Killer Stats: How the Best Can Get Better

Hitting 54.6 percent of fairways. Tiger’s recent swing changes support his philosophy to bomb the driver and live with hitting fewer fairways. He lets the clubface open more on the backswing than he used to, creating a need to reroll the club through impact. This adds yards but calls for great timing to control direction.

Limit face rotation
For straighter drives, keep the clubface looking at the ball longer going back, and then reduce the roll on the follow-through. Here’s a drill for controlling face rotation: Hit shots with a short iron, swinging a third of the way back and through. Feel how your wrists don’t rotate as much, and reproduce that feel in your driver swing.

Averaging 270.0 yards off the tee. Fred is hitting 75.9 percent of fairways this year, but his lack of distance can really set him back. The problem is that Fred’s body just moves too slowly. He needs to build more torque, creating a stretch reflex, which will make everything move faster.

Stabilize your lower body
I call it the Moe Norman Drill, after the great Canadian pro. Widen your stance like Moe did, with your left foot turned out toward the target. This really restricts your hips, making it hard to turn your lower body on the backswing, which makes the rest of your body—hands, wrists and arms—fire faster through the ball.

Driving in left rough 18.3 percent of time. When Phil tries to hit a fade for accuracy, he aims too far to the left, causing him to have to swing across his body to produce his right-to-left fade. Therefore, he hangs a lot of shots out to the left. Phil should allow for his fade by aiming down the right side so his swing can be on a plane that matches his body, instead of cutting across it.

Check your alignment
Here’s a drill that helps you envision the shape of your shots—and your swings. Lay two clubs down for alignment, one representing the target line and the other representing your stance line (below). Stick a shaft or umbrella in the ground about 12 feet in front of the ball and on the target line. Hit tee shots trying to start the ball to the right of the umbrella and let it curve to the other side (right-handers simply reverse directions).

Averaging 30.79 putts in final round. This putting stat blew me away. How could Mr. Cool struggle with these pressure putts? Then again, he did have some untimely meltdowns, particularly at Pinehurst in the Open. One tip that Harvey Penick gave Davis Love III was to putt on the last green the same way you putt on the first green. That is, don’t try to make them, but try to do the things you need to do to make a good putt. Retief might be getting stuck on the outcome instead of focusing on the process.

Get a feel for distance
Place a club 18 inches behind a hole, at “inside the leather’’ length. Practice hitting putts from 20 feet and keep score: Take 5 points for making the putt; deduct 5 points for leaving it short; deduct 2 for hitting the club behind the hole; and add 2 for leaving it between the hole and the club. Practice this drill until you accumulate 20 points, learning to dial in distance on your lag putts.

Getting up and down 39.3 percent of the time. At the tour level, most players who have trouble from the sand have upright swings. Adam Scott is such a player. He hinges the club vertically going back, so he has to re-route it on the downswing onto a shallower plane. When he doesn’t do this, he digs deep in the sand and can hit all kinds of poor shots.

Make a shallower approach
To learn to swing on the correct plane, practice hitting bunker shots with a 9-iron. This will force you to widen your stance at address, which will lower your hands and set up a shallower swing plane. The longer club will also set up a wider backswing arc, which translates into a shallow approach into the sand and a more consistent splash.

Hitting the green 67.3 percent of the time. Sean is the newest of the long, lazy swingers, like Ernie and Vijay. They create so much wrist hinge that the only way they can hit shots from short range is to decelerate. Sean needs to reduce wrist hinge on these shots and be aggressive through the ball.

Limit wrist hinge
Point-the-Finger Drill: Davis Love Jr. gave this lesson to Davis III. Hit pitches with your right forefinger extended down the grip. Swing so your finger points straight back and then to the target, acting as a brace to keep you from over-hinging your wrists.

Making 45.3 percent in this range. Vijay used to putt with a belly putter and also tried cross-handed, although much of the year he putted with a conventional putter and grip. However, belly and cross-handed putt-ing can introduce flaws. Cross-handed lowers the left shoulder, causing a descending hit, and belly putting puts your hands behind the ball. Both methods can cause the ball to fly or skid before rolling.

Swing low to high
Stick a thin dowel or shaft in the practice green about six feet from a hole, pointing upward and toward the cup. Place a ball under the dowel, set your hands ahead and putt. This ingrains a low-to-high stroke and a slightly ascending arc at impact that gets the ball rolling sooner.

It’s fun to see where the pros are slipping up, but what you really want is help for your game. The easiest way to identify your strengths and weaknesses is to track your performance in a few critical areas while you play. Use any blank space on your scorecard to record fairways hit, greens hit in regulation (two putts would give you par) and total number of putts. In five or 10 rounds, you’ll start to get a sense for the best and worst parts of your game.

To take it a step further, Chuck Cook suggests breaking down each hole where you score worse than a bogey and analyzing the shots that led to that score. For example, if you made three double bogeys, and they all started with tee shots in the right woods, you know your driver needs fixing.

If you’re a real stats junkie, Cook says to record the result for every shot, which is what ShotLink does for PGA Tour players, and the club used. (Do this after your round so you don’t slow down play.) In no time, you’ll start seeing patterns, like you’re missing your 4-iron short and right, or your pitching wedge long and left. Do this for several rounds, and you’ll have a good idea of where your game stands.

There are even websites out there that will track your stats for you (ranging from no charge to about $35 a year).

shotbyshot.com
mygolfrounds.com
leaderboard.com
www.golf-handicap.com
golfmanager.com
onlinegolfstats.com