The Elements of Scoring: A Master's Guide to the Art of Scoring Your Best When You're Not Playing Your Best (Master's Guide to Scoring Your Best) - Softcover

Floyd, Raymond

 
9780684864020: The Elements of Scoring: A Master's Guide to the Art of Scoring Your Best When You're Not Playing Your Best (Master's Guide to Scoring Your Best)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0684864029 ISBN 13: 9780684864020
Verlag: Simon & Schuster, 2000

Inhaltsangabe

Say Good-Bye to Doubles and Triples Forever
Every aspect of golf, from the swing to the follow-through, is a means to one deceptively simple end: to get the ball into the hole in the fewest strokes possible. The Elements of Scoring explains how paying attention to the way you play -- regardless of your level of skill -- will guarantee you fewer strokes, a better overall game, and at the end of the day, more fun.
With a practical and encouraging touch, Raymond Floyd shares his vision of what makes a scorer and shows how you can become this most dangerous of opponents.

  • Discover the ten mistakes amateurs make that pros never do
  • Learn why the 6-foot putt is the most important shot in golf
  • Play to your strengths and hide your weaknesses
  • Banish first-tee jitters and focus on the rest of your game
  • Know when bogey can be a good score

Golf is a game of mistakes: The secret to better golf lies in making fewer of them and making sure the ones you do make don?t prove too costly. With Raymond Floyd as your teacher, you are sure to shoot the lowest scores you can, day in and day out, playing the game like a true scorer.

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Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Raymond Floyd has won 35 official gold tournaments (22 on the regular tour, 13 on the senior tour), including four majors. He made history in 1992 when he became the first player to win on both the PGA Tour and the Senior Tour in the same year. He lives in Palm Beach, Florida.

Jamie Diaz is a senior writer for Sports Illustrated. He lives in Temecula, California.

Arnold Palmer is one of the most storied and successful golfers to have ever played the game. He won the Masters Tournament four times, in 1958, 1960, 1962 and 1964 and the U.S. Open in spectacular fashion in 1960 at Cherry Hills Country Club in Denver, coming back from seven strokes down in the final round. Palmer also won the British Open in 1961 and 1962. Among the majors, only the PGA Championship has eluded him -- he finished second three times. He was also Ryder Cup captain in 1963. Arnold Palmer divides his time between Latrobe, a small industrial town in Western Pennsylvania where he was born, and Florida. He is the author of a number of practical golf guides, as well as the bestselling autobiography, A GOLFER'S LIFE.

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Chapter 1: The Scorer's Game

Golf is a seductive game because there are so many ways to enjoy it. You can get satisfaction from walking in the outdoors, from the exercise it provides, from the camaraderie of your playing partners, from the sheer distance you can hit the ball, from the fascination of the golf swing, from the challenge of competition, all the way to the opportunity to learn self-control and build character.

All of the above are fine reasons to play. But if you want to be the best golfer you can be, the most important part of the game is measured by one thing and one thing only:

Your score.

The object of the game is to shoot the lowest score you can. Everything else is subordinate to that goal, at every level of the game. For all the spectacular shots they can hit, what pros do better than anything else is to get the ball in the hole in the fewest strokes possible. That was true of Bobby Jones, of Ben Hogan, of Arnold Palmer, of Jack Nicklaus, and of Tiger Woods. In my experience, for all the other undeniable benefits of the game, scoring well is also the most surefire way to really enjoy golf.

That might sound obvious, but I've always been surprised by how little effort and focus most amateurs devote to understanding how to score lower. Right now, there are probably more people captivated and even obsessed by golf than ever before, yet most are consumed with swing mechanics, driving the ball farther, sports psychology, and having the latest high-tech equipment. All those are worthy subjects that can improve your game and increase your enjoyment, but I think most people miss the forest for the trees. The reason people don't shoot lower scores, to be blunt, is that most people don't know how to PLAY. Not how to swing, or how to hit the ball farther; how to play the game.

Don't take that the wrong way. It's not an easy thing to know. In fact, when all is said and done, it's the hardest. Learning to play golf -- learning to score -- is a lifelong process. I know that, at age fifty-six, I'm still learning.

But here is the hard truth: If somehow I was given your physical game, and we had a match, I would beat you 99 times out of 100 times because I know how to play the game better than you do.

I want this book to teach you how to get the most out of what you have. I'm going to impart everything I know about playing the game. About attitude and visualization, about how to deal with pressure and anger and fear, about preparation and strategy. About what's most important in a round of golf to make the lowest score.

There are elements of scoring, things that will make anyone a better player and will let you shoot lower scores. They are specific, they are learnable, and if you take on the challenge, they will help you improve.

First, we should define what a scorer is. Certainly, it can be someone who shoots low scores, but it doesn't have to be. In fact, in my definition, a high handicapper can be a better scorer than a low handicapper.

To me, a scorer is someone who consistently gets the most from his skill level, who often shoots scores that are better than the way he or she hits the ball, and who in that sense regularly beats the golf course. For a pro, that can be a 71 on a day when he felt uncomfortable with his swing or putting stroke. For someone with a 16 handicap, it can be an 89 on a day when his slice seemed uncontrollable. Conversely, a 67 for a pro on a day when his game was on all cylinders can be a round in which the golf course won, and an 89 can be a defeat for that 16-handicapper if it includes penalty shots from foolish risks on a day when he's hitting straight and true.

Scorers possess a blend of fundamentals, good attitude, and mental strength. They are winners. If you are a scorer, you won't always win, but you will know and play the percentages, and you won't often beat yourself. Being a scorer means playing golf cleanly, efficiently, without waste. It means a thousand other things. Knowing when to take what the golf course gives and when to back off. Knowing your limitations, not just in general but from day to day, from hole to hole, and even from shot to shot. Keeping your composure during disappointments and having fortitude. Having a positive attitude. Handling pressure. Having a sense for the crucial make-or-break shots in a round that keeps a good score going or turns around a bad one. Understanding that while we would all like to have days where we hit every shot solid and straight, it almost never happens. That the reality of playing is improvising, doing the most with what you have, shooting the best score you are capable of THAT DAY.

The subtitle of this book is "A Master's Guide to the Art of Scoring Your Best When You're Not Playing Your Best." Even at the highest level, on the PGA Tour, you learn very early that there is no perfect golf, and that no one has a perfect game. The best players in the world, despite sharing golf's basic fundamentals and shooting nearly identical scores, all have flaws. But they have also all found their own way to play. It's a way that's dictated by their particular abilities, temperaments, and peculiarities, and it's a way that best allows them to score.

Let me tell you a little about how I became a scorer. I may have a reputation as a guy who gets a lot out of what he has, but believe me, I was a long time getting there.

I started playing golf very young, under the tutelage of my father, L. B. Floyd. My dad was a golf pro who served a twenty-one-year hitch in the army, much of it as a master sergeant at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where he ran a driving range and the enlisted men's base course. As a kid I loved all sports, but I spent a lot of days playing forty-five holes, practicing for hours at a time, experimenting with shots around the green, and getting a lot of supervision from my dad. My mom, Edith, was the local women's club champion, and my younger sister, Marlene, has played on the LPGA tour since 1976. As far as learning the game goes, I had all the advantages.

Although I didn't play a great deal of amateur golf -- in part because I was busy with baseball, football, and basketball -- I did play in a lot of gambling games around the Carolinas, where I honed a sharp competitive edge. At first, I would play in nassaus in which I had backers. Before too long I was backing myself, regularly playing for hundreds, and occasionally thousands, of dollars. When I won the National Jaycees in 1960 at the age of seventeen, I set my sights on making a career out of golf. The next year, I had an offer to become a pitcher in the Cleveland Indians farm system, but I turned it down because something was telling me that golf was my future. Soon after, in 1961, I turned pro.

At that stage, I was like a lot of young guys with talent: I liked to hit it far, and I liked to shoot at pins. When I was hot, I was effective; when I wasn't, I went for big numbers, with plenty of penalties. I had a lot to learn, which was evident as soon as I became a PGA tour rookie in 1963. In my first nine events, I didn't make a cent. Somehow, in my tenth at Saint Petersburg, I caught a hot streak and won, coming from behind in the final round to defeat Dave Marr by a stroke.

But I didn't win again for two years, and after that, I didn't win again for four more. I had plenty of tools; I was a long hitter, often grouped with Jack Nicklaus and George Bayer as among the longest in golf. I had a good-looking golf swing, and, if my memory serves, I made a ton of putts. I didn't run into a lot of players with more ability than I had. But on the tour, I ran into plenty who were scoring lower.

It took me a while to figure out why, and to develop a different approach to playing. Fortunately, I had enough talent to survive on the tour while I was learning my craft. I wouldn't...

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Verlag
Simon & Schuster
Erscheinungsdatum
2000
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0684864029
ISBN 13 
9780684864020
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
176
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV, GPSR Europäische Union
info@simonandschuster.nl

Herculesplein 96
AA Utrecht
3584
Niederlande

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