Wow! I can’t believe it. Life in the Rough is one year old today.

When I started out a year ago, I had no idea how long it would live. How long would I enjoy doing it? Would I be able to keep my stamina? Would it be of value to me and to others?

It turns out that I enjoy doing it as much now as I did in the beginning. Probably even more, because I lowered my posting frequency to find a balance between work, blog, and developing my golf game.

Keeping my stamina has been tough. Not so much the stamina involved in finding the time to write, or getting enjoyment out of it, but more in the search for new and interesting things to write about in the world of golf. I do enjoy the challenge and look forward to tackling it.

Is it of value to me? You bet! Writing about golf and interacting with readers helps me stay focused on my goal of becoming a golf pro. I learn new things all the time. The research I do for posts keeps me constantly learning more and more about the game of golf.

Is it of value to others? I hope so, but I’ll let you be the judge of that. Readership continues to increase, so that’s a good sign. Value to others is a main focus of mine, so I want to hear what you think about Life in the Rough.

Last time I asked that question, one of the things that was requested was more detail about my personal journey. Subsequently, I started increasing the number of posts centered on what I’m doing to better my golf game and what I’m learning in the process, and I’ll continue to do so. Now that the season is kicking off, I have a lot to report in the coming weeks about my experiments with a new putting grip, a new swing, and much more.

I also want to share more tips, information about rules, talk about golf history, and cover anything else golf-related that I can fit in. Most importantly, I’m continuing my charge to become a golf pro and I’m taking you with me!

Kick back, enjoy a piece of birthday cake, and give me any suggestions you have about how to make Life in the Rough more interesting and useful. I love hearing reader feedback, especially if it’s constructive criticism, because my desire to improve is big in every facet of my life (actually improving is a different story, but I try).

I’m glad you decided to come along on my journey, and look forward to another year.

-Mike

P.S. - Don’t forget to submit your entry into the Life in the Rough Birthday Giveaway by Sunday April 13, 2008, for a chance to win a dozen Callaway Tour ix golf balls.

Note:  This contest has concluded and the winner has been announced.  Thanks to everyone for their participation. 

This Friday, April 11th 2008, marks one year of Life in the Rough. It’s been an awesome year. More on that Friday, but you know what birthdays mean - that’s right - gifts!

Since I like giving gifts more than getting them, it’s time for a giveaway.

I have a dozen of the new Callaway Tour ix golf balls to give away to a Life in the Rough reader. I’ve been playing this ball for a short time and love it. Stay tuned for a review but in the meantime, I have a dozen for someone else to test drive (pun intended).

Here’s what we’re going to do.

This week brings something else that’s very dear to my heart. That’s right, The Masters. I can’t run a giveaway this week without tying it to The Masters.

To enter, all you need to do is drop a comment into this post telling me your most memorable Masters moment. It doesn’t have to be something you saw live. It could be something you read about. It can be a shot, a round, or an entire tournament performance. Just give me a moment from Masters history that’s memorable to you. In fact, just make a comment with the word “Masters” in it, and we’ll call that good enough.

The winner will be chosen at random from the comments. Entries will be open until Sunday April 13th until the moment that the winner puts on his green jacket. If there’s a weather delay forcing a Monday finish, then we’ll just call the deadline sundown on Sunday. Please review my comment policy before commenting if you’ve not done so before, as I will not be counting any entries that violate it.

Members of my family are ineligible, since my brother won last time and that wasn’t very exciting for me and cast a shadow of impropriety that my mother was quick to point out (like “quick” as in “virtually the instant that I published the results”).

Let me kick off the discussion with two of my most memorable moments. They’re somewhat recent, because frankly my memory is short, but I have so many Masters memories that are dear to me.

First, we can’t talk about the Masters without bringing up many, many Tiger Woods moments. One of the big ones, in my mind, was his win in 1997. At 21, he became the youngest Masters champion ever. It was his first major win and a sure sign of things to come. Oh yeah, and he blew away the field and won by twelve strokes.

My other favorite Masters moment was 2004. For a while, Phil Mickelson was saddled with that dreaded “best player to never win a major” tag. I like Phil and was pulling for him. He came down to the 72nd hole tied with Ernie Els and sunk a clutch birdie putt for the win. At that moment, the excitement was amazing and I felt really good for Phil having gotten out from under that pressure. He went on to win again in 2006.

Those are my two big ones, now jump into the comments section and tell me yours for a shot to win a dozen Callaway Tour ix golf balls. You get bonus karma for memories not involving Tiger Woods (too easy) or anything older than 10 years (meaning you’ve been paying attention for a while).

Let’s hear your memories!

I’ve had a poll running in the sidebar for a while asking what part of your golf game you spend the most time practicing. As of this writing, there are 75 responses that break down as:

• Short Irons - 32%
• Mid Irons - 17%
• Putting - 16%
• Pitching - 12%
• No Practice - 7%
• Long Irons - 5%
• Driving - 5%
• Chipping - 4%
• Trouble Shots - 1%
• Sand Play - 0%

I find the results to be interesting.

There are many possible ways to explain why certain aspects of golf are given more or less practice time. You can make a case that putting should get the most practice time because statistically it’s the most used club in the bag. You could make a case for short irons, pitching, and chipping because getting close enough to the pin to ensure a one-putt is quite desirable.

What surprises me is that anyone spends most of their time practicing drivers or long irons/hybrids. I’d even put mid-irons in that category.

Let’s step back and look at the purpose of practice. There are tons of theories about how to spend practice time. My personal belief is that one statement sums it all up: spend the most practice time on the things that will lower your scores the most. Seems simple, but there are obviously people that may not realize how important certain aspects of golf are. For casual players, practice time can come at a premium, so it makes little sense to spend time practicing anything that will not provide the maximum return on time investment.

Take, for example, the driver. I can’t imagine a situation where a player’s driving is so wretched that it should get the most practice time.

Don’t get me wrong - if it’s going bad, I can understand devoting a session to the driver, or even a few sessions. Remember though, I was asking in general, not for specific cases (in fairness, the poll didn’t really specify that).

If you spend most of your practice time on the driver in general, then the better plan is probably to just leave it in your bag. Long irons are in the same category. If your short game is solid and you slop it around off the tee, you can still score well. On the flip side, if your short game stinks but your driving is great, I promise you, your scoring will be bad.

Without a doubt, short game (finesse wedges, pitching, chipping) and putting should dominate your practice time. But among those categories, which is more important? As I said at the top, I think an argument could be made for either one. However, I’d make the case that while these things should top your practice time, putting is less critical than wedge play.

I’ve discussed Dave Pelz’s Putting and Short Game Bibles at length before, so you may be familiar with the two key concepts: the Golden Eight Feet, and PEI. The idea behind the Golden Eight Feet is that as players are left with putts of more than 6-8 feet, the odds of making them decreases sharply, regardless of skill level. That’s right: you’re not making many 20 footers, but most tour pros aren’t either.

Percent Error Index (PEI) basically is a measurement that Pelz devised to measure the accuracy of finesse wedge shots. Briefly, if you miss a 100 yard shot by seven yards, then you PEI for that shot is 7%. The object of short game practice is to get that PEI as low as possible.

In essence, you work on wedge play for the single purpose of getting shots within the Golden Eight Feet. Outside of that and you’re probably two-putting or worse.

If you’re reasonably adept at making short putts and lag put reasonably well without a ton of three-putts, then the work you put in on the practice green will start to show diminishing returns. But become precise with the wedges, and you’re guaranteed more birdie and par chances and when things are going bad, more par and bogey save opportunities.

That’s why my own response to the poll was “Short Irons”. It seems like a lot of you feel the same way. Statistically speaking, a good number of you disagree. I’d love to hear your ideas about allotting golf practice time.

I was kind of surprised when I tuned in near the end of the Zurich Classic on Sunday, to hear Woody Austin utter the words, “I choked my guts out” in his post-round interview. He seems like a straightforward, honest guy, but I was surprised to hear that coming out the mouth of any professional golfer. I was even more surprised that he uttered similar comments to himself on the course while the walls crumbled around him.

Choking is a terrible situation to be in. That which comes easy any other time is nowhere to be found. A lifetime of muscle memory and mental composure are out the window. Nothing is working right and it keeps getting worse.

My guess is that it happens to most people at some time or another, at least those who find themselves in stressful situations. For professional golfers, it all boils down to a mental lapse of epic proportions.

I find it fascinating that many professional golfers can’t even acknowledge that they’re choking.

I’ve heard it said that Jack Nicklaus was prone to blame external influences for bad shots. Caddy, course, whatever. It’s not that he was a poor sport or tried to put up a facade. No, it was that he was so mentally focused and committed to each shot that he was actually convinced that something else was to blame.

Professionals don’t even like to hear about choking. Johnny Miller caught a monumental amount of flak for even suggesting that Peter Jacobsen was facing a shot in the 1990 Bob Hope Chrysler Classic that was, as Miller put it, “…the easiest shot to choke I’ve ever seen in my life.” Jacobsen pulled off the shot and won, but Miller was harshly criticized, including becoming persona non grata. According to Miller, Jacobsen didn’t speak to him for eight months.

I’m not sure how I feel about Austin’s reaction on Sunday.

Even a brief study of the mental game of golf shows that confidence is key and that remaining focused on each shot individually is crucial to success.

In essence, if you think you’re choking, then you are.

Once you come to that point during a round, then I’m not sure if recovery is possible. It’s easy to see why professionals don’t want to even hear the word.

I have to credit Woody Austin for coming clean after the round. There was no controversy and no mincing of words. He just laid it all out there. Unfortunately, recognizing the situation during the round did him no good.

Refreshing honesty aside, the only way to recover in that situation is to regain a positive attitude, forget the previous shot(s), and focus and commit to the next shot. Really, choking is the result of the failure to do these things. If you hit a bad shot and can’t let it go, then you’re setting yourself up for another. And another. And another. Before you know it, you’re choking.

Let go of the bad shots and focus on the here and now. Keeping a positive attitude is the only way to avoid falling victim to the dreaded choke.

I wanted to help get the word out about a great golf related charity called Caddy for a Cure. Their mission, according to the website:

The mission of Caddy For A Cure, Inc. is to generate charitable funds for designated organizations while offering the opportunity to be “inside the ropes” as a caddy for a PGA TOUR player at a PGA TOUR event. We offer a one-of-a-kind professional sports fantasy while contributing to genetic disease research and education and other worthy causes and individuals.

“One of a kind” is right on. I know I’ve caught myself thinking how much I’d pay for the chance to caddy for a PGA Tour pro. Now is your chance to do it.

There are several opportunities to win an auction for the chance to caddy for a PGA Tour pro during a practice round throughout the 2008 season. Click here for the 2008 schedule.

The next event up for auction is the Verizon Heritage. Auctions are being conducted on CharityBuzz.com. You can bid for a chance to caddy for Boo Weekly, Justin Leonard, or Woody Austin during a practice round.

As if that wasn’t enough, the package includes a three-day, two-night golf vacation package at the Torreon Resort in Arizona and a package of incredible golf merchandise. The vacation and golf merchandise alone are worth well over $2000.

To top it off, for this event, Caddy for a Cure is partnering with the Wounded Warrior Project, one of my personal favorite charitable organizations.

I hope you will consider participating in the auctions to raise some much-needed money for some great charities.

If the caddy package auctions are out of your price range, you can still make a smaller donation at the Caddy for a Cure website. Even if you can’t afford to donate right now, please spread the word to every golfer you know. Let’s show how charitable the golf community can be.

Once again, you can click here for the auctions at CharityBuzz.com or click here for the Caddy for a Cure website.

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Further Reading:

Caddy for a Cure
Caddy Auction at CharityBuzz.com
Wounded Warrior Project