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.

Bookshelf

No one on the forum has so far mentioned all those 'How to Play Golf' books and videos. It will depend on how you like to learn, but it has to be said that MOH hasn’t had a lesson in years and has reduced his handicap from 24 to 15, mainly from reading golf mags and his growing collection (home extension soon required) of books. Yes, he is dedicated, but it works for him. I’m usually happy to wait for tit-bits of his distilled knowledge to fall my way, but one book that made sense to me was the Swing Factory. You’ve probably heard of those guys who keep their pupils locked up in a basement until the swing is as it should be. Since the book was a Christmas present we decided to give it a whirl (literally) in our very own Swing Factory (i.e. garage) for most of the following January. The book doesn’t say a lot (though the photos are good for celeb-spotting: my eagle eye picked out Hugh Grant straight away) but it does explain everything in minute detail. It’s a painstaking, golf-swing-by-numbers approach that could probably destroy a decent swing, but I do believe it was the first thing that got me taking the club back on the right plane.
As for the rest? Well, maybe I should have just gone for that lesson!

If you like your reading a bit lighter, of all the books out there, each with a wackier title than the next, I urge you to read the wackiest, My Baby Got the Yips by David Russell. Here’s a guy who played off 6 at Sunningdale and was in line for a career in golf, but somehow just didn’t have what it takes to play the game at a high level. Luckily for us, he came back to the game, re-discovered his love for it and recorded his experiences in this book. He includes all kinds of things, mixing personal memoir with bits of history and even golf tips. I read it on holiday in the company of three golfing buddies all with different reading habits. Each of us read it in turn, cover to cover, and annoyed everyone else by laughing out loud. And the author is a bit of a tease. He leaves it until the last chapters to tell us what he believes are the true Secrets of Golf. Pretty good tips they are too. (Me, a tease?)

More Golf Chicks and the Perfect Swing

How nice of Patricia the Golf Girl to pay us a visit. From her picture she’s clearly in the chick category and brings a breath of fresh (young) air to this particular blogspot. She’s just off to Paris where I hope she enjoys her golf. She has also alerted me to an interesting survey by Lexus on what people would give in exchange for the perfect golf swing, e.g. ‘Four out of ten golfers (43%) would readily give up sex for a month in order to have the perfect golf swing!’ Umm, okay, but that’s still less than half of the (surveyed) golfing population. Even fewer, I’m happy to say, would prefer a perfect swing to a perfect marriage.
Anyway, what is a perfect swing? Haven’t we all had at least one perfect strike, presumably delivered by a perfect swing? I think what these people mean is a consistently perfect swing, which in view of the make-up of the human body (not to mention that bigger mystery, the human brain) seems unlikely ever to occur to any of us mere mortals. And how much fun would that be? Certainly watching the big boys would be no fun at all if they never made a mistake. Talking of whom, that course at Oakmont looks like making mortals of them all, though at least the Brits are holding on so far. Thanks to Golf in London for recommending this site for live action, and hang on in here, Justin!

And finally … an apology is in order. Despite my previous gripes about EGU and ELGA I’ve just read that 50% more clubs are offering free taster sessions than a year ago. Good. The clubs in question are listed on Get into golf.