There are Pro-Ams on the day before most tournaments, which give the Tour pro a chance to practice on the course and earn some valuable prize money as well. So Tour pros sum up the abilities of their (usually three) Pro-Am partners fairly quickly. None of them can damage the team’s (pro’s) score, but if one or two can improve it on a hole where their handicaps count, it’s worthwhile. As a result, on the first tee the pros watch ‘their’ amateurs like hawks. By the fifth or sixth hole they offer a little advice here and there which starts to bring about the odd par where bogey had been the norm.
The pro would have had a few pithy things to say to the members of our fourball after the first 380 yards par four hole. Something diplomatic to Bob (who with 200 yards to go had taken a 3-iron, never having hit one more than 180 yards, and had buried his ball in knee-high rough short on the right) like: “Don’t swing your body at the ball. Try and hit it with your hands and arms instead.” Or to Brian (who had taken two to get out of the bunker) like: “Don’t try and lift the ball off the sand. Take plenty of it.” Or to Doug (who had tried a 4-iron out of deep to advance it 25 yards) like: “Next time use your wedge and aim for the nearest bit of fairway.”
CASUAL GOLFERS ARE KEEN SUPPORTERS AT THE GAME.
With Matt he would be reserving judgment because after another skinny one, Matt had pitched to the fringe and fired a putt that rocketed in off the pin. His fluky par won the hole over two bogeys and a double. They had all left the green happily. Things would certainly improve once they got into their game.
How different it could all have been. Bob’s dream when he stood on the first tee (sorry to be picking on him but he’s a good example of a typical club player), was to crack a drive quail-high 250 yards down the middle. The reality we know, but with a little common sense he could have played the hole much better, while making the best of what he had in terms of swing and ability.
First, arriving “just in time” without a chance to loosen up virtually guarantees a cranky shot. That is not to say you should spend half an hour on the practice ground before every round: in the time-stressed 1990s few have time to spare and club golfers mostly hate practising. And indeed, how many golf clubs in the UK have decent practice facilities of any sort? But virtually everyone has played tennis at some time. Would you consider going straight onto a court and with your first movement hit a serve in the first ‘scoring’ game, even if it’s a friendly match? Of course not. You’d have a short knock-up first – and that is what club golfers should do, even if it’s a few putts on the putting green and a couple of chips.
Second, Bob did not use the grey matter between his ears which constitutes a large part of the simple game of golf. He had been in a bunker at the first nine times out of ten, yet he still aimed straight down the fairway. Knowing he always sliced, he should have teed up on the right hand side of the tee and aimed at the left hand rough where Doug ended up. With his usual swing, he would probably have ended up in the middle of the fairway and very likely have hit the ball twenty yards or so further.
Third, no one can swing fluidly, if they have umpteen swing thoughts jostling in their minds. You can never get a natural-looking, effective, repeating swing that way. At the most, you can hold one swing thought for the day (“Swing slower” is often a good one).
Fourth, Bob’s second shot to the green was a combination of nonsense and vanity. Once you’ve got off the tee, it’s the second shot that make the difference in scoring for the player. Underclubbing is the major fault (as it often is on long par three holes).
Finally (although there are many other lessons to be learned from this role model performance) Bob took his driver off the first tee. Now it’s all very well hitting your drive at the start if you’ve hit quite a few on the practice ground before the game. But in Bob’s case, driving off with the most difficult club in his bag did not make sense. Added to which his driver had a swing weight and lie designed for a six foot four, athletic 20-year-old, which Bob certainly is not!
And that brings us to one of the most important factors for the club golfer, the ‘tools of the trade’ – your golf clubs.
With most sports and many pastimes, the equipment you use can be of prime importance to the way you perform and enjoy yourself. You would not, for example, go jogging in your highly polished brogues; nor would someone of 50 enjoy playing tennis with the heavy wooden (and probably by now decidedly warped) racket he wielded when he was 20. By contrast, he would find playing with a modern large-headed, graphite or aluminium framed racket very much easier. Not to mention much less tiring because of its lighter weight. Shots are crisper, more accurate and accomplished with less effort.
The same can be very true of golf clubs. Yet considering the amount the average golfer ‘invests’ in the game (in terms of subs or green fees, clothes, shoes, bags, trolleys – and time) it is very surprising how little he or she knows about the clubs they play with. The right clubs for a player, suiting his height, weight, age and shape of swing will boost confidence and shot making – although they alone will not cut his handicap. The wrong clubs, however, will certainly affect his game adversely and hinder, or even stop, any improvement.
But very few golfers know the swing weight and shaft flex of the clubs which suit them best, or the lie essential to their swing. Clubs, it would seem, are often acquired spontaneously or by chance. What often happens, as with our fourball, is that Matt will ask Brian on the eighth fairway if he can “try out” his 4-iron. Now Brian had bought his latest ‘bargain’ set of clubs from the sports department of the local department store just five weeks ago. He’d been enticed by adverts that focused on investment cast, perimeter weighted heads, high-torque graphite shafts with good vibration dampening properties – and a sizeable discount on the set. Since he had bought them, he had been telling anyone who would listen that his shots, particularly the irons, had become much straighter and longer, something he certainly felt even if his scoring had not noticeably improved.
NEVER PLAY WITH THE WRONG CLUBS FOR YOUR SWING SHAPE.
His enthusiasm was most probably due to a) the need to justify the cost of a new set and b) the initial confidence that any new club brings. Buying a bargain set of clubs from a sports department is not to be recommended, unless a golfer knows his personal specifications exactly (especially swing weight, flex and lie) and can match them to the clubs. The store’s staff may know about equipment in general but it is most unlikely that they would be able to fit out a golfer correctly.
So what happens on the eighth? Matt takes the proffered hightech club and swings it a few times reflectively. Disregarding the fact that he’s a solidly built six foot three, while Brian is a slim five foot five, so the club might not suit him anyway, he addresses the ball and hits it a hundred and fifty odd yards, high and slightly right. “Hmm,” he says, handing the club back, “I like the feel”. Mentally he makes a note that he might just drop into the sports department next week to see if it had any others of the same make in stock.
Brian, who has watched the flight of the ball goggle-eyed, mutters “shot” admiringly. He has never managed to hit a ball so high (it is strange how whenever someone ‘borrows’ one’s clubs they produce results with them very different from one’s own). He basks a little in the compliment. Matt likes the ‘feel’ of his new clubs.
Distance or Control – That Is the Question