Appleby "frees it up" en route to best finish of season

Stuart Appleby sent out the following message on his Twitter on the Sunday before the 2010 Verizon Heritage tournament in Harbor Town:

"Time, age, quality, coaching, competition, direction....many more. All of those but still to know how then play like a kid...swing away....Your direction, what you want.Paint the picture of how you want your game to be.To putt with confidence you need to be ok with missing putts...that's the most important thing. All good putters don't get wrapped up in missing only excited at the chance to make the next putt".

Appleby stayed true to those words all week as he "played like a kid" all the way to a t-8 finish at Harbor Town Golf Links, his best of the season so far.

Shooting rounds of 69, 67, 73 and 67, Appleby finished at 8 under par, 5 shots outside the playoff between Jim Furyk and Brian Davis, which Furyk went on to win. The 67's he shot in the 2nd and 4th rounds were his best scores of the season, one in which he has continued his struggles from last year.

Prior to this week, Appleby's best finish of the 2010 PGA Tour season was T30 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. This coming on the back of his worst season on the PGA Tour where he lost his playing privileges finishing outside the top 125 on the money list. For a man who is ranked 16th in career earnings on the PGA Tour, this was uncharted territory. In fact, he is using his one-time exemption for being ranked in the top 25 in career earnings to play on Tour this year.

For the likable Aussie's fans around the world, it has been a frustrating experience watching a player with such beautiful technique struggle this way. However even the best players in the world can sometimes get too caught up in being technically perfect and lose sight of the most important thing in golf: get the ball in the hole in the least amount of shots.

Judging from Appleby's tweets before this week, he understood the need to go back to having fun playing the game, like he did as a kid. His coach Steve Bann spoke earlier in the week about their preparation for the Verizon Heritage:

"Harbor Town is a course where even if you're in the fairway, you often have trees in your way and it just forces you to be creative with your shot making. Add to that the fact that these are some of the smallest greens you'll see on Tour all year, and you've got a course where you need all the shots....Stuart and I have been working on our 9 ball drill a lot in practice, i.e draws, fades and straight shots at low, medium and high trajectory. It really brings out your creative side and makes you visualize shots...he's had lots of fun with that".

The numbers tell the story: Appleby ranked T8 in Greens in Regulation and T19 in Putts per Greens In Regulation. That translates into lots of birdies and par saves, exactly what you need to do well at Harbor Town.

Appleby's legion of fans will be hoping this is just the spark he needed to kick off a run of strong play to get back to being a regular contender on the weekends.

Thanks to Pure Golf Blog for this article.

Choi contends, finishes T4 at Masters

South Korea’s K.J Choi has emphatically announced his return to top level form with a stellar performance in the final round of the 2010 Augusta Masters to finish T4.
Choi was tied for the lead heading into the business end of Sunday’s final round, however consecutive bogeys at the 13th and 14th holes put paid to his chances. Still, Choi has plenty to be proud of, having demonstrated that he is once again playing the kind of golf that saw him become a world top 10 ranked player earlier in his career. He has recently played his way out of a slump and his results have been very impressive already this year, having finished 2nd at the Transitions Championship and making the cut in every event he has entered.
Choi had the unique distinction of playing all 4 days at Augusta National with Tiger Woods, and contrary to many people’s expectations prior to the tournament that his game would suffer due to the distraction, Choi reveled in the spotlight and matched the world number 1 blow for blow. He might have come up a little short in his title challenge (eventually finishing 5 shots behind champion Phil Mickelson) however Choi will surely take many positives out of this week:
“I’m satisfied and it was gratifying for me this year and the fans were very supportive and just playing with Tiger for the last four days was a very good experience for me,” said Choi, who has previously won Tiger Woods’ event, the AT&T National.
The strongman from South Korea was trying to emulate the feat of his countryman Y.E Yang, who beat Woods at the PGA Championship last year to become the first Asian to win one of golf’s majors. Yang also finished inside the top 10 this year at Augusta, perhaps another sign of the growing influence of Asian golfers in the men’s game. Choi spoke about the increased belief amongst Korean and Asian players that they belong on the world stage:
“In the past … the mindset of the Asian players was that when it comes to the Masters, there was a fear factor there, that we can’t do it. Now I hope that this gives motivation for the younger players, other players, that they can do it at big tournaments like the Masters.”
His coach Steve Bann had been very pleased with the way K.J prepared for this year’s event, having spent a lot of time working on his short game and lag putting and trying to stay fresh by not playing too many practice rounds. “K.J has done a great job of balancing his practice routine to make sure his short game is sharp while his ball striking is the best I’ve seen it for quite some time” he said earlier in the week.
Choi’s game was certainly sharp for the best part of the tournament, and if he keeps playing this way it can’t be too long before he breaks through for his first major win.
Written by on April 12, 2010

Nick Flanagan IIG

Nick Flanagan came to IIG www.iofgolf.com to work with me for 2 days. Nick is preparing for the last 8 events of the Nationwide Tour. Nick has been back in Australia for 2 months recharging his batteries. He has been surfing with his dad and mates daily and as a result his physical condition and upper body strength has improved tremendously. In the picture we are working in our swing catalyst room www.swingcatalyst.com at IIG. We use this room to accurately assess weight distribution and movement, ball trajectory, speed and spin and motion analysis with the combined camera, launch monitor and force platform. We are looking forward to Nick getting back to his winning form.

Putting Technique

The most important element of technique in putting is aim. 80% of the influence of the direction of the ball is the face. What we found with Stuart Appleby's putting early this year was a tendancy to aim the face left. The putting triangle he is using to correct his aim in the photo is also used to practice reading. Stuart has placed a tee behind the hole at his aiming point. Once he makes 3 putts on the triangle he takes it away and makes 3 more from the same position using his normal routine. He then moves to another putt from a different position and starts the routine again. We have been doing this drill for 10 weeks now and his reading and aim have matched up again. More importantly Apple's has been making a lot more putts the last few tournaments. Some good results are very close.

Hee Young Park

Hee Young Park has career-best week. Second-year LPGA Tour member Hee Young Park had a career week at the Honda LPGA Thailand, despite being ill early in the week, recording a runner-up finish behind World number 1 Lorana Ochoa, at 11-under-par 277 (79-64-69-65). Park, who earned $139,852 of the $1.45 million purse on Sunday, overcame an opening-round 7-over-par 79 with a career-low 8-under-par 64 in the second round to move from a tie for 59th into a tie for 19th after 36 holes. Her third-round 3-under-par 69 moved her up to a tie for fifth entering the final round, which started off with back-to-back birdies on the second and third holes. On the par-4, 287-yard fifth hole, Park sank a 60-foot putt after driving the green. From there, she was flawless with birdies on holes eight, 15 and 16, where she made 25- and 30-foot putts, respectively, to move into second place.

Hee Young spent 3 weeks in Melbourne with me in January before returning to the US LPGA Tour. My prediction for Hee young this year is she will win on the LPGA and move into the top 10 on the money list. She is a fabulous young lady to work with and has a terrific, fun and bubbly personality.

Aussie Golf Ranch

Australian PGA professional Rohan Walker has created his dream at Philip Island which is about 90 minutes out of Melbourne. The Aussie Golf Ranch is on the foreshore at Red Rocks Philip Island. Rohan has built a 9 Hole par 3 course that requires a complete range of shots. He also has built a pitch and putt, practice putting green and short game practice area. The Aussie Golf Ranch has 1 and 2 bedroom cabins and is a great place to get away and holday at one of Australia's premier tourist destinations while enjoying a game with the whole family. For the more serious golfer, it is a great place to spend a few days to work at your game. In the picture Stuart Appleby is out playing a few holes with his 4 year old daughter Ella and me in between Christmas and New Year. Apples and his family were the first to stay at a new 2 bedroom cabin. We played holes and practiced at the short game area. When the wind blows, which it does most days on the foreshore, we used clubs ranging from 2 iron to wedge from the back tees.