Golfing News & Blog Articles

I designed, tested and manufactured GOLFSTR+ to help improve my golf swing with a straight leading arm. I realized that professional golfers all swing with a straight leading arm in their back and down swing so it must be the most critical factor to improve my game (and yours too). As you will learn in this blog, pro golfers who tried out GOLFSTR+ for their instruction, recommended a total of 6 swing fixes for this amazing golf training aid that can be put away in your pocket.

I recently saw a GOLF-INFO-GUIDE video where 2 PGA Pros, Pete Styles and Matt Fryer provided a perfect description of the benefits for a straight leading arm swing. “It gives you width, power, stability, consistency and accuracy.” What more could you want for every swing in your game? Pete summarized the benefits of the Swing as well as Power Generation.

How do you “Create” a Straight Arm Swing
-Setup in your athletic golf position with feet apart & flared, knees bent and straight back bent at the waist to a 6 to 10 degree angle.
-Hold your leading straight arm elbow with your trailing hand.
-Now pull your leading arm across your chest (mine moves about 50 degrees), then rotate your shoulders and spine (mine adds about 40 more degrees) and then rotate your hips (mine adds about 30 more degrees= 120 degrees total).
– You may be able to rotate your leading arm 180 degrees the way the younger pros do but don’t strain yourself trying it.

Use this as a stretching exercise (but don’t overdo it). Realize that this is the limitation of your back swing. The cocking of your flat wrist including your finger grip (not a palm grip) will add another 90 degrees so that the shaft of my clubs rotates about 180 to 270 degrees from your setup position. DON’T bend your leading arm FOR MORE ROTATION. [Pros normally reach 270 degrees and John Daly and Brooke Henderson reach about 315 degrees.]

CGS Orion Closer MB Iron

Introducing the CGS Orion Closer MB!   A couple of days ago we posted their Himeji X Tsubame blade (click here)

As I write this I am holding both of their blades in hand so I can share some comparisons.  The Himeji X Tsubame blade has a thinner sole,  thinner topline, and higher CG location due to more mass higher on the head. This CGS Closer blade not only has a wider sole but it also has a more pronounced trailing edge grind compared to the leading edge being ground on the Tsubame X Himeji model.

The CGS Closer MB is also offered as a combo set where you can pair it with the CGS Orion closer cavity. back. (we will do a blog post on the CB shortly).

As you can see in our photo above the Closer MB has a beautiful sharp toe and a modern back face design.

The closest comparison to this iron would be Miura’s MC-501,  both the 501 and the Closer MB are considered blades that have a bit more forgiveness.  The CGS Closer MB comes out ahead in nearly all categories:

Ever since Baldo was founded, they have been focusing their efforts on designing and producing high-performance driver heads.  The new Baldo Corsa Performance series features Baldo’s signature soft feel at impact and provides a deep sense of satisfaction.  All for a single purpose which is to enhance the limits of every player!

Introducing the Baldo Corsa Performance 435 Driver. It is a driver with excellent workability aiming at the target while controlling the ball with a draw or fade.  This head features a very deep face; in fact, the face height relative to the head volume is the deepest of the series.  This is a head profile preferred by the hardest of hard hitters.

The head is constructed of DAT55G face and 8-1-1 Titanium body which is the golden combination used on many premium JDM drivers.  The laser milled face also helps reduce the back spin.  Based on the CG specs,  it is easy to imagine that the head would be effortless to rotate through the swing and highly workable for experienced players.  The deep face and high back design also suggest a strong piercing trajectory preferred by hard hitters.   The Corsa Performance heads also feature weight screws on the sole that are replaceable for adjusting the swing weight.   The weights are available from 2 to 12g in 2g increments.

Baldo Corsa Performance 435 Driver Specification

Volume	435cc
Loft Angle	8.5-11 °
Lie Angle	58°
Face Angle	± 0
Weight	199g
C.O.G Distance	37.0mm
Depth of C.O.G	35.0mm
C.O.G Height	36.0mm
C.O.G	22°
Material Manufacturing Method	Body: 8-1-1 Ti / Percision Casting
	Face: DAT55G / Forged cup face, Laser milling score line
Weight Screw	Standard equipment: 8g Sold separately: 2g, 4g, 6g, 8g, 10g, 12g

 

Introducing the Progress BB4 Fairway wood!   The BB4 Fairway wood shares the same bellows sole design taken from the highly successful BB4 Driver for maximizing the repulsive energy upon impact. By strategically placing ultra light weight Titanium material and high strength maraging steel material,  they were able to optimize the CG location to make the head easy to launch from any turf condition.

Many BB4 owners have been long waiting for a release of a matching fairway wood. Finally it is here!

Light weight 8-1-1 Titanium is used for the face and crown and 450 maraging steel is used on the sole as well as the perimeter to create an ideal low and deep CG along with a relatively large CG angle.  By using a more dense maraging steel on the perimeter,  they were able to achieve a high MOI of 3300 (3250 for the #5) which helps with keeping the head stable through the impact.  The Titanium material used for the crown is especially made thin closer to the face.  This makes the crown flex more at impact which helps the head produce high energy impact resulting in high initial ball speeds.

 

 

Introducing the CGS Orion Himeji x Tsubame MB Iron. What makes CGS Orion stand out is that they go above and beyond when it comes to fit and finish.  Hand-ground and forged In Ichikawa Himeji, Japan’s epicenter of hand grinding. These heads are sent to the town of Tsubame Sanjo in Niigata Japan, this area is renowned for beautiful hand polishing. This combination of Himeji handcrafting and Tsubame Sanjo’s polishing creates a stunning effect.

Face forward it features a high and sharp toe that extends past the edge of the top groove.

These are forged of soft S20C and combined with the CP Silver (copper underlay nickel-chromium) finish. The feel at impact is amongst the very best in  Japan.

This blade maintains the functionality of a conventional muscle-back.  It’s also got modern and sharp going for its appearance, the shape and grind are done really well and it has a consistent beautiful neck transition.  I will go out on a limb and guess this is an Oichi forging with a Shinagawa grind.  Let’s not forget that the back face has a channel milled into it. perfecto!  I gotta say I’m extremely impressed with all of CGS Orion’s irons and wedges.  The steps they take and more importantly the decisions they make result in a quality offering.

Fourteen TC-920 Forged Iron

An updated players’ club.  Golf swing mechanics and dynamics are undergoing a massive change given the new drivers and their new designs in CG and MOI. Reviewing these components and their designs, there is now a gap in the club specification in their center of gravity between compact players’ irons and woods. Fourteen TC-920 Forged Iron has been designed to bridge this gap and achieve closer CG Specification to modern-day drivers and is matched to achieve overall balance and delivery in the golf swing.

Longer CG distance.

Fourteen developed this iron with the underlying idea that a balanced progression among all 14 clubs is essential. With newer drivers that have increasingly longer CG distances, compact irons feel and play very differently, which can result in inconsistency in club delivery, trajectories and shot dispersion. While maintaining a compact head size, Fourteen TC-920 Forged Iron has a relatively longer CG distance, which is intended to bridge the gap between metal woods, resulting in better overall balance within the set of clubs.

Precise CG setting by club number.

By precisely altering the thickness of the cavity, the Fourteen TC-920 Forged Irons can achieve accurate CG specs as well as forgiveness that makes it easy to control distance and trajectory accurately with short and mid irons and to produce desired higher launch for longer irons.

The new. Yamaha RMX 120 is made to be long distance with a high trajectory plus loads of forgiveness.

Made of a single piece chrome-molybdenum steel for more rebound and combined with a thinner face for increased distance. Yamaha has also intentionally designed the iron with a wide sole and low position weight mass.

While looking face on the toe peak high,  not sharp but it extends a good amount past the edge of the score lines.

The weight is positioned very low as you can see in this photo.

The cavity badge has an aluminum insert for vibration absorption.  Yamaha is known for sound tuning which is their science for making otherwise firmer materials feel soft and rewarding.

This week, we’re going to look at the power of Mental Imagery for golf, which is supported by scientific evidence to:

Increase confidence and reduce doubtChange your mental and emotional stateImprove motor skill learning (i.e. making swing changes)Change behaviorImprove motivationHelp you prepare for any situation

Let’s take a look at 5 simple exercises you can do to improve performance using mental imagery.

You can do these visualizations at any time, but I prefer doing them after my morning meditation session after quieting the mind.

Step 1: Visualize your success

Research shows that people with goals generally go on to become more successful than those who don’t. Creating mental images of those goals being achieved is proven to be more powerful that verbal statements of your goals for the following reasons:

Whether it’s a long or short-term goal (visualizing the day ahead or yourself 5 years from now), seeing yourself be successful creates a positive association with that goal in your subconscious mind (that part of the mind which triggers your feelings), so when you are in those situations for real, you’re more likely to feel more confidence and less fear. Tony Robbins says that mental imagery for goals is an important daily exercise as you get to experience the emotions of achieving that goal before it’s happened.When you visualize the outcome that you are working towards, you can get deeper into why you are on that path and what about the endeavor will fulfill you. Goals will only be achieved with motivation, and that will be lacking without a clear purpose.

Step 2: What are the obstacles and skills you must develop to achieve your goals and what behaviors do you need to change?

It’s not enough to visualize the positive outcome at the end of your journey. Research suggests that doing that alone can reduce motivation as your mind starts to believe that you have already achieved it. Any goal worth working towards is going to require change in behaviors and overcoming many obstacles over a period of time. The next step of your mental imagery for golf practice is to take a look at those things that are currently holding you back and visualizing how you are going to change and overcome them.

Introducing the new GIII Iron 2020. Evolving maximum Distance. Improved High Repulsion techonology to push the ball speeds even faster. An innovative shafts design that increases swing speed and directional stability. A distance iron that produces an easy high ball flight that let’s you just aim at the pin. TSG will break down all those techonologies of this iron in this post.

The first thing we want break down is the face, This iron comes with Neo Titanium Face which realizes higher ball speeds. GIII’s proprietary Neo Titanium Face produces an unheard of 0.825COR in an iron. Large sweet spot and more ball speeds equal unrivaled distance from an iron.

It also comes with Full Core Groove Technology, The back of Neo Titanium face features an all-new Power Trench Design. The lower area of the toe and heel back face feature 3 curved grooves which help increase the sweet area of the iron. Distance loss is minimized on off-center hits.

Heavy sintered tungsten is placed in the sole towards the toe side to help promote a low and deep center of gravity and a higher moment of inertia. The weight helps stabilize the rotation of the head, allowing it to optimally square at impact. this heavy sintered tungsten creates straighter shots even on miss-hits.

GIII Iron 2020 also comes with GIII Neo Twin Cut Sole Technology which reduces the friction and resistance from the ground at impact. This maximizes swing speed and stabilizes impact for better distance and accuracy. Aim at the pin and swing away. Better impact equals better distance and better accuracy.

The world is trying to cope with Covid19 but we need to start thinking about recreational activities during the recovery period. Social distancing is the most effective way to limit your chance of contracting this deadly virus. Isolation also takes its mental toll and we all need to get outside. Walking or riding a bike are good options but we should considered playing golf while practicing social distancing.

I recently signed a petition to help governments consider the benefits of golf as a serious option to maintain our health without jeopardizing the health of others. Golf is one of the few sports that can be played while applying personal distancing. I was pleased to see this map showing that 48% of golf courses in USA have been opened in April. Please pass this email on to your government representative and to the Management of any golf courses in your area.

Recommendations for Safe Golf: [AVOID PERSONAL CONTACT]
1/ Payment: Select Tee Times and make payments on-line for your chosen course. Print out your confirmation and use it as an entry form at the #1 tee. By signing up to a Tee Time every golfer must agree to play under Social Distancing rules.

2/ Registration at the Course: Each course will have to sort out and manage 4somes at the first tee as all fees should have been paid on-line. Players can bring their own pencil and their own score sheet which could be printed out with your proof of purchase receipt.

The 1998 Limited Edition Titleist Japan Tiger Woods Replica Irons by Miura Giken

I’m sure many of you reading this blog are itching to get out to play some golf by now!!  And so are we!  While I, unfortunately, can’t actually help you to go out and play,  I do want to treat you today with some real “eye candy”  for die-hard JDM enthusiasts!

For those of you new to the blog,  this is a 2 part post.  First, you will want to go back and read ( Click Here ) Don’t forget to watch the YouTube video I made as well.  ( Click Here ).

I would like to make a correction to what I said in the video that these are Tigers grind – While these are an extremely limited release they were made as a replica set for the Japan market by Miura Giken Japan.  Not intended to be exactly what Tiger played back in the day.

Our blogs normally focus on the positive thoughts for your golf swing. Fortunately I recently saw “3 Killer Moves” published in an Info-Golf-Guide blog by Thomas Golf and realized that our subconscious minds need this information. Your golfing companions may have pointed out your problems but they were not offering a fix. So try these 3 fixes to turn your game around.

1/ Swaying Back in your Backswing: BAD
When recreational golfers try to add more power to their golf swing, they often revert back to a baseball swing. If you sway back in golf, you will stay back in that position during your downswing and either hit fat shots or top the ball. During your backswing, you need to focus on hip and spine rotation (NOT swaying back). You will naturally load more weight on your trailing foot (during your backswing as your arms move to your trailing side). Start the shift of your weight to your leading foot during your transition. That will allow you to generate more power during your downswing as you press forward through impact.

2/ Lifting Up in Your Back Swing or Down Swing: BAD
During your setup, you should take an athletic position with about a 6 to 10 degree bend at your waist as you rest the club behind your ball. That distance is the same critical distance that you need to hold for the point of impact in your downswing. Unfortunately many recreational golfer tend to stand up during the down swing. That increase in height will increase your chance to top the ball or create a slice. Stay down over your ball through impact.

3/ Losing your Balance During your Swing: BAD
If you rush your backswing or your downswing, you will tend to lose your balance. Just look at the position of your feet after you complete your swing. You know if you have this problem. An unbalanced finish will end in another erant shot.

To listen to the audio, click “listen in browser”

Whether it’s on or off the course, it’s important to know how to relax and calm down in times of stress. The Covid-19 pandemic is causing everyone’s stress levels to go up from being cooped up inside, not being able to see friends and family, no sports to watch or play and nothing but bad news coming in. As I’ve been saying in my recent emails, let’s use this temporary setback as an opportunity to learn skills that are going to help you succeed when the season starts up again. To help you do this, here are 7 relaxation techniques for golf to help you deal with stress on and off the course.

1. Breathing

Experts on anxiety tell us that breathing is the best stress management tool we have.
When we are feeling stressed, our breathing becomes shallow, quick and erratic, meaning there’s less oxygen going to the brain and focusing the mind becomes harder. The mind can start racing in a negative loop which worsens anxiety.

Whether it’s for better performance in golf or greater well-being in general, proper breathing and relaxation techniques for golf should be used to get control of your physiology and your mental state when you are feeling stressed.

When we deepen and slow down our breathing, we activate the parasympathetic nervous system (the rest and digest system), which counters the activation in the sympathetic nervous system (the fight or flight response). When we are able to get control of our physical state, we have more control over our mental and emotional state – the mind calms down and we are better able to choose our next move instead of following our thoughts.

Breathing techniques to lower stress

Your putter is designed to hit a ball in a straight line. Your task is to choose the right line and speed to make your straight putt go in the hole. So before you ever become a great putter you first need to learn to swing your putter to roll your ball without any side spin across a flat green on a straight line.

After you learn to hit a straight putt you have to apply the following 5 steps to sink every putt. Of course the challenge is to improve your skill in applying the following 5 steps to become a great putter.

The Science Behind a Straight Putt
You have to hit up on your ball to make it start rolling over and the face of your putter must impacting the ball on the balanced center with the swing direction exactly up your target line. To make your ball start rolling at impact, line the ball up so that the back edge is just in front of the center-line between your legs. This allows your putter face to swing up on the ball to make it start rolling from the point of impact.

To swing your putter correctly, rock the large muscles in your shoulders and back with locked elbows and wrists so that only your shoulders swing your putter straight through the point of impact and up your target line. To avoid pulling or pushing your putt, Andrew Rice reminds us to keep our head looking down until the ball is out of your sight. You have to practice this simple motion constantly to trust the straight roll of your putt up your target line.

Put Your Perfect Putting Swing Into Action
1/ Read the Break: Stand on the low point of the green below your ball and appreciate the distance and speed that you need to putt. Then stand behind the lowest end of your putting line (either behind your ball or behind the hole) and bend down to confirm the breaks on your putting line.
2/ Take 1 to 3 practice Putting Swings: Feel the amount of power you need to use to putt at least 12 inches past the hole (to minimize the break at the hole and knowing that short putts never go in the hole).

To listen to the audio, click “Listen in browser” below

1. Get Into A Daily Routine

We are all having to deal with less structure in our lives and being cooped up at home. To look at this situation positively, it’s a good time to develop skills – one being time management. All high achievers have strict daily routines. Routines become habits – meaning that after a while you do them automatically with less effort. Start by going to bed at the same time each night and get out of bed at the same time each morning. Block out chunks of time during which you do certain tasks each day. E.g. limit emails and messages to certain times of the day. Block out time for writing, reading and exercise. Your body and mind will get used to doing the same tasks at the same time each day, and with less thought involved, you’ll be more productive.

2. Make Your Bed

The first thing that you should do as soon as you wake up, is make your bed. This represents far more than the simple act of making your bed. It might seem trivial, but making your bed will make you feel that something has been accomplished immediately and it will create a sense of order and control over the day. A messy bed during the day, often represents a messy life.

3. Drink Water

Before you have your morning coffee, drink a glass of water. The longest time you go without water is when you are asleep, so it’s important to hydrate first thing in the morning. Studies show that drinking water first thing makes you feel more alert and it gives your metabolism a boost.

4. Meditation and gratitude

Learning how to be more present and focus the mind is an important skill to have, especially when you are feeling stressed or under pressure. Starting your day with 10 – 20 minutes of meditation is not only very calming, but it will also help you get better control of your thoughts and focus in the long-term. After meditating, you’ll have a clear head to make better decisions about what you are going to do with the day. Using a guided meditation app such as Calm, is an easy way to get started. After you’ve practiced focusing and calming the mind, spend a few minutes being grateful. Thinking about things you are grateful for (e.g. family, friends, happy memories, etc.) immediately releases “feel-good” chemicals, such as serotonin and dopamine into the bloodstream. This can be a good antidote to fear and stress and a great start to the day.

5. Exercise in some way

Not only does exercise have health benefits in the long-term, but on a daily basis it gives your body energy, releases feel-good chemicals (endorphins) and makes you feel more accomplished. Exercising first thing in the morning (going for a walk or run) is also a great time to plan your day.

trackman 4

Here is some interesting, albeit older, data mined by TrackMan from the PGA and LPGA Tours….

(Please note that these are all averages)

PGA Tour - Each club in the bag hits the ball the same average height– 30 yards.

LPGA Tour - Each club in the bag hits the ball the same average height – 25 yards.

Just so we’re on the same page, I want to make it clear that I am currently an Arccos Ambassador. I signed on at the behest of my friends at Ping and after using it for 11 rounds and learning what it can do for all golfers, I’m very excited! But I want you to decide, so here are the details….

My first experience using the system was in January as we kicked off our excursion to South Africa and then in February when we headed to Australia. During both trips I played 11 rounds of golf and used Arccos Caddie for each adventure out on the links. If you look carefully in the photograph from Royal Melbourne below you’ll see the very tiny sensor embedded into the grip of my club…

I must say the first few rounds took a little getting used to. I had to make sure that I had downloaded the course I was playing and keep the phone in my front left pocket - no problem there, but I noticed that there were some challenges with tracking putts as there were often times where I didn’t hole out (yes, casual holiday golf) or it would register 3 putts where I had only had 2. By the time I got to Australia I realized this could be rectified post round and I eventually got to a point where I wouldn’t even take my phone out of my pocket. Initially it also felt strange knowing that every shot was being tracked, however a few holes into the first round and I was off to the races.

So what did it do for me? And more importantly what can it do for you? Let’s get some background on Arccos first. They currently have 300K users, they’ve captured data on 3.8M rounds (that’s over 200M shots), have been used in 194 countries and the average user lowers their score by 4.2 strokes. It’s amazing how having a better understanding of your games’ strengths and weaknesses can improve your practice and on-course decision making! Here’s some of the data the system makes available to you…

I have a visual representation of every hole I played along with “Tour” style statistics from each round. This is a screenshot from the 8th hole at Barnbougle Dunes in Tasmania that shows my scorecard and driving distance on each of the holes. In the image below you’ll see every gory detail from every tee shot I hit on the trips…

The first question you should be asking is why on earth would anyone want to shallow the club? The primary reason is to stimulate some body/pivot rotation through impact in order to better manage the face angle. This leads to improved predictability. Watch this…

Watch for shallowing in a false fashion where the CLUBFACE becomes compromised leading to a flip through impact.

Watch for shallowing by tipping the spine away from the target where the PIVOT rotation becomes compromised.

A great take home exercise is to get in front of a mirror with a club (be careful!) and 1. Feel the wrist twist on the way down in order to position the clubface for success and 2. Feel the lead shoulder staying lower for longer in transition.

Create the right look, and it’s okay if it’s exaggerated, in front of the mirror and take the necessary feels with you to the practice ground.

It was a fantastic year both on and off the course for me and I hope I was able to help you enjoy your golf a little more. My objective with this wrap up is simply to share a few things that stood out to me regarding 2019!

Player of the Year

For me this simply has to be Brooks Koepka. With the emphasis we place on the big events it can only be him. It’s almost as if he doesn’t care about the smaller Tour events he plays in and seems to use them as ‘practice/trial’ rounds for the ones that really matter - the Majors. I firmly believe we are in the BK era!

Comeback Golfer of 2019

Tiger Woods is back. Wow! I honestly didn’t think he would ever come back, but he is back in a big way and the world of golf is lit up because of it. He truly adds so much to any event he competes in. This is my favorite golf image from the year and it’s by Christian Hafer. To me it perfectly sums up the current day golfer that is Tiger Woods - well-versed and ruthless under the gun.

Golf Course of the Year

I hope you all took the opportunity to watch the President’s Cup at Royal Melbourne. It truly was a joy to watch some of the world’s best compete on this gem of a layout. I had the good fortune to play there with my wife in 2018 and it has the firmest greens I have ever experienced. Trust me when I tell you, these golfers made the course look significantly easier than you or I would. Width, interest, undulation, wind all couples with firm turf. Golf would be a better game if more courses were like Royal Melbourne. What a treat!

Most Exciting Golf Course I Played in 2019

While I don’t play very many 18 hole rounds of golf during the course of a year I often get the opportunity to play some fantastic courses on the luxury golf trips we take. My favorite course of 2019 is Cape Kidnappers in New Zealand. A brilliant blend of interest, challenge, scenery and conditioning. I thought that Tom Doak did a fabulous job of making the course very playable due to the potential for high winds on it’s cliff-top location. Memorable and great fun!

TrackMan defines attack angle as the direction the club head is moving (up or down) at impact. How much the club head is traveling up or down is reported in degrees… 2º up or 6º down. You’re no doubt reading this in an effort to improve your golf and the purpose of this article and video is to share my experience pertaining to attack angle and how you can use this knowledge to upgrade the trajectory, shape and strike of your shots. Watch…

We need to be on the same page with a few important points in order for a better understanding to take place…

Club Delivery

a narrow downswing will typically encourage a steeper, more downward angle of attack

a wider downswing will typically promote a shallower, less downward angle of attack