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    Getting To Scratch
    Getting To Scratch
    Getting To Scratch
    Ebook158 pages1 hour

    Getting To Scratch

    By Lewis Greer

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    About this ebook

    Every golfer wants to shoot lower scores, but most golfers don't know how to make that happen. Conventional wisdom says to learn to hit the ball farther or straighter (or both), but the real goal is to hit it less often. This book is not about "how" to hit a golf ball, it is all about "how many" times it gets hit.
    Part of that is managing yourself properly, part of it is understanding the game better, and part of it is understanding why scores can go up quickly and how to avoid that.
    Filled with practical advice that is easy to apply, Getting To Scratch will help golfers at any level lower their handicap and enjoy the game even more.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLewis Greer
    Release dateJul 13, 2015
    ISBN9781311875600
    Getting To Scratch

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      Book preview

      Getting To Scratch - Lewis Greer

      Getting To Scratch

      Practical advice and application to help you

      lower your golf scores

      Copyright 2015 by Lewis M. Greer

      All rights reserved.

      No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

      Smashwords Edition License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Table of Contents

      Dedication

      Endorsements

      Foreword

      Introduction

      1 The Easy Stuff

      2 Before You Swing

      3 Yes, You Still Have To Practice

      4 Every Shot Really Does Count

      5 One Bad Shot Does Not Deserve Another

      6 Don’t Know Your Score Before You Shoot It

      7 No Doubt

      8 Perfection

      9 A Little Risky

      10 It’s All About the Flat Stick

      11 Meet Your Mind

      12 Hate Bogeys As Much As You Love Birdies

      13 Playing With KASH

      14 Results

      Acknowledgements

      About the Author

      Dedication

      For Bill and George Greer.

      There have been better golfers,

      but never a better brother or father.

      Getting to Scratch is a golf book like no other. Lewis Greer engages readers with his light-hearted humor, spiritual nuggets, and years of golf experience that a golfer of any skill level will glean from. This is not a book about swinging the club better; rather, it's a walk into the characteristics of becoming a well prepared and fully present golfer. I highly recommend this book.

      Tracy Hanson, LPGA Tour Professional; Out of the Rough Ministries

      This book will help you gain a better understanding of how to enjoy the game of golf and how important the right mental attitude is. I love Getting To Scratch because it puts the emphasis on being a great cheerleader for yourself, enjoying the game for what it offers, and on all the treasures that can be discovered by focusing on doing the right things for the right reasons.

      Wally Armstrong, PGA Tour player and Life Member

      Lewis Greer is a man from whom I'm continually learning. Not only do I learn directly from what he says, but also from watching how he plays golf and lives his life.  Lewis is accomplished in many fields, yet it's his love for God, his fellow man, playing golf, and telling a good joke that really stands out.  He has brought much joy and encouragement to my life, and I'm sure you will learn, laugh, and be encouraged as you get to know Lewis through reading Getting to Scratch.

      Ashli Helstrom, ProfessionalGolfer, Cactus Tour

      Foreword

      I only like certain golf books. Golf instruction books that are too technical and deep put me to sleep. Other golf books, like Harvey Penick’s popular seller Little Red Book; Lessons and Teachings from a Lifetime in Golf, and the book you are reading now, inspire, teach, and make golf fun. Lewis Greer has hit a 300 yard drive right down the middle of the fairway with Getting to Scratch.

      It is basic, good information about golf and life and is written with humor and great insight. I would expect nothing less from Lewis Greer. He writes like he lives life. Lewis is sensible, perceptive, and always has a touch of humor and humility. I have always found him to be well grounded in life and in his faith in Jesus. Both become evident when you read this book.

      Some time back a writer said, Golf is the most taught, least learned human endeavor in the whole spectrum of doctrinology. If we taught sex the way we teach golf, the race would have died out years ago. Golf needs to be taught the way Lewis writes this book, filled with psychological lessons, simple common sense instruction, good stories, and positive thinking.

      Read on and be refreshed. I desire to spend the balance of my golf life with golf truths that make sense like his chapter on Perfection. Lewis states This will be a fairly short chapter, but coming right after ‘Doubt’ is a good place for it. Here is something you should never doubt: you cannot achieve perfection in golf.

      If you want to enjoy golf and life more and learn some simple truths to help you in the delight of both, this is the perfect book for you.

      Randy Wolff, former PGA Tour player

      Introduction

      If you’ve played much golf at all you’ve heard the phrase It’s not how, it’s how many. If that is true—and as far as the money and trophies are concerned it seems to be—then why do we use most of our gray cells trying to answer the question of how?

      Pick up any golf magazine or video, and the likely focus is how to hit shots. Longer drives, solid irons, delicate chips, perfect putts, bunker shots, fades, draws, high-and-soft, low-and-running—you name it and there is an article about how to hit it.

      The thinking goes, of course, that if you learn how to hit all of those shots your score will go down. Maybe it will, and maybe it won’t.

      Take distance on your drives as an example. Most every player in the game (and this includes me) would like to hit the ball longer than they do—especially off the tee—even though it has been proven over and over that the longest hitters are not necessarily the biggest winners. Yes, long-hitting Bubba Watson has two Masters titles, but short-hitting Corey Pavin and Tom Kite each won a U.S. Open. Distance can be an advantage, but it can also be a trap. More about that later.

      Ah, you say, then it must be about hitting greens in regulation. Nope.

      Examine the stats from the PGA Tour for the last few years, and you’ll see that the leader in that category is often far from being the biggest winner. In fact three of the last four years (as I write), the leader in greens in regulation did not make enough money to maintain his PGA Tour card.

      Short game? If you include putting in that category, there is no question that more strokes are added to our scores through poor short-game play than anywhere else. To put a positive spin on it, consider the statistical category called strokes gained putting, a measure of how well a player putts compared to the field on any given day, week, or up to some point in the season. The leader in that category is often near the top of the money list. Interestingly, the short game, especially putting, is the one part of the game where virtually every professional recognizes individuality in manner and technique.

      In other words, from somewhere around the green to on the green, you are allowed to be you and not a clone of an idealized golfer. That is freeing for some and scary for others, but there is an important lesson in it that we will explore.

      Stating what may or may not be obvious, the key to lower scores, whether you are playing in a club match or to make a living, is to get the ball in the hole sooner. Longer drives and more accurate irons might help facilitate that, but there is clearly no direct cause and effect between having prodigious distance and being a world-beater, nor is there such a relationship with the category known as ball-striking. Even in the all-important disciplines of chipping and putting, how you do those things is not the key.

      In these pages we’ll go into all of those ideas more deeply, and I’ll share some things with you that will, when applied, lower your scores. Once in a while we may get to the fringe of how, but the green we are going for is how many.

      May your number grow smaller.

      The Easy Stuff

      part one: equipment

      Let’s begin our golf journey in a pool room. Back when I was in college in southern Illinois (pre-Army) I worked part time in a couple of different pool halls. One was the nice kind, with carpet on the floor, plenty of lights, and even a legitimate billiards table to go with ten pool tables. We also had a counter with a grill behind it, a picture window, and a show table up front that was viewable through the window. Because it was near the door and the grill, that part of the floor was covered with some kind of tile. My job was to collect table fees, cook hamburgers and sweep the floors. Naturally I shot a little pool when the place was not busy.

      One day about 2 p.m. I was doing just that when a gold Cadillac with a black top pulled up in front. Through the picture window I saw a heavy-set man remove himself from behind the wheel and walk toward our door. I thought I recognized him, and then I saw his personalized license plate, which read MF 8.

      He came in and asked if the manager was there, and I said he was in the back office. And then the man picked up the broom I’d been using earlier to sweep the tile floor. Wielding the broom handle as a pool cue he made several shots on our front table. Had there been any doubt in my mind about his identity, that was now gone. He really was the legendary Minnesota Fats.

      Just as Fats could use a broom better than most pool players could use a custom cue, an excellent golfer can hit quality golf shots with pretty much any golf club. Sam Snead is said to have hit shots with a branch from a tree. But Snead didn’t use a branch in tournaments, and Fats didn’t use a broom when the game was on. Unless you wanted to bet him that he couldn’t run the table with one.

      One of the simplest things any golfer can do to shoot lower scores is to use the right equipment. That means personal fitting, and fitting is not just for professionals and low-handicap amateurs. In fact, golfers who shoot between 80 and 95 will probably benefit the most from fitting. Any golfer who wants to shoot lower scores should get fit for driver, for irons (including hybrids), for wedges, and for putter.

      When I decided to take my own advice on this and make sure my clubs were right for my swing, size and stance, I went to the PING plant in Phoenix and had a professional fitting done. Other manufacturers offer something similar, but PING is in my area and there is a lot about the company and their equipment I like, so it was easy—and free.

      Since then I’ve learned a lot more about club fitting, and I know you could go online and figure out a lot of it yourself, but since you’re already here, allow me to share some things that will be useful for you to know and help you with your game.

      Irons

      There are three parts to an iron: the club head, the grip, and the shaft that both of those are attached to. (Usually there is a ferrule—that little piece of plastic at the end of the shaft. It is purely decorative and weighs nothing, so I’m not counting it.) None of those components are made solely of iron, of course, but many years ago the heads were iron and the name has stuck.

      The job of the grip is to help you hold the club lightly and firmly at the same time while giving you a good feel for the club. Its other job is to look cool and dress up your clubs.

      The job of the head is to hit the ball up into the air and control its flight. Please note that hitting the ball up into the air is not your job, it is the job of the club head, and it is much better at that job than you are.

      The final component, the shaft, provides distance between you and the ball (length) and allows you to swing the head so that it contacts the ball at the proper angle at the right time.

      So far it sounds pretty simple, but if you take those three components and add them together, you will find that there are as many as twelve different areas to be considered when finding the right club for you.

      In the shaft alone you should consider the length (longer shafts can increase club head speed but also increase launch angle and generally increase flexibility), the material (steel shafts have less rotational force than graphite but weigh more and feel more harsh on off-center shots), the flexibility (there are no industry standards, so stiff from one company might be

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