==================================================== Newsletter - Issue 91 Date 03/24/09 ==================================================== ==================================================== Equipment - Books - DVD's - Instruction ==================================================== When you practice indoors and are hitting balls off a mat, it's easy to hit it fat (behind the ball) but not realize that it was a bad swing, because the mat will allow your club to get through and make decent contact - as opposed to an outdoor shot which would have looked and felt terrible. For my indoor lessons hitting off mats, I bring a few belts and have the students put the tip of the belt behind the ball at varying distances to make sure that they hit the ball first. If they hit the belt, they made a poor swing. As they get more proficient in their angle of approach, they move the belt closer to the ball. Last Saturday, a student at my indoor chipping lessons, Twilly Lynch, offered the following do it yourself tip for a great training aid: "I didn't have any old belts around to modify and lay behind the ball to help with hitting down on the ball, and not hitting behind it. What I ended up doing was taking a strap off of an old duffel bag and cutting the buckle part off. Its about 30" long, and what I do when I am at the Dome is stick one end under the back of the matt, and then extend the other end forward to right behind the ball. It appears to be helping me, however, there have been hits on the straps.....so I laminated the ends, which prevents the ends from fraying." Thanks for the tip Twilly, BTW this can be used when hitting off grass at the range too, it's a great training aid for hitting down.. ==================================================== TCT Quick Tips - Hitting Net ==================================================== Even though I have ready access to BCC's driving range, I'm often at home and wanting to take a few practice swings. When that urge strikes, I hang my fairly expensive hitting panel from hooks in front of my garage door, break out my BirdieBall stance and hitting mats, and have at it. http://www.birdieball.com/scripts/prodList.asp?idCategory=72and I'm giving BirdieBall a free plug because I love their BirdieBalls and mats, and their customer service is excellent. I have a heavy duty professional hitting panel which I use for my own practice as well as for indoor lessons. Most of you probably won't want or need to spend as much as I did, so here's an alternative: Buy and use a 9' x12' utility tarp. Get one with grommets, which makes it easy to hang, plus it's also easy to draw a target on it with a magic marker. Best of all, you can probably find one for $10 or less, as opposed to my $200 hitting panel. One word of caution - for full swings, just to be on the safe side I would hit either "Almost Golf Balls" or "BirdieBalls"; for shorter chipping type strokes you can use real golf balls. BTW, for my own chipping practice I always start with about a dozen chips with BirdieBalls to make sure that my stroke is not too flat. ==================================================== Golf Tip : Putter Loft ==================================================== Many players have not given too much thought to loft in their putters, but it's there and it's necessary. The function of loft in a putter is to lift the ball initially after it's struck so that it skids then rolls, rather than have the ball bounce off the ground when it leaves the putter face. Even though we can't necessarily see it, the ball rests down on the green, so some loft is necessary to get the ball up and out. A bouncing golf ball will affect the consistency of the roll, and will make it difficult to lag long putts consistently. Ralph Maltby has tested the roll out extensively, and his research shows that all putts take anywhere from 15% to 20% of their distance before they get into pure roll. During that 15% to 20% the ball will be skidding until it's rotation becomes pure roll. Most putters are manufactured with anywhere from 2 to 4 degrees of loft built in to the head. Professional golfers may have two putters that are identical except for the loft. They would use their 2 degree loft putter for very smooth, hard, compressed greens, and their 3 or 4 degree putter for rougher grass types like bermuda greens, or greens where poanna creeps up later in the day. The pros usually play under pristine conditions, so they use their lower loft putters frequently. Here in the Northeast, we run into quite a few bent grass greens with their share of poanna, so a putter with loft in the 4 degree range is desirable. The loft of your putter should be available on the manufacturers website; I usually measure the loft of a students putter at the outset of a putting lesson just to double check. There are two factors to consider regarding loft in a putter - the manufactured loft and the effective playing loft. If you address the ball with a forward press of your hands, you are de-lofting the putterface and would need your shaft bent to add effective playing loft to the club. If your putter has 4 degress of loft and your forward press is very slight, you might be OK without the shaft bend. The test would be if your putts are starting off bouncing, if so bend the shaft for more effective loft. Just the opposite if you lay your hands back at address. One word of caution - if you have your shaft bent to accommodate a forward press angle at impact it adds "bounce" to the club, and when you address the ball with the clubhead flat on the ground the face will tend to open slightly. If you have your shaft bent to accommodate a "hands behind vertical" shaft angle at impact, you add "dig" to the club, and when you address the ball with the clubhead flat on the ground, the face will tend to close slightly. Either an open or closed face at impact will obviously affect accuracy drastically. The optimal pendulum stroke in putting has the putter face striking the ball at the bottom of the stroke, so the manufactured loft and the effective playing loft would be the same. When I set up a student for a putt, I like to have my students shift their weight a little to their forward foot, and as a result their hands move forward a bit also. Even so, the shaft should still remain vertical at address so that a pendulum stroke will result in the correct effective loft at impact. In this instance, hands forward refers to being forward of the body centerline, not pressed forward. It doesn't take much effort to alter the loft angle on your club, so be aware that throwing the club or stepping on the shaft can have very negative consequences. In the past I've approached a chip shot with both my putter and chipping club, placed the putter on the ground behind me, then stepped on the shaft. If the putter was laying face down, I've probably added effective playing loft to the club, which is much better than if the putter was laying face up and I took effective playing loft off the club. Every now and then eyeball the shaft for straightness. As always, awareness is half the battle. Enjoy, Tom