Rubenstein’s Latest Column – “Go Unconscious”

Trivia: “What criterion does Tiger Woods, winner of more than 40 [sic] PGA TOUR events and eight majors, still need to meet in order to qualify for the World Golf Hall of Fame?” Answer below.

I’ve been including a lot of news items and other links and references lately. I guess that’s mostly because I haven’t felt my daily comings and goings have been all that blog-worthy. Just a lot of meetings and doing all we can to move Parmasters KW forward as quickly as possible. This blog-worthiness will likely change shortly.

Today I’m just working away on a few different projects. No meetings, per se. I’ll spend lunch with a dear friend and the evening with my two boys.

For now, before I get back to work, I’ll leave you with Lorne Rubenstein’s latest column, courtesy of the Globe and Mail. I found it quite interesting, and hope you will also. You can find it online here, and also included below, as usual.


Learn efficient technique, then go unconscious

LORNE RUBENSTEIN
March 11, 2009

MIAMI -- Successful tour golfers merge the psychological with the technical aspects of the game.

Sports psychologist Bob Rotella walked the back nine with Mike Weir yesterday at the Doral Golf Resort to help the Canadian with the mental side, while today, swing coach Justin Bruton will be at Doral to film top players so he can help golfers who visit his Total Performance Golf academy at the Biltmore Hotel in nearby Coral Gables, Fla.

Rotella has been working with Weir to help him "go unconscious."

The Bright's Grove, Ont., native will play in a group with Tiger Woods in the first two rounds of the CA Championship that starts tomorrow. He was doing pretty well along the conscious-unconscious spectrum.

On the 603-yard 12th hole, Weir hit the pin on one bounce from 100 yards. He then pitched a shot over a bunker in front of the green from 30 yards. The shot finished three feet from the hole.

"Pretty," Rotella said, and then Weir hit a few putts.

"I'm still feeling like I could have a bit more freedom in my stroke," Weir told Rotella.

On the final hole, Weir ripped a long iron over the corner of the lake in front of the green. The ball finished 15 feet left of the hole, pin-high.

"You get to the point where you know what you're trying to do [with the technical elements]," Weir said as he walked to the green. "I don't have to see Andy and Mike as much now. It's a matter of trusting myself."

Weir was referring to swing coaches Andy Plummer and Mike Bennett, who teach the stack-and-tilt approach. He said he knows the material. Now, it's about playing golf, not golf swing.

Meanwhile, he still gives plenty of thought to technique, but on the practice range rather than the course. He also enjoys talking about the swing, and on the last hole conversation turned to the Tour Striker, a new training club. Weir had joined Jim Furyk on the 17th hole, and they started talking about the club.

Canadian pro Martin Chuck, once part of George Knudson's and Ben Kern's top-notch junior program at the National Golf Club of Canada, developed the Tour Striker. It helps golfers achieve what teachers call "forward lean of the club shaft" at impact.

Chuck, director of golf at Tetherow Golf Club in Bend, Ore., has had some encouraging success with the anti-scoop club. Word is that PGA Tour pro David Toms asked for one, and Justin Leonard's coach, Randy Smith, picked one up recently.

Bruton, meanwhile, has been looking forward to visiting Doral today to continue his swing studies. The 31-year-old pro said during a recent interview at his academy that more players are going to what he called a "modern-day, short-arm, swing-big, body-turn motion."

Woods rarely gets his club to a parallel to the ground position at the top of his swing. But he's fully coiled behind the ball. "Tiger is the best iron player I've ever seen," Bruton said, which is in part because of the increased efficiency of his swing.

What about Weir and fellow Canadian Stephen Ames, who is also playing this week?

"They both have very rotary swings [one plane/stack-and-tilt types] where their heads do not move laterally as much on the backswing," Bruton said. "It appears Weir is letting his head move a little more laterally when he is swinging a driver, which I think is the correct move with the longer clubs as opposed to stack and tilt."

Then, there's South Korean player Y.E. Yang, who won last week's Honda Classic in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. Bruton said Yang uses that short-arm, big-turn action.

"This is a more efficient way to swing the club," Bruton said, "because a person's rate of force can actually go up with a shorter stretch/shorten cycle as opposed to a big, long backswing that overstretches the body and causes the golfer to lose that quick contraction out of the muscle. All the load that is created is lost."

What's a golfer to do? Clearly, the way to improve is to learn efficient technique, and then to go unconscious.

Weir and Ames have the first part down, otherwise they wouldn't be on the PGA Tour. Either could win this week. They're here, right?

It's certain that neither Weir nor Ames is thinking about Woods making his first appearance in a stroke-play event since winning the U.S. Open last June. They're thinking about something else.

They're thinking about going unconscious.

rube@sympatico.ca


And the answer: “He still needs to reach his 40th birthday, which is the minimum age for eligibility.”