Bill Pennington, in a New York Times blog post, asked an interesting question:

Why do almost all golfers look at the ball when they putt instead of looking at the hole?

If you were handed a golf ball and told to roll it into the hole, you would look at the hole, not the ball, right? Why is the act of putting any different?  Pennington wrote the usual response is that to look away would cause a mis-hit, or worse, a whiff.

But would it?

His story quotes Dana Rader, one of Golf Digest’s top 50 instructors, who runs a golf academy in Charlotte, N.C:

“About 99 percent of my students putt better looking at the hole.  I make all my students try it, and they are amazed. When you look away from the target and stand over the ball for too long, your brain actually loses its memory of how hard to hit the ball. And sometimes where to hit it, too.”

That seems to make sense.

There is a scientific explanation  for why it is more effective to look at the target…

The brain more successfully interacts with the muscles of the shoulders, arms and hands with a continuous flow of visual information (i.e., the brain knows where the hole is because you are looking at it). But the second you take your eyes off the target, the brain has to interact with the muscles based on its memory of where the hole is.

Like anything in golf, the real question is, do you have the courage to try something others aren’t doing?  One thing’s for sure, nobody can argue with results.

Putt Different.

Your thoughts?

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An impressive, runaway win at the LPGA Championship Presented by Wegmans this past weekend has garnered  Cristie Kerr of the U.S. the position of No. 1 in the world, based on the Rolex Rankings released Monday. She claimed the No. 1 spot for the first time in her career after winning her second major championship this season.

Kerr is the third player in as many weeks to hold the top position, following Jiyai Shin of South Korea and Ai Miyazato of Japan.

According to a write-up at LPGA.com, Kerr was an amateur prodigy who bypassed college to turn professional at the age of 18. She started her professional career on the Duramed FUTURES Tour in 1996 and was an LPGA rookie in 1997. A tough inaugural season sent Kerr back to the LPGA qualifying school in the fall of 1998 where she earned co-medalist honors with Se Ri Pak and exempt status for the 1998 season. It took Kerr nearly five more years to become a Rolex First-Time winner at the 2002 Longs Drugs Challenge. She next won the Takefuji Classic in 2004 and proceeded to win two more tournaments that year. Kerr has not had a season without a win since. She captured her first major championship title with a two-shot victory at the 2007 U.S. Women’s Open at Pine Needles Country Club in Pinehurst, N.C.

The Golf Channel’s Randall Mell wrote a story that talked about how,  Charlie De Lucca, the “Godfather of South Florida Golf,” watched Kerr annihilate the competition when she was growing up in Miami.  As executive director of the Dade Amateur Golf Association, he marveled at the cold, ruthless little competitor who never seemed satisfied or content as she rose to No. 1 in the national junior rankings.

By the way, Kerr had rounds of 68-66-69-66 for a total of 269.  She finished 19 under par and was 12 strokes ahead of her nearest competitor, Song-Hee Kim (281).  Ai Miyazato, who Kerr replaced at the top of the rankings, finished tied for third with a 283.

Also, Kerr broke the record for the largest winning margin in LPGA Championship history and pulled in $337,500 for her effort.

Other notables include:

T19    Michelle Wie     (72-74-73-70) 289 +1
T34    Katherine Hull (74-73-76-68) 291 +3
T42    Paula Creamer (71-72-74-75) 292 +4
T62    Juli Inkster (71-74-77-74)    296 +8

An interview with Kerr can be found here.

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There were a couple of nice write-ups about Juli Inkster in honor of her 50th birthday.
Randall Mell of the Golf Channel wrote how Inkster reminded all her peers on her 50th birthday why she’s still playing. She shot a 1-under-par 71 in the opening round of the LPGA Championship to move into contention to become the oldest winner of an LPGA event and oldest man or woman to win a major championship.  Noting that it is her 28th season on tour, and her 591st career LPGA start, Inkster still loves to compete.

A story by Golf Week beat reporter, Beth Ann Baldry included a list of the 50 reasons why Inkster is widely regarded as “the most fun and respected” players on the LPGA tour.  Some notables include:

• It was the ’08 Ginn Open and I was talking to her about how baggage costs were going up. She asked “What do you fly?” I told her economy. “That’s your problem,” she said. “Fly first class, play first class.” – Katherine Hull
• Won back-to-back LPGA Championships in 1999 and ’00.
• On Monday, she took her daughter and a friend to the Finger Lakes to go tubing and jet-skiing. She has no problem taking time away – Morgan Pressel
• She doesn’t act like she is 50 years old. She acts like she is one of us – Stacy Lewis
• She probably was one of those people – besides Nancy Lopez – who was one of my idols – Cristie Kerr

LPGA Championship Presented by Wegmans is taking place at the Locust Hill Country Club, in Pittsford, New York (near Rochester) this weekend. There is a $2.25 million purse and a first-place check of $337,500.  If Inkster can win at 50, she would surpass Beth Daniel (46) as the oldest winner of an LPGA event, Fay Crocker (45) as the oldest winner of an LPGA major and Julius Boros (48) as the oldest man or woman to win a major.

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Japan’s Ai Miyazato shot a 7-under 64 Sunday to win the ShopRite LPGA Classic.  She was 16-under for the 3-day tournament and finished ahead of M.J. Hur (-14), Inbee Park (-12) and three tied for fourth place (-11): Suzann Pettersen, Hee-Won Han and Katherine Hull.  Paula Creamer did a stellar job in her return, finishing in seventh place (-10).

This was Miyazato’s fifth win on the LPGA Tour in 2010.  The winner’s prize was $225,000, pushing Miyazato’s earnings this year to $830,238.  She has just taken over the No. 1 spot in the Rolex World Golf Rankings.

Also notable: Ai Miyazato sported the knee high socks that are a staple of Japanese fashion.

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According to the United States Golf Association  (USGA), the 2010 U.S. Open Championship set new organization records for website and mobile device engagement by golf fans.

The USOPEN.com website, developed in conjunction with technology partner IBM, featured new apps, including an interactive play tracker and an enhanced course section that allowed fans to recreate historical shots in HD on their computers.

• Overall fan visits to USOPEN.com during the week of the championship totaled 4.2 million, up 8 percent over the 2009 championship week.
• The play tracker engagement received 2.9 million downloads with more than 11 million interactions. It was the third successive year of strong traffic growth for the site.

A story at TechCrunch made special note of the mobile activity:

• The USGA’s Digital Media team recorded 1,711,156 visits to m.USOPEN.com during the championship, an increase of 518% over last year’s mobile site.
• Nearly 30 percent of traffic to the U.S. Open site was from mobile devices.

Alex Withers, the USGA’s managing director of digital media, noted, “We continued to see great engagement on the iPhone application that we launched last year, and adding live video streaming across all video-enabled mobile browsers created a huge volume of fans following the championship via mobile devices.”  He also noted how the “HD live streaming of marquee groups and feature holes (Nos. 7 and 17) across multiple interactive platforms brought fans closer than ever to the on-site excitement of a U.S. Open.”

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