Are You A FOODIE?

GOLF IS LIKE A BOX OF CHOCOLATES…

Private Lessons

by Darrell Klassen

At least is seems like it for most golfers. You never know what you are going to get when you swing the club. You might shank it, or slice it. You might hook it, or pull it dead left. You might even take a mighty swing and whiff it, hitting nothing but thin air.

If you have been doing the winter exercises I shared with you a few issues back, then hopefully you won’t be having any of these problems. You will at least be making fairly consistent contact with the golf ball, and you will keeping your shots where you can at least find them without the gallery having to assist you.

It is February, and the warmer weather will soon begin coming our way. The golf courses will be overflowing with all kinds of golfers. There will be slow players, and there will be those “great” players who want you off of the course and out of their way.

I personally think the late winter and the early spring time is a good time to simply start going out to the golf course and to start getting ready for the season, when it really does arrive.

It’s a good time to work on the putting and the chipping game, so I would start there. Go to the practice putting green and go through the “Line Drills” I have given you in the past. This will sharpen the putter so you can begin to make everything out to five or six feet.

As you start the chipping routine, try to tap downward on the backside of the golf ball in order to produce that extra bit of backspin you will need to control the distance of those shots. Remember, you won’t be able to tap downward while using your arms and shoulders in the stroke.

Chipping is mostly done with the hands and the wrists, and they don’t work back and forth as they would in a slapping or patting motion. The hands work up and down in the short game, just as they do in the full golf swing. That always goes against the grain with practically every teaching professional and every amateur. However, it is how all of the touring professionals swing the club, and they seem to play pretty well.

Once you have begun to establish your feel for the short game, then you wight want to go on out to the driving range and work on our pitch shots. I would label those as most of your shots from ten yards away from the green and on out to somewhere in the fifty yard range. You should practice these shots until you never miss the green from fifty yards and closer.

You notice I didn’t ask you to knock everything close to the pin. I merely asked you to learn to hit the green every time from inside fifty yards. Only you can know for certain how many strokes that alone would save you in a round of golf, but I would bet it would lower most of your handicaps by at least two or three strokes. That should make it worth your while. Shouldn’t it?

I keep saying this, but once you can do that you should never feel pressure to hit a green in regulation again. There is no reason to feel pressure to hit a green if you can chip and pitch the ball with confidence.

If we really can accomplish all of this, then there should also no longer be any pressure to hit 300 yard drives right down the middle of the fairway. Good putting relieves the pressure on the chipping and pitching. Good chipping and pitching relieves the pressure for approach shots, and when there is no pressure on the approach shots, we should then not have any pressure on the drives.

I don’t know why I titled this issue “Golf Is Like a Box of Chocolates.” I guess I simply wanted to get your attention. If you will follow this simple structured process for starting your new season, you might be very surprised how much better this season will be than the last one was to you.

Happy golfing,

Darrell