There is no one “right” tempo. In fact, as you experiment to find a tempo that will work for you, you’ll likely find that your best tempo will match your approach to the game and even your personality. An intense personality with an aggressive approach – guys like Nick Price and Ricky Fowler – will be more comfortable with an up-tempo swing. Laid-back personalities like Ernie Els and Reteif Goosen have a slower tempo. Both up-tempo and slow-tempo swings work equally well because they fit the player. Don’t be afraid to swing at a pace that matches your style.

The one aspect that up-tempo and slow-tempo swings have in common, though, is the relationship between backswing cadence and downswing cadence. A number of studies have been done comparing the length of time of the backswing to the length of time of the downswing. The relationship is consistently around three to one — that is, the backswing takes three beats compared to one beat for the downswing. It doesn’t matter if the whole swing is up-tempo or slow. The relationship stays the same.

You’ve probably heard golfers admonishing themselves to “slow down” (and probably even said it to yourself at times). I don’t think this is effective advice to give yourself. Here’s why.

The challenge with this advice is that it is usually addresses to the whole swing, including your downswing, and I don’t advise you to swing slowly on the downswing. Your subconscious probably agrees. In fact, if you slow your downswing you won’t hit the ball the distance you need and your subconscious will try to add a little extra at the last minute to make up for the slower swing speed. You should be swinging as fast as you can as long as you maintain your spine angle and balance and can deliver the club face square at impact.

Where many weekend warriors get into trouble is on the backswing. They get out of rhythm by rushing the club to the top of the backswing. Instead of three beats they get the club to the top in two beats or even one beat. The result is a timing mis-match. Typically the club and arms out-pace the body. Consequently, there is too much tension in the swing and then the sequencing of the swing gets out of order, resulting in a mishit.

When a student’s swing feels rushed, I’ll have him or her do a drill we call “Rhythm Swinging.” Since the three-to-one backswing-to-downswing ratio is a perfect waltz beat, try humming or counting a waltz beat if your swing feels out of sync. Start your backswing on the “one” beat, get to the top of your swing on the “three” beat, and make contact on the next “one” downbeat. If you listen closely to the video you’ll hear a song I like to use from the Sound of Music called “These are a few of my favorite things.” Give it a try the next time you lose your tempo or feel as if you are rushing your swing. It’ll really help your tempo — and your consistency.

Related Posts:

Play Consistent Golf Part 4: Athletic Balance

Play Consistent Golf Part 3: Spine Angle

Play Consistent Golf Part 2: Set-Up

Play Consistent Golf Part 1: Pre-Shot Routine

Balance is seldom addressed in the popular golf magazines and TV. Perhaps because it isn’t as sexy as a great lag position or perfect swing plane. But balance is like the foundation of your house. If your foundation is solid, your house will be solid. If your foundation is off, it throws everything else off.

Watch any of the players on any of the Tours. You just don’t see Tour players out of balance. Every single one of them has learned to start in balance, swing in balance, and finish in balance, on every swing. Then watch the golfers at any local muni course. Half of them look like someone is trying to pull the rug out from under them during their swing. They don’t have a finish position as much as they have a finish dance … an extra step or two to keep from falling right over.

Because I pay such close attention to it I can tell you that nearly 90% of the golfers I see for lessons are not in athletic balance. Compare that to virtually 0% of Tour players and you can see that balance is one of the major advantages of better players. The message is simple: if you want to be a better player, do what the better players do and learn athletic balance.

Athletic balance is a ready position has you in a posture with your knees slightly flexed and your center of mass positioned directly over the balls of your feet. Keep in mind that your center of mass is a couple of inches above your belly button and a couple inches in from your spine. If you lean forward at address or bend from the waist instead of from the hips you will more than likely move your center of mass too far out over your toes. As soon as you do – and this is a number-one fault with most students – you introduce instability into your swing, which is a major contributor to a lack of consistency.

In an athletically balanced position you are capable of moving in any direction. You are athletically “ready.” You have “centered balance.” Whether your club is on the ground or in the air, your balance is independent and remains unaffected by your club position. If you were to hop from an athletically balanced address position you would hop straight up and down. You can also try alternately tapping your toes (the Happy Toes drill) to feel good athletic balance.

Here’s an action-step recommendation for you. The next time you have a chance to play a “fun” round, dedicate the entire round to observing and learning about your balance. Instead of mechanical swing thoughts, focus exclusively on starting in balance, swinging in balance, and finishing in balance. Count the number of times you finish your swing with a step, wobble, lean, or any other off-balance indicator. The closer you get to zero the closer you will be to playing high-performance golf.

Related Posts:
Play Consistent Golf Part 5: Tempo
Play Consistent Golf Part 3: Spine Angle
Play Consistent Golf Part 2: Set-Up
Play Consistent Golf Part 1: Pre-Shot Routine

Most of the golf swing is an exercise in figuring out how to deliver the club face squarely to the back of the ball at the moment of impact – and at high speed. A squarely-struck ball will travel straighter to the target, on a better trajectory, and will travel farther. Plus, it just feels good to hit a solid shot.

The whole idea of keeping your spine angle consistent is that it will help you to keep the “shape” of your swing consistent. When the shape of your swing is consistent, it is much easier to deliver the club face in a square position at impact.

In addition, a consistent spine angle will keep your club on plane. More specifically, it will keep your shoulders on the same plane – a lesson Tom Watson said he wished he’d learned earlier in his career.

Here’s why. During the swing you rotate around your spine. Your spine is your “axis” of rotation. When you were first learning golf you probably heard advice like “keep your head down” or “keep your eyes on the ball.” These and similar adages are just simplified instructions designed to help you maintain your spine angle. It’s not so much that “keeping your head down” will improve your ball striking, but that the “effect” of keeping your head down will allow you to maintain your spine angle — and the result will be more solid contact.

There are several areas you can focus on in your pre-shot routine that will improve your ability to maintain spine angle. Two of the most important are Good Posture and Good Balance.

Good posture starts with keeping your back straight and bending from the hips (not the waist) to address the ball. If you bend from the waist instead of the hips – as too many high-handicappers do – your back will be round at address. When your back is round – particularly the thoracic or middle and upper part of the back – you limit your body’s ability to rotate.

On full swings, especially with the driver, the consequence of limiting your rotation is that your spine will straighten on the back swing. When that happens, your head comes up and you’ve effectively moved “away” from the ball. Somewhere on the downswing you then have to move “back” down to the ball. If your timing is just right, you’ll return to your original angle and make a nice shot. But if you over-do the move back you’ll hit it fat or sky your driver, and if you don’t “move back” enough you’ll top it or hit a slice.

Good balance is another way to help maintain spine angle. I define good balance as “Athletic Balance”, where your weight is centered over the balls of your feet and you are athletically “ready”, capable of moving in any direction. You can check your athletic balance during your pre-shot routine by using the “Happy Toes” drill. If you start in good, athletic balance, it is much easier to maintain balance throughout the swing and the shape of your swing will be more consistent, resulting in more consistently solid shots.

If, on the other hand, you start your swing out of balance your body will compensate during the swing, usually by changing your spine angle. The vast majority of golfers I see are out of balance at address. They have their weight (center of mass) too far out over their toes. The most common consequence is that the hips move in toward the ball on the downswing, causing the head to move up and a topped shot, or causing the arms to shorten and shoulders pull up, leaving the club face open and causing a slice. Worse yet.  when the hips move in to the ball they stop rotating, causing an early release, which means lag is lost too early, which means the club head isn’t traveling as fast at impact, which means you lose distance.

The next time you watch golf on TV, pay attention to the way the pros maintain their spine angle. Once they set their forward bend at address there is very little deviation from that angle throughout the swing until well after impact when they turn to face the target. You’ll also notice that there are almost no “rounded” backs on the tour, and all of the pros finish their swing in perfect balance.

A little time spent during your pre-shot routing on getting into good posture and good balance will pay off with a lot more consistent ball-striking. If you want to improve your consistency, improve the consistency of your spine angle.

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What’s your experience been with maintaining spine angle? Why not leave a comment below.

Related Posts:

Play Consistent Golf Part 5: Tempo

Play Consistent Golf Part 4: Athletic Balance

Play Consistent Golf Part 2: Set-Up

Play Consistent Golf Part 1: Pre-Shot Routine

I’m pleased to say that I did well at the tournament. I didn’t bring home the trophy this year, but I made it all the way to the quarter finals (the top 8 hitters) before finally getting knocked out. I was happy with the way I hit the ball and with the way I competed – especially after coming off rotator cuff surgery last Christmas and not being able to even swing a club until July!

I made a little video of the 2011 Worlds below. Have a look. Hope it gives you a sense of being there. My recap is below the video.

In the middle of the video you’ll see Art Sellinger – major domo of long drive – assigning tee slots to the 8 of us. Can you imagine this? That group of 8 in the quarter finals represented an amazing 11 World Champion titles! Talk about tough competition!

And one more thing you’ve probably never seen before – club testing. I got invited into the back room “secret inner sanctum” where I got a chance to film an actual COR testing machine in use. It may look straightforward, but it’s an astonishingly complex process and a huge investment by Art and the LDA to ensure that the clubs we use in competition are legal and conform to USGA standards. Cool!

Here’s the link to share with friends: http://youtu.be/rD1kOFAQx9Y

Here are a few more notes on the competition, and my reflection back.

First, like everybody I was pretty nervous standing on the tee over my first shot. I had a lot of questions in my mind because recovery from my shoulder surgery limited my training and I wasn’t sure how prepared I was or how my shoulder would hold up. So I promptly started off the competition with a snap-hook into the canyon wall.

But one thing I’m proud of myself for doing is “simulated competition” practice. I was prepared to have my first ball go out, and knew exactly what I would do on the second ball – because I had practiced that scenario at home.

During the competition there is no time to try to figure out a strategy on the fly. When you create strategies on the fly you’re always left with a little question in the back of  your mind about whether or not you’ve picked the right one, and you can’t perform at your best with questions in you mind.

Since we hit 6 balls from the tee and count only the best drive that stays in the grid, having one ball out is not a disaster. I stuck to my plan – the one I had already worked out in practice.

To provide a specific insight – I know when I hit a snap hook it’s because I am over-swinging. It’s no surprise that I’d be over-swinging, what with all the adrenaline and pressure of competition and the questions in my mind. What that meant was that I was trying to hit the ball too far. That’s the wrong focus.

One thing I know about my own golf swing is that I hit it the farthest when I hit the ball the most square. So I stuck to my routine, slowed my swing down a little on the second ball, and concentrated on hitting it as squarely as I could. Exactly as I done it in practice.

I ripped the next 5 in a row right up the middle, had the second-longest ball of the morning at 349 yards, and advanced easily to the next round. And I continued to hit the ball well, averaging 5 of 6 balls in the grid each set, and advanced with drives of 353 and 360 yards.

When it came time for the quarter finals a couple of guys put up big numbers early. What’s funny is that I knew THIS was the round where would have to hit my best ball. There’s always a moment in competition where it is “do or die,” and this was it. Once you get to the final four and match play, you don’t always need your best shot. But when I saw the numbers to beat in the quarters I knew I had to let it all loose. I needed a special shot. I got it on my 4th ball, but it was out of play by 3 yards. I didn’t quite catch my ball on the other drives, and that ended my competition.

That’s long drive.

Wasn’t it Woody Allen who said “80% of success is just showing up?”

Even though I didn’t win, I count this year’s competition as a major success on many fronts. A successful comeback from surgery. A success in challenging myself and putting myself out there. Certainly a success in accomplishment in advancing as far as I did against the best hitters in the world. A success in developing winning strategies and sticking to them. A success in reuniting and reconnecting with all the friends I’ve made in long drive over the years.

One more thing I’d like to share. I know many readers are familiar with my program “The 5 Keys To Distance.” As I was training up my speed for the Worlds, I used just about every single drill and technique in the program. I was coming from a long lay-off, where I couldn’t even swing a club. So I had a lot of ground to make up. But that’s another little success – where I put the swing concepts to the test when I use them on myself, and they worked.

Congratulation to Pat Dempsey, who not only captured the Super Senior title, but pulled off a double-whammy by winning the Grand Champion division the night before. Way to go Pat!

I’m taking a lot of positives away from this year’s competition. Now it’s your turn. Do you have a story where you maybe didn’t capture the trophy, but you’re still proud about your success? Share your story in the comment box below.

See you down the fairway!

But here’s a little secret: You can’t work on consistency directly.

That means you can’t go to the range and say “I’m going to work on my consistency today” the same way you’d say “I’m going to work on my balance or my or my swing plane.”

Here’s why: Consistency is an outcome.

Consistent golf is what results when you spend time working on a lot of little things that, taken together, add up to big improvements in reliability and predictability.

Now here’s your second big secret: You CAN break down the elements that contribute to consistency, and by improving your skill in these specific areas, you will develop a more reliable swing with more predictable results. In other words, consistency.

Watch the video here

The previous newsletter kicked off a 5-part series on consistency and gave you the first key to consistency: a Pre-Shot Routine. Let’s continue with the second key to consistency – set-up fundamentals: Grip, Alignment, Stance, Posture (otherwise known as GASP).

HOW IMPORTANT ARE SET-UP FUNDAMENTALS?

Jack Nicklaus believed set-up fundamentals were so important that he started every season by having his coach review his grip, alignment, stance, and posture. After working with thousands of amateur golfers I estimate that fully 50% of all errors on the golf course are caused by mistakes in one of these areas. That’s the bad news.

The good news is that these set-up errors are far easier to fix than a golf swing. In fact, a good pre-shot routine will incorporate these set-up fundamentals automatically, ensuring that you are in the best position possible to hit a good shot, before you even initiate your swing. Here are the keys to solid set-up fundamentals:

Grip: One of the most common grip mistakes is positioning the right thumb (for right-handers) on top of the shaft, or at a 12:00 position. Having the right thumb at 12:00 leads to slices on the full swing and skull shots or fat shots around the green. Here are your grip checkpoints: Left thumb at 2:00, right thumb at 10:00, pad of the hand on top. You’ll know you have the correct grip when you can comfortably hinge and form a 90 degree angle between your forearm and the shaft.

Alignment: Everything in the stance is based on squaring up to the club face, so ensuring that the clubface is square to the target is critical. After conducting thousands of on-course lessons my experience is that mis-alignment is THE number one mistake on the course. I spend more time in my pre-shot routine on alignment than any other step, and I don’t know of any pros on the PGA Tour who go more than a couple of practice sessions without checking their alignment. Take time during your pre-shot routine to ensure your club face is square to the target. This single step alone will save you strokes immediately, so it is well worth your time to align correctly and automatically.

Stance: Once your club face is square, take a stance so that your feet are perpendicular to the grooves on the club. Keep your back foot square and open your front foot 20 degrees to the target to facilitate your pivot and allow you to finish with your hips facing the target. Stance width for irons should place your feet under your shoulders, and with the driver just outside the shoulders. Your stance should be wide enough so that you don’t sway or move laterally during the swing, but not so wide that you can’t complete a full weight shift to the front side on the finish.

Posture: The two most important points of posture are to keep the spine straight and to get athletically centered. Since most of your shoulder rotation comes from the thoracic area of the spine (middle/upper part of the spine), keeping the upper back straight will facilitate a bigger, freer turn and give you more distance. Learn to bend from the hips rather than the waist to keep the spine straight. Bending from the hips will also help keep your center of mass over the middle of your feet, getting your athletically centered. When you are athletically centered you should feel as though you could hop straight up and down. Better balance and posture will lead to better ball-striking and greater accuracy.

Now is the perfect time of year to re-evaluate your set-up fundamentals. Why not make an action plan to review GASP and work a few small changes into your routine. They’ll pay off in big dividends in your score.

Do you have a question about Set-Up Fundamentals? Post it in the box below.

Related Posts:

Play Consistent Golf Part 5: Tempo

Play Consistent Golf Part 4: Athletic Balance

Play Consistent Golf Part 3: Spine Angle

Play Consistent Golf Part 1: Pre-Shot Routine

You know consistency is a critical component of playing great golf. If you’re like most golfers you probably think of consistency as something that just happens. Either you’re consistent or you’re not.

But I’d like to challenge you to think about consistency differently.

I’d like you to think of consistency as a skill. Because the beautiful thing about skills is that they can be learned and improved. This means you can learn the skill of playing with consistency, and you can improve your skill level of playing more consistently over time. As you do, your game will become more rewarding and you’ll have a lot more fun.

I’ve put together a series of videos for you that address specific components of consistency. We’ll take a look at each of these components and develop skills there, because mastering a smaller series of steps, over time, will result in enormous changes to your game.

The first consistency video covers a skill no PGA Tour player would dream of trying to play without: a Pre-Shot Routine. I’ll show you what a good Pre-Shot Routine does, what steps YOU should include and why, and how to use it to your advantage on the course. Remember this: The first step in learning to play consistently is learning to BE consistent.

Watch the video to learn more about the vital importance of a good pre-shot routine.

Nearly every pre-shot routine starts with these three components:

1. Analyze
2. Strategize
3. Visualize

Then, most routines also include the following additional steps:
4. Relaxation breathing
5. Practice Swing
6. Aiming Process
7. Set-up check
8. Target Connection
9. Trust and Commitment

How you incorporate these steps into your routine is entirely up to you. The goal is to make your routine natural and comfortable.

Post a comment below and let me know what elements YOU incorporate into your routine.

Related Posts:
Play Consistent Golf Part 5: Tempo
Play Consistent Golf Part 4: Athletic Balance
Play Consistent Golf Part 3: Spine Angle
Play Consistent Golf Part 2: Set-Up

Today I joined a number of my fellow PGA pros to help a group of individuals who have suffered from a stroke. The event – the 4th annual – was put on by Saving Strokes, a local chapter of the American Heart Association. In just a few years this group of mostly volunteers has grown from serving around 10 to more than 40 stroke victims. Correction … they don’t call themselves victims. They call themselves stroke Victors. When  you see the obstacles they have to overcome just to hold a club, let alone swing one, you’ll see why. And when you see the joy they experience when they step up to a new challenge and experience some success, you’ll understand why we believe it is an honor for us to be helping them.

Here’s a few highlights from our day on the range with Saving Strokes and the courageous Stroke Victors. I had a chance to meet and work with Russell – a two-time stroke sufferer. Russell had never played golf before! But we found a dance step that worked for him, and he stepped right up to the challenge. Just sharing in his joy when he hit a nice golf shot was a great reward.

PS – If you’d like more information or can provide support, the Saving Strokes website is here: www.heart.org

Getty Images via @daylife

David Toms is resilient. After a heart-breaking playoff loss to KJ Choi last week at The Players Championship, Toms bounced back and won the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Ben Hogan‘s home Colonial Country Club in Ft Worth. Toms came out of the gates playing a different course than everybody else, carding back-to-back 62′s to tie the PGA 36-hole scoring record of 124 and post a 7-shot lead. It looked like the only question was who would finish second. But Toms posted a third round 74, allowing Charlie Wi to overtake him at the 54-hole point. Then the tournament got interesting.

Toms is a great lesson in the value of consistency. He’s number two on the PGA Tour in driving accuracy. He’s not long, but he hits the same fade every time off the tee. His shot shape is dependable, which allows him to position his ball on the fairway to give himself the best angles to the pins. It’s a lesson worth noting. You may not like hitting a fade or a slice, but if you hit the same shot every time, you can score.

I like David Toms. He seems like a really nice guy. But I have to admit I was rooting for Charlie Wi. I had a chance to work a bit with Charlie at the AT&T many years ago. He played his college golf right here in the Bay Area at Berkeley, so there’s a bit of a home-town connection. He’s won 9 times around the world, but hasn’t broken through yet on the PGA Tour. He has such a good work ethic, though, I’m sure his time will come. And he’s totally committed to improving not only his physical play, but his mental play as well. That’s why I know he’ll be around for a long time.

If you watched the tournament then you saw Toms hole out a lob wedge for an eagle 3 on the par-5 11^th hole. Even though Wi made birdie on the same hole, that was the turning point of the tournament. Toms was energized by the shot. You could see it in the bounce of his step. It was only a 1-shot swing in the scoring, but it was a huge change in momentum.

Sometimes all it takes is one really good shot like that or a bit of luck to turn your round positive. When it happens, you want to ride it for all it’s worth, because a bit of bad luck the other direction can be just as deflating. Embrace those great shots when they happen, because they contain a great deal of positive emotion to fall back on when the bounces don’t go your way.

Even after the eagle by Toms, Charlie Wi still had a chance to win or take it down to the wire. But he made a strategic error on the 12^th hole trying to get out of a fairway bunker. Despite his caddy’s advice to pitch it out and try to make par with a good approach shot, Wi tried to pick it clean and get it up over the steep bank and overhanging lip of the bunker. He caught it too thin. His ball hit the sand and bounced off the lip right back into the bunker. Ouch! Wi was forced at that point to pitch out. He made a nice recovery and salvaged a bogey, but those two holes meant the match.

In my last two posts (Glover Wins At Quail Hollow, Choi Wins THE PLAYERS Championship) I talked about the danger of trying to hit the “hero” shot at the wrong time. At the Wells Fargo Championship Jonathan Byrd elected not to hit a hero shot and he made par. At The Players Championship David Toms tried a hero shot in questionable circumstances, and Wi tried it from trouble at Colonial. Just like the right shot at the right time can win you a tournament, the wrong strategy at the wrong time can cost you the tournament or a good round.

The Armchair Golf Pro writes about PGA Tour events. Like you he is watching TV from his comfy armchair, enjoying the competition and drama, but also observing lessons that can be used to play better golf. I’d love to know your thoughts.

Getty Images via @daylife

KJ Choi finally put a major notch in his belt with his win of The Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass. The stoic and stalwart Choi has been a steady and solid player for 14 years, and was the first South Korean to earn his PGA Tour card. Choi got the victory with steady play, a little creativity, and some help from David Toms.

Choi and Toms both finished the tournament at 13-under par on a challenging course that rewards accuracy and patience, including the iconic 17th par-3 water hole. Both Choi and Toms are among the leaders in fairway accuracy. Choi hit 71% of his fairways and hit 70% of his greens in regulation. Toms hit 79% of his fairways and had a 74% greens-in-regulation stat. Neither player is particularly long off the tee – Choi averaged 280 yards while Toms averaged only 276 yards. Both are well below average on the tour. But the big bombers all found trouble and it cost them, while the steady-eddies climbed to the top of the leaderboard.

It’s important to know what kind of course you are playing and how it fits with your tendencies. For most golfers driving accuracy is not a strength. So when the course is narrow or penalizing it’s a good idea to leave the driver in the bag until you reach the wide-open “green light” holes. That’s one of the components of patience. It’s a lot easier to make pars from the fairway than from trouble, and many times sacrificing 50 yards off the tee and having a longer iron into the green is a better risk/reward option than always trying to max out your distance and get as close to the green off the tee as possible.

I thought the turning point of the tournament was the par-5 16th hole. Toms made a critical course-navigation error, while Choi showed the importance of being able to hit creative shots.

Toms drove down the right side of the 16th and was faced with a 244-yard shot over water to the green. At that point he had a one-shot lead over Choi. Toms is a great wedge player, but in this case he elected to go for the green while Choi was in trouble left off the tee. Toms later explained that he his mindset was to win the tournament, and his strategy was to knock it on the green in two, make eagle or at worst birdie, and pull a little farther ahead of Choi, who looked like he was headed for par or bogie.

Instead Toms bailed on the shot with an indecisive swing. His ball found the water and he was forced to hit in from 158 yards – over the water again to a difficult pin tucked to the right, behind a bunker.

Toms is such a good wedge player that you have to question his strategy. If he’d been trailing by one shot I would have agreed with the aggressive approach. But with a one-shot lead the last thing you want to do is open the door for your opponent by bringing trouble into play. The more intelligent play would have been to lay up to his favorite wedge distance and let his short game do the talking.

Toms would have had to hit a 7-iron to around 80 yards, then his wedge onto the green. But it is so hard to step on your ego and hit two “little” shots when you know you can reach the green. But that’s when you need to exercise “circumstantial” management. Just because you CAN doesn’t mean you SHOULD.

In this case I think that decision cost Toms another major, because Choi hit his second shot back on the fairway where he had a shot at the green. Then Choi hit one of the best shots of the tournament.

From 72 yards out Choi was forced by an overhanging tree on the left to hit a low bump and run. He played his 9-iron well back in his stance and punched it 15 yards short of the green, bouncing it through the rough on the green, where it caught the slope and rolled to 8 feet. Suddenly Choi was putting for birdie while Toms was looking at bogie. Choi made par, but the damage was done and Toms had given up his lead.

Image via Wikipedia

I love creative shots like Choi’s bump and run. I have a 13-year old young man in my Coaching program, and not only do I encourage him to “play around” during practice by hitting unusual or challenging shots, I encourage all my student to emulate him and have more “fun” instead of working on swing mechanics all the time. Sooner or later you are going to need some creativity on your shots. The only “technique” you can perfect for these non-standard shots is to exercise your creativity. And that’s a great skill to have.

PS – For the record, there were 40 balls that found the water this week on that famous 17th hole.

The Armchair Golf Pro writes about PGA Tour events. Like you he is watching TV from his comfy armchair, enjoying the competition and drama, but also observing lessons that can be used to play better golf.

Getty Images via @daylife

Lucas Glover finally got back into the winners circle with his victory at the Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow. Lucas, who hadn’t won since capturing the US Open title in 2009, beat Jonathan Byrd on the first playoff hole after both players finished tied at 15 under. For Lucas it was a reaffirmation and a big shot of confidence as he heads to The Players Championship next week.

There were a lot of interesting notes from this tournament. First, Glover and Byrd know each other from earlier days – they were teammates at on the Clemson golf team. Maybe that’s why Glover fully expected Byrd to make birdie on the difficult 18th hole to force a playoff, and even predicted it while watching TV from inside the scorer’s tent. That’s the kind of mindset that gets you fired up for the playoff holes, rather than dreading them.

Glover also made a remark I thought was interesting. In his practice round he realized that his head was tilted too far back during his swing, and that was making it difficult for him to square up the club at impact. He made a slight adjustment, and the results proved him correct. The lesson there is that often a small change in set up or a minor swing adjustment can have a major impact on performance. We don’t always need to be looking for the big, dramatic swing change to produce dramatic results.

Another interesting tidbit was Glover’s play on the 18th hole. Glover yanked his drive left and was faced with a 176-yard shot to the hole on a very steep slope. As Glover got ready to address his shot his ball rolled 8 feet down the hill. Glover was very smart in that situation because he never grounded his club. The moving ball was deemed an act of nature, for which there is no penalty, and he got to hit his next shot from further down the slope where the ball finally came to rest. Had he grounded his club it would have been a penalty and he would have had to move his ball back to the original position.

But the really big lesson from this tournament came from Jonathan Byrd. On the 16th hole Byrd flared his drive right into the trees. Here’s where I felt Byrd exercised some real smarts that gave him a chance to win the tournament. There was a small opening through the trees that would have allowed Byrd to punch out and maybe get close to the green. But it would have been a low-percentage shot. Instead, he chipped out sideways.

Trying to make a miraculous shot is what I call the “Hero” shot. It’s tempting to try the hero shot when you are in trouble, because you naturally want to make up for a poor shot, thinking that will give you the best chance to save par. But attempting the hero shot from a trouble position is usually a recipe for disaster, and brings in the possibility of double-bogey or worse.

So what Byrd did was take his medicine and get his ball back out into the fairway where he had a good stance and lie. From the fairway he was in a position of strength, and that’s the time to try the hero shot. Which he did, knocking a 7-iron to four feet and making his putt for par. That hero shot kept him in the tournament and allowed him to make birdie on the 18th to catch Glover and force the playoff.

So remember Byrd’s lesson the next time you find trouble. Don’t try the hero shot until the odds are in your favor. Take your medicine and keep yourself in the game.

The Armchair Golf Pro writes about PGA Tour events. Like you he is watching TV from his comfy armchair, enjoying the competition and drama, but also observing lessons that can be used to play better golf.