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- As the season winds down...
As the season winds down...
... Finding the Tips goes monthly
Mark Tessier
October 25, 2024
This edition of Finding the Tips is the 52nd version of the newsletter. For 52 consecutive weeks, Finding the Tips has been delivering instruction, tips and drills from the crème de la crème of the YouTube golf community.
It’s been my pleasure to bring that information to you and I hope some of it was beneficial to your golf game in the last year.
But as we move deeper into the fall and the inevitable winter, I’m reminded of a quote:
“Each new season grows from the leftovers of the past. That is the essence of change, and change is the essence of life.”
For the past few months, I have been trying to find more time to work on a new project. To enable that work, this newsletter will be published on the last Friday of every month, rather than weekly. That schedule begins immediately and will continue through the month of April 2025.
I will change my focus to include not only Finding the Tips, but also writing the saga that was my maternal great-grandfather’s immigration to Canada from Ireland.
My mother told me stories of how her 10-year-old grandfather, Martin, and his younger sister escaped the Irish Potato Famine in 1850. Along with their parents, they boarded one of the aptly named “coffin ships” that set sail from Ireland to the New World.
The Atlantic crossing took six to 12 weeks, depending on winds and seas. As many as 400 passengers were crammed into the sailing vessels, as the ship owners aimed to maximize profit. Food and fresh water were in short supply. Sanitation facilities were abysmal, and medical care was virtually non-existent.
We now know that the passenger mortality rate on those ships was 20-30 per cent.
Martin’s parents both died while at sea, either from dysentery or typhoid.
On arrival and following quarantine, his sister was “adopted” by a middle-class couple from Chicago who already had children and wanted her to act as a nanny.
A farmer from what is now known as South River, Ontario took in Martin to be little more than slave labour.
As the authorities physically pulled the screaming siblings apart, the 10-year-old brother promised his eight-year-old sister that he would find her, and they would be reunited.
Orphaned, alone, and not even a teenager, Martin somehow grew up to become a successful farmer, landowner, businessman and community leader.
Most importantly, he kept his promise to his sister, even though it took him more than 40 years to accumulate the resources necessary to task the fabled Pinkerton Detective Agency with the job of reuniting them.
Along the way, the family grew, prospered, celebrated, suffered setbacks, recovered, rejoiced and mourned. But above all else, they survived. And the story continues to this day.
I’m not sure when or how these stories will be published, but I’ll keep you informed as that becomes clearer.
Thank you for your understanding and I hope you’ll continue to read and enjoy Finding the Tips.
In this issue
Two putting sweet spots?
Swing speed - Tour-fast hands hit it farther, straighter
Full swing – Control back swing length
Strategy – Laying up is a bad idea?
Two putting sweet spots?
Master teaching professional Pete Cowen tells us that there are two sweet spots on our putters.
Who knew?
The horizontal sweet spot is usually marked on the top of the putter so you can see it when you address the ball.
The vertical sweet spot is at the point where the putter face meets the back of the ball, ideally a little more than three-quarters of an inch above the ground.
For this reason, Pete wants your putter to strike the ball with a rising putter stroke. This will help ensure the best possible contact and the truest roll of the ball on the green.
Steven Rosie offers us a drill to engrain that upward angle of attack with the putter. All you need is a pencil. Place it directly behind the ball, perpendicular to the putting line and as close to the ball as you can put it. Then make your putting stroke without hitting the pencil.
When you do this, and you hit both the horizontal and vertical sweet spots with your putter, you’ll feel it. The sound and feel of the contact and the quality of the roll of the ball that results will be eye-opening.
Once you’re able to find both the horizontal and vertical sweet spots with your putter, you will have greater control over distance, and you will see the ball rolling more directly at the hole.
Swing speed - Tour-fast hands hit it farther, straighter
Full swing – Control back swing length
Channel - https://www.youtube.com/@CoachLockey
Strategy – Laying up is a bad idea?
Channel - https://www.youtube.com/@wickedsmartgolf
Video - https://youtu.be/4ET0xiBoxK4
