Drive For Show, Take Lessons For Dough

Amateur golfers everywhere, heed my advice. Do NOT spend hundreds of dollars on a new driver for that extra ten or fifteen yards you'll get off the tee. Chances are you'll only see those extra yards for a very short while. This is all related to the First Use Rule: the first time you try any new golf clubs, you will see dramatic improvements instantly. But these new-found skills will quickly fade away and you'll go back to hitting the ball like you always did. This is all probably distantly related to the Placebo effect.

For the love of god, you don't need a new driver every season. Trust me on this. Instead, take the four or five hundred dollars you were going to spend and put it toward a series of lessons. A set of decent lessons will cost you half that money. You can use the remaining money to pay for balls at the driving range instead, since you'll want to practice what you've learned in your lessons. Or, if you absolutely must have a new club, take that remaining money, get creative, and find that driver you're looking for used at a golf store or online.

Too many people spend all their money on equipment, which most of the time doesn't have any lasting impact on their golf games. Sure, if you're playing with a brassie, a new driver will help your game a lot. What I'm talking about here are the guys who, every March, are stopping in the pro shop to test out new drivers.

There are also golfers who spend hours and hours at the driving range, honestly looking to improve their games, but who for various reasons refuse to take lessons. All they usually end up doing is ingraining bad habits and bad moves into their swings; in effect all their practice is making them worse!

Take lessons. I understand the desire to "do it yourself," to be able proudly boast you're "self-taught." There are professional golfers who are self-taught, but I seriously doubt they never traded tips and advice with their buddies while on-course or at the range.

Ben Hogan was renowned for how much practice he put in and figuring out the golf swing on his own. But at various crisis points in his career, he received some good advice from his fellow touring pros that helped him out in the long run. And I'll bet most of us don't have the time Ben did to spend eight hours a day at the range.

And if you still think you can figure it out on your own, consider this: Tiger Woods takes lessons. He's taken lessons ALL HIS LIFE. If Tiger doesn't feel he's "better than taking a lesson," then you shouldn't feel you are either.

Masters Week Is Upon Us

It's Masters Week, the season's first major tournament and my personal favorite. As with all sporting events, there's an unwritten law that we must try to predict the outcome.

Tiger is the favorite, naturally. He has to be.

As for Phil Mickelson, he was driving the ball better than he ever has before this year, that is until this week's Shell Houston Open where he missed the cut by a long shot. Still though, Lefty always has a shot at winning any time he tees it up. If he gets his driver working again, watch out.

I'd love to see Ernie Els finally win a green jacket. He's been my favorite player ever since David Duval dropped off the radar. The Big Easy has the best golf swing in the game right now, and he gives Sam Snead a run for the best golf swing ever. But he just hasn't played well the last few years, owing to injury and family issues.

Last but not least, you have to like Padraig Harrington's chances. He hasn't played extremely well yet this year, but he did win the last two majors played. Paddy has a chance to become the third player, after Tiger and Ben Hogan, to win three straight major championships. I'd love to see him do it.

Here's some trivia for you: who scored the first of two double eagles at the Masters?

Tiger Woods Is Too Good

As soon as that ball left his putter yesterday evening, there was no doubt Tiger was going to hole that near-sixteen footer on the 18th to win the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Never. A. Doubt.

The guy's just too good. This is his first win since June of last year, when he hobbled his way around Torrey Pines on a BROKEN LEG to earn his third U.S. Open title in an 18-hole playoff and thus claim his 14th major victory overall. All he needs now is four more majors and he'll match Nicklaus's record, one which many people believed was unbreakable.

In the middle of the round yesterday, the broadcast flashed an incredible stat: he'd made every single putt that was six feet or less from the cup.

If you're not a golfer, you might be thinking that's easy. But let me assure you it is not. That is quite a feat, considering how quick and tricky these greens are in PGA tournament golf. It takes a lot of skill, a deft touch, and good solid technique.

But what it takes most of all is mental toughness.

You have to have guts to consistently hole putts like that. Physically-speaking, Woods might be the most impressive golfer the world has ever seen. But when it comes to his his mental game, he's tougher than Nicklaus and rivals even Hogan.