Opinion & Analysis

The problem with golf instruction books

Published

8 years ago

Oct 18, 2016

“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

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

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.

Reply Report comment
- 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.
  
  Reply Report comment
  - 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.”
    
    Reply Report comment
- 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.
  
  Reply Report comment
- 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…).
  
  Reply Report comment
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.

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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.

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Bilo

Oct 20, 2016 at 6:44 am

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

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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..

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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.

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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.

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- Dennis Clark
  
  Oct 19, 2016 at 2:18 pm
  
  Precisely! Whatever works! That’s my core message if you read through my work. Thx
  
  Reply Report comment
ooffa

Oct 19, 2016 at 9:14 am

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

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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.

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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!

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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.

Reply Report comment
- 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
  
  Reply Report comment
- 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.
  
  Reply Report comment
  - 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!
    
    Reply Report comment
Rmauritz

Oct 18, 2016 at 9:23 pm

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

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Tom Stickney

Oct 18, 2016 at 6:10 pm

Great article Dennis

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- Dennis Clark
  
  Oct 18, 2016 at 6:35 pm
  
  Thx pro
  
  Reply Report comment
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.

Reply Report comment
- Dennis Clark
  
  Oct 18, 2016 at 6:42 pm
  
  Yep simple as that!
  
  Reply Report comment
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.

Reply Report comment
- Dennis Clark
  
  Oct 18, 2016 at 6:41 pm
  
  Mike I think 3-D is the truest eval we have out there now. GEARS is the best!
  
  Reply Report comment
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.

Reply Report comment
- 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.
  
  Reply Report comment
  - 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!
    
    Reply Report comment
- 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!
  
  Reply Report comment
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

Reply Report comment
- Dennis Clark
  
  Oct 18, 2016 at 6:38 pm
  
  True JL, golf is a microcosm of life. Have you read “Golf in the Kingdom”?
  
  Reply Report comment
- Dennis Clark
  
  Oct 18, 2016 at 8:36 pm
  
  Old Percy, turn-in-a-barrel, Boomer…Great contributor in early days of golf.
  
  Reply Report comment
  - 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.
    
    Reply Report comment
Bobalu

Oct 18, 2016 at 11:49 am

Spot on article!

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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 Zurich Classic of New Orleans betting preview

Published

3 days ago

Apr 22, 2024

Matt Vincenzi

The PGA TOUR heads to New Orleans to play the 2023 Zurich Classic of New Orleans. In a welcome change from the usual stroke play, the Zurich Classic is a team event. On Thursday and Saturday, the teams play best ball, and on Friday and Sunday the teams play alternate shot.

TPC Louisiana is a par 72 that measures 7,425 yards. The course features some short par 4s and plenty of water and bunkers, which makes for a lot of exciting risk/reward scenarios for competitors. Pete Dye designed the course in 2004 specifically for the Zurich Classic, although the event didn’t make its debut until 2007 because of Hurricane Katrina.

Coming off of the Masters and a signature event in consecutive weeks, the field this week is a step down, and understandably so. Many of the world’s top players will be using this time to rest after a busy stretch.

However, there are some interesting teams this season with some stars making surprise appearances in the team event. Some notable teams include Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele, Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry, Collin Morikawa and Kurt Kitayama, Will Zalatoris and Sahith Theegala as well as a few Canadian teams, Nick Taylor and Adam Hadwin and Taylor Pendrith and Corey Conners.

Past Winners at TPC Louisiana

2023: Riley/Hardy (-30)
2022: Cantlay/Schauffele (-29)
2021: Leishman/Smith (-20)
2019: Palmer/Rahm (-26)
2018: Horschel/Piercy (-22)
2017: Blixt/Smith (-27)

2024 Zurich Classic of New Orleans Picks

Tom Hoge/Maverick McNealy +2500 (DraftKings)

Tom Hoge is coming off of a solid T18 finish at the RBC Heritage and finished T13 at last year’s Zurich Classic alongside Harris English.

This season, Hoge is having one of his best years on Tour in terms of Strokes Gained: Approach. In his last 24 rounds, the only player to top him on the category is Scottie Scheffler. Hoge has been solid on Pete Dye designs, ranking 28th in the field over his past 36 rounds.

McNealy is also having a solid season. He’s finished T6 at the Waste Management Phoenix Open and T9 at the PLAYERS Championship. He recently started working with world renowned swing coach, Butch Harmon, and its seemingly paid dividends in 2024.

Keith Mitchell/Joel Dahmen +4000 (DraftKings)

Keith Mitchell is having a fantastic season, finishing in the top-20 of five of his past seven starts on Tour. Most recently, Mitchell finished T14 at the Valero Texas Open and gained a whopping 6.0 strokes off the tee. He finished 6th at last year’s Zurich Classic.

Joel Dahmen is having a resurgent year and has been dialed in with his irons. He also has a T11 finish at the PLAYERS Championship at TPC Sawgrass which is another Pete Dye track. With Mitchell’s length and Dahmen’s ability to put it close with his short irons, the Mitchell/Dahmen combination will be dangerous this week.

Taylor Moore/Matt NeSmith +6500 (DraftKings)

Taylor Moore has quickly developed into one of the more consistent players on Tour. He’s finished in the top-20 in three of his past four starts, including a very impressive showing at The Masters, finishing T20. He’s also finished T4 at this event in consecutive seasons alongside Matt NeSmith.

NeSmith isn’t having a great 2024, but has seemed to elevate his game in this format. He finished T26 at Pete Dye’s TPC Sawgrass, which gives the 30-year-old something to build off of. NeSmith is also a great putter on Bermudagrass, which could help elevate Moore’s ball striking prowess.

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19th Hole

Vincenzi’s 2024 LIV Adelaide betting preview: Cam Smith ready for big week down under

Published

3 days ago

Apr 22, 2024

Matt Vincenzi

After having four of the top twelve players on the leaderboard at The Masters, LIV Golf is set for their fifth event of the season: LIV Adelaide.

For both LIV fans and golf fans in Australia, LIV Adelaide is one of the most anticipated events of the year. With 35,000 people expected to attend each day of the tournament, the Grange Golf Club will be crawling with fans who are passionate about the sport of golf. The 12th hole, better known as “the watering hole”, is sure to have the rowdiest of the fans cheering after a long day of drinking some Leishman Lager.

The Grange Golf Club is a par-72 that measures 6,946 yards. The course features minimal resistance, as golfers went extremely low last season. In 2023, Talor Gooch shot consecutive rounds of 62 on Thursday and Friday, giving himself a gigantic cushion heading into championship Sunday. Things got tight for a while, but in the end, the Oklahoma State product was able to hold off The Crushers’ Anirban Lahiri for a three-shot victory.

The Four Aces won the team competition with the Range Goats finishing second.

*All Images Courtesy of LIV Golf*

Past Winners at LIV Adelaide

2023: Talor Gooch (-19)

Stat Leaders Through LIV Miami

Green in Regulation

Richard Bland
Jon Rahm
Paul Casey

Fairways Hit

Abraham Ancer
Graeme McDowell
Henrik Stenson

Driving Distance

Bryson DeChambeau
Joaquin Niemann
Dean Burmester

Putting

Cameron Smith
Louis Oosthuizen
Matt Jones

2024 LIV Adelaide Picks

Cameron Smith +1400 (DraftKings)

When I pulled up the odds for LIV Adelaide, I was more than a little surprised to see multiple golfers listed ahead of Cameron Smith on the betting board. A few starts ago, Cam finished runner-up at LIV Hong Kong, which is a golf course that absolutely suits his eye. Augusta National in another course that Smith could roll out of bed and finish in the top-ten at, and he did so two weeks ago at The Masters, finishing T6.

At Augusta, he gained strokes on the field on approach, off the tee (slightly), and of course, around the green and putting. Smith able to get in the mix at a major championship despite coming into the week feeling under the weather tells me that his game is once again rounding into form.

The Grange Golf Club is another course that undoubtedly suits the Australian. Smith is obviously incredibly comfortable playing in front of the Aussie faithful and has won three Australian PGA Championship’s. The course is very short and will allow Smith to play conservative off the tee, mitigating his most glaring weakness. With birdies available all over the golf course, there’s a chance the event turns into a putting contest, and there’s no one on the planet I’d rather have in one of those than Cam Smith.

Louis Oosthuizen +2200 (DraftKings)

Louis Oosthuizen has simply been one of the best players on LIV in the 2024 seas0n. The South African has finished in the top-10 on the LIV leaderboard in three of his five starts, with his best coming in Jeddah, where he finished T2. Perhaps more impressively, Oosthuizen finished T7 at LIV Miami, which took place at Doral’s “Blue Monster”, an absolutely massive golf course. Given that Louis is on the shorter side in terms of distance off the tee, his ability to play well in Miami shows how dialed he is with the irons this season.

In addition to the LIV finishes, Oosthuizen won back-to-back starts on the DP World Tour in December at the Alfred Dunhill Championship and the Mauritus Open. He also finished runner-up at the end of February in the International Series Oman. The 41-year-old has been one of the most consistent performers of 2024, regardless of tour.

For the season, Louis ranks 4th on LIV in birdies made, T9 in fairways hit and first in putting. He ranks 32nd in driving distance, but that won’t be an issue at this short course. Last season, he finished T11 at the event, but was in decent position going into the final round but fell back after shooting 70 while the rest of the field went low. This season, Oosthuizen comes into the event in peak form, and the course should be a perfect fit for his smooth swing and hot putter this week.

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Opinion & Analysis

The Wedge Guy: What really makes a wedge work? Part 1

Published

7 days ago

Apr 18, 2024

Terry Koehler

Of all the clubs in our bags, wedges are almost always the simplest in construction and, therefore, the easiest to analyze what might make one work differently from another if you know what to look for.

Wedges are a lot less mysterious than drivers, of course, as the major brands are working with a lot of “pixie dust” inside these modern marvels. That’s carrying over more to irons now, with so many new models featuring internal multi-material technologies, and almost all of them having a “badge” or insert in the back to allow more complex graphics while hiding the actual distribution of mass.

But when it comes to wedges, most on the market today are still single pieces of molded steel, either cast or forged into that shape. So, if you look closely at where the mass is distributed, it’s pretty clear how that wedge is going to perform.

To start, because of their wider soles, the majority of the mass of almost any wedge is along the bottom third of the clubhead. So, the best wedge shots are always those hit between the 2nd and 5th grooves so that more mass is directly behind that impact. Elite tour professionals practice incessantly to learn to do that consistently, wearing out a spot about the size of a penny right there. If impact moves higher than that, the face is dramatically thinner, so smash factor is compromised significantly, which reduces the overall distance the ball will fly.

Every one of us, tour players included, knows that maddening shot that we feel a bit high on the face and it doesn’t go anywhere, it’s not your fault.

If your wedges show a wear pattern the size of a silver dollar, and centered above the 3rd or 4th groove, you are not getting anywhere near the same performance from shot to shot. Robot testing proves impact even two to three grooves higher in the face can cause distance loss of up to 35 to 55 feet with modern ‘tour design’ wedges.

In addition, as impact moves above the center of mass, the golf club principle of gear effect causes the ball to fly higher with less spin. Think of modern drivers for a minute. The “holy grail” of driving is high launch and low spin, and the driver engineers are pulling out all stops to get the mass as low in the clubhead as possible to optimize this combination.

Where is all the mass in your wedges? Low. So, disregarding the higher lofts, wedges “want” to launch the ball high with low spin – exactly the opposite of what good wedge play requires penetrating ball flight with high spin.

While almost all major brand wedges have begun putting a tiny bit more thickness in the top portion of the clubhead, conventional and modern ‘tour design’ wedges perform pretty much like they always have. Elite players learn to hit those crisp, spinny penetrating wedge shots by spending lots of practice time learning to consistently make contact low in the face.

So, what about grooves and face texture?

Grooves on any club can only do so much, and no one has any material advantage here. The USGA tightly defines what we manufacturers can do with grooves and face texture, and modern manufacturing techniques allow all of us to push those limits ever closer. And we all do. End of story.

Then there’s the topic of bounce and grinds, the most complex and confusing part of the wedge formula. Many top brands offer a complex array of sole configurations, all of them admittedly specialized to a particular kind of lie or turf conditions, and/or a particular divot pattern.

But if you don’t play the same turf all the time, and make the same size divot on every swing, how would you ever figure this out?

The only way is to take any wedge you are considering and play it a few rounds, hitting all the shots you face and observing the results. There’s simply no other way.

So, hopefully this will inspire a lively conversation in our comments section, and I’ll chime in to answer any questions you might have.

And next week, I’ll dive into the rest of the wedge formula. Yes, shafts, grips and specifications are essential, too.

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