Jimenez Wins European Masters

Spaniard Miguel Angel Jimenez has won his third European Tour event of the season after beating Edoardo Molinari by three shots in the European Masters.

Jimenez completed his hat trick of events this season after winning in both Dubai and France and now finally winning in Switzerland after coming runner up twice before.

The Spaniard came into the final round of the Masters with a three shot lead to which he added another three shots to find himself six shots clear heading into the back nine.

Molinari lead a late charge for first place by pulling the difference back to just one stroke but Jimenez secured a birdie at the 17^th which reopened the three stroke difference and made way for a peaceful walk up the 18^th.

A European Tour card was handed out  to young Italian Matte Manassero who finished in third place with an impressive 68 on the final day and a tournament score of 18-under-par.

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Shiv Kapur Leads Czech Open

The Indian golfer hit six successive birdies to take the lead in the first round at the Prosper Golf Resort and finished on six under par and a card of 66.

Kapur hit birdies from the second right through to the seventh hole and as the finished the first round it looked like he would hit a very low score. The back nine started with two bogeys in a row which he countered with birdies on the 16th and 18th to finish on 66.

“I was six under through my first seven holes so it would have been nice to have added some birdies on the back nine. But golfers are never happy,” said Kapur.

Among the chasers are Peter Hanson and Tano Goya who both finished five under after rounds of 67, the big news however for Peter Hanson is the prospect of grabbing one of the automatic Ryder Cup spots.

If the Swede were to win the event then he would take the place of Paul Casey in the automatic spots and his first round shows he is firmly set on Casey’s spot. In a field where only two of the world top 50 are competing Hanson has a great opportunity to take the £270,000 prize money and the Ryder Cup spot.

The other top 50 golfer is Miguel Angel Jimenez who will be looking to improve on his opening round score of 71 and prevent Hanson from overtaking him in the Ryder Cup positions.

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Martin Kaymer sealed victory in the USPGA Championship at Whistling Straits after a three hole playoff and some controversial rulings. In winning the tournament Kaymer not only becomes the first German to win the US PGA but also moved to fifth in the world rankings.

The controversy came when Dustin Johnson was ruled to have grounded his club on the sand and was forced to switch a five for a seven, ruling him out of what he thought was a place in the play off. The American was clearly disappointed by the decision but appeared to accept the ruling.

“It never crossed my mind I was in a sand trap” he explained, adding “The only worse thing that could have happened was if I made that putt (to ‘win’). I just thought I was on a piece of dirt the crowd had trampled down. Obviously I know the rules – you can’t ground the club in a bunker – but I guess it’s one situation where I should have looked at a rulesheet. The official said the whole course is a bunker. It’s up to them. If it was up to me I would not have thought I was in a bunker.”

Kaymer had finished 11 under on 277 to tie with Bubba Watson, leaving the two to battle it out over three holes and the German ultimately taking the title.

“I was nervous in the regular round, but it the play-off it was strange – I felt very calm, very confident. It’s just amazing. I don’t realise what has just happened – I just won my first major and I am just on Tour for four years. I have goosebumps.”

The tournament had seen Rory McIlroy, just 21, sense victory only to finish in joint third place, just one shot behind the leaders.

Have you noticed how good some of the leading professionals are at grinding out a good score, even if they are swinging the club below their best or downright badly. It’s interesting to note that the real greats like Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus always seem to be able to do this, however they’re playing, and whatever the “rub of the green throws” at them when they get to the last nine holes of a championship.

If I look back to my early years in golf, before I had any thoughts about golf hypnosis or golf psychology in general, I was lucky to have a fair amount of natural ability. At the same time, I was rather too inconsistent for my liking. It seemed that if I started out a round playing really well, but not scoring that brilliantly, then my golf would gradually go from good to bad to worse and I’d have a frustratingly high score. On the other hand, if I started off playing relatively badly, but scoring ok, then my golf would often improve as the round went on and I’d have a bewilderingly good score. What was really odd was that my score after 6 to 9 holes in these two types of round was often similar.

Back in those days, I was a member at Brookmans Park Golf Club and there was a fairly long and secluded walk around a small lake between the fifth green and the sixth tee. It was also quite common for there to be a bit of a delay on that tee, so all in all there was plenty of time to think. Over a couple of years I began to notice that I could predict my final score when I got to that sixth tee. If I was two over par or better and playing badly, I’d break 80 easily. If I was over par, even by just one shot, and playing really well, then I’d really struggle to break 80.

Now I’m an expert in golf psychology, what do I think I was doing back then and what could you do to avoid the same trap? Well, if I started out the round playing well and scoring badly, I used to interpret that as bad luck or blame the condition of the course for my dropping shots. I also tended to feel that my normally excellent short game had deserted me and try to find out what I was doing wrong. These thoughts rapidly become self-fulfilling prophecies as I found more and more external reasons for my poor scores. I was probably not a nice person to be with!

On the days when I started playing poorly but was scoring reasonably well, I used to marvel at how well I was scrambling. I just seemed to know that if I hit a bad shot, I could scramble a par and move on. As a result, the pressure to hit the ball well went away and I started swinging much more freely and naturally – today I’d call that trusting my unconscious golf mind.

There are many golf psychology, NLP and self hypnosis techniques that can help you if you have a similar problem. One of the best would be to regularly listen to a golf hypnosis audio programme. Other golf mind techniques you can use for this include

perceiving your bad luck as being good luck, as described in my earlier article entitled Positive Reframing for Better Golf Performance like Justin Rose using an NLP resource anchor to help you manage your state. There’s a self-hypnosis script for this in my earlier article entitled Anchoring Resources for Better Golf – an Experience with Self Hypnosis for Golf.

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I’m sure by now you’ve heard most of the professional players; both men and women actively participate in golf workouts. It’s no secret. But why then do most amateur golfers ignore this? Is it because it seems like work? Or, does the thought of actually breaking a sweat get you tired already?

Vijay Singh Does Golf Workouts

Either way…the proof is in the bag. The number one player in the world, Vijay Singh, does his golf workouts all the way through Sunday of each tournament. Does it look like it’s hurting his game? I don’t think so. Back in 1997, a young, very athletic golfer came on the professional scene and blew everyone away. I think you know who I’m talking about.

Tiger Woods Golf Workout Routine

Tiger took golf to another level. A real eye-opener for the veteran players who were hitting the 19th hole after every round…and the last thought on their mind was “exercise”. What a wake-up call to be totally dominated by a player who was only 20 years old at the time.

Annika Sorenstam Credits Her Golf Exercises

How about the year Annika Sorenstam shot a 59 and totally dominated the LPGA? Do you know what she attributes it to? Golf workouts! She hired a trainer and got serious about her fitness. And look what happened? She hasn’t looked back since. She just recently came out with an instruction book and devoted a chapter to golf workouts.

To my recollection, that’s the first women’s instruction book to include golf workouts. Working out to playing better golf isn’t just for the guys; Annika has proved that. Now more LPGA players are working out to try and catch her, just like the guys did with Tiger.

Senior Golfers Now Do Golf Fitness Programs

How about the senior tour? Now players are realizing they can still make good money, even after they’ve turned 50 and can’t really compete with the young guys anymore. With the money at stake, they too are all working out. This group of players both amateur and pro is the biggest demographic that needs it the most.

With age comes a decline in both flexibility and strength. When the body declines, the swing goes right along with it. The result is a big loss in yardage, more mishits, and ballooning scores. The end result…frustration! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve played with and received phone calls from older golfers who are just about ready to quit the game.

They are SO frustrated at this rapid decline, that golf’s not fun anymore. But there is hope. The answer? Get your body moving just a little better. How? By participating in workouts for golf program that focuses on golf-specific strength AND flexibility. It’s amazing to see golfers in this age bracket dramatically improve their driving distance, accuracy and scores.

You don’t have to accept that with age, your body declines. No way! You’ve got to fight it all the way! I’m dead serious. The ones who do, are the ones who are enjoying the game again and taking all the money in their foursome.

What Is A Golf Workout

What is a golf workout anyways? Is there such a thing? You bet there is. The golf swing is an awkward movement that puts a tremendous amount of stress on the body. To prevent injury and improve swing speed and distance requires your body to be both strong and flexible specific to the swing.

I could spend dozens of pages describing what this entails, but for the sake of this concise article, let’s keep it simple.

Golf Is Rotational

The golf swing is a rotational movement, with your body in golf posture. Slight flex of the knees and a bending forward at the hips. Since the golf swing is primarily rotational, wouldn’t it make sense to focus on rotational strength and flexibility? That is improving your turning ability related to range of motion and speed.

So anything involving twisting with resistance such as a medicine ball, a dumbbell, or even a weighted club would work. You need to have a resistance to take your body beyond where it normally goes.

For instance, if you took a club and placed it behind your neck, got in your golf posture and rotated back and forth; do you think that by itself would improve your range of motion or power?

Use A Weighted Golf Club

No, you need to add resistance to accomplish this. Take a weighted club and make golf swings. Now you’ll be making a bigger turn AND improving your power. Same thing with a medicine ball. Make turns back and through holding a 4 to 6 pound ball and you’ll see a BIG improvement.

In fact, most of your abdominal work should be rotational. Doing straight crunches won’t improve your driving distance. Doing rotational movements with added weight will. This is where I could go on and on, but I won’t overload you.

Golf Workouts Will Transform Your Golf Swing

I hope I’ve convinced you to take a real serious look at what all the other successful professional players are doing to stay at the top of their game. Doing golf workouts can and will dramatically change your game forever. Now get out there and get it started. No procrastinating. Do it right now!

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If you are taking golfing lessons to perfect you’re putting stroke, watch out. Attempting to develop the ideal putting stroke may hurt your attempts. At least, that is the conclusion of two researchers-a German brain specialist and a Yank golfing instructor. They concluded that while putting fundamentals are significant consistency is more critical to putting well and lowering your golfing handicap.

The motion analyzer they used is the most sophisticated in sports. Originally, Professor Christian Marquardt developed it for pharmaceutical research. Clipping them to a putter shaft enables researchers to measure a putting stroke precisely.

Recording precise Putting Positions
As the golfer makes a stroke, the sensors record the putter’s precise position every fifteen milliseconds. The data tells everything there is to know about the putting stroke : aim face angle, putter trail, impact spot, rise angle, and timing. The system’s accuracy margin is .1 millimeter.

After conducting the research, Marquardt turned the device into the SAM Putt Lab. He then commenced marketing it to teaching academies, pro shops, and individual golfers, like Padraig Harrington. Steve Elkington and Hank Haney, Tiger’s teacher, each purchased one as well . With some assistance from American-based trainer Jim Suttie, Marquardt modified his device into an effective teaching tool. Marquardt met Suttie, PGA Teacher of the Year in 2k, at the 2005 PGA Merchandise Show.

Fascinating Tests, Startling Findings
A few months ago, Suttie and Marquardt tracked recorded the strokes of 150 PGA Tour players and countless top amateurs. In general, better putters make shorter strokes with less face revolution and hit the ball on the upstroke. But this finding isn’t absolute. In other words, there’s plenty of room for individual style in putting. The data disclosed some other surprising findings.

for example, it revealed that PGA pro Brad Faxon aims 2 degrees to the right at address. Faxon led the tour in putting average 3 times from 1996 to two thousand. It also revealed that Loren Roberts rotates his putterface open against its path. Roberts is also a previous Tour putting leader. In all, the information shows that fifty five percent of PGA pros targeted outside the hole on a straight 12-foot put.

the obvious conclusion from all this is straightforward. While the putting basics you learn in golfing lessons are crucial, they are not more critical than consistency. Executing your stroke in the same way again and again again is far more important. Faxon, as an example, has likely been aiming 2 degrees right for 20 or thirty years. But his consistency enables him to sink more putts than a golfer more technically sound, yet not as consistent.

Marquardt and Suttie’s findings do not mean that you must forego golfing instruction sessions altogether. Taking golfing lessons can help your putting. Trying to realize perfection can only lead to disappointment. Actually, there may not be an ideal putting stroke. Instead, concentrate on developing consistency. It will build more confidence in yourself and your putting. More confidence will, in turn, cut strokes from scores and your golfing handicap.

To help, here is a useful exercise to achieve consistency. Called the 5 in a Row Drill, you can make it a six, 7, or perhaps eight in a row drill. Use your pre-shot routine for every putt.

* Take 5 golfing balls from your bag.
* Find a fairly flat hole on a green.
* Drop the balls about 4 feet from the hole
* Prepare yourself and attempt to make all 5 shots
* When you do, back up by one foot and do it again.
* Then move back again another foot and repeat again.

After learning the flat putt, try downhill putts.

Dont’t forget when in Europe to keep an eye open for the finest golfing in Germany. Here’s a great website I came across that offers both great golfing lessons and great golfing courses. Visit golf shop
or visit German Technology Develops the Perfect Golf Stroke or power drive tips sites for more info.
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Taylor Made Golf Balls has produced a ball it claims can be all things to all players – the Penta TP. The company said that while most long-distance balls have to sacrifice some performance aspect like spin, feel and short-game functions, the Penta TP does not. Its five-core construction allows for a multi-purpose ball.

Penta TP Provides Better Performance

The Penta TP provides a softer feel when struck by the putter. It produces high-spins off a 9-iron and all the wedges carried in your bag. It allows for better control and lower spin when using the mid irons – 6, 7, 8 – while allowing easier launch when using the 3, 4 and 5 irons. You gain maximum distance off the tee with your driver as well. Due to its unique construction, players can gain their optimum distance using a variety of swinging speeds.

TP Red LDP Produces Great Flight

If you are looking for Taylor Made golf balls that just keeps on flying, try the Taylor Made TP Red LDP. This product provides optimum distance regardless the quality of club head contact making it a very popular choice for amateurs and pros alike.

Tests on the ball have produced an 11-yard greater distance average for mid-handicappers. This has allowed players to reach into their bag for one less club to make a critical shot. Many pros including Sergio Garcia, Retief Goosen and Justin Rose have tried the Taylor Made TP Red LDP ball.

TP Black LDP Provides Fast Ball Speed

The TP Black LDP promotes faster ball speed for strikers hitting low-spin shots. The urethane cover helps deliver predictable spin while the LDP (Low-Drag Performance) construction produces improved distance for less than right-on center hits. The construction promotes enhanced launch distance and greater spin off both the driver and irons for a softer feel when striking the ball.

Burner TP LDP Provides Distance with Control

This is a three-piece construction that is designed for two-piece distance still adding great control and feel. The Burner TP has a construction promoting high ball speed with a low compression that allows for softer feel. The low compression rating of 75 indicates that many players swinging at lower club-head speeds can benefit from greater distance produced using the Burner TP.

Also, Taylor Made’s LDP (Low-Drag Performance) the unique dimple design helps produce a greater degree of forgiveness with off-center shots. This feature helps maintain more efficient lift when a strike is less than perfect which normally ends in a low-spin shot that drops way short of the mark.

This would make a great choice for older players who have lost club-head speed with time. Due to the low compression, not much force is needed to transfer energy from club to ball. Also, it is a good choice for players who are not concerned about generating on-the-green spin.

Performance with Cost-Conscious in Mind

The Taylor Made Noodle golf ball allows a player to obtain a soft feel when striking the ball producing loner, and straighter, shots. This product is popularly priced while providing a dimple design that produces greater lift and longer carries.

There are a variety of Taylor Made Golf Balls ready for your next game.

So, were you blown away by the golf at the 91st PGA Championship at Hazeltine this weekend? With 8 hours of TV coverage on Saturday and again on Sunday, I was just riveted to the screen and amazed by both the spectacle and the windy golf conditions. The TV commentators also contributed to the windy feeling with all their hot air and false hopes for a certain golfer named Tiger Woods. Didn’t they just love Y.E. Yang’s quote about how the odds against him beating Tiger must be 70 to 1, based on Tiger having just won his 70th PGA Tour event last week while he had won his first earlier this year.

Although I’ve never played there personally, I vividly remember Tony Jacklin telling me, and our other two playing partners at Brookmans Park Golf Club, all about Hazeltine’s challenges, just a week or so after his US Open win back there 1970. The course certainly seems to have got even harder and so more picturesque since Dave Hill’s scathing comment back then that “all it really lacks is 80 acres of corn and a few cows.”

Anyway, there I was watching the golf and really looking forward to the cut and thrust of another battle between Tiger Woods and Padraig Harrington over the weekend, with Padraig seemingly putting his demons from Firestone behind him and in the past. I was also hoping to see some heroics from the many contenders from Europe and to see a real return to form from the likes of Ernie Els and Vijay Singh. Given all the excitement, I almost forgot to watch out for all the golf psychology lessons that were blowing across the screen.

Now I’m sure that you watched most if not all of the weekend’s cut and thrust on TV or, if you’re really lucky, you were there in Minnesota to watch it for real. So I’m focussing here on the golf psychology of all that windy golf, windy golfers and, in my next article, all that windy putting from the likes of Lee Westwood, Vijay Singh, Ernie Els and many others.

Now I don’t want to take anything away from Y E Yang and his outstanding performance this week. It takes something really special to beat Tiger Woods from 2 shots behind on the final day in a major. It’s also worth noting that his final 2-under par 70 tied the low score of the day with just 2 other players. Having said all of that, what happened to Tiger?

Well I think I noticed the first real flaw that I’ve seen in Tiger’s amazingly strong mental game. It’s been staring me in the face for some time now, especially with his occasional bad results in the Open Championship. The problem is with the parts of golf he can’t control and, more importantly, predict. Here at Hazeltine, as so often at Open Championship venues, the players are faced with the uncertainty of a strong and swirling wind. The wind at the tee is blowing one way, the clouds are moving in another and the flag on the green is fluttering in yet another. Tiger can’t predict what will happen to his ball and, unlike his wonderful ball-striking, it’s out of his control. That’s what he doesn’t seem able to handle.

I was taken by the contrast between Tiger’s reaction to two particular shots during his last 9 holes on Sunday. Both were unlucky and neither resulted from a bad shot execution, but one really upset him and the other he accepted philosophically. The first shot was a flier hit with a six iron that flew way over the back of the green on one of the many long par 4s. You could tell that he was half expecting it as he quickly acknowledged what had happened and quietly and confidently played the next shot. His reaction suggested that he hadn’t accepted it as a bad shot, just an unlucky one.

The second one was his tee shot on the tough short 17th where he backed away several times as the wind swirled and changed direction. He looked panicked and more like a rabbit in the headlights than a tiger. Nevertheless, he used his golf psychology training and hit what looked, and probably felt, like a really good shot. The ball sailed over the flag and landed no more than a foot too long and nestled down in the rough. A foot shorter and it would probably have spun back towards the hole. Tiger almost collapsed and still didn’t appear his normal confident and resourceful self as he chipped out short from a difficult lie and missed the putt. It must be remembered that Tiger didn’t capitulate totally and Yang hit one of the best shots I’ve ever seen into the 18th green to close out his victory.

So what do I think was the real difference between those two shots of Tiger’s? Well, he seemed to accept the flier as just plain bad luck that could happen to anyone and he just got on with the short without hesitation – it was out of his control and he accepted it. However, he didn’t seem to accept the swirling wind in the same way and hesitated several times. For a golfer with such supreme ball control and the ball on a tee, he didn’t seem able to accept the possibility of plain bad luck. I recorded the final days play and watching it again I saw that same hesitation from Tiger on many of his shots, especially when he had a good lie.

So there’s a definite flaw in Tiger’s mental game when it comes to a variable or swirling wind. The bad news for everyone else is that once he recognises it, he has his own mental skills and the golf psychology skills of Jay Brunza to help him handle it.

That’s one of the most common questions I get asked by customers.

Up until a few years ago buying a set of clubs from your local megastore consisted of walking in and finding a set you liked the look of. Maybe then taking a few practice swings to get the feel of them and then trying to crunch the best price you could to buy them. The next chance you got you were out for a round of golf with the new “weapons” hoping to shoot low. Well….Didn’t happen did it? After a round of shanking, topping, thinning and generally playing army golf you started to regret even buying the new clubs let alone the hundreds of bucks you had seemingly just wasted.

WHAT SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED……

If the above story happened to you, take heart, you are not alone. Many moons ago this happened to me as well and as I walked off the 18th swearing and generally pissed off at the world the old club pro happened along and said “How did you go young fella”? I proceeded to relay my sad tale to him and he just listened and smiled. After I finished he said “I can fix that”. He took me to the pro shop then out into the storeroom and said to me “Ok stand in front of that chart while I measure you”. Measure me … I thought what’s he on about and then I turned and noticed the chart. He said “Son, when you buy clubs these days they are men’s standard length which means they are perfect for everyone that’s 5’8″ tall”.

I said “Well I’m 6’0″ is that a problem”? He replied “Sure is”. Anyway to cut a long story short he explained why people needed different shaft lengths, different shaft compositions and different grips. I was enthralled this old bloke was like Merlin to me. He saw someone who was genuinely interested and he allowed me to assist him in lengthening the clubs and re gripping them. I loved every second of it and I think he picked up on it so he invited me back to watch him the next week build a set for a comp player and it was the best thing since bread to me I just wanted to absorb every pearl of wisdom he cast upon me so much so that every weekend for the next 10 years I spent with him building clubs and learning anything he wanted to show me. Sadly he passed away and working there without him felt really empty so I moved onto other things. I still think of him when I’m making a new set.

HORROR STORY

I had a young bloke at my local course ask me to check his clubs after he found out I built clubs, he said they were very erratic and he couldn’t figure out why. He had bought them a month ago at a very well known megastore and had cost him a small fortune.

The obvious thing struck me right away but I was curious and had not seen this new version of a well known club in the flesh so I delved deeper.

First thing 7 of his 9 irons shafts had NOT been spine aligned.

His shafts were all stiff flex but he was a slow rhythmic swinger under 80mph. Think of Ernie Els swing or Steve Elkington’s swing. Got him to do a few swings which he verified as being close to normal for him and I thought he was 80 or 82mph. The club pro had a speed tester which showed him at 77mph average over 10 swings. To give you an idea Tiger Woods clubs are stiff flex comps his swing speed is more than 100mph. When we refer to swing speed we mean club head speed measured at the club face and the end of the swing arc (pendulum).

Also he was around six foot playing with men’s standard clubs (the obvious thing I alluded to earlier).

THE FIX ….

After consultation with him he wanted to change to graphite shafts which for his speed suited a lot better and in a Reg flex not stiff. General rule of thumb here with graphite is if your speed is below 90-95mph graphite is fine but above that s/steel should be used.

So I spine aligned ALL the new shafts lengthened, assembled and gripped them and he was a happy camper. Ran into him a few weeks later and he was over the moon with difference in his game.

NOWDAYS ….

Most of the big golf megastores these days do more of a club fit than they ever used to however you don’t know the qualifications of the salesman to recommend anything to you and you don’t always get the best club for you because maybe the sales guys are getting a backhander to sell more of one particular club than the other. Also a lot of the mass produced clubs these days are not bendable. You sometimes need that extra one or two degrees bend to satisfy a customer requirement. Custom clubs are usually made from 431 s/steel and are bendable.

A set of custom clubs is not more expensive than store bought clubs. With store bought clubs you don’t get a shaft choice (i.e.) what type of kick a shaft has to enable the ball to get in the air faster and earlier and land softer and give you more distance value per shot. With store bought you have to take what THE STANDARD is not what you want or need.

THAT’S A BIG DIFFERENCE.

Wes Davis is an Australian based club maker who specializes in high quality irons and Hybrids.

http://www.discount-golf-clubs-and-accessories.com

Elk calls in to the Jungle to better up Astronaut Rex Walhaim’s interview and talks about his visit to NASA. Best jungle interview, Steve Freakin’ Elkington. Aired 3/12/2009. www.BurnMonkeyBurn.com
Video Rating: 4 / 5

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