The recommendation must be rubber-stamped by a full meeting of the IOC congress in Copenhagen in October.

Softball, squash, baseball, karate and roller sports were also hoping to be included, but have all missed out.

Golf was played at the Paris Games in 1900 – when Walter Rutherford and David Robertson won silver and gold respectively for Great Britain – and four years later in St Louis, but has never returned to the Olympic agenda.

One of the main issues has been whether top players will compete in the Olympics when they already have a full schedule, but superstar Tiger Woods indicated on Tuesday he would play.

The proposed format would be a 72-hole strokeplay competition for men and women, with 60 players in each field. The world’s top 15 players would qualify automatically, and all major professional tours would alter tournament schedules to avoid a clash with the Olympics.

IOC president Jacques Rogge said winning an Olympic gold medal would remain one of the main ambitions for top golfers, despite the traditional lure of the four major championships – The Masters, The Open, The US Open, and The USPGA.

full story from bbc

A perfect example of a top pro attacking a course was Arnold Palmer on the first hole of the last round at Cherry Hills in 1960. Palmer started that last round seven shots behind the leader. He knew that only the boldest of play could close the gap. The first hole was a par 4, slightly downhill, measured 346 yards, and the green was closely guarded by traps, although there was a narrow opening.

Palmer let out the shaft, as the pros say, and drove the green. He got down in two putts for a birdie 3, was off to a fast start, and as it turned out, a victorious round. Palmer has the powerful game to beat any course. He kept attacking Cherry Hills, subdued it with a 65, and won the Open.

Before we go into the specifics of thinking, there are two things we can all do. We can learn both the rules and the etiquette of golf. The rules are many and they are sometimes peculiar, but the etiquette is simple. It is merely the application of the golden rule to golf: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Most of the rules of golf are restrictive; they tell us what we cannot do. But many of them afford us relief, too, from particular situations. Be certain you know the rules on a lost ball, out of bounds, an unplayable lie. Learn the rules governing water hazards and lateral water hazards. Know what a hazard itself is and what you are permitted and not permitted to do when your ball is in one. Familiarize yourself with the rules on obstructions, and bear in mind always that you cannot “move, bend, or break anything fixed or growing” except in special circumstances.

Read, also, the rules on casual water, on obstructions deriving from course maintenance, and read the local rules printed on the score-card. Sometimes you find some surprises in the latter.

The rules and etiquette are issued annually in booklet form by the United States Golf Association, the best and wisest sports governing body in America. You owe it to yourself to have a copy.

Since we play this game with clubs, our first thinking should be about the weapons we use. And there is plenty of material for thought here. How heavy should they be, what should be their swing weight, how stiff should the shafts be, how many should we carry, and which ones should they be?

Weights of clubs seem to go in cycles. In the early 1930’s the tournament pros felt that with light clubs they could swing faster and thereby get more distance. The word spread about how the pros felt, the demand for light clubs increased, and the manufacturers of course obliged.

This lasted until somewhere in the 1940’s, when the pros decided that with heavier clubs they expended less physical effort; they would, in effect, let the club do the work. So heavier clubs came in. By 1960 the trend had begun to go the other way, toward slightly lighter sticks, not much but a little.

We prefer a club a little on the heavy side, for the reason that it doesn’t have to be swung so fast. It can, and will, do most of the work if it is given a chance. With such a club the player can concentrate more on swinging correctly, making the proper moves that will bring direction, and not concern himself with getting adequate distance.

Hence there is no rebound. The club starts down solely in response to the shoulder and hip action—and we are off to a late hit instead of an early one.

Since the late hit is the true manifestation of good timing, you have, right there, one reason the early backward break promotes good timing. The fact that there is no rebounding from the top, and no hurried effort then to get the club head to the ball, is also why this system makes it easier to establish a good, even rhythm.

But, you will say, the pros have no trouble with the late break and this rebounding of the club head. No, they don’t, because they subconsciously time their movements with it and also because they “tame” the club head by keeping a tight grip at the top. This grip is tight enough so that the club never gets away from them. But for the average player the timing is much more difficult.

The feeling that you have to move the body to get the club down to the ball, has its origin in the fact that for the last half of the backswing you are moving the club largely with your body and shoulders.

You are not moving it by breaking your wrists. So, since you have brought the club back with your body and shoulders, the natural thing to do is simply to leave them in command and start the downswing with them. This is exactly what should be done—the hips sliding laterally, and turning and rocking the shoulders to bring the club down.

The wrists leading at impact with no temptation to pronate or supinate are accounted for largely by the position the early break puts the hands and wrists into, aided by the fact that the body is swinging the club during a large segment of the downswing. With the perfect late hit, when the club catches up with the hands at the last possible moment, the hands will always be slightly in front at impact. The club has caught up enough to strike a straight, solid blow, but it doesn’t get exactly even with the hands until slightly after the ball is hit.

This will vary among the top pros, but pictures of many of them, taken at impact, show the left arm and the club in a curving line, not a straight line. Bill Casper and Wes Ellis are two examples.

The fact that a solid contact is produced on the centre of the club face is, really, the cumulative effect of many of the movements which have preceded it. Whenever the hit is late and from the inside the contact is much more likely to be accurate than if we hit too soon and/or from the outside.

]]> http://www.planetgolfuk.co.uk/news/golf-benefits-of-the-early-backward-brake/feed/ 0 http://www.planetgolfuk.co.uk/news/stenson-to-play-ogilvy-in-final/ http://www.planetgolfuk.co.uk/news/stenson-to-play-ogilvy-in-final/#comments Sun, 25 Feb 2007 08:00:57 +0000 John http://www.planetgolfuk.co.uk/news/2007/02/25/stenson-to-play-ogilvy-in-final/ Swedish Ryder Cup star Henrik Stenson will play defending champion Geoff Ogilvy in the 36-hole final of the WGC Match Play in Arizona on Sunday. Stenson beat South Africa’s Trevor Immelman 3&2, while Australia’s Ogilvy also downed American Chad Campbell 3&2.

Stenson took the lead at the first and was never headed, alternating between two and three up from the fourth hole.

US Open champion Ogilvy was one down after seven but took the decisive lead on the 9th before winning on the 16th.

Immelman and Campbell will fight it out over 18 holes for third place on Sunday.

“I’m knackered now, playing two rounds today. It was nice not to have to go all the way to the end in this one,” said Stenson, 30, who held off Ernie Els and Tiger Woods to clinch his fifth European Tour title at this month’s Dubai Desert Classic.

full story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/golf/6394069.stm

Tait, back in the country after his second season of trying to make a living as a golf professional in England, is beginning to regain his touch on the greens and just in time too, with the final qualifying tournament for New Zealand’s richest tournament on Monday, at the Manukau Golf Club.

“It’s just starting to come right now,” he said.

“The two or three months before I came home, I went through one of those patches where I was lipping out a lot, not a lot of putts were going in for me,” he said.

But five weeks of relaxing in Whangarei and doing some work with coach Quentin Diment has made its mark on his game.

At the Manukau pre-qualifying tournament 10 days ago he started to make some putts. The former New Zealand cricket representative did enough to top the field, along with North Harbour’s Steven Ha, with a two-under-par 70.

“I made a couple of really good par saves and dropped a couple of good birdie putts, enough to make me feel it’s slowly starting to get better,” he said.

The Manukau tournament is one of four national qualifying tournaments for the NZ Open, with the top players showing up at Manukau on Monday for an 18-hole shootout, with the top 10 going through to the NZ Open, which starts on Thursday.

Northland amateur Scott Wightman is also a good chance to make Gulf Harbour, after finishing top of the field at the Pupuke Golf Club pre-qualifying tournament, with a two-under 68.

Northland Maori sportsman of the year Gary-John Hill was offered direct entry into Monday’s qualifier but the event clashed with his final exams at Rotorua Boys High School and he opted out.

Tait said the competition among the 70 plus golfers who have qualified for Monday’s round will be very tough.

“I’m not really expecting too much, simply because of the lack of play I’ve had since I’ve been home but I’m beginning to hit the ball a bit better and make a few putts … so who knows?”

Tait was pleased with his overall form in England this year, apart from making too many putts in the latter part of the season. He said his second year had given him a further insight into being a professional.

“I made so many errors last year but the good thing about that, if you are looking for positives, is that you learn so much by your mistakes as a pro golfer and this year I went over with a better understanding of the circuit, and what the standard was like,” he said.

“I knew how much more work I needed to do each week and my work ethic was a hell of a lot better than it was last year.”

He played well at the beginning of the year especially, winning over 5000 in prize money – equalling his aim for the season.

“… Then I tapered off from July onwards and didn’t really earn any cheques after that.”

Tait, a renowned big hitter, has changed his approach.

“I’d be up there somewhere as far as distance is involved but my equipment now is geared toward trying to find control … and working on my accuracy and my consistency.”

Northland fans with be hoping he can bring that sort of control to his putting on Monday.
Source: northernadvocate.co.nz

Tyurin will be too busy trying to keep his balance during the one-handed swing in his bulky spacesuit. He’ll have one foot wedged in between the hand rails of a ladder on the outside of the space lab. Fortunately, he’ll be tethered, as astronauts are for all spacewalks.

And if you’re disappointed over the lack of sound, sorry … you won’t be able to get a very good view of Tyurin’s golf swing either _ at least not in real time.

The cameras aren’t in position on the Russian side of the space station, where the golf stunt will take place, although cameras on the U.S. side may be able to capture some distant images. Tyurin’s crewmate will set up a camera to record it for the golf club maker, E21 Golf, to use later.

The golf stunt is the first task for Tyurin and U.S. astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria during a six-hour spacewalk set to begin around 6 p.m. EST. Their other jobs are more like real work _ fixing a space station antenna and retrieving science experiments.

The golf stunt was supposed to take place earlier this year but was delayed, NASA officials said.

“I’ve been practicing … I think I’m in good enough shape,” Tyurin told The Associated Press last week from the space station.

E21 paid an undisclosed sum for the stunt, which company officials have said commemorates the 35th anniversary of astronaut Alan Shepard’s memorable golf swing on the moon during the Apollo 14 mission in 1971.

It follows other commercial ventures at the space station that the Russian space agency has allowed, sometimes to the chagrin of NASA, such as bringing aboard paying tourists. The cash-strapped Russians also have allowed Pizza Hut to paint its logo on a rocket and have a pizza delivered to the space station. And it once charged PepsiCo $5 million to have cosmonauts float a replica of a soda can outside the Mir space station.

NASA has taken a grin-and-bear-it attitude. The U.S. space agency is indebted to its Russian partner for flying U.S. astronauts to the space station while shuttles were grounded after the Columbia disaster.

The weight of the golf ball is 3 grams, only about 1/15th the weight of a normal golf ball. That’s to minimize any damage should it actually strike something. NASA predicts the ball will re-enter Earth’s atmosphere in three days and isn’t a threat to either the space station or the shuttle Discovery, set to launch Dec. 7.

Tyurin, a novice golfer who got training on Earth from pros, will have three golf balls for as many tries. The balls will be held in place by a spring-like tee which surrounds the ball. The tee is attached to a handrail on the outside of the space station.

If Tyurin has trouble balancing himself, Lopez-Alegria will hold him in place.

Although Tyurin is unlikely to pull a Tiger Woods and demand silence during his swing, the space station’s deputy program manager, Kirk Shireman, joked that at Mission Control, “We’ll all be talking in very hushed voices.”
Source: washingtonpost.com