Archive for the ‘Golf’ Category

“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

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

“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

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.

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!!

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.

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!

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.

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

Limitations

When it comes to your golf do you have any personal limitations that stop you from achieving your goals of becoming a better player?

Many golfers put limits on how good they can become just by thinking in a negative way, for example “I knew I was going to miss that putt”, “I always play this hole badly” or “every time I have a good front 9 I always blow up on the back 9”

Sound familiar to you ???

Here is a young Ian Poulter just starting out his career on Tour. Did you know he turned professional off a 4 handicap and did his PGA training, working in a pro shop, doing a few club repairs etc….

If Ian Poulter had self-limitations, do you think he would be where he is now?

He is in the Top 20 in the world, Ryder Cup player, won on most major tours and has carved a great career so far. Ian had no self-limitations and he just followed the process of improving his golf every day. He knew where he wanted to be and he keep his mind strong, even today he is still improving and following his process…..

So when it comes to your golf, please don’t put limitations on how good you can be, how low you can get your handicap or put a bracket on your score. If you want to push your limitations and become a much better golfer you need to start lifting them away from your mind.

Book a lesson now and let’s start to lift your personal limitations away.

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

Best Ryder Cup Story of All Time!

Considering the fierce competition of recent Ryder Cup matches, it is easy to forget that the bi-annual event was, until quite recently, a one-sided romp won by the American team time after time. You had to go back to 1957 to find a defeated US team. Between that occasion and the European victory in 1985, the closest the US came to losing was a historic battle played in September of 1969, on the seaside links at Royal Birkdale in Lancashire, England. That year, an Englishman had won their Open Championship for the first time in almost twenty years, and the British had high hopes for victory. More than 10,000 people crammed every sand dune and vantage point they could find around Birkdale’s 18th hole. The evening was gray and damp and the light was fading as the final twosome reached the tee. The result of the Ryder Cup was in the balance and rested squarely on the shoulders of these two men. One of them was the world’s greatest player, playing in his first Ryder Cup — the other was the reigning British Open Champion and his team’s leader. The entire competition had reached its dramatic focal point. The winner of this ultimate hole would secure victory for his country.

With the destination of the Ryder cup in question for the first time in many years, Tony Jacklin drove first. He had just holed a birdie putt on the 17th that he later described as, “One of the most important putts of my life.” It had enabled him to pull even with the great Jack Nicklaus. Both hit good tee shots down the short par five hole and strode down the red stone path toward the fairway. Jacklin was walking several yards ahead when Nicklaus called to him. Jacklin paused and allowed Nicklaus to catch up with him.

“How do you feel, Tony?” asked Nicklaus.

“Bloody awful!” replied Jacklin.

“I thought you might,” said Nicklaus, “but if it’s any consolation to you, so do I!”

Their eyes met briefly in mutual understanding of the pressure of the moment and the expectations of their respective countrymen. Then they walked to their balls. Nicklaus played first, his ball coming to rest in the heart of the green, some 30 feet from the flag. Jacklin responded with a bold shot over the left sandtrap but his ball bounded to the back of the green, some 40 feet away from the hole. After delivering standing ovations for both men as they approached their balls, the crowd fell into deathly silence. Supporters of both sides rubbed their eyes, gnawed on their knuckles and held their collective breath.

Jacklin’s putt for eagle was on line but came to rest some two feet short of the hole on the damp turf. Now Nicklaus putted boldly for the win, barely missing the hole but running some three or four feet by. The pressure was intense but Nicklaus, taking his time as usual, hunched over the ball in his familiar way and stroked it dead center into the cup. Jacklin was now faced with the longest two-foot putt of his life. If he made it, the Ryder cup was tied. If he missed it, he would be the scapegoat for the loss and would no doubt be crucified by the British sporting press, ever ready to turn on yesterday’s hero. Jacklin stepped towards his ball marker but, before he could replace his ball, Nicklaus bent down and picked up Jacklin’s marker, conceding the tying putt. As he extended his hand he said, “Tony, I’m sure you would have made it…but I wasn’t prepared to see you miss it.”

Their match was halved, the Ryder Cup was tied, and the US would retain the trophy. This fine gesture was typical of Nicklaus, demonstrating the highest qualities of sportsmanship and class we expect of all TRULY great champions.

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

Top 10 Best Ever Caddie Quips

10.       Golfer: “That can’t be my ball, it’s too old.”
Caddie: “It’s been a long time since we teed off, sir.”

9. Golfer: Caddie, how would you have played that last shot?

Caddie:  ” Under an assumed name.”
8. Golfer: “This is the worst golf course I ever played.”
Caddie: “This isn’t the golf course, we left that over an hour ago, sir! ”

7. Golfer: “I’ve never played this badly before”

Caddie: “I didn’t realize that you had played before, sir”

6. Golfer: “Please stop checking your watch, it is annoying.”
Caddie: “This isn’t a watch, sir. It is a compass.”

5. Golfer: “I’ve played so poorly, I think I’m going to go drown myself in that lake.”
Caddie: “I don’t think you could keep your head down that long.”

4. Golfer: “I’d move heaven and earth to be able to break 100 ”
Caddie: “Try heaven, you’ve already moved most of the earth.

3. Golfer:  Do you think it is a sin to play golf on Sunday?”
Caddie: “The way you play, Sir, its a crime any day of the week!”

2. Golfer: “Do you think I can get there with a 5-iron?”

Caddie: “Eventually.”

1. Golfer: You’ve got to be the worst caddy in the world!” he screamed.”

Caddie: “I doubt it. That would be too much of a coincidence.

Pass it on, make someone happy!

From Your Friends at Mark Wood Golf Academy

PS.  Come on down and make some quotable swings of your own. Check news and special offers on our website www.markwoodgolfacademy.co.uk

Mark Wood

PGA Advanced Professional
UK’s No1 Golf Coach

The Best Golf Lessons in Sussex and Kent

The Bernard Langer Solution

Bernard Langer became one of the world’s best players and a two-time Masters champion by identifying his limiting factor and overcoming a problem few players in history have ever conquered. At a very early age he developed the putting “yips.” In a nutshell, that means he lost control of the muscles in his hands and arms when facing short putts. From three feet he might leave a putt short by 18 inches, then, on the very next green, be forced to watch in anguish as his unruly putter fired the ball 10 feet past the hole! Recognizing that this problem would prevent him permanently from reaching his goals, no matter how good his iron play, he spent hour upon hour, week after week, working to overcome his limitation. He took Gary Player as his model and, through determination and will power, he finally found a stroke that would work for him. For several years he was among the top players in European golf, then, without warning, the dreaded yips returned!

Once again he was compelled to go back to the practice putting green in search of a cure. Eventually he discovered a unique and creative grip that entails placing his left hand about ten inches down the shaft and letting the shaft rest against the inside of his left forearm. He then locks the grip of the club in place by gripping both the shaft and his left wrist with his right hand. While it may be one of the most unorthodox grips in history, it has enabled him to play competitive golf at the highest level once again.

Langer had the courage and determination not only to confront his weakness but to make it his strength. No one wins the Masters putting badly!

What’s your weakness?

Post it in the comments below.

From Your Friends at Mark Wood Golf Academy

P.S. The weather’s no joke, come out and make the most
of the sun!

Mark

PGA Advanced Professional
UK’s No1 Golf Coach

Mark Wood Golf Academy
The Best Golf Lessons in Sussex

Is This Best Golf Joke Ever?

I don’t know but I can just picture “Slaming Sam” delivering the lines with that hillbilly drawl and a
glint in his eye!
A number of years after he retired, Sam Snead was playing a round of golf with a young would- be
Tour player. As they were waiting at the tee box on the first hole, Sam’s opponent — who was rather
large and strong — asked Sam’s advice about the upcoming tee shot. “Mr. Snead, do you think I can
clear those tall pine trees over on the right?”
Sam thought for a moment and replied, “When I was your
age, I could clear those trees with no problem.”
The young man, brimming with confidence, teed up his
ball, took a few practice swings, and promptly whacked
his ball right into the middle of the pine grove. He looked
at Sam, quizzically and disgustedly threw his driver back
into the bag as Sam coolly remarked, “Of course, when I
was your age, those trees were only eight feet tall!”

Think you have a better golf joke?

Post it in the comments below.

From Your Friends at Mark Wood Golf Academy

P.S. The weather’s no joke, come out and make the most
of the sun!

Mark

PGA Advanced Professional
UK’s No1 Golf Coach

Mark Wood Golf Academy
The Best Golf Lessons in Sussex