Things You Can Learn By Watching Golf.

By: Bruce Munch

Head Professional, White River Golf Club 
 

I hope some of you got a chance to watch the U.S. Women’s Open June 29^th through July 3^rd.  If you did there were some interesting things to observe. It clearly re-enforced a number of things that I believe about golf and those of you who have taken lessons from me have probably heard these things. 
  

First:  The simpler your swing is the more repeatable it will be.  This doesn’t mean that complex swings are not repeatable, but under pressure, simple swings tend to hold up better.  If you saw the 18 hole playoff on Monday between Anika Sorenstam and Pat Hurst you could clearly see the difference between the machine like simplicity of Anika’s swing versus the very complicated but fairly repetitive move of Pat Hurst.  Anika’s swing is a perfect example of the simple swing as explained by Fred Couples when he said ‘The golf swing is simple, you simply turn away and then turn through’.  Although the swing is not as simple as Fred described, he feels it is and that is why he has been such a great player for so long.  Pat’s swing, on the other hand includes an excessive turn move on the back swing that puts the club behind her, followed by a flying right elbow that puts the club across the target line (pointing to the right) and well past parallel.  From this position she must first, lift the club against the force of gravity and second, manipulate the club to get it back on plane for impact.  She does these things pretty well but under the pressure of the U.S. Women’s open playoff, simplicity won by 4 shots. 
 

Second:  Practice your short game a lot because it will pay off.  In round 4, Stacy Prammanasudh, former star and All-American at the University of Tulsa, had an unbelievable round.  In 18 holes she only hit 5 greens in regulation and yet managed to shoot a one over, 72 to finish tied for third.  She did this by getting it up and down to save par about 12 times.  As you might expect, she had a lot of one-putt greens and carded only 23 putts for the round. She got it up and down from some terrible U.S. Open lies and rarely left herself too long a putt to save par.
 

When I was Head Basketball Coach at Port Jefferson High School in Long Island, years ago, I used to tell my players that they were going to have games when their shooting would be off but they could still win if their defense was never off, so we spent a lot of time working on defense.  Well, your short game is your defense against a bad ball striking round.  If you want to score well consistently, work on your short game.  If you are having a bad ball striking round you can grind out a good score with short game saves. 
 

Raymond Floyd, in his book: From 60 Yards in: How to Master Golf's Short Game, he talks about the importance of working on the short game.  More than half your shots in a round will occur from inside of 60 yards but I am willing to bet that most of you don’t spend anywhere near half your practice time on putting, chipping and pitch shots of 60 yards and less.  I probably give 20 full swing lessons for every short game lesson request I get.  I think this is because people think they can learn to putt, chip and pitch on their own.  In my golf schools we spend at least half the time on short game.
 

In fact, good technique in the short game is as important as good technique in the full swing.  As on of my former coaches, Don Pranzo, used to say, “Good methods done properly will always succeed better than poor methods done to the best of your ability”.  
 

So, simplify your swing and work on your short game and your scores will improve.  When you get to the point where you get more satisfaction from getting the ball up and down than you do from a big drive, you will be on your way to becoming a player.