Thanks, Paul Lawrie

This tip was in a recent issue of Golf Monthly and that it came from the pen (?*) of Paul Lawrie, my countryman, who was there to catch the claret jug when Jean Van de Velde let it slip from his grasp at the infamous Open at Carnoustie in 1999.
The tip is very simple and one I’ve seen or been told about before. It’s also one that’s easily forgotten in the middle of a bad round or (even more likely) when you are playing fabulously well one minute with several pars on the card (birdies? don’t be silly) … and the next minute it all goes wrong. We’ve all been there.
Paul’s tip is to always make a tiny pause at the top of your back swing. This ensures you can start moving your weight forward from the hips and prevents you bringing your arms through too fast, a very common fault in beginners (and a lot of people who should know better). In my case the result is usually a ball that flies way left, or one that fails to fly anywhere. What stuck in my mind about Paul’s solution is the way he put it, ‘Rotate and wait’. Very neat, and memorable, a mnemonic in fact, so it’s easier to remember. I suggest that next time your swing stops working, give it a try. Paul refers to it for fairway woods, but I think it applies to driving and irons too.

Re Carnoustie 99, an article in Greenside magazine reminds me that Paul Lawrie has done a lot more than this in his golfing life, even if his form hasn’t been great of late. I saw him myself at the only pro tour event I have ever attended at Celtic Manor (2004?) where his was the first shot I saw played and it went into the trees. I found it quite comforting that even the great and the good have to play out of bad positions. Stand by for a deluge of articles about whether or not Paul will come into his own again on the home links this year.

*?Just a thought. Why do top tour pros take the time to write tips for golf mags? I can’t think they really need the money. Maybe the manager puts them out with a batch of photos to keep those shekels rolling in during the off-season, or maybe there’s a secret cabal of second-string pros acting as ghost writers? Feel free to educate me on this point.

Club Competitions

An interesting question on the Golf Monthly Forum . (Is it my imagination, or is there a distinctly men only feeling about the place? Anyway, I left a couple of replies and no-one has quoted any men-only rules at me – yet.)
A member wanted to know if it’s okay to enter club competition as a relative newcomer to the game with a highish handicap and a less than encyclopaedic knowledge of the rules. On the matter of knowing the rules, I’d say it’s good to bone up at least on penalty shots and free drops, and to know the local course rules. But I think playing competitions is a good thing, and clubs should encourage and support new members who aren’t too confident (and some clubs expect you to compete regularly if you have asked for a handicap to be assigned). You could always ask to be put in an experienced group who won't scare you off. The trouble is, that especially the first time, you’re almost certain to feel under pressure, and may well have a round that’s er - well, undistinguished (polite version.) But the more you play competitions, the less it gets to you. I’ve entered some competitions very reluctantly and done okay. On other days I’ve been feeling good and done atrociously. But the main thing is to keep having a go. And if you keep handing in cards and you’re still on 28, at least there’s no way you can be accused of being a bandit!

Junior Showtime

I have searched the BBC and Youtube without success for a clip of the youngster who was swinging a left-handed iron at Wentworth on Saturday. Effortless is the word that came to mind as he/she lofted a ball into the air while barely looking in the right direction. The commentary team used their ‘swingmaster’ to demonstrated that the club position at impact was not a million miles from that of a tour pro. In case you didn’t see it, this was no teenager. The kid was no more than three years old. (Some kind of lesson ,there, if only I could work out what it is!)

Talking of juniors, I came across a decent site that should be useful for any newcomer to the game. Rookie Golf has lots of advice including a quiz on the rules and etiquette of golf. The quiz is fun to do and not too hard. My only argument is that it doesn’t differentiate between etiquette (accepted practice on the course) and hard and fast rules. Etiquette it very important and will affect everyone’s game, but it’s not quite the same as something that could cost you or your partner penalty shots. For a more testing set of quizzes on The Rules, try the R & A's own site In fact I’ll add that link to my sidebar.

Are you at home on the range?

Looking at those irons made me think about how little time I spend on the range these days. As a beginner I remember spending two or three hours a week bashing balls and always choosing the ‘economy’ bucket i.e. 80 or 100 at a time. Yes, that’s the equivalent of a whole round of golf completed (or messed up) in around half an hour! Several years down the road, I have come to the following conclusions:

• If I start off hitting badly on the range I rarely get much better.
• If I start off hitting well, I invariably get worse.
• Hitting well on the range before a round invariably proves the kiss of death.

I still do go down to the range from time to time, but I never hit more than 50 at one go, and sometimes share those with My Other Half.
If you really feel you need the practice (or it’s been pissing down with rain for a fortnight) take a tip I heard a while ago. Instead of hitting 10 or 20 balls with the same club, pretend you are playing ‘for real’, i.e. hit a drive then imagine where you might have ended up on the fairway, and play the next shot as you would on the course. For me this ends up with something like driver, long iron, pitch to the green. Don’t forget to line up your shot and take a practice swing, and If you play a bad hook, assume you’re in the rough!
Of course there’s one very good reason for going to the range. You have given in to common sense and booked a lesson. More on this anon.

Award of the Golden Dustbin

Having celebrated Van de Velde’s moment of near lunacy, Ive decided to offer another memorable golfing moment, this time one that might give some comfort to those beginners or near beginners as they step up to the tee on Saturday or Sunday morning. Not easy, is it? Right behind you there are two or three groups of regulars willing you to get off quickly and not hold them up while you retrieve your ball from that hedge on the left. My own club does not have pre-booked tee times and so you on busy days you can have as many as twenty people looking on as you waggle your club at address and try desperately to remember what the pro was telling you at the last lesson.
Picture such a scene a couple of winters ago. It’s a big crowd. Thermos flasks are out (pretty chilly at 8 on a Sunday) and the bin next to the tee has already received a number of empty fag packets and chocolate wrappers. Having waited for two groups of four to hack their way up the first fairway we’re all getting restless, and the group in front of us are more restless than most. When it’s their turn to step up, the boot’s on the other foot. They know they’re in the spotlight and they egg each other on with jokes that suddenly sound a bit nervous. The first two drive off and keep it on the fairway. The next addresses the ball, takes a huge back swing and tops the ball off the tee and down the bank where it takes a big bounce off the path and lands straight in the black plastic dust-bin to hoots from the crowd of ‘In da hole!’. The guy’s face watching the ball is a picture as he goes from anger to embarrassment and then disbelief at his sudden celebrity status.
It has to be said that this shot sticks in my memory at least as much as Tiger’s chip at Augusta and has probably been talked about in my own circle just as much. And so, in honour of the player in question, I’ve decided to make him the first holder of the Golden Dustbin award for a truly great bad shot.
The moral of the story is, even the bad shots can be good, and if it’s going to be bad, it might as well be really bad. Let me know if you have any other contenders for the Golden Dustbin Award.

Goddess of Small Things

Here are two items that cost next to nothing* but make a big difference to enjoying a round of golf. The first is a ball marker. Yes, it can be a disk bought for the purpose, a coin, or one of those flat studs attached to a glove. Anything will do, but make sure you have something and have it to hand. You know you have 20p somewhere? Maybe, but how irritating is it for the rest of us to hang around while you turn out your pockets? And if it happens once in a round, you can bet your bottom dollar it will happen again … and again. Don’t hold things up! Get one and get it out fast!
The second is that funny prong thing you see lying by the till in the pro shop - a pitch mark repairer. You may rarely execute the kind of pitch that leaves a nice indentation in the green except when that green is horribly soggy, but we’ve had soggy greens aplenty of late, and even if you don’t have a mark of your own to repair, it makes you feel tremendously virtuous to repair one that someone else has left. If you’re not sure exactly how to do it, get someone to show you. There’s no point in leaving the green in a worse state than when you found it!
*Of course, if any girl has serious money to squander, she can always spend 100 euros on these stylish ball markers from fluffbabes.com. (As ever, I take no responsibility for the contents of external sites ...)

Beginners' Bunker (Feet first)

As promised, I said I would talk about how much to spend on what if you’re just taking up golf. If you really are starting from scratch, you’ll probably buy a basic beginner set of clubs and the Great Value Golf site has a useful Beginner’s Guide to what’s what in golf equipment. But let’s think about clothes. Do you need to kit yourself out in those classy-looking golf brands in the pro shop, or is the stuff from the local chain store just as good?
I would say that in some cases you need a speciality product: at other times anything serviceable and comfortable will do, but top of the speciality choices must be shoes.
Unless you’re playing the local pitch and putt, pretty well all courses insist on spiked shoes, so you’ll have to get something, and in this case any money that gets you a good fit and keeps out the weather is well spent. My golf shoes so far have all cost from £50 to £80 which is a severe shock to the system when they need replacing, but if your feet are killing you, eighteen holes can seem like eighteen miles (and that’s regardless of the number of shots you play along the way!) I’ve usually gone for Ecco shoes as they seem to suit my feet, but you can get some good deals at the moment on most of the major brands. This summer I’ve splashed out (I hope not literally) on a pair of summer shoes from the Nike lite range. They won’t keep out the rain, but they are blissfully soft, so whatever I’m moaning about this summer, it shouldn’t be my feet.
If you’re buying weatherproof shoes, I recommend you go for leather, otherwise your feet will be as wet on a hot day as if you’d been wearing leaky shoes in the rain (a sad and smelly fact, but true).

Calling All Golfers

Club regulars, fair-weather golfers and those who can’t stay off the course ... I know you’d all rather be golfing, but on the days when you can’t venture out, why not roll up here and share your wealth of experience, or just give us your opinion on whatever is getting your goat this week?
A special welcome is extended to absolute beginners, in some ways the true heroes of the game. It’s not so long ago since I was there myself and on some days it feels like I still am. Here you have a special place in the Beginners' Bunker.
Also welcome are the legions of women golfers. If you think you get a raw deal in clubs and golfing venues, the Green Goddess has granted you equal status here, so post your comments to the main blog, or take a look at Ladies' Locker for matters dear to the female heart.
Just for starters here's a video from Videojug that everyone should get something from (or maybe you already have the perfect swing?)
What do you think of the video, or what else do you have to say about this crazy game?