New Golf Thinking opportunity - the lucky 8 are....

need_my_wedge said:
yep, got it through Amazon for my ipad. the kindle version has some formatting issues on Apple. Mentioned this to John, who said that there is now a version available on ibooks that formats fine on Apple products.
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Will give it a go :thup:

Always good to read about different ways to approach parts of the game imo.
 
fundy said:
Back of the green yardage surely very course dependent, theres only 2 holes on our course where I would prefer to miss long rather than short and with the rough round the greens growing pretty severe already theres several holes where you've next to no chance if you're past the pin
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need_my_wedge said:
This wasn't the 100% option Fundy. John suggested 90% of the time it's better to finish past the pin than short of the pin, although he did give us an easier target of 80%...... Of course there are times when you need to lay up and aim for the pin instead, but they fit the 10% - 20% instances.
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And also its based on how often you actually hit the perfect shot. Say a perfectly struck 7 iron for you goes 150. How many times do you catch it flush enough to go the full 150? For me its probably about 30% or something, so therefore it makes sense to aim longer knowing that a less than perfect shot will still clear the trouble at the front and be somewhere near pin high. If I do flush it then the worst that happens is it might trickle off the back. Obviously there are going to be situations that change the thinking a bit, like a green with significant trouble behind, or a pin cut right on the front, but like John said course designers generally put the trouble at the front of the green for a reason!
 
SaintHacker said:
And also its based on how often you actually hit the perfect shot. Say a perfectly struck 7 iron for you goes 150. How many times do you catch it flush enough to go the full 150? For me its probably about 30% or something, so therefore it makes sense to aim longer knowing that a less than perfect shot will still clear the trouble at the front and be somewhere near pin high. If I do flush it then the worst that happens is it might trickle off the back. Obviously there are going to be situations that change the thinking a bit, like a green with significant trouble behind, or a pin cut right on the front, but like John said course designers generally put the trouble at the front of the green for a reason!
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Generally maybe, at our course, not really. As ours plays almost like a links course in summer theres very little trouble short of our greens (bunker at 5, bunker at 12, lake at 13 and bunker at 18) other than that the trouble is predominantly long, and on 2 of those 4 holes short is still a better option than long
 
fundy said:
Generally maybe, at our course, not really. As ours plays almost like a links course in summer theres very little trouble short of our greens (bunker at 5, bunker at 12, lake at 13 and bunker at 18) other than that the trouble is predominantly long, and on 2 of those 4 holes short is still a better option than long
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There will always be exceptions to the rule, whatever the rule is.... in those cases, you will have to adapt. But again, the process is aimed at the green, and the fact that most of us come up short of the pin much of the time, therefore, aiming longer and coming up closer to where we want to be is a good thought process to engage. If you aim at the pin and finish 1 or 2 yds past, that is good, it had a chance. if you aim at the pin and finish 1 or 2 yds short, it never had a chance. this applies for all shots into the green, and all putts on the green. The idea is to get you thinking more positive, so that you reach the target more than you do now.
 
fundy said:
Generally maybe, at our course, not really. As ours plays almost like a links course in summer theres very little trouble short of our greens (bunker at 5, bunker at 12, lake at 13 and bunker at 18) other than that the trouble is predominantly long, and on 2 of those 4 holes short is still a better option than long
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OK fair enough. If you aim short then, what are you chances of holing the shot? 0%.


EDIT: Just realised Ive taken MPA without thinking about it. Its working!:thup::D
 
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He had some interesting thinking about how far you missed if you leave it short. Apologies if I kind of misinterpreted it but from memory he said that if you leave a put 2 foot short the argument is that you missed by up to just under 4 feet, the 2 feet short of the hole and nearly 2 feet past the hole. As if you finished anywhere up to 2 feet past the hole you would have been in a better position than where you are.

Where as if you finish 2 feet past the hole that is a much better position as you had a chance of the ball dropping in the first place plus you will have seen the line when it went past. So that's just really a 2 foot miss.

Obviously thus only applies to relatively flat greens and in some cases 2 foot short is better than 2 foot long if there is a big drop or the put back is very downhill where as the short will leave you very up hill. But I thought it was very interesting food for thought, and could also apply to really any shot, not just puts. As if any shot is short it never had a chance.
 
The same thing is applied to chips, say you have a 20 yard chip to the pin and you leave it 5 yards short, you have actually missed the target area by just under 10 yards, on the basis that 4 yards 35 inches past is better than , 5 yards short.

and you have given it a chance to go in and you should have noted how the ball reacted as it went past, giving you a read for the return

What it is doing is subconsciously increasing the target area in your head thus making it easier to hit .
 
Hacker Khan said:
He had some interesting thinking about how far you missed if you leave it short. Apologies if I kind of misinterpreted it but from memory he said that if you leave a put 2 foot short the argument is that you missed by up to just under 4 feet, the 2 feet short of the hole and nearly 2 feet past the hole. As if you finished anywhere up to 2 feet past the hole you would have been in a better position than where you are.

Where as if you finish 2 feet past the hole that is a much better position as you had a chance of the ball dropping in the first place plus you will have seen the line when it went past. So that's just really a 2 foot miss.

Obviously thus only applies to relatively flat greens and in some cases 2 foot short is better than 2 foot long if there is a big drop or the put back is very downhill where as the short will leave you very up hill. But I thought it was very interesting food for thought, and could also apply to really any shot, not just puts. As if any shot is short it never had a chance.
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Brand Snedeker tries to put enough speed that would go 4 feet past, invariably they go in
 
There are few themes coming out..
1) Go into MPA
2) For approach, Aim to the back (80-20 rule)
3) For Chip & Putt, Aim to finish 4-5 feet past the hole

Any others???? Also #2 & #3 seem to be fairly logical. Can someone explain the MPA bit or is that something only a Mizuno player will understand?
 
vkurup said:
There are few themes coming out..
1) Go into MPA
2) For approach, Aim to the back (80-20 rule)
3) For Chip & Putt, Aim to finish 4-5 feet past the hole

Any others???? Also #2 & #3 seem to be fairly logical. Can someone explain the MPA bit or is that something only a Mizuno player will understand?
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Basically it's just be positive when you play golf

Go out with good thoughts about the round and keep to them - forget bad things and remember good things

Played a lot of courses recently and certainly wouldn't aim long at a lot of those with big undulating greens

95% I aim for the middle
 
Liverpoolphil said:
Basically it's just be positive when you play golf

Go out with good thoughts about the round and keep to them - forget bad things and remember good things

Played a lot of courses recently and certainly wouldn't aim long at a lot of those with big undulating greens

95% I aim for the middle
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We had a round at the Grove in the afternoon. Thos greens were definitely much bigger than most clubs I play at and most had some serious contours on. I was taking a reading to the back of each green not knowing too much about what was behind (ignorance being bliss). I was usually middle of most greens and those that were long were still withing 25-30 feet and so two putt range. In fact I only had one three putt where I came up three feet short on one putt and missed the next.

To say being positive and have good thoughts is too simplistic as I think all those that attended would agree. It has more to do with changing thought patterns and adopting better coping mechanisms for when things aren't going to plan as well as the areas already covered by others.
 
HomerJSimpson said:
We had a round at the Grove in the afternoon. Thos greens were definitely much bigger than most clubs I play at and most had some serious contours on. I was taking a reading to the back of each green not knowing too much about what was behind (ignorance being bliss). I was usually middle of most greens and those that were long were still withing 25-30 feet and so two putt range. In fact I only had one three putt where I came up three feet short on one putt and missed the next.

To say being positive and have good thoughts is too simplistic as I think all those that attended would agree. It has more to do with changing thought patterns and adopting better coping mechanisms for when things aren't going to plan as well as the areas already covered by others.
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Simplistic is perfect because that's exactly the way to go - nice and simple for me , no need for patterns or coping mechanisms etc it's only a game of golf at the end of the day and a bad shot or hole or round just isn't worth worrying about. There will always be another shot or hole or round coming up.

Aiming long to arrive short possibly shows poor distance control or possibly more work needed on ball striking.
 
Liverpoolphil said:
Simplistic is perfect because that's exactly the way to go - nice and simple for me , no need for patterns or coping mechanisms etc it's only a game of golf at the end of the day and a bad shot or hole or round just isn't worth worrying about. There will always be another shot or hole or round coming up.

Aiming long to arrive short possibly shows poor distance control or possibly more work needed on ball striking.
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Sorry but have to disagree totally. Is it just me and my posts you want to take issue with having already disregarded what my fellow attendees have said on the same matter?

Clearly you have your own way of playing but for many, they take wrong clubs (machismo or vanity) and part of this is to ensure that even a mis hit (common for most of us) has a chance to be on the green at least rather than short and in trouble and well struck shots will be further up the green usually ensuring a close putt than perhaps the norm at the moment. The New Thinking has nothing to do with ball striking and so you are missing the whole point. Ask Pieman (off 5) if he needs to work at his ball striking but he found the idea of going longer onto greens a help
 
MPA (Mental Position 'A') is to give you a positive mind set, where you are not going to allow previous incidents*, bad shots, bogey hole thoughts come to the fore. If you start thinking about all the bad stuff, you need to clear you mind by putting something else in there that overcomes and blots out the bad.

It's your bogey hole, and you have the thought that no matter what you try you will slice into the trees on the right, you start thinking, a little stronger grip, left foot back etc.. and you're not thinking about the game, you've gone all technical to fix what you think is wrong and your head is all over the place.

MPA would be picture a good shot you have made with the same club, make it clear in your mind, remember what it felt like when you hit the ball, what it sounded like, how the ball flew, how it landed, the feeling you had within yourself. Doing this will help you clear the bad bogey hole memories away and keep you positively focused.

*Other groups playing slow and allowing yourself to become wound up.
 
HomerJSimpson said:
Sorry but have to disagree totally. Clearly you have your own way of playing but for many, they take wrong clubs (machismo or vanity) and part of this is to ensure that even a mis hit (common for most of us) has a chance to be on the green at least rather than short and in trouble and well struck shots will be further up the green usually ensuring a close putt than perhaps the norm at the moment. The New Thinking has nothing to do with ball striking and so you are missing the whole point. Ask Pieman (off 5) if he needs to work at his ball striking but he found the idea of going longer onto greens a help
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"New Thinking" ?! - sounds more like "Too Much Thinking"

You say it's not about ball striking yet talk about helping "mis hit" shots ?!

And instead of taking the wrong clubs maybe people should learn about taking the "right" clubs

And as for "is it just your posts"

My first post was actually in response to Vrkup which you responded too
 
To be honest for those who did not attend it would be a lot easier to invest in the book. I think it's about a fiver which is about the price of a pint of Peronni, or less than a sleeve of balls nowadays. In fact half the price of a sleeve of Pro V1s in most pro shops.

The problem is that a lot of the stuff that the people who attended post will not make a huge amount of sense if it is not in context, or if it is not referring to specific areas that you most need help with. Of course it probably is not for everyone as there will always be people who are resistant to this kind of thing and think they can shoot perfectly good scores without it, and fair enough.

But without wishing to sound like too much of a plug as I got a nice free day out of GM and John who wrote the book, I'd say it's worth a fiver and worth checking out if you at all feel that any part of your game is suffering because of the way you think about your round or game.

So if you've ever wondered why you can not hit it on the course like you can on the range then it will help, if you've ever dwelled on a previous mistake it will help, if you've ever thought too much about the technical details of your swing when trying to hit a shot it will help, if you've ever got frustrated when stuck behind lots of 4 balls going very slowly ii will help. Plus many other situations.
 
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Is it relevant for every standard of golfer? I'm not the longest or the straightest, many off higher h'caps are longer, but I'd be inclined to say many higher handicappers lose out through poor thought processes and course mgt. Have a clear mind on what you want to achieve, and be realistic. Be clear on what your strengths are, and play to them.

Back of the green or middle or...? I always look for the yardage for the back of the green, and then eliminate the iron that would go over the back. The second calculation is what trouble is at the front. Having eliminated both of those, I can then decide if going for the flag brings either of those back into the calculation. Stay away from rubbish = stay away from bogies. Simples!
 
Liverpoolphil said:
Simplistic is perfect because that's exactly the way to go - nice and simple for me , no need for patterns or coping mechanisms etc it's only a game of golf at the end of the day and a bad shot or hole or round just isn't worth worrying about. There will always be another shot or hole or round coming up.

Aiming long to arrive short possibly shows poor distance control or possibly more work needed on ball striking.
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It's all too easy to take the written word on a forum and base an argument around it. For sure, a 5 handicapper is going to hit the pin in less shots than a 20 handicapper. Whether we take the wrong club, or the right club and mis-hit, aiming longer has a better chance of being the right club.

It's all about creating a mindset that works for you, in order to help you play better. As a 5 handicapper, you may already have a way to put yourself into MPA on every shot, you may not. As an 18 handicapper, I certainly don't yet, and I have no guarantee that what we went through yesterday will make me any better, but I will give it a go. Coming up short is a fairly common issue, and leaving it short means it had no chance of going in, so if I have to think one club more to get it past the pin,which more often that not results in me hitting it closer the target, then that's a good mindset to be playing with for me.

That's about as simplistic as I can make it for this particular aspect of change. Note that there are other techniques to consider for improvement, but most of us seemed to pick the hit longer and don't leave shorties out there as the two that we could target quickly and simply - certainly beats all the cards we'd have to complete for some of the other ideas.
 
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