On the forum we’ve been discussing the importance of ‘driver accuracy.’ There’s some that believe that there’s not much, if any importance when it comes to driver accuracy and that distance is more important.
First though, I think we need to get my definition of driver accuracy to understand where I’m coming from and to get everybody on the same wavelength.
From a statistical standpoint, I look at driver accuracy as % of fairways hit and the PGATour.com new statistic ‘proximity to the edge of the fairway.’
Obviously, there are some flaws to these statistics. For instance, I could pop up a driver and find the fairway, but only hit it 120 yards. That would still count as a fairway hit. Also, I can hit a fairway, but miss the side of the fairway I wanted to hit and the golfer who is in the rough may have just missed that fairway and have a better shot at the green. And if I miss the fairway by a foot to the left, perhaps I cannot afford to miss 1 foot to the left. But all in all, it’s a good ballpark particularly for the PGA Tour golfer.
ARE HITTING FAIRWAYS IMPORTANT?
Well, yes and no.
Statistically, a PGA Tour player on average will hit the ball about 30% less accurate from rough than they would from the fairway. So let’s say that a Tour player typically hits a shot from 150 yards in the fairway to 30 feet, from the rough they are likely to hit it on average about 39 feet.
However, if a Tour player has shorter distance into the green, the more likely they will hit the ball closer to the cup. So if they are in the rough from 140 yards out, they should hit it closer than they are from the rough from 180 yards out. The same goes if they are in the fairway. This is fairly obvious.
But, from what I’ve discovered by looking at the statistics, if the golfer wants to be as accurate on the approach shot from the rough as they are from the fairway, they need to be approximately 50 yards closer to the green. Let’s say Robert Garrigus is playing a round by himself and playing with 2 golf balls. If he hits the 1st tee shot to 180 yards and in the fairway, he would…on average, need to be about 130 yards away if he were to…on average…hit the ball the same proximity from the *rough*.
So, there is some obvious importance of the fairway there.
HOW GUYS LIKE PHIL PLAY THE ODDS CORRECTLY
Mickelson is one of the longest hitters on Tour. With that, he has a big advantage of being able to avoid the Danger Zone (175-225 yard approaches) on long par-4’s compared to most of the rest of the field. But the big advantage is when the average Tour player has a shot in the Danger Zone on an approach and Phil winds up with an approach shot from 125-175 yards away AND in the fairway.
Why?
Because historically Phil hits it about as close from the rough from 125-175 yards as the average Tour player does from the fairway from 175-225 yards.
So if the Tour average is a 190 yard approach shot and Phil comes in at 140 yards, if Phil is in the rough…in the end, he’s likely to hit it the same distance from the cup than the average Tour player would from 190 yards in the fairway. It’s tough getting some shots in the rough on the green and holding them can be tough as well.
Since ’06, Phil has hit roughly 55% of his fairways. If Phil steps up to a long par-4 where the average golfer in the field has 190 yards in on the approach and he can blast it to about 140 yards, the driver is often the right play. Why? Because the odds are in his favor (55%) that he’ll find the fairway. From there, I’m doing some guessing, but I would say that he’s probably got an 80% chance of having a shot that either lands in the fairway or in the rough where his swing and shot to the green are not impeded.
Thus, it’s like say ‘if Phil hits driver on this hole, he’s got about an 80% chance of leaving him with a birdie shot that is no worse than the average player in the field and a 55% chance of leaving himself with a birdie shot that is much better than the average player in the field.’ Who wouldn’t take that?
Where guys like Phil (and Tiger) get into trouble is when they are not only missing fairways, but missing badly with the driver. When they are catching the deep rough instead of the first cup or intermediate. When they are in the trees and have to punch out instead of being able to take a free swing.
WHY PHIL IS SO SUCCESSFUL
Statistically, Phil is a poor putter, very average with his short irons and hits less fairways than the average PGA Tour golfer. From what ‘common golf theory’ tells us, you must be a great putter with a great wedge game and find fairways to be a great golfer on the PGA Tour. So, what gives?
The strongest point of Phil’s game has consistently been his play from the Danger Zone and his short game around the greens from 20 yards in. He’s also very long off the tee.
As I discussed earlier, his length means he’s going to have less shots in the Danger Zone. But PGA Tour golfers cannot avoid the Danger Zone all together because of the par-3’s. It doesn’t matter anyway, because Phil is consistently in the top 20, year in and year out, from the Danger Zone. And while Phil may be inaccurate off the tee, he could always use a 3-wood on a long par-4, find the fairway and put himself in the Danger Zone…where’s he’s one of the best on Tour.
And if he misses a green, he’s one of the best on Tour at getting that chip or pitch or bunker blast close to the cup.
In essence, Mickelson’s game is designed for top 10 in the world golf. All he has to do is hit the ball like he normally does and if he putts about the average for the field, he’s going to be in contention more often than not. If he strikes the ball like he usually does and putts well (say top ¼ on Tour), he’s going to dominate and be unstoppable.
However, that’s given he strike the ball ‘like he normally does.’ When he has problems with his swing and ballstriking, it’s really because his driver is so inaccurate that he can’t find the fairway or give himself a reasonable shot from the rough. That’s what happened at Torrey Pines in ’09. If all he can do is hit a 3-wood off the tee, now he loses a big chunk of his advantage against the rest of the field.
Perhaps the most popular story on the golf internet community is Tiger Woods, his swing and his work with Sean Foley. The big question is whether or not Tiger is doing the right thing by overhauling his swing once again.
Recently on a SiriusXM interview, Jack Nicklaus actually stood up for Tiger with this regard saying to the effect that he constantly changed his swing and that you almost have to because over time, your body changes and the swing has to follow suit.
My impression of Nicklaus’ thoughts about teachers is that they should be seen and not heard. He has often talked about how he doesn’t understand the coaches following players from tour stop to tour stop and getting on the range all of the time and how his former instructor, Jack Grout, only came to one tournament a year (Masters) and never left his seat in the grandstand. Maybe Nicklaus didn’t like the publicity somebody like Hank Haney has received and that’s what prompted the remarks on SiriusXM.
From a statistical standpoint it’s difficult for me to get a very detailed feel for Tiger’s play because many of the high end statistics like proximity to the cup were not available before 2001. Tiger was in his last two years with Butch Harmon and that was not the peak golf performance years. However, there are some statistics that are still telling and help paint a picture of Tiger’s game over the years.
One in particular is driving accuracy. Here’s a look at his driving accuracy ranking over the years.
Tiger and Butch split up sometime in 2002, so I’ll take out that season for both Haney and Harmon since I don’t know when Tiger started working with Haney. But the average yearly rank under Harmon was 95.4. For Haney, the average rank was 148.2.
But, it wasn’t all bad under Haney, otherwise Tiger would not have won all of those tournaments.
Tiger was typically the best Danger Zone (175-225 yard approach shots) on Tour. There were a couple of years where not only was he the best, but he was far, far better than the #2 ranked player in the Danger Zone that season. In 2009, when the MIT guys calculated the ‘Putts Gained’ statistic, he finished 2nd. While they do not have a Putts Gained statistic for the previous years at this time, my guess is that he would’ve been one of the best in the Haney era because he sure was making a lot of putts back then.
Thus, we were seeing statistical scenarios playing out for Tiger like this one described in a Slate.com article (http://www.slate.com/id/2263079/pagenum/2)
Tiger made his name on the PGA Tour with long drives, but at Bay Hill his driving cost him 2.4 strokes to Bryant and Co. throughout the four days of play. (Indeed, just like last week at Firestone, Tiger's driving was disastrous in the early rounds.) He also lost 2.8 strokes on approach shots from 100-150 yards out. His layup shots were also slightly subpar, dropping him another eight-tenths of a stroke. That puts him six strokes down. But now we reach one of the strongest parts of Tiger's game: He excelled at approach shots from 150-250 yards out, allowing him to pick up an amazing eight strokes on his closest competitors.
Where Tiger pulls away once and for all is midrange putting. He was deadly from seven to 21 feet, gaining 3.5 strokes. Even more remarkable is that he achieved this advantage despite three-putting from inside seven feet on the 10th green on Sunday. In Broadie's final analysis, then, it was Tiger's long approach shots and midrange putting that "won" the tournament.
Thus, the lack of driving accuracy becomes a bigger issue. It’s very important to be really good from the Danger Zone on the PGA Tour. But, if you’re missing fairways and finding deep rough and trees, Tiger cannot use that Danger Zone skill to his fullest capability. He’ll still have ‘easy’ Danger Zone shots because most of the PGA Tour’s par-3’s are in that 175-225 yard range. But if he gets on a long par-4, he’s going to need an accurate drive in order to get that ‘easy’ Danger Zone shot from the fairway.
IMO, no better example of this was the final round of the 2009 PGA Championship at Hazeltine. He was paired with Y.E. Yang, probably a top 50 ranked ballstriker on Tour. Since Tiger was in fear of using his driver, he hit a lot of irons and 3-woods off the tee while Yang used driver most of the time. Woods found the fairway, but left himself with a lot of approaches in or near the Danger Zone. But Yang was finding the fairway as well and because Tiger was using shorter clubs off the tee, Yang was hitting his tee shots about 30-60 yards past Tiger.
Tiger had the game back then to pull this type of conservative play, but he wasn’t going to go low doing this. And it evened things up for Yang who doesn’t have nearly the short game or putting to compete with Woods (although Yang did chip in for Eagle, but that was based off an aggressive driver shot).
By the 2010 Players Championship at Sawgrass, there were reports of Tiger popping up tee shots and he was still working with Haney.
Tiger’s goal is to win the most majors of any golfer ever. I think in order to do that, the golfer has to be a dominant golfer. Sounds obvious, but sometimes people don’t think of it that way. I just don’t see a golfer winning 19 professional majors being ‘just better than everybody else.’ I think in order to win 19, you need to be by far and away the best and be able to win tournaments by multiple strokes. When you look at the truly dominant players of the past, they all seemed to dominate a lot of parts of the game. For instance, I showed Nicklaus’ total driving and GIR stats when he was 40-45 years old and he was still the dominant player on Tour and he ‘only’ won 2 majors during that time (1980 US Open & PGA Championship). That’s how tough it is to win a major.
Thus, if Tiger’s driving is very average, I feel there’s a strong possibility that those last few majors will be difficult to come by. And Tiger’s driving was only getting worse. So while the Danger Zone play and putting had improved, come hell or high water the accuracy with the driver had to improve without losing too much distance.
WHAT’S CHANGED?
I’ve seen, what I believe are major improvements to the backswing.
I don’t believe that the backswing means everything to every golfer, otherwise we would’ve never heard of Jim Furyk or Lee Trevino. However, for many golfers if their backswing is geometrically mis-aligned, then the downswing will require them to make a compensation to get re-aligned and on plane.
As Sean Foley mentioned in this video, when measured with Trackman, Wood’s clubhead path was +10* inside-to-out. According to Trackman a year ago, the further inside-to-out path on Tour at that time was Kenny Perry (+6*) and Colin Montgomerie had the most outside-to-in path (-6*)
Not only was that path too far inside-to-out, but the grip didn’t help matters much either as Haney has stated that he taught Tiger to grip the club in the palm of the left hand. The issue with Tiger is that with that much of an inside-to-out path, it usually causes the golfer to use a lot of #3 Power Accumulator (the rotation of the left hand and forearm in the swing). And if you have ever tried to practiced using a lot of #3 power accumulator with the club gripped in the palm of the left hand, it’s very difficult to square up the clubface at impact. This is one of the things John Erickson (www.advancedballstriking.com) has his students do in order to determine what type of grip on the club works best for them. They quickly learn that for the most part, gripping it in the palm of the left hand is not an option.
And from what we know about D-Plane, with the ball’s initial direction being primarily from where the clubface is at impact, that miss to the right that Tiger was hitting meant that his clubface was open at impact.
Haney has self admittedly discussed his own personal ‘driver yips’ and in his time working with Tiger, Tiger’s driving got worse so I’m not sure why golfers cannot see the link between the two.
My belief is that regardless of the Tiger cheating and divorce story, his ballstriking was bound to fall apart. That may have sped things up a bit, but I believe that his swing was heading down that road anyway. And I think Haney, who stated that he was concerned about the perception of his ‘brand’ in a Fox interview after he dumped Tiger, probably foresaw this and decided that the best business decision for him was to quit teaching Tiger and that way he could explain that Tiger’s downfall didn’t happen until after he quit
I don’t see Tiger winning the Masters this week, but I see him playing better than he has and I think we’ll see 1 day of the tournament where he actually hits his driver as well as he has in years. It’s tough to trust making changes like this. I believe this is even moreso when you get older because when you’re young, sometimes you’re just ‘too dumb’ to realize that these changes won’t take time. Fighting your instincts is the toughest part because they want you to revert to the bad mechanics, but I can say that this is the most excited I have been about watching Tiger play in the last 10 years.
1. Scott Stallings 2. Nick Watney 3. Billy Horschel 4. Paul Stankowski 5. Kevin Chappell 6. Robert Garrigus 7. David Toms 8. Peter Tomasulo 9. Jason Gore 10. Jim Renner 11. Phil Mickelson 12. Padraig Harrington 13. Charley Hoffman 14. John Rollins 15. Alexandre Rocha 16. Shane Bertsch 17. Kyle Stanley 18. Graeme McDowell 19. Brendan Steele 20. Ryuji Imada 21. Rickie Fowler 22. Harrison Frazar 23. Jim Furyk 24. Davis Love III 25. Chez Reavie 26. Chris Kirk 27. Y.E. Yang 28. Brandt Snedeker 29. Vijay Singh 30. Dustin Johnson 31. Boo Weekley 32. Derek Lamely 33. Chris Couch 34. John Senden 35. David Hearn 36. Robert Allenby 37. Ben Crane 38. Marc Leishman 39. Jonathan Byrd 40. Geoff Ogilvy 41. Andres Romero 42. Jason Day 43. Kevin Stadler 44. Pat Perez 45. Joe Durant 46. Martin Laird 47. Tag Ridings 48. Stewart Cink 49. Matt Kuchar 50. Ernie Els 51. Ben Martin 52. Mark Wilson 53. Andres Gonzales 54. Jim Herman 55. Ryan Moore 56. Heath Slocum 57. J.J. Henry 58. Paul Goydos 59. Chad Campbell 60. David Mathis 61. Brian Gay 62. Ian Poulter 63. Spencer Levin 64. Gary Woodland 65. Jason Dufner 66. Roland Thatcher 67. George McNeill 68. Justin Rose 69. Alex Prugh 70. Alex Cejka 71. Jeff Maggert 72. Richard S. Johnson 73. Bubba Watson 74. Bill Lunde 75. Sean O'Hair 76. Troy Merritt 77. Scott Piercy 78. J.P. Hayes 79. Louis Oosthuizen 80. Vaughn Taylor 81. Garrett Willis 82. Retief Goosen 83. Daniel Summerhays 84. Kris Blanks 85. Steven Bowditch 86. Kenny Perry 87. Charles Howell III 88. Justin Hicks 89. Sunghoon Kang 90. Steve Stricker 91. Brendon de Jonge 92. Brandt Jobe 93. Bobby Gates 94. Ben Curtis 95. Jeff Overton 96. Ryan Palmer 97. D.J. Brigman 98. Aaron Baddeley 99. Duffy Waldorf 100. Troy Matteson 101. Joe Ogilvie 102. Cameron Tringale 103. Erik Compton 104. Chris DiMarco 105. D.A. Points 106. Rory Sabbatini 107. Marc Turnesa 108. Steve Marino 109. Chris Baryla 110. Stuart Appleby 111. Nate Smith 112. Webb Simpson 113. Ricky Barnes 114. D.J. Trahan 115. Billy Mayfair 116. Nathan Green 117. Matt Jones 118. Tom Gillis 119. Arjun Atwal 120. Zack Miller 121. Tommy Gainey 122. John Daly 123. Luke Donald 124. Chris Stroud 125. Scott McCarron 126. Stephen Ames 127. Shaun Micheel 128. Michael Thompson 129. Tim Herron 130. Brian Davis 131. Kevin Sutherland 132. Zach Johnson 133. Tim Petrovic 134. Michael Bradley 135. Rocco Mediate 136. Jason Bohn 137. Fredrik Jacobson 138. Trevor Immelman 139. Scott Gutschewski 140. Hunter Mahan 141. Kevin Na 142. Bo Van Pelt 143. Anthony Kim 144. Mike Weir 145. Josh Teater 146. Michael Connell 147. Dean Wilson 148. J.B. Holmes 149. Jerry Kelly 150. Michael Putnam 151. Jamie Lovemark 152. Jimmy Walker 153. Jarrod Lyle 154. Matt McQuillan 155. Justin Leonard 156. David Duval 157. Chad Collins 158. Blake Adams 159. Chris Riley 160. Keegan Bradley 161. Johnson Wagner 162. Kevin Streelman 163. Jhonattan Vegas 164. Bill Haas 165. Fabian Gomez 166. Lucas Glover 167. Kent Jones 168. Colt Knost 169. Matt Bettencourt 170. James Driscoll 171. Angel Cabrera 172. Nick O'Hern 173. Cameron Beckman 174. Bryce Molder 175. Jesper Parnevik 176. Carl Pettersson 177. K.J. Choi 178. Charl Schwartzel 179. Joseph Bramlett 180. Steve Elkington 181. Martin Piller 182. William McGirt 183. Bio Kim 184. Steve Flesch 185. Hunter Haas 186. Greg Chalmers 187. Charlie Wi 188. Lee Janzen 189. Camilo Villegas 190. Kevin Kisner 191. Rod Pampling 192. Michael Sim 193. John Merrick 194. Brad Faxon
The first major of the PGA Tour kicks off this week with the Masters Invitational at Augusta National Golf Club.
The thing about Augusta National is that if you follow it for awhile on TV, you begin to feel like you really know each of the golf holes on the back nine. However, once you step on the grounds you quickly realize that your feel is quite a bit off.
Augusta National is one of those few things in life that is extremely hyped and still manages to exceed your expectations, like the first time you go to Vegas or Tokyo or what I would imagine it would be like to hang around Babe Ruth or to see the Pyramids in Egypt. That may sounds like hyperbole, but honestly it’s not.
For starters, Augusta National doesn’t even feel like a golf course. It feels more like a gigantic state park or something like the Vanderbilt Estates, but even more manicured. Go there on Monday thru Wednesday and you will be amazed at how much green grass there is and a good game to play with your buddies is to see if you can find a patch of dirt anywhere on the course. You’ll be lucky to do so in the practice rounds.
The course is far hillier than it looks on TV. Things like #18 looks like a tiny shoot thru the trees, but it’s actually a fairly decent sized opening. Put it this way, if a Tour golfer hits an average driver off that tee, they’ll have no problem with the trees. But things like #10 and #11 feel like they almost go directly downhill. The trees, particularly the Eisenhower Tree are nothing short of magnificent.
The last time I went to Augusta I was a little tired and decided to lay down by a tree in the shade on #15. Eventually, I accidentally fell asleep. When I woke up I was a little embarrassed. But that was until I looked around and saw about 6 other guys asleep next to a tree.
When you get there you will see a bit of a southern debutante thing going on there, very much akin to the Kentucky Derby. For a NY’er like myself, I really don’t find much appeal to that sort of thing. But Augusta and the Masters are truly an international experience for the most part because anybody who likes golf, cannot help but be curious about experiencing Augusta.
I would not only highly recommend going to the Masters at least once if you’re a golf fan, but for the non-golf fan as well. If they have any appreciation for the beauty of the outdoors, they assuredly have never come across a place like Augusta National.
And to top it off, everything at Augusta is very affordable. $2 Pimento cheese sandwiches, $1 bottle of soda, $12 visors, $15 golf shirts, etc. Even the tickets are very affordable, just getting your hands on them is difficult.
All that being said, the past couple of years of the Masters has disappointed me a bit because the course has now turned into a bomb-n-gouge venue. What I used to really dig about the Masters is that the committee was always on top of the latest advancements of the game of golf and usually made a well informed decision on how to approach potential problems. For instance, years ago when the US Open courses were becoming notorious for not having the greens hold on any shot from the rough, the Masters Committee decided to the effect that a properly compressed golf ball with an iron that lands on the green should hold that green, regardless of whether or not it’s hit from the rough or the fairway. To me, that made perfect sense of how to handle that situation.
Of course, the Augusta diehard fans have said that Augusta was always about the long ball (not true) and that the course was designed after St. Andrews (not quite true) and that St. Andrews was about the long ball (not true). I think too many people have forgotten that many of Augusta’s past champions were shorter hitters of the ball like Nick Faldo (3-time winner), Ben Crenshaw (2-time winner), Jose Maria Olazabal (2-time winner), Bernhard Langer (2-time winner), etc. To me, one of the strong points of Augusta used to be that for the most part, any golfer’s style of game can work there. The bomb-n-gouge player has the advantage on the par-5’s. The short knocker who putts well has the advantage on the greens. The ballstriker can take advantage of the long approach shots and the delicate wedge approaches.
But now it’s become a ‘hit the ball as hard as you can off the tee because if you’re long enough, you can hit it past the trees. With that, here’s my rundown of the players and their chances.
BOBBY JONES FLIGHT
These guys are all amateurs and really don’t stand a chance of doing much other than making the cut:
David Chung Jin Jeong Lion Kim Hideki Matsuyama Nathan Smith Peter Uihlein
Uihlein is the son of Wally Uihlein, CEO of Titleist. I will give him the nod because of his father he’s probably played Augusta a few times and has a feel for the greens.
CHARLES COODY FLIGHT
This is the flight of past champions that are really too old to do anything and they know it, but it’s the Masters…so why not play?
Ben Crenshaw Sandy Lyle Larry Mize Mark O’Meara Jose Maria Olazabal Craig Stadler Tom Watson Ian Woosnam
Woosnam is a perfect example of why Augusta was never a bomb-n-gouge course. When he won his Green Jacket, he would aim dead left on #18 on each round. He was a long hitter back then and knew that he could easily carry the left fairway bunker and since there was little rough over there, he would have a fairly simple shot into the green, despite missing the fairway by 40 yards and that would take the trees on the right hand side out of play. The very next year the Masters Committee moved that tee back to ensure nobody could bomb-n-gouge like Woosnam did.
Out of this crew, I think the top guys will either be Watson, Stadler or Olazabal. Olazabal seems to be playing a bit better. Watson, as shown by last year’s Open…still has plenty of game.
FUZZY ZOELLER FLIGHT
These are rookie Masters players. The rookies typically don’t do much outside of somebody like Zoeller, who won a Green Jacket in his first Masters
Charley Hoffman Rickie Fowler Jason Day Martin Laird Mark Wilson Gary Woodland Jeff Overton D.A. Points Arjun Atwal Kevin Streelman Jhonattan Vegas Hiroyuki Fujita Peter Hanson Gregory Havret Kyung-Tae Kim
Out of the group, I like Charley Hoffman the best. Long hitter, can hit it high and with a draw. Then Ricky Fowler and then Jason Day and Martin Laird. I really liked Laird about 3 weeks ago, but even though he won Bay Hill, he really struggled in the final round (75).
THE DEFCON 1 FLIGHT
Here’s something that is a stupid pet peeve of mine. When people say something is bad, they refer to it as ‘DEFCON 5’ in reference to the movie War Games with their missile defense system. It’s actually DEFCON 1 that is the worse. DEFCON 5 is no threat at all. These guys are at DEFCON 1 as they are playing pretty awful right now.
Carl Pettersson Angel Cabrera Lucas Glover Bill Haas Jerry Kelly Mike Weir Kevin Na Trevor Immelman Jason Bohn Ricky Barnes
THE VARSITY PRINCIPLE FLIGHT
When I spent 9 painful years of my life in Atlanta, the first thing the locals will tell you to do is to go to a fast food joint called ‘The Varsity’ which is in Midtown, across from Georgia Tech. You hear all of the rave reviews about it and how great it is supposed to be. Then you get there, wait 30 minutes in line and get an awful burger and soggy French fries. They do make a good milkshake, but wildly disappointing nonetheless. It’s like the anti-Augusta National…something that is so hyped that not only does it not live up to the hype, you cannot believe there was any hype surrounding it whatsoever.
That is what a lot of living in Atlanta was like, something was supposed to be great and you get there and it’s not great, but really awful. Thus, my friend Johnnie and I termed it ‘The Varsity Principle’ (it only applies to things in Atlanta).
Anyway, this is the flight of golfers who everybody thinks is playing well, but really are not and I expect them to miss the cut this week.
Hunter Mahan Anthony Kim Bo Van Pelt Camilo Villegas KJ Choi Rory Sabbatini Steve Marino Luke Donald
THE TREVINO FLIGHT
As great as Lee Trevino was, his game was the exact opposite of what fits in at Augusta. Hitting low fades and being of average distance off the tee and a mediocre putter, as great as Lee was..that ain’t Augusta. My instincts tell me the same about these guys
Stewart Cink Geoff Ogilvy Stuart Appelby Sean O’Hair
THE ROBERT PAULSON FLIGHT
Named after the character from Fight Club when Edward Norton tells him he’s too damn old to join. These guys are good, but they are too damn short off the tee to win. Unless the weather becomes a factor, these guys may contend, but I don’t see them winning
Zach Johnson Steve Stricker Alex Cejka Ian Poulter Matt Kuchar Ben Crane Heath Slocum Miguel Angel Jimenez
THE OLIVE GARDEN FLIGHT
I don’t mind the Olive Garden, but it’s not something I’m overly excited about. Rather, non-plussed about the situation, much like these guys.
Ryan Moore Ryan Palmer Ernie Els Justin Rose Retief Goosen Louis Oosthuizen
THE FOREIGN PLAYERS I DON’T KNOW MUCH ABOUT FLIGHT
Pretty self explanatory
Ross Fisher Yuta Ikeda Hiroyuki Fujita Anders Hansen Peter Hanson Gregory Havret Robert Karlsson Kyung Tae-Kim Francisco Molinari Eduardo Molinari Carl Schwartzel Henrik Stenson
THE MISSING PIECE FLIGHT
Guys that I actually think could win if they can have a pretty good week with their weakest part of their game and have some breaks go there way.
Robert Allenby YE Yang Aaron Baddeley Vijay Singh Adam Scott Fred Couples
THE LLOYD CHRISTMAS FLIGHT
‘So you’re telling me there’s a chance.’ – Lloyd Christmas
These guys don’t hit it long off the tee, but they are playing quite well right now and have some things going for them (particularly putting) that can work in their favor and maybe, just maybe…there’s a chance they can win this thing.
David Toms Jim Furyk Brandt Snedeker Graeme McDowell Tim Clark
THE TIGER WOODS FLIGHT
Well, because he deserves a flight for himself. I think Tiger will play better this week. It appears that he’s finally made the changes to his grip. I believe he started making the changes on Friday at Bay Hill and did get better Friday, Saturday and Sunday with his ballstriking. In the past couple of years under Haney, Tiger excelled because he was a superb from the Danger Zone (approach shots from 175-225 yards) and was a great putter. However, his driving would constantly hamper him because he would miss by too big of a margin and find himself in the woods where he couldn’t use his iron play to get the advantage against the rest of the field.
I think all of the stuff he’s experiencing now with his swing was going to happen sooner or later because that was the direction it was headed in as far back as 2007. In fact, I tend to believe that the ballstriking issues and his divorce were more of a coincidence than anything else.
I think for him to get past Nicklaus’ all-time major victories, he had to make swing changes and had to get it so he could become a solid driver of the golf ball (if not a really good driver of the golf ball). Personally, I think his backswing is far better and I see great improvements in his downswing from Dubai which was just a few months ago.
With that being said, it takes time to make those changes and the biggest hurdle is usually trusting those changes. I don’t think Tiger is there quite yet. Then when you focus your efforts towards your swing, that usually means less time to the other parts of the game. I think Tiger doesn’t win this week, but I think he makes the cut, probably has one really good day followed by a disappointing follow up round and finishes in the top 20.
GIVE IT A RUN FLIGHT
I don’t think these guys will win, but I think they make the cut, perhaps get in the lead early on Saturday and have a nice showing
Davis Love III Paul Casey Ryo Ishikawa
I think Ishikawa is the best of the three. Casey has had some rough showings in Majors, but he’s a bomber who putts well which fits into Augusta. If he had a more stable past in the majors, I’d give him better odds.
SECOND TIER FLIGHT
I think these guys have a chance of winning, but something tells me that they are not playing as well as I think they are:
Lee Westwood Alvaro Quiros Bubba Watson
Westwood seemed to lose some steam once he was the #1 ranked player in the world. It seemed like he just wanted to be the #1 ranked player and do what was necessary to keep that ranking. Sorta like the pro wrestling heel who becomes the champ and then has the storyline of carefully picking and choosing his opponents. Quiros is a bit unpredictable. He’s got the length to dominate, but just when you expect big things he tends to disappoint. Watson didn’t impress me the last 2 days of Bay Hill. He’s such a timing and hand-eye coordination player that it’s tough to count on him and I don’t think he’s a good player under pressure.
TOP TIER FLIGHT
Phil Mickelson Dustin Johnson Padraig Harrington Martin Kaymer Rory McIlroy Nick Watney
Mickelson has been doing pretty well statistically this year, but his putting has killed him. Last week at Houston, he started putting pretty decent and then won. That’s really the way he can win most of these tournaments…just putt decently and avoid the hazards and woods off the tee and Mickelson is hard to beat. Johnson is probably the next American golfer superstar if he’s not there already. He needs to get over last year’s US Open and PGA Championship (I don’t care what anybody says, terrible ruling). Harrington has gone under the radar this year but is playing quite well. Kaymer hasn’t gone under the radar. He’s played okay stateside this year but has been phenomenal across the pond. To me, my top 2 picks are McIlroy and Watney. I think both have games designed for Augusta although I probably trust McIlroy off the tee and on long approaches more, but Watney more with the putter.
Continuing with the TGM theme...here's a nice, short video from from 3Jack Top 50 Instructor, Lynn Blake (www.lynnblakegolf.com) on the start down waggles
My entrance into the world of The Golfing Machine actually indirectly started with Tom Tomasello. When I got into college I became more interested in the golf swing. I had a friend who was a pretty good mini-tour player who had the same curiousity I had about the golf swing. He is about six years my senior, but he was interested in the development of my game as we grew up together from the same hometown.
When I got to school at Coastal Carolina University, which is located just outside Myrtle Beach, he told me that there was a golf instructor down at the old Deer Track golf club (doesn't exist anymore) named Tom Tomasello who not only could really play, but really knew a lot about the golf swing as he worked with this teaching philosophy called 'The Golfing Machine.'
Of course, I had zero clue as to what my friend was talking about, but he said that if you could learn from Mr. Tomasello, you could really learn the golf swing and start to play some excellent golf. That pretty much bought me...hook, line and sinker.
I made it down to Deer Track and saw the teaching facility, but there was no mention of Tom Tomasello. Eventually in January of '97, my friend came down with his family to visit and told me that Mr. Tomasello had recently passed away, but his proteges...golf instructors Chuck Wike and Ted Frick were still there and they could teach The Golfing Machine.
Anyway, here's a collection of videos presented by 3Jack Top 50 instructor, John Furze (http://www.golfswing.com.au), of Tom Tomasello in Austalia.
Here's a swing video update from the Face On View. Still lots of work to do, but massive improvements being made. If you would like to learn more, I recommend getting a lesson with George Hunt at www.moradgolfgeorgehunt.com
