The Awesome Tiger
What a great performance by Tiger Woods at Bay Hill. Coming from 5 shots behind at the start of the day, Tiger Woods birdied the last hole to win the golf tournament by 1 shot. His will to win and tenaciousness in which he goes after the win coupled with everyone else playing not to lose is awesome and very inspiring.

I think his win is tremendous for the game and sets up the first major of the year, the Masters to be a great tournament as always. Even though he did not have his best game as far as striking the ball, hitting it all over the place, he keeps grinding it out making putts for bogies, hanging in there until he seizes the opportunity for victory.

My hat goes off to Sean O’Hair for a fine tournament, but shooting 73 on Sunday does not cut it against Tiger. His swing did not hold up under pressure and playing safe or hitting poor shots cost him the tournament.

Tiger is back and it is good for golf.

Tags: Golf General // Add Comment »

Tiger’s Display
I was watching the Bay Hill Classic last night and it was very good until Tiger Woods teeing of on around hole #12 or #13 teed off and hit a rather poor drive and threw his club in disgust. This is just the behaviour that we are trying to teach our children and young players not to do. How do we convince them that this isn’t proper when the best player in the world is doing it on national television.

The announcers, including Arnold Palmer, sort of just chuckled over it and made light of it, however I wonder if it was a young kid the kind of response they would have made over it. I know very well how frustrating the game can be but there must be penalties in place to deter players from doing this. I think it disrespects the game and can become potentially dangerous. If Tiger was suspended or penalized for this outburst, he might think twice about doing it. By the way, he went on to birdie the hole.

I guess if it is acceptable then maybe we should introduce fighting into golf. I wonder what the Commissioner would do if two players starting fighting. I respect Tiger Woods very much and he is the greatest ever, so even more reason for him to lead by example.

Tags: Golf General // Add Comment »

I can’t believe how many people are trying to keep their arms straight in the golf swing. We are trying to learn a swing and if you use an actual swing as a model, how many swings have the two arms holding the seat up as being something stiff and straight. Most of them are ropes or chains and the weight of the person swinging back and forth keeps them taught.

This is very important to free motion, synchronized motion. People that are trying to keep their arms straight are too tense and inhibit motion. Their arms will also get out of rhythm with their body and cause poor shots. Keeping the arms straight will also cause the wrists to break the wrong way, another cause of poor golf shots (the Wrist Rite will help).

Do not ever give the advice to keep the arms straight. We certainly don’t want to lift the arms or carry them, we must throw or swing the arms back and up which if done will keep the one of the arms extended throughout the swing until the finished position.

Tags: Lessons in Golf // Add Comment »

I am amazed by the vast knowledge that is out in the world and how we must continue to learn if we continue to teach. I read a lot, sometimes in spurts, but I have this appetite that makes me want to know things. I think it is so important to cover every aspect of a subject, to delve into the way others think and what they have found out about certain things.

I aspire to be the best golf coach in the world (I think I am already there) so that means that I must continue my quest for knowledge. Right now I am reading the Annual Review of Golf Coaching 2008 which is cutting edge material from all over the world. I just got in and I am starting to read a book by Eric Hawkens which pertains to dance and I believe that any graceful movement can teach us about the golf swing. I have about 6 more books on the go. I just reviewed our Canadian Long Term Player Development guide which is awesome stuff on how to grow the game and make our country’s players better.

I tell you all this because I believe there are teachers out there that remain status quo and never change or learn new ways to do things. We must continue as a service to our students to prepare them the best we can for the things to come in their future. This holds true for every subject and those that dare to teach must not be afraid to learn.

Tags: General // Add Comment »

I was recently at the P.G.A. show in Orlando and had the pleasure of listening to Dr. Greg Rose and Dave Phillips the co-founders of TPI which stands for the Titleist Performance Institute, where they study and promote golf fitness among other performance factors. They were very enlightening and the majority of their talk revolved around kids which I am particularly interested in. Dr. Rose talked about speed windows in kids which is the time frame that they will learn to create speed and if they miss these windows they might never learn to say swing the golf club very fast.

Kids have two speed windows, boys are 7-9 and 11-13 and girls are 6-8 and 10-12. This is where we should be letting them swing as fast as they can, throw the ball as hard as they can or sprint as fast as they can go. I have to some degree always taught that because I believe the easiest thing to teach in golf is how to hit it straight and the toughest is to get someone to swing faster.

So parents and teachers out there, let these children have a go at er! Let them grip it and rip it. Once they are out of these windows and have learned to swing fast, we can teach them the technique to keep it in the fairway.

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