Shotmaking - Keep it Alive
Just a thought - is today's golf ball too straight? And is it hurting the rest of the game?
OK - let me make my point a little better, because I know I am not suddenly hitting every fairway and every green. What I mean is that with technology making the ball spin less and fly straighter, especially off the driver, is it possible that we have lost touch with our natural ability to feel the shot? Statistically, today's Tour pros are about less accurate than 20 years ago, although no one would contend that they hit it significantly longer. I guess it just seems to me that golfers today rely less and less upon CREATING SHOTS - and much of this I would credit to the golf ball itself. Kids are taught to hit it long, and fly each shot to the pin. In years past, players would be forced to imagine a way to get it to the hole - they would skip it in, hoist it over a bunker, or run it along a slope.
To me, imaginative golf is much more FUN! It makes every day on the course more exciting, and allows me as a golfer to be creative. I love the opportunity to envision a shot and then pull it off. No, it doesn't work every time, but the more chances we take to make these shots, the more likely we are to see them work successfully. And we all know that many times we are forced into having to create shots - wouldn't you rather feel like you can make it happen?
posted by Peter Nomm @ 16:46
1 comments
1 Comments:
I love shaping the ball and getting creative. Very rarely do I hit many full shots during a round of golf. I like to create the shot, rather than just hitting everything straight. Just knocked it in the trees. Excellent, I get the chance to see how much I can move it in the air. It is definitely getting harder. As you said the ball now just wants to fly straight. The drives are going longer as the launch conditions have been optimized, but the distance with irons hasn't changed. I liked one of the comments that Greg Norman made in a recent interview. He said that he used to "feel the ball into a certain position on the green to spin into a certain place", but if he played on tour today he said: "I'd be just aiming dead straight and hitting it as hard as I could every time". It sums it up. It is great hitting the ball a country mile, but it is great to get creative with the shot and that is what most tour pros are lacking. Charles Howell III only started getting better results on tour when he started to hit different shots and so did Mickelson. Three majors since he stopped trying to burst the cover on the ball. I think that is enough evidence for being creative with your shotmaking.
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