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 minute than I could in five seconds, but I was giving my breath a chance to quiet down.

It got me thinking about how much time I spend reading putts compared with the pros.

I’ve been watching the PGA Tour for years.  Of course, I also watch the European Tour, the Champions Tour, the LPGA Tour, and even the Nationwide Tour at times.  It seems like just about every top-level pro in the world takes a long, long time reading putts.

They typically read from the ball to the hole, from the hole to the ball, along the line, and everything in between.  They plumb bob with their putters.  In a feat of flexibility and athleticism, Camillo Villegas even gets his eyes a few inches off the turf.

I have tried over the years to mimic these rituals, thinking that maybe I’m missing something.  But every time, I feel exactly what Bobby Jones said.  I rarely learn anything in a minute that I didn’t know in five seconds.

As I approach my ball, I pretty much already have the line by the time I get there.  When I take a few extra seconds, I’m usually just trying to work out the speed or maybe refine the read a little from, say, outside left to inside left, for instance.

The only time I ever read the putt from the far side of the hole is when I’m truly undecided about the break but don’t see a straight putt.  And a vast majority of the time, I’m still undecided and choose one side or the other and the putt turns out to be nearly straight.

I might take a little longer if the putt has really huge break, like ten feet or something.

I’ll also take my time if I feel that a good lag is impossible.  Have you ever had a putt that’s on the low side of a slope where you know that once the ball rolls over the crest, it’s not going to stop anywhere near the hole or even on the green?  When I get a situation like that, I might putt on an insane line and intentionally miss if I feel like I can stop the ball three or four feet to either side.  I can make that, but I’m probably not going to make the come-back putt from the collar.  These kinds of strategies take me a little longer and they’re very rare.

That said, I think my system for reading greens works well for me.  A vast majority of my misses are putts that were poorly struck or putts where I did not choose the correct speed.  I find that it’s rare for me to completely blow a read.  I can say fairly certainly that I don’t recall having had a read from a second angle overturn my initial read and turn out to be correct.

So the question is, are the pros on television really learning new information as they stalk circles around the greens?  Are they just trying to reinforce their first read with extra information because they literally have so much riding on putts?  Or, is it like Jones said and they’re just trying to calm down before they hit their putts?

How long do you take to read putts? Do you find that reads from second and third angles change your first impression?  Or, in the case of a pressure-filled putt, are you just trying to quiet your breathing?

The original design for Life in the Rough has served me well, but it’s time to move on.  Starting on or near Monday, you’ll notice a new look here.

The old design was excellent but it presented limitations, the biggest of which is, its width was designed to accommodate users with 800×600 screen resolution.   Since that represents about 5% of the readers, I felt it was time to widen it some to permit less scrolling for my epic, long-winded, wordy posts.

The other thing I want to do is establish a unique identity for the site.  I’ve seen the current theme in use on a couple of sites and I want a look that’s my own.  I commissioned creation of a logo for Life in the Rough that I’m very fond of.  Here’s a sneak peek:

Life in the Rough 2.0

I’ve been laboring over the new design for several months and it’s finally to the point where I’m ready to share it with the world.  We’ll find out on Monday, but I think you’ll find the design to be simple, clean, and an overall visual upgrade.

If anyone would like to preview a sample of the new design before Monday and provide feedback, please contact me.  It is greatly appreciated.

As much as I want and expect the transition to go smoothly, I’m sure there will be issues and tweaks that need to be made (certainly changes based on feedback will be seriously considered).  Please forgive any mess while I tidy things up.

I’m excited to be moving forward and I hope you will enjoy Life in the Rough 2.0.

Recently, I’ve been telling you all about the Max Golf Workout.  If you checked out my interview with author John Little, then you heard a lot about my experience already.

To briefly summarize the Max Contraction system (on which the Max Golf Workout is based), it is characterized by these two main points:

1. Loading a muscle with maximal weight for a brief period in a fully-contracted position until 100% of its energy is drained.
2. Longer recovery times spanning from 7-14 days between workouts, or even longer in some cases.

Right after I began the 100-push up challenge, I mentioned that I was putting it aside temporarily so that I could experiment with a new workout.  Well, the Max Golf Workout was it.

I haven’t abandoned the 100 pushup challenge, I’ve just been attacking it from another angle.  When I started, my initial push up test was 6 (well, really 5 because the 6th was pretty poor form).  Tonight, just before I wrote this, I cranked out a solid 15 push ups, triple my initial test, and triple the number I did at any one point during my one week of the prescribed 100-push up challenge regimen.

I know 15 doesn’t sound like much, but if you look at where I started, it’s a huge gain for me.  I should also mention that I’ve only done 5 Max Contraction workouts in 6 weeks and each one takes me less than half an hour in the gym.  Most of that half hour is rest.  Actual exercise time is no more than ten minutes.

If you really want to boil it down, you could say that I tripled the number of push ups I’m able to do with a total of 50 minutes of weight training done across six weeks.

I used the 100-push up challenge as a comparison for the simple reason that it’s a way to actually quantify my results.  I’m seeing several other benefits too.

The Benefits

For the science behind Max Contraction and why it can help you, check out the book and my interview with John.  Now, I’m talking about the benefits to me personally.  Here are several of the positive benefits that I’ve observed along the way:

• I’ve doubled the amount of weight that I can hold in a maximally-contracted position on just about every exercise I do.  And that’s in five sessions.
• Unlike with traditional strength workouts, I don’t feel nearly as sore the day after a hard workout.  I also don’t get a lot of the little nagging aches and joint pains that I get with strength training regimens that have me working through the entire range of motion.
• I feel pretty good.  I’m hitting the ball as long as ever.  My endurance is as good as it’s been at any time in the last few years.
• The herniated disk in my back doesn’t nag me nearly as much as it used to.  I haven’t done any of my usual rehab exercises in a long while, yet I still feel good enough to practice and play as much as I like.  I’m careful, however, not to do any exercises that put stress on my spine, such as overhead presses and the like.
• I haven’t done a stretching exercise in well over two months.  My golf warm-up consists of hitting some wedges on the range and working up to full swings.  Even without stretching, my swing feels as fluid as ever.  Is my flexibility the same as it was when I was intentionally working on it?  Probably not, but I’m not feeling restricted in any way, so why not stick with my natural range of motion?  My joints are likely more stable now, giving me a better chance to avoid injury.
• Even with added muscle mass, I don’t feel like my golf swing is impeded in any way.
• I’m saving a lot of time on weight training and stretching that I can spend on practice and play.

The Drawbacks

I’ve thought long and hard trying to identify any drawback that I’ve observed over the last six weeks.  I truly cannot think of anything I’ve encountered that I’ve been unhappy with.

Well, maybe one thing.  I’m gaining strength too quickly.  I’ve nearly maxed out the weight capacity of the machines I normally work with.  I have one or two plates to go on most of them.  After that, I’m going to be in maintenance mode, I guess.

This also leads to one other minor issue:  Because the weight is held in a fully contracted position, I can handle more weight than I can easily move through the complete range of motion.  So, while I can hold a large amount of weight, sometimes it’s difficult to get it into position.  It helps to have a partner to aid in getting fully contracted. So far, I’ve been managing by myself, though.

Conclusion

For me, Max Contraction training has been almost too good to be true.  I say almost because contrary what you might think, a 30 minute Max Contraction workout is extraordinarily demanding and it leaves me out of gas for a day or two afterward.

At the same time, it takes a lot less time while giving me larger strength increases than I was previously able to get with high rep/low weight workouts.

If you engage in strength training, I recommend giving it a try.  I think you’ll notice an almost immediate increase in strength.

Check out the Max Golf Workout book for more information.  Also, have a look at John Little’s home page.  If you’d like to see a Max Contraction workout in action, there’s a series of videos on YouTube showing John Little supervising a workout (that link goes to the first of three videos).

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Further Reading:

The Max Golf Workout (Life in the Rough)
Interview with John Little (Life in the Rough)
John Little’s Home Page (maxcontraction.com)
John Little supervising a workout (YouTube)

One of the best ways work on short putts is the 100-putt drill.  It basically consists of putting a ring of balls around a hole, with each one about three feet out (approximately a putter length).  Simply start putting until you make 100 in a row.  It’s much more difficult than it sounds.

Not only is it a test of the mechanics of the putting stroke, but it’s also a test of concentration.  Staying properly focused on 100 short putts in a row is the real test.  Let down your guard and you miss, plain and simple.

Lately, I’ve been paying special attention to the follow-through while putting, especially on short putts.  I feel like it’s really helped me on my short putts.  This seemed like the perfect time to give the 100-putt drill another shot to see if I could finally get all the way to 100.

The most I’ve been able to drop in the past is 24.  This time, I knocked in 31 on the first try.  Don’t get me wrong, a miss is a miss, but the 32nd putt was dropping left center when it suddenly kicked left two inches from the hole.

Either it hit something or the ball was wobbly.  That’s not as uncommon as you might think.  Dave Pelz talks both in his Putting Bible.  Balls can be surprisingly unbalanced (especially the one I was using that I think I found in the weeds somewhere - who knows how long it was there).  Also, there’s the phenomenon of the “lumpy donut” - the ring that forms from traffic as people walk up to the hole throughout the day to remove balls from the hole.

The moral of the story is that even if your stroke is dead on and your concentration is unwavering, you can still miss.  It’s both the beauty of golf and its curse.  It makes the 100-putt drill that much harder to actually achieve.  I was feeling great today as I dropped putt after putt.  I thought I was well on my way.  Alas, it was not to be.  I’m going to do it some day, though.

Recently, I told you about a book I read, called The Max Golf Workout.  I was privileged to have an extended chat (see below to jump right in) with author John Little about The Max Golf Workout as well as the Max Contraction system, on which the Max Golf Workout is based.

The two main ingredients to Max Contraction strength training are:

1. Loading a muscle with maximal weight for a brief period in a fully-contracted position until 100% of its energy is drained.
2. Longer recovery times spanning from 7-14 days between workouts, or even longer in some cases.

This is quite a revolutionary system and John Little was kind enough to go into great detail.  We covered a variety of topics in the 76 minute conversation.  Some of the highlights include:

• What Max Contraction is and why it is beneficial to you
• Why longer recovery times are better for optimal strength gains
• Why stretching and aerobic workouts aren’t all they’re cracked up to be
• How strength training aids in weight loss
• Why three simple strength training exercises, performed infrequently are all you need for basic golf strength
• How over-training is one of the biggest problems in sports today, including the possibility that it may have led to Tiger Woods’ knee troubles

I also give some of my own impressions after trying out the Max Golf/Max Contraction workout for myself.  I will cover my experience in more detail in a post later this week.  In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the interview.

Keep an open mind, and please feel free to leave comments discussing your thoughts and feelings.

The interview can either be accessed here (right-click and “Save As” if you wish to save it to your computer),  or feel free to use the inline player below.  Please forgive the few brief periods of jitter in the recording, as we were conversing over the web and clearly the information superhighway had a few traffic jams.

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Further Reading

John Little’s Home Page (maxcontraction.com)
Max Golf Workout Review (Life in the Rough)