|
|
|
John Steinbreder, GolfersMD News
Dec 06, 2010
|
Getty Images
The British Open not only produces great champions like Padraig Harrington but also gives us golf at its most imaginative levels, thanks to the frequently unpredictable weather as well as the quirky fate of the links-style courses on which it is played.
As a result, competitors have to do a lot more than simply grabbing a club out of their bags and firing at the flags. And so do average players who tee it up on those types of courses during their golf vacations. They all have to think carefully about each shot they hit, and they have to create.
“It is a totally different game,” says GolfersMD expert Michael Breed, the 2000 Metropolitan PGA Teacher of the Year and one of GOLF magazine’s Top 100 teachers. “Links golf requires a different style of play as well as a different mental approach.”
For starters, golf on a links course is generally played “on the ground.” Which means players try to keep their shots low and out of the wind as they also try to take advantage of firm and fast conditions that allow their balls to run great distances. “You as a player have to think so much more about what you are going to hit,” Breed explains. “You read the distance to the hole at 150 yards, and the first inclination is to pull out the club you normally hit that distance. But when the wind is howling at 30 knots as it was the first day of the 2008 Open Championship and the ground is hard as asphalt, you have to take much more into consideration. You can hit a pitching wedge to go that far, or you can use a six-iron. It all depends on what the course and the weather give you.”
Consider, for example, what happened to touring pro Steve Stricker during his British Open practice rounds at the Royal Birkdale Golf Club. The first day he played the 421-yard, par-four second hole, he used a seven iron for his second shot. The second day, with winds building off the Irish Sea, he hit a three-wood.
Breed believes that American golfers often have a difficult time adjusting to that type of play. “It can be especially tough when they are trying to hit into a big wind,” he says. “The inclination is to take a big backswing and not follow through. But once you hit the brakes with your swing like that, you lose control of the ball. It is much better to take a smaller backswing and accelerate through the ball.”
Breed quickly adds that it is also important to have a good mental attitude toward all the vagaries that links golf presents, what with wind gusts that wreak havoc with even the most crisply hit shots and the sinister bunkers carved in the middle of fairways that swallow seemingly perfect drives. “You can’t let it bother you, because that’s the way it often is with that kind of game,” he says. “Be patient, keep your mindset positive, and move on to the next shot.”
|
|
|
|
|
|