The Unstoppable Golfer by Dr. Bob Rotella

Author:Dr. Bob Rotella
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Free Press

EIGHT

THE SCORING CLUBS

You’d be surprised how often a golf shot turns out just the way you’re thinking.

—Patty Berg

At the 2011 Sony Open in Hawaii, Mark Wilson was feeling rushed. Rain had postponed play earlier in the week. On Sunday, players had to play 36 holes, finishing their third rounds and turning around almost immediately to start their fourth. Mark, after shooting a 65 to take the 54-hole lead, barely had time to grab a dozen new golf balls and the chicken sandwich he keeps in his locker for an on-course protein infusion. He arrived on the first tee with about two minutes to spare. He felt like a high school kid rushing to grab his books and get to class on time.

This class opened with a pop quiz on the short game.

The first at Waialae is a 488-yard par four. The approach to the green is affected very much by the prevailing wind. Mark hit a 6-iron and thought he hit it well, but the ball came up just a little short; perhaps the wind died a little as the ball flew.

He left himself a very testing pitch shot. Like a lot of courses, Waialae had recently been revamped to make the green complexes more difficult. Mark’s ball found one of those difficulties, coming to rest 30 feet from the hole but just a few inches to the right of a deep greenside bunker. He would have to take his stance in the sand, with the ball about even with his knees. Mark devotes the bulk of his practice time to shots from 120 yards and closer to the hole. But this was not a shot he’d ever really practiced. He would have to be creative and trust his skills.

He went through his short-game routine. He checked the lie, gauging how fluffy it was, how much it might slow his club head down, and how the ball would likely spin coming out of it. By this moment, after a week at Waialae, those calculations were instinctive. He envisioned the shot he wanted and its trajectory—a pitch of medium height that would land short of the hole and trickle into it. He took his stance and gripped down on the handle of his 60-degree wedge, down so far his left hand was touching steel instead of leather. “I tried to pretend I was really short,” he said later. Knowing that he needed to ensure good contact, he pressed forward a little bit with his hands, tilting the handle of the club toward the target. Then he went unconscious, looked one last time at the target, brought his eyes back to the ball, and swung.

He got the contact he had imagined, clean and solid. The ball landed eight feet short of the hole, just about as he’d planned. But the ball came out a bit hotter than he’d expected. It missed the flagstick and rolled six feet past the hole.

That didn’t fluster Mark. When he practices his short game, he tries always to putt the ball out.

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