The Scrambler's Dozen: The 12 shots every Golfer Needs to Shoot Like the Pros

THE

SCRAMBLER’S

DOZEN

The 12 Shots

Every Golfer Needs to

Score Like the Pros

Mike McGetrick

with Tom Ferrell

A Mountain Lion Book

For my parents, Mack and Sandra McGetrick,

and my in-laws, Les and Jackie Timms,

for all of their love and support.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Foreword

Introduction

ONE

THE FADE

Working the Ball Right and Left

TWO

THE-BUMP-AND-RUN

Friends in Low—and High—Places

THREE

THE LONG BALL

And Other Tee Box Tips

FOUR

THE FEATHERED IRON

No-Man’s-Land—Between Clubs

FIVE

THE FLYER

And Other Truths About Lies

SIX

THE HANGING LIE

Because the World Isn’t Flat

SEVEN

LAG PUTTING

And Other Steps on the Dance Floor

EIGHT

THE RUNNING CHIP

Scoring Around the Collar

NINE

THE STANDARD PITCH

Stocking Your Game’s Bullpen

TEN

THE ONE-LEVER

FLOP No Room to Work With

ELEVEN

THE SPLASH SHOT

Playing in the Sand

TWELVE

THE RESTRICTED SWING

Playing Your Way Out of Trouble

INDEX

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Foreword

The thing about golf is that you can never quite get a handle on it. Just when you think you’ve got the game figured out, you find yourself in a new situation and have to reach into your shotmaking bag of tricks. That’s what keeps golf interesting and fun, whether you’re a Tour professional or a weekend player. Mike McGetrick has worked with golfers of every level, and he knows all about shotmaking. With Mike’s help, I’ve just finished the best year of my career, winning two major championships and earning a spot in the LPGA Hall of Fame. But it wasn’t because my game was perfect. It was because I was more comfortable than ever before at hitting the shot that the moment required. I’ll give you an example. At the 1999 U.S. Women’s Open at Old Waverly Golf Club, I was on the seventh hole of the final round. I had a two-shot lead at the time, not much when you consider the caliber of the other golfers in contention. At the seventh, I hit my ball into a bunker, and it ended up in a buried lie. Rather than letting myself get uptight about my bad luck, I simply remembered my shotmaking fundamentals and played the shot. Fortunately, I was able to get the ball close, sink the putt for par and go on to win the championship. This book can help you develop that same kind of confidence. Mike shows you basic shotmaking techniques and then teaches you how to use those fundamentals to be able to execute a strategic shot in almost any situation the golf course can present. Mike also gives you some rules for practicing these shots so that you’ll be prepared when you need to hit them on the course. Believe me, this game is tough. Working with Mike has helped me find new ways to save strokes in almost every round. It will help you, too. Enjoy The Scrambler’s Dozen. I think you’ll find Mike to be as good a coach and friend to you as he is to me.

—Juli Inkster,

1999 U.S. Women’s Open and

LPGA Championship winner

Introduction

Congratulations. By picking up this book, you’ve made a commitment to your golf game. And commitment is what it takes to improve your scoring. Golf is a simple game in theory, but as you know, the skills and techniques required to excel are very complex. Whether you’re playing for a national championship, a club championship or simply trying to beat your personal best, you have to develop trust in your swing, your short game and your strategies. Tour players must trust their decisions and their ability to execute shots on the golf course in order to win tournaments and make a living. You have to do the same thing to get the greatest rewards from your golf experiences. In this book, I’ll show you how, using the same methods I use when I coach some of the best players in the world.

Golf’s most unique element is that no two rounds and no two courses are ever the same. Weather conditions change. So do ground conditions. Golf courses occupy flat sites and traverse hilly territory. A change as simple as the position of a pin can completely alter your shotmaking options. So golf is about adaptability, recognizing how conditions and circumstances will affect your shots and altering your strategy and execution to fit the specific requirements of the shot.

We marvel at the scores the Tour professionals shoot, and it’s true that most of us will never know what it feels like to fire a 65 on Sunday with the tournament on the line. Top professionals do it by squeezing every ounce out of their games. Like you, they don’t hit the ball perfectly every time. They miss fairways and greens. They struggle in difficult conditions. But they also know what it takes to fade the ball around a tree or to hit a soft flop shot to a tough pin. When they find themselves in the fairway with 100 yards to the target, they know how to play a number of different shots depending on conditions. They understand when and how to chip or pitch or putt from off the green. And they know how to practice so that they are rarely in unfamiliar situations on the golf course. In other words, they give themselves scoring chances even when things are not going perfectly.

Anyone can play good golf on those magical days when every shot is pure and every putt is dropping. The key is to develop that sixth sense for scoring—knowing how to get the ball into the hole from anywhere. That’s what I want to show you in this book. Scrambling isn’t reserved only for your off-days. Good golfers scramble in every round. Good scramblers are always good scorers.

When I sat down to develop this book, I spent many hours determining which shots to include. The twelve shots I chose to feature are excellent additions to your golf game in and of themselves. But each of them is truly a jumping-off point that will allow you to develop not just a dozen new weapons but many, many more. Shotmaking is much more than simply curving the ball or hitting it low and high. It’s understanding how the lie, the wind, the contour of the target and the hazards of the course will affect your decision-making process. As you develop a feel for these subtle differences, you will find yourself instinctively modifying the twelve featured shots to fit very specific needs. That’s when you’re really playing golf.

And now, play away.

ONE

THE FADE

Working the Ball Right and Left

You can talk to a fade, but a hook won’t listen.

—Lee Trevino

You’ve been playing golf long enough to know that, on the course at least, the shortest path between two points is rarely a straight line. To improve your scoring, you have to master the basic elements of shotmaking—working the ball from left to right and from right to left. The golf course never lets you rest. There are dogleg holes to contend with, tucked pins, wind conditions, trees and other obstacles. The player who has an idea how to affect the movement of the golf ball has a distinct advantage over the player who just hits and hopes.

In this chapter, we’ll cover two of the basic shotmaking elements—the left-to-right fade and the right-to-left draw. Whether you are a beginner, a scratch player or even a professional, you need to practice continuously to improve your shotmaking skills. As your shotmaking improves, you’ll find that not only are you playing better golf, you’re having more fun.

FEATURED SHOT: THE FADE

Most weekend golfers live in fear of the slice. To them, a fade is often guilty by association. You should not undervalue the fade as a shotmaking choice, however, no matter what your skill level. Many of the game’s greatest players built their games around a fade. Recreational golfers often complain about a lack of consistency in their games. The fade is probably the most consistent shot they could develop. The elements that produce a fade already exist in their swings, they simply aren’t tamed enough to soften the left-to-right movement of the ball so as to make it predictable and useful.

Even if a fade costs you a couple of yards off the tee, it will deliver greater accuracy and, for most golfers, find more fairways. On approaches to the green, a fade will fly high and land softly, just the characteristics you’re looking for in an iron shot. When executed properly, the fade is one of the most controlled shots in golf and should be the first step you take in building your shotmaking repertoire.

Visualizing the Fade

All great shotmakers have great eyes, and not only in their heads. These players also have mastered the art of seeing with their mind’s eye. One of the most important things you can add to your preshot routine is visualization. Stand behind the ball and imagine the shot coming off just as you planned it, starting slightly left of the target and gradually bending back to the right. This visualization establishes a goal that your mind will work to achieve. In other words, with proper visualization you begin to move toward execution rather than simply swinging and hoping.

Setting Up for the Fade

The first adjustments you need to make to produce a left-to-right fade come during the setup. By adjusting your setup, you can influence the path of your swing and the angle of the clubface at impact—the two principal factors in curving the golf ball.

Start with club selection. A faded shot will fly slightly shorter and run less than a straight shot, so start your preparation by taking one or even two clubs more than usual, depending on the amount of curve you are playing. You must also remember that less-lofted clubs will tend to produce more left-to-right movement on the ball than shorter clubs with more loft. So if you really need to bend the shot, you should consider a longer, less-lofted club.

Proper alignment is crucial to producing a shot that performs as you have visualized it. For the basic fade, start by aligning your clubface at the target, just as you would for a straight shot. Your body alignment and the path of your swing will apply the proper spin to make the ball curve.

In this basic fade technique, the degree to which you open your body at address dictates the amount of curve you will get on the shot. Many high-handicappers make the mistake of fighting left-to-right ball movement by opening up even more so they’re aiming farther left. This will only cause more left-to-right movement, since the club will cut across the ball at a greater angle, imparting more sidespin.

Align your feet, knees, hips, shoulders, arms and eyes down the line on which you want the ball to start. Play the ball about two inches forward of where you normally play it in your stance. This ball position complements an open body position and encourages a higher trajectory. Before gripping the club, make sure the clubface is still aligned at the target. Now, use a slightly tighter than normal grip pressure in both hands for the fade. A tighter grip pressure will help you delay the release of your hands so they don’t close the clubface prior to impact.

Now just make a regular golf swing, swinging the club back along the line of your shoulders. The adjustments you have made to your setup and alignment will cause the clubhead to swing slightly across the target line on the backswing and then cut the ball through the hitting area.

A good fade setup has the clubface aimed at the target, with the body aligned to the left in order to create the left-to-right shape of the shot.

Focus on your rhythm, particularly the transition between your backswing and forward swing. The most common flaw that will turn a fade into a slice is starting the downswing too quickly with the upper body. Instead, concentrate on fully completing the backswing and starting down gradually, allowing your arms, hands and clubhead to accelerate into the impact area. Rotate your upper body to the left as you swing into your finish, being sure to fully complete the shot.

Remember, the key to the fade is to start the ball to the left and work it back the same distance to the right. If you can do that, you’ll have a powerful tool in your shotmaking bag.

Advanced Fade Techniques

The alignment-based fade technique we’ve discussed in the past few pages will definitely teach you to hit a left-to-right shot. But I’ve found that the majority of my Tour students have developed their own subtle ways of creating a fade. You may find some of these methods useful in certain situations.

The Outside-ln Swing Path To hit what I call the path fade, align the clubface not to the end target but along the line on which you want the ball to start. Now open your body correspondingly. Still using the setup adjustments we discussed in the previous section, make an exaggerated out-to-in swing, swinging the club back outside the shoulder line. You may feel like you’re lifting the club with your arms and your hands, reducing the amount of body turn. That’s okay. As you swing through the ball, make a conscious effort to cut the shot, swinging across the original target line. Maintain a firm grip pressure to prevent your hands from fully releasing. The direction of your swing path as you approach impact will control the amount of fade on the ball.

The Reverse Release If you’re like most golfers, you strive for a full and fast release in order to get maximum distance. To hit a fade, however, you want to limit the release of the hands. By increasing your grip pressure at address, you have taken a big step toward delaying your release at impact, but now, as you swing through the shot, I want you to get the feeling of leading with your hands and resisting the release. You should feel that your hands are leading the club head into the hitting area. Keep them ahead of the clubhead as long as possible. Rather than allowing the right hand to take over, think of a finish in which the clubhead is above your head, with the left arm slightly bent in a chicken-wing position.

To create a path fade, swing the golf club to the outside of the target line on the way back.

Another way of fading the ball is the reverse release, characterized by the chicken-wing position of the left arm.

The Weak Crip Some players have very sensitive hands