Quick Question for you.

What do Stewart Cink, Lucas Glover & Zach Johnson have
in common?

The answer is Dr Morris Pickens.

He was responsible for getting their mind games in shape prior to winning a Major Championship!

Infact he has provided sports psychology consulting for many PGA, LPGA, Nationwide, and Champions Tour players over the years.

Thus I am sure you will agree there is MUCH to be learnt from someone who has taught 3 major champions.

It was therefore a honour recently to hear Dr Morris Pickens speak during an interview for Golf Inside Circle.

The following golden nugget of advice really got me thinking about how I personally spend my time at the driving range and how it isn’t helping my scoring.

Like me you may only get a couple of hours in the week to practice – if that!

If we are not careful, we can end up down the range hitting shots with our driver and picking other clubs at random to hit.

Dr Morris Pickens points out that this approach simply won’t help my scoring.

He draws my attention to this one important fact.

“If you look at how the game is played this doesn’t constitute enough of the actual scoring on the golf course.

Basically when you look at it, most players only hit about 20% of all their shots, whether they are a 30 handicap or whether they are a tour player, with a 9 iron to a 3 wood off the ground.

80% off your shots hit are going to be either hit off the tee, so that would be your driver or 3 wood, with your wedges or with your putter.

So you have to understand those 5 clubs are different from the other 9 clubs

Those are you scoring clubs, namely your driver, your wedges
and putter.

So the other 9 clubs are kind of “advance the ball without hurting
yourself” clubs.

So if you consider you have 2 nights a week to practice, your time
is better spent working one hour on your driver and wedges.

And the other hour spent on your chipping and putting.

This way you are more likely to get better in the scoring areas.

Take for a second the concept of “scorecard golf”:

Nobody ever plays “scorecard golf” but if you look at your game like this it will help explain the principle of working in the scoring areas even further.

Imagine.

There are 36 putts in a round, so that’s 36 shots.

Then there are 14 tee balls, so that makes a total of 50 shots.

Then there are 4 par 5s where you can’t reach in 2 or either you go for them in 2 and you miss the green. So let’s just say you have 4 wedges into par 5s in one form or fashion.

That’s 54 shots

Then you miss 6 greens and have to chip, so that’s 6 more shots.

So that’s 60 shots in total.

And you still haven’t hit any irons out of the fairway yet!

So what you have to realise is that they you have already hit 60 shots out of however many you are going to take, say 70, 80 or 90 shots and you still haven’t hit any irons yet.

So when you start to understand this, you can really make progress in terms of how you approach practice and where you need to spend time and how you can improve your scoring.”

Tell me this.

Do you ever have the tendency to get on the range and think to yourself a thought like this.

“I just can’t hit that 3 iron (or say another mid to long iron), I need to throw in some practice there.”

I do and Dr Morris Pickens agrees saying:

“This is a natural inclination because you have more irons in your bag and you might feel you should be better at these.

But in actual reality you will never get the return on that investment!

Imagine spending hours and hours trying to improve your accuracy with
a 5 or 7 iron from say 50 feet on average to 30 to 25 feet.

You will do much better spending your time on your putting making
sure you can 2 putt the 50 footer and occasionally make that 30 or
25 footer.

That’s going to give you a much better return, instead of trying to
improve your 5 iron because quite simply you don’t hit it enough
to make that big a difference.”

That’s stellar advice and really something to take on board.

If you would like to hear more from this interview please head over to this page where you can receive a free CD copy and album.

Additonally I highly recommend Dr Morris Pickens’ new book:

“Learn To Win”

You can grab a copy here.

Good luck and play well.

Tiger Woods stared down the man who, briefly last year, was the toast of the majors, when he won the Bridgestone Invitational at Akron, Ohio.

The world number one shot five-under-par 65 in the final round for a total of 268 and a four-stroke victory.

Ireland’s Padraig Harrington, who won two majors last season while Woods was recovering from knee surgery, appeared to be the man who could challenge the American.

But a triple-bogey on the 16th hole by Harrington gave Woods the initiative as he went from one behind to a convincing win – his 70th title on the pro tour.

Harrington, who carded 72, would end up sharing second place with Australian Robert Allenby, who closed with 66. After winning his fifth title of the season, Woods said in an AP article:

“We locked horns pretty good. I made a couple of mistakes. Paddy was being consistent, grinding it out, doing all the right things. Unfortunately, 16 happened. But it was a great battle all day.”

It was Woods’ seventh victory on the Firestone Country Club course – the first time someone has won that many times on the same layout on the US PGA Tour.

In addition, it was his second straight tournament title coming hot on the heels of his Buick Open triumph the previous week.

Whether or not he takes his form into this week’s final major of the season, the US PGA Championship at Hazeltine is what most golf fans want to know.

Three times before this season, Woods had won a fortnight before a major and each time he has failed to win. The US PGA Championship is his last chance to add to his 14 career major titles this year.

American Hunter Mahan (66) and Argentina’s Angel Cabrera (67) were tied for fourth at 273 while on joint-sixth 274 were Steve Stricker (67), British Open winner Stewart Cink (68) and Spain’s Miguel Angel Jimenez (68).

World number two Phil Mickelson finished tied for 58th after he totalled 287. The tournament doubled as a European Tour event as well.

This meant that the focus across the Atlantic was on the Challenge Tour in Europe, where Belgium’s Nicolas Colsaerts ended a nine-year wait for his first professional title by winning the SK Golf Challenge in Finland.

Colsaerts turned pro when he was 18 in 2000 but had to wait until the weekend for his breakthrough as he defeated Welshman Rhys Davies and France’s Julien Geurrier in a play-off.

All three finished on 11-under-par 277 with Colsaerts and Davies closing on 66 and Guerrier scrambling home with 71.

Colsaerts birdied the final two holes of regulation and then delivered another birdie on the second play-off hole to deny Davies a second title in three weeks.

When discussion arises about the next European golfer to win a major, the names that surface are usually pretty predictable. Garcia, Stenson, Westwood, Casey- so the list usually goes. And while most pundits are proclaiming Rory McIlroy the next superstar of European golf (and rightly so), another youngster has quietly been going about his business, amassing tour wins and Race to Dubai points at a rate few have matched this year. I’m talking about the man that has won the last two events on the European Tour- Martin Kaymer.

I first recall hearing about Kaymer a couple of years ago when he was playing on the EPD Tour in Germany. My Scottish roommate at the time was going through the scores on the various European tours and came across something remarkable. Somebody had shot 59 on the EPD Tour, and it turned out to be Kaymer. After shooting such a low number my roommate and I kept and eye out for his name in various events. A couple of months later we noticed that he had won on the Challenge Tour despite not having a card there at the start of the season. Three months later and he had won again, finished in the top 5 6 times, his worst finish a tie for 13th, and ended the season 4th on the Challenge Tour Order of Merit despite only playing 8 events. “Who was this guy?” we wondered.

Wonder, we no longer do.

In his two and a half seasons on the European Tour Kaymer has made a name for himself as one of the top young players in Europe. Still only 24 years of age, he has recorded 4 tour wins since 2007, been named rookie of year and narrowly missed out on qualifying for the Nick Faldo’s Ryder Cup side.

His performance the past two weeks on tour has sounded his name as one of the favourites for next week’s Open Championship at Turnberry. Kaymer though, is quick to dismiss the claims.

“Last week and this week was a good field already, but next week is going to be the best field that we have this year probably. So I’m really looking forward to next week’” Kaymer said following his victory in Scotland. “I think I’ve been there before, but my manager, he played there a couple of weeks ago and he said it’s going to be really, really difficult, which is always good – if you play Majors, they should be difficult.”

The win has moved Kaymer to second in the Race to Dubai behind Paul Casey and to No. 11 in the world rankings, but most importantly he takes incredible form into Turnberry as he attempts to become the first player in 2009 to record three European Tour wins.

“This week was very special, because I think if you win in the home of golf in Scotland, it’s always something special, and I really enjoyed the last two days,” he said. “Everybody asks me about the third win in a row, but we are playing a Major next week, and the field is going to be the best we have all year long.”

Ponder this, if you would, dear golf fan. How many double eagles (albatrosses for those outside the U.S) have you seen with your very own eyes? Chances are none. I’ve been playing with some of the best amateurs and professionals around the world for the last ten years and I have yet to see one in person. How about on television? The PGA Tour and European Tour have provided the golfing world with a combined 31 Double Eagles since 2005. Vegas odds makers put the chances of the average golfer scoring a double eagle at around 6 million to one. Approximately 40,000 holes in one are recorded on U.S courses every year, compared to only a couple hundred double eagles. They are a rare bird indeed. Apparently Rafa Echenique knows none of this.

Last week at the BMW International Open on the European Tour Echenique came to the par 5 72nd hole four shots adrift of Englishman Nick Doughtery. He stood in the middle of the 18th fairway, 245 yards from the hole at -18 for the tournament. Doughtery was clearly in the driver’s seat as he pushed for the biggest win for his career and his first on tour in two years. One swing later the Argentinian had holed out for double eagle, moved to -21 under for the tournament and, most importantly, moved to within one of Doughtery’s lead.

It all happened in an instant. The pin was cut in the back left hand corner of the green, obscuring the bottom of the cup from the players in the fairway. Echenique’s ball landed in the middle of the green, and drew to the back corner where the hole was cut. It ran out with perfect speed, catching the left-center of the jar. Echenique had already acknowledged the crowds applause when the ball struck the putting surface, but as the crowd exploded so too did the diminutive Argentinian, raising his 3 iron in the air he hugged his caddie, and practically bounded down the rest of the fairway to the green where he was greeted by several of his fellow countrymen in the grandstand. Echenique ran to the stands to embrace his friends before returning to claim his ball from the bottom of the cup.

If Doughtery had stumbled, as he has on occasion over the past two years when chasing a “W”, it might have been the most improbable finish to a professional event in recent memory. According to the leading authority on the subject, doubleeagleclub.org, the last double eagle scored on the European Tour was recorded by Sweden’s Joakim Backstrom at the 2008 Russian Open. The last person to hole out on the final hole of a tournament was Graeme McDowell at the Open de France in 2003, and that is the only time in recorded history it has ever happened on the final hole of either a European or PGA Tour event. McDowell finished tied for 18th.

After the tournament Echineque spoke not like he had finished outright 2nd, but rather as if he had won the event itself.

“It’s fantastic,” he said, “I have a great sensation. I played really good, really good for four days.”

“I made a great eagle on 11 and then I starred making putts. It’s unbelievable, this is a dream for me, and I would like to share with all my team with my family, with my manager, with my coach and I think this is for everybody.”

Of course the most famous double eagle in history, the “shot heard around the world”, was one that, despite not coming on the final hole, won a major championship. Few would argue it was the knockout punch of that tournament. As doubleeagleclub.org notes-

In the afternoon of April 7, 1935, the Squire, Gene Sarazen, accompanied by his Caddie, “Stovepipe”, came to the par-5, 485 yard, 15th tee at Augusta National Golf Club. He was trailing Craig Wood, who was finished with his final round and waiting in the clubhouse with a score of 282, by 3 strokes. Gene’s drive off the tee went 250 yards and foundthe fairway. He had 235 yards to go to the pin on the green. There is a pond that separates the fairway from the green that crosses directly in front making a “run up” to the pin impossible. After talking with Stovepipe, Gene selected his 4-wood for the extra loft it delivers for his second drive from the fairway. He swung the 4-wood and stuck a low line drive that delivered a shot that peaked 30 yards in the air. It was long enough to carry the pond guarding the green… bounced once and rolled to the cup… then gently hit the pin and fell in. Gene Sarazen had scored a “double eagle” duce, three under par, to tie Craig Wood who waited in the Clubhouse. “The shot heard around the world”. The first double eagle recorded during tournament play. Approximately 20 people witnessed the feat. One of them was Augusta Nationals founder, Bobby Jones.

Many consider that shot, that win, and that tournament as the tipping point for the growth of the Masters from a highly regarded invitational event to one of golf’s elite professional majors. It was a truly momentous occasion.

Echenique’s shot may not have been “heard around the world”, heck, it didn’t even win him the BMW International Open, but few can argue it wasn’t one of the most exciting shots and finishes to a tournament in a long time. If you don’t believe me, just keep note of the next time you hear of a professional holing out for double eagle on the final hole to (almost) win a professional event. My bet is it’s going to be a while. I wonder what odds Las Vegas would give to see that?

Austrian sport came down from the white ski slopes of Europe to triumph on the green manicured fairways of Shanghai as Markus Brier coasted to victory at the Volvo China Open on Sunday.

Brier fired a final round of four-under-par 67 for a 10-under total of 274 and a five-stroke victory at the Shanghai Silport Golf Club. In his triumph, he became the first Austrian to win a co-sanctioned Asian Tour and European Tour event.

Australian Scott Hend was even par 71 on the final day to share second place with Northern Ireland’s Graeme McDowell, who shot 69, and South African Andrew McLardy, who closed with 70, on 279.

Brier’s previous European Tour victory was at the BA-CA Golf Open last year at his home Fontana Golf Club course in Vienna.

The 38-year-old, who won US$333,330, said on the Asian Tour website:

“I dreamt about winning yesterday and thought it would be good. Volvo China Open is a great tournament to win. I have been to China quite a few times and I have always played well. It makes me feel like a better player now as at home I always had the home advantage. It is a very good win here and it was the next step to win abroad.”

Overnight showers softened the greens at Shanghai, helping Brier to birdies on the second and third holes before he dropped a shot on the fourth. He solidified his lead with birdies on the eighth and ninth and finished off with a flourish, holing a five-foot birdie on the 18th.