Never let it be said that Twitter isn’t a great way to find helpful information.  Recently, Dexter from Golf Tips & Quips tweeted a helpful YouTube video featuring Hank Haney giving some great advice on two causes of fat shots and how to cure them.

As I watched, I saw Hank imitating the exact problem I suffer from and I thought it would be helpful to point it out here, since I don’t currently have any decent video of myself to share.
Have a look at the video and meet me down below when you’re finished.

As you saw in the video, there’s a problem with steep fat and shallow fat.  The steep issue is the exact problem I’ve suffered from for a long time.  I took some video last season that showed me doing exactly what Haney described.

The only difference is, I don’t really suffer from fat shots (primarily) as a result of being too steep.  I tend to hit the ball off the toe and pull hook it.  Mainly, this happens because I compensate with my hands by flipping them closed and doing who knows what else.

You may have heard me talking about fixing my takeaway for a while.  My pro has identified that as one of my main issues and you saw Hank Haney talking about it a little in the video above.  In my case, I tend to take the club too far to the inside from the start.  So, to counter that, I then overcompensate when trying to correct that by taking the club back across the target line and a little steep on subsequent shots over time as I try to work the problem out.

Haney pointed out that a more level shoulder turn can help to fix the issue of being too steep.  I’m going to give that a shot as soon as I can get to the range again and really work on my takeaway early in the season so I can get this resolved once and for all this year. I just have to be careful to not take the club too far inside like I used to do or I’ll be back to square one.

I got on a little tangent there with my own swing and don’t want to lose sight of the original point.  If you’re suffering from fat shots, then this bit of wisdom from Hank Haney might be able to help you start hitting the ball solidly.

Incidentally, that video comes from the GolfLink YouTube channel, which has a ton of other great videos that you might find helpful.

A few weeks back, I was contacted by a reader who is interested in learning how to read lies and suggested the topic to me.  I thought it was a great idea, so here we are.  He pointed to a recent golf telecast where Nick Faldo, in discussing the new groove regulations for 2010, pointed out that players are going to have to do a better job of reading lies now.

As most of you probably know by now, grooves in irons have been dialed back at the highest levels to try and reduce the spin that wedges and short irons can impart on the ball.  In recent years, it became common for players to just bomb away off the tee, because they knew that their wedges would still provide high spin from the rough.

Now, with grooves providing less help to players out of the fairway, Faldo made a good point, that reading lies will become more important.  (Note that the new grooves won’t affect most of us for quite a while, but all of this is still worth talking about)

What did he mean by that?

After we hit a shot and approach the ball, probably the most important factor in deciding the next shot is the lie of the ball.  In other words, how will the way the ball is sitting affect the ability for you to put the club head to the ball and have the shot react the way you expect?

There are two important parts to that. One:  can you strike the ball solidly? And, two:  how will the shot react?  The first question is kind of obvious in most circumstances. If your ball is lying against a tree root, clearly your ability to strike the ball solidly is in doubt. It’s the second question, however, that is just as important, but more tricky to predict and to understand.

What that comes down to is, how much spin can you put on the ball?  We might not be thinking of it in those terms at the time, but that’s really what we’re asking ourselves because it has a big effect on the outcome of the shot. If you’re able to strike the ball perfectly in the center of the club face with the club head moving at normal speed, the variable then becomes the amount of spin on the ball.  That will affect distance, trajectory, and stopping power.

Let’s take a look at actual situations and we’ll discuss the factors that go into the outcome of the shot.  It’s not my intent to cover every possible situation here or the mechanics of how to hit shots from all the different lies, but to discuss generalities that will help you to get a feel for reading lies.  Nothing is a good substitute for practice, however, so get out on the course when no one is around to try these shots and see for yourself how they react.

We’ll look at the situations that occur with shots from the rough and from the fairway.  In part II, we’ll look at lies in the sand and some special circumstances.  In each case, we’ll take a look at the questions we should be asking ourselves as we go about reading lies.  That’s really the how-to of reading lies. Knowing which questions to ask and what the answers mean is what this game is all about.

In the Rough

Shots from the rough are really the ones Faldo was talking about when he mentioned being able to read lies with the new grooves imparting less spin.

The main purpose of grooves on the club face is to divert grass and moisture from the club face.  Those things tend to cause shots to spin less.  With the old grooves, much more grass and water were able to be diverted so it was possible to still get good spin from poor lies.  Now, that capability is diminished.

It’s not just grooves, however, that are important.  Remember the first part of the equation?  Can we strike the ball solidly?  If the answer is ‘no’, then there’s a much bigger issue.

In that case, we have to consider that we may not be able to strike the ball solidly and at full speed.   If the ball is buried in six-inch rough, we have to start worrying about what the club head will do as it passes through the grass.  I previously covered how to hit the ball from deep rough, so I won’t go into the specifics here.  But understand that there are consequences to that type of lie.

For instance, there is a tendency for the club face to shut as the grass grabs the hosel. Then, there’s the question of spin.  As we discussed, grooves divert grass and water so that the club head and ball can meet solidly.  Is there too much grass to be diverted?

The Questions

Here is a checklist of things you probably should be considering as you try and read lies in the rough.

How Long Is the Grass?

The length of the grass is really important to being able to strike the ball solidly. Remember that the club head approaches the ball in an arc. It’s fairly low to the ground for a couple of feet before actually getting to the ball.  If it has to pass through long rough, there’s a very good chance that the speed and path of the club head will be affected. The club head will slow down. It will have a tendency to twist (usually closed).  You may be forced to try a lay-up shot, if you don’t have a chance to strike the ball well.

How Thick Is the Grass?

As all of you are certainly keenly aware, rough on a golf course comes in many, many varieties.  Not just species of grass, but the climate and amount of maintenance that it receives causes it to grow differently.

Rough that is thick and healthy presents a huge challenge.  At times, however, long rough might be more dry and brittle and even sparse.  In that circumstance, it presents somewhat less of a challenge.  In either case, you’re still left to answer the two questions I posed at the top.

How is the Ball Sitting in the Grass?

Can you strike it solidly?  If so, then there’s the question of how much grass is going to get in between the ball and the club face. A clean strike means that you’ll get more spin.  A lot of grass means that you’ll get less spin.  However, that doesn’t necessarily mean less distance.

You’ve probably heard the term “flyer lie”.  When the spin on the ball is greatly diminished, you might actually see more distance out of the shot. And, it will probably fly along a lower trajectory (spin  helps the ball fly higher). Not only that, but you can expect it to run further on the green because there isn’t enough spin to stop the ball as quickly.  You should be mindful of what kind of trouble lurks behind the green because you may find yourself hitting it over the back. You might want to consider less club and play for the ball to fly and run further.

How is the Grass Laying?

This is one that we might not consider as much. When grass gets long, or when it has been rained on or trampled, it might tend to lay in a certain direction.  Some types of grass might tend to do that all the time.  On the green, we call it “grain”.  It can happen just as easily with rough, too.

It is very important to pay attention to which direction the grass lays, relative to the path the club will take as it approaches the ball.

If the grass is laying away from the target even with the ball sitting on top, as the club head approaches the ball, it will tend to get down into the grass and the shot will act more like one where the rough is standing up.  The club head will slow. There will be a tendency to twist.  There will be grass between the ball and club face. And so on.

However if the grass is laying toward the target, the club will tend to just pass smoothly over top of it. This doesn’t mean that the shot will be so simple, though. In this case, if the ball is sitting on top of tall rough that is laying over toward the target, it’s easy as the club head approaches the ball, to hit down a little lower (firm turf would resist this a little). This makes it possible to hit the ball a little higher on the club face, reducing both spin and distance.  It’s probably enough just to be mindful of not trying to make an overly descending blow, as if you’re trying to take a big divot.

In the Fairway

When the ball is sitting in the fairway, there is much more uniformity in the types of shots you can expect.  However, it is these shots where we rely on precision.  If you’re 100 yards from the green, in the middle of the fairway, you want your 100 yard shot to go 100 yards, and you want to get the amount of spin that you’re expecting.

We still should be asking ourselves questions about the lie, even in the fairway.

How Firm Is the Turf?

From the fairway, grooves aren’t the primary factor that contributes to spin.  There is usually very little grass that gets between the club face and ball, so there is little grass and moisture to divert.

You may have heard the phrase “pinching the ball”. On tight, firm turf, depending on how much of a descending angle the club head approaches the ball, the club face actually pinches the ball against the turf very briefly.  This maximizes spin.  The firmer the turf, the more that spin is maximized.  More spin means more stopping power, but it can also mean slightly less distance and a higher ball flight.  Softer turf will diminish this slightly.

How Tall is the Grass?

Yes, this even matters on shots from the fairway.  Some courses go several days between mowing fairways and depending on the type of grass, it might be significantly longer after a few days. At that point, you need to be asking yourself how much of an issue you’re facing with grass getting between the ball and club face.  I’ve played rounds where, because of a string of bad weather, fairways were not mowed for almost two weeks.  At that point, fairways started to resemble rough, and reacted like rough too.

How Wet Is the Grass?

Remember how we said that grooves divert grass and moisture?  Well, they can only divert so much.  After they have started operating at capacity, then there will be an effect on the shot.

During or after rain, or even after a heavy morning dew, there is simply too much moisture for grooves to divert.  This moisture gets between the club face and the ball and it will tend to lessen spin.

Putting It All Together

Remember that reading the lie is only one piece of the whole puzzle.  It’s easy to get too wrapped up in the minutiae and to lose sight of the rest of the big picture.

Consider the fact where the fairway is really wet.  You might think, “OK, wet turf means the grooves will be taxed and won’t move all that water, so that will mean less spin and the ball will fly a littler further and run out more after landing.”  In theory, yes, but don’t forget to consider the fact that since it’s wet, the ball can just as easily plug on the green and stop dead, if the putting surface is soft. Or, you might have to take a more conservative swing to keep your balance.

I also can’t stress enough that this academic exercise will only take you so far.  There is absolutely no substitute to hitting shots from these various lies to get a true feel for how they will react.  We’re talking about tendencies here, so nothing is absolute.  A certain situation might tend to increase or diminish spin, but that doesn’t mean that it will.  The golf swing is a very dynamic machine and there are a lot of variables that can tip the scales one way or the other.

Next time, we’ll take a look at reading lies in the sand and in some other special circumstances.

Yes, I went and did it.  I created a podcast for Life in the Rough.

For the inaugural edition, we’ll have a contest, talk about grooves, when Tiger is coming back, and have a look at the state of my game and how winter impacts me.

It’s kind of an experiment here, so let me know what you think.  If you have comments, criticism, or suggestions, please let me know.  Either drop it down in the comments, or feel free to send me an e-mail.

And yes, I know, the COR limit is actually 0.83.  It’s a very rewarding feeling to have factual inaccuracies in the very first podcast (though I did correct myself, at least).

Without further ado, you can download the file using this link, or you can use the little podcast player below.  Enjoy (I hope)!

Note: please see below for an important disclosure.

You may not have heard of Knoodle because it’s fairly new, but it’s a pretty interesting place.  It’s stated goal is to be “a place where people who are bad at stuff go to get good at stuff, and people who are good at stuff go to help people who are bad at stuff.“  In other words, it matches up teacher and student, providing the tools for teachers to easily put together compelling instruction and a place for students to go to take advantage of it.

When I was asked to review the Golf Instruction Series by Josh Zander, naturally, I was interested in seeing what it was all about.

First a little background on Josh Zander.  According to his mini-bio at Knoodle, Zander is a:

“…Class A PGA Teaching Professional at Stanford University Golf Course and Presidio Golf Course. Josh is a member of the Golf Digest Magazine Pro Panel and contributes articles on a regular basis. In 2007, Josh was voted one of the top 20 teachers under the age of 40 in America, voted one of the best teachers in the State of California, and top ranked instructor in the San Francisco Bay Area by Golf Digest. Josh is currently a Titleist Leadership Advisory Staff Member.”

The Josh Zander golf instructional series consists of 14 video lessons on a variety of topics from hip turn to alignment to swing path and a number of others.

Going above the norm, the Knoodle framework adds some cool features to enhance the video experience.  Interestingly, each lesson includes a series of notes, very similar to a PowerPoint presentation.  They sit adjacent to the video and automatically advance as the video progresses to reinforce the video instruction.  All of the notes can be downloaded as Adobe Acrobat files which can be studied later.

In addition, there are mechanisms built in to the Knoodle interface to comment on the lessons, rate them, share them with others, or even communicate with the author.

One of the interesting features of Knoodle is that it lets the instructor set the price of the instruction.  In this case, the price of this video series is set at $10.

As far as the quality of the lessons, I was pretty impressed.  Josh Zander is an accomplished teacher and he presents the lessons in a very easy to understand way.  As I write this, I’ve watched about ten of the 14 lessons and I found them all very concise and informative.  They’ve all been under ten minutes so far, with most falling in the 4-6 minute range.

During the lessons, Zander presents a number of drills and uses a number of training aids while demonstrating the topics at hand.

I found the companion notes to be a nice feature that you don’t really find with most video lessons online.  They not only help to focus on the important points of the lessons, but being able to download them and refer to them later is a nice way to review the material and remember the key points without necessarily needing to review the entire video lesson again.  This might come in handy as you experiment at the driving range.  It’s a lot easier to refer to notes than to watch a video while standing on the practice tee.

One thing that should be noted is that these 14 lessons cover a wide array of topics, but should not be construed as a comprehensive lesson covering everything there is to know about the golf swing.  There are a wide array of topics, but the lessons are fairly focused and brief.

I was somewhat conflicted about the $10 price tag initially.  To be truthful, before I viewed the lessons, I had a hard time believing that the series could be worth it.  The main reason for that is that the internet has grown into such a spring of knowledge (some good, some not so good), but even in the golf world, there is a ton of instruction out there available for free.

After working my way through most of the lessons, though, I think I’ve kind of changed my mind on that.  Josh Zander is a quality instructor and the lessons are pretty well done.  They’re informative and will give you a lot of solid information.  I didn’t tally up the total running times for all the videos, but there has to easily be an hour worth of material.  I don’t know what Josh Zander charges for a lesson, but I have to believe you’d easily pay at least $100 for an hour’s worth of this material from a teaching professional of his caliber.

I have to say that, overall, I recommend checking out the series of lessons.  Players looking to improve will find a wealth of information to help get on the road to better golf.  Knoodle itself is a neat concept and it will be interesting to see it expand and grow over time.  For now, feel free to check out the Josh Zander golf instructional series by clicking here.

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Important Disclosure

As of the time of this writing, I am engaged in an advertising relationship with Knoodle, which you might notice as a big ad near the top of my sidebar.  It is not an affiliate relationship (where I make money if you buy something), nor do I make money for click-throughs.

When I was approached by Knoodle, I was asked about buying advertising and also about reviewing this lesson series.  Before I would accept the advertisement, I asked for assurance that there was no expectation on my review being steered a certain way as a tit-for-tat in exchange for advertising. I was informed that not only was an honest review encouraged, it was expected.

If not for this fact, I would have turned down the advertising revenue, because to me, honesty and integrity are too important to sell.  This is why you have never seen, and will never see, a sponsored post in this space as long as I continue to breathe.

I believe that I have given the instructional series an honest assessment.  Because this is the first time I have ever accepted money from a company for advertising whose product I subsequently reviewed, I wanted to make this relationship completely transparent.  I also want to give you my personal assurance that I have continued to do what I have done from day one.  Namely, to tell you what I think as honestly as I can.

As most of you realize by now, I’m a big proponent of the type of short game that Dave Pelz advocates.

Not only do I recommend his books, but I enjoy his articles in Golf Magazine each month. In the February 2010 issue, he wrote an article about choosing wedge lofts wisely.  It kind of centered around the new wedge groove rule changes and, as usual, was full of great facts and advice.

One thing kind of caught my attention, though, and I’m not sure I’m fully on board.  Because of the lessened spin resulting from new groove regulations, he points out that players can expect around 50% less spin from the rough and about 20% less spin from the fairway for wedges of comparable lofts.

He goes on to point out that to stop shots on the greens as effectively, players will have to adopt higher and softer trajectories than what we’re used to producing.  And, he says, there are two ways to do that:  either  open the faces to current wedges to produce high flop/cut shots, or get wedges with higher lofts.  He adds that it’s easier to hit shots straight and control the distance with a square club face than it is with an open-faced cut shot.

This is where I’m kind of torn.  Believe me, I don’t doubt that Pelz can show that, scientifically, hitting those little cut lob shots is not as reliable as hitting something with a square club face.  But, I also think there’s something to be said for developing the creativity that comes along with hitting all kinds of shots with each wedge.

As you may know, Dave Pelz is a proponent of a 4×3 system, where the goal is to carry 4 wedges, and to groove 3 distinct short game swings with each, thereby giving you twelve absolutely grooved, reliable, distances within wedge range.  I talked a little more about Pelz’s 4×3 system and why it works when I reviewed his Short Game Bible, which you can check out for more background.

When it comes to finesse wedge shots, I can certainly agree with using that system.  I’ll be the first to say that if your 9 o’clock sand wedge swing produces a shot of 50 yards, then trying to open the face of your pitching wedge to hit that distance with the same swing isn’t a great plan.

But let’s talk about shots from within your shortest 4×3 distance.  We’ll say for the sake of argument that we’re talking about shots 25 yards and shorter.  I will agree with Pelz that, all things being equal, hitting a 15-yard pitch with a square face will produce a more consistent shot over numerous attempts than if you have to open the club face of a less lofted wedge some amount to hit a higher, softer shot to produce a shot of the same distance.

Naturally, introducing a second variable (an open club face) adds some degree of inconsistency because the best we can do is make a guess of how much the face is open and it won’t likely be the same each time, whereas we can probably get the club face closer to square each time (even though it usually won’t be perfectly square).

I get all that.

At the same time, I think there is some benefit to being able to take out a single club and produce a nearly infinite number of shots within a certain distance.  And maybe that doesn’t even mean taking those shots to the course.  Maybe on the course, it’s best to just stick with the shots Pelz recommends for maximum consistency.

I believe there is, however, a certain confidence and comfort that comes with being able to take a wedge out of your bag and feel like you can do anything with it, even if your intent is only to produce a vanilla, square-faced, short pitch.

I think I kind of felt that a little last spring as I was putting in my foundational practice green work for the year.  To mix things up, I would spend 20 minutes or so with each of my four wedges.  I would hit all the plain square-face chips that I could, to various targets around the green.  I was working on my basic stance and swing and all that, and getting a feel for how each club reacted for those shots.  How high did the ball fly?  Did the shots check at all?  How far did the ball fly for a given swing length?

I also spent a lot of time with each club hitting shots that I might not normally attempt.  I would find a pin that was only a couple of paces on the green and drop the ball in the fringe and see if I could hit a little lob and stop it close.  I would bury the ball in the rough and try the same shot.  I would drop the ball on the fringe and try to keep the ball lower by de-lofting the club some.  I would address the ball with my hands back some to see if the shot came out higher and more softly.

I believe that spending so much time doing that gave me an extreme comfort with my wedges from just off the greens.  My stats don’t really show me getting up and down a lot last year, but in fairness, I usually wasn’t just off the greens because I was struggling with swing troubles for a while and as the summer wore on, I spent less time working around the practice green and more time on the practice tee.

However, early in the year, my confidence from just off the green was at an all time high, and I can’t help but wonder if that was the result of trading a little art for science around the practice green.

Even though we might practice a wide variety of shots around the practice green, normally, that can’t match the infinite combination of possible situations we face on the course.  I might hit 50 balls from three paces off the green to a pin five paces onto the surface, but did I hit any where I was three paces off the green to a pin that was three paces on?  Maybe not.

What I did, though, was practice all sorts of shots with my wedges so that when I encountered a shot on the course that was a little different from what I might have practiced, I was still very confident because I felt like I could vary what I was doing with hand position, club face, swing length, etc. and not feel totally out of sorts wondering what the result would be.

It could be that all I did was find a way to give myself a little false confidence.  Maybe I would have enjoyed the same confidence and even more success by just sticking with grooving a consistent, repeatable swing and not trying to concern myself with hitting all sorts of wacky shots with my wedges.

What do you all think?  Is there a benefit to mixing in a good bit of art with all of the science?  Or do you think that keeping it consistent and repeatable is better in the long run?  I’d love to hear how you all approach that segment of the game.