Jaacob Bowden's Swing Man Golf Blog

Raphael Jaquelin Golf Swing Highlights at the Samanah Classic

Since I missed the cut at the Samanah Classic in Marrakech, Morocco, I figured I'd take the chance to follow European Tour Player Raphael Jaquelin in the Final Round to compare myself to how he played the course.

Raphael averaged 276 yards off the tee last year and finished 37th on the European Tour Order of Merit.

Darth Vader Plays Golf

Tiger Woods Needs to Clean Up His Act

by Rick Reilly

Tiger Woods has outgrown those Urkel glasses he had as a kid. Outgrown the crazy hair. Outgrown a body that was mostly neck.

When will he outgrow his temper?

The man is 33 years old, married, the father of two. He is paid nearly $100 million a year to be the representative for some monstrously huge companies, from Nike to Accenture. He is the world's most famous and beloved athlete.

And yet he spent most of his two days at Turnberry last week doing the Turn and Bury. He'd hit a bad shot, turn and bury his club into the ground in a fit. It was two days of Tiger Tantrums -- slamming his club, throwing his club and cursing his club. In front of a worldwide audience.

Read more...

Three Good Questions Annika Asks Herself When Between Golf Clubs

1)  How's Her Ball Striking?

If she's deciding between a 6-iron and a 7-iron and she's not feeling particularly sharp, she would go with the 6-iron.  When it's tournament time, she says it's not time to play for maximum distance.

2)  Where's the Trouble?

If she has to fly a hazard (water, bunker, etc) in front of the green, she picks the longer club because she doesn't want the added pressure of trying to create more carry with the shorter club.

3)  Where's the Flag?

Because of some of today's big greens which could mean a 3-club difference from front to back, she'll go with the longer one when the pin is back...and the shorter one when the pin is up.

Why You Should Always Aim to the Fat Part of the Green

by Jaacob Bowden

While I know that there are times where you may feel like it's okay to fire at a pin, if you are at all interested in having the lowest possible scoring average over time, I think that you should ALWAYS have the discipline to aim to the fat part of the green (or the part of the green that gives you the most room for margin of error) with ANY full swing shot.  This includes Professionals!

How many times have you been sitting in front of the green in the fairway with a wedge in your hands and you end up making double bogey or worse by taking a chance at getting one close to the pin and end up in the bunker or someplace similar?  It's happened to me more than once.  A few weeks ago, I had a gap wedge in to a green, got a bit too greedy going for the pin, and just missed the green and went in to a horrible spot in the bunker.  Had I played a safer shot, I would've eliminated the bogey...likely making par and maybe even dropping in birdie.

The other day I was following Tiger on ShotLink and I saw that he was in the fairway in a similar situation with only about 110 yards to go to the pin.  I was expecting to see him nestled up close to the pin, but rather ShotLink showed that he ended up in the greenside bunker!  Oops!  He still managed to save par...but even Tiger's sand save percentage thus far this year is only 50%.  I assume he was shooting at the pin and missed like I did, causing himself a lot more heartache than necessary.  Had he just got it on the green, even far away, you can bet that he would make par more than 50% of the time.

Let's look at the numbers in order of the PGA Tour Leader, the PGA Tour Average Winner, and the PGA Tour Average:

Greens in Regulation    70.76%    72.41%    63.49%
Scrambling    64.82%    62.85%    56.03%
Scoring Average    69.12    67.14    71.04

Notice that to score low, the winners get the ball on the green at a higher percentage than the highest individual green in regulation percentage...and they get up and down when they miss the green at better than the Tour average.

When you aim to the middle of the green, not only will you hit more greens and ensure yourself of pars...but your misses will also be closer to the green, and thus your scrambling percentage will also improve because your short game shots will be much easier.  Plus, when you aim to the safest part of the green, you'll experience less stress over your approach shots, less stressful chips/pitches/bunkers shots, and less stressful lengthy par putts.   What can all this lead to?  Lower overall scores!

Give it a try.  Pars win money...even at the professional level.

Genius - The Modern View

by David Brooks

Some people live in romantic ages. They tend to believe that genius is the product of a divine spark. They believe that there have been, throughout the ages, certain paragons of greatness — Dante, Mozart, Einstein — whose talents far exceeded normal comprehension, who had an other-worldly access to transcendent truth, and who are best approached with reverential awe.

We, of course, live in a scientific age, and modern research pierces hocus-pocus. In the view that is now dominant, even Mozart’s early abilities were not the product of some innate spiritual gift. His early compositions were nothing special. They were pastiches of other people’s work. Mozart was a good musician at an early age, but he would not stand out among today’s top child-performers.

What Mozart had, we now believe, was the same thing Tiger Woods had...Read More

Controlling Your Nerves before a Tournament

Question:

I have a big tournament starting Friday.  I have been playing good but my nerves always seem to get me in trouble in tournaments.  Is there any way to control them?

Jaacob's Answer:

I've got a some little tricks that I do to help me control my nerves under pressure.  Here are a few suggestions:

1)  Before a shot, picture or feel roots growing out of your feet.  It can help bring your energy down out of your head and help make you feel more grounded.

2)  Before your shot (maybe while the other players are hitting their shots), you can also hold your hand over your stomach.  There is this field called educational kinesiology.  Essentially, it's a science where if a person were to perform certain physical movements or motions, it has a subsequent physiologic change on the body chemistry.  Holding your hand over your stomach for a few seconds has a grounding effect on the body.

3)  Take a few deep breaths before shots.  Sometimes in nerve-racking situations, we forget to breathe and consequently tense up.

4)  In such a way that other players don't notice, flex all of your muscles really tight...then relax...flex your muscles really tight...then relax.  A couple cycles of this will help loosen you up.

5)  It might be a little late to start for Friday, but meditating 4-5 times per week and 5-10 minutes a day can really help for future mental improvement.

6)  Remember to keep things in perspective.  After all, the absolute worst thing that could happen would be that you hit a bunch of bad shots and shoot a high score.  It doesn't always feel good in the moment, but you would get through it and there would be many more rounds of good golf to be had later on.