Saturday, September 26, 2009

FedExCup - Who will win?


Every player in the field at the Tour Championship at Eats Lake GC in Atlanta (Sept 24-27) has a mathematical chance to win the FedExCup, but only the top five control their own destiny. Here are the reset points standings and how each player can win the cup.

Tiger Woods, Steve Stricker, Jim Furyk, Zach Johnson and Heath Slocum can clinch the Cup by winning at East Lake.

Padraig Harrington needs a win and Tiger Woods must not be solo second.

Sean O'Hair needs a win and Woods and Sticker must finish outside the top two.

Scott Verplank needs a win and Woods, Stricker and Furyk cannot be runner-up.

Kenny Perry needs a win, Woods cannot be top three, and Stricker, Furyk and Johnson cannot be second.

Jason Dufner, Dustin Johnson, Nick Watney, Geoff Ogilvy and Phil Mickelson need a win and help. They can be caught by the top five. If, Woods, for example, is fourth, he staya ahead of Dufner; eight, he stays ahead of Mickelson.

All the others need a miracle!...

... Retief Goosen, Marc Leishman, Brian Gay, Kevin Na, David Toms, Lucas Glover, Y. E. Yang, Ernie Els, Hunter Mahan, Angel Cabrera, Steve Marino, Stewart Cink, Mike Weir, Luke Donald, Jerry Kelly, John Senden.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

The media future...

You have to see this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SJup6CGiO4

Friday, September 11, 2009

THE PUTTING

Here it is a very interesting article written by my big friend AC. You can read that and follow his blog at http://mygolffile.blogspot.com/.

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The putting is the easier golf play but as some secrets. Usually amateur golfers don’t follow the required rules and consequently pay an expensive price in their final result, sometimes as much putting strokes as all the other golf strokes together. Why that? First, because most of the times the putting basic lessons are avoided in the initial teaching lessons. Secondly, many golfers start playing and start training with a professional having already tried putting in a putting green for fun without any previous advice. So, when they start putting in a game tour they have already got vices and acquired their “own stile” and have their own putter chosen by aesthetic reasons what for sure is an incorrect one most of the times.

So, what to do if this is the case? Here are some basic ideas.

Type of putter
There are many putter features. However they can be classified in two major categories in terms of the most important quality: the equilibrium. How can you check it? When you suspend the putter shaft in its middle weight point in your finger the putter face stays horizontal or not. If it stays horizontal it is equilibrated. On the contrary, if it point down it is not equilibrated. Now, what to choose? It depends on your own physical characteristics. If you are young and or have no difficulties to put along a line you should choose an equilibrated put. If not, according to you physiology (flexibility on your back and spine) and more or less difficulty to produce a putting stroke along a line, you can choose a putter not equilibrated according how you feel and fit after testing some different unequilibrated putter. After this major characteristic you can find many kinds of putters with strangest shapes, weight, colours and adding’s what changes the feel in the impact introducing more or less acceleration to the ball. If you preferably play in courses with larger greens you should choose a putter with more weight. The other characteristics are more a question of personal felling. Try in a shop several choices without forgetting the principal: the equilibrium!
This advice does not contradict the point that a player with an inadequate putter for his ability cannot be a putter champion. Simply he has to fit his putting swing to a wrong putter adopting compensations to get the required results.

Size of the putter
This is another characteristic in which we can find in the courses a lot of wrong situations. Usually golf amateurs put with a much longer putter than they should have. Why? Because they simply buy it in the shop with a standard length without asking the seller to fit it to the required size proper to their height. This introduces disequilibrium in the putting swing and the player most of the times has to handle the putter on the bottom of the grip or even in the shaft after the gripping zone. So, what ever the putter you need and choose fit it to your height!

Putting lines (direction and distance)
There a lot of theory about direction and distance. What is more important in putting? I would say the importance of the distance increases with the distance when over 2 m or 8 feet from the hole. Why this inferior limit? Because up to this distance you should care preferably with the direction and match one put. Above 2 m it is more important to avoid 3 or even more putts and you should try to place the ball inside a zone up to 3 feet around and after the hole. Remember, short putts more than 99, 9% of the times don’t hole! Anyway if you are curious about other aspects of putting as rules for choosing lines there are magnificent texts on that.

Stance and posture
The stance for putting is also a very important point and also we can find a lot of errors on the greens: feet too open, feet too apart, body too leaned over the green, elbows completely open, etc. The correct stance must be: legs flexible, chest straight and fixed to the arms, head fixed in the ball after choosing the line, shoulders to the back, arms fall down, feet parallel to each other and perpendicular to the putting line and not distanced more than 1.5 – 2 feet (depending on your height). You must feel comfortable in a stable and bent posture with your eyes over the ball. The ball should be at 1 or 2 diameters towards the hole from the middle of the stance. The goal is to impact the ball with the putter already in the upper trajectory, providing some top spin to the ball. If you have the feet open or too wide you introduce difficulties to reproduce the perfect pendulum movement on your “triangle”.

The “triangle”
The triangle composed by your shoulders and arms should be rigid, the chest in a plane, so that you make the rotation absolutely in a plane that provides your hands to move along the putting line. The objective of this triangle is to assure a rotation around your neck in the vertical plane of the centre spot of the putter.
If you are not able to make this kind of rotation and you don’t feel comfortable with it that is one reason to check the size or other type of putter and probably it is preferable to use a putter not equilibrated and reproduce a movement so near as possible to the correct one.

Grip
The grip is another point that usually everybody is not concerned about and this is absolutely wrong too. The grip must be as rigid as possible to assure a solid triangle. The wrists must be rigid as they are the vertex of the triangle that holds the putter. If the wrists rotate or bend, the triangle is destroyed and the straight line changes to an arc and consistency of putting is lost.

The swing and stroke
The putting swing and stroke in normal putts is very simple and if we divide the total travel of the putter head we should consider one third before and two thirds after the ball point. The total travel of the putter head should not exceed two feet in normal putts because in a distance more than that it is impossible for most of the golfers to maintain a perfect line along the normal stroke. So, what is important is to average the distance you intend the ball travel by increasing the speed you need in the moment of the impact. There are simple training exercises you can do in a putting green to calculate the distance in different green conditions. After sellecting the line, find a point in the green one foot after the ball and try to pass over it with the putter. Forget the ball and please take a deep breath before putting.

Shorter putts
Most of golfers use the same kind of stroke in shorter putts (up to 2 m or 8 feet). But there is a detail difference that can provide better average results. Shorter putter just require shorter backswing by obvious reason. But there is another reason for that: the shorter the back swing is the more certain you get an aligned movement. So try to make a back movement shorter than one foot and regulate the acceleration of the putter head and the final speed at the impact according the local circumstances (the grass and the relief of the green).

Other putting movements with longer putters
There are other putters different from the regular ones to be used with a fixed support in the middle of the chest or in the chin. Those putters require different grips and the technique is totally different but we will not develop that in this text.

Putting statistics
To evaluate your putting technique and performance you should adopt a systematic register of your putts in competition. There is a very good tool for that in the website http://mygolfile.com/ (http://www.golfcaddyfile.com/) where you can obtain that kind of statistics among other indicators of your golf performance.

Try to follow these advices and enjoy your game!

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

REGISTER STROKES AND PUTTS! IMPROVE YOUR GAME!

The average amateur player only registers the number of strokes per hole.
Professionals register everything: strokes, putts, distances, weather, greens in regulation, up and downs, clubs, and so on.
If you want to improve your game you need to register, at least, the number of strokes and putts per hole. With this information you can have a lot of Indicators, very useful to understand your weaknesses and strenghts.
That’s why we have created http://www.golfcaddyfile.com/. Visit our site and try it for free. From our Home Page print for free our universal myCaddyCard and use it in any golf course of the world.
Registering your Strokes and Putts you have access to 13 different Indicators: Strokes (Net Score, Gross and Net Points, Score per Hole), GiR (Greens in Regulation), Putts (per Round, per GiR, per Hole), Performances on Pars 3, 4 and 5 and Bounce Back.
Go to http://www.golfcaddyfile.com/ where we’ll keep tracking your rounds and performances and compare them to the other results of members of our Community, as well as with the best professionals.
Please, send your comments to Contact Us or to http://www.mygolfround.blogspot.com/. To improve our services we need you! We think that for you to improve and fully enjoy your game, you also need us!

Friday, August 28, 2009

PGA TOUR PLAYOFFS FOR THE FEDEXCUP

First ten before The Barclays: 1. Tiger Woods (3431) 2. Steve Stricker (2155) 3. Zach Johnson (2019) 4. Kenny Perry (1993) 5. Lucas Glover (1742) 6. Phil Mickelson (1630) 7. Y.E. Yang (1621) 8. Geoff Ogilvy (1603) 9. Brian Gay (1540) 10. Sean O'Hair (1474).
Aug 27-30: The Barclays. HEATH SLOCUM! From 124th to 3rd on the FedExCup! Stunning victory at The Barclays 9 under the par. T2 (-8): Ernie Els, Padraig Harrington, Tiger Woods, Steve Stricker; T6 (-7): Nick Watney, Fredrik Jacobson; 8 (-6): Webb Simpson; T9 (-5): Scott Verplank, Ian Poulter, Paul Goydos.
First ten before Deutsce Bank Championship: 1. Tiger Woods (4380) 2. Steve Stricker (3104) 3. Heath Slocum (2854) 4. Zach Johnson (2228) 5. Kenny Perry (2075) 6. Y.E. Yang (1868) 7. Nick Watney (1862) 8. Brian Gay (1843) 9. Lucas Glover (1741) 10. Phil Mickelson (1712).
Best improvements after The Barclays: Heath Slocum (from 124th to 3rd); Fredrik Jacobson (from 107th to 48th); Padraig Harrington (from 66th to 14th); the rookie Webb Simpson (from 85 to 41); Ernie Els (from 47th to 11th).
Sept 4-7: Deutsche Bank Championship.
Sept 10-13: BMW Championship.
Sept 24-27: The Tour Championship.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Solheim Cup - 8th victory for USA

In the 11th edition of the Solheim Cup the American Ladies Team won 16 - 12.
Next edition will be in Europe, in 2011.
The players with better results were: T1. Michelle Wie (USA) and Gwladys Nocera (EUR) with 87.5% (3 wins, 0 defeats and 1 halve game); 3. Morgan Pressel (USA) 83.3%; T4. Christina KIm and Paula Creamer (USA) and Diana Luna (EUR) 75%; 7. Brittany Lang (USA) 66.7%; 8. Cristie Kerr (USA) 62.5%; 9. Maria Hjorth (EUR) 60%.
The players who didn't lose any game were: Brittany Lang, Michelle Wie and Morgan Pressel (USA) and Diana Luna and Gwladys Nocera (EUR).
The players who didn't win any game were: Nicole Castrale (USA) and Laura Davies (EUR).
The victory was decided in the last hours of the last day (Aug 23), after a 8 - 8 halve at the end of the first 4 rounds.
Congratulations to both teams!

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

A strange sport

Golf is a strange sport. Probably it's necessary to practice it to understand the truthfullness of this sentence.
For a lot of amateurs players it is a strange game. Where you like to bet because you never know the result.
The blog "my Golf Round" is born to promote an open discussion about how we feel and think while we practice or play.