Any golfers out there?

[t walgamuth]

Yesterday we drove over to Columbus OH to watch the oldest grandchild (14) play golf. She has only been playing about three years but her dad was an excellent golfer and her mom was an outstanding distance runner in high school.

I used to play some golf (that is an exaggeration...I was a pitiful hacker!).

She is playing as a freshman on the varsity team. It was an invitational tournament with at least four teams competing. We assumed that she was playing against more experienced and older players. She had some problems near and on the green but off the T she was simply killing it! Her drives were always straight and from 50 to 100 yards further than the nearest competitor in her group of four. And a simply lovely smooth swing.

Suddenly I am a golf fan!

[Air&Road]

"Drive for show, putt for dough." It's all in the short game. Unless she develops a short game, her success will be limited or non existent.

[t walgamuth]

Originally Posted by Air&Road

"Drive for show, putt for dough." It's all in the short game. Unless she develops a short game, her success will be limited or non existent.

Do you have any grandchildren Larry?

[Air&Road]

No grand children. If I did have and one was in her situation, I would support him/her to the end of the Earth. As part of that support, I would be trying to lovingly convey the importance of developing a short game.

Having a natural, long, straight drive is a gift. It would be more difficult to develop that if there was no natural gift for it than to learn the fine points of golf inside of 100 yards. That part can be learned more easily.

There was a Paul Harvey piece decades ago where in one of his stories there was a very successful golfer wh o when asked the key to his success replied with saying something about being willing to practice to a point of 100 practice strokes per day with every club in the bag.

When my son was a young teenager he wanted to play golf. I had no interest in the game at all, but I jumped on the opportunity to share something with my son, especially since it involved spending lots of time with him. He was gifted at basketball and soccer, so was pretty well coordinated. We determined early on that we both had a good feel for the putter and even the short irons and even learned our way out of the sand with some coaching.

We both broke a hundred together in the same round. Once he started driving a car he ended up with more practice time than myself and ran away from me on the golf course. He developed a really nice, straight, long drive, but that didn't do nearly as much for his score as the work he was doing on his short game.

Now the only time either of us play golf is when he visits. We go to the same little quiet small town nine hole course where we have played at least a hundred rounds and enjoy every step of it.

At this point for me, golf has nothing to do with the game and everything to do with my son and I. Actually that has probably been the case all along.

[Air&Road]

Tom, if you want to do something to help her short game beyond getting her some coaching, if there is room in her yard, make a small putting green planting some Tiff Green and teaching her how to care for it. Get a reel type push mower to keep it finished like the real greens. Let her observe the grass all through the day to learn how the ball rolls differently at different times of the day and how it wants to follow the grain of the grass.

Then, again if there is room, build a sand box big enough to swing her sand wedge through with a wall to catch the sand. She can then rake it back again. She wouldn't hit a ball in this box. She would only use it to constantly practice swinging her sand wedge through the sand. A hard thing to learn and keep the feel of is how you swing the sand wedge THROUGH the sand without stopping the club allowing it to have complete follow through. Most players struggle in the sand, but by constantly swinging the wedge through the sand without stopping, she would have a leg up whenever finding herself in the sand, something that frustrates many golfers. With her long and straight drive she probably won't have to deal with sand as much as the others, but if she is good at it, it will be an advantage over most of her competitors.

Just some suggestions for things that a non golfer grandpa could do to help.

[t walgamuth]

Thanks for the constructive comments!

As I said, her father is a very good golfer so not much I can do except as you note, encourage.

[PARSHOOT1]

........reported to be a devotee of chasing the little white ball....but I'm not sure how you'd know?

Where did your granddaughter play in Columbus? Was it an AJGA event?

Lafayette to Columbus is not like driving to the next town over to see the grandkid play.....
4 hour....5 hour drive? I'm sensing some very devoted and enthusiastic grandparents!

[t walgamuth]

Oh thanks very much! she is just a freshman in high school. We were due to visit them so this was just a trigger to go over.

[t walgamuth]

She played where Jack Nicolas played...name escapes.

[Slow78]

Originally Posted by t walgamuth

Yesterday we drove over to Columbus OH to watch the oldest grandchild (14) play golf. She has only been playing about three years but her dad was an excellent golfer and her mom was an outstanding distance runner in high school.

I used to play some golf (that is an exaggeration...I was a pitiful hacker!).

She is playing as a freshman on the varsity team. It was an invitational tournament with at least four teams competing. We assumed that she was playing against more experienced and older players. She had some problems near and on the green but off the T she was simply killing it! Her drives were always straight and from 50 to 100 yards further than the nearest competitor in her group of four. And a simply lovely smooth swing.

Suddenly I am a golf fan!

After playing for years my best advice to a beginning golfer with decent skills is to have a solid practice routine.

Disclaimer: She probably already knows this stuff.

How I practice:

1. Stretch and warm your body before you practice. This means nothing until you age and injuries become more pronounced. Still it’s a good habit to start early as eventually you get injured and knowing what your body physically responds to speeds recovery.

2. Make sure you have a good range finder and than use it to understand what every iron can do in distance on an 80% effort swing. Make a card that has this data and keep it in your pocket while playing. I don’t us a range finder while playing because I read the yardage markers but having the exact yardage each of my irons can reach keeps guessing out of the
game.

Buy a good swing speed/tempo meter where you can learn your swing speed for every club. Golf is a game of consistency so the sooner you know your club speeds the easier it is to have proper tempo which means consistency.

3. Practice with purpose, know what your doing with ever ball. Learning cause and effect on ball striking will help you troubleshot on and off the course.

4. Save one practice session a week to work on problem shots. Example, if you keep slicing your 3 iron use the problem shot day to focus only on that iron until you fix the slice, learning cause and effect can’t be over emphasized. Don’t diagnose your swing through others eyes while playing a game as they are usually wrong about what you can only feel. Again the sooner you can learn cause and effect and do corrections on the fly the better.

5. Play with strangers when you can. This helps you learn a broader gambit of golf skills and etiquette.

6. Practice in reverse of most people. Go to a driving range and watch 10 players. I bet most will grab the driver first and hit 20 balls as hard as they can and probably have crappy shots. They get frustrated and grab a 3 iron and it’s still bad. They rarely chip or putt.

a. I putt 3 footers until I can make 8-10 in a row. Than I putt from 10-15 foot away until I land inside of 3 foot from the hole 8-10 times.

b. I than practice chipping and sand shots from a bunker for 10-20 balls.

c. I than practice my 9 iron all the way up to the 3 iron.

d. I than practice my 3-5 wood and than driver.

If I have a problem club that I can’t diagnose in 5 shots I save that for the problem shot session. Again can’t say enough about learning cause and effect.

[t walgamuth]

Thanks slow!