Golf requires what the Buddhists call impeccability, which is essentially keeping the crossbar high, very high, throughout one’s career and life. You can’t separate out life, career, family, marriage. Nor can you blithely commit transgressions in life and then demand absolution, ala the Gringrich who stole Christmas. There are actions we take. There are consequences arising from those actions. Whether those actions be criminal or moral in nature, there are consequences, and we must make adjustments to compensate for those consequences. We humans are clever at devising ways to forgive, but rarely do we forget, and it’s the forgetting that is the cornerstone of true forgiving. Forgiving without forgetting is like eating without digesting: What goes out looks a lot like what went in.

Disgusting intestinal references aside, impeccability is a responsibility of us humans. It takes a high degree of awareness and mindfulness, which is why I write so much about  these traits. They are not easy to put into practice, so we have to practice. Just like a fundamentally sound golf swing, you have to practice an impeccable life. It won’t happen on its own. Like water in a container, impeccability needs to take the shape of the container, namely your mind and soul, until every action has a reasonable chance of landing on an impeccable mark. If I were Tiger Woods, I’d be fighting desperately to regain that impeccability, and golf would not be the venue of the battle. Every moment on the golf course is a potential battle since it tests every cell, mental and physical, but when a player strays off the course of life away from golf, he needs to put his full attention to climbing back on the road. To not do so is a very dangerous direction indeed. I’m not just spouting lava out the top of my head: I’ve been there.

This year Woods has my full support, but only this year. Win the Grand Slam, and quit. Or don’t win the Grand Slam, and quit. Either way, you can make a name for yourself. As for the rest of the automatons out there, punch up your games, would you. Making money is not really what professional golf is all about. You can sell insurance and make money. Professional golf is about playing your goddamned heart out. It’s about winning, sure, but it’s really about playing full out. I like that TV spot where Tom Lehman, who plays with a whole lot of passion, mentors Kevin Streelman that he didn’t play his best last week. He asks Streelman what he can do about that. “Get to work,” Streelman answers grittily though sheepishly, not used to such directness in a teacher. Lehman doesn’t shit around. Never did. He’s one hundred percent on every shot. No, Lehman doesn’t shit around. All of the clothing store mannequins out there should watch that spot and soak it in. One hundred percent on every shot, as the shadows of Jones, Nelson, Sarazen, Hogan, Ouimet, Seve, Jack, Arnie, Player, Zaharius,Floyd, Miller, Faldo, Watson, Trevino, Irwin, Lopez, Stewart, and all the others who treated golf like it was a passion play, hover above. And yes, Woods, maybe the most passionate of them all. But Woods blew out all his gaskets, like Robert Johnson at the Crossroads.

For if professional golf can’t get back its mojo, and the way I see it Europeans like McIlroy, McDowell, Manasero, and Donald represent the best hope, then it’s up to us amateurs to save the game. And just how are we to do that? By playing golf, of course. A lot of golf. And playing within the rules, the main one being to play it as it lies. With that one rule, you approach impeccability in golf. In fact, throw every other rule out and play with that one alone and you will have elevated the game to a transcendent position among sports and games. For what other amateur penalizes himself when no one is looking? It’s extraordinary enough when a pro does it. But when an amateur moves a ball and notches a penalty stroke, the heavens shake with pride. That’s my man. That’s my woman, the clouds thunder. That’s the peak of impeccability. That’s what I’m talking about! That’s what I’m talking about!

My favorite app is Golf My Way by Jack Nicklaus. I love Jack’s breezy, personal style, from filming made at the height of his powers back in the early 70′s. Nothing too technical here, he breaks the game down into understandable movements and routines, taking each aspect of the game and showing how it’s done in regular and slow motion frames. You feel that a young Jack is right with you in a way no other golf app accomplishes. For winter preparations, particularly getting your mind back into the game, this app is tops.

Next is Tiger Woods: My Swing, the best technical app of the bunch. Whatever you think of Woods, the man, he is still, arguably, the greatest player to ever play the game, and we can learn much from this breakdown of his swing. Woods shows the proper angles that comprise his swing, including a camera where you film your swing and compare it to the master. During winter, you can set up this camera, indoor or out, and compare your lines to Tiger’s.

Other instructional apps I like, to lesser degrees, include Paul Azinger’s, Kevin Streelman’s, iSwing (allowing you to film and analyze your own swing), and any metronome app (to ingrain your pace and rhythm). Informational apps to keep your head in the game include PGA Tour, Golf Channel, Golfweek, and Golfinfo. My favorite GPS golf app, once the fairways of spring open again, is, hands down, Golfshot. This is for both iPhone and iPad (wheeled cart holder is available) and gives distances to the hole, along with layup yardage to get to particular approach shots (crucial for par fives). What are your favorite apps?

I’ve also joined a gym. Now, I have a long and dissonant relationship with gyms. Each and every cell of my body, especially the fat cells, braces when I mention the word. Egad! Gym? No, no, not that. Please. Mercy. But with short days that hinder my aerobic, after-work walks, I had no choice. I found a gym on the way home from work that didn’t have TV blasting, that had inspirational posters on the walls, including one of a very fit guy in his late 70s with the caption, “Growing old is not for sissies.” The staff was very helpful, knowledgeable, and personable, and they had a machine that particularly drew me in: the Turbo Sonic, a sound vibration machine that only required you stand on it for 10 minutes a day as an adjunct to my resistance and cardio workouts (Google it!). I got oriented by a great trainer named Marina James-Galvin, and dove into a winter exercise routine. Was/is it easy? Hardly. My cells still apply the brakes as I drive there after work. But, as my Buddhist teachers would say, notice the feeling, feel it, then let it go and do what is true for you in that moment. And, whadayaknow, the more I kept to the routine, the easier it got. I had conquered my resistance the more I got comfortable with knowing that nothing would deter me from my goal: to get more and more fit as I aged, not just to lower my handicap, but to live a healthier, longer, and more satisfying life.

Of course, the easiest strategy is watching golf on TV. For me, after a stressful day at work, it’s extremely relaxing. Either instruction on the Golf Channel or whatever PGA or European Tour tournament is on is an opportunity to learn how to play this game, and keep your golf neurons firing as the snow flies, or  mud puddles fill, or frost consumes the fairways and greens. For commentators, I particularly like Curt Byrum, Roger Maltby, Dougie McClean, Tim Rosaforte, Peter Kostis, Frank Nobilo, Jay Townsend, and David Feherty. Top interviewers include Rich Lerner, Curt Byrum, Scott Walker, and Steve Sands. I’m not so taken with Johnny Miller, “Sir” Nick Faldo, or Jim Nance. But that’s just me. If nothing else, TV golf keeps you thinking about the game, and staying excited for the advent of spring. Of course, for 2012, everyone is agog as to how Woods will do.

So hang in there: Winter will loosen its grip, allowing the buds of spring to open and blossom, and the gates to your local course to swing open. Of course, if you live in sunbelt areas, you already have the clubs in the car and you’re off to the links. Lucky dogs.

Woods is proud of his foundation, and rightly so. You can see it in his face when he is pictured with some of the kids he’s helped or leading a clinic. It’s that old Tiger smile, relaxed yet energized, humble yet excited for what he has accomplished, impassioned.

Here’s my advice to Tiger Woods, for what it’s worth, on this second day of 2012. As did Bobby Jones, set yourself the task of winning the Grand Slam this year. Upon succeeding and having a ticker tape parade in New York, retire from competitive golf, as did Jones, tied at 18 majors with Jack Nicklaus, and devote the rest of your life to the Tiger Woods Foundation. Judging from your last two tournaments, you could accomplish this. You’ve got your mojo back. Your name would be immortalized in the annals of golf for you would have done a noble deed, sharing the podium with Jack, and leaving the game a hero, as did Jones and Nelson before you. They decided enough was enough, putting ambition aside, assuming an emeritus role in golf’s highest echelons. Even if you didn’t achieve the Grand Slam, even if you fell short of Jack’s record, such an action would tell the world you are a man with a higher purpose than just to win golf tournaments. Your Foundation, and the children it helps, would still prosper, perhaps more so than now. And most of all, you would know and feel the spirit of your father smiling down upon you. Wishing you well in the New Year, Tiger. Thanks for helping all those children.

And you, dear reader, a very happy, healthy New Year. May this game of ours bring you continued pleasure and joy.

It’s a matter of confidence, which is at the core of successful putting. Putting simulates the movements of a pendulum, and a golfer’s skill is dependent upon how pendulum-like he or she can control the club. If the end of the club is fixed to the torso, half of the work is being done by the torso, not by the ability of the player to keep the body, especially the head, still. No other club in the bag affords this kind of advantage.

On the other hand, the USGA and the R and A assert that it will bring more people into the game, giving golf the boost it needs. They argue that long putters have been around a long time, and they haven’t created an unfair advantage, according to the stats. Phil tried one, and quickly went back to his traditional putter. Bernhardt Langer has used one with great success on the Champions Tour, but he hasn’t dominated that Tour, as Hale Irwin did with the standard putter a few years before. Luke Donald has played over 350 holes, to date, without a 3-putt, using a standard putter–an absolutely amazing statistic as all of us true golfers know.

I tried a long putter once, as a trial, but couldn’t get the hang of it. It seemed cumbersome and unwieldy, heavy and awkward. And I was still left with the eternal conundrum of putting: determining direction and speed. The long putter won’t do this for you, nor will it make it that much easier to do so. It requires you keep your left hand rock still and anchored against your chest. This is an important distinction since it not the putter against your chest but your left hand (right hand for the left-hander), which makes it a little less anchored. As for the belly putter, you need to not have much of a belly for it to be effective. Most of us amateurs have too much of a belly too keep the butt end of the club quiet. With this putter, you hold the club with two hands but move the entire upper torso to effect the stroke. It takes the hands, wrists, and arms out of the stroke. I think you lose feel with this method, since the hands, wrists, arms translate a great deal of sensitive information to the brain. And when trying to coordinate direction and speed, that information is vital.

So I don’t have a problem with keeping these putters legal. The long putter can help many of us who have bad backs, since you can stand up straighter at address and throughout the stroke. And the belly putter can be an inspiration for many of us to reduce the size of our bellies. Will they lower your handicap? I doubt it. Will they motivate more people to take up golf? Possibly but not probably. I say let the free market decide. In ten years, they may be an historic aberration–I’ve seen almost no one on the public courses which I play use them– or the reason for golf’s resurgence. Handicaps will be about the same as they have been for the last 50 years.

It’s a game, like life is a game, unfair, cruel at times–it knocks you down, it beats you up, but somehow you pull yourself back up, and manage to sink a 40 foot putt. With a sport, there are winners and losers–a Donald Trump world where life lessons are lost in the din of arrogance and retribution. Golf is as much a mental game as physical, as the sage professional Shivas Irons demonstrates in the film. The score is really not the point in Irons’ world: It’s how you play the game, how you live your life. It’s golf in the kingdom, alright, and the kingdom is inside the head and heart and hearth. The teacher of the sage, Seamus McDuff, never appears in the film, but he is always present in the person of Shivas Irons, as when Irons takes the wooden baffling club of his master and makes a miraculous ace at midnight on the Scottish links. Michael Murphy, who wrote the original book, and is the earnest but stubborn Casteneda-like protege in the film, finds the feathery in the cup, and celebrates the epiphany as if he hit the shot. This ace represents the grail that every golfer can find when the mind, the club, the swing, the ball, the spirit, all join in one mighty force that no sport can equal.

That’s right: Golf is a game, and may it always be a game where a human being can soar in consciousness as he considers his playing partners, as she calls penalties on herself, as he counts every stroke, and she, like life, plays it as it lies.

Go see the film, if you can find it. It will be far from a blockbuster, and only a reflective golfer will enjoy it. But you will discover the deeper reasons why you play this maddening, ecstatic game.

He looked in his bag because the day before he hit into the water, and the man is so obsessed with winning, he’ll do something seedy like that, just to get a little edge. It’s true: a decision related to one of the rules of golf says a player can visually look into another player’s bag, but Tiger Woods checking out Zach Johnson’s bag to make his club selection? Come on. Give me a break.

What kind of model is that for a kid in the First Tee? In golf, we play against the course, and we can look at that course and the weather from all sides to Sunday. That’s part of the game: size up your shot and make your own club selection, not go nosing around in someone else’s bag. It’s legal but it’s unethical. It’s against the spirit of the game. It’s sneaky. It’s legal but it shouldn’t be. Spitting on greens is legal also, but should Woods and Garcia have done this when they did?

OK, Tiger, go ahead and keep your Chevron trophy, but play your own game, pal.

And one more thing: When Zach Johnson walked towards the first tee at the final round of the Chevron, he stopped to shake the hand of each tournament official who stood there by the grandstand. Class.

Tiger Woods walked to that same tee just after Zach and ignored all the officials. Ass.

Even if my interpretation of the rule in inaccurate, Woods had an ethical infraction that stains the game of golf once again. His action was aggressive and intrusive. He had no business looking into Johnson’s bag before he hit his shot, and before Woods followed with his.

This man is obsessed with wins and will resort to any means to achieve them. He was desperate for a win at this time, and his actions demonstrate this.

This was exactly my point in suggesting that Woods took steroids in ’08 to gain an edge in his march to more majors. This latest episode is a snapshot into the mind of a man blinded by his goals at the expense of others.

Final verdict, from my perspective: Tiger Woods cheated at Chevron and should be stripped of his title.

Here’s the scenario for the rule that deals with this (taken from golfcircuit.com):

SITUATION: Player asks opponent or competitor what club he just used.

SOLUTION: Depends on when and why the question was asked. A PLAYER MAY NOT ASK FOR ADVICE OR GIVE ADVICE. Advice is any information that could influence the player in his choice of club, or how to play the shot.
There would be no penalty if a player asked the question after he had already played his shot.
There would be a penalty if a player purposely volunteers information to change how his opponent is to play a shot.

Match play-the penalty for asking or giving advice is loss of hole. Let’s turn this around. In match play there is no penalty to the opponent if he answers because the player had already lost the hole when he first asked the question.

Stroke play-the penalty for asking or giving advice is 2-strokes. In this case if a player asks a question that would assist his play, he receives a 2-stroke penalty. Now, if his fellow competitor answers him, he would also receive a 2- stroke penalty.

The whippier shaft does help me load up more efficiently. It increases my lag, and gives me just a split second more on my right side before coming into the impact area. Since the drive is a sweeping motion, striking the ball as the clubhead starts its upswing, this allows me to push off more from my right knee and leg. It also helps me come down from the inside of my plane, and throw the clubhead out towards the target. If the head remains steady and the left side is firm, then the right hand can pronate over the left, squaring up the clubface at impact as the right arm straightens and left begins to bend into the follow through.I don’t think about the pronation part since it’ll happen properly if everything preceding it is in order.

The sound of club against ball confirms the success of the coup de grace.

In the 2011 Presidents Cup, Aaron Baddeley did something that most of us amateurs are entirely familiar with: He popped up a three wood off the tee about 100 yards or so. I don’t know exactly why he did this, but chances are he dropped his head some approaching impact, or he lowered his right shoulder too much at the start of his downswing, or he lost his timing and hit a bit too soon from the top at the start of his downswing. To avoid this, the head should remain as still as possible throughout the swing, particularly from a vertical perspective. Some lateral movement on the downswing is OK, causing the ball to go right if the head moves forward, and left if the head moves back. But dipping the head can cause a fat shot, as Baddeley hit. By the way, that miss-hit cost him the hole and the match.

Retief Goosen’s early coach used to hold the top of his head during practice swings, a technique the South African ascribes to later success. With the axel of the wheel steady, you can whip the spokes with speed, free from worry that the plane will wobble. In light of this, another crucial aspect of the driver swing (as well as every other swing) is that the spokes, particularly the forward arm, remain straight throughout the backswing and into impact. A tendency for amateurs, particularly as they grow less flexible, is to bend the forward arm at the top of the backswing, and keep it bent through impact, thus destroying the integrity of the measured swing.

My suggestion is to bring the club back only as far as the forward arm can be kept straight, then break the wrists to attain as much whip as possible, then start the downswing before the backswing is completed, further maximizing the whip of the shaft. Here again, it’s crucial to have the right shaft for your swing speed.

The fact that the driver is the longest club in the bag makes it the whippiest. I’ve used an extra long driver in the past and have gotten tremendous distance, but at a great sacrifice of accuracy. So, unlike the present Congress, compromises have to be reached. Keep the length normal but alter the flex according to your specifications.  You may discover a whole new game off the tee, as I did.

Webb Simpson is the latest in the line of evangelicals who uses his wins as a soapbox for how he couldn’t have pulled it off unless the Lord hadn’t helped him, implying the Lord knew the difference between a nine iron and a putter. Did the Lord help Gene Sarazen make that double eagle or invent the sand wedge? No, and The Squire never claimed it. I must say the club is a blessing but I doubt if the Lord had a hand in helping Sarazen come up with it. Nor did Jones or Hagen or Hogan or Jack or Arnie or Player or Trevino, or any of the greats back in the day. They may have been religious but they separated golf from God. Nor have any of my golfing buddies over the years mixed God with golf. If they did think the Lord was guiding their hand helping them sink a bomb, they kept it to themselves. The Lord doesn’t fist bump.

Not true with some Christian fundamentalist pros today. In addition to Simpson, there’s Lehman, Crane, Bubba Watson, and Baddeley. Who have I missed. I’m sure a few more who’ve praised the Lord after a win, as if the Lord were kicking back with a brew, yelling “Go Bubba, Go,” into his TV set in heaven (perhaps the best cable service of all).

The Lord, or God, if you will, or even if you don’t will, is on all of our sides, even the apparent least of us. As a mental health professional, I’ve worked with the “least of us” and I can tell you, they can become the best of us in a heartbeat. Just a slight change in perspective and, bingo, they are beautiful people, helping and caring for others. They did this, not necessarily because of the Lord, but because of the simple realization that the world does not revolve around them, that we are all in this together, and that all human beings are endowed with the possibility of experiencing love. Praising the Lord after a golf win is an egotistical act, not anything the Lord requires. It separates us rather than acknowledges our oneness.

Those of us who play and enjoy golf, know that the game can touch on spiritual levels, especially when we are so embroiled in the present that we forget all our troubles and take a deep breather of respite. But as soon as you bring religion into it, the fun drains out, and you introduce an element of the small self, that if examined closely, puts the Lord on a pedestal, making him or her irrelevant.

Simply said, in golf, as in life, you never give up. Golf tests the resiliency of the mind to come back after disaster. The mind is conditioned generally to give up rather than come back and try again. It’s an organ of memory and we tend to remember the bad more than the good. Think PTSD which is near epidemic in this country. So instead of facing obstacles and hindrances, we often give up and go in another direction. Or we medicate ourselves with whatever opiate is at hand. The brain’s amygdala, the center of emotional response, is often so conditioned by the time we reach adulthood that it forgets its original function: to help us get through tough times, times of change, times of negativity, of disappointment, of disruption to our comfort zone. The amygdala becomes dysfunctional, and requires external booster shots to help us through the day.

When disaster hits in golf, and it will whether you are Rory McIlroy or John Doe, how you respond is critical. In 1990, unknown Mike Donald was on the verge of winning the U.S. Open. He lost in a playoff against Hale Irwin and was never heard from again until he emerged on the Champions Tour in 2005. Ben Hogan, on the other hand, almost died in a head on car crash in 1949, then came back and won 8 majors. And I shot 45 going out at Bennett Valley the other day, then came in with a 37. In golf, you never say die. You can catch fire at any point but you must be in control of your mind to do so. So how can you accomplish this in a culture that assaults the mind until it is ground into submission, that conditions the mind to kowtow to the flavor of the day?

First, you have to find your center. The Japanese consider the belly, the hara, to be the center of one’s being. They developed a meditation that focuses the breath on the hara. As the breath comes in, the belly expands: As the breath goes out, the belly contracts. This is the polar opposite of the way most Westerners breathe. Try it. You’ll see what I’m talking about. When disaster hits, like a skulled chip shot for example, the breath gets short. Anger and frustration arise. You throw the club to the ground. You curse. You look to the sky. Touring pros pull their cap down over their eyes a lot. You’ve blown a shot, and the enslaved amygdala is in irons. You go to the next tee and you’re still fuming.

Keegan Bradley went to the next tee after chipping into the water for a triple, and he proceeded to birdie the hole. He regrouped. He focused on making a good swing. This is an emotional guy, unlike some of the automatons on Tour. He breathed, reining himself in. This is important. He reined himself in. The mind tends to take off in situations like this like the runaway stagecoach in old Westerns. And how did the hero stop the stagecoach? He bravely jumped on the horses and pulled in the reins. In golf, you need to jump on your neurons and gain control of your thinking. You need to treat every hole as if it were the first hole, without memory or influence of any hole before it.

This is called plasticity of mind–the ability of the mind to break through the calcification of conditioning and bend like a willow to whatever condition that arises. It’s how human beings have survived and thrived through all these years of evolution. And it’s how golfers survive double and triple bogeys. Plasticity of mind is critical for the golfer. Conditions change rapidly during the course of a round of golf. Expectations turn sour. Our best efforts go south. Every shot has the potential to go awry. Bouncing back is integral to good scoring. And good scoring is golf’s grail. And how does one achieve plasticity of mind?

There is only one way: to dive into the maelstrom and take on golf head on. To get battered around and beaten down. To feel the fire and not back down from it. The atrophied amygdala must be thrown into that fire in order to melt the ice around its edges. The conditioning has to be broken and the only way to do that is to go into the fray, into the source of nervousness and trepidation. It will not always be smooth. It will not always work. But the amygdala will eventually get used to acting on its own, with heightened confidence in its ability to face hardship. Like a battle-toughened soldier, it will not hesitate to take on the enemy. And in golf, the enemy is clear: It is none other than one’s own mind.

As  I’ve said many times, meditation is a useful tool in gaining plasticity of mind. But it is not the be all, end all. They call meditation The Practice, but at some point you have to leap into the abyss of life, with full faith that you will survive, and that your own mind will support you in the journey. Golf is practice for living one’s life as a fully conscious human being, for it takes both guts and plasticity of mind to come back from a triple bogey and win a major. Well done, Keegan Bradley. You’ve been a great role model for us all.