of biophysics is that the body moves only in certain ways – and the particulars of the way you hold the golf club can totally prevent a sound swing motion that allows the club to release properly through the impact zone. The wonderful thing is that anyone can learn how to put a fundamentally sound hold on the golf club, and you can practice it anywhere your hands are not otherwise engaged, like watching TV or just sitting and relaxing.

Whether you prefer an overlap, interlock or full-finger (not baseball!) grip on the club, the same fundamentals apply.  Here are the major grip faults I see most often, in the order of the frequency:

Mis-aligned hands

By this I mean that the palms of the two hands are not parallel to each other. Too many golfers have a weak left hand and strong right, or vice versa. The easiest way to learn how to hold the club with your palms aligned properly is to grip a plain wooden ruler or yardstick. It forces the hands to align properly and shows you how that feels. If you grip and re-grip a yardstick several times, then grip a club, you’ll see that the learning curve is almost immediate.

The position of the grip in the upper/left hand

I also observe many golfers who have the butt of the grip too far into the heel pad of the upper hand (the left hand for right-handed players). It’s amazing how much easier it is to release the club through the ball if even 1/4-1/2″ of the butt is beyond the left heel pad. Try this yourself to see what I mean.  Swing the club freely with just your left hand and notice the difference in its release from when you hold it at the end of the grip, versus gripping down even a half inch.

To help you really understand how this works, go to the range and hit shots with your five-iron gripped down a full inch to make the club the same length as your seven-iron. You will probably see an amazing shot shape difference, and likely not see as much distance loss as you would expect.

Too much lower (right) hand on the club

It seems like almost all golfers of 8-10 handicap or higher have the club too far into the palm of the lower hand, because that feels “good” if you are trying to control the path of the clubhead to the ball. But the golf swing is not an effort to hit at the ball – it is a swing of the club. The proper hold on the club has the grip underneath the pad at the base of the fingers. This will likely feel “weak” to you — like you cannot control the club like that. EXACTLY. You should not be trying to control the club with your lower/master hand.

Gripping too tightly

Nearly all golfers hold the club too tightly, which tenses up the forearms and prevents a proper release of the club through impact. In order for the club to move back and through properly, you must feel that the club is controlled by the last three fingers of the upper hand, and the middle two fingers of the lower hand. If you engage your thumbs and forefingers in “holding” the club, the result will almost always be a grip that is too tight. Try this for yourself. Hold the club in your upper hand only, and squeeze firmly with just the last three fingers, with the forefinger and thumb off the club entirely. You have good control, but your forearms are not tense. Then begin to squeeze down with your thumb and forefinger and observe the tensing of the entire forearm. This is the way we are made, so the key to preventing tenseness in the arms is to hold the club very lightly with the “pinchers” — the thumbs and forefingers.

So, those are what I believe are the four fundamentals of a good grip. Anyone can learn them in their home or office very quickly. There is no easier way to improve your ball striking consistency and add distance than giving more attention to the way you hold the golf club.

More from the Wedge Guy

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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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