Indoor/outdoor golf lesson

In Minnesota, it’s the “off-season.” I guess there’s an off-season for most of us at some time or another, a time when we put the clubs aside and focus on other activities.  But for some of us, the off-season is way too long.When the restlessness begins to set in, we start planning a golf get-away, or we hunker down in front of the TV to watch a golf tournament, or we bring out the putter and start practicing on the carpet.

This is all well and good, but there are some other ways you can keep your spirits up and actually prepare yourself for the upcoming season.

• Engage in a golf-specific fitness program. Strengthening your core is one of the best things you can do for your swing. Balance and endurance exercises are also very good.
• Clean and renew your equipment. Maybe this is a good time to find that specific club you’ve been looking for. Maybe you need new grips or a new bag or new spikes in your shoes.
• Take a lesson or two. There are indoor facilities everywhere and pros who will be happy to help you. The off-season is a great time to make a swing change.
• Set some goals for yourself. Make them realistic and achievable. Then use them as motivation for exercising.

Have a great off-season!

Well, of course it was frustrating and no fun! Too often, women don’t give themselves the opportunity to succeed in golf. First of all, it is rarely a good idea to learn from an amateur. A golf professional is trained to start people out correctly and help them improve.

Secondly, it is never a good idea to learn how to play golf on the golf course. Some practice and preparation need to take place before actually beginning to play.

Finally, golf is a difficult game that is never completely mastered. No matter what level of accomplishment you’ve achieved, it’s important to seek guidance along the way.

Turn frustration into fun!

A LITTLE SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH FOR ALL THOSE 19th HOLE DEBATES

By Bill Pennington

Ever wonder if you play better golf riding in a cart or walking? Ever wonder how many calories you burn in a typical round? Or if you would play better if you were in better shape? Ever wonder if golf is truly a sport?

Neil Wolkodoff wondered all those things, too. And as the director of the Center for Health and Sport Science at the Rose Medical Center in Denver, he knew how to find the answers. Two years ago, he bought $27,000 worth of equipment to conduct a painstaking set of tests on amateur golfers. When he was done, he had some findings that could settle a lot of barroom arguments.

For example, in Wolkodoff’s study, golfers scored lower while walking with a caddie or with their clubs on a push cart than they did when using a motorized cart. And golfers carrying a golf bag posted the highest average score.

As one might expect, the most energy was expended while walking with a bag (721 calories burned for nine holes). But walking with a push cart was not far behind (718). Walking with a caddie burned 621 calories for nine holes, and riding in a cart still burned 411 calories on average.

“One of the surprise realizations was that just swinging a golf club about 100 times uses up a significant amount of energy,” Wolkodoff said.

Each of the golfers went through rigorous testing before the study to establish their aerobic endurance and anaerobic threshold levels — the point when lactic acid buildup generally begins to impair coordination and concentration. This became important because Wolkodoff could watch readouts from six pounds of sensors strapped to the golfers and identify when they had gone beyond their fitness level.

What Wolkodoff discovered was that exceeding one’s anaerobic threshold usually went hand in hand with ineffective golf. Think, for example, of someone walking up a steep hill and then having to execute a delicate chip without the two-minute recovery period needed to restore heart and respiratory rates to normal.

So being fit cuts strokes.

“If you’re out of shape, exceeding your threshold could happen a few times every round, even while riding in a cart, because tee boxes and green complexes are often elevated,” Wolkodoff said. “Your golf game will suffer. Somebody with the yips might just be a little winded after walking up to the green. At the same time, being in better physical condition would make you better mechanically and mentally.”

Finally, is golf a sport rather than a game?

“There are a lot of ways to define a sport,” Wolkodoff said. “But we know that the golf swing uses almost every muscle group in the body. We know it uses a pretty significant amount of energy — not as much as running a 10K but more than people think. And one significant measure of a sport is whether physical training improves your ability to perform, and I think that’s been proven in golf.

“So in my estimation, it’s absolutely a sport.”

Wolkodoff’s study, which may be the first of its kind, had its limits. Because the equipment was cumbersome, expensive and took about two hours to put on and take off, his test group was just eight golfers. They were men ranging in age from 26 to 62 and had handicaps from 2 to 17. Each played the front nine at a championship-quality Denver-area course four times on different days — walking with a push cart, walking with a caddie, walking and carrying their golf bag, and riding in a golf cart.

Weather conditions were similar each day. The golfers were required, as much as was possible, to approach the nine holes the same way each time. In other words, if they had hit driver off the first tee in their first round, they had to hit driver again on the first hole of their final three rounds. The sequencing of how they played the rounds was varied; not everyone played with a golf cart first, then with a caddie and so on.

The golfers’ results during the four rounds tracked similarly with consistent statistical trends. For example, seven of the eight golfers reported the same scoring pattern: lowest while playing with a pushcart (group average was a five-over-par 40 for nine holes), followed by playing with a caddie (42), playing in a motor cart (43) and playing while carrying their bag (45). Wolkodoff received no commercial sponsorship or financing for the study other than from the Rose Medical Center. He donated his time, which amounted to about 500 hours.

“It’s not a perfect study, but I think we discovered some things,” Wolkodoff said. “You throw the findings out there and let people take their potshots at them, which is fine. I would like to see someone do a follow-up study. But if it hasn’t been done before, it’s because of all the time, equipment and data involved.”

In fact, representatives at the P.G.A. of America, the United States Golf Association and the National Golf Foundation said they were not aware of studies exactly like Wolkodoff’s. A recent University of Pittsburgh study measured one golfer’s caloric expenditure as he walked with a bag, walked with a caddie and rode in a cart. That study put the number of calories burned at higher rates than Wolkodoff’s study — about 1,000 calories for nine holes of walking and carrying, 750 for walking with a caddie and 650 for riding in a cart. A Swedish study two years ago concluded that golfers there lived five years longer than nongolfers. But nearly all golfers in Sweden walk while playing.

“The health benefits of walking was the best news of our study,” said Wolkodoff, adding that the complete results could be found on his center’s Web site, rosechss.com. “Playing 18 holes of golf while pushing a cart twice a week shouldn’t replace an overall fitness regimen, but it could be a very worthy supplement.”

But on many golf courses, it isn’t possible to walk because golf courses promote the use of carts to raise their revenue.

“There are positives to golf being helpful to people’s health and wellness,” Greg Nathan, the senior vice president for membership at the National Golf Foundation, said when discussing Wolkodoff’s study. “But there can be an opposite effect. The renting of golf carts is important to the health and welfare of the golf industry.”

Add to that the perception that cart use speeds play, a myth that has been debunked by several studies but a myth that persists nonetheless. Some golf courses are also designed with long distances between some tees. And, of course, some people cannot walk the golf course for various physical reasons. Still, spreading the word that walking while playing will yield significant health benefits could help the game grow.

“I don’t just play golf to lose money to my sandbagging friends,” you could tell your spouse. “I do it for both of us because I want to stay in shape.”

It would be true, and it would apparently help your score and perhaps your wallet.

In the end, I think Wolkodoff and his many microchips have just scratched the surface. I’ve got plenty of other 19th-hole arguments he could settle: Do golfers usually play better alone or in a group? Do they usually play better in the morning or the evening? Better on the front nine or the back nine?

It’s not my research money, but I think we’re just getting started.

“I was just reading your story about getting angry when hitting a bad shot, and it reminded me of one of  my own stories.

“I was playing a round of golf with my cousin’s wife and daughter. Their daughter was on her high school team, and she was learning to play competitive golf. She was not hitting her tee shots very well, and on the fourth tee she mishit her tee shot, and it only went about 50 yards. She became frustrated and exclaimed, ‘How much longer am I going to hit these bad shots?’ Without thinking, I responded, ‘Every so often for the rest of your life.’  Her mother gave me a quizzical look, and then started laughing. I then explained that she will always mishit some shots; it was just a matter of how often. The more she practiced and played, the less often she would hit bad shots.”

Great advice for all of us!! Thanks, Kathryn!

If you play in a tournament of any kind,  your score should be posted with a “T” or “tournament” indication. These scores are given a little extra weight in figuring your handicap.

You can even post your score in a fourball event where the best score of two players is taken on each hole and you may not have to finish out a hole or two. You simply put down the score you most likely would have had if you had completed the hole.

It’s important to post every score you shoot. That’s how you get an honest, accurate handicap.

If used creatively, a scorecard can give you a lot more information and feedback than just what you scored. You may have made 5 on a par-4, but how did you do it? There are all kinds of ways to make a 5. A few scenarios:

• Good tee shot; poor second and third shots; close chip and one putt.
• Tee shot OB; penalty stroke; great tee shot; awesome iron to green; one putt.
• Good tee shot; second shot in greenside bunker; two shots out; one putt.
• Two shots to get on the green; 3 putts.
• Two shots to get near the green; 2 chips and one putt.

I’m sure  you get the drift.

Wouldn’t it be nice to take a second look at your scorecard and know how you arrived at your score? Here are some ways to do that:

• Keeping track of putts is easy. Instead of just writing “5.” you write “5/2.” A putt is considered any shot that originates on the green.
• Create a few small symbols which have meaning for you: and use them to indicate when you hit your tee shot in the fairway;, when you get on the green in regulation, bunker shots  or penalty shots, etc.
• Circle your pars/birdies. Perhaps put a square around bogeys.

After the round, you can look back at your scorecard and analyze your strengths and weaknesses on that day. Over time, you’ll begin to  notice trends which may assist you in setting goals for yourself and using your practice time more effectively.