Golf

How I Got Started In Golf

I had only played golf once or twice a year until the summer I turned 17. That summer my cousin, Nolan, invited me to play with him and his friend Marcos from Chile. I didn’t think I was good enough to play with them but Nolan assured me that this wouldn’t be an issue and that Marcos was "very entertaining" to play with. It turned out that Marcos was hilarious to play with and I told my cousin to call me next time they were playing.

We played about once a week that summer starting in May and I remember being surprised how quickly I was improving. In July I broke 90 for the first time and goaded my cousin that if he wasn’t careful I might actually beat him one day.

“Ted” he said, “that would take at least a decade to happen!”

Well that was it! Intensely motivated, I secretly arranged lessons that week and began working toward this new goal of beating my cousin!

I had an advantage. My cousin was much busier than I was. He had his own business that helped fund his tuition in the faculty of architecture and worked long hours toward this end. I just had a regular summer job and still had grade 12 ahead of me in the fall.

In addition to the secret lessons, I also began playing with some of my hockey buddies to get in more practice. I was pulling out all the stops. I even practiced putting at a nearby golf course on my lunch hours! Of course, all of this remained unknown to Nolan, and Marcos too - just in case!

I came close to beating Nolan twice that fall. The next year I was as determined as ever, I even had his “it’ll take at least a decade to happen” taunt on display at home to keep me motivated! I came within a stroke of winning three or four times but either I made mistakes near the end of rounds or he would make a birdie on the last hole to edge me out.

Then one June day with Marcos egging me on, it happened. Nolan was two strokes ahead on the last hole, a par five. We both had to lay up and when I found my ball it was right behind this little shrub. Nolan, of course, was in the middle of the fairway and had about 80 yards left. It looked like he’d get me at the end – again!

I had nothing to lose. There was about 9 inches of clearance under the branches but I would also have to hit it left-handed. I had a Bullseye putter (flat on both sides) and took a more or less full swing in desperation. Nolan laughed when half the little shrub was defoliated on my follow through but the ball was rolling with topspin toward the green.

“Nice slap-shot” Marcos yelled as it began to dawn on us that my ball might actually make it to the green. Having achieved this, it disappeared over a little mound with the three of us silent. A second or two later we heard a clank!

“That better not be in the hole” Nolan growled!

Clearly rattled with that possibility, he hit an unusually poor approach shot that found sand and left him a tough 30-yard bunker shot.

My ball wasn't on the green. I walked toward the hole hoping not to see it in the fringe over the back. I checked the hole and – there it was! My first eagle!

His fourth was still 15 feet away from the hole. His part putt was 2 inches short and he tapped in for a 6. Less than a year after his “decade” proclamation I had finally done it!

Marcos

I was hooked on golf long before I finally succeded in beating my cousin for the first time.

Just being in the company of Nolan, Marcos, and various other fourths we dragged along with us was what did it. Marcos was the one who initially clinched it for me.

The very first time I played with him we thought he was going to miss our tee time. The announcement came from the pro shop and we were already on the first tee. Suddenly Nolan points out Marcos (who I was meeting for the first time) just arriving. He changed his shoes, yanked out his clubs, unfolded his cart, and began running toward us on the first tee. All this only took about 30 seconds!

The image that remains vivid over 40 years later was his hair flying in the wind as he ran pulling the clubs, sparks flew out from under his metal spiked golf shoes as they scraped the scorching hot concreate in the parking lot. With his hair flying everywhere he reminded me of the tennis star, Ille Nastase.
I asked Nolan “What kind of work does Marcos do?”
“He’s a barber” was the reply!
Despite huffing and puffing he piped his tee shot right down the middle of the fairway, hit a wedge to about 15 feet, and almost made a birdie.

As we walked to the second hole, I remarked to my cousin that his par was pretty impressive considering the lack of any warm up or even a practice swing. “Just wait for it” Nolan replied.

The second hole at Kildonan Park Golf Course (a Winnipeg municipal course) is a short drivable par 4. This was clearly on Marcos’s mind. The driver was out and his practice swings were generating a good whoosh. His actual attempt was much faster than the practice swings and produced an even louder whoosh – the ball, however, remained on the tee! “Oh chit, I was going to keel that basard!” As I had only known Marcos for fifteen minutes I struggled to avoid laughing, Nolan however was down on one knee in hysterics.

The third hole is par 3 playing 215 yards or so. Marcos announces that he will play “the spoiler”, the nickname for his 4-wood. Nolan’s theory was that it got its name because it spoiled a lot of rounds.
He gets under the ball and the result is a high bloop into the middle of a fairly dense stand of trees down the right side of the hole, still over 200 yards to the green. As the group ahead cleared the green the “spoiler” is still in his hands. We move to increase the distance between Marcos and ourselves. Nolan yells out the suggestion to just chip it out but Marcos is adamant that there’s “a just big enough window to get through”! He nails this shot hard but it ricochets of 4 different trees and returns very close to where it originally was. Marcos turns to us and says “That was my woodpecker shot, how do you like it?”

I turned to my cousin and said “Next time you two are playing I want to come.”

Nolan responded “I told you it would be entertaining”.

Chipping Yips!!!

When I was in my first two years of taking golf more seriously my lessons were on the full swing. I figured I could work on the short game and putting on my own, I just considered chipping an abbreviated version of the full swing!

I never asked my pro for a lesson on chipping. Since we were playing fairly easy munis this never seemed to be an issue, until I stared playing some other more challenging courses that had thicker rough around the greens. This was my first setback that brought the progress to lower scores I’d been enjoying to a screeching halt! Suddenly it was rare to break 90 again. I still didn’t go for a chipping lesson but instead I just read more and more short game articles in golf magazines.

This was my first "Ah Ha" moment – I realized that fixing my own game by reading articles was not getting me anywhere. I should note that this was in the early eighties, there was no YouTube then. Add to that I was in my early twenties and not thinking as rationally as I would later on!

Through trial and error, I figured out some chipping fundamentals but not enough of them. Always lacking in short-game confidence I developed anxiety around chipping and this spilled over into the rest of my game. There’s more pressure to hit greens to avoid having to chip.

As this was coming to a head my daughters were born, I began my teaching career, and there was less time for golf. As I played less the short game problems seemed to become less of a concern but they were still there, lurking!

Fast forward to the late nineties when I started playing more again and developed a serious case of chipping yips. Nothing helped, not lessons or YouTube. By about 2005, I knew the fundamentals, could chip decently when practicing, but couldn’t execute on the course. My chipping anxiety was ruining my enjoyment of the game.

I was able to avoid dealing with this again when I began having back problems that lasted more than ten years. During this time, I played less and was more concerned about just being able to get out on the course. Eventually the right physio treatments and exercises allowed me to start playing more regularly by 2018. As well I’ve likely reached the age where my back has started to fuse naturally and it seems that there are fewer meltdowns and I can recover more quickly from them.

There are many good YouTube channels that have quality videos on chipping, however watching someone else chip is nowhere near as good as feeling the right techniques yourself. Its easy now to video yourself and when I did this I saw it all!

I wasn’t accelerating through the impact zone enough and only my upper body was turning.
My backswing was too long and I decelerated at the ball.
I hinged my wrists far too much and the club was way too much inside and behind me.
My chest and my arms moved independently instead of being connected.
A bad habit of mine was to allow my eyes to follow the ball just after contact.

Sure, a golf buddy might tell you all this but you need to see it for yourself!

The Fix

Here's how I got to better chipping:

I moved closer to the ball (about two clubheads distance from my feet to the ball). This makes for a more upright swing and eliminates the clubface fanning open during the backswing.
It also means that the heel of the club is slightly above the ground and the toe is below the heel. (This helps in thicker rough to avoid the heel getting grabbed by the grass and making the toe turn left and closed)
I changed to a more square set up. I was finding that with an open chipping stance my trail hip was in the way to some extent.
Staying connected, I let my trail arm straighten out through the impact zone as my trail knee pinched in a little bit. (This was a game changer that resulted in much better and consistent contact). Allowing my chest to turn at least to 40⁰ on the follow through helped as well.
Finally, I rivet my eye (I only see with my left eye) on the front of the ball and make sure it stays there until I hear the ball land.

The worst advice I ever heard was to “chip like you putt”. With putting you want to keep your lower body stationary and rock your shoulders. If you try chipping without letting your body turn you may actually develop chipping yips!