Tankersley Park Golf Club

To improve your golf game, it's vital that you take golf lessons. Golf is a sport that is almost impossible to learn without some sort of guidance. Luckily, there are golf experts around the country whose job it is to teach golf. By taking golf lessons, you can drastically improve your game in a relatively short amount of time.

Taking golf lessons can be an expensive, time-consuming effort. And like any good or service that will cost money and require time, you should be careful before you buy. Golf can be a really costly game to play and it is reasonable to assume that you have invested a fair amount of money in your equipment - golf clubs, golf bag, golf balls, golf clothing, golf cart etc; - therefore doesn’t it make common sense for you to learn how to use them to their advantage and improve your skills and capabilities?

Tankersley Park Golf Course was opened in 1907 and was extended to eighteen holes in 1924. It then developed under the expert supervision of Arthur Storey, Golf Professional, Course Designer, Green keeper and Golfing Guru. On a few acres of redundant mining spoil and moorland he laid the foundations of a wonderful test of accurate iron play. The careless golfer, who strays from the now beautifully manicured fairways, can still find the remnants of the land’s industrial past. Some forty barrow like mounds left behind in Georgian and Victorian times by bell pit miners digging for coal and ironstone, litter the course.

Reviewing the highest-scoring rounds on the PGA Tour over the last few years we find that essentially all occurred on high-wind days. That won 't come as a surprise to professionals who know that playing in strong winds has a much greater effect on scoring than rain cold long rough or hard greens. But again while golfers assume that most of this difficulty comes from the wind blowing balls in the air leading to missed greens and found hazards the data indicates putting performances also suffer on these windy days.

You probably could he pushed to agree that it is reasonable to expect golf halls rolling on smooth fast low-friction surfaces (such as a desktop) to be blown sideways by wind. Prove it to yourself by running the "desk wind test " shown in Figure 9.4.1. Roll a golf ball across your desktop five times to get the feel of where the ball rolls on its own. Then roll it five more times blowing on the ball from the side each time as it passes your face. On at least one of the rolls you'll hit the ball with your exhaled breath (you'll miss above or below a few times too) and see it pushed off-line. Once you get the hang of hitting the ball with your breath you can prove to yourself that winds with against and quartering across the line of the rolling ball can have an effect too (Figure 9.4.2).

In the examples and figures above my breath wind speed was about 10 miles per hour which shows that even a relatively low-velocity wind influences the roll of the ball dramatically on a low-friction surface. So what does that mean for your putting on fast and slow greens?

The speed of the surface of the green or green speed affects a ball's roll in speed direction and amount of break. I 'm sure you have heard greens referred to as "fast " "slow " "quick " "slick " or "sticky." Technically the speed of the green is determined by the frictional characteristics of the surface of the green which is controlled primarily by the length type density and moisture content of the grass (more on this in Chapter 7). Golf course superintendents traditionally measure the speed characteristics of greens using a device called the Stimpmeter. much speed (left) and perfect speed (right) for two putts rolled on the same starting line.

The Stimpmeter developed years ago by a man named Edward Stimpson is a crude yet simple way to measure how far a ball will roll on a flat portion of a green when it is given a standard starting speed. The USGA-approved version of a

Stimpmeter is a solid straight piece of aluminum extruded at a 30-degree angle with an indentation near the top and a beveled bottom (Figure 4.3.2). The beveled bottom allows the Stimpmeter to sit low to the green surface and reduce the bounce of a ball rolling down the channel when it hits the green.

The Stimpmeter was designed to release balls onto a green surface with constant initial speed (energy).

Measuring Green Speed To use a Stimpmeter a ball is placed in the indentation and the device is raised slowly until the ball rolls free and down the groove onto the green (Figure 4.3.3). Care must he taken to hold the Stimpmeter still as the ball rolls down the ramp to ensure constant release energy and ball speed at the bottom of the ramp.

To measure green speed three balls are rolled in one direction on the green measuring how far each ball rolls (in feet) from the end of the Stimpmeter. The same three balls then are rolled in the opposite direction over the same section of the green and again the distances are measured. The six distances are averaged to produce a quantitative measurement of the average distance a ball rolls on that green called the green speed. A slow green is about a 7 (meaning the balls rolled an average of 7 feet) while a fast green comes in at about a 10. Most PGA tournaments aim for green speeds between 10.5 and 11. When greens start rolling at 12 to 13 they are called "Augusta fast " because that's often the speed of the greens at Augusta National Golf Club home of The Masters every spring.

Golf Swing Tips

Now that you have the proper grip with your left hand, we can focus on the right hand. Take your right hand and place it underneath the handle of the club. Lift up your left forefinger from underneath the club so it can move freely. Interlock your right picky with your left forefinger.

Golf Lessons

Golf Lessons at Tankersley Park Golf Club

Tankersley Park Golf Club

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