Los Secretos del Spin

Hacer que tus tiros se frenen y hacerlos que retrocedan, requieren que golpeemos la pelota abajo, recogerla de la superficie y mover correctamente las manos a través del impacto.

Un numeroso grupo de fabricantes de palos argumentan que no necesitas el swing correcto si usted tiene el wedge correcto, por ejemplo uno con la cara áspera. ¿Qué implica esta pregunta?
¿Acaso que se puede usted realmente comprar back spin en su tienda de golf ?
EL SPIN

Salidos de la fábrica, los wedges más nuevos lo ayudarán a parar una pelota rápidamente. Pero pruebas independientes muestran que después de 100 o más golpes con pelotas de dos piezas, las caras de los wedges tradicionales (los cuales son tratados con arena para ponerlos ásperos y rústicos) sufren una significante pérdida del poder que hace que la pelota se detenga, a medida que la cara del palo se erosiona.
Muchos fabricantes de palos admiten que ellos están fervientemente exploran formas de minimizar este "efecto de pulitura" adicionando procesos más largos para hacer las caras más rústicas. Mientras algunas de estas compañías que pidieron no ser identificadas algunas otras han sido más abiertas acerca de sus logros en este punto en particular.
Muchos factores afectan cuanto backspin usted produce, incluyendo la velocidad de la cara del palo y el ángulo de inclinación, el ángulo de su swing, que tán cerca están las ranuras en la cara del palo, las condiciones de juego, el tipo de pelota y cuanto la pelota se resbala en la cara.
Una cara de palo áspera genera más backspin en tiros perfectamente limpios, como los que se realizan desde un fairway cualquiera. Cuando la grama o el sucio se colocan entre la pelota y la cara del palo, el efecto de la textura es minimizado, pero este todavía ayuda a crear más backspin que lo que una cara lisa crearía.
Desde la grama mojada, una cara áspera puede tener un pronunciado efecto porque, al impacto, el agua se encuentra entre la pelota y la cara del palo, causando que la pelota resbale. Las ranuras en la cara drenan mucho del agua, pero todavía una cara áspera ayudará.
TENGA CUIDADO

Y ahora las malas noticias: Las caras ásperas no ayudarán en los tiros bien golpeados desde el bunker porque la arena se queda entre la cabeza del palo y la pelota al momento del impacto, nunca permitiendo que los dos se toquen. También, en el rough alto, las caras ásperas pueden agarrar demasiada grama, haciendo prácticamente imposible golpear un tiro con un alto nivel de precisión.
También hay otra preocupación cuando existe mucha textura en los wedges, cuando una cara está muy rústica, en vez de impartir backspin en los tiros limpios rompe la cubierta de la pelota.
¿Cuán áspero es muy áspero?. Si usted magnifica una cara del palo de los principales fabricantes usted verá que no es una superficie lisa. La USGA limita el áspero de las caras del área de impacto de manera tal que no sobrepasen los 180 millonésimas partes de una pulgada.
COMO OBTENER MAS SPIN

Antes que todo esté seguro que limpia la cara del palo de sus wedges con un cepillo después de cada tiro. Cualquier grasa, agua, o sucio entre las ranuras alterarán el vuelo de la pelota y producirán el efecto de una bola de nudillos.
Segundo, envié sus wedges al fabricante una vez por año, para que restaure la superficie áspera la cual se va puliendo con el paso del tiempo.
Un profesional de golf o un profesional en el ajuste de palos a la medida puede examinar su juego corto y recomendar wedges con la correcta cantidad de bounce, loft y leading edge para ayudar a incrementar la cantidad de spin. Pero cualquiera sea el wedge que escoja, pruébelo en el tipo de grama que usted más juega; éste definitivamente se comportará de manera muy diferente en una alfombra de driving range que directamente en la grama.
Finalmente, no importa que digan los fabricantes, el equipo no puede hacer todo el trabajo, usted todavía necesita hacer un buen swing si usted desea hacer que la pelota baile.
EL TIPO DE PELOTA

El tipo de pelota que usted juega también puede afectar la cantidad de backspin que usted logra en sus tiros de wedge. Aquí hay unas recomendaciones generales para realizar la decisión correcta: Pelotas con una cubierta suave o aquellas con una cubierta fina y un centro grande, harán más spin que otras. Sin embargo, es interesante que se note esto, de acuerdo a voceros de la industria, aquellas pelotas marcadas como "high spin" pueden o quizás no hacer más spin que las otras pelotas sin estas marcas. Usted no puede estar seguro leyendo la etiqueta: Ya que no existen regulaciones de la USGA al respecto o estándares de la industria acerca de la cantidad de spin, los fabricantes pueden marcar las pelotas de cualquier forma que a ellos les guste.
¿ Cómo puede estar seguro de más acción sobre el green ?. Primero busque una pelota que en su caja exprese y explique claramente que están desarrolladas para generar una gran cantidad de spin en tiros cortos. Segundo, "pruebe una gran cantidad de diferentes pelotas, y definitivamente consulte con su profesional, quien conoce su juego corto", recomienda George Sine, director de mercadeo de pelotas de golf en Titleist.
Si usted está usando un wedge de cara áspera, éste puede dañar aquellas pelotas con cubiertas finas, particularmente aquellas con una cubierta distinta a Surlyn, que todavía es el material más durable disponible en el mercado. Luego de esto usted debe decidir donde quiere más movimiento si en los greenes o en su cartera.

Estadísticas

 

Es una herramienta muy importante para nosotros, los profesores, y sobre todo para ustedes, los jugadores, el conocer y actualizar sus estadísticas de juego.

Para esto en la Academia les aconsejamos utilizar un site gratuito: http://www.mobilegolfstats.com/

Es muy importante que nos manden los datos de cada vuelta que jueguen, aun sea de 9 hoyos o vueltas de práctica, ya que estos datos nos muestran donde está fallando realmente en su juego. A trabajar!!!!

The Sixth Sense: Bubba Watson is golf's ultimate feel player

 

By Michael Bamberger, Senior Writer, Sports Illustrated

Published: February 03, 2011

Your better golfers have always been feel players. Paul Azinger practices bunker shots with his ears. The clubhead through the sand makes a certain pa-toot sound that tells him when the length and depth of his divot is ideal. Al Geiberger, who in 1977 became the first Tour player to shoot 59, used to feel wind direction on his face. When the wind was balanced on both cheeks, he knew his nose was pointed into the wind. A human weather vane. Tom Watson reads greens through the spikes of his shoes, able to figure out slopes through some weird spike-to-brain impulse, unencumbered by actual words. Johnny Miller, in his 1973 prime, had eyes that could distinguish 163 yards from 165 and had different swings to accommodate those distances.

Such heightened sensitivity naturally shows up in the elite player’s toolbox. Most Tour players will tell their manufacturer that they want a driver with eight degrees of loft, or seven or nine. A smaller group will distinguish by the half degree, asking their Tour reps for an 8.5 this or a 7.5 that. After 24 years, Jeff Maggert still drives the ball in play about as often as anybody, and he requires his driver loft to be precise to a quarter degree, swinging a 9.25 model. Which is why he does the bending and the measuring himself. He’s one of the few players left who regularly puts his clubs in a vise.

Years ago, when the putting genius Brad Faxon first went to Scotty Cameron to have a putter made, he was unsatisfied until a vertical slit along the length of the putter’s bottom was cut into his prototypes. You’ve seen a similar feature if you’ve ever taken a good look at the classic 85020 Ping Anser putters from the early ’70s—the number is Ping’s Phoenix zip code. What did that little slot, too narrow to fit a resort scorecard, give Faxon? The sound he wanted, the swing weight he wanted, the coefficient of restitution (COR) he wanted. Just like the collision between the face of a 460cc driver and a two-piece ball at 123 miles an hour (Bubba Watson’s clubhead speed, one of the fastest on Tour), the putter-ball fender bender has a trampoline effect. If you could roll it like Faxon, your putter’s COR would be meaningful to you too.

How much less did the putter weigh with the slit cut into it? It lightened the head by the weight of two dimes, if that. But these are not ordinary people with standard-issue senses.

A few years ago at the Tour Championship, Tiger Woods was on the range with some of the Nike equipment guys. Woods, often acknowledged by his peers for having the greatest eye on Tour, was looking for a backup five-wood. All he wanted was an exact replica of what he had in his bag. Manufacturers know that no two clubs are identical. Close, but not identical. Temperature and humidity in the casting process are always in flux, and the result is that clubs have marginal differences. Woods was testing two five-woods that were identical only in theory. One would land the understudy role, the other would turn into a nice gift, the five-wood that nearly made it as Tiger’s backup cleek.

Woods anointed one club as his first alternate. The other was rejected for being too small.

The Nike guys brought the clubs back to the lab. Out came the engineer calipers, able to measure club width to one one-­thousandth of an inch. The club that Woods insisted was smaller was smaller—by less than .005 of an inch in width. Well within manufacturing tolerances. But Woods could tell.

Players with immense strength, like Woods, who also have a highly developed sense of feel are not common. Those with both possess a lethal combination. There’s a long list of golfers claiming to be feel players. They are golf’s soul surfers. If you had a dollar for every time Farmers Insurance Open champ Bubba Watson identified himself as a feel player in the interviews he gave last year, you’d have $53, maybe more.

One day in January, Watson came to the Ping office and driving range, in industrial Phoenix, where he was subjected to the first SI So-You-Think-You’re-a-Feel-Player Field Test. He was an excellent sport about it, and he was determined to ace the thing.

The lanky lefthander lives in Scottsdale, Ariz., near the unassuming, almost homey Ping factory. (You see various Solheim family members here and there, dispensing weight-loss tips and design ideas.) Watson, 32, has played Ping clubs all his life. His parents gave him odd-numbered Ping irons for his 12th birthday, and even ones a year later. By Tour standards he knows next to nothing about club specs.

The Feel Field Test would soon begin. He didn’t seem too edgy. He joked with two kiddie golfers who were hanging around, one, in knickers, a ringer for Payne Stewart, the other a junior Rickie Fowler, with the hair and the flat-brimmed Puma hat. “Aaron Baddeley and I are very close,” Watson said, referring to the Tour player. “Our wives are good friends. We go to the same church. But when Aaron starts talking about shaft tip points, I have to leave the room.”

You do not talk to Watson about tip points or butt width or any of that stuff. But if Matt Rollins, Ping’s Tour rep and the man in charge of fulfilling Watson’s idiosyncratic club requirements, slides on a grip that’s crooked by a hair, he’ll hear about it right away.

“Take his 60-degree wedge, which is actu­ally bent to 63,” Rollins says. “He doesn’t want the center line on the grips pointing to a square face.” That would be conventional, and Bubba doesn’t do conventional. “He wants it pointing to an open face, so what he thinks is square is actually open, making the 63 more like 66. Then he plays it with an open face, and that makes it more like a 70.”

Rollins and his colleagues at Ping have developed a system that assures Watson’s grips will be centered to seriously open faces. At a gripping station, the Pingsters have marked up something that looks like a protractor to show Watson’s preferred open-face positions. From there the grip goes on straight, using a laser line to assure it is centered. It’s all very scientific. Naturally, Watson’s eye will occasionally override the instrumentation.

“See, I’m a feel player,” says Watson, who lost the PGA Championship to Martin Kaymer in a playoff last year. “I’m trying to trick my body and my mind into thinking my clubs are square when they’re actually open.” Watson doesn’t like to play any straight shots. He finds it easier to curve a shot than to hit it straight. That’s his art. Hooks and slices and stingers and moon shots.

Nobody on Tour has grips like Watson’s. He starts with extra-thick ones. Then he has Rollins put 10 wraps of tape underneath the top half of the grip and 12 underneath the bottom. In the January Feel Field Test, Watson was blindly given three nine-irons, two of which weren’t wrapped to his specs. He rejected the impostors in seconds. They were two wraps from standard.

Later in the FFT, Watson was given seven wedges, with lofts of 60, 58, 56, 54, 52, 50 and 47 degrees. The shafts were all the same length. The clubs were jumbled. He could not see the loft markings. He was asked to order them. It was batting practice. Watson went 7 for 7 without a hiccup. If you think it’s easy, test yourself the next time you’re at your neighborhood Golfsmith. Your correspondent, formerly proud of his eye, went 3 for 7, and his complaint that southpaw clubs all look the same to a righthanded duffer elicited no sympathy from Bubba. “Thing is, once you get one wrong, you got two wrong,” he said cheerfully. His logic was flawless.

Early in the FFT, Watson was given two eight-irons and told to report to the committee what was different about them. He hit one 190-yard shot after another. “I’m going to get this, I’m going to get this,” he said. Finally, he gave up.

“They seem the same,” he said.

“They are the same,” Rollins said.

They did not come to fisticuffs. In fact, Bubba smiled.

Watson was given two four-irons, one with a slightly upright 61.5-degree lie (the angle at which the shaft comes into the club), the other with his normal 59.5-degree lie. Watson quickly realized that the 61.5 four-iron was producing a higher, hookier shot than normal. He raised his hands to lower the toe and lower the flight and reduce the hook.

Later, playing beautiful draws and fades with a six-iron, Watson said, “I like this club.”

“You should,” Rollins told him. “It’s your backup six-iron.”

Watson couldn’t always immediately identify how the clubs were different by looking at or holding them, but he could always, without fail, tell you how one club played differently from the next.

A blind driver test yielded the most extreme results. Watson’s 315-yard drives with a nine-degree loft felt like pop-ups to him, while his 330-yard drives with a 7.5 driver felt like the real deal. As you would expect, 7.5 is his normal loft. Then he was given a 7.5 driver that had (unbeknownst to him) an extra 40 grams in the butt end of the grip. He made one swing and ­reported, “I can’t feel the head.”

At the end of the day, the Feel Field Test committee met. In addition to the subject’s FFT results, which were excellent, and the hundreds of shots the committee had watched him play in competition, anecdotal evidence was considered. For instance, there was the time a caddie—not his regular man, Ted Scott—called a delicate 60-yard pitch shot 80 yards. The number went in one ear and out the other. Watson eyeballed the distance, trusted the yardage in his head and stuffed the shot. Sounds like a feel player.

The committee considered the stories from his games with friends, when Bubba will shoot even par or better playing with only a four-iron. Yes, greenside sand shots with a four-iron. Sounds like a feel player.

On the Ping range the other day, somebody asked Watson how far away a flag was.

More than 45. Less than 50. “Forty-­seven,” Bubba settled on.

A Ping man walked out and measured it. Forty-six and change.

Give the gentleman his certificate.

Steal My Feel

 

Hit more fairways

By Steve Stricker
Photo by J.D. Cuban
February 2011
My consistency off the tee really started to improve when I switched to a neutral grip, with the back of my left hand facing the target. My main focus now is trying to swing my left hand back into that position at impact.
You can see here that I'm in the process of taking my grip. The first thing I do is point the back of my left hand to my target. Then I grip the club with my right hand. If I set my hands on the club like this and the clubface is square behind the ball, then I have a neutral grip. From there, I try to feel as if I'm returning my left hand at impact so it faces the target again (right).
If you prefer a weaker or stronger grip but still want to focus on accuracy, check the position of your left hand at address when the clubface is square. Then try to match that hand position at impact. You'll deliver a square face for straighter tee shots.




STEVE STRICKER, No. 5 in the World Golf Ranking, has won nine times on the PGA Tour.

Rickie Fowlers SWING SEQUENCE

NOTHING TOO COMPLICATED

If you asked me to discuss the mechanics of my swing, I'm afraid it would be a short conversation. I'm a feel player. My main focus is on making solid contact. I know my swing and my tendencies, and if I get into a spell of hitting the ball a little thin with my driver, or off the toe, or with the clubface a shade open or closed, I can make a small adjustment or two to get back on track. I make the corrections by instinct. Learn to recognize the feel of different off-center hits and an open or closed face at impact. They'll give you clues about your swing and help you start fixing mistakes on your own. It's a fun way to play and improve. -- Rickie Fowler -------------------

AN ARTISTIC
THRILL RIDE

Rickie Fowler has learned what can't be taught

Rickie Fowler's view of the golf swing comes down to this: What he doesn't know can't hurt him, and what little he does know works. Fowler, who had two top-five finishes through February in his first full season on the PGA Tour, is basically self-taught, except for some sessions with local pro Barry McDonnell. Growing up in Murrieta, Calif., Fowler, now 21, had no golf hero and emulated no one. He has never read an instruction book ("I did look at the cool drawings in that Ben Hogan book," he says) or even examined his fluid, blurry-fast swing on video. The result is a freewheeling move that's a screaming denunciation of the mechanical methods of the previous era.

"There are several young players coming up who've learned to play their own way," says teacher Jim McLean. "Rickie might be the best of them, and he's clearly one of the best ball-strikers on tour already. I haven't helped Rickie with his swing, but I offered him one bit of advice when I met him a couple of years ago. I told him to never, ever let anyone change his swing."

The driver is the best part of Fowler's long game. His flattish, lashing swing produces enormous length, and his misses are seldom severe. His lone swing thought: Catch the ball on the sweet spot.

"I love the long, firm tracks, the harder the better," Fowler says. "I wouldn't mind if they all were like Royal County Down [where he won three matches in the 2007 Walker Cup]. But whatever the course, I'm ready to go."

FOWLER'S POWER KEY

TURN THE HAND DOWN

Rickie Fowler pours every bit of his 150 pounds into his driver swing. Many positions play a part in his remarkable power and control, but the one I like best is his superb right-hand release. Notice how his right wrist is arching downward as far as possible. It's a dynamic, speed-producing action that keeps the clubhead low through impact and the ball on the clubface a fraction longer than normal. The ball and clubface are compressed with super efficiency. Combine Rickie's swing speed with this power move, and you end up with the ultimate smash factor.

--Jim McLean

 

Jonathan, la familia Vegas, el golf y el “espíritu de la Robo-lución” ( …has recorrido un largo camino muchacho!!!)

Jonathan Vegas: Este triunfo se lo dedico a Venezuela

Para los venezolanos el triunfo de Jonathan Vega en el “Bob Hope Classic” es un motivo de alegría y celebración como siempre solemos celebrar las grandes victorias de los deportistas nacionales. Para los profesionales y aficionados venezolanos al golf, es algo más, es un motivo de orgullo, emoción y admiración, pues quienes conocen las dificultades del juego y sus exigencias físicas y mentales, saben lo difícil que es llegar a jugar en el PGA Tour, el equivalente a la Grandes Ligas, y que ganar un torneo en ese Tour es todavía más cuesta arriba.
Para llegar a ese nivel, como en el beisbol, el jugador debe demostrar sus habilidades en las ligas menores del golf profesional, el Nationwide Tour, donde Jonathan tuvo que enfrentar a cientos de competidores que cada año aspiran a uno de los pases de ascenso al PGA Tour.  Jonathan Vega, el primer venezolano en  el PGA,  se une en esa liga a seis latinoamericanos: Ángel Cabrera, José Cóceres, Fabián Gómez y Andrés Romero, de Argentina país de una larga tradición en el golf, Carlos Franco de Paraguay y Camilo Villegas de Colombia.
Jonathan Vega, hijo de un modesto trabajador despedido de PDVSA por el actual Gobierno, se inició en los campos de golf de la empresa en el Oriente del país. Para paliar la ausencia de centros de recreación y esparcimiento, las empresas petroleras transnacionales construyeron en sus campamentos campos de golf para ofrecerle a su personal una posibilidad de sano esparcimiento en medio de la soledad de los llanos y los bosques.  Esos campos fueron conservados y bien mantenidos durante décadas, antes y después de la nacionalización de la industria. En esos campos, particularmente en los del Oriente, se formaban y hacían deporte más de 500 niños venezolanos. Uno de esos niños era Jonathan Vega.
Pero un día, el Presidente Chávez y su Ministro de Energía cum Presidente de PDVSA declararon que “el golf es un deporte contrario al espíritu de la Revolución”. Y sin más, ordenaron y ejecutaron la destrucción de todos esos campos de golf, sin tener en cuenta no solamente el costo de los mismos, sino que además dejaban sin esas instalaciones a cientos de niños que se iniciaban en ese deporte en un programa auspiciado por Miguel Martínez, otro profesional del golf venezolano, surgido como Jonathan, de esos campos y en un momento dado patrocinado por la PDVSA .
De allí en adelante,  el Presidente Chávez inició una campaña contra el golf, calificándolo de “burgués”, “elitista” y “contrarrevolucionario”. Posteriormente, ordenó el cierre del campo de golf de Maracay, argumentando que quienes allí practicaban ese deporte eran unos “ricachones” y además “flojos” que ni siquiera caminaban, sino que se desplazaban por el campo en carritos especiales.
Luego vinieron las amenazas de confiscación, que el Presidente Chávez en cada oportunidad, contra el resto de los campos de golf que existen en el país. En la primera oportunidad, el entonces alcalde Juan Barreto, inició acciones destinadas a expropiar los más antiguos campos de golf de Caracas, el Valle Arriba Golf Club y el Caracas Country Club. Y por supuesto, el Gobernador  García Carneiro, no podía quedarse atrás y puso en salsa al Caraballeda Golf Club, ubicado en el Estado Vargas, amenazándolo con su confiscación. Ahora, con ocasión de las recientes lluvias, y para agredir a esa institución,  instaló decenas carpas en el hoyo 8 de ese club y con el apoyo armado de la Guardia Nacional alojó allí a un grupo de damnificados en condiciones infrahumanas.
La única verdad que en relación al golf ha dicho el Presidente Chávez, es que es "un deporte contrario al espíritu de la Revolución”. En efecto, los principios y la naturaleza del golf son incompatibles con su Revolución, que no es otra cosa que un régimen autocrático y totalitario que vive y se nutre el del culto a la personalidad, del abuso de poder, de la desigualdad entre sus seguidores y el resto de los venezolanos, del uso desproporcionado de la fuerza, del estímulo del odio y la violencia, del insulto y la procacidad, de la trampa y la zancadilla, de la destrucción de la nación, del cultivo de la adulación y que tiene como norma permanente de conducta la deshonestidad.
El golf no se juega contra otros, se juega contra la dificultad del campo y contra uno mismo y siempre para superar la última actuación. El golf produce pues un deseo constante de superación. Esta llamada "Revolución" intenta castrar el deseo de superación de los venezolanos y pretende igualarnos por debajo, acostumbrarnos a la la mediocridad y la miseria.
El golf ayuda a desarrollar, en particular en los más jóvenes, el sentido de la honestidad. En el golf no hay árbitros ni, usando el lenguaje presidencial, “onpallers”, que vigilen el comportamiento de los jugadores en la cancha y lleven el "score" de ellos. Cada jugador lleva su "score". El CNE, el INES y el BCV, encargados de llevar los “scores” de la nación, hacen trampas cada uno en su campo y los adulteran para satisfacer a l Presidente Chávez, son la institucionalización de la deshonestidad.
En el mundo del golf, quien es descubierto en una trampa, queda marginado de la comunidad de golfistas, que las considera un acto deshonesto y ventajista. Y la deshonestidad y el ventajismo son normas de conducta  del actual Gobierno. El poder judicial sumiso, la Fiscalía, la Contraloría y el TSJ tienen como función principal ocultar las trampas y desafueros del Iluminado y de los burgueses protegidos del régimen.
El golf es un deporte que tiene reglas para que todos los jugadores, independientemente de sus destrezas y nivel de juego,  participen en igualdad de condiciones. Es el sistema de “hándicaps”. Se  crean así condiciones que superen las diferencias naturales entre unos y otros jugadores, lo que alcanza mediante la proporcionalidad.  Espíritu que evidentemente es contrario al pensamiento gubernamental que se sustenta en el odio y en la desproporcionalidad: más votos menos diputados para los demás, menos votos más diputados para el oficialismo.
El golf es un deporte para personas de todas las edades. Lo que permite que se pueda practicar en familia. Es un deporte que propicia la unidad y la convivencia familiar. La conducta del Presidente Chávez en materia de familia la conoce bien el país y no es precisamente un ejemplo para los jóvenes ni para la sociedad en general.
Adicionalmente, el golf tiene otra forma para subsanar las diferencias en edad y condiciones físicas de los jugadores. Cada hoyo tiene puntos de salida (tees) para diferentes niveles, así, se tienen "tees" para profesionales, para amateurs de alto nivel , para aficionados normales , para los de tercera edad (Seniors), para damas y para niños. Es decir es un deporte que hace de la igualdad y la proporcionalidad uno de sus principios básicos, para que los resultados sean justos. Este es un Gobiernos que abusa del poder, de los recursos y de las armas del Estado para obtener ventajas indebidas, reprimir, atropellar los derechos ciudadanos, crear de desigualdades y estimular el odio y la frustración colectiva.
Y finalmente, es un deporte se fundamenta en el respeto a cada competidor. Los buenos modales, su ética, y una conducta civilizada constituyen normas inquebrantables del juego. En otras palabras, es un deporte de “buenos ciudadanos”, con lo que se quiere decir de ciudadanos que, por encima de todo, respetan al prójimo y pueden convivir en armonía con sus semejantes.  Nada más alejado de la conducta de esta llamada  Revolución, que así como el adicto no puede renunciar a las drogas por su enfermedad, ellos por sus complejos y aberraciones sociales, no pueden renunciar al lenguaje procaz y al insulto contra quienes no comparten sus ideas y acciones.
En efecto, el golf es contrario a este “espíritu”, afortunadamente para los golfistas y para el golf. Pero resulta que como los logros del  actual Gobierno son inexistentes, y siempre oportunista y tramposo, no pierde oportunidad de “ganar indulgencias con escapulario ajeno”. Y ante la victoria de Jonathan Vega, como ha hecho con la de otros deportistas, ha tratado de identificarse con el contento de los venezolanos y hacerla aparecer como suya y del régimen. Con el mayor de los descaros ha dicho que no es cierto que el sea enemigo del golf, ni de ningún deporte. Una actitud oportunista, ventajista y deshonesta, que contradice todas sus afirmaciones y todas sus acciones, entre ellas la destrucción por órdenes suyas de todas las canchas de golf de los campos petroleros, de donde surgió este joven y exitoso deportista, hijo de uno de los 22.000 trabajadores despedidos de PDVSA.
El triunfo de Jonathan Vega, representa algo más que una victoria deportiva individual. Representa el triunfo de las familias venezolanas que trabajan y se esfuerzan para darles a sus hijos educación para un futuro mejor.  Jonathan Vega no es solamente un deportista, es un profesional graduado en la Universidad de Texas adonde, al igual que sus hermanos, llegó gracias al esfuerzo de sus padres. Su padre fue botado de PDVSA pero no se sumergió en un valle de lágrimas ni salió a buscar dádivas de alguna “misión”, sino que con su esfuerzo sacó adelante a sus hijos.
No fue la Misión Rivas ni Che Guevara ni ninguna otra del oficialismo para comprar la sumisión de los más necesitados, la que le abrió las puertas del futuro a Jonathan  y a sus hermanos, sino la “Misión Familia Vega”, con trabajo, constancia, educación y una indeclinable voluntad de superación. Sirva la familia Vega de ejemplo para demostrar que en Venezuela siempre ha existido la posibilidad de superación y ascenso económico y social mediante el esfuerzo familiar, la disciplina y el estudio.
Pero para el Iluminado, en lo más profundo de su espíritu enfermo, Jonathan nunca será un ejemplo de superación y de logros. Sus complejos y resentimientos lo hacen enemigo del éxito y de quienes, como Jonathan, han hecho realidad sus sueños con esfuerzo y dedicación.

Luz Marina Hosty

Y obviamente la respuesta típica de los políticos “bananeros” que nos honran en toda Latinoamérica:

“Chávez felicita a Vegas y al golf venezolano…”

Cabrera, Villegas y Vegas marcan un hito en el PGA TOUR

 

Teleconferencia de los tres jugadores antes de Phoenix Open, para PGA.COM

Sink putts with confidence like David Duval

 

Who:David Duval
What: 12-foot birdie putt for share of the lead
Where: 178-yard par 3 17th hole at Pebble Beach
When: Final round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am

David Duval has long been golf’s biggest enigma. He used to be a superstar with fully exempt Tour status, but now he’s a former star with no exempt status so he needs sponsor exemptions to get in tournaments. Recently, Duval has shown signs that he might end his decade-long slump. He tied for second at last year’s U.S. Open at Bethpage Black, and last week at the 2010 U.S. Open venue Duval had another runner-up finish. Were those near victories flukes? I don’t think so. My money says that Duval is back.

Top golfers are among the most competitive athletes in sports, and they never lose that competitiveness. Some players, including Duval, fade away from golf for reasons including burnout, boredom, a change in personal priorities or trying too hard. Duval experienced all of those things and more. Now, though, Duval seems to have his life and mind in order, so his mind has refocused itself on the challenge of competing at golf.

Duval’s advantage with his latest comeback is confidence, especially on the greens. Duval has always been a premier ballstriker, but his he was often not sharp on the greens because he didn’t believe in himself. He had a sour attitude and he beat himself up.

At Pebble Beach, Duval, who finished just one shot behind the winner, appeared to exude assurance and calm on the greens and he putted like a star. (He ranked fifth in putts per GIR and 18th in putts per round.) I think Duval will contend again when the U.S. Open returns to Pebble Beach in June.

The Drill:

My favorite drill to build confidence on the greens is a game called Four-Six-Ten. To play, find a hole in a flat part of a green. Make a mark with chalk or a tee four feet away from the hole. Then make two more marks six and 10 feet away. The three distance marks can be on the same line, but they don’t have to be. The goal is to make 10 four-footers, six six-footers and four 10-footers with just 20 putts. When you can do that, you’re a hell of a putter. To up the difficulty choose lines with more break.

Over time, look for patterns in which length putts you make the most and the least. The results will tell you what type of putts need the most work.

Pun, José Ignacio (Trabajo en el swing febrero 2011)

 

 

Practice Like a Pro: Bubba Watson | Videos | Golf.com

Practice Like a Pro: Bubba Watson | Videos | Golf.com

Grip It Like The Pros

Looking to improve your putting this year?
Try one of these proven styles

* This is the best putter on tour last year. Scroll down to see who it is

TRADITIONAL

TIGER WOODS

"My grip is conventional. The handle runs under the butt of my left hand, and the back of my right hand is parallel to my left. I position both thumbs directly down the top of the handle, and my left forefinger lies across the fingers of my right hand, to provide unity."

CROSS-HANDED

JIM FURYK

"My father taught me to grip it with my left hand lower than my right, and my right index finger down the back of the shaft. He said Arnold Palmer and Gary Player told him they wished they had learned that way. It's easier to use the shoulders and not slap at it."

HANDS BACK

ZACH JOHNSON

"I used to have a major forward press, but my hands have moved progressively back -- I think because I'm right-eye dominant. It might look to me like my hands are in the middle, when they're really not. Other than that, my grip is pretty standard."

SPLIT-HANDED

DANIEL CHOPRA

"I change between left-hand low and right-hand low. It depends on how I feel over a putt. I separate my hands because I'm trying to get my right hand's fingers to touch my left forearm to keep everything working together."

THE PSYCHO

CHRIS DIMARCO

"I've been doing this for 12 years. I started because I was missing short putts. You put your right hand on the grip as if you were gently holding a handle, and your left hand grips the club conventionally. It helps keep the right hand from being overactive."

PALMS FACING

VIJAY SINGH

"I vary my putter lengths, but my grip is usually the same. My right hand is only slightly farther down the club than my left, so my palms are almost facing. My thumbs are resting partially on the side of the club. This puts me in a neutral-hand position."

THE CLAW

MARK CALCAVECCHIA

"I call it the 'Reverse DiMarco,' and I've been holding the putter this way since 2000. I grip my belly putter like this because it keeps my right hand from yipping. It allows my left hand to control the stroke and my right hand to simply go along for the ride."

THE PENCIL

TIM CLARK

"I came up with it when I first picked up a long putter, in college. The length determines how my left hand sits on the grip. Because I was born without the ability to rotate my forearms outward, I can't hold it fully in my right hand. I have to hold it like a pencil."

10 Rules For Maximizing Your Competitiveness

 

'If you have 100 percent confidence that you can pull off a shot, most of the time you will.' -- Michael Jordan

By Michael Jordan

With Craig Bestrom

Photo by Walter Iooss Jr.

November 2009

1. Focus on the little things. During my basketball career, I always told myself to focus on the little things because little things added up to big things. I equate making putts with making free throws, and my biggest mental challenge shooting free throws was in my second year, 1986, when I came back from a foot injury for the playoffs and had a 63-point game against Boston in the Garden. I had to make two free throws to send the game into overtime, and all I focused on was the basics -- I'm not gonna be short. I'm gonna extend and reach for the rim -- all the fundamentals that I had worked on at home and at practice for all those years. Golf is no different. Don't assume, for example, that any putt is good. Make sure you putt every three-footer with conviction.

And keep score every time you play. I do.

2. Have total confidence in what you can do. If you have 100 percent confidence that you can pull off a shot, most of the time you will. I'll never forget the time I was playing with Seve Ballesteros in Valencia [Spain]. It was just a fun round, but very competitive, of course. Seve misses a green, and his ball ends up right up against a tree. He has absolutely no backswing, and I'm thinking he's out of the hole. Next thing I know, Seve's on his knees with some kind of iron in his hands, and he's choking down all the way to the hosel. He chips this thing, and it bounces onto the green to a few feet, and he makes par. Unbelievable!

Tiger's the same way. One time we're at Isleworth playing for a little money, and he has me 1 down on the 17th hole, a par 5, and I'm getting a shot, so I think I'm in good shape. We get up to his ball, and he's 267 yards from the green, downhill lie, and he's in a divot. I'm thinking he's gotta lay up.

Not Tiger. He takes his 5-wood, puts it back in his stance and just wails it. The ball took off like a freakin' laser, right onto the green. The guy makes eagle, and I'm saying, "This is crazy."

But that's Tiger.

3. Don't think about the prize; think about the work. At my basketball camps every year, I award the kids shoes if they make a certain number of free throws or if they complete an around-the-world or something like that. But I always tell them that if they're thinking about the prize, they should be thinking about the work. Prepare, practice and perfect it. Do the work, and the prizes will come.

4. Keep it simple. There are a lot of correlations between basketball and golf, especially on the mental side. Whenever I played a big game, I tried to stick to things I knew I was capable of doing. I do the same in golf. I've seen Tiger hit that stinger, and I know it's doable for me, too, but it isn't a shot I've practiced much. Why would I try that in the heat of the moment?

My instructor, Ed Ibarguen, has me focus on a specific target before every swing. One of my biggest problems is, sometimes when I see water right I try extra hard to stay away from it. And what happens? You end up going right in the water. That's because you're focusing on the wrong thing.

Eddie tells me to pick a blade of grass on my line or a building in the distance and to blindfold myself to everything else. That's keeping it simple, and that works especially well in pressure situations.

5. Control your emotions until the round is over. Celebrating during a round can be a good thing if it inspires you to keep doing great things. But be careful not to overdo it. Sometimes, celebrating too much adds pressure and makes you feel like you've got to live up to it the rest of the round. Worse, your celebrating can motivate your opponent. My enjoyment doesn't come until the round is over. Most of the time, anyway.

When I made my first hole-in-one, last year at Turnberry near Miami, it lived up to expectations: After a hole-in-one, you don't really care about the rest of the round. It was a great shot, 205 yards into about a 30-mile-per-hour wind with a 3-wood. I hit it kind of low, but it never left the flag. Took a couple of checks and went in. It was an unbelievable feeling. But I probably shot 95 after that.

6. Use tough losses for motivation. Turning negatives into positives has always worked for me. I think back to when I was cut from my high school basketball team as a sophomore. That was the biggest disappointment of my sports career, but it only made me work harder.

When I was 12 years old, playing baseball, we had to play a three-game series against a team from Texas. If we win, we go to the Little League World Series. We lost the first game, 4-3, and the next game I pitched a two-hitter, but we lost, 1-0. Honestly, I wasn't that disappointed about the Little League thing, because getting that close to the World Series was quite an accomplishment. But all of the disappointments you have as a competitor can ultimately provide motivation to help you move up the ladder.

7. Competitors always want to have something riding on the outcome. It isn't the amount of money, it's something to keep the focus at its highest. Whenever I meet people, they always have this idea that I like to play for big money. My line is always: I play for whatever makes you nervous. That's enough to give me a competitive edge. It could be five dollars. It could be 10. It could be a shirt in the pro shop. It doesn't have to be for $500,000 or a million. Sometimes it might be enough if we're just playing for pride.

The first time I ever played with Tiger -- at Medinah, I think -- I was a little nervous. We had a little something riding on it, and obviously you're thinking he's probably analyzing your swing, and you aren't focused on what you're supposed to be doing. You aren't relaxed. So that's what I'm doing, and I shot 88. The next time, I say, "Look man, you killed me the last time we played. I shot 88. How many are you gonna give me today?" So he says, "I'll give you five a side." We're playing at my home course, which at the time was the Merit Club [outside Chicago]. This time I'm feeling pretty confident. No jitters. I know he isn't paying attention to me, so all I have to do is play my game. And I fleeced him. Beat the [crap] out of him. ... Actually he played pretty good. He shot 65 to tie the course record at the Merit Club.

But I shot 73.

8. I love trash-talking, and there's an art to turning it into a competitive edge. Trash-talking is a means of (1) giving you confidence, and (2) taking your opponent's mind off what he's trying to do and putting a little more pressure on him. I don't talk trash to demean people.

I don't talk about their parents or any of that. But I do love talking trash no matter who I'm playing. President Clinton is the only U.S. president I've played golf with, and I talked trash with him, too. Why wouldn't I? Talking trash, especially with someone like that, is giving him a better understanding of who I am. He wants to experience what it feels like to hang out with Michael Jordan, and that's me.

I enjoy moments like that. I love competitiveness. So why would I do anything less?

9. Nervousness is not a bad thing. I was nervous a lot of times before games. The key is, does that nervousness go away once the ball is thrown up because of your preparation and your routine. Once the game got started, I was back in my routine.

Golf can work the same way if you put in the work to prepare. Yeah, you're going to be nervous on the first tee, but all it takes is one good shot, and that nervousness goes away.

If you have doubts, nervousness will expose that. At some point you say, I know I can play this game. I'm gonna keep it simple. Fairways and greens. Make bogeys when I feel like I can't make a par.

10. Learn from Tiger's competitiveness. We'll never really know which of the two of us is more competitive.

He plays golf, and I played basketball. But he'll do anything to beat you.

One day we were playing with a friend of mine, Jacob Brumfield. He played pro baseball [with four major-league teams] in the '90s. Jacob was so trash-talking Tiger that when we got to the 18th hole, Tiger told him he'd play every shot on that hole from his knees and Jacob could play normal. Now that is confidence. That's the kind of stuff I'd do in basketball.

Understand that Jacob is a 3- or 4-handicap who drives it about 270. So Tiger got to tee it up for every shot on the 18th hole, but he played them all from his knees -- every shot! He tied Jacob on the hole with a bogey, but that was just as good as beating him.

Benoit, Alex (Objetivos para Febrero 2011)

Cada loco…

Cuanto habran estado tirando?

Palma Alonso (Objetivos para febrero 2011)