You Heard The Truth Here First
As we get nearer to the end of the year, and start the U.S. Open (if they get to play it!), the issue of the USGA Ruling on grooves has made its way into the news more and more, and I have never seen such a level of misinformation in my life (well, maybe on our national political level, but I will refrain from that topic). And I’ll bet you’re going to hear lots about it during the weekend telecasts, especially if they have to fill time due to rain delays.
The media has messed this up so much that even tour players are talking about “when we go back to V grooves”. And yesterday, I got a “scare tactic” promotional email from one of the challenger wedge brands that announced right in the subject line, “USGA To Eliminate Square Grooves”. The email went on to say that:
“The USGA has implemented a rule change that the PGA Tour will adopt for next season, eliminating the use of square grooves on wedges.”
This is just an out and out lie being told to try to sell you their wedges!!! In fact, it’s two lies, because the PGA Tour hasn’t decided whether to imply the new rule at all yet.
So, in the spirit of public information, guys, let me set the record straight about what is going on with the “great groove issue”. With the true facts, you can be the recognized expert in your group and at your club with regard to what the real story is about the new ruling governing grooves on wedges
I DON’T CARE HOW WELL you hit the ball, it’s the putter that makes the difference between good scores and great scores, near misses and trophies. Just ask Kenny Perry, who notched his second win this season at the Traveler’s Championship last weekend.
Perry hits it about as well as anybody, and is especially smitten with his TaylorMade golf clubs, including his new R9 driver. But it was the switch to a PING mallet-style putter that enabled Kenny to light up leaderboards.
Case in point: The “old” man, soon to be 49, only needed 258 strokes to tour TPC River Highlands. That’s 22-under par, a tournament record.
Perry has won 14 times on the PGA Tour, 11 since he turned 40 and five events in the last 13 months, making him the winningest player in the last year or so. There was a Ryder Cup in there, too. Dang, Kenny.
Perry was asked on Sunday if the Travelers was his best win.
SO WHO IS THE GREATEST golfer to never win a U.S. Openù That’s easy. Samuel Jackson Snead. Snead was a bridesmaid four times in what was often called the National Open in an earlier era.
Snead won a record 82 PGA Tour events, including seven majors. Sam’s last victory came at the 1965 Greater Greensboro Open at the age of 52, also a record. But, like Phil Mickelson (to date), the Slammer never broke through at the U.S. Open.
Ben Hogan (4) and Byron Nelson (1) won five between them. It surely haunted Snead, who had several near misses at the national championship.
The late Bob Rosburg played with Snead in the 1955 U.S. Open.
“He said nobody can win the Open that’s missed as many putts as I have,” Rossie told me last October. “He had a phobia about the Open and I think that’s why he never won.”
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• VacationRentals.com is giving away a weekend in Las Vegas that includes golf with PGA Tour pro Charley Hoffman. More info at http://traveler.vacationrentals.com/dealscelebritysweepstakes.
• Golf’s Sacred Journey: Seven Days at the Links of Utopia by Dr. David Cook, a top sports psychologist, will be released on Aug. 1st.
“I don’t know if I will ever play on the Tour again. But I do know this: I am so proud to have been a professional golfer for 30 years. I am proud of my five Tour wins and to have represented my country in the 1989 Ryder Cup. That will never be taken away from me.”
−Ken Green
JUST WHEN PGA TOUR and Champions Tour player Ken Green was getting his life back in order, a right-front tire on his RV blew out on a Mississippi interstate highway. Green and passengers went down an embankment and struck a large oak tree, killing everyone except Green − his brother, his girl friend and his dog, a German Shepard that Green once rescued from an alligator attack in Florida.
And now due to seemingly irreparable damage, Green will also lose his right leg below the knee. He is set to have surgery on Monday at University of Mississippi Medical Center. In all likelihood it will end Green’s playing career.
You don’t know this, but I started my golf club design career in the putter category. During a period of about 8 years, I must have read every putting book and article, viewed every putting video that was out there. And I developed my own set of “putting basics” that are a level apart from those “mechanical” principles upon which most putting instructors dwell on.
I have earned five putter patents and during a period in the 1980s, spent time on tour promoting putters to the players and even doing a little putting teaching around these “new” ideas. I’m in the process of compiling all that information into a book, “The Natural Approach To Better Putting”, which I hope to publish by next Spring.
All that said, my own putting has not been to my standards for some time, and so I recently re-visited the manuscript to refresh myself on my own basics. My “natural approach” is built intensely around the concept of your own natural eye/hand coordination, and the key to that is visual acuteness on your target – you’ll putt where you look essentially.
Well, we finally got the link working right – sorry about that little glitch, guys. Once it was up and running, we had 127 of you take our Rules Survey. So here is what you told us.
- Only 50% of you think that a very small percentage of golfers play by all the rules most of the time, which is probably even a little high. I think that’s because most golfers don’t really know the rules that well, and play golf for enjoyment, not the competition. It’s a very small percentage of golfers who actually tee it up in the serious competitions anyway, rightù
- Regarding the PGA having it’s own set of rules, 38% said "Yes", and 62% "No". But that question triggered the loudest and most aggressive comments to the post. And still is.
- Asked about which rule is most disregarded in every day play, it was close, and you ranked them in this order:
- 14 club limit
- Play the ball as you find it
- Stroke and distance for lost ball and OB
- Hole all putts
- Play the same type/brand of ball
In my work with Positive Golf, I get a lot of questions about the hows and whys and the nuts and bolts of using positive mental techniques for golf improvement. It's great to receive these questions because it tells me that a person is taking an extra step to get insight and guidance into techniques that can help their game. We have started to include coverage of these questions in our Positive Golf newsletter in a periodic column titled "Positive Golf Q & A." When we started running this column, even more questions started pouring in! Occasionally, I will include some of these questions and answers in this blog because the topics are universal to so many players and so vital to success with the mental game. If you would like the benefit of seeing Positive Golf questions and answers more often, as well as other real-life insight, tips, and drills to promote positive golf improvement, then check out the details about our free Positive Golf Newsletter. I also invite you to submit a question by posting it on this blog or sending me an email through our website at TheHeartofGolf.com. In the meantime, here's a question from a golfer in Illinois who voices what a lot of other players have wondered about:
Q: Last summer, I started working on my mental game by trying visualization, but it didn't work. How long should it take for mental game techniques to make a difference in improving my gameù
LUCAS GLOVER WON THE TROPHY, Phil Mickelson won the hearts, and David Duval won newfound respect.
I disagree with those who may want to place an asterisk by Glover’s name for winning the bizarre, waterlogged U.S. Open at Bethpage Black. Lucas’s long game was solid most of the week, he only had one three-putt green, and he handled the pressure better than more-experienced players have in the past.
I’ll leave Phil for others, but his family vacation would be much more enjoyable if he had not bogeyed two of the last three holes. It was Lefty’s fifth second-place finish at the U.S. Open.
But I’d much rather discuss Mr. 882 in the world, one David Duval (at left). As I watched Duval coax in a birdie putt on the 16th hole to close to within one stroke of the lead, it occurred to me that he might pull off one of golf’s greatest comebacks. A birdie and a par and the man who fell into golf’s black hole eight years ago could actually hoist the Open’s silver cup. It would be, dare I say, “unbelievable.”
IT’S 6 P.M. ON SUNDAY EVENING and the final round of the 109th U.S. Open is underway at Bethpage Black. How the grounds crew has enabled 54-plus holes of championship golf to be played the last four days is beyond me. The rains have been epic and the grounds crew’s water redistribution skills have been extraordinary.
In fact, since the grounds crew is so talented I wish they would just erect lights at Bethpage Black and we could finish this thing. Let’s play Sunday night until it’s over. We need to crown a U.S. Open champion, and Phil, Amy and family need to go on vacation, as scheduled.
Seriously, the U.S. Open will not be completed until Monday. Like everyone else, I’m wondering how the newbies at the top of the leaderboard will hold up under final-round pressure and which players back in the pack might make a move.
History tells me that Ricky Barnes will not get it done. It’s a lot of pressure on someone who hasn’t even been in contention in a regular PGA Tour event.
