Golf etiquette and strategy

The rules allow players 5 minutes to search for a lost ball; but golfers are under a lot of pressure to move on during play. Usually there are four balls in front and four balls behind. There is not much chance to stop and search properly for a lost ball in the rough, especially those lost outside ob markers. Balls lost in the water hazard are usually abandoned by the player. A player is expected to produce a new ball, drop it, take a penalty, and play on!

David Jin once told me off for being too strict with following the golf rules! He liked to play a more relaxed game. On the other hand I feel that we should try to play the game according to the rules as much as possible. Kenny Chen was more accommodating. Three of us played a lot of golf together. Yesterday I told William and Chung that they were standing in an incorrect spot when they were watching a player tee off or putt. They were standing in line to the ball and target. Any movements they make is seen by the player out of the corner of his eye and is interfering with his concentration during his set up and swing and thus might affect his shot!

Golf is a gentlemen’s game. It is played with integrity. We do not set out deliberately to win the game in any way that might be considered unfair to another player. In other words, we do not try to cheat our opponent. We are solely responsible for keeping score of the number of strokes taken by ourselves and report it correctly, usually after every one has finished putting. It might be considered to be distracting to report our score when some one else is setting up to putt.
Yesterday William apologized to me for talking when I was teeing off at the 14th hole. He said that he did not realize that I was so quick in my set up. I explained to him and Chung that it was because I was afraid to take time over a tee shot. I tend to think about too many things, becoming confused and so ruining my shot. In fact during set up for a tee shot I am thinking of the following:
· Line up my feet to the target.
· Stand in a correct position relative to the ball (towards left or right)
· Check my grip,
· distance to the ball,
· club face open or closed.
· Assume the correct posture.
· Take away slowly,
· Keeping right arm pit closed during the back swing,
· accelerate the club during the down swing,
· moving my hip towards the left
· closing the club face at the moment of impact
· remember to follow through completely
· using only 80% power.

All these action points can be grooved by practice. The correct sequence of body movements can become automatic. There are just too many variables to be considered during a golf swing. It is in fact impossible to do so deliberately because a golf swing has to be carried out in milliseconds. There is not enough time to consider point by point all the relevant components of a perfect golf swing. If you do so you will freeze and will not be able to execute it properly.
The flight trajectory of the ball tells us what adjustments may be needed to improve our next shot. All this is done by feel and applying some simple logic. However we should change only one variable at a time. If we correct more than one parameter for the next shot we do not know which adjustment gave us the corresponding result in the new trajectory of the ball. This is assuming all things being equal, that other variables have remained unchanged. They do change! This possibility makes the golf swing very challenging for many golfers. So many different things have to be done correctly in sequence or simultaneously. Without constant practice, it is impossible to groove the golf swing and retain muscle memory.

The game of golf is further complicated by the use of 14 clubs. Each club has a swing plane slightly different from another due to its shaft length. The difference between a 3 and a 4 iron is not very much. Many golfers, who can use a 4 iron quite effectively, find it almost impossible to hit a good 3 iron shot from the fairway. To hit a 3 wood successfully from the fairway is a completely different shot from one taken from a tee where the ball is sitting high and begging to be hit! The whole game is just so challenging that many golfers are addicted to the game, while others simply give up. It certainly helps if you have a lot of time for practice at a driving range to work on each club in turn to iron out all your weaknesses. Believe me that you do have quite a few!

Standing in one spot with a bucket of 100 balls is the only way to improve your golf game. After you have mastered every one of your wood and iron in the bag you have a big surprise waiting for you; the putter! This club has a completely different requirement. Every stroke of the putter is accomplished by feel alone. Power is no longer a factor here. This fact actually levels the playing field for every one, making the game even more interesting because half the score, 36 strokes are putts!
A good golfer needs to learn to read the slope of the green. This enables him to predict the break of the ball correctly. The greens are seldom perfectly flat. A putt does not necessarily roll straight to the hole. As it slows down near the hole the ball will also follow the slope of the green, turning to the left or to the right. The direction of growth of the grass tends to follow the sun. This also has a marked effect on the ball direction.
The speed of a green varies from early morning to the late afternoon, becoming faster as it dries. Many books have been written about the techniques of putting. The putter itself has undergone many design changes, some bordering on the ridiculous and bizarre. I think it is purely a matter of thinking logically and practicing regularly with that putter you are using now.

A Taiwanese golfer, Joe noticed that I tapped the ball with my putter with very little follow through. It jumped violently before it rolled on the green. He advised me to encourage the ball to roll more by pulling back 3 and pushing forward 5. I should also finish my putting stroke by pointing the putter at the target for 3 seconds or more. That was the best tip I got from any golfer so far. I changed my putting style accordingly and have achieved a much better result since then. Kevin Lee gave me another good tip for putting. I should aim for 5 seconds longer!

The other useful tip on putting came from Kenny. He said that I should not try to sink the ball with one putt if it is more than 5 metres away. Try to putt it into a larger and easier target, a small circle around the hole, say 36 in diameter. If the ball falls in, it is a birdie. If not, it is only an easy tap in for par! This changed my thinking about putting completely. Previously I tried to sink all my putts irrespective of the distance to the cup. I three putted very often! Now most of my second putt is a short tap into the cup for par because my target is now larger (a dining table, 36 inch diameter. I do not try to sink every putt any more! What I am trying to do now is trying to leave my ball within 18 inches of the hole so that my second putt is now a certainty (100%)

Another tip was to practice short putts between one and two metres before the game. This gives you a feel of the green speed for use as a reference later on the course. For this reason it is always a good idea to arrive 30 minutes early.

Putting is very important. If we average 2 putts per hole that is 36 strokes per round! Also consider this: If we can always chip the ball within distance for a tap-in we can reduce the number of putts down to 18 per round! On most courses (with 4 par 3's) we use a driver only 14 times. How often can you hit regulation ON the green with an iron? (1 for par 3, 2 for par 4 and 3 for par 5). If you are playing off a handicap of 18 it is not expected of you to play regulation ON. In fact your game strategy is to bogie every hole! Any par is an accident or an extra bonus.

These facts indicate clearly that our practice times should be allocated accordingly for the three major golf clubs (driver, mid iron, putter) This is the only logical strategy to follow to become a single handicapper! (assuming that we have achieved reasonable standards for the other 11 clubs.) For a beginner, aiming for a bogie for every hole might be a very good strategy. It will return a better score on the cards every time. Golf is a game of mistakes and it is all about finding ways to save par/bogie That is why we carry 14 clubs in the bag. We are expected to make use of every club in the bag, not just our favourite.

There are devices designed especially for trapping our balls around the greens. These are sand filled bunkers. They are very effective in trapping any errant balls that went astray. To get the ball out is quite simple. There is a special club in the bag designed for getting balls out of sand, the sand wedge. The design of the club or bounce prevents the club digging too far into the sand. The sand wedge removes a portion of sand (with the ball on it) pushing it forward onto the green. At no time was the club face in physical contact with the ball. If the club face inadvertently touches the ball it is likely to overshoot the green and end up in the rough on the opposite side. Some times there is another sand bunker placed there just to trap our ball again!
For chipping from around the green I prefer using a 60 degree lobe-wedge because it imparts more back spin on the ball. The ball flies much higher, lands softly, rolls towards the hole very slowly and stops sooner on the green. For best results, I place my feet together and used a pendulum swing, just like a putting stroke. I could not imagine playing golf without this club in the bag. Some times I also used it as a second sand wedge, especially from the deep bunker around the 18th green at St. Andrews, Hamilton.