Category: Golf Tips Page 2 of 6

How To Drop a Golf Ball (The Right Way)

On September 1, 2018

If you play enough golf eventually you’re going to have to drop a ball. Whether you hit your ball in a hazard or another unplayable surface, knowing how to drop a ball is one of the most important rules a golfer has to know. Unfortunately, dropping a ball isn’t as simple as you might think it; which is why we wanted to take a few moments to talk about just how you should drop a ball during your next round.

But before we talk about the drop itself the first questions we should ask is, “When do you have to have to drop a ball anyway?”. As you may or may not know, there are actually quite a few situations where a golfer has to drop a ball. As a rule of thumb, if you’re not playing the ball as it lies you’re likely going to have to drop it. A couple examples of this are:

When you hit a ball out of bounds or can’t play it out of a hazard
When your lie is unplayable
When your shot is impeded by a man-made obstacle or your ball is resting in ground under repair

Proper Drop Technique

According to the USGA, there is actually a very particular way that a golfer must drop the ball. In fact, failing to drop the ball the correct way can result in a one-stroke penalty unless you realize your mistake and re-drop immediately.

In order to avoid this potential penalty, focus on these four simple rules for the perfect golf ball drop:

You must be the person to drop your ball, not a playing partner or caddy
Stand straight up when you drop a ball
Drop your ball from shoulder level
Hold the ball in front or to the side of you, an arm’s length away from your body

That’s it! While this might seem like common sense to a golfer that’s played competitively, it’s incredible how often this simple rule is broken during casual rounds of golf (I’ve even mis-dropped a few balls before during my rounds).

Although most of us don’t want to think about having to drop a ball during our next round, knowing how to do so properly might save you from another penalty stroke and help get you back on track towards playing great golf. So until next time golfers, keep those four points in the back of your head and enjoy the peace of mind that comes with mastering golf’s most broken rule.

Slope vs. Course Rating: Two of Golf’s Most Confused Numbers

By Sully

On July 15, 2018

In Golf Tips

While frequently unused by new or casual golfers, slope and course rating are two of golf’s most important, and most commonly confused numbers. These two numbers might be a seemingly random arrangement of numbers on your scorecard, but in reality, they are two of the great equalizers in the game of golf. Not only do these numbers give golfers an idea of the difficulty between different tee boxes at their favorite course, they also allow players to compare the relative difficulties of a course to others that they have played. This is what I would like to talk about today.

What is a Course Rating?

Image result for course and slope rating

This scorecard shows the course rating (first number) and slope rating (second number) for each set of tees at a course.

So what is a course rating anyways? The simple answer is, a course rating is a number that indicates what a scratch golfer (a golfer that averages par for a round) should shoot on this particular course. So, while the par for a particular course might be 72, a course rating of 70.1 would indicate that a scratch golfer should be almost two under par on average. This indicates that the course is actually easier than an average course and allows the player to factor this difficulty into their handicap (and their ego).

What is a Slope Rating?

While the course rating indicates the difficulty of a course for a scratch golfer, the slope rating, by contrast, indicates how difficult the course should be for a bogey golfer (or someone who averages +18 for 18 holes). Also unlike course rating, slope values can range from 55 to 155 with 113 being the average.

Now, although you might be thinking that slope ratings work similarly to course ratings, you are actually falling for one of the most common misconceptions regarding these ratings. Slope ratings, absolutely, do not provide the same information as a course rating. So what do they tell us then?

While course ratings are a measure of the difficulty of a course, slope ratings are a measure of how much more difficult a course is for a high handicap golfer versus a lower one.

For example, if you have two courses that each have a course rating of 72, they should be the same difficulty for a scratch golfer. However, if bogey-golfers on course A averages a score of 90 while bogey-golfers on course B average a score of 95 the slope rating for course B would be higher than for course A; indicating a higher level of difficulty for higher handicap players.

If you’re interested in calculating your handicap for a particular course, multiply your handicap by the course rating divided by 113. This will adjust your handicap to the difficulty of the course.

Why Have Two Numbers?

As you may have figured out already, golf is a difficult game and contains a very wide range of golfers, each with very different levels of skill. In the mid 80’s the USGA started to catch on to this big divide between scratch or professional golfers and mid to high handicap golfers.

It turns out that that statistically, no matter how easy or hard a course is, scratch golfers will almost always shoot in the high 60’s to low 70’s. While this might not seem like a big deal, having a very narrow spread of scores even on courses that are much easier or harder than average ones creates a rating that underestimates changes in course difficulties for the rest of the golfing population. However, they also realized that this phenomenon was the exact opposite for mid-high handicap golfers. While one course might only play slightly harder in the eyes of a scratch golfer, less proficient golfers might find their scores to be significantly higher on this new, harder course.

As a result, the course rating designed for scratch golfers was largely irrelevant to anyone over a 5-10 handicap. This left a large majority of golfers without any way to compare the difficulty of courses accurately and presented an opportunity for the USGA to implement their new slope rating system. With the current two rating system, a course rating provides the information about a course’s difficulty for scratch or low handicap golfers and the slope rating provides information about how much harder the course is for high handicap golfers. Regardless of your skill, the USGA has figured out a way to find the right handicap for you, which I personally think is great for the game.

Ratings and Updates

Changes in green roll, topography, or other obstacles can dramatically change the difficulty of a hole or course.

While the course and slope ratings of a golf course are unlikely to change dramatically, they are usually re-evaluated every 4-5 years. This is mostly due to the fact that courses change slowly over time. While small trees may have been planted when a course opened, as they continue to grow they can start to affect play on the course in different ways. Similarly, additional features such as new sand traps or even a change in topography to make room for a new cart path can all be sources of a change in difficulty for a golf course. While these three examples came to mine right away, the USGA website contains a complete list of the things they consider when rating a course.

In addition to physical change, course and slope ratings also change as frequent players learn the ins and outs of the new course because ratings are heavily based off of player scores. For example, while you might not know that a creek bed is dry most of the year during your first round on a new course, after you have played it for a few years you might opt to be more aggressive with an approach shot, knowing that you won’t have to worry about a penalty stroke if you fall short of your target.

These two factors of change, both physical change and increased experience, frequently work against each other and often times nearly cancel out most changes in ratings, however, the possibility is always there. Although many of us spend very little time considering the ratings of courses we play, looking at courses through a different lens, such as how a scratch versus bogey golfer might play a hole, is actually a great way to improve your course management skills.

Wrap-Up

Although it might not be the most pressing matter for some golfers, understanding how course and slope ratings work is sure to only help you understand the game better in the long run. At the very least, it’s something to think about while you’re comparing the different courses you’ve played throughout the year; hopefully, you’re looking back at some low scores on a really challenging course. So until next time golfers, keep track of those ratings and enjoy your summer golfing season.

How to Practice: During the Winter

By Sully

On January 29, 2018

In Golf Tips, Practice

It’s awful, isn’t it? You practiced throughout the spring, perfected your golf game in the summer, and really found a groove in the fall only to lose all of that hard work once the snow starts to fly. It happens every year and somehow we never really figure out a way to fight back.

I know that no golfer likes to admit it, but we all get rusty during the winter. We don’t get a chance to play golf while there’s snow on the ground, and the 20-degree weather doesn’t exactly make you jump off your couch to go practice either. So how can we try to keep some of the improvements that we made during the summer months for next year without hating every moment of putting on a small synthetic green in the basement? Join us today as we share some of our favorite ways to get your golf fix during the winter months.

Chip, Putt, and Swing at Home

Even though the weather outside might not be great, that’s no excuse to not work on the parts of your game that don’t require as much room to practice. One of the best things you can do for your game during the winter is just maintaining the feel of your short game by hitting a couple putts either on a putting mat or just at a water bottle. It might seem boring, but it’s a great way to keep a smooth stroke during the winter and pass the time during all those long hockey match commercial breaks.

Along with that, putting, chipping and swinging a club are also great ways to practice at home. While it might not have the same feel as chipping off grass, chipping some whiffle balls into a cup or bucket is a great way to simulate contact with a ball and it’s still one of the ways I like to practice with my dad during the winter months.

Similarly, if you have the space to do so, simply swinging a club without having to hit a shot is a great way to engrain a swing fix that you implemented during the last season. It’s also a great way to get in the 100 swings a day that Hank Haney recommends to help put a swing into memory.

Now, while these may not be the most glamorous ways to practice during the off-season, every little bit helps, and taking 15-20 minutes a few times a week is almost guaranteed to help you shake off the rust quicker once the weather warms up.

Golf Ranges and Indoor Simulators

Low roofs and short distances to walls are problems that plague indoor driving ranges.

Another great (and much more exciting) way to work on your game during the winter is to practice at an indoor driving range. Although they may not be that common, if you live near a metropolitan area there’s likely at least one within driving distance. Indoor ranges are great not only because you get to actually hit a physical ball, but also because you get to feel the full swing of the club and contact with the ball which more closely simulates a real golf shot.

Driving ranges do have their limitations, however. While it is nice to be able to hit a real ball and take a full swing, the shots you’re hitting at the range are not incredibly comparable to an actual course.

For starters, you can’t take a divot at an indoor driving range which can really mess with your irons if you’re used to taking a sizable chunk of grass out with each swing. Along with this, driving ranges almost never have obstacles to hit around or wind and other elements, which means the experience is not incredibly similar to playing a round of golf on a course.

One great way to combat this, however, is to play a round of golf on a simulator. While you might not get to track the ball flight of your shot the same way you would at a driving range, using a golfing simulator is a fun way to get your golf fix in during the winter. Simulators are constantly improving and many now have wind, rain, different lies and ways to track the spin you put on your shot with pinpoint accuracy in order to provide you with a reasonably authentic experience.

These simulators can be fun and entertaining but they are also expensive to rent out or buy and that makes them less of a practical option for consistent practice during the winter.

Go South or Play Real Golf

Our final way to practice during the winter is one of the most obvious and also one of the best options golfers have to keep their game together during the winter. You must simply find a way to play.

Easier said than done!

Although it maybe tough to play during the winter, it’s not impossible, and one great way to get some golf in during the offseason is to a take a trip to a more hospitable golfing climate. Whether this means leaving your state or leaving your country, taking a golf trip can be a great way to enjoy a weekend with friends and keep your golf game in check while you wait to the weather to warm up back home.

There are dozens of golf trip planning websites and many golf courses offer special “stay and play” rates for hotel rooms and golf rounds for those of us looking to take a small vacation. While this option might take a little more planning than the others, it’s almost always a great experience to go golfing somewhere warm during the winter months.

Finally, your last option is to just head out and play golf back home. While this doesn’t necessarily have to be on a course, Golf Digest has determined that a golfer can play a perfectly enjoyable round as long as temperatures are above 35°F. Though this might be a little farfetched at this time of the year, in a couple months spring will be on its way and we may very well get some weather that’s nice enough to squeeze in an early round as we prepare for the 2018 season.

So there you have it, a couple easy ways to keep your game going during some of our colder months. Personally, I love going to indoor driving ranges but I’m sure some of you might have different preferences. What is your favorite way to practice during the winter? And how guilty are you of slacking on your golf game once the weather goes south? Let me know down below and wish me the best of luck staying warm here in chilly Wisconsin.

How Do You Use a Chipper?

By Sully

On January 25, 2018

In Golf Tips

The putter chipper or simply “the chipper” has enjoyed a long history with the game of golf but during the most recent era, its popularity has declined significantly. Regardless of this lack of popularity, the chipper is still very effective at doing its job around the green. But what exactly is that job and how do you even use a chipper? We’ll talk about all this in today’s segment of 6 Minutes With Sully.

What is a Chipper?

Before we can explain what a chipper does, we first have to figure out exactly what it is and how that design can make it useful. The chipper is a putter-like club that is usually between 32-37 degrees of loft, which is very similar to a 7 iron. While a chipper and a 6-7 iron might have a similar degree of loft, the weight and center of mass are much different in a chipper. This difference in weight distribution, along with the shallower swing plane used during the swing, allow the chipper to chop through greenside rough without getting caught the way a wedge might.

Using a Chipper

Proximity to the green and a lack of obstacles in front of the hole make this an ideal spot to use a chipper.

Now that we have a better idea of what a chipper is, we can look at how to use a chipper to score around the green. A shot using a chipper is very similar to another greenside shot, the hybrid chip, and produces a ball flight that is also similar (although slightly higher). While both of these chips produce similar ball flights, they are both based on the simple bump and run chip that most golfers are familiar with. The chipper is perfectly designed to perform this shot and excels at chipping the ball over short patches of rough or fringe around the green. You can see one example of this to the right.

While choosing when to use a chipper is slightly arbitrary, actually hitting the shot is the easiest part of the entire process. Unlike a flop shot or other types of chips, there is almost no difference between hitting a shot with a chipper and hitting a putt. To hit your chip simply address the ball how you would normally and strike the ball slightly softer than you would if you were putting from that distance. The difference in force that you put on the shot should cancel out the fact that the ball will face less resistance as it flies through the air than it would on the ground during a putt.

Other than this one small change, everything about hitting a putt and using a chipper is exactly the same, and that’s one of the reasons I think people like using a chipper; if you’re a good putter, there’s a great chance you’ll be a good chipper too.

So that’s all there is to it, one small adjustment and a whole lot less to worry about when you’re trying to score around the green. If you want to learn a little more about using a chipper check out the video below, otherwise, I wish you the best of luck as you start practicing with your new chipper!

Aerated Greens: Why Courses Do It and How to Survive Playing on Them

By Sully

On November 28, 2017

In Golf Science, Golf Tips

As the weather starts to get colder and golfing season in the north starts to wind down, golfers have to fight against even more obstacles than normal (as if the game wasn’t hard enough) during their rounds. While the wind, rain, and rough turf might seem like more than enough to worry about, playing on aerated greens is an almost sure-fire way to cost you a few strokes during your round. So why do courses do this to us, and what can we do to try and manage our scores on an aerated green?

Why Do Golf Courses Aerate Their Greens?

A normal green compared to a vented one.

Golf courses take a lot of wear and tear over the season, and the turf is no exception. In order to ensure that the grass is healthy and consistent, most courses opt into some form of aeration both during the playing season and towards the end of the year.

During the playing season, courses usually choose to do venting aeration which is basically placing a bunch of small needles into the ground in order to break up the turf. This process is done throughout the year and is usually does not affect ball roll or playing conditions at all after a couple days.

But what do you mean we don’t notice? What are all of these holes on the green?

Core aeration compared to a normal green.

Well, along with venting aeration, many courses may choose an aeration strategy that is much more aggressive once play dies down for the year. This is known as core aeration.

When you mention aerated greens, core aeration is what comes to the mind of most golfers because it almost always results in the horrible, potholed, greens we have grown to dread towards the end of the season. During core aeration, holes of almost half an inch are removed from the ground and then replaced with sand. This removal of dirt cores causes the unsightly marks on the greens that many northern golfers are accustomed to late in the season.

Obviously, all of these small holes change the roll of the greens and the appeal of the golf course, so why do golf courses do this? The answer really is simple; it’s because they have to.

Golf courses aerate their greens for four major reasons, all of which affect turf health. Aeration is usually performed in order to remove organic matter, decompress the soil, improve the drainage of the soil, and help promote root growth. Without aeration, organic matter (i.e. bacteria and other plants) build up on the surface of the turf. This increase in the concentration of plant matter can prevent water from draining into the soil and can reduce the amount of oxygen that reaches the roots, which ultimately limits growth. Aerating the soil can also relieve soil compression which not only helps grass grow better but ensures that the courses greens are firm and play fair, something that any golfer can appreciate.

How to Play on Aerated Greens

So great, we know that aeration is important, but how can we keep it from ruining our scores on the green? Aerated greens provide a unique challenge for golfers because they contrast the typically smooth and predictable motion of the ball. For example, if you dropped a ball straight down on a normal green you wouldn’t expect the ball to roll very far from where it landed. However, on an aerated green, if your ball lands on the side of a dirt core that has been removed it can travel in a completely different direction from the predicted ball flight.

So how do we make the best of aerated greens? The single most important piece of advice I can give you is to keep the ball low. As we mentioned above, having the ball land on the side of a removed core basically leaves the result of the shot to chance depending on the angle of impact the ball has with the hole. By keeping your ball flight low you have a higher chance of rolling the ball over each hole which will help keep your ball on a more predictable path towards the hole.

Besides keeping the ball low, hitting the ball slightly harder on chips and putts will help make up for the speed that is lost when the ball hits each bump. When I play personally, I usually plan on the ball rolling about 25% less than it would on a non-aerated green so you might have to add a little power to your putts and chips. This really depends on the number of holes on each green as well as their depth but that is something that is somewhat unique to each golf course.

While I’m sure all of us could agree that we would rather play on pristine greens all year, accomplishing this is no easy feat for the grounds crew of your favorite golf course. It can be frustrating to have your round derailed by a bad bounce on the green but hopefully, some of the tips we’ve talked about above will help keep your round and your sanity in check during these early winter rounds. So have some fun on the links before the snow starts to fly and have a great holiday season this year.