Agressive Putting

As we all know, there are several areas in the game of golf that directly correlates to low scores.  The two I try to focus on and greens in regulation and putting.  The one area I believe people don’t pay as much attention to is fairway accuracy, which brings me to the point of this blog. 

When we are on the tee all we see for the most part is a wide open green, beautiful fairway, typically wide enough for a mistake to happen and we can still recover from.  But when we are standing on the green, lining up putts, why do we spend the most time reading them?  Because it’s a scoring opportunity?

I guess what I’m trying to get at is, why don’t we be aggressive and really attack putts the same way do the fairway?  When we try to be too cute with a putt, we usually miss.

Does A Loss Help or Hurt?

I was watching PTI on ESPN and they were discussing if Ohio States loss this past weekend is good or bad for the team.  One side of the argument says, yes, a loss can bring a team, especially an undefeated one, back to reality.  The other side says no,  a loss can affect the confidence the team was building with each and every win.  My response is this; it can be good and bad.  Confused?  I’ll elaborate.

I have been playing basketball since I was six years old and have been coaching for the past eight years.  My senior year in highschool, we were undefeated going in to the state quarterfinals, the first team in area history to have a 21-0 regular season, very handily beating teams along the way.  In that quarterfinal game, we were beaten very badly by a team from the Washington DC area.  A team we had no scouting report on and also a team that was, in my opinion, not that much better than us.  I believe when we boarded that bus from Cumberland we took a huge ego with us, only to find out that ego’s get you in trouble.  I honestly believe a loss or two along the way, although being undefeated was an amazing experience, would have humbled us a bit, and maybe helped us to understand that we are vulnerable.  So I guess that would be the bad side of going undefeated.

The good side of going undefeated… well, as I said, having an undefeated regular season was nice, but we lost in the quarterfinals.  Would you rather be remembered for winning a championship or going undefeated (in the regular season) and losing, falling short of your goals?  I know what story I’d rather tell!

Slow to the Bottom, Slow to the Top.

Although it seems like Tiger Woods’ fall from grace took mere seconds due to the media blitz that surrounded him, that day was a long time process. Now that hw has hit rock bottom, it will take a long time for him to get back to where he once was. I have heard a lot of people say, Tiger will never be the same, that may be true, Tiger will never be the same, as a person. Tiger will, however, be Tiger the athlete. People have to remember, Tiger’s problems are mental, not physical, and mental rehab takes a lot longer that physical rehab. A swing change is a hard thing to go through. I believe I read once that a swing change takes 1,000 swings to train your muscle memory, per shot type, do you know how many shot types there are in the game of golf?

Since Tiger’s return, yes he has struggled at times, more than not. With each tournament he plays in, his miques, mishits, and frustrations become fewer and farther apart. This past weekend in Dubai is proof. He had a tough opening round, then a great second round, battled through weather in the third round to find himself down by one stroke heading in to the final round.

Tiger will get there, and I believe it will be soon, hopefully in time for the Masters.