Opettelen pelaamaan golfia

I have been invited to blog at Finnish golf association's homepage http://www.golf.fi/portal/golfliitto/golflehti/blogit/golfia_median_avulla/ I am very happy about the possibility - I don't know why? It's more work, but I hope I will get feedback on some ideas about golf. This blog will continue - for a while at least, but it just might do to GTO. GTO is www.golf-tuition-online.com and I am at the forum there very often.

I have a inflammation in my ring fingers tendon. Probable from too much golf:-) I make a support to my right wrist to keep my ring finger still. BUT I could not resist the temptation of going to the range to practice some short irons. The fixed right wrist helped my swing very much. I was more relaxed and I could do a good hip rotation before contact.

Golf is 90 % mental. Well, after playing 2 - 4 rounds of 9 holes every day, I think it's also physical. Not just mental:-) Looks like golf is all about accepting ones own abilities and fighting own demands or fears. I remember the fear of bad impact - not hitting the ball well. (It was yesterday). First it was at the range - when I learned to hit the ball there - then I was thinking of missing the ball at a practice round. Next it will be competition. Once you win your fear, you fill find something new to be afraid of. (And finally it will be fear of making a good round:-) Or fear of loosing you perfect swing? When today was an incredible practice round. I was mentally in control. I did not hit too hard and felt like I could control the base of my swing. I felt like I was playing golf - not shooting lottery shots and wondering where fill my ball end up. I am not saying that every shot was perfect. I lost 3 balls. BUT the feeling was good. (Signed up for a 3 person scramble competit...

I had a back operation few years ago and my left leg in not fully recovered. I am training my core and things are getting better. For golf core muscles are important, but it's often difficult to evaluate the fitness of your core. One very good way is to check your balance. Core muscles and hip keeps you in balance. For accuracy in golf balance is also very important. Next tip is provided by Mike Pedersen, Founder of www.golf-trainer.com "Here's an exercise you can do to improve this. While standing pick up one foot and bend that knee. Look straight ahead, but close your eyes and see how long you can hold it. If it's for 10 seconds or less - not good. Need to work on it. If you can hold for 30 seconds or longer than start making small golf swings on one leg. This will definitely be a challenge but will greatly improve your balance during your swing. In no-time you'll be swinging under control and hitting the kind of shots you're capable of." Best thing is y...

Handicap shows the development of skills in golf. For next summer to drop my handicap I have made some goals. I cannot get playing before end of May: May hcp 41 June hcp 18,5 July hcp 12,5 August hcp 9,5 September hcp 8 I think this is the way it might go:-)

I feel like a pro! Just tested the first time my PEI and it's impressive 13%. Shooting 10 balls from 70 meters the average distance to the hole was under 9 meters. Every ball would have stayed on the green! Well this was under practice - and shooting ten balls from the same place and from a range. Not from grass. I think that the PEI should be more like 7 % in situations like this. I am sure that after practicing a month I will get my Pitching wedges PEI under 10% and other iron clubs too.

Just read about Dave Pelz PEI (Percentage error index). It's much like the exercise I was thinking to do this summer - hit 10 balls and see how close to the target I can get them. PEI is the same thing, but you just calculate the error % from the length of the shot. Looks like pro's have a PEI from 7 to 9 % and with a wedge from 15 to 20 %. (That's in a competition. I'm measuring just practice situations.) From Pelz stats you can read that wedge is one of the most impartant tools you need to master to score well! It's wedge - not putter or driver!!! Hannu

This is my backward. I should be practicing chipping! Looks like it will take a while until our golf course opens.

I played three round in different courses in Spain. Last round was 95 and would drop my handicap down to 29 - if it was accepted in Finland. I learned a lot in Spain and most important lesson was to practice more. I cannot hit a ball to a target line - as I was hoping. An other thing to watch is that I get very nervous in the beginning of the round. Well, It's about one month and then driving range will open here in Jyvaskyla and about 6 weeks, I get to play. I looks like my goal to drop my handicap from 47 to 7 is very demanding! - But I am not giving it up. We will see in September - October how did I manage.

I will leave for Spain day after tomorrow. I'm playing with my brother in three different places: La Marquesa, Las Ramblas and Altorreal. Looking very much forward in seeing how my new swing works. Can I stay calm? What is it like hitting from grass and not from a perfect lie like in practicing range. And I am very uncertain with distance control. I think I have found the target line - most of the shots:-) I always have a feeling that I am going to play great rounds - like in tv tournaments. I just can help it - and even though the score is terrible I remember one or two great shots. If I didn't keep a score I would be sure that I have played like a professional.

Okay, here's one tip from "one pro", again:-) Try to play with golfers that have a lower hcd than you have. You learn by watching them play. So today I played in OSIM Singapore Masters - I was playing in front of my TV - swinged after Mamat, Dougherty and the others...

I needed some extra motivation to practice my swing in our living room. Swinging at an imaginary ball is okay for a while, but ... it's dull. I found an old pillow. I thought it might work as an impact bag, but it is little too heavy. To not to break my clubs I started to swing so that I only sweepped the surface very little. This is a very good exercise! It develops a very good control of distance to ground. To sweep the surface so that you can hear a sound but the pillow hardly moves is challenging for me. And it makes swinging feel like swinging with a ball - there is something in stake. I know if I succeeded or not. Also this gives an clue about how clubhead speed affects on impact. Swinging faster tends to create a thick impact.

Looks like learning golf is one of those never ending journeys we have in our life. I have learned about my self that I need continues feedback of progress to be motivated on something like this. Like loosing weight - I have to weigh my self every morning to stick to my goal. Otherwise I will start gaining weight. During the past year I have lost 25 kg, this works for me. For golf I need a similar kind of feedback of progress. I don't think that following the drop of my handicap is the right qualifier. At the moment a simple solution would be to check that I have done my practice swings. 100 swings a day until the summer range opens. One pro suggested a drill: try to hit 10 balls as close as possible to each other. Count the difference in meters and follow up on your progress during the summer. This might be a good thing to do one a week? Shooting with short irons about 100 meters. It would be nice to get all balls in a 10 meter circle?

Today is my 48. birthday. For my birthday I just finished 11 email lessons of golf with Lawrie Montague at Golf Academy. http://www.golf-school-australia.com Get the lessons! I'll add a quotation from Lawrie's email: "Thankyou for your comments on my lesson series and you're right the lessons are simple and for good reason, golf instruction tends to be ambiguous and complicated, and really it's not that difficult to learn how to hit better, more consistent golf shots and ultimately lower your scores. Hannu as long as you truly develop an understanding about what you are trying to do and then follow-up with consistent thoughtful action golf becomes less of a mystery. Good luck to you and your adventures in golf and please let me know how you're travelling down the track." Consider this a "slice" of my birthday cake to you:-) Hannu - learning and living (Modified from McLuhan's "learning a living)

Picture is from Las Ramblas Range and my father is showing me how he swings a 5 wood. It's very important to be motivated - and very difficult to keep it up. First big question is what is the driving force behind ones motivation. Why play golf? For me it's probably need of attention and need to prove to my self that I am "good". (I can learn to play golf in one season - better than average golfers can in their life time. Well, I know I am cheating - I practice, more than others.) So how to keep being motivated? By creating small steps - like two weeks in Spain. It's a good opportunity to test my current skills. Next step would be opening May. I get to play outside and I have also a body composition and physical condition test on May. (I get to know my body fat and VO2max). For June, July and August I am think of local competitions. Final step is September and it does not need an extra motivation. Then I'll know if the project has increased my skills enough. Ve...

Just realized that if I do 100 swings a day, I can make 10 000 swings before the greens will open in Jyvaskyla, Finland. I can do the 10 000 swings, but probably I can hit only about 1000 golf balls. I visit the range only once a week. But if I use my shots carefully concentrate on each ball, I think that is enough to learn a solid, basic swing. I am sure that I know most of the basics. Now I just need to get the right touch and feel to the swing. Just a feeling about golf as a social game - it might be so that people are together, but still just concentrating on them self? We all have our own goals and play an individual game. So golf might resemble our society a lot more than I first realized. This must be why the game appeals to middle aged males like me. Also someone said that one should talk too much during a round - so that's easy/natural for Finns, too.

I have been looking at pro's swing and realized that I cannot copy them. Well, not straight away anyhow. I don't have the physical capacities that professional golfers have to perform there swing. This means that I cannot copy the postures or even movements from a swing of a professional golfer. I need to understand the principals that affect the swing and do it with what I have - the way I can move. What will happen is, that I will get more flexible and muscles needed in golf will become stronger and after a while I need to modify my swing - and slowly it will mould it a swing that looks more like a professional movement - or "nice and easy" - effortless and balanced with a flow, smoothness in it. Well, I started golf few months ago and will be 48 next week. There is a possibility that my swing might never look like a professional players coordination - they have played the game from very young. When you learn a natural smoothness - a kind of natural coordination of ...

I am trying to learn golf and one big challenge is to learn to hit the ball the way that suites you best. I think I found a swing that is mine. http://koti.tnnet.fi/net73/swing_hannu3.wmv Next thing is to automated, learn it so that I can do it upside down. (Not the same swing, but variations of it for each situation.) Learning a swing is getting to know it and feel it.

Balance gives me confidence. It gives a feeling of a rock solid swing that hits the target like a train. Or I think I would feel like that, but I have a problem with my balance. (My back was operated few years ago, and I lost some muscle control from my left leg.) I remembered a good exercise to improve my balance. I stand on one foot! -and close my eyes. I found a lot of the muscles that I have lost by doing the exercise few times. I think this could help other golfers too.

Experiment, but only when training. I don't know if it's good to do on a round. It's not good to do in a competition:-) This truism comes from my latest experience. I had a discussion about a swing and I was sure that it's nothing like shopping wood with an axe - just an up and down movement with my arms. I tried it at the range - from my perfect backswing - I closed my eyes and let my arms drop -> result was a square contact to the ball! It was better on the video when shooting my face, but at the link is also a version shot from the target line. SWING I don't know how well the feeling of dropping my hands can be seen on the video, but for my it is important. In near future I will try to actively do the movement - not just let my hands go - this way I will be hitting the ball - and straight down the target line! By the way - I was dead sure that the idea of "Pulling" with my hip and dropping my arms would not work! BUT it did. I am clad that I had the ...