Golf Unplugged, by Jim Apfelbaum, is a look into the musty basement of golf.  In the deep, dark recesses, Apfelbaum shares treasures from the game that have likely been obscured from the light of day for years.

The blurb on the back cover says, “With niblick-sharpened wit, Jim Apfelbaum wades into the historical second cut of rough in an engaging series of essays.”

Indeed he does.

Jim Apfelbaum told me via letter that the “idea was simply to give golfers reasons to look [...]

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I’ve been on a real putting kick lately. If you’ll continue to indulge me, I’d like to talk about foot work.

Let’s back up for a second and look at the putting stroke first.

Most of us have heard the basics of the modern putting stroke - keep the hands and arms quiet and let the stroke originate from the shoulders in a pendulum-like action.  This is true whether we choose to putt with a square stroke or with an open [...]

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Photo: foxypar4/Flickr

As promised, Life in the Rough 2.0 has gone live.  It’s a complete overhaul and vastly different than the old look.  I was really going for clean and simple and I think I achieved that.

I owe a debt of gratitude to those who gave me feedback along the way, from friends and family who acted as sounding boards early on, to readers that volunteered feedback over the past week.  In fact, that recent input led to several last-minute [...]

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Yesterday’s lesson was a welcomed relief.  When things aren’t going as well as I like, a lesson and the improvement that immediately follows really gives me a shot of confidence.

I’m working hard to undo some bad habits that have been there for a long time.

The biggest problem is my takeaway.  I have a serious tendency to take the club directly inside almost immediately and to get it way too far inside.  I’ve been working hard on keeping the club more [...]

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I’ve been reading Golf Unplugged by Jim Apfelbaum (great book; review upcoming) and it contains a quote from Bobby Jones.  Faced with a pressure putt, he said:

I resolved that no matter how much time I consumed, I was going to tranquilze my breath before I made another putt.  So I began to take great pains to study the line.  I really did not study the line, for I have never been able to see more rolls and bumps in a [...]

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