Co-Ed Golf
by Ned Snead
Many serious golfers would like to
have their wives and daughters take up the game, but it’s a hard sell. Spending half a day and a hundred bucks
swinging expensive clubs at a little white ball seems just as silly to a woman
as the same amount of time and money spent shopping for clothes and jewelry
seems to a man. Very few serious golfers
know how to make the game fun for their ladies.
It
might be easier to sell the idea of exercise and pleasant company, but then it
turns out that many serious golfers ride around the course in golf carts,
without getting much exercise. Nine
holes walking is more exercise than eighteen holes riding, and it can be done
in half the time.
However,
the golf cart turns out to be almost necessary to carry the big leather bag for
the fourteen clubs allowed for serious golf and the ball retriever, towel,
umbrella, extra balls, tees and special shoes.
Some carts also carry hot and cold drinks and bottles of sand and grass
seed to replace divots. On many courses
the cart is mandatory to keep walking golfers from slowing up the serious
golfers. The carts are also a major
source of revenue for the golf course.
The
fourteen different clubs are mostly a source of frustration for a beginner. Each club is supposed to produce a different
result, but it’s hard for beginners to tell the difference, because they seldom
get a ball up in the air and headed straight toward the hole with ANY club.
Even the pleasant company
turns out to be limited. Moving around
and talking is not allowed while a serious golfer is planning and executing a
serious shot. If the shot turns out to
be a blooper, the pleasant company is likely to utter some unpleasant words.
Patience
turns out to be another limited commodity.
Serious golfers can spend five minutes (the maximum the rules allow)
looking for a lost ball, and several minutes surveying and planning a serious
putt. But when the honored guest gets
her ball within a few feet of the hole, the serious golfers don’t have time to
let her putt it into the cup and hear it rattle around. If you were to ask about it, they would think
they had made a generous gift by conceding a short putt. Besides, they are in a hurry to get to the
next tee where they can complain about the slow players ahead.
Maybe
we could make golf more fun for a beginner if we changed some of the
rules. A lady who is being pressured to
play with her husband has some leverage that the ordinary beginner lacks. She can say that golf is not fun the way it
is usually played and insist on some changes if she is going to continue to
try.
For
a start, let’s quit counting every stroke.
Let’s count only the shots that produce SOUL FOOD by flying through the
air and landing in the fairway. We could
call these shots BRAVOs. Instead of
trying for the fewest strokes, we could try for the most BRAVOs, and the player
who makes the most of them wins.
A BRAVO putt should travel
the full distance and stop within two feet of the hole. Of course, any putt that goes in the hole is
a BRAVO, and that eliminates the need to define a GIMME putt, because we putt
them all into the hole to hear them rattle around.
If
BRAVOs are the only strokes counted, then there is no need for MULLIGANS. We just drop another ball any time, anywhere,
and try again until we get a BRAVO.
Hey, a beginner could even
WIN this game.
“Real
golfers” (and golf course marshals) are sensitive to slow play, and we can
change a few rules to keep from being a nuisance to the players behind us. We should not take five minutes to look for a
lost ball. A golfer who really wants his
wife or lover to enjoy the game must not be stingy about golf balls. He can buy plenty of the cheapest balls
available and let somebody else pick up the strays. Thirty seconds should be enough time to look
for a ball. That should also be long
enough to select a club for the next shot or to plan a putt. The 30-second rule will keep our group moving
fast enough to satisfy almost anybody.
Selecting
clubs may be a total waste of time for a beginner. Unless a ball is hit near the middle of the
clubface, it is likely to go off in any direction, and is not likely to score
as a BRAVO. Since we have put a premium
on getting the ball up in the air, we need a club with plenty of loft…something
like a 5-iron or 7-iron. Until a
beginner starts getting consistent results with that club, the only other club
she needs is a putter.
“Real
golfers” are fussy about playing every ball from wherever it lies. The result is lots of grass being dug up by
the club head after it strikes the ball.
Digging these ‘divots’ is a skill that beginners can put off until they
have good control of the club head during the swing. They can score more BRAVOs by setting the
ball up on a wooden tee for every fairway shot, and they will not be guilty of
killing so much grass.
“Real
golfers” are fussy about silence. They
expect everybody in sight to remain motionless while they get themselves in the
mood to hit the next shot. If anybody
moves or makes a noise, they are likely to fly into a rage and blame somebody
for their own lack of skill and concentration.
Tex Kassen, retired athletic director at Southwestern University, was an
old football coach and official. When he
got ready to hit a golf ball he liked lots of noise. I’m with
Starting to Learn the Game
Even
if a beginner gets a full set of expensive equipment and clothes, and a series
of private lessons, she may be playing like a beginner for a long time. It’s embarrassing to hit a series of lousy
shots while our companions are hitting shots like television golfers. Before long the real golfers run out of nice
things to say about a beginner’s clumsy efforts.
It
really makes almost no sense for a beginner to try to play along with serious
golfers. The time would be better spent
developing some skill around the practice putting green. This completely non-athletic part of the game
accounts for about two strokes on every hole, which is half of the four strokes
allowed for par on the average hole.
Putting is the part of the game that most serious golfers practice the
least, and it shouldn’t take long for a beginner to get as good as the average
golfer.
Millions of words have been written and published about
PUTTING … most of them not very helpful.
I’m going to try to keep it simple.
Accuracy is the
most important thing in golf, and it can be further divided into direction and distance. In order to get consistent accuracy, we must “let the
club do the work” with the least possible interference. If there were some way to suspend the club
from its end, like a pendulum, we could pull it back a few inches and let
gravity swing it forward, we would have a perfect stroke. Both direction and distance would be
completely controlled by the backstroke.
Keeping the striking face perpendicular to the line of the backstroke
would be our only other requirement.
Incidentally, our imaginary pendulum would swing exactly as far forward
as we pulled it backward (if some of its momentum were not absorbed by the
ball).
It should be obvious that the swing should be along the
line you want the ball to go, but how far should the clubhead go back and forward? A good starting point is an inch for every
foot you want the ball to travel. Up
hill, or with taller or wetter grass, it will take more. “Real golfers” practice on the putting green
before they go to the first tee, and then adjust the number of inches-of-backswing
per foot-of-travel as they learn what works out on the golf course. This only works if you let gravity pull the
clubhead back through center, and don’t put any effort into the swing.
Our real problem is to develop a consistent way to stand and hold the club so that our bodies become a nearly perfect device for holding a pendulum. Most golf teachers agree that our wrists are not the best place for the imaginary hinge. Somewhere near the neck seems to be the best place for the axis, with the club, hands, and arms forming a Y-shape that never changes during the putting stroke.
Figure 1 - Y formed by arms and club rotating around neck
You will know you have a stroke worth keeping when you
can pick any spot on the carpet and hit five balls to within a few inches of
each other, every time.
Perfection (outdoors)
means playing on the practice green with only one ball, and never taking more
than two strokes to get it in the next hole.
Putting is also the part of the game where the whole group is close
together and watching every stroke. A
little skill here goes a long way.
Puttting outdoors also
means putting on a green that is not level like a carpet indoors. A green has to have a little slope just to
shed rain water. They are usually built
with much more slope to make the game more interesting. After you learn to get the ball to travel the
right distance, your next challenge is to learn to aim for a spot uphill from
the cup far enough to let gravity bend the path into the cup. Most beginners don’t aim high enough.
Refined Putting
Earlier
I said that about an inch of
backswing for every foot you
want to ball to roll is a good start.
It will usually keep a beginner’s ball from rolling way past the hole. I did a test with a club hanging from a real
pendulum, pulling the club back gently with two fingers and carefully letting
it swing through the ball. The results
showed that it took an inch of backswing plus
about nine inches. For twenty
feet of roll, I needed 20 + 9 = 29
inches of backswing. Ten feet of roll
required 10 + 9 = 19 inches.
Even
this refined rule is seldom exactly right.
If the grass is short and dry, it will be too much. If the grass is wet, it will not be
enough. Up hill putts take a lot more
backswing.
Down
hill putts are almost impossible to estimate.
Once a ball starts rolling down hill, it seems to go on forever. There is only one sure way to handle downhill
putts, and that is to avoid them. Plan
for your chip, or your next-to-last putt, to leave the ball down hill from the
cup, so your last putt will be up hill.
Another
priceless refinement is to always aim for a spot 17 inches past the hole. This comes from Dave Pelz. He gives some elaborate reasons for this rule,
but there is one simple reason. If your aim is perfect, but the ball stops
short of the hole, it never had a chance to go in. If it is rolling on the perfect line, but
just a tiny bit too fast, it will fall as it tries to go over the hole. If it stops within 17 inches of the hole,
your next putt is almost a lead-pipe cinch.
Good Chipping Makes Putting Easy
If
hours and hours on the practice putting green gets just TOO boring, and it
will, chipping is another non-athletic part of the game that serious golfers
seldom practice. Pick any iron, (a
five-iron works fine). Start from just
off the green, and practice little, short, pendulum strokes, trying to get a
ball close to any hole on the putting green from 20 or 30 feet away. Perfection would be getting the ball to stop
three feet from the hole, where a single putt would be a real possibility.
When
30-foot chips get too easy, try them from 50 and 70 feet. Perfection at these longer ranges requires
stopping the ball in circles 5 and 7 feet from the hole, where one putt is a
distinct possibility and two putts is almost a cinch. Notice that the standard error should be ten
per cent of the original distance.
Nobody
plays that well all the time. It may
seem that way on television, but the editors broadcast mostly the spectacular
shots. Research shows that good golfers
get only half of their shots into a circle with a radius of ten per cent of the
starting distance. That number shrinks
to seven or eight per cent for golfers without regular jobs who can make
millions of dollars a year, playing golf full time.
Here’s
how you can do it.
Notice at the address the
left arm and the club shaft form an almost straight line, and they stay that
way all through the backswing and follow-through for a short chip.
Notice the feet are closer
together, because there is no need for any effort.
Notice the ball is
positioned to the right of the right little toe, to give the clubhead a chance
to hit the ball before it hits the ground.
Notice
that all the action is rotation
around the golfer’s neck. His head and
all the rest of his body does not move.
Only his arms and shoulders make an effortless swing.
For 20 yards (60 feet), a
60-inch backswing takes the clubhead to about
This is about as far as you can
go while keeping the left arm in line with the shaft. The backswing goes to the
When the backswing carries
the clubhead past 8 o’clock it’s no longer possible to keep the left arm in
line with the shaft, but still the swing should be effortless, with the extra distance generated by the arms and
club falling from a greater height.
More Clubs???
Two
clubs are plenty for a beginner. When
the serious golfers see how high, straight, and pretty your shots go with a
five iron, they will insist that you try one of their woods, but it will
probably be a disappointment to everybody.
Just continue to start from the most forward tees, and be happy to see
every shot go high and pretty and land in the middle of the fairway. Your scores may not be anything special, but
they might be almost as good as those of the slugger who knocks the balls out
of sight and then spends the next five minutes looking for them in the tall
grass.
This
paper started with the least athletic of all the strokes in golf¾ that final two-foot putt. Then,
working backward from the hole toward the tee, we suggested some easy outdoor
exercise where you have time to practice the unglamorous parts of golf that
contribute so much to low scores.
If you have really made any improvement in your putting
and chipping during this period, you will have made a major discovery about the
rest of golf. Trying hard almost always makes things worse. If you can make a smooth, graceful swing, and
always contact the ball in the center of the club face, you can depend on a
high, straight and pretty shot that will be easy to find and easy to play for
the next shot. Hitting harder might
make the ball go a little farther, but only if you can keep the extra
effort from fouling up the smooth swing and the perfect contact with the ball.
The
EFFORTLESS SWING seems to be the hardest
thing to teach a golfer. Here’s
something to keep in mind before every shot:
We want a N. E. A.
T. swing.
Those letters stand for “NO EFFORT AYE TALL”.
That’s bad English for everybody but a
The sNEaD Training Club
Several years ago, when I was still a youngster in my
late sixties, and two of my favorite golfing buddies were still alive, we
discovered that two clubs, a five iron and a putter, were all we needed to have
FUN on a golf course. Then we heard
about a professional golfer who played right-handed until he got his ball on
the green, and then putted left-handed.
That led to another invention. I
put a light-weight plastic putting face on the backs of our five-irons, so we
didn’t need any extra clubs at all. One
club did everything, driving, chipping and putting. We could also use it for a cane, a snake
killer, and a dog intimidator. We called
the new club a MUTTER, because it had a MASHIE (or five-iron) on the front and
a PUTTER on the back. We made some
bigger ones from cast aluminum, giving us a bigger sweet spot. One of my lady
golfing friends decided to call hers a PASHIE, still combining the words mashie
and putter, but with a nicer connotation.
The latest version of this is bigger, heavier, and longer
with a special grip that helps a beginner get all his fingers in the right
position. It also helps a beginner
develop the effortless swing that eliminates the little twitches that foul up a
smooth swing when we try to get more distance by trying harder.
A long, heavy club is hard for a woman or an old man to
hold steady at the
It seems to work, and one club, just a little bit bigger
and heavier, is still a lot less to carry than fourteen clubs and a bag.
How Far and How Much
Backswing?
The rules allow a golfer (or his caddy) to pace off the
distance to the cup, but this takes time, and we don’t want to slow up the
serious golfers. You can buy optical or
electronic range finders, but they are not allowed in a serious game. Here is a trick that most serious golfers
have never heard of, and there is no rule against it. You just hold your hand out at arm’s length
and compare the apparent height of the flag stick with the width of your
fingers and the height of your thumb.
30
feet 75 100
150 300 feet
10
yards 25 33 50
100 yards
SEEN FROM ARM’S LENGTH
If the flag stick appears to be as high as your thumb,
you can probably get the ball close to the cup with a
If it appears as high as four fingers, it may take an
Three fingers might call for
If it only appears as high as your little finger or less,
you might as well use your full swing.
100 yards is just about all a beginner can expect from an effortless
swing.
Wrapping it Up
That’s about all there is to GOLF FOR FUN. If you master everything on these few pages,
you will be good company on a golf course.
You will not be knocking balls out of sight, but most of them will land
in the fairway where they will be easy to find.
You will never need to count all your strokes. Serious golfers always know how many strokes
the other players hit. If anyone asks
for your score on that last hole, just tell them you weren’t counting. You are only here for the exercise and the
good company.