Effortlessly back in the blogosphere

Since Tiger can make a comeback, so can I, but only in the golfing theory zone.

A couple of new thoughts from the past year are worth recording, as follows:

Bobby Jones was one of the old school greats. His swing was a thing of natural beauty, but he had a brilliant golfing mind, as evidenced by his famous book 'Bobby Jones On Golf'. There is a lot in the book to take in, so just to mention one or two ideas that I've either taken directly from the book or re-interpreted.

It's important to set up correctly, with square to closed shoulders and with your feet narrow enough to permit a full turn, but wide enough to provide balance. However, as he says, there are many ways to swing a golf club effectively, so each golfer must experiment to find which method suits her/him best.

Swing without undue tension. Let the leading arm bend a little, let your heels come off the ground, use your knees. Swing freely and hit hard with the lower hand (though not from the top), bearing in mind that you have to swing within your capabilities.

I've also looked at my currently atrocious short game and come up with a couple of ideas.

Pitching is extremely important to players like me who regularly fail to reach long par 4s in regulation or otherwise miss lots of greens. The only thing I would emphasise (based on a study of a couple of Brett Rumford videos) is the use of the knees, the back knee in particular. Kicking this knee in the direction of the shot helps to generate the acceleration (commitment) that is so essential in these shots. There's are other important keys, but that one seems most relevant for me at the moment.

Chipping is another area I've been struggling with and, again, I'm going to go with Brett's idea of playing chips with a putting grip, which actually only means I will hold my 6, 8, wedge, etc. more in my palms, rather than my fingers. This creates a more upright plane, a more putt-like stroke, which hopefully will add some consistency.

My putting has gone from bad to worse in recent months. Lots of trial and mostly error. I've now decided to revert to my backyard ten-finger grip (and forget about fancy grips) and concentrate on keeping the putter blade (gone back to a blade) as square as possible. With short putts my backswing will be very short and hopefully very square. With longer putts, reading the green and getting the pace right are the main objectives, so there are different issues there.

Bunker play has not been a major issue in recent times, but I do need to remind myself to use lots of bottom hand. Otherwise, I'm fairly confident I know how to set up, play short and longer shots, etc.
 
That's it for now. First game in a while tomorrow. Keep expectations low! Tiger did.

PS. any resemblance between my golf game and Tiger's is purely coincidental.