Your Body Type Effects Your Swing(from Golf Today)
by Joe Groch-PGA

 

Have you ever noticed how people come in different shapes and sizes? Ever notice that everyone doesn't wear size 9C shoes?

If we agree that everyone is not built the same, we should be able to understand why everyone's golf swing should not look exactly alike.

Many golfers have read that the backswing should swing around until it reaches a point parallel to the ground. This is a benchmark for the average body build with an average amount of flexibility.

This may not be the place you should be swinging to, however. Your body simply may not be made for that backswing.

Stand up straight and hold your left arm out pointing straight ahead. Now move your extended left arm to the right until it is stopped by your chest.

Some of you flatter-chested individuals can move your arm quite far before it meets your chest, but women and men with large chests will run into a roadblock very soon. Their left arms have a much shorter range of motion because of their chests. This is the point that Ben Wright, the golf announcer, was trying to make when he said that women with large breasts have a tougher time playing golf. Wright was criticized for his remarks, but what he said was not altogether untrue.

Nevertheless, there are some things you "obstructed" golfers can do to free up your arms for the swing.

First of all, instead of letting your arms hang down alongside your chest, try putting your upper arms more on top of your chest at address. Secondly, to encourage the body to turn freely in the backswing, we should do two things: Turn the right toe out about 30 degrees, and draw the right heel away from the target line a few inches.

What we're doing is making it easier for the body to stay out of the way of the arms as they go about their job of swinging the club up and down the swing plane.

These are things flat-chested, flexible golfers don't have to concern themselves with. But if you body type doesn't match that of the local club champion, don't think that your swing should look the same someday.

Maybe, to be the best you can be, it shouldn't.

Putting Tips

Tips that will improve your putting stroke

Target line. Align the sweet spot on the putter blade exactly along the target line. Most putters have a target line inscribed on the top of the blade or on the flange behind the blade. Place the putter so that this line points to dead center of the ball and straight through along the target line. This is the exact position you want the putter blade as it strikes the ball.
Eye on the golf ball. When you are in your putting stance you do not have to look straight down at the ball. Phil Mickelson thinks he can aim the ball down the target line better if the ball is a couple of inches forward of center in his stance and a couple of inches forward of a straight-down look at the ball. This give him a view down the target line that is from slightly behind the ball -- he has a better view of both the ball and the target line.
Putter style. The style of your putter affects the putting stroke. A simple blade putter with the hosel (where the shaft connects with the blade) in the heel of the blade tends to move in a slight arc; e.g., as your begin your backswing the blade naturally rotates inside the target line. Your downswing brings the blade down along this arc, striking the ball exactly on line at impact, and then arc inside the target line during follow-through.The key is to consistently strike the ball exactly on line. This take practice.
The alternative is to try and force the blade to remain exactly on line during the backswing and downswing, therefore striking the ball exactly on line. This is a bit unnatural -- you must rotate your hands a bit to maintain the on-target alignment. This goes against the principle that your hands should serve only to connect your arms with the putter shaft.
Force of putting stroke. For a short putt requiring a soft putting touch with little forward force, the backswing should be short. After striking the ball your follow-through should be twice as long as your backswing -- extending your arms and putter along the target line, For a longer putt use a longer backswing and longer follow-through -- try to keep the rhythm and feel of the swing the same as for the short putt. Longer distance results from the longer backswing. Work on your putting stroke and you will gain confidence in consistently making those short putts.

Proposed Changes to the Rules of Golf

by Joe Groch-PGA

The R&A, the USGA is proposing a change to the Rules of Golf for players at all levels of the game that would disallow direct or indirect anchoring of the club in making a stroke with any club from any location on the golf course.

The proposed Rule 14-1b would prohibit strokes made with the club or a hand gripping the club intentionally held directly against the player’s body, or with a forearm intentionally held against the body to establish an anchor point that indirectly anchors the club.

The proposed Rule would not alter current equipment standards and would allow the continued use of all conforming golf clubs, including belly-length and long putters, provided such clubs are used in a non-anchored manner. The Rule would target only a few types of strokes in which the club is anchored, while preserving the golfer’s ability to play a wide variety of strokes in his or her individual style.

The proposed Rule change would take effect on January 1, 2016, at the start of the next four-year cycle for revisions to the Rules of Golf. This timetable provides an extended period during which golfers currently using an anchored stroke may adapt their method of stroke, if necessary, to conform to the requirements of the new Rule.

The proposed Rule is the culmination of a review process that began in early 2012, and it reflects the strong consensus of our leadership and the Rules of Golf Committee. Given the high level of public discussion and interest in this issue, we are announcing the proposed change in advance of final action by the Executive Committee, which is expected to occur in early 2013. Between now and then, we will explain our rationale for the Rule and its application, answer questions and solicit feedback on the proposal from the golf community. 

Recognizing that you may receive questions from golfers, they have developed videos, images, graphics and other materials that are available at www.usga.org/anchoring to help you become more familiar with the specifics of the proposed Rule. They have also provided an opportunity to submit written questions or comments on the proposed change, and we encourage you and others to do so. 

Introduction

Introduction

Joe Groch is the Director of Golf at the Glades Golf and Country Club and a 20 year member of the PGA of America. He is also an Adjunct Professor in the Professional Golf Management program at FGCU.

This site can be used to ask Joe questions, post golf related comments, talk about the game of golf, discuss the successes and failures of your game, talk about equipment, rules or anything that relates to the great game of golf.

All You Need to Know

Toe-up / Toe-up

by Joe Groch - PGA

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Chipping

Roger posed a good question:


Hi, Joe...

My appalling chipping is killing me on the course just now! Could you possibly summarise - or provide a rule-of-thumb - for which clubs to use? I'm trying to work on keeping my lower half completely 'quiet' as well as maintaining that forward shaft-angle throughout the swing. I find I'm coming out of the shot with the anxiety of wanting to see where my ball's going to end up! Very hard to trust anything in that department just now!

Do you like a straighter-faced club for chip-and runs from off a green (6 or 7 iron) when there's no appreciable gradient between my ball and the target? I always reach for a sand-iron but am having no success - sometimes even quitting on the shot and dumping the ball a few feet in front of me!

Help!!!

RR

As we have talked about in the past, "chipping", as opposed to "pitching", can be defined as putting with all our clubs. The essential idea is to have one swing and use many clubs rather than have one club and use many swings. And what is the simplest swing in golf?...the putting stroke because it has the fewest moving parts. So our goal is to putt our chips. Specifically, when we have more green than grass to chip over we use our 7 iron and when we have more grass than green, we use a pitching wedge (or sand wedge depending on the loft). To be even more specific, here is an approximate breakdown of the amount of air time vs. ground time for each club (or how much in the air the chip flies vs the roll):
                       Club                 Amt in Air             Amt of Roll
                      7 iron                   33%                      67%
                       PW                    50%                       50%
                       SW                    67%                        33%
Our goal is to get the ball on the green as quickly as possible and let it roll like a putt. The key is to use a pendulum putting stroke and gently brush the grass.-----------I hope this helps.

Hi Everyone,

This is a summary of an article entitled  Blogging in the Classroom: A Preliminary Exploration of Student Attitudes and Impact on Comprehension. It is from the Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia.

This study explores student perceptions of blogging in the classroom regarding (a) which specific characteristics of educational blogging (writing an entry, reading other students' blogs, or reading other students' comments on one's blog) are most helpful for understanding course content and (b) other aspects of the instructional blogging experience, such as the process of providing and receiving peer feedback.

Quantitative data analysis revealed that reading other students' blogs was believed to be most helpful for understanding course concepts. Analysis of the open-ended responses revealed a need for more guidance regarding the process of reviewing and critiquing the work of peers and appreciation for the way in which blogging exposed students to more diverse viewpoints from their peers.

The study also pointed out that recent work in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL) field supports the view that active learning experiences are superior to passive models of instruction. For instance, the research concluded that learning is best facilitated in contexts that include hands-on, experiential opportunities and high levels of student participation, interaction with peers, and student-teacher communication.

In addition, Internet-based communication technologies allow students to create and share their writing, as opposed to merely consuming texts selected by the instructor, these tools are inherently well-suited to support these kinds of constructivist, peer-focused experiences.

The research indicates that in thinking about the role of interactivity in web-based learning, there are several potential benefits of online group communication and typically group communication provided collaborative learning. When learners interact with their peers or instructors, they are able to build their own knowledge and to share their knowledge with other;-both important aspects of peer-to-peer learning. Similarly, interaction allows students to create

knowledge and negotiate meaning, thus making the interaction both more engaging and more rewarding.

The paper also showed that other research suggests that integration of technology has

the potential to increase student learning, although these claims must be considered in the

context of the difficulties associated with this kind of research. For instance, the study empirically examined whether technology enhanced actual student learning. In their study, they defined use of technology as students' participation in class discussions on an online threaded discussion board; student learning as the students' overall performance in the course represented by exam and project grades; and technology use as percentage of participation in online threaded discussion. They found that students' use of technology had a significant main effect on students' learning in that the more students participated in the discussion board, the higher their grades.

Because the blogging format encourages students to engage with positions divergent from their own, blogging can potentially enhance analytic and critical thinking skills. Students may be more invested in their writing if they know they are writing for an Internet audience and their peers, as opposed to only an instructor. The "read/write" functionality of blogging, wherein readers are encouraged to comment on blog posts and thus become part of an evolving, public discussion, is a primary reason behind blogging’s popularity and is what differentiates it from other earlier forms of online interaction tools used by instructors, such as closed, threaded discussion forums. Additionally, the ability to express oneself in a digital environment, or "digital literacy," is considered by some to be just as important, as evidenced by recent attention from industry and policymakers. Finally, blogging and other technologies may disrupt traditional communication and learning patterns in the classroom. For instance, the participatory and decentralized structure of blogging may discourage the "sage on the stage" approach to teaching and instead recalibrate communication patterns so that knowledge sharing is increasingly student-to-student and student-to-instructor. Finally, incorporating online tools into curricula has the potential to shift learning from a time- and space-bound activity that occurs only in the classroom within a specified period of time to an activity that is diffuse, ubiquitous, and concretely embedded in real world issues and events.

Ellison, N. B., & Wu, Y. (2008). Blogging in the classroom: A preliminary exploration of student attitudes and impact on comprehension. Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 17(1), 99-122. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/205847595?accountid=40795

Introduction

Joe Groch is a Professor in the Professional Golf Management program at FGCU. Joe also holds the honorary title of Director of Golf Emeritus at the Glades Golf & Country Club, a private 36 hole golf facility in Naples, Florida where he worked for almost 24 years. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from St. Josephs University in Philadelphia and a Master of Professional Studies degree in Applied Statistics from Hodges University. He is a LEAN Six Sigma Certified Black Belt. He has written two books on golf management and has been published in numerous peer-reviewed journals. In addition, Joe has worked as an expert witness in civil trials. He has also taken graduate level courses at the University of Wisconsin, Barry University, and the Wharton School of Business. Joe worked as a Manager of Accounting for Scott Paper Company and as President and CEO of DCI Inc., and MicroBusiness Solutions, Inc. two value-added micro-computer companies. He was elected a Class A PGA of America Member in 1994.
This site can be used to ask Joe questions, post golf related comments, talk about the game of golf, discuss the successes and failures of your game, talk about equipment, rules or anything that relates to the great game of golf.