January 22, 2003

Welcome to The No B.S. Golf Newsletter

This newsletter is by subscription only. The only way you could have
received it is that you requested a subscription or someone that you
know gave you a subscription. If you wish to unsubscribe please scroll
to the bottom and follow the simple instructions. If the link is not
active in your email program, you may have to cut and paste it in your
browser.
=======================================================



Special Notice

We have put up The History of Golf as a free e-book on the thinkandreachpar.com website. It covers from the beginning of golf in about 1413 thru 1963. Has some very interesting information in it. The link is on the left side of the front page. Check it out and I hope you enjoy it.

Special Notice


For Women Only: Have a new e-book on the website Golf For Women that can be down loaded free of charge. GOLF FOR WOMEN is a complete instruction guide for women golfers. Here is a must read book for every woman who has been, is, or wants to be, on the course. Hope you enjoy it and let me know how you like it. Go to www.thinkandreachpar.com and you will see the icon to click on to download.


How A Bona-Fide \"Hacker\" Turned A 40 Handicap into an 8 in
one season with two simple swing drills and can show you
his secret in minutes. \"It\'s so simple, it\'s embarrassing,\" he says \"and he INSISTS he can quickly teach his simple secret to you\" and show you how easy it is to swing a golf club, and add up to 70 accurate yards to every tee shot you hit for the rest of your life.
www.thinkandreachpar.com/tarp/bodygolf.htm



Special Notice

Don\'t forget that we put up a new golf tip on the website each week. Also the newsletters thru October have been listed on the website.

All of the Body Golf videos are now available in PAL for all of our friends in Europe.

If you like this newsletter, I would appreciate it if you would forward a copy to your friends and ask them to subscribe…it’s a free gift!!

Quote of the week:



\"The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. Think only on those things
that are in line with your principles and can bear the light of day. The
content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you do is who
you become. Your integrity is your destiny - it is the light that guides
your way.\"

Heraclitus
?535-475BC, Greek Philosopher


Golf Quote of the week:

If you call on God to improve the results of a shot while it is still in motion, you are using “an outside agency” and subject to appropriate penalties under the rules of golf.
Henry Longhurst


Comment from subscriber:

Hi Richard,
I really enjoy your newsletter and that is no B.S.!!

Joe Delorenzo is one of our subscribers and he has offered these tips for your benefit.

6 ways to advance from being an average putter to
being a good putter – Let’s assume Golfer A and Golfer
B have similar putting strokes and they can both read
a green equally well, but Golfer A makes more putts
and 3-putts less often than Golfer B. How can this
be?

Golfer A uses a putter design that is weighted at the
toe and at the heel, but not in the center. Golfer B
uses a straight blade. Since they both have similar
strokes, they both miss the sweet spot on the putter
by the same amount. Golfer A gets better results due
to a larger sweet spot.

Golfer A has confidence in the read and can
concentrate fully on executing the stroke. Golfer B
changes the read as he/she stands over the ball (why
bother with the original read in that case?). This
can result in a tentative stroke due to worrying about
the read instead of executing the proper pace of the
stroke.

Golfer A putts to a spot on the green on the way to
the hole, a spot that is close enough to hit every
time. Golfer B does not use an intermediate target.

Golfer A improves touch for distance control during
practice by noticing how far the backswing goes for
certain distances, and then steps off those distances.
Golfer B just relies on feel without thinking about
the exact distance. As a result, Golfer A’s second
putt is usually 1-2 feet long, while golfer B’s second
putt is usually 3-4 feet long.

Golfer A’s putter has a fat grip, Golfer B’s putter
has a skinny grip. In both cases, any accidental hand
rotation will cause the putter face to rotate off
line. Due to the fatter grip Golfer A’s putter face
will rotate less than Golfer B’s putter.

Golfer A observes the terrain while walking up to the
green from 100 yards on in, and can see which way
water would most likely drain off the green, because
this is the way all putts will break if you are not
sure of other reads. Golfer B only reads putts after
he/she gets on the green.

Joe DeLorenzo

Thank you Joe.

Richards’ Quick Tips:

Working Six to Twelve

To get a better mental picture of the swing planes used in a straight shot, a draw (right to left), and a fade (left to right) think of yourself standing on the face of a huge clock, with the ball at the center of the dial and the target line funning from six o’clock-to your right-to twelve o’clock.

If you were to address the ball and hit a straight shot, you would swing back to six o’clock and then through to twelve. For a fade, you would swing from five o’clock to eleven o’clock. For a draw, you would swing from seven o’clock out to one o’clock.

If you tend to make the same mistake consistently, this imagery can help you. In other words, if you tend to slice the ball, think in terms of swinging from seven to one. The hookers among us should swing from five to eleven. You’ll straighten out pretty quickly.


Question for Sensei Mark:

I\'m confused. In the attached E-mail, from Par golf in 8 Steps, by Joe Novak, and I quote:\" The last and fourth step of positioning , which is turning the right heel out slightly........\".
And from Body Golf, by Mark Anthony Montaquilla, on page #7, and I quote:\" Begin by standing in a shoulder width stance.Feet pointed a little out (Heels in, toes out).
These two directions are completely contradictory! Which is it?
Art DeVita


Sensei Marks Answer:
Art...
Here\'s what I teach....
I show people to open their feet so as to free up their hips to more rotation.
I, in fact have the \"Par Golf\" original 1950 book and by looking at the photos, I can attest that he means the same thing as I.
He just says it differently, that’s all.
Good looking out though and keep up the good work
Stay in touch
Mark Anthony



\"I started playing about 3 months ago, taking classes once a week and I could see my overall golf swing improving but not at the rate I desired, so I got the Body Golf Full Swing Video and started practicing and boy has it made a difference! I dropped about 8 strokes in two weeks, to the low 50\'s and its really driving my handicap down very fast. I\'ve even shown it to my in law’s, who have just started playing and they are getting ready to purchase the video too - they\'ve heard me rave about the drills and ease of use of the concepts.\"

- Gabriel, Guatemala, Central America

This week article:
Virtual Golf

by Patrick Riley

While the Midwest froze under a winter blanket this past weekend, my buddies
and I played golf in the warmth. No, we didn\'t jet to some other part of
the country, sticks in hand. We went to the course and played indoor
virtual golf.

The basic idea of virtual golf consists of standing on a driving range mat
in the center of a small movie theatre and hitting the ball into a screen
ten feet in front of you. When the ball hits the screen, the computer
measures the direction and impact to calculate how far each shot would have
traveled were you playing a real course. An overhead projector displays each
shot for each particular player in turn and you can watch the ball from
multiple camera angles as it sails down fairways complete with water, sand
traps, trees, squawking birds and spectators.

If this is your first time playing this type of game, you may want to hit a
virtual bucket on the virtual driving range before heading to the course.
It took a little while for me to get used to swinging full-force inside a
building, especially with the screen so close. But the ball doesn\'t
ricochet off the screen and you soon get the hang of it.

After you pick the course (there\'s quite an electronic library to choose
from), and do some basic setup (player\'s names, wind speed, crowd noises
etc.), you\'re ready to play.

Each player chooses the appropriate club, walks into this little movie
theatre and stands on the mat, ready to hit the ball into the screen. The
mat includes designated areas for playing off the fairway, rough, deep
rough, and sand, so depending on where your previous ball landed will
determine what part of the mat you use for the next shot. It\'s a little
gimmicky. I wish all sand was that easy to get out of, but it makes for
another fun aspect of the game.

There\'s a button to display an overhead view of the upcoming shot and each
player can also easily adjust the default direction of play presented on the
screen. The system assumes the player wants to hit directly toward the flag,
so this feature to aim your shot differently is necessary if, for example,
the hole curls around a lake that\'s too far for your drive to carry or if
you need to pitch sideways when behind a tree. (Yes, the trees are real and
often create the most difficult recovery shots.)

Though virtual golf doesn\'t replace the real game, it\'s a good time if you
don\'t take it too seriously. Tracking drives is by far the system\'s most
realistic feature, though it occasionally seems to misread the slice or
distance of a shot.

Where the system really needs help is reading putts. When the players reach
the green, the putting surface is shown as crisscrossed grids meant to
indicate the distance to the hole and which way the ball will break. There
are also indicators telling the exact height you\'re putting uphill or
downhill and the distance to the hole. Still, it\'s almost impossible to
putt well because you\'re still putting into the same screen which seems to
display random bursts of sensitivity for these softer stroked putts. When
we played, we set the system to \"gimme\" putts if they were closer than nine
feet. That\'s right, nine feet, which virtually eliminated the three-putt,
but this isn\'t really the place to practice putting.

All in all, I\'d recommend virtual golf, but not as a substitute for real
golf. The place we went had winter leagues and even two-man tournaments
golfers could sign up for.

Don\'t get frustrated with the system. It still has few problems that still
need to be fixed before this is true virtual golf, but it\'s a great way to
keep your swing intact over those long cold winters.


Richard’s Thoughts:

I am attending the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando this week, and hope I can share some of the information with you in the coming weeks. Just wanted to pass this along to you:

WHAT I WISH FOR YOU !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today...I wish you a day of ordinary miracles-

A fresh pot of coffee you didn\'t have to make yourself.

An unexpected phone call from an old friend.

Green stoplights on your way to work or shop.

I wish you a day of little things to rejoice in...

The fastest line at the grocery store.

A good sing along song on the radio.

Your keys right where you look.

I wish you a day of happiness and perfection-little bite-size pieces of perfection that give you the funny feeling that the Lord is smiling on you, hold
ing you so gently because you are someone special and rare.

I wish You a day of Peace, Happiness and Joy.

They say it takes a minute to find a special person, an hour to appreciate them, a day to love them, but then an entire life to forget them.

Send this phrase to the people you\'ll never forget and remember to send it also to the person who sent it to you. It\'s a short message to let them know that you\'ll never forget them.

If you don\'t send it to anyone, it means you\'re in too much of a hurry and that you\'ve probably forgotten your friends.

Take the time

Until next week…good golfing!

Dr. Richard Myers

www.thinkandreachpar.com
www.bodygolf.com

IF YOU LIKED THIS ISSUE
If you liked this issue, we would appreciate it if you would,
right now, just forward a copy to one or two of your golfing
friends with a short note encouraging them to subscribe. We\'d
really appreciate it. Thank you!

PRIVACY
Rest assured that we will not share your e-mail address with
any other party for any reason whatsoever.