Taking relief using a local rule is not always the best option!
Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
Don’t take a drop if it is not necessary!
Several years ago, I was playing on the South African PGA Tour. During the second round of the General Motors Open at Wedgewood Golf Club, on the 9th hole, I found myself on a gravel pathway. I was entitled to relief, but the grass around the pathway was at least 12″ deep. If I dropped there, I would almost certainly have had an impossible shot, as I was also in a wooded area. I decided to play the ball off the gravel, managed to get the ball onto the front edge of the green, and then proceeded to hole a monster 60-foot putt for birdie! So, sometimes not taking relief can pay dividends. Next time, before you hastily pick up your ball, ready to take a drop, assess your various options because you might experience a very positive result as I did. Thanks to Mark Aumann of PGA.com for this insightful article!
USA Today Sports Images
Jamie Lovemark’s drop on the second playoff hole Monday left him with a rulebook decision.
Just because the Rules of Golf offer you the option to take relief from an obstruction, it’s not always in your best interests.
Consider the case of Jamie Lovemark on Monday in the Zurich Classic playoff. On the second playoff hole, Lovemark plugged his approach left of the green and near the grandstand. Because of the heavy rains that soaked TPC Louisiana all weekend, a Local Rule enabled him to drop from a point nearest to where his ball embedded, but it eventually came to rest just an inch or two away from the concrete cart path.
That qualifies as an immovable obstruction under Rule 24-2b since the cart path could have interfered with the path of Lovemark’s intended swing. But Lovemark knew — and confirmed with a Rules Official — he had the option of playing the ball there instead of taking relief.
Assess your options before you lift the ball.
For Chip Essig, 2011 National PGA Golf Professional of the Year and Vice Chairman of the PGA of America’s Rules Committee, that’s a point every player needs to keep in mind.
“If he was within an inch or two of the cart path, I’m sure he had cart path relief,” Essig said. “But you don’t have to take relief from an obstruction if you don’t want to. It’s something I always tell players. Before you lift your ball, make sure you know where you’re going to have to drop it.”
“This is a case where if he went over there and immediately lifted it, he would have to take relief. And since he didn’t, he could go ahead and play it.”
Lovemark realized that where the ball came to rest — on a relatively flat, somewhat dry lie — was probably going to be better than taking relief and dropping into an area where spectators and carts had made a muddy mess. In addition, there was no telling what kind of stance he might have.
And per the old adage, the better the devil you know rather than the devil you don’t.
Charlie King talks Swing Plane and curing the Slice!
Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
Charlie King, the instructor of golf at the Reynolds Kingdom of Golf at Reynolds Lake Oconee, is regarded as one of the premier teachers in the PGA. His thoughts on the swing plane and how it relates to correcting the slice are quite revealing. Thanks to Mark Aumann of PGA.com for sharing this!
For most new golfers, the first frustration to overcome is usually how to make consistent contact with the ball. But once that’s accomplished, it usually leads to a second, sometimes life-long frustration.
No matter what they do, every shot slices off to the right. And the harder they try to hit the ball straight, the worse it becomes. Forget shanks, chunks, tops, and three-putts. Slicing the ball is perhaps the most common — and aggravating — malady most amateurs battle as they try to play the game.
The farther left you aim, the more the ball seems to want to wind up going right.
At some point, golfers with nasty slices either quit or eventually find professional help. As PGA Professional Charlie King puts it, “Thank goodness golf is hard, because that’s why I have a job.”
So what causes severe slicing, and why does it seem to affect beginning golfers and those who play infrequently?
King, the instructor of golf at the Reynolds Kingdom of Golf at Reynolds Lake Oconee, said it usually stems from a misconception about the golf swing, and misapplication of logic.
“To hit a ball straight, instinctively it makes sense to go straight back and straight through,” King said. “But golf’s a tilted-over circle which we call a swing plane. So you have to swing on plane and square the face to make a ball go straight.”
If you don’t get back to square at impact, King said, bad things happen. And instead of knowing how to fix their slice, they usually make it worse by trying to overcompensate in the wrong direction.
5 Key exercises for Senior Golfers – #4 works great!
Golf Chats is a website to encourage discussions on various subjects relating to the game of golf. I am Mel Sole, Director of Instruction of the Mel Sole Golf School and SAPGA Master Professional. I invite you to enter into a discussion on this or any article on the golfchats.com website. The input is for the entire subscriber base to learn something new each time! Please post your comments below. Keep it clean and tasteful. We are here to learn from one another!
For most of us, golf stretching, golf strengthening are all no brainers. We all know that they are necessary.
BUT, how many of us actually do any stretching or exercise. Based on the strength and flexibility of the majority of my golf students, not many. My guess would be less than 5%. Why? Again my guess is 1. Time, 2. Motivation, 3. Most stretching and strength exercises are challenging for an aging body.
So what if you could find 5 exercises that need no equipment, not a lot of time, and are fairly easy to do. Would you do it then? I certainly would.
Mark Aumann of PGA.com tells us of 5 easy to do exercises for senior golfers that will, without question, get us in better shape, increase our strength and flexibility, and, therefore, result from all that… PLAY BETTER GOLF!
For most older golfers, doing a few knee bends and shoulder swings on the first tee is about the extent of their warm-up routine. And that’s fine for the short term.
But John D’Amico, a Naples, Fla.-based physical therapist believes in order to keep playing long after retirement, senior golfers need to work harder to maintain what strength, stamina and power you have left — because after a certain age, it’s almost impossible to make great gains in physical fitness.
If you don’t have it by then, D’Amico said, you won’t be able to regain it.
“Fitness for life after 50 isn’t about making great gains,” said D’Amico, who owns Golf Fitness Edge and presented his findings as part of the PGA Merchandise Show last month. “In the long run, it’s about slowing down loss. It’s kind of like building a retirement account for your body that you can draw from.
“This is really important after age 70 because we lose the ability to produce greater amounts of power and strength — two things that are critical to the golf game.”
So how do you maintain your physical fitness later in life? D’Amico said there are five simple exercises anyone can do at home — without expensive equipment — that will go a long way to helping your flexibility, balance, strength and power.
Don’t let the names fool you into thinking these exercises are complicated, D’Amico said. On the contrary, they mimic movements you learned to do early in your life.
Here’s a description of each exercise, with illustrations.
1.Seated Thoracic Posture Restoration.
1. Sit tall in a high-back dining room chair
2. Place a small bath towel rolled length ways at the level of the bottom of your shoulder blade
3. Gently push your mid back into the towel without pain for two minutes
4. Move the towel up your shoulder blades, holding each for two minutes gently without pain. The last towel position will be at the top of the shoulder blade
5. Perform this exercise 1-2 times a day
6. Watch TV or on converse with someone across the room to promote proper posture. Do not read, use phone, tablet or computer while doing this exercise, as this will negatively influence your posture
2.Breathing Mechanics Restoration.
1. While sitting or standing straight in an upright torso posture, hands on lower ribs
2. Place hands on outside of lower ribs
3. Relax your body and take a normal breath
4. Feel your hands push away from your body as you breathe in
5. Feel your hands pull in as you breathe out
6. Five repetitions, five times per day
3.Single Knee to Chest Hip Stretch.
1. Resting on a firm surface or bed (pillow optional) gently brace your stomach
2. Use a bed sheet to pull your thigh towards (not to!) your chest. Do not move past a point that the pelvis begins to rock on the low back. You may notice this as the point your straight leg begins to lift up
3. The total limit of this exercise is 120 degrees. This point may take months to attain
4. Perform for 90 seconds to two minutes each leg, one to two times per day
5. Perform gently without any pain
5 Key exercises for Senior Golfers – #4 works great!
4.Hip Hinge Goblet Squat.
1. Stand tall
2. Activate (gently brace) your stomach muscles
3. Arms Across your chest with 5-pound dumbbell or two-liter soda bottles in double-bagged plastic grocery bags at your chest
4. Maintain your head, spine and pelvic posture, as if you had a board nailed from the back of your head to your tailbone
5. Push your tailbone back and down as you begin to hinge hips, knees and ankles simultaneously Maintain the bottom of the dumbbell or seltzer bottle against your body throughout the exercise
6. Depth of squat is controlled by your ability to maintain your head, spine and pelvic posture
7. When learning this exercise it is best to perform five reps, four times per day
8. After learning this exercise and as a warm up for golf perform sets sets of 10 repetitions
5.Standing Cross-Body Crawl Pattern.
1. Standing with hands at shoulder level, lift one hand and the opposite foot six inches.
2. Return to original position
3. Repeat with other hand and foot
4. If balance is an issue you may stand at countertop and if necessary keep one hand at a time on counter
5. Perform this exercise 20 repetitions, five times per day
6. Try to perform this exercise rhythmically, and maintain your balance for safety
The result of doing these exercises should improve all the things that control the physical part of your golf game, D’Amico said.
“In developing a better body and better mind, we can develop a better body-swing connection,” he added.
