Category: Basics

Simple Tips for Hitting Crisper Irons

On January 16, 2016

I can still remember my eight-year-old self one early morning. At this point in my life golf was everything, and to be honest, all I really wanted was to ditch the 5 iron and the 9 iron from my Tiger Woods Golf Starter set and get my own, full set of clubs. This dream came true one morning when my dad presented me with a full set of Progression irons that one of his friends had given him. Already filled with groves and pits this set of thin, light, extensively used irons was in a less than pristine condition but I couldn’t care less. I was a real golfer now, or at least that’s how I saw it. Those irons saw everything throughout the next few years of my golf career. Every round, every tournament, every day spent practicing in my backyard, those irons would be with me. And while I eventually exchanged them for a more modern set of irons I will always think of those clubs as my first real set and I guess that is something special for every golfer.

Now that’s not to say that all of my memories with these irons were good ones. In fact, it was really a love-hate relationship with irons shots in general as a kid because honestly, I wasn’t very good with them. I was solid one the green, excellent within 50 yards, and straight and long off the tee, but I could never consistently count on my irons to do what I needed them to do and that bothered me. It bothered me so much that I would go out of my way to not use them. Eventually, this led me to play with almost as many woods as irons (I had a 7 wood and even a 9 wood for a little while) but shy away from irons only made the problem worse. It wasn’t until I entered high school that my ball striking and strength finally convinced me to give irons another chance. And thank God I did… Looking back at high school and the competitive rounds of golf I play now I couldn’t imagine my game without consistent, straight irons because they are absolutely necessary to hit greens in regulation and in turn, score well.

So let’s talk about irons…

How to Chip Away Strokes Around the Green

By Sully

On January 14, 2016

In Basics

As a child chipping was always my favorite part of golf. I would take a bucket of old range balls I received from a family friend and chip at a makeshift green my dad made in our backyard. Eventually, after I took hundreds of chips from each spot around our backyard green I ended up “designing” my very own golf course. A nice par 3 course where I got a chance to hit a variety of different shots. One around a tree, one over a bonfire pit, one up a hill, 50-yard pitches, 10 yard flop shots, I actually covered a lot of basic chips a golfer would have to hit. Eventually, after playing this course almost daily, my chipping got so good that I would never miss the green on my “tee shot” and I could even start to place the ball where I wanted it to land around the green. And now that I was really starting to golf frequently in my life, this improvement around the green slashed my scores in a way I had never seen before. What good chipping gave me was a safety net. Good chipping allowed me miss a green in regulation and still save par on a hole. Good chipping started to drastically decrease the number of putts I took in a round and good chipping keep me from throwing away needless strokes around the green. Chipping was my favorite part of golf at the time, and I would spend hours hitting all sorts of different chip shots just dreaming of new ways to have fun in my backyard.

The unfortunate thing about chipping and why I think it’s so hard for golfers to master is because there is no easy way to gauge how different variables will change each shot. Let me elaborate. If you use a 7 iron for a bump and run chip the ball will spend a very short amount of time in the air. That’s fine if you have room for the ball to roll out, or if you’re on the fairway. But what if you’re in the rough instead and you don’t have enough room on the green? Do you hit a flop shot? Well, what if there are trees in the way or gusty winds? Which wedge will you use for this shot? All of these variables; wind, green speed, obstacles, your lie, all affect your chip in a specific way each time, and that is what makes chipping so difficult to master.

Three Easy Ways to Shave Strokes on the Green

By Sully

On January 8, 2016

In Basics

Very few areas of golf will ever rival the importance of good putting to having a successful round of golf. Every winter while snow was still covering the driving range and it was too cold to even consider stepping outside to play golf (Wisconsin problems) I would sit in my basement with my astro-turf putting mat, three golf balls, and a putter. This was the beginning of my golf season and may have ultimately led to some of my success. I could spend hours down there putting 5-15 foot putts on cold winter days with my brother. We would play horse, the golfing version of a 3-point contest, and other games, stacking coasters to create different breaks for our putts and honestly having a really good time with the $15 putting mat my parents bought us. Even though at the time I was oblivious to it, I was mastering some of the fundamentals of successful putting.