Al Pehrson's blog

Hello everyone and welcome back. Now that the golf season is
in full swing…..pardon the pun. I hear this statement a lot about this time of
year; “I started out playing pretty well at the beginning of the season but now
I lost it and I’m not hitting the ball well anymore”. When this happens it's
always time to get back to the basics and check some fundamentals.

If you are consistently playing poorly beware of over-experimenting. Gimmicks may work for short periods but in the long run there is no substitute for fundamentals. Check in this order (preferably with the help of your teaching professional):

Hello everyone and welcome back for another great tip….. This week we are talking about Head Movement. Keeping your head still is the Number 1 fundamental of golf; some professional may call it “keeping your swing center”. For the purpose of this discussion I will just call it Head movement.

Many golfers who move their head during the swing don’t believe they are doing so because they can’t actually feel or sense it happening. Pronounced head movement at any point from takeaway to impact is a sure shot wrecker.

Because it is difficult to self-diagnose, it’s worth having your pro or buddy check you out periodically. Ask him or her to watch for up and down movement as well as lateral motion. Keeping your eye on the ball and keeping your head steady is not necessarily the same thing, I can move my head at least a foot and still keep my eye on the ball. Another way to check it yourself is to have the sun at your back and watch your shadow as you swing at a tee peg.

This week’s golf tip is an excellent one to develop and practice. Last season I talked about Grip Pressure when putting. Grip Pressure is also crucial in the full swing; here is what you need to do.

When you set up to the ball use very light pressure to place your hands on the club and align the clubface to your target. Prior to takeaway firm up your grip pressure (if you see your forearm muscles flex, it’s too firm). The last part is critical……You must maintain the same grip pressure throughout the swing. Most of you will “grab” the club like a vise when you start your downswing. Remember, tension in the golf swing will always produce errant shots. It is also important to not let the hands get loose through impact. If you are hitting the ball solidly but not as accurately as usual, check your grip pressure after impact….Again; maintain the same firm grip pressure throughout the swing, you will hit better shots.

Later,
Al Pehrson
PGA Professional

Hello everyone, this week’s tip is short and sweet; if you are in good health, play a couple of times a week or more but you can’t regularly break 90, I would bet your problems are in your Grip, you’re Set-up, and/or Alignment rather than the way you swing.

Also a factor is which tees you play from; you will enjoy the game a lot more if you play from the right set of tees. Here at the Meadows we have five sets of tees to choose from, it is a difficult golf course and is of championship quality. So you can enjoy your experience at the Meadows here is a breakdown of what tees I would recommend for you based on your handicap.

• Black tees “the tips”: 7,144 yards, Rating 74.6, Slope 146. Play these if you are a scratch or up to a 4 handicap player.
• Blue tees: 6,668 yards, Rating 72.3, Slope 142. Play this tee if you are a 5 to 10 handicap player.
• White tees: 6,318 yards, Rating 70.8, Slope 139. Play this tee if you are 11 and up handicap player and not a senior.

Hello everyone, and welcome to another season, it’s been a long winter this year and seems like we are getting a late start after such an early start last year. It’s that time of year again when you ask yourself; should I replace my equipment or not? If your driver, irons, and wedges are more than five years old; yes, it might be a good idea to start replacing them when you can afford to. I would at the very least replace your wedges. If you purchased new ones last year like I suggested, get another set if you can get them with the old grooves (we still have some left in the pro shop). All wedges manufactured now have the new conforming grooves.

Here is a sampling of what is new in drivers and irons that we are carrying in the pro shop this year from some of the major manufactures.

DRIVERS:

Hello and welcome back for another tip. I have been asked many times, “how do you get the ball to spin backwards or stop right away on the green”? Being able to spin the ball more like the Pro’s is a function of:

1. Descending Blow at Impact
2. Speed of Impact
3. Accurate Impact

All three of these elements must take place in order to spin the ball backwards with a wedge. This is a technique most mid and high handicappers have not perfected. So let’s take a look at each element and how we go about creating “spin”. It is a subject that is better taught one-on-one with a teaching professional. Even so, it is difficult for the average player to make the ball “dance” so do not get discouraged, but give it a try.

Descending Blow at Impact

Welcome back, continuing on our quest to improve your game; this week we will discuss “uneven lies”.   All uneven lies create a tendency for you to err, resulting in incorrect distance, faulty direction or both. Most golf is practiced on “flat as a pancake” terrain, but hardly any of it is played there. Here at the Meadows you find yourself faced with these uneven lies in most of your approach shots to the green, knowing how to play these shots is essential to scoring well. In this segment we will discuss what to do when you are faced with an uphill, downhill, or side hill lie (ball below or above your feet). We will look at each scenario and give you some tips that will give you the confidence to execute these difficult shots. Here are the basic considerations and adjustments for these shots:

The Downhill Lie

Hello again, this week we will talk about the great equalizer, putting. Putting is a different game; there is nothing similar about putting to the full swing in golf. The sad thing is a two-foot putt counts the same as a 300 yard drive. There is no recovery opportunity from bad putting. When you miss a short putt, you add a stroke to your score and have to putt again. It’s pretty simple; if you don’t putt well, you don’t play well!

There are a million different ways to putt and no one way is better than the other. The way best suited for you is what we want to find out. In putting we have many variables and personal preferences, just take a look at the professionals on television. We have long putters, belly putters, short putters, claw grip, reverse overlap grip, left hand low grip; I could go on and on.

There may be no single element of overall putting technique that every great putter agrees upon, but there are certain principals that the majority of them support:

Hello, back again for another blog. This week we are going to talk about relaxing during your swing. Whether it is a putt, chip, pitch shot, or full swing, you need to learn to relax so your swing is fluid and nothing is held back.

First you need to realize that I am not talking about pure relaxation; this is something you cannot attain and shouldn’t in the golf swing. There is another type of relaxation that I am talking about – active relaxation. To be actively relaxed is to be neither limp nor tense, but to have live tension in the parts of the body that will be doing the work.