Articles | Wayne DeFrancesco

Doomed to Chop

Stan and I go way back, back to his start in the game (alas, I am partially responsible), back to his ex-wives and ex-girlfriends who have not survived his desperate search for mediocrity. Thinking of Stan’s golf game already has me unconsciously removing my cap and rubbing my forehead, something I am prone to do often in our hour of…what should I call it? Education? Instruction? Futility? No apt words of description come to me.

10 Questions From Stan

By Wayne | Articles: Lessons with Stan

My first thought for a title to this article was “10 Dumb Questions From Stan”, but as I thought about it I realized that when it comes to golf there really aren’t any “dumb” questions, mainly because the subject matter is so innately counter-intuitive.

PRACTICE AND PLAY: What’s The Difference?

By Wayne | Articles: Becoming a Better Player

Each of our golf swings function as a unit, a whole item built around practiced and somewhat grooved feel that requires a minimum of thought. The swing you use when you think the least can be termed your “natural swing’. In almost every case (unless you’ve won a couple of U.S. Opens) the natural swing is one the golfer would like to improve.

The Treacherous Art of Putting (part 1)

By Wayne | Articles: The Golf Swing, Short Game and Putting

Who among us has never missed a 2 foot putt? I’ve certainly misfired on more than a few in my career, as has every player I’ve ever known. That distance, 2 feet, is microscopic when compared to the distance traveled to get to that point, and yet it is one of the strange attributes of the game of golf that the traversing of that final 2 feet is valued exactly the same as the 280 yard drive that opened the journey to the cup.

The Treacherous Art of Putting (part 2)

By Wayne | Articles: The Golf Swing, Short Game and Putting

The final bit of information which would bring me to my present state of affairs was my 3 hour session with Scotty Cameron in his putting studio in California. The Titleist people were kind enough in the early spring of 2001 to have me out to test their clubs and to visit with their resident putting genius. Scotty began by testing the putter I was using at the time, still the Odyssey mallet, measuring the length, loft (to a tenth of a degree), weight, and shaft flex. He then had me hit some putts while filming me with high tech…

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How to Make a Putt

By Wayne | Articles: The Golf Swing, Short Game and Putting

The idea behind this clinic is to give you a complete picture of the best way to walk onto a putting green and make the putt you are facing. What exactly should be going on in your mind, and what preparations should you have already made to ensure that you will make your best effort to knock in that putt and save yourself one, two, or three strokes off of your eventual 18 hole score.

Dreaming of the Highest Level (part 2)

By Wayne | Articles: Playing Tournament Golf

It is a wonderful thing for a non-exempt player to earn a berth in a PGA Tour event. It could easily be the most exciting week of that player’s life up to that point. It is no wonder that very few of the players who make a Monday qualifier ever make the cut in the actual tournament, for it is a bit overwhelming if you’ve never been there before. Some take the lack of success of Monday qualifiers as evidence that they do not deserve to be in the field, but trust me when I say that you have to…

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Dreaming of the Highest Level (part 1)

By Wayne | Articles: Playing Tournament Golf

If you’re familiar with my WGM columns over the last 8 years you might recall a few that dealt directly with what is now the hottest topic in golf, that of women playing in men’s tournaments.

5 DAYS ON THE TOUR: An Insider’s Look at The Kemper Open (part 1)

By Wayne | Articles: Playing Tournament Golf

I am a golf instructor. Four years ago, on the 18th hole at Bear Lakes Golf Club in Palm Beach, Florida, on the 72nd hole of the second stage of the PGA Tour Qualifying School, I finally gave up my dream of making a living playing on the PGA Tour. All I needed was a par 4, and I was in the final qualifier. I drove the ball straight down the middle on the water-guarded final hole…

5 DAYS ON THE TOUR: An Insider’s Look at The Kemper Open (part 2)

By Wayne | Articles: Playing Tournament Golf

Russ Cochran invites me to sit for lunch, and I ask him how he’s been playing. It turns out that he’s won $200,000 so far this year, but has not played well in recent weeks. I ask him whether or not he likes to take time off when he’s playing poorly, or if he would rather play his way through it…

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