The 25 Cent Putting Lesson

For those of you who follow our blog, one of our guest posters is Shawn Augustson, a student at the College of Golf and writes the blog Golf with Shawn and has shared with us some of his recent lessons.

One of our favorites of his recent articles is The 25 Cent Putting Lesson, a tip he learned while working with Class A LPGA Tour Professional Donna White. We’re reposted it for you below:


I made a little image so you can view this drill, it’s not to scale but gives you an idea of what I am talking about. Donna had me place a quarter on the green, and then I put my ball on top of the quarter (later on, I moved the quarter above the ball just as a reminder to look for it).

Improve your Putting
The red lines in the diagram are for distance. So If I bring my club back two positions, I then need to take it forward five positions on the follow through.

After impact with my ball I need to look for the quarter and hold the follow through position, not immediately look up for the ball. When I see the quarter, then I can turn my head slightly and use my eyes to watch the ball roll into the cup.

To get my rhythm, I slightly hover the club (not ground it) behind the ball and count one. My backswing is a count of two and my forward swing is a three count. So when I putt, in my head I am “One, Two, Three”.

Beginners will see marked improvements in their putting, and experienced golfers will recognize the important fundamentals in this lessons. We would expect everyone to benefit from putting it into practice.

How do you compare to the best?

MyScorecard’s You versus the Pros performance report offers you the ability to compare your skill against your favorite PGA and LPGA professional.

But how good do you have to be to graduate from Q-School?

We’ve run the numbers for the 2010 PGA and LPGA tour season in terms of 3 of the most often tracked statistics: Driving Distance, Greens in Regulation, and Putting.

Driving Distance

Averaging 315+ yards per drive, Robert Garrigus is far and away the longest driver on the PGA tour, with Bubba Watson leading the rest of the pack. But do you have to be a 300+ yard driver to be on the Men’s Tour? Not quite so. The vast majority of PGA tour players drive between 280 and 300 yards – but you’d better be at least 275 or longer if you want to play on the tour.
Top and Average Driving Distance for PGA Tour Pros

Greens in Regulation (GIR)

In contrast to the Men’s tour, it is the LPGA pros that lead in GIR accuracy. Continue reading “How do you compare to the best?”

It’s Tee Time in India!

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In a country where the definition of sport is one and only Cricket, India is seeing a rise in the popularity of Golf. Driven by the country’s economic boom, which has produced a 300 million strong middle-class, Callaway forecasts that India’s potential golf market will grow at a rate of 25 to 30 percent over the next few years, compared to 2 to 3 percent in the U.S.

Unlike the traditional golf market which is mainly targeted at an older population,  golf in India is generating huge interest among the young, especially those from middle and upper-income families who can afford to take lessons. Continue reading “It’s Tee Time in India!”

Tracking Your Game to Improve your Performance

MyScorecard members have a diverse array of experiences as well as stories and lessons that we can all learn from. One of our members, Shawn Augustson, is a student at the College of Golf and writes the blog Golf with Shawn. In this post he shares some of his most recent lessons.

In order to improve your golf game and become a better player, it’s essential to have an updated strengths and weakness profile. Keyword being UPDATED… you will want to continually track your progress. If someone were to ask you how your game went and you replied with “It was alright. I hit my irons well, but the rest of my round was bad.” This would be an analog response. You want to be thinking DIGITALLY, and be more specific. This is what will help you improve.

I will give you an example, I am a student at the College of Golf in Port Saint Luce, FL. In my swing fundamentals class with Dr. TJ Tomasi (Golf Magazine Top 100 teacher) we had to track the digital information from each of our rounds and be able to compare them to a tour player. When I would look at my putts and see that I was 2 putting across the board I thought I was bad at putting.

Percent of Putts Holed by DistanceAs I began to track other statistics from each of my rounds I discovered that my putting was not the problem because my first putt was always from around 30 Feet! The problem was with my approach. I wasn’t getting to the green in regulation and when I was on the green I was barely there. According to Dave Pelz and the extensive research he has done, any putts from 15 feet and beyond your best case scenario is 1 in 10 for holing it, even for the tour player.

My putting turned out to be alright because I would lag putt and then tap in. From the distance I was coming from this was good. With this information, I was then able to start looking at my decisions from 100 yards, and make better choices in order to get on and be able to one putt. Continue reading “Tracking Your Game to Improve your Performance”

Tee off towards the whites!

There may be many stunning golf courses throughout the world, but the Ice Golf course in Uummannaq, Greenland stands a step ahead.

Uummannnaq, the coldest course in the world, is located 600 km north of the Arctic Circle and since 1997 has been the home to the World Ice Golf Championship.

The picturesque par-36 9-hole course (with your typical mix of five par 4s, two par 3s and two par 5s), is located between two glacial icebergs – the moving ice results in a constantly changing layout as weather conditions fluctuate. Excluding the backdrop of huge mountains of ice glistening in the sun, Continue reading “Tee off towards the whites!”

Golf Around the World

One of our goals for 2011 is to bring you relevant and interesting posts about the handicap, improving your game, and the world of golf around you.

To start the year off, we are launching a new series Golf Around the World by our contributor M.S. Greene highlighting some of the more interesting courses you may not know about.

We’ll be producing a Scorecard as well – if you’ve played more than a quarter of these courses, you should consider yourself a true explorer of the golf world!

If you are an amateur golf blogger and have an interest in posting to our blog, send us an email with a link to your work. We’re always looking for posts that will help enlighten and entertain our members.