Friday, December 26, 2008

The Agenda For 2009



Got a couple of e-mails about what instructional stuff I plan on going through. So here goes:

Currently, I'm reading Geoff Mangum's 'Optimal Putting' book. You can get the e-book version for $15 at his Web site at http://www.puttingzone.com/. I've been a good putter for quite some time, but my putting improved through reading and watching a lot of David Orr's videos. However, so far some of Mangum's work (I'm still in the beginning stages of the book) has also helped quite a bit. In fact, yesterday I had 31 putts...which doesn't sound great...but I had zero 3 putts and didn't badly misread a green all day (aka misread a break completely...thinking a putt breaks one way when it breaks the other). But the 31 putts was really due to my struggles with ballstriking since it was my first round of golf in 2 years. I only hit 10 greens and I think I only hit one approach shot somewhat close, and made the putt. Plus, the greens were a little beat up, it was cold and windy and the pins were in very tough positions (particularly if you were not striking the ball up to snuff). One of the biggest helps in my putting is getting out of the mode of the 'perfect' speed being 17 inches past the cup. I still have a tendency to hit the ball too hard, but it's already gotten better and a big reason why I didn't have any 3 putts yesterday (although I did ram a 50 footer for birdie in, old habits are hard to break).

Here again is the video of Mangum talking about putting speed:








- After that I'll move onto Mike Maves' "The Secret Is In The Dirt" e-book. I'm a big believer in pivot being the heart and soul of the golf swing and I think my struggles with pivot are large in part due to mediocre footwork. Again, it can be found on his blog at http://sevam1.blogspot.com/ for $15.


- Then I plan on moving to VJ Trolio's "The Final Missing Piece of Ben Hogan's Secret Puzzle." Again, another book that focuses on pivot that I'm really interested in. The book can be purchased at http://www.thefinalmissingpiece.com/ for $30. Here again is the promotional video for Trolio's book:






- After that, it will be Lynn Blake's 'Alignment Golf' DVD which coincidentally has Trolio in the video as well. I think quite highly of Blake's work, so much so that I'm willing to pay $80 for the DVD series which can be found at his site at http://www.lynnblakegolf.com/.


- Finally, I will purchase the 7th edition of The Golfing Machine. I actually borrowed this from a friend ten years ago when I played mini-tours. Unfortunately, I really didn't understand how to read it and wound up only understanding about 4 pages of the book (it's a cross referencing nightmare). But there's a specific system of how to read the book on the internet and make TGM'ers on the web are willing to help me understand the book. It's really a book meant for instructors, but I'm a bit of a fanatic when it comes to learning about golf instruction.

After I have finished each book/DVD, I will review them here and move onto the next piece of instructional medium.






3JACK

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