Golf Tips - The Proper Golf Grip II

The golf swing is such a finicky thing. One day you may be striping the ball as pure as Adam Scott and the very next day you may be $hanking it like a rank beginner. WTF? Since the golf swing requires so much precision, the reason is often a breakdown of swing fundamentals. Even an infinitesimally small change can throw a monkey wrench into a golfer's swing. The fact that these changes are frequently unnoticed by the afflicted golfer in turn leads to disbelief and frustration.

I think that the most important, but also the most overlooked fundamental is the grip. I've already posted Butch Harmon's proper grip technique, but I recently came across another excellent video on the topic below. It covers some important elements that Butch does not. After viewing and fully understanding both of these videos, there's no excuse for not gripping the golf club correctly every time!

Yelling "Mashed Potatoes"?!

The term "polite golf clap" arose from the type of applause that golf fans traditionally showered onto golfers during a live tournament. It was a light clapping of the hands meant to show appreciation for a golfer's shot while at the same time not disrupting the quiet serenity thought to be needed for the golfers to play at their best. However, "polite golf clapping" is being increasingly drowned out by "rude golf yelling".

All the way up through the Hogan era, anything louder than a light applause was considered verboten on the golf course. With the emergence of Arnie's Army and Jack Nicklaus, respectful cheers were added to the mix. But the floodgates really opened up when Tiger Woods grabbed the torch from Jack. He seemed to attract a much broader audience and that audience brought a different element to the golf course. Words shouted from the gallery began being heard distinctly within television broadcasts. It started with words of encouragement such as "get in the hole!" and "be the ball!". Soon yelling "you da man!" became the hip thing to do after every golf shot. That remained the norm for a good decade or so.

However, over the last year, yelling utter nonsense has reigned supreme. Sometimes it's an inside joke. For example, "Baba Booey!" is a calling card for shockjock Howard Stern fans and it's often heard after Stern superfan Keegan Bradley hits a shot. But more times than not, there are yells that make no sense whatsoever. One that keeps cropping up is "mashed potatoes". WTF? Why the heck would someone yell that at a golf course, let alone anywhere for that matter? At first I thought that it must refer to some creative marketing campaign. But I looked all over the Internet and found zilch. Maybe the yeller believes he is yelling something creative, witty or funny? For the life of me I can see none of those qualities in "mashed potatoes". After thinking about it for far too long, I've concluded that the only logical reason for someone yelling "mashed potatoes" is that they are a potato farmer trying to boost demand for his crop. Nothing else makes sense! Listen to it for yourself and let us know your theories:

Bubba Watson & Co. Rules!

First there was New Kids on the Block in the 80s. Their inexplicable success spawned a flood of "boy bands" including the Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC, O-Town, and 98 Degrees. But musical tastes changed and the boy band phenomenon faded.

That is, until Ben Crane, Bubba Watson, Rickie Fowler, & Hunter Mahan formed the "Golf Boys". Check out their newly released video for their soon-to-be-#1 song, "Oh Oh Oh":



How awesome is that? These guys must be truly cool cats to appear in such a hilarious video. Bubba might have choked away the Deutsche Bank Championship last week, but he is still a winner in my book!

Joey Chestnut is the Tiger Woods of Eating!

I hope that everyone had a great 4th of July weekend. One of the great recent traditions of the celebration of America's independence is Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest. The excitement this year surrounded Joey "Jaws" Chestnut's title defense. He is ranked #1 in the world by the International Federation of Competitive Eating. Joey plowed through 62 hot dogs in 10 minutes to win by a Tigeresque margin of victory of nine over his closest competitor, Patrick Bertoletti. Check out the event below:



It was Chestnut's fifth-consecutive championship earning him $10,000 and the coveted mustard yellow championship belt. Hmmm...I guess the real lesson here is that if you're going to dominate an individual sport, do it in golf rather than eating. Also, I'm pretty sure that the groupies aren't as hot on the hot dog eating circuit as it is in golf.

Jerry Kelly is No Welcher!

The average golf fan doesn't know much about Jerry Kelly. He's a low-key kind of guy with a likeable demeanor. But after finding out he made good on a Rose Bowl bet with J.J. Henry, his cool guy status was firmly cemented in my mind. He actually teed off during the Crowne Plaza Invitational pro-am at Colonial Country Club in a full SuperFrog Horned Frog mascot costume! Check out the video for proof.

How To Shoot a Double Snowman!

All golfers have had their fair share of blowup holes. You know, the kind of holes where absolutely nothing goes right and you just want to chuck your clubs into the nearest dumpster and take up a rational sport. Once we've regained our composure, we find that the stroke tallies on such holes are simply abominable. If it happens to be an eight, it is affectionately called a "Snowman" because the number "8" resembles that ubiquitous man-made winter creation. It truly gives new meaning to the creature known as "The Abominable Snowman"!

But even more frightful is the dreaded "Double Snowman". That is the term for a 16 because it is composed of two snowmen added together (8+8). It is so rare that it has never been captured on camera. That is, until now. Luckily the Golf Channel was there when it was spotted on the the ninth hole at the TPC San Antonio during last week's Valero Texas Open. Kevin Na was the unfortunate sap to shoot this terror of the links. Watch it below whenever you feel down about your next inevitable blowup hole. In some ways, it can be considered a feel-good horror movie!

Golf Gods Strike Mickelson?

During the final round of the 2010 Masters, a strange thing happened to FIGJAM Phil. On the par-5 second hole, Mickelson rolled a birdie putt on the perfect line to the hole. But just as he putt, a piece of debris landed directly on the line and threw the ball off course.

Coincidence? I think not. The announcers claim it came from a pine tree, but there wasn't a tree within 100 yards of the hole and the wind was calm. I think that the Golf Gods were watching from above and dropped a morsel from their party mix onto the green. Whether it was by accident or intentional, it certainly came from those heavenly arbiters of the game! Regardless, it's just further evidence of their existence.

See it for yourself:



But in the end, the Golf Gods struck down Tiger for his Philandering ways by letting his arch-nemesis win his favorite major.

Tiger Woods Rumors Lure the Tabloids to Golf...

The tabloid media has grown in prominence dramatically over the last several years. Gossip around the private lives of celebrities has overtaken actually substantive topics across America's water coolers. Nothing is more telling than the simultaneous explosive growth of TMZ and PerezHilton.com in contrast with the near bankruptcies being faced by legitimate news stalwarts such as the New York Times.

But golf has seemed to be immune to this tabloid pandemic. Unfortunately, Tiger Woods' enormous popularity placed him under its greasy microscope. All it took was something minutely unusual in the petri dish for them to pounce. That indeed occurred over Thanksgiving when Tiger drove his Caddy around like a carnival bumper car with his wife going all Nicholson on it (let's just hope it wasn't with his priceless Scotty Cameron putter!). Like a herd of great whites drawn to a drop of blood, the media descended upon Tiger's Isleworth sanctuary with dollar signs in their eyes. Could this be evidence of a domestic issue?!

So friggin' what? A couple of years ago on my Bandon Dunes golf vacation, a friend of mine told us he knew a person close to Tiger's entourage. According to him, Tiger was quite the Casanova who was not opposed to "stepping out" and playing much more than just 18-holes. He also emphasized that it was more about quantity rather than quality. I didn't entertain the discussion because I didn't really care. Lots of people step out and it's almost a given amongst pro athletes. Big deal.

It turns out that it is a big deal to many. The Chinese have gone so far as to create a CGI re-enactment of the whole incident. Not quite Pixar, but way too polished than it should be and just another sign that the end is near (I wonder if they actually mocapped Elin swinging that club!):



But why all this attention? My guess is that people somehow build up a fanciful notion that famous people lead perfect lives. When anything surfaces to dispel these fantasies, it devastates them. It's just absurd. In the case of Tiger Woods, why should we think that he is better than us commoners at anything outside of playing golf? As a society, we need to come to the realization that all people suffer from faults. No amount of fame can make them go away. If anything, fame does the opposite. It would be naive to think otherwise. Accept it and move on. There are many more important things in the world be concerned.

To those who still think that most famous people stay on the straight and narrow, just remember that a wise man, Chris Rock, once said, "A man is only as faithful as his options." Ponder that for a minute. It's probably safe to assume that virtually all famous people are cheating. Certainly that's a better assumption for us as a whole than to deitize them if we want to put an end to the tabloid fascination. Lastly, for the record, I'm an extremely faithful guy by choice, not due to a lack of options!

P.S. Check out some of my blog friends' posts on this topic:

Hooked on Golf Blog

Mike Pederson Golf

SwingVision - Tiger Woods Driver

To commemorate Tiger Woods' return to the tour this week at the Accenture World Match Play Championship, I dug up a SwingVision video from a couple of years ago showing him hitting driver off the tee. As you can see, Tiger tees the ball low for greater control. If he teed it higher, like Vijay, he'd be able to raise his angle of attack with the driver and drive it much further. But if there's one thing Tiger doesn't lack, it's distance! Boy, I sure do miss those SwingVision close ups of ball impact, don't you?

SwingVision - Where Are the Close-ups?

The always witty David Feherty recently proclaimed CBS' SwingVision a "weapon of mass instruction." A brilliant pun, it is a great summary of the slow motion technology. It has been an invaluable tool in my never-ending quest to understand this perpetually perplexing game!

Over the years, SwingVision has evolved with advances in technology. It added color to the close-up camera, upgraded the resolution to high definition (HD) and added a mobile camera to evaluate live swings. However, I think that SwingVision has taken two steps forward and one step back. For some reason they have abandoned the close-up camera from their arsenal. Once featured every time, it is now only utilized once in a blue moon. This is highly unfortunate because it was my favorite feature. There's so much that you can learn by seeing a close-up of club-to-ball impact at 12,500 frames per second!

Here's an old SwingVision of Tiger hitting iron off the tee that shows you what I mean:



C'mon CBS, please bring back the SwingVision close-up cam!

Adam Scott: Tiger's Top Challenger?

Butch Harmon believes that one of his current pupils is best poised to take down his former star student, Tiger Woods. Who would that be, you ask? Phil Mickelson would have been a good guess. However, it's not the Joker, but the White Tiger, Adam Scott. According to ESPN, Harmon said, "He (Scott) is the only one who can challenge Tiger Woods in the next four or five years. He's the only one I see of the young players with all the things it takes to get close to Tiger Woods."

That's a pretty bold statement. IMHO, Scott just doesn't possess the short game or putting skills to put him anywhere close to Tiger. On top of that, he hasn't exhibited that "I'm gonna rip your throat out" killer instinct that is a prerequisite for all great athletes. Tiger simply owns the best mental game in golf and no one will be able to beat him on a consistent basis as long as his body holds up.

However, the current #5 player in the world does many things that rival and may even exceed that of the world's #1. In particular, Adam Scott's full swing is a thing of beauty. In fact, it's almost an exact copy of Tiger's swing, circa 2000. I think it's one of the best golf swings of all-time and I was sorry to see Tiger abandon it due to stress on his left knee. But it's really amazing to see how well Adam has copied Tiger's old swing. A while ago, I posted a video comparing the swings of Adam Scott and Tiger Woods side by side. It is one of my personal favorites and remains one of the most viewed videos on this site. Recently, I've uncovered another swing comparison video for your viewing pleasure:



It is quite apparent that Adam has copied Tiger's swing to the "tee". However, it is Tiger Wood's innate ability, intangibles and insane work ethic that will keep him well ahead of the pack over the foreseeable future. Does anyone really think otherwise?

Jackass: Golf Edition

Jackass, the wildly popular TV show and movie series, is one of my guilty pleasures. It's so stupid it's funny. It also evokes memories from my youth because Johnny Knoxville and his crew reminds me of my crazy buddies from high school.

Interestingly, Jackass has inspired a countless number of idiots to videotape their random acts of stupidity. A couple of Jackass wannabes have managed to incorporate golf into a wild stunt:



I don't know who's crazier, the human golf tee or the guy swinging the club. I know that I don't have the cojones to do either.

Watch "The Science of Golf"!

Last month there was a really cool golf TV show produced by the PGA Tour and IBM called "The Science of Golf":

"The Science of Golf will show how the best players on the PGA TOUR utilize cutting edge technology to elevate their game to the highest level," said Gil Kerr, the Tour's SVP of Programming. "We went inside the laboratories of virtually every major golf equipment manufacturer. We sat down with the best swing coaches in the game today—including Butch Harmon, Hank Haney, David Leadbetter, Jim McLean, Jim Flick and Dave Pelz—and we have combined this with the best of the PGA TOUR archives and never before seen super slow motion footage to capture how the best players in the game utilize science and technology on and off the course."

It featured a lot of great slow motion swing and ball impact sequences all in glorious HD! If you missed the original airing, you'll have another chance to watch it:

"Part 1: The Power Game" will be re-broadcast Sun., June 24th from 12:00pm - 1:00pm EST.

"Part 2: The Short Game" will be re-broadcast Sat., July 7th from 2:00pm - 3:00pm EST.

If you're a golf junkie, be sure not to miss it!

Update: "titleistman1" has posted "The Science of Golf, Part 1: The Power Game" in seven parts on YouTube. Below is the first part. Thanks titleistman1!

Michelle Wie vs. Ernie Els

It's almost en vogue these days to hate on teen golf phenom Michelle Wie. It wasn't too long ago that she was the darling of women's golf. She was supposed to be to the LPGA what Tiger has become to the PGA. Alas, a series of odd mishaps and a Kobe Bryant-esque stubborn desire to play with the big boys have dropped her popularity amongst her peers and fans alike.

It's too bad that her life is becoming stranger than fiction. But let's not forget that this girl can flat out play golf. Her golf swing is a thing of beauty. In fact, I would rate her swing among the top ten of all active players, male or female. Clearly, there's not a better better swing on the LPGA. Just check out how her swing sequence compares to arguably the best swing in golf, Ernie Els:



It's remarkable to see the similarities of their swings both in positions and tempo. But as we all know, owning the best swing doesn't amount to jack unless it is coupled with solid putting and a winning attitude. Unfortunately, Michelle has yet to demonstrate either on a consistent basis.

Tiger Woods Juggling Act, Part Deux?

Remember that cool Nike golf commercial where Tiger is bouncing a Platinum One up and down with his wedge without any of that special effects mumbo jumbo?

Well, EA Sports has an interesting take on that concept with Nintendo's virtual reality machine called the Wii. Check out the video:



It's clever, but I enjoy watching Tiger playing himself on the Wii a little bit more. Kudos to EA Sports!

I am Tiger Woods (on the Wii)

Technology moves at a quick pace. Video games has been a major beneficiary with the introduction this year of the "next-gen" gaming consoles the Nintendo Wii and the Sony PS3 to do battle with Microsoft's Xbox 360. Probably the coolest innovation is the Wii's motion-controlled controller, the Wii Remote. Instead of simply moving a joystick and mashing buttons, you control the action by motioning the controller itself.

This technology greatly expands the possibilities for video gaming. Take golf games, for example. Now it's possible to play a golf video game by actually "swinging" the controller. Can you say, "a golf simulator in your living room for around $300?

Check out this video of EA Sports' Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2007 in action on the Wii in the hands of the great Tiger Woods himself. It's well worth a couple of viewings:



If anyone has played this game, please let us know your thoughts.

SwingVision - Justin Leonard Driver

For all of you SwingVision junkies out there, I dug up this SwingVision of Justin Leonard hitting his TaylorMade R7 TP driver off the tee. I believe it comes from the 86th PGA Championship at Whistling Straits in 2004 where the sadomasochist of golf, Pete Dye, exacted his revenge on the best golfers in the world. I'm sure that you can recall how ridiculously difficult the course played over those couple of days. Just getting your ball to remain on the green was a great accomplishment. It's a great example of how it is possible to set up a golf course so hard that it's unfair.

Anyway, below is the video. Justin Leonard has a very identifiable golf swing and it is characterized by his Johnny Miller-coined "chase" move through the ball. The video also highlights how contact with the ball should be high on the face of modern drivers to maximize launch conditions (high launch, low spin). Enjoy!

Birdie in One?

We all know that golf is one heck of a tough game. But for many of us, that's why we play the game. People who love golf love challenges, and there's not many other games that present both the mental and physical challenges quite like golf.

There's even some things in the game that seem impossible to achieve. For example, is it possible to shoot a birdie in one? In other words, is it possible to shoot a birdie on a hole with just one total stroke? That would mean one would have to record a hole-in-one on a par-2 hole, correct? However, that's impossible because par-2 holes don't exist.

But shooting a birdie in one is possbile! Here's the video to prove it:

For Michelle Wie, Close Doesn't Cut It...

Americans demand and expect a lot. It's part of our culture.

When we hear about the next and greatest "thing", we tend to expect that it is the next and greatest immediately. I remember hearing about the prospects of cold fusion decades ago. The media hyped it up to the point that I assumed that the world's energy problems were going to be solved in a matter of months. Well, like the flying car, robot maids and laser guns, that has yet to materialize.

The same phenomenon occurs in sports, including golf. The media is continuously searching for athletic phenoms to fill their headlines. When Tiger Woods started his professional career, the media quickly anointed him the successor to the great Jack Nicklaus. Some were calling Tiger the greatest golfer ever before he had even won his first tournament! The hype was astronomical and when Tiger didn't win his first few PGA events, many were stunned. But over time, Tiger eventually proved his greatness. It was an extremely rare case where reality actually met the hype.

But soon after the hype train dropped off Tiger, it picked up Michelle Wie. Only it is rolling with much more steam now. Although it is difficult to measure, it seems that the expectations for Michelle are even higher than those were for Tiger. People seem to expect Wie to win and win dominantly. Because she hasn't yet, there seems to be a wave of negativity building against Michelle. Some have already written her off altogether.

But really, hasn't the expectations gotten a little out of hand? I, for one, haven't bought into all the hype. Instead, I try to remain more realistic and simply admire her talent and ability for the time being. I'm no swing guru, but I believe that she possesses the best golf swing of any female today, maybe even ever. She has a swing that many PGA tour pros envy. With her tee to green game alone, it's just a matter of time before she chalks up her first pro win. But a great swing doesn't guarantee greatness. She could very well become the female version of Sergio Garcia...

Regardless, I feel that it is too early to expect Wie to win a pro event, especially the tournaments that she plays. Fellow teen phenom Morgan Pressel is still winless on the LPGA even though she is a full-time pro and has played in the weaker LPGA events. With her much ballyhooed amateur record, Pressel should be expected to find the winner's circle before Wie. But since the media hasn't over-hyped Pressel, she can hide comfortably in the shadow of Wie. Fair or not, the anti-Wie sentiments build with every tournament that Michelle fails to win.

But there is one place where Michelle Wie can escape this growing negativity - her parent's homeland of Korea. In fact, Korea has been making a strong push to claim Michelle Wie as their own. Don't be surprised if America's ridiculous expectations drive Michelle to apply for Korean citizenship. Heck, she only has to hit a couple of hanging metal pans with a golf ball from about 15 feet away to keep them satisfied:

SwingVision - Ernie Els 3-Wood

First, congrats to Tiger on the clinic that he gave over the pond this weekend. He demonstrated that you don't need to hit driver to win a major. Maybe he should change his name from Tiger Woods to Tiger Irons! Regardless, Tiger is back and it didn't take long...

Now that I've discovered how to put videos on my site, I'm diggin' through my vast golf library for some cool stuff for y'all to enjoy. Based on the positive feedback on my last post, there seems to be a lot of interest. But it takes time; time to find worthy clips, time to transfer it to my PC, and time to upload it. Just bear with me and I'm sure that there will be something that you'll dig!

Do you like the SwingVision feature on CBS? Well, I found a SwingVision video of Ernie Els hitting a 3-wood off the tee. It demonstrates that proper ball-striking with fairway woods require that the club strikes the ball on a slightly descending clubpath. Remember, the only club that may be struck on an ascending clubpath is the driver! Please let me know how you like it! Look for more in the future.