That’s Wet! a Golf blog in West Palm Beach Florida

Every year, a multitude of golfers join the game and learn first hand what a wonderful pursuit it is. Unfortunately, about as many golfers leave the sport each year as join - leaving us back where we started. What’s wrong with this picture? If you ask me - a lot.

The overall golfing population is one of the few shortcomings this game currently has. And related to that is our lack of diversity in the game. And I’m not just talking about minorities when I use the word diversity. I think that a game as diverse in nature as Golf should have a playing population to match. I want to see more women, more minorities, more people from different places and walks of life, and more young people involved.

And golf is still a game predominantly for affluent white guys - and it shouldn’t be. I have no problem with expensive country clubs and resorts that charge $200 a round (or rich white guys) but I do have a problem with the lack of affordable play. It’s one of the barriers that needs to come crashing down.

An ever bigger barrier to change is the lack of youth in our game. More than anything else, if we can change this, we can change the game dramatically for the better.

Here are some things we can all do to change this.

• Set courses up for kids. You can start with simply adding real kid’s tee boxes.
• Encourage kids to play at a young age and be patient with them on the course (this is common in Europe).
• Is there a kid in your neighborhood who seems like he or she could use a friend or something better to do? Ask their mom or dad if you can take them golfing. You might get more out of it then they do!
• Ask a friend, work associate or neighbor to play the game with you. Growing the game isn’t just about getting kids to play. Be an ambassador for the game.
• Consider how you treat other golfers on the course when you play. Especially, if they’re having a hard time with their game! HOW you treat a struggling golfer, or new golfer, will make a big impression on them.
• Employ great sportsmanship (and sportswomanship).
• Get involved in an organization that’s already trying to grow the game.
• JuniorLinks.com has a lot of great information and resources
• The First Tee is a nationally recognized program
• Play Golf America is the PGA’s campaign to help promote the values of the game and increase participation
• ourGolf.com is a web site that promotes the game for minorities and features a search engine to find minority golf programs in your area
• The Tiger Woods Foundation is a program that encourages kids to reach their highest potential

Here’s a swing thought for your next round that you probably haven’t heard before…

Never - Never - Never give up.

Winston Churchill on golf (not)

Winston Churchill wasn’t talking about golf when he made this famous statement, but the advice is sound, regardless of the battle ground you’re on.

Now get back out there and play, and please, don’t THINK about anything else.

Your Golf Swing

It was an epiphany - you know, where inside your head lightning crashes, the ground moves and Eagles and Birdies ensue. And I want to share it with you because there’s a chance you’ll relate to what I’m saying and you’ll learn to be a better golfer because of it. Well, that’s asking alot but here’s to being hopeful!

There is no perfect swing, there is only your perfect swing.

And you must commit to your one and only swing 100%. 99.9% won’t do it. This is my fundamental problem. Could it be yours as well? For me, it all started with trying to hit that silly little white ball in the first place. Ever since then I’ve been attempting, succeeding, and flailing at hitting the ball soundly. To be sure, it’s been two parts flailing to one part succeeding.

What you and I have in common with the Pros is that we can’t take who we are out of our swing.

You can’t make Jim Furyk swing like Tiger Woods. It’s not going to happen. Not any more than you’d Colin Montgomery to swing like Fred Couples. These are all examples of distinct swings, that have a lot of character in them. But every pro has a distinctive swing, some just don’t show it as obviously as these Pros do.

A major part of my confusion about the part where you hit the ball has been trying to comprehend and act on seemingly incongruent instruction from our various swing gurus. It’s not that I haven’t studied them or listened to them closely. I have. But the real problem is that they’re ALL right. Every one of those golf gurus teach sound, yet different techniques to hit the ball. And all the best swing coaches can produce great results given an average talent to work with. So, it they’re ALL ‘right’ and they can ALL produce great results the missing part of the formula must be YOUR swing. That reminds me…who was it who spoke about an authentic swing? Ah, back from a quick search. That was Bagger Vance the Movie. So much for deep thinking on my part. OK, so my epiphany was actually programmed by a movie featuring Wil Smith and Matt Damon. I’m so shallow.

What actually gave me my ah-hah moment yesterday was watching this year’s 88th PGA championship at Medinah. I was listening to the commentators talk about a player that was making a radical adjustment to his ‘normal’ swing in order to deal with the lie he had. He pulled the shot off, and you could see how different his swing looked from his normal one. And I was reminded of myself hitting nice pure shots using wildly different techniques and feeling so perplexed. Of course, more often than not, I change my mind about which swing I’m using from shot to shot, or which one feels good that day (usually none of them). But every guru will reinforce that all that really matters is what is happening when your club is running into that little white ball and for a few milliseconds after that. You can do a pirouette in your back swing as long as you look something like a golfer when you’re actually hitting the rock.

Back to the part where you have to honor your one and only swing. As a person, my overall outlook would favor the ‘life is shades of gray’ view vs. life is ‘black and white.’ So it’s no surprise that I look at golf the same way. And I have a tough time picking one route to go down at the expense of another, in many things. I don’t often see one single path as obviously better. Given this, I tend to waste a lot of time making up my mind and once I do decide to strike out on my journey it’s not uncommon for me to be thinking I should have taken the other path. This is no way to produce great results in life or in golf. When I do commit to something I often achieve my goals.

So my dilemma, and maybe yours as well, is who can really dial-in what my perfect swing is? Must we all do it ourselves and go through painful years of trial and error or is there an instructor out there that I can find old man par with? Am I the only one who sees that the entire paradigm of golf instruction could swing to a new perspective where it was about the teacher helping you find your perfect swing - rather than teaching you THEIR perfect swing? Come to think of it, isn’t that what the Pros do when they change coaches or select one in the first place? Aren’t they saying that this one specific swing coach is the one that understands THEM more than all the others? I mean Tiger did just fine with Butch Harmon didn’t he?

What do you think? Have you had an experience like the one I’m looking for? Are you a golf teacher and feel there are limitations to this thinking? Who agrees with me? Anyone,

Bueller?

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILER INFORMATION ABOUT THE 88th PGA CHAMPIONSHIP AT MEDINAH!

You’re waiting for 11AM Pacific / 2PM Eastern for TNT’s live coverage of the 88th PGA Championship at Medinah Country Club in Chicago.

OR

You can’t watch at all because (sobbing) you’re at work.

So what are you to do?

WATCH Tiger and Phil RIGHT NOW via broadband on the new PGA CNN Pipeline service.

THE PGA and CNN Pipeline have teamed up to offer you the PLAYER CAM

If you want to peek at the live scoreboard and see where things stand go to the Official PGA Championship site and click on the FULL LEADERBOARD link.Once you’re there you’ll notice that some of your favorite golf stars have a little link next to their name that says, ‘PLAYER CAM,’ and you simply click on the PLAYER CAM link to watch your coverage.

Sure, all the ads are annoying, but I think it’s worth the pain to get at this great content.

Here’s what I don’t want to see tomorrow during the opening day of the 88th PGA Championship at Medinah in my fair city of Chicago.

Click, snap, snap, click ARGH#@$*!!!

I was amazed by the lack of etiquette of fans taking pictures during The Open Championship at Hoylake this year. Hole after hole, Tiger and other huge stars were interrupted in their back swings, in their pre-shot routines and it was effecting the pace of play pretty dramatically. Hey, let’s throw some people out for that. Make a public example of it and word will get around quickly that we’re not OK with it. We all know that we’re not allowed to take a golfer’s picture during a round and during a major, it’s obscene.

I love the informal spirit that’s cropped up in golf in the last 10 years since Tiger has made the scene, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have respect for the game. It’s one thing to bellow out an unoriginal wore-out-your-welcome ‘who’s the man!’ after the player has teed off but QUIET PLEASE - we’re watching some golf here.

Spending some of my formative years in Australia I was fortunate to listen to a band called Mental As Anything.  Which makes me think of golf.  Speaking of the mental game I was over on The Morning News and was lucky enough to come across a piece by Ralph Gamelli called:
Golf Is a Highly Mental Game.

Here’s an excerpt to wet your appetite - head over to the full post.

Hitting Across Water Hazards

1. Focus on your target.

2. Ignore the pond in front of you.

3. Ignore the way it stirs up memories of Hamilton Pond, where you almost drowned when you were 10.

4. You wouldn’t go swimming for years after that, would you?

5. Even had flashbacks in the tub for a while.

6. Swing.”

Walter Hagen

“They called it golf because all the other four letter words were taken.”

–Walter Hagen

Tiger Woods wins the 135th Open Championship at Hoylake. Photo credit: Christer Hoaglund /Reuters

Watching the final day of this year’s British Open it isn’t hard to imagine the joy that Earl Woods or Norma DiMarco felt watching their sons grow up into the great sportsmen and people that they are.

It isn’t hard to see why no one, including me, should have bet against either of them this week to win The Open Championship at Hoylake when they had their Dad and Mom on their side through 72 holes of play.

Chris DiMarco has the heart of a Tiger

In the end I’m sure what I’ll remember most from this Open Championship is the human side of the sport that Tiger and Chris represented so well. They are shining examples of what this game of life is all about.

Well played Tiger.

Well played Chris.

What’s your prediction for day 3?

After day two at The Open Championship at Royal Liverpool’s Hoylake Tiger was in the lead without a lot of close followers. I’m watching The Open right now (albeit on a Tivo delay) with Shannon and I certainly didn’t expect to see so many people crowding the lead. Expect the unexpected in golf right?

Chief among the interesting threats at the top of the leaderboard is Mr. Garcia. Will his putting hold up? If the 11th is any indication then no. He missed a close one after some spectacular long putts from today’s round and for that matter from the entire week. I want Sergio to break through as much as the most avid Garcia fan but I don’t think this is the one. Wait a minute, I am an AVID Garcia fan!

Scott from Digital GolfBlogger commented on my Ernie prediction and wrote his own piece here that you should check out. Nice blog Scott! Through 6, Scott’s Ernie prediction is far more accurate than my own, though Tiger is a bit up and down today as well.

So if we heed the cry of ‘expect the unexpected’ then what will the leaderboard look like at the close of today? Thoughts anyone? How about Calcavecchia who is just 3 off the lead at 9 under? Well, that certainly qualifies in the not likely column. I don’t know if we’d be as amazed to see the feisty Angel Cabrera (also at 9 under) on top after Saturday’s round. He’s got an amazing game and the right kind of game to win an Open. I know Angel’s already played through 15 but what if the afternoon wind comes up for our leaders (yes, please)?

Oh but wait. Tiger and Ernie just posted bogey’s at the 7th. But what a bogey save by Els as he slides one in the side pocket for some Open magic. I have to state for the record that I absolutely love ALL of these golfers - it’s so hard to root for anyone in particular when you want them all to win. OK, well not Rory Sabatini - I officially DON’T want him to win - anything.

Is a World Tour for Golf far away?

Thursday night - Day One of the Open

As I consumed hours of T.V. and online golfing content I watched a Golf Channel piece where Rich Lerner holds a round table discussion with golfing pros from Nike that include Stephen Ames, David Duval, Paul Casey and Stewart Cink. Other than the over-the-top endorsement from Nike the content has been decent. When asked about the Fedex Cup David Duval answered Rich’s question with a question. He asked us if the Fedex Cup was that different from the World Tour that Greg Norman had proposed a decade ago.

I agree that there are similarities but Greg’s plan was better. As avid golf fans we enjoy both the U.S. PGA on the tube and the European Tour on the Telly. I find myself watching the events that have more cache and I’ll certainly opt for the euro tour over the U.S. PGA tour when the locale in the U.S. is a bore. Let’s face it - there are a lot of ho-hum events on both tours.

As golf nuts we can handle some boring locale’s and line-ups but the average fan can’t. And when you look at the business side and the overall development of our game it is obvious that we need to expand our sport. It’s not growing and it’s still full of boring white people! But, my hopes for hip golfers becoming a major factor on golf courses is fuel for another post. OK, Tigger has done a world of good in the diversity and youth column but we need a lot more young ‘uns out on the course if our sport is going to thrive.

What better venue to reach that audience? Well, the web would be number one. So, more on-demand web-based golf content would be a good start. Where are the live web telecasts of Tour events that fans could have streaming in the background at work while they pound away on spreadsheets and business plans? We have wonderful content like shot-link but wouldn’t it be great for one of those deep-pocketed sponsors (ahem, like Nike) to sponsor shot-link so that we could consume that service for free? Moves like these could help grow our sport.

But to make the web more interesting we have to start with making the golf more interesting. The Fedex Cup is a move in the right direction. But a world tour, one where we combined the best venues from all around the world would be exotic, star-packed, and highly entertaining. I don’t WANT to watch another John Deere Classic. Sorry, my Grandpa was a farmer in his later years and HE loved John Deere but give me a break!

Tim Finchem understands that things need to change and he has the unenviable job of trying to please both elite and not-so-elite golfers along with sponsors and networks. Oh, and us. Tim, don’t forget us because we’re the ones that actually make the world go around - not Tigger and Phil. They wouldn’t have these pay checks without the fan and we want more change. Keep it coming. And Tim, nice job on the Fedex Cup. I don’t care what the detractors say, ANY change in our golf world feels like a good thing to us.