I’ve been in Virginia for the past few days, working on business planning and playing golf every day with my EIDOLON partner and close friend, Ralph Thompson. Joining us the past weekend was another friend and business associate, Jack Glasure, a PR guy from North Carolina. Today, we’re going to talk about Jack.

He’s 50, a natural athlete, and has just recently been bitten by the golf bug . . . hard, I might add. But he’s frustrated that it doesn’t come as easily as he would imagine. I’ve become Jack’s personal coach.

We spent hours talking about golf and swing technique, from the grip to positions at impact, to conceptual aspects of the game and swing that guide you to learning faster and more accurately.

But this article is about the difference between learning and practice.

Learning and practice are not the same thing, but two very different aspects of getting better at this game.  The learning part is that process of becoming aware of and understanding new thought and process, the internalizing of that knowledge, and the application of it to your swing and game. The practice part of the equation is the ingraining of that knowledge – after it is learned – so that it becomes second-nature.

Let’s start with learning.

Making progress in your golf through swing changes, whether it is something as simple as a grip alteration or modification to your set up position, or as complex a new positions and moves in the swing, requires first that you clearly learn the new stuff.

Only after it’s learned can you begin to practice it so that it becomes ingrained. Let’s talk about a swing change to illustrate this.

If you’re trying to learn and perfect an improved path of your hands through impact, for example, the first step is to learn it. That means starting with stop-action posing in the positions so that your muscles and mind can absorb your new objectives. You can then progress to slow motion swings that allow you the time and coordination to feel the muscles finding these new positions and producing this new coordinated motion through them.

As your body begins to get familiar with this new muscle activity, you can gradually speed up the moves with your attention focused on making sure that you are performing as you were taught. THE GOLF BALL IS NOT PART OF THIS PROCESS !!

Once you get familiar with the new muscle activity, you can begin making practice swings at half speed, then ¾ speed, and finally full speed, all the time analyzing whether or not you are achieving your objectives of the new moves. This is the first stage of the practice process.

Only after you feel like you can really repeat the swing motion with your new method do you begin to put it into practice with a golf ball in the way. And even then, you should make your swings at half or ¾ speed so that you can concentrate on making the new swing – not hitting the ball.

The practice element of the process begins after the learning process is nearly complete. Practice allows you to ingrain this new learning so that it becomes the new habit. And to make your golf ball practice most effective, make several practice swings for each ball you try to hit.

I hope all this makes sense. Separate the learning from the practice, and get them in the proper sequence, and this game will get a great deal easier.

As always, share your thoughts and experiences with all of us, OK?

One of the most interesting things about golf to me is that you never learn it all, and in fact, you never stop having to “re-learn” what you already know.

I had a great “refresher course” a few days ago in our regular Sunday afternoon game. Even though I write about playing better golf weekly, and do my podcast on GolfSmarterTips.com, I, like you, go astray more often than I’d like.

The best player at our club is a dentist, Mark Spivey. Mark is a scratch player, and has one of the best short games I’ve ever seen in an amateur. And he makes everything with the putter. He reads our difficult greens perfectly, it seems, so anytime he is over a putt of any length, he has no doubt in his mind at all that he knows exactly where to start his ball, and what pace it needs to have on it to take the roll he envisions. And he makes lots of putts of all lengths.

Mark is also very tall – 6’4”, I think – so he always has his arms nice and relaxed, hanging naturally and extended from his shoulders.

Well, I’ve been struggling with putting lately, and have apparently not been reading my own stuff. But once you get in these struggles, sometimes it takes an “ah ha moment” to register what you are doing. As I watched Mark knock in another clutch six footer on the last hole, it hit me – he is so naturally “extended” and relaxed over the ball, making a simple and clean back-and-through stroke is almost automatic.

I had already putted out, but walked over and hit some putts after we finished, just focusing on allowing my arms to hang naturally – emulating Mark as best I could.

It was like a magical transformation.

What I had apparently allowed to happen over the past few rounds, when I wasn’t putting all that well, was to begin bending over more and more at the waist/hips, causing me to have to “bunch up” my arms and lose that natural swinging stroke that is so easy to repeat from hole to hole. After noticing this with Mark’s last-hole putt, I straightened up a bit, allowed my arms to hang naturally from my shoulders and just began rolling putts right where I was looking again.

I share this with you for two main reasons. First, in the words of John Madden, “you never ‘get’ golf”.  It’s a constant pattern of being “on” and being “off”.

When you are on, enjoy it, but when you are off, get reflective in your own game and try to determine what you are doing differently than when you were playing better.

Secondly, when you are playing, closely watch those other players who are “on”, and see if you can determine things they’re doing right.

Watch their tempo, their demeanor and how they are approaching and executing their shots. Whether you play with low handicap players or buddies of your own skill level, someone will be playing well, and you can learn by observing what they are doing right that day.

As always, please chime in with your thoughts on this subject.

This is kind of a continuation of my last post, where I was talking about seeing something in my golf buddy’s putting set up that triggered the light bulb to go off in my own head about my putting set up. The title of this post, by the way, is the name of that old song that both Buck Owens and The Beatles recorded way back when.

Anyway, I’m a big proponent of allowing the “natural order of things” to be relied on as much as possible in the golf swing, whether it’s a putt or drive . . . and all shots in between. One of those “natural” fundamentals I strongly believe in is that the arms need to hang comfortably and “naturally” from the shoulders at address, and that they can be more reliable passing back through that natural position as you swing through impact.

Think about it this way:

If you set up to a putt, chip, pitch or full shot with your arms – particularly your left arm – hanging naturally from your shoulder, your body is being “manipulated” to the minimum degree. It would make sense, then, that returning your arms/hands to and through this “natural” position as you stroke a putt or chip, or swing the club back and through, would be easier to accomplish with consistency.

Contrast that with an address position that puts your arms and hands in a “manufactured” position, someplace away from your body. Doesn’t it make sense that it would be much more difficult, first, to start in that exact same “manufactured” place from shot to shot with any degree of consistency ?

And that it will also be much more difficult for your body to turn backward and move your arms away from the ball . . . and then return them precisely to that same “manufactured” position as you swing through impact ?

Try this with your putting first, right there in your home or office if you want. Stand comfortably and bend over from the hips/waist into your putting posture. Hold the putter lightly in your right hand at address, and just let your left arm hang naturally from your shoulder.

Then just allow the putter grip to nestle gently into your left hand. It should take very little movement of your hand to achieve this, but you will probably find that your hand is further down on the putter grip when you do.

Don’t worry about that for now, but then just make some simple, slow and smooth strokes in this relaxed position and see if it doesn’t seem easier.

This same natural position is the key to a sound chipping and pitching technique I’m also convinced, so pick up a wedge and see if it doesn’t feel a little easier, too.

Of course, there’s no way I can give anyone a “lesson” here, but I’ll always try to share things with you that I think can help you continue to improve and score better.

And as always, let me know if this tip does that for you.

After almost two years of research, notifications to manufacturers, collection of comments and a strange period of silence, the USGA has finally issued its official “Notice to Manufacturers” regarding new groove regulations. I’ve written on this subject before, but now the USGA has issued the final ruling.

You’ll be reading a lot on this in the days and weeks ahead, but let me try to make very clear exactly what the ruling is, and how it probably won’t affect you at all !

The USGA stated as their intent to follow their “Statement of Principles”, which said in May of 2002, “the purpose of the Rules is ‘to prevent an over-reliance on technological advances rather than skill and to ensure that skill is the dominant element in determining success throughout the game.”

Their Notice to Manufacturers that I received yesterday stated, “The objective of this change is to limit the effectiveness of grooves on shots from the rough to the effect of the traditional V-groove design, without mandating the use of only V-grooves.”

I should note that the new rule doesn’t only apply to wedges, but to all clubs with 24 degrees of loft or more.

So, here’s the gist of the USGA’s new rule:

We as manufacturers have the same restriction as always on the width, depth and spacing of grooves. What has been added are two caveats:

1) Grooves will have to have a slight radius on the edges, which is currently not required

2) There is a new formula regarding the groove area cross-section as it relates to the spacing of the grooves

We’re talking hundreds of thousandths of inches here, and it may or may not require some manufacturers to actually change their geometry. In EIDOLON’s case, our grooves are within thousands of a millimeter of conforming, so our production engineers will have to see what alterations we might have to make to conform. We will have to add the required radius to the edges of our grooves however.

But the big question is . . .

Will YOU Have To Play Conforming Wedges ?

Read this carefully, because this is the question on every average golfer’s mind.

The USGA says this: “A Condition of Competition requiring the use of clubs that conform to the new groove rules for competitions conducted after January 1, 2010 will be added to the USGA Rules of Golf. THE USGA recommends that this Condition initially apply only to competitions involving expert professional players at the highest level of competition. (emphasis mine).

The Notice goes on to explain how it will roll out the Condition of Competition in its own events;

1) The U.S. Open, U.S. Women’s Open and U.S. Senior Open will adopt the new groove regulation on January 1, 2010

2) All other USGA championships will apply the Condition on January 1, 2014 ( that’s five years away ! )

And the answer to your big question:

“Currently conforming clubs . . . may continue to be used in all situations where the Condition of Competition is not in effect until at least 2024.”

So What Does This Mean To You ?

The USGA hasn’t been elusive about their goal – to make it more important for tour players to hit the ball in the fairway. For the rest of us, this is really a non-issue.

1) If you are a professional golfer on one of the top tours, or if you plan to try to qualify for one of the three Open Championships, you’ll need new conforming wedges by January 1, 2010.

2) If you plan to qualify for any other USGA championship, you’ll need new conforming wedges by 2014. This might include the top amateur events in the nation as well.

3) If you don’t play those specific events, you are good to go until at least 2024.

I invite you to ask any questions and present any dialog on this that you want, but the rule is written now.

EIDOLON will begin testing various configurations of grooves and spacing so that we will continue to provide you with the highest-spinning, conforming wedges in the game, as we do now.

Even though I’m writing a book on putting ( “ The Natural Approach To Better Putting “ – hopefully out next spring), my own putting had been disappointing lately. So, like I always do when I have an issue with my game, I analyzed it and began working on it.

The problem was that on the putting green, I was very consistent on short putts of ten feet or less. I could just roll another ball over and drain them one after another. But on the course, I was just not getting it done. Not terrible, mind you, but leaving too many strokes out there.

My first instinct was that my set up was inconsistent.

And I was right. If you start each putt . . . or any shot . . . from an inconsistent relationship with the ball, your chances of repeating a functional and effective stroke or swing are pretty slim.

In my case, what I found was that sometimes I was just not comfortable over the ball, and a bad putt resulted. When I felt good, I usually made the putt.

Hmmmmmmmm.

So, on my practice putting track in the spare bedroom, I began stroking 6-7 foot putts until I found a position of my hands that produced comfort and repeating results. Then I had to find a way of duplicating that set up every time.

In my case, I found that if I lined up the putter head at the hole with only my right hand on the grip, I could put my left hand in a light fist, just like I was holding a club, and place the heel of my left hand right in my left groin.

The grip made flush contact with the top of my thumb. I could rest the putter there, take a very precise look at the putter head alignment, then, holding the putter lightly in my right, just smoothly move my left hand to the putter grip.

With one more long look at the hole, I can move right into my stroke. This little routine begins with precise alignment of the putter head, and then gives me a consistent guide as to where my body needs to be to make the right stroke. It allows me to have my hands in exactly the same place with the beginning of each stroke.

I practiced this alignment drill at home for a few days, then took it to the course – the results were dramatic. I was much more consistent on my putts, made many more than I had been, and my misses were due to misreads, not poor strokes.

The other thing I like about this little routine is that it fully engages my mind (which tends to wander) on the putt at hand.

Now, I’m not saying that my putting routine and set up are right for any of you, but if you’re not having the consistency you want in your putting, it just might not be your stroke, but rather the consistency of your set up.

Here’s how to find out:

Go to the putting green (or on your carpet) and begin stroking putts of 6 feet or so. When you get in a groove, take some time to really understand your set up position.

Find a way to “build” that setup with repeatability. It all starts with putter head alignment. Then find a “measuring device” to make sure you begin in the same posture and ball position each time.

Maybe it’s a distance from your belt buckle to the top of the grip; or maybe a fist with thumb extended from your left thigh . . . could be anything, or any method that ensures you are set up the same each time you get over a putt.

I hope this made sense, because I can practically guarantee that getting consistent in your putting set up will pay off big time.

As always, I’d sure like to hear your feedback if you try this.

In my last post, I wrote about my EIDOLON partner, Ralph Thompson, so he’s going to stick around as my subject today, too.

Ralph and I have played lots of golf together over the past 15 years, and he’s always trying to hit the ball further, as most of us do. So he tinkers with equipment and his swing, in that search for more.

We should all realize that hitting the ball far is the result of many things, and we all have our differences.  I’m pretty long for a 5’7” 56-year-old guy, because I was blessed with good instruction as a kid, and God gave me broad shoulders and good strength. I also work at it . . . a lot.

But the real key to my distance is that I hit the ball very solidly most of the time, and my fundamentals are sound – good timing of all the body parts.

What I see in most amateurs who don’t hit it as far as they should is that they try to hit harder and harder with their arms and hands, and they totally lose the power from their body core. What I work on with Ralph, and many other players, is to get the upper legs, back and shoulders fully “loaded” in the backswing, and then turning them ahead of the arms, hands and club as you come through impact.

Here’s an example:

How many times have you tried to hit an “easy” iron into a green and just “nuked” it ?

Happens more often than not, right ?

The reason for that is because you knew you didn’t need to hit it “full”, you slowed down your arm swing, which then allowed your body core to stay ahead. What you got was a shot hit with much less effort, but one that went as far as your “hard ones”.

And, probably more often than not, you got much more solid impact and better trajectory because you allowed everything to happen in sequence.

In contrast, how many times have you tried to “get on it” a little (or a lot) and end up short of the green, either because you mishit the shot or ballooned the trajectory ?

Both of those are the result of getting your arms and hands overly involved, and letting your body core lose all its power.

So, as an experiment . . . and a challenge to you . . . . go play a few holes at your course with the goal of swinging at what feels like 80% … no more.

Watch what happens to your driving distance and accuracy, and your iron play.

I’ll bet your 80% swing produces almost the same, if not more, distance than you get from your “full swing”.

And that will blow your mind.

Last week my partner in EIDOLON, Ralph Thompson, came down to Texas for a few days of business planning and lots of golf, as we always do.

Ralph’s a 12-15 handicap player, and is more determined to improve than anyone I’ve ever known. But he’s a tinkerer, both in equipment and his swing. As his personal “guru”, when we get together, I first have to “undo” the junk, then we can work on his game.

Ralph’s biggest challenge is distance, and he fights the tendency to take the club too far back in an attempt to hit it further. So we talked about his new backswing and impact positions over a glass (or more !) of wine one night, and headed to the range the next morning. We worked on these basics again, and then he began pounding balls while I was in the cart doing a radio show by phone with a Houston station. Watching him get frustrated, but being focused on my interview, I waved at him to stop and rest til I was through.

When I finished, I explained that learning new positions and moves in the golf swing require lots of “re-training” of muscles and mind. And pounding golf balls isn’t the answer.

When you’re trying to learn something new, work slower and more deliberately. You should not be hitting more than one ball every couple of minutes. The time between shots should be spent rehearsing these new positions and moves you’re trying to build into your swing.

Work in slow motion, stop and pose in various positions to give your body a chance to learn these new things.

Each swing at a ball is only a “test” of the learning process, not the process itself. And the objective is not to hit a good shot, but to swing with the new moves and see what happens.

And take a tip from Tiger, who has successfully rebuilt his swing at least twice. He wrote that he practices at 50% clubhead speed when he’s trying to learn something new. He mentioned in this particular article I read that he works on swing changes while hitting 7-irons 130 yards !

This, he said, gives his body time to incorporate the changes and allows he and his coach to feel and see more accurately what he is doing – right AND wrong.

And be patient. Learning is not a one-session thing. If you’re trying to learn new things in your golf, practice at home, in your office, in your mind. And THEN take it to an actual golf ball.

I’d love to hear from those of you who’ve made significant swing changes. Please share your experiences, ideas and successes with all the rest of us who are always trying.

Here’s a follow-up to the post I wrote on comparing your game and scoring to the PGA Tour players. We talked about how the best in the world only hit 70% of the fairways and 65% of the greens, but they are excellent in sand saves and putting. Here’s some more condensed stats to chew on as you work to refine your short game.

Corey Pavin leads the tour in scrambling this year, saving par 66.76% of the time when he misses a green. But the others aren’t far behind him. The #50 player is still saving par almost 60% of the time, and all the way down to #125 finds a scrambling percentage over 56%. So, the lesson here is that these guys are practicing their short games a great deal so that they still make pars when they miss greens. And they are playing tough courses with fast and firm greens most of the time.

My suggestion for you is to keep a score sheet when you play, and see how you do when you miss greens. It doesn’t matter what your handicap, I’ll bet you’ll quickly see that this is where you can shave some strokes in a hurry.

Moving along with these tour stats, let’s examine putting. We talked about how these guys hit only 12-13 greens a round on average, and the above stats would indicate they are making 2-3 bogeys, but saving par on the others. But look at what they do when they have birdie putts. Bob Tway leads the tour this year with a 32.13% conversion rate – he’s making almost 1 out of every 3 birdie putts he has ! That’s remarkable. I had a solid ball-striking round yesterday and converted one of 10. Guess I need to work on putting more, huh ?

Behind Tway, the number 50 player converts at a 28% clip, and #125 still is at 26+%. So, even the #125 guy on tour converts his birdie attempts at better than 1 for 4 !

And on total putts, the tour leader is Luke Donald at 27.67 per round, with the #50 spot being 28.84, and the #125 spot at 29.40. Less than two putts difference between the tour leader and the #125 player !

My point to all this writing about tour stats is this: Keep track not just of your scores, but how you get to each one. Note your putting stats and your scrambling stats, and you’ll quickly see a very clear road map to where you can improve in a hurry. It will not take hours and hours of practice to improve your short game dramatically. Just give your short game and putting ½ of your practice time and your handicap will improve quickly.

As you probably know, I recently began a weekly Short Game podcast series on GolfSmarterTips.com, where each week we discuss an aspect of the short game, and answer questions from listeners. If you haven’t tuned in yet, please do, and send me your short game questions to be considered on the show.

One question that has come up already a few times is something like this:

“When I lay up on par fives and have a 30-50 yard pitch shot, I have a problem spinning the ball enough to make it stop”, or “I have a problem controlling my distance. What can I do ?”

My answer to these is always the same, and it’s kind of like the old joke where the guy goes to the doctor and says, “Hey Doc, it hurts when I do this”, to which the doctor replies, “Then stop doing it.”

The mid-range or “half wedge” is one of the hardest shots in all of golf to hit to your expectations. You can practice and practice all you want, but each one is slightly different so it will be hard to groove it to the precision you expect. I strongly suggest the alternative – playing to your full swing wedge distances when you are facing a short par four or hitting your second on a par five.

Last year I wrote about Zach Johnson’s strategy coming into The Masters, where he determined beforehand he would not try to hit any of the par fives in two.

But did he hit his second shots as close to the green as he could ? No.

He laid up precisely to his full lob or sand wedge distance so that he could hit full swing shots, achieving maximum distance control and optimum spin. That let him play the par fives better than any other golfer in the field, and win the green jacket.

For each of us, we should have our “comfort zone” swing with each of our wedges, which produces pretty reliable yardage nearly every time. And with my SCoR (Shot Control Routine) Method for hitting the in-between shots, we should be able to “dial in” the correct yardage by gripping down on the club a precise amount.

That’s why I’m a fan of carrying a full complement of scoring clubs. In my own game, for example, from anywhere between 70 and 117 yards, I know that I can make a comfortable full swing and hit most of my shots within 4-5 yards (only 15 feet or so) of my desired distance, by choosing the right wedge and gripping it precisely in the right place on the grip. And it only took me a couple of hours one day to build my wedge distance chart.

112 yards to the flag ? Grip down the PW ½” and swing away.

101 yards ? Full swing Gap Wedge.

80 yards ? Sand Wedge gripped down 1 inch.

You can build your short game the same way. First, develop your “comfort swing” with your wedges. I suggest that is about an 80% power swing to produce consistent distance and trajectory.

Then learn how many yards it takes off when you grip down ½” and 1”. That gives you three precise distances with each wedge.

If you carry four, like I do, that means I can hit the ball – with reasonable confidence – twelve different distances with the same swing !

I go into this process in great detail in my book, “The SCoR Method – A Simple Way to Achieve Precision in Your Short Game.” We include a complimentary copy with each EIDOLON order and sell the book on our website. Click here to read more about The SCoR Method.

Sorry, I didn’t intend this to be a sales pitch for my book, only a suggestion that the best way to master the dreaded “half wedge” is to not give yourself any more of them than you have to. Learn your comfortable full-swing distances with your wedges, dissect them even more with precise hand placement, and play to those yardages. You’ll see immediate results.

In yesterday’s paper, a sidebar column listed the statistic top ten in various categories from the PGA Tour, Champions Tour and LPGA Tour. As I looked these over, the variances from tour to tour in certain categories really stood out for me. So I thought I’d offer my observations and toss this out to you all for dialog and comment.

First of all, can you really “beat the course” from tee to green ? Most golfers spend the bulk of their practice time on long shots . . . full swings. I always offer that you should allocate a significant portion of that time to your short game and putting. Compare your objectives to the best players in the world.

The #10 PGA Tour player hits 73% of the fairways. That’s 10 times in the 14 holes that are not par threes. On the Champions Tour, the #10 spot is also right at 73%, with the LPGA Tour the #10 spot at 78%.

So, if the best players in the world only hit it in the fairway 7 out of 10 times, what should your expectations be ? 50% ? 35% ? What do you all think ?

In the Greens in Regulation category, the #10 PGA Tour player is at 68%. Just over 12 greens per round ! So, these guys can hit 11-12 greens per round and shoot scores that average 70 or so – what does that tell you about their short games ? On the Champions Tour and LPGA Tour, the GIR numbers are almost identical, but look at the scores these players are shooting !

Maybe the Sand Saves category is most revealing as to where they spend a great amount of their practice time. Up-and-down percentage from the bunker of the #10 spot is 61% on the PGA Tour, 54% on the LPGA Tour and Champions Tour. What’s your percentage ?

I challenge all of you to keep track of your rounds for a few weeks, analyze them. Of key importance are your fairways and greens stats, but really focus on your short game performance. Analyze your average putt length after a chip or pitch of 50 yards or less, and how many times you took more than three shots to get up and down from that range – those are completely thrown away shots that you can get back quickly with just a little short game practice.

Share your numbers and experience with us here over the next few weeks, OK ?