Grouchy Golf Blog

I love virtually all sports. However, no sport is perfect and over the years I’ve thought of some ideas to improve specific sports:

In baseball, reduce the number of fielders by one. I find that baseball can be excruciatingly boring. I attribute it to an imbalance between offense and defense. In my opinion, there are just too many fielders. Simply reducing the number of fielders by one would open up the game and introduce much more strategy. For instance, do you take out an infielder or an outfielder? If you only have 2 outfielders, do you position them favoring the left field or the right field? These are decisions that will really make baseball managers earn their keep.

In basketball, make shooting fouls optional. If a team is fouled and they are awarded free throws, they should have the option to instead take the ball out of bounds. This would avoid the common situation at the end of games where teams use fouling as a weapon and the game turns into a free throw shooting contest. Can you think of another sport where teams intentionally commit penalties? Allowing teams to inbound the ball instead of shooting free throws would eliminate the ridiculous and embarrassing “Hack a Shaq” strategy.

In football, make the extra point kick attempt a little more difficult. In its current state, it amounts to little more than a gimmie. How about extending the length of an extra point attempt by 10 yards? It would make the game much more interesting and dramatic.

When it comes to golf, there's almost too many things that I'd like to change. But most of all, I find it tremendously unfair that you must play the ball as it lies even if it happens to land in a sand-filled divot. How many times have you celebrated a great drive in the middle of the fairway only to have it replaced with disappointment from a random divot? The fairway is supposed to reward you for a quality shot by providing the best lie for your next shot. I most certainly would rather play out of the first cut of rough than a mini-sand bunker of a divot. I say that this is ground under repair and that you should get a free drop. If I really had it my way, I'd take it one step further and rule that all players are allowed to lift, clean, and place balls that land in the fairway. If all players are allowed to do this, isn't it fair for all? After all, isn't that why they call it the "fairway"?

There are uncountable differences between amateurs and pros. One of the main ones is that pros have repeatable swings developed over years of mashing the rock.

Here's a cool Sport Science video analysis of the repeat-ability of Lexi Thompson's swing:

I played golf the other day with a guy who claimed to have just figured out golf. After struggling with this god-forsaken game for so long, I cautioned him to watch the words that sprang from his mouth. I explained to him that the purpose of golf was to drive us crazy. For some unknown reason, the Gods wanted to punish us mortals with an impossible to master game that would appear to be just the opposite. They called it golf and appointed the Golf Gods to maintain the game’s devilish deception. Anytime a mortal threatens to quit the game out of frustration, the Golf Gods will offer a tiny glimmer of hope to draw them back into the game. On the other hand, the Golf Gods are quick to strike down any golfer who becomes the least bit overconfident.

Dismissing my warning, my playing partner explained how he came to figure out golf. He said that he discovered the teachings of a golf instructor by the name of Geoff Jones who goes by the alias “Slicefixer” on the Internet. I was told to simply Google “Slicefixer” and all would be revealed.

Well I did, and I found a lot. Basically, Geoff was a teammate of Fred Couples on the University of Houston golf team. Geoff was an accomplished junior golfer who was the top dog in his hometown. But he soon realized that things were different in Houston after witnessing Freddie easily outdriving him to the tune of 50 yards. Geoff believed that he had to hit the ball farther to compete at the next level. Unfortunately, this quest for distance led him down a path of destruction that left his swing in complete disarray. He spent years to relearn the golf swing and return to his former glory. He has shared his findings for free in the SliceFixer’s Encyclopedia Texarkana.

Also, here's a video of Geoff's story and his concepts:



I have reviewed Geoff’s teachings and they sound valid to me. I plan on working on his concepts and hopefully they’ll get me closer to figuring out golf.

Labels: Swing Tips

Many people noticed the chummy relationship Tiger was forging with Rory last year. Some speculated that Tiger was buttering him up to join Team Nike. Well, the rumors and speculation were true as Nike announced last week that it signed Rory to a mega 5-year $100 million endorsement deal.

Rory is now bathed from head-to-toe in Nike apparel. Like a superhero donning a costume to shield his identity, Rory wears a costume covered in swooshes. But the surprising aspect of Rory's deal is the equipment. Usually a golfer of Rory's stature adopts a new manufacturer's equipment gradually so it doesn't adversely affect the golfer's performance on the course. After all, nothing is worse for a golf company than a golfer playing worse with its equipment for all the world to see. Tiger has followed that path with his deals with Titleist and Nike.

However, Rory has dived right into the Nike armory replacing all of his 14 clubs and ball with Nike's offerings. Whether it's supreme confidence or young naïveté, his move is certainly a bold one. It remains to be seen whether it was the correct move, but Rory's first outing with the new gear at last week's Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship in many ways was a bit of a stumble. This is a tournament that he finished in the top-3 for the last 3 years. This year, Rory misses the cut due to wayward shots and putts. Predictably, he attributed his poor performance to lack of practice. However, the fact that Rory bailed out on his Nike METHOD putter in favor of his old Titleist Scotty Cameron after only one round of play is not a sign of confidence in his gear.

I hope that Rory figures out his new equipment soon and returns to his #1 in the world form. If he doesn't, he may join Johnny Miller, Nick Price and Corey Pavin on the list of great golfers who have had their careers derailed due to equipment changes.

Labels: Rory McIlroy