Hey, How About We Finally Abolish White-Blindness?

I originally wrote this piece on "white-blindness" back in the mid-1990s when I was a grad student—and it shows—but it's strangely relevant once again, for reasons I don't need to get into as history is rhyming once again.

How Do You Make 4 Birdies and End Up with an 82?

Hey kids, here's a little golf tip from the Constructivist!  If you ever go a month without touching your clubs, head out to the course on a nice fall morning with no expectations, snag 3 birdies in 4 holes as you make the turn to fight back to +1 through 10 holes (one of your best starts of the year), face the toughest hole on the course (a 230-yard uphill par 3 with an elevated tee that's surrounded by trees with a creek and a mini-gorge all the way up the left), and happen to hit your 1st really bad shot of the day (yanking a 3-wood dead left off the tee), try to keep your temper.  Whatever you do, don't try to bang the ground with your club and miss, hitting your left leg a few inches above the ankle instead!  That's called adding injury to insult.

Somehow, I ended up salvaging a double, but it turned out to be the 1st of 4 on the back.  The weird thing is, I had just managed to play through my 2nd group of the day, I had the rest of the back open ahead of me, with scoring opportunities galore to boot, and the double on 11 with my Callaway ball actually brought the Titleist ball I was also playing back into the match, so I should have been able to shrug it off and enjoy the rest of the round.  But between the pain, the heat, my soreness from basketball the day before, my being out of golf shape (physically and mentally), and my lack of a snack, I lost my tempo and my temper quite a bit on the back 9.  It wasn't long before I went from limping along to stumbling home.  I was in such a fog by the end of the day that I couldn't even enjoy my birdie on the short par 5 17th, despite the fact that it's a very rare thing for me to make 4 of 'em in an 11-hole stretch.

Good news is, my leg is going to be fine and so is my game next year.  I've already gained some length from a month at the new gym and some tips from a trainer there who also works at a private club in the area, even though I was only sometimes able to swing like I was supposed to with the move from my 1st lessons in a decade that I thought I had grooved over the summer.  Despite the sorry shape of South Shore's greens, they were actually much improved from a month ago and I took only 28 putts, a rare departure from what's been my Achilles heel this summer.  If I can keep to my workout schedule and do a lot of indoor putting with onechan and imoto this winter, I'll be ready to make 2014 my best season ever.  At least, that's what I'm telling myself if this turns out to be my last round of 2013!

Mostly Harmless Putting Tip Passes Live Play Test

I was so excited about my new pre-putt/trigger routine that I decided to take it to a course I was unfamiliar with--in this case, South Shore Country Club, only a few minutes from our new house. I went off around 6:45 am playing 2 balls, a yellow Srixon and a TaylorMade Penta instead of my usual Titleist Pro V1, for the same reason I chose a course I'd played only once before, in totally different conditions (now that we've gone from a super-wet spring to a super-dry summer): I didn't want familiarity to interfere with the test results.

So how did my focus on the target, visualization of it as I let my eyes follow the intended line back to the ball, and beginning of the putting stroke at the moment my eyes focused on the ball work out? Given that the ground crews were still out on the course, some greens I played were mowed and others unmowed, some very wet and some fairly dry, and all drying out from early-morning dew differently, and all the greens were very slow, this was a great test of my putting, and I was super-pleased with the results. With the Srixon, I only hit 6 fairways, but hit 7 greens in regulation. Of them, I made 2 birdies and an eagle. Due to 2 triples and 2 doubles, I ended up with an 83 with 29 putts. With the Penta, I hit 11 fairways, but only 5 greens. Of them, I made 2 birdies. Because I recovered well from the occasional wild shot, and came close to hitting a lot of greens, I ended up with a 78 with 26 putts. And it's not like I was particularly sharp with my 30-yards-and-in game--most of the putts I made were in the 4-to-10-foot range (except for everything shorter, of which I made everything), but I must have rolled in a half dozen putts in the 10-to-20-foot range, as well, including some crazy par saves and big breakers. Even though the method wasn't foolproof--I still misread the line and speed of many putts and wasn't always stroking the ball the way I wanted even when I did get them right--I never 3-putted a single hole and I only came close once or twice.

So I was making more putts and missing better with this pre-putt/trigger routine. The only problem was that I was searching all day for a similar pre-shot/trigger routine and never found one that worked well for me. As you can see, I hit a lot of really bad drives and approach shots, partly the product of only playing twice since the middle of June, but also because of a lack of focus and ease of distraction. But hey, I'm not complaining! I've finally got the missing pieces of my game in place--not just putting, but the lob shot move that I watched Suzann Pettersen practice for half an hour at the Wegmans LPGA Championship--so now it's just a matter of getting all the pieces together in the right place at the right time. I'll spare you further progress reports and save my observations for a post at the end of the month where I can report on how I did at a NYSGA State Day in Buffalo, the Utica City Amateur, and the qualifier for the Buffalo District Men's Amateur.

Now back to our regularly-scheduled U.S. Women's Open blogging!

[Update 1 (7/8/11, 7:08 am): Thanks to Ruthless Mike for commenting on my tip and explaining how he's already been doing something very similar for his entire short game, not just putting. I played my home course yesterday evening to see how the seeing/visualizing thing would work on greens I'm slightly more familiar with, and am happy to report I shot a 33 with 14 putts using an old Pro V1, but less happy about my back-to-back doubles that turned a decent round with a Penta into a 40 with 17 putts. It was more problems with my wedges that accounted for so many putts with the latter. I'm going to try to incorporate Mike's advice tonight and see what happens!]

A Mostly Harmless Putting Tip for the 4th of July

Just got back from fireworks at Orchard Park Middle School--quite the scene!--and was tinkering around with my putting on the actually-pretty-fast carpet in our living room, and I may have figured out something cool. Here it is:

Problem: I tend to be a feel putter, who likes to set up correctly, pick as precise a target as possible, and just trust my body to get the ball to it. (That trust is partly the product of 1000s of putts on The Rail--a metal-yardstick-type training device--during winters in western NY from the late '90s to the early '00s, but that's another story.) Lately, however, I've been overthinking my putts. I'm getting too aware of what different body parts are doing during my stroke and trying to control the putter face too much in the midst of the stroke. I haven't trusted my lines and have started trying to steer the ball into the hole instead of just rolling it toward my target. In particular, I've been having a lot of trouble while getting ready to pull the trigger to begin my putting stroke with quieting my mind and trusting my body.

Solution: A new pre-putt routine and a new triggering image. Yes, "image"--not words. What I was doing tonight is looking very closely at my target and trying to identify a specific point on it that I'm aiming for. Once I've established that point, I try to keep a clear image of it in my head as I move my eyes from it back to the ball. Once my eyes get to the ball, I start my stroke. Look, visualize, putt. Very simple.

Results: The difference between last night and this one was amazing. I was missing all over the place yesterday, overcompensating like crazy from putt to putt. I was pushing, pulling, you name it, even when I tried the exact same putt over and over. Tonight, I was making everything I was looking at. And I was putting from a different length and angle each time. Even my misses were closer and the pace of my putts was better. I'd say I went from making less than 40% of the 8- to 10-footers I was practicing yesterday to over 80% tonight.

Caveats: Every putt I tried tonight was relatively straight. I haven't figured out the breaks in the new house to my satisfaction, but whichever way the ball was curving on a given putt, it wasn't more than an inch over those 10 feet. So this visualization trigger may just work on short and straight putts. I have to take it to a putting green to see how well it transfers to different kinds of putts, particularly those where the line is dependent on the speed.

Tentative Conclusions: That said, I have to say I'm really excited about this new pre-putt/trigger routine. I was big into The Inner Game of Golf as a teenager and I like to think what I've come up with is in tune with that book's advice. Maybe what the looking/targeting part of the routine does is force you to use the part of your brain that handles aiming without you actually having to do any calculus yourself. Maybe focusing on the visualization part--along with the standardized/automatic nature of the actual trigger itself--serve to keep your verbal/intellectual consciousness quiet and keep the right parts of the brain active in that crucial fraction of a second before you start your putting stroke.

OK, so this is starting to sound like Zen and the Art of Getting the Little White Ball in the Damn Hole even as I'm writing it, but I really do think if you have a putter you trust, if you know how to take a stance that's comfortable to you and helps you keeps your eyes over the ball and your head still during the stroke, and if you've practiced that stroke over and over and over with something like The Rail that gives exaggerated feedback on the effects of even very tiny mistakes, then you really can be very zen. As some band once said, "I don't think so!" And if this routine helps you not think but "use the force," I think it may help your putting. I'll let you know if it helps mine!