Archive for June, 2006

What is no man’s land? When referring to golf no man’s land are those places on the course, particularly on a hole, where you don’t have a club that can go that short or that far. Most of the time it refers to the place between 120 and 75 yards from the green where big hitters would have to try to take something off a sand or a lob wedge.

Pulling back on a wedge can be a tough thing to do. You’ll often find that when you try to swing slower your body falls out of rhythm and you end up dipping a shoulder and duffing the ball 10 feet instead of 90 yards. Or you may do the opposite and pull back sculling the ball and sending it shooting past the green. Either way your not in a very good position to putt let along get up and down.

How do you get into No Man’s Land?

Getting into no man’s land is easier than you think. Just remember back to that last round on the 346 yard par 4. What club did you pull out of the bag? That’s right, your driver. The hole is so close and you wanted to be the guy who only had 40 yards left to the hole. Bragging rights back in the bar. But it turns out you can’t hit the ball 300 yards into the wind and you end up putting the ball to your normal driving distance of 280 yards.

Now you have 66 yards to the hole and your sand wedge easily goes 100 yards on the nice fluffy fairway that you smacked your driver into. But the good news is you are able to shoot last and laugh at all your playing partners for their wimpy drives and that guy who took out his 5 wood and left himself 120 yards to the hole. What a chump, or is he?

Staying out of No Man’s Land

Turns out there is a way to stay out of no man’s land. You just need to suck it up butter cup. That chump who took out his 5 wood and left himself 120 yards to the hole now has a nice controllable full pitching wedge left that he’ll most likely stick a few yards from the hole. You on the other hand are stuck with your knees knocking over a 66 yard shot that you’ve now taken 20 practice swings at to get the “feel” right.

Playing a lower club and not always going to your big dog is smart golf. It’s how the course designer envisioned getting you trapped in that game that goes on between your ego and the course. He or she made that hole so close to tempt you to drive the snot out of the ball, but forgot to tell you he was leaving you with a half club shot to get on.

You need to develop some self control and play a smart game. When you see a hole that looks to close to be true, it is. Play down a few clubs off the tee. You’ll get more control on your first shot and have a smooth sailing second shot leaving you an easy chance at par with a possible birdie. This is how scratch golfers got their game to where they are. They played smart. You should start doing the same.

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Ben Curtis was finally able to officially celebrate his victory at the Booze Allen Classic Tuesday in a rain soaked course in Maryland. After leading by as much as 8 strokes on Sunday Ben Curtis finally finished his round with a bogey on 17 and a bogey on 18 to win by 5 strokes over his nearest competitors mention yesterday in our Booze Allen Classic Update.Â

About 20 or so people made it out on Tuesday morning to watch the finish. Had the match been tighter we would expect there would have been a few more people.

Congrats to Ben Curtis for winning his first tour tournament since the prestigous win at the British Open in 2003 and for finishing on Tuesday for the first time in 26 years (1980 in Tuscon) for the PGA tour.

Ben Curtis will have to wait yet another day to capture his first win since the 2003 British Open as the east coast gets drenched Monday. Ben Curtis, whose last tour win came at a Major, the British Open, leads the Booze Allen Classic in Potomac, Maryland by 7 strokes.

After being postponed til Monday Curtis was nearing the end of his round where he stood in the lead on the 17th green when play was stopped. The Tuesday slated finish will be the first Tuesday finish in 26 years for the PGA tour and may actually see a Wednesday finish as rain doesn’t look like it will let up anytime soon.

The Leaderboard for the Booze Allen has Curtis at 22 under, followed by Billy Andrade, Padraig Harrington, Nick O’Hern, and Steve Stricker all at 15 under. Short of an absolutely horrendous last hole it appears Curtis will get his win that he has been trying so hard for lately.

Are you looking for quality golf tips? Aren’t we all?

Golf Tips Magazine has a great site where they publish, PDF style, all their old golf tips right on their site. If you don’t need to be on teh leading edge of the latest golf tip (which most of them have been around for ever) than you don’t need to purchase the magazine, just head on over to their website and download them for free. You can keep them on your computer for some quality golf reading on those long business flights.

They cover all swing topics, and all different aspects of your game, equipment and even golf travel related topics. Swing tips categories include: Driving, Iron Play, Putting, Sand, short game, and more. We can all use a little help on our game and free advice from experts is a great way to go.

Geoff Ogilvy won the US Open, not because Phil Mickelson cracked under pressure, but because he played the last 3 holes better than everyone else who was challenging for the lead.

Sure the media played up that the US Open was Mickelson’s to loose and maybe it was, but he didn’t loose all by himself, he finished tied with Colin Montgomerie, Jim Furyk, and Padraig Harrington, all of whom made at least a bogey on one of their last three holes. Bogey’s where Geoff Ogilvy made par, par, par.

Yes Phil Mickelson might have done better than double on the last hole were he to have used a 3 wood instead of a driver off the tee, and maybe he should have used a PW from the first shot behind the tree. These are all would’ve, could’ve, should’ve. Winged Foot is an amazingly difficult course and won’t let anyone coast through the final 3 holes with the lead. It makes you play your best golf straight through to the end.

Congratulations Geoff Ogilvy for winning the US Open with a great final round and bringing a victory back to your Australia.

Phil Mickelson is right where the world expected him to be after three days at Winged Foot. However, the big story of Friday was that Tiger Woods failed to make the cut along with some other big names. Tiger shot two rounds of 6 over 76 to finish with a 12 over for the two days and 2 strokes shy of making the cut.

Only a short time after the passing of his father some weren’t sure and I don’t feel anyone is shocked that Tiger wasn’t quite ready to battle one of the toughest courses around. He’s a fighter at heart but losing someone that close will take it’s toll on anyone.

Phil Mickelson on the other hand is ready to do battle and with the only under par score for the day (-1) he sits at 2 over par going into the final round of the US Open tied with Kenneth Ferrie. Geoff Oglivy is right behind the two with a 3 over par followed by Vijay Singh and Ian Poulter at 5 over par after three rounds of golf. It’s quite uncommon to see scores like this in a PGA tour event but the course is challenging, the rough is horrendous, and the greens are tough to read or gauge speed. The final round of the US Open this Sunday June 18th should be a great round of golf, with anyone having a chance at the title.

Colin Montgomerie leads the US Open field after the first day of play. Monty is the only player under par followed closely by Jim Furyk and and Phil Mickelson at even par.

Montgomerie had 3 bogeys but joined with them 4 birdies to stick under par. He started out 1 and 3 (the 216 yard par 3 at Winged Foot) with a bogey but came on strong for the remainder of the round. A big surprise for the day was Tiger Woods and his 6 over par 76 to finish out the round. The course took it’s toll on everyone having 22 others joining Woods at 6 over par.

Another notable was 16 year Hawaii youngster Tadd Fujikawa finishing the course at 11 over par. Not too bad a finish for the youngin’.

Se Ri Pak took the title at the LPGA Championships this past weekend leaving Michelle Wie winless once again. Se Ri Pak beat Karrie Webb in a playoff hole, as the two held of charges for the lead by Annika and Michelle, as well as a handful of others.

Pak made an unbeleivable shot from 201 yards away landing the ball a mere 3 inches from the cup to seal the victory and win the LPGA championship. Se Ri Pak has had quite a return to golf after taking a leave from injury and just being worn out. Pak payed no attention to all the media attention Wie was getting after narrowly missing out on a chance to qualify for the mens US Open. She also held of charges from 12 women who came close to over taking her postition atop the leader board.

Although we here at Getting to Scratch realize that most of the hoopla that surrounds Michelle Wie is pure promotion we also feel as though the young lady should take a stab at winning a tournament on the Womens tour first before taking a spot from a male at one of the most prestigous PGA tour events of the Year. They have to make a living too you know. Especially those that don’t have $10 million Nike contracts.

Congratulations to Se Ri Pak for showing everyone sometimes all you need is a little breather, just a little vacation to get you back on track.

Swinging off of those astroturf, sometimes smooth golf mats at most ranges, does it help or hurt your golf swing? Always wondering this same thing we are always on the lookout for any little bit of insight into the dilemma that a lot of golfers go through as they work through their swing at the local range.

Grouchy golf has just posted an interesting little commentary on the subject titled Avoid Practicing Golf on a Range Mat. We can obviously see how he feels about the idea of whacking balls off of the fake stuff, but he does bring up some good points.

First off he talks about, and has a nice little video showing the divot taken from a good golf shot. His argument is that on a golf mat you don’t know if you hit the ball fat or not. There’s no feedback. Sure the shot may not go as far because the mat slows down you swing but your club does dig in turning the face on impact and producing fat shots that turn left or right, as they would on the real stuff.

This means even though you’re practicing often you may not be getting all the benefits. Now most of us don’t have the choice because of time factors, to drive to that one course that has real turf to practice off of. But we suggest trying to switch it up every now and then and of course if you are playing somewhere that has a driving range with real grass, stay after your round or come early and practice. You may be tired afterwords but you’ll get some good range time in.