06/03/2023
The 3rd Ladies Golf Clinic organised by HKGA and hosted in Clearway bay country club were extremely successful. I had the pleasure of teaching these lovely ladies of different skilled level. They had a lot of fun and learn much about the art of short game. most of them told me that they are now hooked and eager to start practising hard and be more serious to play golf. I think that indicated I did my job well, not just teaching skills and techniques, but to pass on the passion for golf, showing them the fun they can have with this little white ball and nature.
Here is the summary for the day:
Short game
In a round of golf, at least half of the shots are played within 100 yard (including putting), but we often neglect the practise of short games. This is where we can very quickly gain a lot of strokes. That’s why we do need to put a lot of time into the short games.
As we are not trying to hit the ball with power, the concept of the swing would be different. We want precision in terms of how we impact the ball, and how fast we hit the ball. Therefore, we need to control the unnecessary movement of the body and arms to ensure consistent outcome.
The first thing we need to control is the low point of the swing arc. We want to make sure we hit the ball first before the ground, thus the low point must be after the ball. This can be achieved by moving the body weight to the front foot. (We tried swinging with the weight moved to the back foot too and the club will hit the ground before the ball. The way to move the weight to the front is by bumping the hip to the left while keeping the head at the same position over the ball. We do not want to lean the whole upper body over as this will create a different body angle.
The concept of loft. Each club has a club face that points upward at a certain degree. The higher the face, the higher the ball will bounce off of. This is why we do not and must not try to scoop the ball up in the air. Even if we hit downward, the ball will still go up. The reason for having different lift is that sometimes we want to hit the ball high, may be over a hazard, and rolls only a little after it hits the ground. But sometimes we want to fly the ball only a little and let the ball roll a long way after it lands. The higher the ball goes, the less it will roll and the opposite when the ball flies low.
To control the speed, we rely on gravity to speed up the club for us. So we don’t need to add any force to the club. So the higher we lift the club off the ground, the faster the club will pass through the ball. All we need to do is to turn our upper body, the chest and shoulder together, the arms is brought along with it and the club together until the height we intent to go to. Then all at the same time rotate back the body and everything else as the club starts to fall. And guide the club through the ball until the club stops by itself. Doing all of this while always keeping the weight on the front foot and head not moving. It requires practise.
We normally use a clock system for easy representation, where when our back swing goes up to 8 o’clock we would have the club stop at 4 o’clock, and 7 - 5, 9 -3 etc. this is achieved by the natural pendulum swing of the club. So we don’t have to add force ourselves.
Different clubs
Some motion, but changing club will allow you to hit different flights of shots. The highest ball flight when using S or 60 degrees will fly the ball a long way and rolls only a little or half the distance. But changing to a longer club like 8, 9 or even 7 iron, the ball will barely come off the ground , buy roll a much longer distance.
Putting
The putting stroke is relatively easy compared with the other swings. But we often time putt three or four times or even five times before we can get the ball into the hole.
The standard for putting each hole is two putts. But we often are not able to achieve this due to leaving the ball too far away from the hole after each putt. So the first factor we must improve is the distance control. Like the short game swing, we should not force the club but let the club fall and hit the ball on the way through. The speed of the club is controlled by the length of the backswing. The longer the back swing, faster the speed, the further the ball goes.
To control the back swing, can talk in inches, or how many club head length backward, but one we we can also set a reference is using our back feet as a guide. When our back swing reaches the inside of the foot, the tip of the toe, the outside of the foot, the ball will go a certain distance. Say, 6 feet, 10 feet and 15 feet. Each person will have their own distance. By knowing your distance from these three position, you will always have a reference you can work from, by adding a little or taking off a little to achieve different distances in between.
Once you have a good control of distance, the one thing that will affect the actual distance, is the slope of the green. The ball will run less if we are putting uphill, and the ball will roll further, if we are putting downhill. We will need to adjust the intended distance of the putt in fractions or multiple of the actual distance.
Reading the green.
When determining whether it’s uphill or downhill, it is sometimes easier to use see it from behind the hole. But by stepping on the putting line, we are able to feel how severe the slope is. You can also determine which side of the ball will turn by doing the same thing. The more severe the side slope, the more the ball will turn. Then you will have to aim on the opposite side accordingly.
Playing a hole
Each hole on the golf course starts from the teeing area, and finishes at the hole. The number of strokes played to finish the whole is the score for that hole. We do this on 18 different holes on a golf course. And a total score is your score for the round.
In each hole, there are a number of different tees. Usually the most forward tee, labelled the red tee is for ladies. There is also a distance marked at the tee which shows the distance from the tee to the middle of the green. A hole can be either Par 3,4 or 5 most often. Which means there is a standard of how many stroke you need to finish the hole to get a Par. It is also labelled near the tee box.
