Archive for June, 2013

Make Practise Worth it!!

“When I was a little kid, I would pretend I had a shot to win the Masters or the Open, to make me try my best.”

                                    Hale Irwin

 The practice range is the only place you can find your faults and work at correcting them without it costing you strokes or money. The same is basically true of public speaking, selling, or almost anything you can think of. Practice allows you to record, film, examine and critique your own performance, in a positive way, to bring about change for the better. That’s why role-playing is such an important part of learning. A delightful TV ad depicts a teenager, playing alone among the evening sprinklers. He addresses his ball, takes a last glance at the green, and says something like, “He needs a birdie on this one to beat Freddie.” Then he hits a shot that comes to rest a few feet from the flag. Picking up his bag he adds, “It looks like we have a new PGA Champion!”

I’m sure you’ve played similar mind games, especially if you’ve been playing golf since childhood. Perhaps you’ve played two balls in practice rounds — one for you and one for Nicklaus. You may even have played tournament rounds in your head. Tom Watson said, after winning the 1977 British Open at Turnberry in an historic battle with Jack Nicklaus, that he played so well because he had done it some many times before. When reporters questioned this, he went on to explain that he had, on many occasions during practice rounds, role-played a one-on-one confrontation with Nicklaus. As a result he was not intimidated by the situation when it finally arose in real life.

I hope you enjoyed the article, any comments or Questions then please leave a comment below..

Until next time I wish you all the golfing success

From Your Friends at Mark Wood Golf Academy

PS. Come down and tee it up to make some magic moments of your own. Check our website at 

www.markwoodgolfacademy.co.uk

Mark Wood

PGA Advanced Professional
UK’s No1 Golf Coach

The Best Golf Lessons in Sussex and Kent

Happy Birthday Monty!!

Colin Stuart Montgomerie, OBE (born 23 June 1963) is a Scottish professional golfer. He has won a record eight European Tour Order of Merit titles, including a streak of seven consecutively from 1993 to 1999. He has won 31 European Tour events, the most of any British player, placing him fourth on the all time list of golfers with most European Tour victories. He won three consecutive Volvo PGA Championship‘s at Wentworth Club between 1998 to 2000. He has finished runner-up on five occasions in major championship‘s.

although Scottish by birth and ancestry, he was raised in Yorkshire, England, where his father, James Montgomerie, was Managing Director of Fox’s Biscuits.[2] He spent a number of years with the Ilkley Golf Club, where he was tutored by the past professional Bill Ferguson. He was educated at both Leeds Grammar School and Strathallan School, Perthshire. During his time in Leeds, he became a supporter of Leeds United,[3] but was a loyal supporter of Glasgow Rangers. His father later became the secretary of Royal Troon Golf Club, one of Scotland’s most famous clubs.

Montgomerie became one of the first British golfers to go to a United States college, attending Houston Baptist University, where he played on the golf team and became its top player. He won three important Scottish amateur tournaments – the 1983 Scottish Youths Championship, the 1985 Scottish Stroke Play Championship, and the 1987 Scottish Amateur Championship. He also played for Scotland twice in the Eisenhower Trophy (1984 and 1986) and for Great Britain and Ireland in the Walker Cup twice (1985 and 1987). Between 1988–91, Montgomerie completed a degree in Accountancy at the University of Stirling.

Montgomerie turned professional in 1988, and was named the Rookie of the Year on the European Tour that season. He quickly developed into one of Europe’s top pros, winning his first event at the 1989 Portuguese Open by eight shots, and making his Ryder Cup debut in 1991. He finished first on the European Tour Order of Merit every year from 1993 to 1999 (a record for most consecutive Orders of Merit), and has 31 victories on the tour, including the 1998, 1999, and 2000 Volvo PGA Championships at Wentworth, England. He first reached the top-10 in the Official World Golf Rankings in 1994, and spent almost 400 weeks in the top-10.[4] His highest ranking was number two. In his prime Montgomerie was considered one of the best drivers of the golf ball in the world and became a very precise iron player, often able to judge the distance he hit the ball exactly from long range.

His form fell away gradually in the new millennium, partly due to marriage problems, and his ranking slumped to 82nd in the world, but he came back strongly in 2005, winning a record eighth European Tour Order of Merit and returning to the top ten in the World Rankings.[5] Late in 2005 he became the first man to win 20 million Euros on the European Tour—topping the European Tour’s all-time highest earners list. He remained the leader in career earnings on the European Tour until 2010, when he was surpassed by Ernie Els.

Despite the drop in form, his influence remained strong. In 2012, Montgomerie was named by the Golf Club Managers’ Association‘s Golf Club Management magazine as the seventh most powerful person in British golf.[6]

I hope you enjoyed the article, any comments or Questions then please leave a comment below..

Until next time I wish you all the golfing success

From Your Friends at Mark Wood Golf Academy

PS. Come down and tee it up to make some magic moments of your own. Check our website at 

www.markwoodgolfacademy.co.uk

Mark Wood

PGA Advanced Professional
UK’s No1 Golf Coach

The Best Golf Lessons in Sussex and Kent

Instant replay

Instant replay

“I always achieve my most productive practice right after a round. Then, the mistakes are fresh in my mind, and I can go to the practice tee and work specifically on those mistakes.”

Jack Nicklaus

It is a trait of champions to employ the “instant reply mode” after every round.

What shots were executed well and what shots were executed badly?

What were the physical errors and the mental errors?

How and where could improvements be made?

Spend five minutes each and every day reflecting on your performance. Pat yourself on the back for your accomplishments but don’t fail to clearly analyze your mistakes and mentally rectify them before you start the next day. Decide what strategies you can use tomorrow that will be more effective. Commit to more preparation.

Tony Lema

I hope you enjoyed the article, any comments or Questions then please leave a comment below..

Until next time I wish you all the golfing success

From Your Friends at Mark Wood Golf Academy

PS. Come down and tee it up to make some magic moments of your own. Check our website at 

www.markwoodgolfacademy.co.uk

Mark Wood

PGA Advanced Professional
UK’s No1 Golf Coach

The Best Golf Lessons in Sussex and Kent

Flightscope Lessons

Flightscope Lessons

Well it’s roughly been one month since I purchased a flightscope to use in lessons and I must say the feedback that I have had from client’s improvements has been fantastic.

How can flightscope help my golf?

FlightScope’s 3D motion tracking devices are not just about ball measurement; they can also help with your golf swing analysis by measuring variables related to your golf club, such as:

  • club head speed
  • club attack angle
  • club path
  • club face angle
  • dynamic loft

The ball’s trajectory after it has been launched is also tracked, which means you have exceptionally comprehensive ball measurement information instantly available, aiding you in your ongoing quest to improve your golf swing. It is also printable for later analysis.

The FlightScope 3D Doppler Tracking Golf Radar was the official 3D motion tracking device at the 2008 PGA Fall Expo, which just goes to show that this ball tracking monitor is a master of its game. By using it, you could be a master of yours by accurately developing that perfect golf swing.

FS1

Recently a new client came to me after having had a few lessons with other various professionals and was really not making any progress in improving his dreaded SLICE!!

After we had talked about his game we videoed his swing and also used the flightscope to get some data on what the club was actually doing through the impact area. This client was under the impression that his swing was massively “over the top” on an out to in swing path and that is what was causing his SLICE!!

After we viewed the video, in which I must add his golf swing looked very nice and functional, we looked at the flightscope data. This showed that his swing path was on a slight in to out path, a complete opposite to what he thought but the clubface was 10 degrees open to the target line at impact. The clubface position at impact was the main reason for his rightward shot!!

After a small grip change and a feeling of a very soft forearm rotation we had him hitting beautiful soft draws, which also increased his distance by 15 yards!!

Since our lesson just over 2 weeks ago he sent me an email yesterday saying thanks very much I have just won my last 2 club competitions and reduced my handicap by 2!!

Not a bad result after just a 1 hour’s golf lesson!!

FS2

That is why the flightscope is very good as it gives us the 3D real time function of the club through the hitting area.

Flightscope is also very accurate and very good in calibrating how far you hit each club, both on carry and total distance.

FS3

FS4

If you would like the same kind of results and want to see an improvement in your own golf then please contact me [email protected] or 07796 271661 to book a lesson now!!

From Your Friends at Mark Wood Golf Academy

I hope you enjoyed the article, any comments or Questions then please leave a comment below..

Until next time I wish you all the golfing success

From Your Friends at Mark Wood Golf Academy

PS. Come down and tee it up to make some magic moments of your own. Check our website at 

www.markwoodgolfacademy.co.uk

Mark Wood

PGA Advanced Professional
UK’s No1 Golf Coach

The Best Golf Lessons in Sussex and Kent

 

The Strange Tale of Hinkle’s Pine!

The Strange Tale of Hinkle’s Pine!

With the US Open on this week we got to thinking about some of our favorite moments from this great event. The one I choose to share always brings a smile to my face, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

At the 1979 US Open an unusual thing happened on the 8th hole. A 30-foot black spruce tree grew overnight, just off the front of the 8th tee! Now before you check the cover of this book to make sure you didn’t pick up an omnibus edition of the National Enquirer by mistake, allow me to explain.

Pinkie Tree

Lon Hinkle, one of the Tour’s longest hitters, may not have made as indelible a mark as some of the more famous champions, but he certainly possessed some of the necessary traits. His game featured very powerful tee shots and an enviable degree of creativity. During a practice round Hinkle realized the 8th hole, a 528 yard par five, could be made much shorter and easier by playing his tee shot down the adjacent 17th fairway. During the first round Hinkle did just that by firing a 1-iron through a gap in the trees, ahead and to the left of the 8th tee, straight down the 17th fairway. From there he played an unobstructed iron shot onto the 8th green for an easy birdie. This lead to a solid round that placed him atop the first round leader board. Word quickly spread through the field about Hinkle’s creative approach to the hole but, in the best tradition of Britain’s Queen Victoria, the USGA was “not amused.”

That night, while the unsuspecting players slept, the “powers that be” drove onto the course under cover of darkness. Armed with a back hoe, a tractor and an army of men, they dug a huge hole not far from the 8th tee. In it they placed the aforementioned 30 foot black spruce tree, effectively plugging the gap in the tree line between the adjacent fairways and preventing the players from making a mockery of the 8th hole by taking the short cut. To the best of my knowledge, this is the only occasion in US Open history where the course was altered in the middle of a championship. Hinkle may have had the last laugh. He still smashed his tee shot on the 8th down the 17th fairway by the simple expedient of hitting it over the tree. Although he finished 20 shots behind the eventual winner, Hale Irwin, the 1979 championship will be remembered by many as, “The Hinkle’s Pine Open.”

From Your Friends at Mark Wood Golf Academy

I hope you enjoyed the article, any comments or Questions then please leave a comment below..

Until next time I wish you all the golfing success

From Your Friends at Mark Wood Golf Academy

PS. Come down and tee it up to make some magic moments of your own. Check our website at 

www.markwoodgolfacademy.co.uk

Mark Wood

PGA Advanced Professional
UK’s No1 Golf Coach

The Best Golf Lessons in Sussex and Kent