Driving the Golf Ball: Is Bubba Watson Human?

This is part of my Series on Golfing-in-Exile.

I hit the driving range last weekend with my father-in-law.  We didn’t have our clubs with us and so each of us borrowed a driver from the clubhouse. Normally they give you broken-down clubs that are on their last legs. Not this time. These two drivers they gave us were probably as good or better than the ones we normally use.

After warming up some, we started hitting some drives, pausing intermittently to joke around and talk. We actually had a great time. The guy is amazing. He hardly plays, is sixty-eight years old and just gets up there and starts crushing drives smack down the middle every time like he does it every day. He is a true natural athlete.

Anyway, after a half an hour or so I started experimenting with different swings. I was imitating Kenny Perry’s swing, and started hitting a nice draw out there. Then I tried some upright power-fades channeling some Nicklaus videos I had studied when I was a kid. For the heck of it, I then started channeling Bubba Watson and went for some serious extension away from the ball and through the ball. (Bubba is the longest driver on the PGA Tour). The results were stunning. I started flying the ball 20+ yards further than any previous iteration of my swing. I went on YouTube this evening to study Bubba’s swing and now I see why. His swing arc is ridiculous. See this super slow-mo version below and tell me if what he is doing seems  humanly possible?

For Part 7 of this Series, click here.

Golfing-In-Exile 4: Staying Positive Around the Green

 

This is part of my Series on Golfing-in-Exile.

The drama on the fairway has subsided only to be followed by the gutteral mutterings of your playing partners as they flub multiple shots from green-side bunkers, patches of gorse, and sadly for one, a wet marshy area that sprays mud across his newly purchased and expensive outfit. He is further enraged now because his iPhone somehow got wet as well. Naturally, as you are all GIE's, no one thought to bring a towel- de rigeur for golfers who play regularly. Though it's a fact that cursing and invective is greatly muted on the green compared to let's say- the tee box, the heightened level of tension here can be devastating for many.

Here's where all your well laid plans for a successfully played hole can come to naught with the wrong mental approach. Be cool. Don't absorb all this negativity. Block out the many painful memories of flubbing these "easy" shots in similar situations. You’re actually just on the fringe and have a normal lie some 25 feet from the pin. Here’s what you need to do:

• Take out your PW and take a few practice chip-swings. You are going to let the club do the work and go through the ball, keeping your wrists firm and unbroken through follow-through and ahead of the ball. You are not going to try and guide this shot.

• Get the feel in your hands and a sense of the distance, etc., then address the ball. Make a crisp chip and whatever you do, do not de-celerate. Go through the ball. It will bounce a couple of times and roll gently somewhere near the pin.

• This guy explains it pretty well:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyzcyrBoab0

• Next, when it's your turn, take the putter straight back and straight through with the putter face following the ball to the hole.

• This is key: Pluck the ball out of the hole and keep moving. You’ve just tricked your body into thinking it can play golf so don’t pause to contemplate what just happened.

You made par. You’re becoming an accomplished GIE. You’re actually having fun for a change.

For Part 5 of this Series, click here.

Golfing-in-Exile 3: Keeping Your Cool on the Fairway

This is part of my Series on Golfing-in-Exile.

We'll pick up now from where we last let off. You will recall that in our previous installment you struck your tee shot amidst some seriously adverse circumstances and nevertheless managed to land it on the fairway. Of course you were using the vaunted GIE Rules for Hittting off the Tee. Sadly, the same cannot be said for your playing partners. So whereas you’ve kept your cool, the other guy in your golf cart has already started to come unwound. He’s still on the same phone call, starts to raise his voice a few decibels and you can tell it’s going to be a blow-out. A self-aware golfer-in-exile (GIE) like you expects all this however, and remains unruffled.

You walk up to your ball and you’ve got 150 to the pin. Ok, so in the old days when you were playing a lot you were a monster and would typically hit a pitching wedge here.  You begin to reach for said wedge but something stops you....

You suddenly remember that you are a GIE. You realize that you’re actually not 17 anymore, in fact you’re 40+. You also remember that you were using a crude, freak-show set of vintage irons back then, namely, First Flights: The Instrument. In those days a First Flight wedge weighed something like 10 pounds and could double as an 8 iron (or a tire iron for that matter).  Your hand moves slowly now towards the nice, modern 7 iron in your bag. You remove it as if in a trance, address the ball, cock the right knee, get some rhythm with a few waggles, and without any fanfare take it back nice and smooth and knock a weak fade just off the green onto the fringe. It wasn’t great, but you’re a chip and a putt away from par. Not bad, right?

Your playing partner has now become the Incredible Hulk and brutalizes his approach,  launching a low screamer over the green into no-man’s-land. He picks the phone back up off the fairway and continues to jaw with the CEO he is firing. You glance back and see the other two guys in your group riding all over the place like drunkards, still looking for their ball. Again, you’re a GIE now- so nothing fazes you.

See you shortly on the green....

For Part 4 of this Series, click here.

Golfing-in-Exile (2): Getting it off the Tee

This is part of my Series on Golfing-in-Exile.

We’ll get deeper into this in subsequent posts, but here are some initial tips for the GIE who plays twice a year and suddenly finds himself in some version of the following. (Tell me you haven’t been a part of this classic situation!):                       

So your friends show up to the course late, they’re still yapping on their iphones about liquidation preferences and getting rid of the CEO and of course, no one could hit balls before the round started.  You’re as tight as a board and haven’t stretched in 15 months. You’ve just seen the people at the clubhouse ring up your card for a $130 greens fee and you had to buy a pair of golf shoes with soft spikes on sale for $110 because the last time you played, hard spikes were still allowed and no one told you this had changed.  You bought a dozen Titleists (most of which you will lose during the coming round) for another $50 and before hitting a shot you’re out about $300.

You step up on the tee, address your ball and VC #1 is still in the cart getting angry at someone he’s talking to on the phone.  Your other hyperactive entrepreneur friend is moving all over the place and clearly visible in your peripheral vision. He almost hit you with one of his practice swings a few minutes ago. VC #2 is wolfing down a sandwich and potato chips not five feet away from you. Since you’re on the East Coast and it’s April, it’s still freezing and you have no “cold weather” gear because again- you hardly ever play golf.

Reality: if you don’t have my “Golfing-in-Exile Rules” memorized- you have a 1% chance of hitting the ball in the fairway.

Here’s what you need to do off the tee: (GIE RULES OFF THE TEE)

• Keep some movement in your body before you initiate the swing. Don’t just stand there like a statue and think you’ll suddenly uncork a 300 yard drive. Move a little, get some rhythm, swagger, etc. going- feel the legs and arms and waggle the club some. A golf swing is actually an athletic movement- so holding perfectly still at address will not help you accomplish this despite what you may think.

• Kick your right knee, (if you are a righty), slightly left toward the target at address, keeping it cocked throughout the swing. This will keep you centered and over the ball with a controlled swing.

• Take a smooth and deliberate backswing. Most disastrous shots (mine included) are born of the warp-speed at which people’s backswings travel, which consequently throws the whole body out of whack.

Ok- so you got it off the tee- it wasn’t great- but you’re out there and not speeding off in your cart cursing to yourself as you hurtle towards your horrific annual round.  VC friend #1 is having a fake heart-to-heart with a CEO he is “letting go” next to you. You can tell he really wants to assassinate the guy for costing him so much money. He sliced his ball into some thick bushes and obviously needs an aspirin.

 Now what? We’ll discuss in the next GIE post.

For Part 3 of this Series, click here.

Golfing-In-Exile "G.I.E." (1) Plotting Our Return

This is part of my Series on Golfing-in-Exile.

You think launching high quality start-ups is tough? Try playing golf sometime. I think the golfers among us will agree that it’s rather well established that golf is a tough sport to master. (For just why this is so, see this recent blog post by Paul Kedrosky and the flurry of comments it generated)

For the rest of you, just walk along the perimeter of any driving range (at a safe distance) and you’ll see a ridiculous show of lunges, swipes, contortions and seizures all parading as someone’s golf swing and you’ll understand right away.  Watch any given foursome tee off in front of you and witness the unfolding of another gran comedia.  And no, I’m not talking about a bunch of octogenarians either- we’ve all been active participants in this kind of slapstick mockery of the game. I’m sure that as I do, you know plenty of decent athletes who play quite often and never seem to improve.

Like most working-stiff entrepreneurs, however, I’m one of those people who hardly gets to play.  And because I can actually “hit-the-ball”, it only makes things worse for me, because I’m always struggling with high expectations when I do get to tee it up. 

I’ve coined a term for people like myself: “golfer in exile” (GIE). 

What I mean is that we’re basically like Napoleon on Elba plotting our return.  You had a few good rounds in the old days, you shot some decent scores, sank some putts- and then “life” caught up to you and took it all away. One day you woke up and became that guy who shanks it two fairways over off the first tee and 4 putts from 20 feet. So how did this happen and what can one do about it?

For those of you interested in this topic, I'll be penning an entire series of which this is the first post.

For Part 2 of this Series, click here.