WATCHING the Senior PGA Tour players in the EMC Kaanapali Classic on Maui last weekend confirms what I've known all along: Want to lower your
golf score? Go to schoolGolf is maybe the most difficult game to play well.
A professional like Babe Hiskey can take a 10 -- as he did on the par-3 17th on the final day -- just as readily as any duffer.
You have to wonder why golf is so difficult.
No one's throwing the ball at you at speeds of 90 mph or trying to stick it in your ear. Instead, the ball is just sitting there, innocently, waiting for you to hit it. Although at times, it seems as if it has a mind of its own, daring you to hit it.
Baseball great Ted Williams once asked Sam Snead what's so hard about hitting a stationary ball. "In baseball, we have to stand up there with a round bat and try to hit a whizzing fastball square."
"Yeah, Ted," Snead replied, "but you don't have to go up in the stands and play your foul balls. I do."
ALSO, in golf, there are no rowdy fans screaming at you to fail. And it's unlike the one-upsmanship sport of tennis where an opponent's success is a direct result of some failing on your part.
To paraphrase Yogi Berra, one of the reasons why golf is so difficult is because 50 percent of the game is 90 percent mental.
Golf is a sport to someone like Jack Nicklaus or Tiger Woods. But it is also a recreational or social pastime for the majority of those who play it.
Whatever the level or caliber, every golfer is constantly trying to improve.
That is why everyone is forever seeking that ultimate weapon, perhaps the latest space-age metal driver. Or a ball that'll go that extra mile for you. That's also why there is no end to how-to-golf books and magazines.
Still, despite the innumerable lessons, most of us will never hit a golf ball 250 yards if we've never hit it 200 yards before.
That's why Dave Pelz's Short Game School is an intriguing concept and a possible answer to those seeking to lower their scores. Even the pros, including U.S. Open champion Lee Janzen, swear by him.
Pelz takes a different approach to the game that could even benefit high-handicappers.
"As long as you can walk and hit a golf ball 50 yards, you can improve your game," Pelz said from his corporate office in Austin, Texas.
Pelz won't be here personally, but members of his staff will conduct a short-game clinic at Ko Olina, Nov. 5-14. The price isn't cheap -- $350 for a six-hour session. But he passed along some of his ideas for free.
"Most pros can't hit the ball farther than Tiger Woods or better than Greg Norman," Pelz said. "But they're great on their short game."
PELZ calls chipping and putting the "scoring game" because those are the areas in which any golfer can save strokes.
When you consider that even touring pros miss five or six greens in regulation during a round, imagine how critical it is for amateurs to get up and down, he said.
A NASA researcher before turning his scientific bent to golf, Pelz initially focused on putting, which accounts for 43 percent of the strokes in a round. Then he expanded it to include the rest of the short game.
"Sixty-five percent of all shots occur inside 100 yards," Pelz said.
And because that distance is within everyone's physical capability, that's what should be worked on to improve scoring, he said.
"Putting's a learned skill," Pelz said.
And he said proper technique with wedges for chipping, pitching and bunker shots can be stroke-savers, too.
Call 800-735-9868 to enroll.