Oul' boys teaching the young buck

PAULWATSON

Was out "baiting" balls yesterday. Now, at the minute I'm working on my lower body weight transfer. I need peace to concentrate.

Next thing this man and the son wheel up beside me. Now young Jonny hardly has the club out of the bag before irelands next Butch Harmon is giving him all sorts of babble.

Head down, cock the wrists, transfer weight, "feel the process" was mentioned at one point. The young fellar could not hit the back door, he was well pissed. Next thing Butch gets a call (maybe Watney needed some advice before the final round at Doral?). He gets lost for ten minutes and young Jonny starts tearing it up. Smoking the ball.


My advice to young fellars, grip it and rip it. And for all these boys teaching young bucks, forget it.

ThunderCat

thanks for that.

Garda S Horgan

PAULWATSON wrote: »

My advice to young fellars, grip it and rip it. And for all these boys teaching young bucks, forget it.

I asked a pro at a pro-am once how should I be hitting the t-shot at the first.
He said that at my level (single figures) I shoudl hit the ball as hard as I can, find the ball, then hit the ball as hard as I can and forget about everything else.
I thought it sounded great.
It didn't work though.

Yours etc,
GSH.

PAULWATSON

Garda S Horgan wrote: »

hit it as hard as I can and forget about everything else.

You've got to realise, a lot of pros fit their message for the recepient.

mr.mickels

I recall a pro-am with Woosnam years back in UK. The other player with us was a big guy impressed with Woosnams distance off the tee, so eventually he decided to ask him, Ian how do you hit the ball so far, in such a way to understand he was asking for advice to add extra yards to his own game. Ian hardly looked at him and just said "Hit the f***ing thing harder", gave me a laugh, thought it was a great answer.

I started going to the range again this year, and have seen plenty players giving advice to others, almost always a case of the blind leading the blind, why do players who can hardly hit the ball feel they are experts

k.p.h

Ah now now .. .. grip it and rip it dose not work exactly. Its all completely relevant to where you are and what you are doing. I would say the biggest problem was the man was standing over him. Unless he had great coaching/interpersonal skills i don't think standing beside him applying more pressure to an already pressure situation was helping.

Like I'm not exactly a pro but I have been coaching a friend of mine for the last few months and its working out fairly good he's only playing 6 months and he's knocked in a few sub 90 rounds. Like showing someone how to grip it and telling them to keep their left arm straight and keep their head still is enough of a lesson for first few weeks. Thats all i showed him and every time i saw a bad shot coming out of his bay i kept saying head still eyes on the ball. Telling anyone anything else is pretty stupid until the understand the mechanics and get coordinated . Followed that with getting him to take a better posture gave him few weeks of just that and recently it was like setting him free with getting him to turn through it. Probably helped that he had naturally good coordination and a great rhythm so can't take credit for that. I used some of the teaching methods mentioned the the Inner Game of Golf book (great book recommend it) so generally just showed him something and let him work away. Most of the comments I made to him were so broad it was not even funny, things like don't forget what you have already learned.

Anyway yeah I feel for the kid in one sense but it's cool that his dad or who ever is bringing him to play.

mr.mickels

grip it and rip it definetly doesn't work in golf, the harder you try to hit the ball the more distance you lose.