They have lived for so long with the Tiger and Phil show that they have come to believe they have a Divine right to straddle the summit of the game. over there, you are either a Tiger guy or a Phil man, not a Lee lover.

It is not that Westwood is disliked, far from it. Even if they do not, as a rule, get his bone-dry northern humour, the Americans admire his laser-defined driving and his gentlemanly on-course demeanour.

It is just that Woods and Mickelson have 18 Majors between them, so they must be better

While the fall has become a place for the less-heralded players to frolic and secure their status, especially in the States, two very recognizable global names have used the month to launch comebacks. CBSSports.com senior writer Steve Elling and Augusta Chronicle golf writer and columnist Scott Michaux take the measure of those men and eyeball the golf landscape.

Star-crossed Sergio Garcia is set to return to competitive golf this week on the European Tour after taking a two-month break to decompress. Do you think he will ever again be an elite player?

ELLING: That’s a delicate question relating to a very fragile psyche. I ran into Garcia several times at the Ryder Cup, where he served as a vice-captain and was clearly enjoying being back among the boys. at one point, he walked onto a green and tried several times to pluck a stray nose hair from the nostril of Billy Foster, Lee Westwood’s caddie and Garcia’s former bagman, only to fail in his first few attempts. The laughter and camaraderie among the players as Foster’s eyes teared up was priceless. Garcia even carried Westwood’s bag in practice for a while. If Garcia can likewise laugh at the caprices of the game, he has a chance to climb back into serious relevancy. after all, at the beginning of 2009, he was No. 2 in the world and within striking range of unseating Tiger Woods as top dog. Then a series of personal events, including a breakup with longtime girlfriend Morgan-Leigh Norman, daughter of the great White Shark, left him listless and lacking his typical feistiness. The daughter of Sharky took a bite out of Garcia, to be sure. I hope to heck the guy gets his inner fire back. He’s actually morphed from being an occasional brat into one of the more personable and interesting guys in the global game. I have whacked the guy in print for his antics over the years, and deservedly, but I am pulling for him. Hard.

MICHAUX: I not only believe that Garcia will get his game back, I believe he will win that oh-so-elusive major. Garcia simply has too much talent not to be one of the best players in the world again. And he’s still practically a “young gun.” If you think his career is washed up because of a sour spell, you haven’t been paying attention. all Sergio needed to do for inspiration at the Ryder Cup was go out and watch the No. 1 singles match pitting Lee Westwood and Steve Stricker. those guys are the combined poster set for the fallen who can get up. Not so long ago, Westwood and Stricker disappeared from relevance and tumbled down the world rankings to the edge of oblivion. now they are two of the best four players in the world who have been jockeying for that No. 1 tag much of the season (and Westwood will soon get it). Garcia did what he needed to do — step back from the game for a bit to settle his mind. going to the Ryder Cup and seeing the game again for the fun that it offers did him a world of good and surely rekindled his hunger. he will be a major player and a major thorn in the side of Americans at the Ryder Cup for years to come. If he needs comeback advice, he can always go talk to Jose Maria Olazabal as well for a copy of the map from hell and back. they are paired together this week in Spain.

Three-time major winner Padraig Harrington last weekend won his first tournament in 26 months, on the Asian Tour. how much stock, or stick, should he be given for the victory?

ELLING: First things first. Harrington is one of my two favorite players on tour, along with Stewart Cink. But did you see the names of the players in the field? No knock on the Asian Tour, but the Nationwide circuit has more depth. The only identifiable players for anybody but the most ardent fans were Retief Goosen and Colin Montgomerie, two guys who haven’t won in a year or more. Has Paddy turned it around? Only slightly. Harrington’s play as a captain’s pick for the Ryder Cup was defended by Monty, the European captain, but his performance was hardly stellar. he finished 2-2-0 but was dragged to one victory by partner Ross Fisher. In the three matches where Harrington’s individual card was tallied, he had a total of four birdies for the week and at one point was 5-down in his singles outing. Harrington’s season isn’t as bad as some have suggested, since he’s posted eight top 10s worldwide in 2010, but it’s hard to recall him being in the Sunday mix anywhere before last weekend, regardless of the depth of the field. Harrington is roundly considered the best interview in golf, and is an insightful deep-thinker whose opinions are good as gold. But his busy brain works against him sometimes. maybe it’s time he stopped messing with his swing and reverted back to something akin to the pass that made him a three-time major winner in a two-year stretch. how fast can things change in this game? A mere 26 months ago, Harrington outdueled Garcia to win the 2008 PGA Championship.

MICHAUX: Wow, all this talk about fall comebacks and we’re not even mentioning Rocco Mediate. Oops, guess I did. as for Harrington, it’s not like he’s completely lost his game. He’s just temporarily misplaced it. The constant tinkerer will do that from time to time. But Europe’s invisible man at the Ryder Cup reappeared in Asia. Who cares if it was against a no-name cast? Winning is the thing and will breed confidence. Sometimes a guy has to go back to the minor leagues to find himself. Check out Texas Rangers ace Cliff Lee. The guy goes down to Triple A a couple years ago with a sour attitude and comes back as the baddest pitcher in postseason history. maybe all Harrington needed was a little positive reinforcement. there are some big events coming up in Asia over the next month, and this might be the stretch that relaunches the old Paddy power we came to know and love in recent years. Let’s hope so, because he’s too talented and too interesting to fade away prematurely. as for Rocco, that incredible win this week got him a tour card that will carry all the way to the senior tour. That’s another entertaining voice who will be long welcome on tour.

The women’s game currently features five players who are separated by .54 points in the Rolex world rankings, meaning that the No. 1 spot has been a true hot seat, with revolving butts in the chair. does that make the LPGA more interesting?

ELLING: all season, being totally gullible, I produced a slew of stories about the possibility of Phil Mickelson unseating Tiger Woods as world No. 1, a position Lefty has never held. he never made the climb. But in LPGA circles, that story line just doesn’t play out as well, because the faces and talents levels are so interchangeable and far less identifiable, at least at the moment. Players from five nations — Cristie Kerr, Ai Miyazato, Jiyai Shin, Yani Tseng and Suzann Pettersen — are so close in ability, a win by either is usually enough to take over the top spot. That’s terrific news from a competitive sense in that the tour has so many good players, but it isn’t such a marketable angle if few fans know who the players are to begin with. With former No. 1s Annika Sorenstam and Lorena Ochoa, fans knew who to root for (or against) from week to week because those two owned the charts like Elvis and the Beatles. as with the Yankees, Lakers, Cowboys, Woods or Ali, it’s often good for a sport to have a dominant player or franchise, if for no other reason than to spur a certain rooting interest, pro or con. Musical chairs atop the women’s world rankings underscore how much the joint retirement of Sorenstam and Ochoa has left some wanting. Don’t like the reigning No. 1? Wait a week and it’ll probably change.

MICHAUX: never in the history of sports has so much attention been paid to something so completely meaningless as the No. 1 ranking in golf. What does it get you, really? A top seed in the WGC match play? Whoop-dee-doo! that and a box of chocolates will get you a box of chocolates. It is nothing but a fabricated title that is good for the ego and little else. And as meaningless as it is as a topical diversion in the men’s game when no player can emphatically seize the status away from Tiger, it is both meaningless and uninteresting in the women’s side at the moment. The only thing the No. 1 rank is useful for is giving definition to a clearly dominant figure. When Tiger Woods was No. 1, he was most definitely No. 1. Same for Greg Norman in his day. Same for Annika, who we called No. 1 before there ever was a women’s world ranking. When Lorena owned it, we believed it. Having a top ranking passed about week to week like a game of musical chairs illustrates that there is no No. 1 in women’s golf. Just a bunch of good players with equal talents. Eventually somebody will separate from the pack and stake a claim as the next Annika or Lorena. But unless that player has a personality to match, it won’t be the shoulders needed to carry women’s golf back into the limelight. Paging Michelle Wie.

Shotgun Start: Break might restore fun, relevance to Sergio’s game

How does the effective golf swing of an expert player and tournament winner differ from that of a novice? The swing consists of five phases namely Setup, back swing, Transition, Down swing and Follow through. Professional golfers have a consistent, repeatable and accurate swing sequence. To achieve a perfect golf swing, practice and perfect the correct sequence.

The 5 factors that influence the flight and destination of the ball are definitely club face alignment, the swing plane, the angle of attack, the club head speed and lastly, hitting the sweet spot. Good drills are an absolute must. The best golf swing is an easy and fluid athletic motion with the maximum economy of movement.

Without a doubt this needs a little amount of technique. it is useful to remember that the 14.25-ounce club builds up a dynamic weight of nearly 100 pounds during the 1.5 seconds of the motion. The iron has to be swung at a speed of approximately 90 miles per hour and an arc of about 18 feet for the desired result.

The power in a golf swing depends on the core strength and endurance of the player. The strength of the player comes in to play in his/her stroke.

This is when the back muscles of the golfer come into play. Strong back muscles in the trunk region or the “core” area of the body not only create stability but help to make the immerse power necessary to launch the golf ball. Therefore strong back muscles are vital for the golfer.

In addition, a good player needs to have good muscle strength as well as strong ligaments and tendons as they produce balance and coordination and play a crucial role in critical junctures of the tournament. Core conditioning is therefore extremely vital for a golf player since all motions within the total body stem from the strength inside this area a weak core will inevitably lead to weaknesses in the golf swing. following a good exercise program and keeping your body in great shape together with flawless method will soon see you scale brand new heights on the course.

How To Improve Your Golf Swing

and distance every else and i've heard its because i cant keep my lower body still so my hips and legs move around a lot which causes me to lose my coil (power). does anyone have any drills or anything i can do to maintain stillness in my lower body throughout the golf swing? or any tips?

Did you lose weight? I went through that and it's awkward to be lighter because your body doesn't stay or move how it used to. I lost about 25 lbs. between age 15 and 17 and it does affect your power because the lower body is not stabilized by the weight anymore. The only thing to help is to do lower-body strength exercises to aid bracing during drives and to work towards a slower tempo until you are back to peak. Hope this helps.

practice teeing your ball with a random coloured tee. I do this by having about 5 colours in my pocket. then without looking a just put my hand in and grab a tee and tee the ball up.

The objection? To see what colour the tee is!!

By concentrating on the tee you will automatically keep your whole body a lot quieter which in turn will keep those pesky legs still!!

Hope this helps!

Try the Stack and Tilt…keep the weight on your front foot(60-40), rotate around your spine and keep your head still and make sure you don't release too early.

Im 17 years old and a 5 handicap. i've lost about 30yds of distance off the tee over the last year?

a golf pro.. just get lessons

to me, it looks as if the David Leadbetter swing setter is more useful for better golfers, as it has to do more with plane/tempo

the medicus seems it is for a higher handicap needing to learn the basics of the golf swing.

Which Golf aid is better The medicus Power Max, or the David Ledbetter Swing setter Value and Quality?

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No matter what iron i'm using, I can't seem to go further than 100 yards, Even with my driver I'm not going that far – 150 max. What am I doing wrong? I'm generating power from swinging with my torso rather than using my forearms. I have an interlocked grip with the little fingers. Feet shoulderwith apart with knees mildly bent and a more profound bend in my left are with my swing. I hate seeing people who can hit far and I can't…

Are you either, 10 years old, disabled, or a woman. If you are any of these, you have nothing ot worry about, this is normal.
If you happen to be an average sized male, then give up, you are not made for sport.

Try taking your driver and making a swing that's elastic in feel and has some slack make a swing the only goes 3/4 but again elastic imagine a hockey shot or something of that nature, What is you build male female how old are you i can hit a 7 iron 100 yards with one arm! Try what i said before a driver should go 190 yards with no effort regardless of power or much skill it will take some practice though.

Try this and tell me if it worked:

1. Keep your eye on the ball, don't look away even after you swing, your body will pull your eyes off the ball.

2. CUT THE POWER. Make sure you are swinging at the ball and not hitting it, feel the weight of the club and swing.

make sure you get a lot of extension in your swing, and make sure you get the club far back enough. i'm only 14, but i can still hit the ball 260-280 most of the time on my drives, and the number one thing i see when people older than me don't drive very far is because they're not generating enough force in their backswing. all about the backswing. make sure you keep you're left arm straight if you're a righty. once that arm is to the point to where you must bend it, use your wrists to keep that arm straight. the rest is pure muscle, which i don't have, but because of my technique i can hit the ball decently far.
hope that helps!

i would say use the driver and aim the club up instead of straight at the ball. it should go higher and further.

Odds are you are not using your arms correctly in your swing. If you keep your left are fairly straight during your swing, you should generate enough power with your torso. When you let your arms go limp, then you lose most of the power that you coil up with your body.

My other advice is to go for a smooth swing, I am 6'1" 155lbs but I can hit 315 yrds because I swing through the ball and not at it.

Just keep trying and don't worry about results immediately, it will take some time. Good luck!

A local good golfer told me something once that clicked. I was doing the same thing . Better distance happenswhen you allow your wrists to "unhinge" after contact with the ball. meaning the point in your down swing where your right wrist takes over and releases its fury onto the golf ball . I was unhinging my wrists early so they had already released before impact with the ball . Go outside and slowly bring the club down like real time slow motion and you'll notice real quick when your wrists break down . you want to hold the cock as long as humanly possible . Even if you are unable to hold them hinged through impact every nano second longer you can keep them "******" equals more distance from each shot .
Butch Harmon did a small tutorial on this for golf digest a few months back . Preset your wrist hinge before the back swing and the only thought during the swing is " dont' let go of the wrists" try it today I'd love to hear if this is helpful . I went from poor ball flights and no distance to better ball flights and good distance . My Pitching wedge is 130 yards . And it goes up from there . now if I could eliminate the hook at the end of it i would reaquaint with my dear freind – "mr. green in regulation"

What am i doing wrong with my golf swing?

Motocross bike are tough and fast bikes specially designed for high performance and fast speeds. they are flashy and fun and their riders put them through some serious maneuvers. Speeding through race courses and spinning around turns. Going down inclines and flying over hills. all that action can really pound on motocross clutches, and without the clutch there can be no action at all!

The clutch holds the key to your motocross bike’s performance. You may be an ace as a motocross player but if your clutch is not doing its part, you may find your engine difficult to control. Here are some tips for an excellent clutch.

If you are using those Factory Clutch Springs take those off and replace them with stiffer clutch. Maximum performance parts are not used by bike factories when they assemble the clutch. High performance parts usually cost more money than those being used by factories. Don’t forget that you still have change every spring. usually two or three will do but you can experiment on what works for you.

Do not neglect your transmission oil. Cars and trucks are different as you only need to change the oil once a year only. Every two or three races your oil must be replaced. Changing the oil may sound too much for you, but it is cheaper than a transmission overhaul. Remember that the crud that you pick up on the track accumulates and will put early stress on your clutch plates.

Always carry extra shims for emergencies. Who knows, you may need these things. it might happen in the middle of a race and you won’t be able to remedy the situation. Just insert the right washer under the bolt. the added thickness will preload your springs and remove that spongy feeling in your clutch.

Top off your transmission to the proper level with Automatic Transmission Fluid, that is, if it is GM compatible. but don’t use a Ford type fluid. the difference between the two is GM fluid grips better than a Ford fluid which is slick as molasses.

Using a factory-installed aluminum clutch plates should be avoided. These are not tough enough for extended motocross use so only use these plates for regular use. Steel plates are heavier but more durable and can hold up better than factory-installed aluminum clutch plates. there are two drawbacks for aluminum plates. first, the can wear off faster compared to steel and they leave a metallic residue in the oil which can also affect the mechanical parts. two, aluminum warps easily when subjected to extreme heat generated in motocross.

Aging plates build up a glaze layer on the surface making them slip more noticeably. When this slippage is noticed, take out your fiber clutch plates and sand the surface to remove the slippery glaze. After you do the cleaning, reinstall it.

Make sure your clutch lever isn’t set too tight. Adjust it so that a quarter can slide between the lever perch and the lever without catching the clutch cable.

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Clutch Power – Tips To Have One

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More Power for Ladies and Juniors

This week, the PGA Tour is idle for the first time since January. Off, dark, in a holding pattern. None of which means there are no compelling issues to examine as the FedEx Cup finale approaches in Atlanta, followed by the red-eye flight of 12 Yanks to Wales for the Ryder Cup once the Tour Championship ends. CBSSports.com Senior Writer Steve Elling and Augusta Chronicle columnist and golf writer Scott Michaux attempt to bridge the gap in the schedule between hither and yon.

Bounced from the FedEx series, defending cup champion Tiger Woods has played his last official stroke in PGA Tour competition this season. Identify one positive and one negative he has going for him, or working against him, as he heads into the Ryder Cup and a few overseas or unofficial events before 2011 begins.

ELLING: No doubt, the best decision Woods made was to commit to changing his coach, implementing the resulting swing revisions, and doing it now. he just completed his first winless PGA Tour season and waiting until December to begin making adjustments would have made the lag time even longer. It’s a lost season. Why ruin 2011, too, by waiting around to make tweaks? every time Woods has switched coaches and changed his swing, it’s taken a year for the results to take serious root. Some think he switched to a new coach, Sean Foley, mostly to buy himself more time to put the disastrous personal issues aside, but I think he and the Canadian coach will make a nice pair. Foley is brighter than Woods, speaks his mind, and for a relative newcomer to the guru trade, has lots of ideas. as for the most ominous thing hanging over Woods’ head as he moves toward the fall and winter, it’s got to be his putting. it bears little resemblance to his deadly stroke of old — and we mean in 2008-09, not 2000. the full swing aside, it’s the shortest stroke in golf that poses the biggest hurdle to his comeback.

MICHAUX: the most positive thing for Woods is that by next January he will have settled into his new single life and can proceed without that dark cloud hanging over him. It’s impossible to really know just how much all of the personal stress in his life took a toll on his game this year, but we can assume that it was pretty immense. the guy is human after all, even though we tended to believe he had superhuman powers. he just needs to flush all the negativity of the last 10 months from his system and reboot. an offseason of working on his game away from public scrutiny should do wonders for his 2011 outlook. as for the negative, the biggest thing working against his lifetime goals is time. He’ll be 35 when next season rolls around, and even for him that’s on the downward side when you’re trying to accumulate five more major wins to top Nicklaus and nearly 30 more tour victories to break 100. the even bigger problem is that the field of potential major winners has greatly expanded in the last couple of years, as we see so many more breakthroughs. Guys like Dustin Johnson and Rory McIlroy and a host of other guys are going to be factors that he simply hasn’t had to deal with in the first 12 years when he was the dominant force. they don’t have that Tiger-induced scar tissue that his peers have struggled with and it’s never going to be the same lopsided odds he once enjoyed. That’s not saying he won’t do everything he set out to do, it’s just going to be much harder than any of us used to think.

There’s no PGA Tour event being contested this week. Pretend you are a foot shorter, 20 times richer and are the commissioner, Tim Finchem. Where’s the best spot in the calendar for the current dark week on the schedule and why?

ELLING: last week, when even the level-headed players were going ballistic over things like the state of the Cog Hill course, Steve Stricker noted that he hasn’t seen many smiles lately. Some top players had teed up at Firestone, the PGA and three straight FedEx Cup events — that’s five starts in six weeks — and were feeling downright grumpy. the thinking this year was that taking a break before the FedEx finale and Ryder Cup would give the 12 players on the U.S. team some time to decompress. it also didn’t hurt in the tour’s mind to use the off week to build some suspense for the FedEx finale, the Tour Championship next week in Atlanta, either. with the Presidents Cup moved back later in the schedule next fall, it will be interesting to see if the tour re-jiggers the off week and instead places it before the BMW Championship, which gets hurt by its calendar proximity to the Boston event. the Deutsche Bank event on a Monday night and the BMW pro-am starts about 36 hours later. Personally, I wish the season didn’t start until February, or that off weeks were used three or four times over the course of a 10-month season, especially after major championships, when tournaments slotted in those weeks have little chance of landing many top players. But that’s my little private Utopia. I sure wouldn’t mind if the FedEx Series consisted of three tournaments, not four.

MICHAUX: I’ll be honest, I don’t really care if there ever is a “dark” week. Obviously they need to build in some off weeks into this playoff thingy to make it manageable, but that doesn’t mean there needs to be a vacancy on the schedule. take one of those Fall Series events and fill the void on the schedule. A significant portion of the membership endures a forced extended layoff — the players who don’t qualify for the five-week-long FedEx Series — so instead of making them suffer through a dark month they ought to get them back into action as soon as possible. In fact, they should start that Fall Series as soon they start trimming fields in the playoffs. Run them opposite and end the season at one universal time. Those events are already deeply discounted and shown only on the Golf Channel. Stop pretending that anyone is paying attention in the middle of football season and get it over with so that everybody can have the same extended offseason that affords them opportunities to take a break or play overseas if the muse strikes. Those top-30 and top-70 guys aren’t playing in those fall events anyway, so create a finite timetable for the golf season that ends with the Ryder and Presidents Cups.

You both personally witnessed his triumphs or tragedies on the golf course this summer. What’s the short-term future of Dustin Johnson?

ELLING: Short-term? might be the only time “short” and the ball-belting Johnson are linked in the same sentence. There’s not much doubt that he has as much upside as anybody in the game, and at age 26, it’s downright exciting to see a guy blossom — or, alternately, wilt — right in front of our eyes. he is hardly a finished product, though he sure played like one Sunday to ice the BMW Championship. While everybody was raving about the clutch drives he delivered down the stretch to win, the most important shot in crunch time was the 94-yard wedge shot he hit from the 17th fairway. he entered the week ranked an embarrassing 188th on tour from between 75-100 yards based on the final proximity of the ball to the flag and stiffed it to 30 inches for what ultimately proved to be the title-clinching birdie. he and new swing coach Butch Harmon have been emphasizing his finesse shots, because like many younger players, it’s not particularly an asset at this point. Strength is his strength, if you will. It’s amazing how Johnson has gone from a player not always mentioned in the Young Guns discussion to being at the fore of the pack, all in eight months. like with Rory McIlroy, there’s plenty more to come. Guess the Brits won’t be calling him “Dustbin” Johnson for long.

MICHAUX: what do you consider “short-term?” Is next April short enough? right now I will state that Dustin is one of the top five favorites to win the 2011 Masters. He’s made two straight cuts at Augusta and is just starting to get a feel for the course after three starts. with his combination of power and touch, he is made to be a green-jacket contender. with the confidence he’s gained from posting four top-14 finishes in his last five major starts, Johnson is just now establishing himself as a legitimate force to be reckoned with. he has a gift for being able to avoid getting scarred by disappointment, which is a trait that would serve any golfer well. Jack and Tiger certainly had that going for them. Phil has shown the ability to rise off the mat from repeated setbacks. Given Johnson’s resume of success going back to his amateur days as a Walker Cupper, you have to wonder why anyone discounted his prospects in the first place. his long-term prognosis should be considered limitless as well. before this summer most fans and media tended to believe Johnson lacked charisma. But he has changed that perception with his ability to handle potentially crushing setbacks gracefully and move forward successfully. He’s got the look with those long sideburns and lumbering gait. But the thing people should admire most is the way he plays the game fast and fearlessly. I wish there were a hundred more guys like him.

Shotgun Start: Tiger re-boot? Dead-week fix? Dustin’s case?