Pro's Tips

Here are some useful "One-Percenters" from Marc Erard (Teaching Professional)

PRO'S TIP

 
ONE-PERCENTERS

Much of what is required to be a good golfer does not involve hitting a million practice balls (although it will help). A large chunk of your improvement in this great game comes from what I call the "one-percenters" - little things that are easy to incorporate, don't require a lot of practice to make automatic and are subtle changes in your approach to how you play golf. They seem unimportant, yet they are important.

Watching my pupils over the 30 years I have been teaching golf, I regularly see these one-percenters are neglected by almost all players with handicaps of 10 and above. In this edition of Pro's Tip, I am going to be discussing a few of the more common ones.

ALIGNMENT (AIM)

Most people find this boring, and very quickly move on to something more exciting. Don't!

The most obvious of all one percenters, yet so easy to do correctly when you know how. Almost every pupil I have ever taught gets alignment wrong. But, of course, everyone thinks they do it correctly. Many don't even bother with alignment (to their detriment). The subtle danger of bad alignment is that it subconsciously forces the golfer to make swing corrections to compensate for the bad alignment. This happens right through their golf game; from driving to putting. I have regularly seen pupils in lessons (and during rounds) aiming their driver 50 metres offline, and their putter 2 feet offline over a 15 foot putt. That is very hard to adjust for, and each time the golfer thought they were aiming straight. They come to see me for some help, and sure enough, they have one or two swing faults which have developed over a period of time, to compensate for their bad aim. Ultimately, your brain will not let you make a correct swing if your alignment is nowhere near the target, and the faults will develop.

So, the solution is simple, and is done by every tour player on the planet. First, you need to change your mindset and realize that this is important to your improvement, and will help you improve. It's a small, one-percent thing you must do. Second, your feet and shoulders do not aim at the target. Many golfers think this is what is required. Your feet and shoulders should be parallel, or square, to the line which extends from the clubface to the target.

Therefore, your clubface should be aimed at the target, and your body (feet and shoulders) are parallel, or square, to it. It's like a pair of railway tracks; one track has the ball and the clubhead sitting on it, and you are standing on the other one, and they never converge.

But how do you know if your clubface is aiming accurately at your target? Easy!

First, start from behind the ball, looking from the ball to the target. You will often see lower handicap players and pros doing this.

Second, imagine a line along the ground between the ball and target. The target can be the flag, a tree on the horizon, the edge of a fairway bunker - whatever you want the ball to travel towards.

Third, select a small object within 3 feet of the ball, on or near the imaginary line. This is critical; the spot must be close to the ball. If you select a spot several yards ahead, the accuracy will decrease (again; the golfer doesn't think it will - but it will). The object can be a leaf, a rock, twig, different coloured grass, a divot etc.

Fourth, walk in to address the ball, keeping your eyes on the selected spot, and set the clubhead behind the ball, aiming at the spot. Do not look at the target yet.

Fifth, set your feet and shoulders parallel to this imaginary line. You can easily check your feet by placing a club alongside the ball, pointing at the target, then place another one across the line of your toes. The two lines should be parallel. To check your shoulders, look down at your elbows, or forearms - a line along the front of them should be parallel with the toe line.

Sixth, now look at the target. This is often a mind blowing moment for many golfers with bad aim. They are used to seeing a different set of angles and perspective, but now it has changed, and at first it seems as though they are aiming wildly to the left or right. Usually it feels the opposite of where their tendency was - golfers who used to aim right feel dramatically aiming left and vice versa. The effect is often psychological, and has an immediate affect on their swing for the better. For example, a player who "pulls" the club across their body to the left during the downswing (called an "out-to-in" or "hitting from the top" downswing ) to compensate for their aiming to the right, will often stop doing so immediately when they aim straight. This is because they feel as though they are aiming 50 metres to the left all of a sudden, so they instinctively stop swinging left and start swinging more through to the target. Problem of pulling is solved.

The hard part is to make this an automatic habit - on every shot. It becomes part of what is called a "pre-shot routine". This means you do the exact same thing before every shot, regardless of the situation. It is easy to develop your own routine, and aiming/alignment is always part of it. When you do, it will lead to more consistency. In the case of putting, if you apply the same principal but look for spots about 12 inches in front of the ball, your putting will be far more accurate and consistent. The difference here is that you are often required to make allowances for break, so the spot you select must be on or near the line which you want the ball to start on - not directly at the cup. This will apply from putts of 3 feet and longer - anything not a tap-in.

 
KNOW YOUR DISTANCES AND LIMITS

Many golfers simply don't know how far their irons fly through the air on a consistent basis. If you are firing at greens, you must know this with each club. I often see players mis-club to a green. Generally, club golfers are usually short, or underclub. They also fail to take into consideration the conditions such as wind, slope, air temperature. In winter, you will lose about one club of carry - about 10 yards for every club. This means where you normally hit a 6 iron, now you need a 5 iron for the same distance. In summer with the warmer, thinner air, you may pick up one club of carry - an extra 10 yards. This one-percenter may add 4-6 shots to your score if you select the wrong club a few times. The flag placement can also affect the score when you mis-club. Landing the ball on the front of the green when the flag is 100 feet away near the back edge is a very high probability of a 3 or 4 putt. At Rosebud Country Club we have yardages on most sprinkler heads around the course. These are to the middle of the green, and it's simply a matter of finding the nearest one to your ball, then pacing to your ball and making the appropriate adjustment. There are also blue 150 metre poles on the sides of most fairways which you can pace off from, and are also measured to the middle of the green.

Also, most golfers select the club based on the best shot they can hit. This is not realistic. Even the tour pros mis-hit a lot of irons. They select the club which will comfortably make the required distance with a reasonably good contact. Personally, I try to always hit the ball about "80%". I can hit it a bit further with the club selected, but I want to maximize the control and the contact, so never go for the 100% swing. Generally, you can expect each club to be around 10 yards different to the club either side of it. For example; my 7 iron flies around 145m on average. My 8 iron flies 135m, my 6 iron flies 155m.

In the case of shorter hitters, many of their clubs tend to "bunch up" which means their 5 and 6 irons fly nearly the same distance, or their 5,6,7 do. If this is the case, get rid of one or two of them; it is a waste to carry them. Keep the one which you hit the best, and leave the others in the garage. This is certainly good advice for higher handicappers. You don't need a full set if you are on handicaps of more than 20, and especially if you are not a long hitter.

Next, spend some time down at the range hitting the clubs you have kept in the bag. Hit say; 20 balls with each club. Watch how far the ball flies when you make good contact. The run after it lands is not added. Then, either use the yardages on the range (which may not be accurate) or pace out to the average distance of all the well struck shots. This must be done over flat ground and under normal conditions - no wind or excessive temperature swings. This average is the distance you will use on the course.

 
CLUB SELECTION

This is a very grey area. There are a number of selections you can make to play any shot, but basically the decision comes down to 2 factors for the golfer - risk/reward and skill level. Basically, you need to think about which club will give you the easiest next shot and which you can hit with ease and confidence.

I often observe players making bad decisions about which shot to play and which club to use.

Here's an example; one of my friends is a good golfer on a 5 handicap. Where he is a member, all the par 5's are tough and long. Most are not realistically reachable in two shots for him, but he always pulls out the 3 wood for the second shot irrespective of the conditions, the lie of the ball, his score etc. It is always all-out attack for him. He wants the reward of the eagle putt, but the risk is high for a bogey or worse, and he often scores these.

This does not make sense to me. He would do far better to select something like a 5 iron or 5 wood, which are easier to hit for him, and lay-up the second shot to with 100 metres from the green and then pitch onto the green from the fairway. He misses the green with the 3 wood anyway, and is often in a bad position to play his next shot to the green. His reward is less; he will not make many eagles, but will make many birdies and pars, and cut out the double-bogeys he often scores.

Coming out of thickish rough is another one I see. Often the golfer is a long way from the green and tries to make up lost ground by using low lofted, long shafted clubs to exit the grass, such as 2 irons and 3 woods. If the ball is lying badly, it is better to increase the loft and make sure you get safely back out onto the fairway and advance the ball a 100 yards or so. A middle iron, lofted fairway wood, or a hybrid is far safer and easier; requiring less precision.

Attacking the flag is also a good way to run up the score. You need to be realistic; no-one hits every shot exactly how they want. I see many golfers firing directly at every flag, and if it is tucked in behind a bunker, or near the back of the green with a big slope off the back, a slight under-club or over-club can cost 2 or 3 shots. The same goes for flags placed very close to one side of the green; if you miss the green on that side, there is very little room for recovery.

For most golfers, playing for the centre, or "fat" of the green is the best policy. This, of course, will work in very nicely with your distances to the middle of the green which you have measured from the sprinkler heads!

Fairway bunkers are another trap (sorry for the pun). Many golfers select a club with only just enough loft to carry the height of the bunker lip. Especially on par 5's where they are striving for maximum distance. The best policy here is to take at least one club more than you think will clear the lip, to make sure you maximize distance and safety. If it doesn't make the green, so be it. It is better to be playing your 3^rd shot from 100 metres from the green than another bunker shot from the same bunker. My friend on the 5 handicap often made this mistake. He turned many 75's into 80's.

 
DOG LEGS

Finally, in one-percenters, we talk about how to aim for dog-legs. Many golfers inadvertently decrease their room for error on the tee. I often see them on a dog-leg to the right hole tee the ball on the right hand side of the tee. This automatically forces the golfer to hit towards the left side; away from the shape of the dog-leg, and towards the trouble on the left side. This means the golfer is aiming more towards the trouble on the left side of the fairway, and further away from the green, decreasing the amount of room on the fairway for the ball to be hit into.

With dog-legs, you need to tee the ball on the side of the tee opposite to the direction of the dog leg, and aim parallel to the side of the fairway where you are teeing the ball. So, on a dog-leg right hole, the golfer tees the ball on the left side of the tee, and aims along the left side of the fairway. This means he/she is not aiming into the rough, but along and parallel to it, so if they happen to slice the ball to the right a little, the ball will end up curving into the dog-leg and closer to the green. The margin for error is much greater.

This also applies to hitting to the green on par 3's. When the flag is left side of the green, tee the ball on the right side of the tee. This will increase your angle

 back into the middle of the green towards the flag, and away from the right side a little. If you then aim for the centre of the green you will be aiming away from the trouble on the right, but not at the trouble on the left. The margin for error is much greater. The reverse happens when the flag is right side of the green; tee up left and aim for the centre.