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To become skilled at any shot in golf there is an equation that holds true. It is: UNDERSTANDING + EXECUTION = DESIRED RESULT. Often golfers approach a shot from just off the putting surface without clearly defining the shot they are trying to play. As a rule of thumb this shot is a chip. A chip shot is defined as: A shot from near the green that is designed to roll farther along the ground than it flies through the air. This definition is the key to the UNDERSTANDING portion of the equation. There are many different techniques that will produce this shot. However, some are more efficient than others. One of the most reliable ways to chip is to treat the shot as a “putt with a different club.” This will allow the player to take advantage of a motion that is easy to reproduce because of the limited number of moving parts. All you're trying to do is to fly the ball safely onto the nearest portion of the green and let it roll to the hole from there. This is the safest strategy and for a standard chip that landing spot should be between three to six feet onto the green, regardless of the distance from the green or the hole. Now for the EXECUTION part of the equation: 1. Ground the clubhead behind the ball with the clubface aimed appropriately . 2. From your normal iron set-up position, elevate the grip up approximately four-inches and then shift it forward approximately four-inches. This action will position the shaft more upright so that it more closely matches that of a putter shaft. At this point the clubhead will be resting on its toe. This makes it difficult for the clubhead to “dig” into the ground through impact. It will lean the shaft slightly forward as well, positioning the grip forward of the clubhead encouraging a descending blow. 3. Establish your posture with a narrow stance set slightly open to the target and set your weight slightly favoring the left foot. The club's butt end should be pointing just left of the body’s center with the ball slightly back of center in your stance. 4. The shaft's upright position will position the club's grip more in the palms. In fact, you can even use your putting grip if you prefer. This will encourage minimal wrist action. 5. To execute the chip, make a motion similar to a putting stroke. The club should be swung predominately with the shoulders. After impact the hands and wrists remain stable as the upper body rotates to a smooth finish. 6. Select the club that will match the carry-to-roll ratio that you will need to pull off the shot at hand. It will require a bit of practice to gauge exactly, but the following ratios will be fairly accurate for most golfers. Carry : Roll PW 1:1 9-iron 1:2 8-iron 1:3 7-iron 1:4 |
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TPC Wine Guy Frequently Asked Questions Why can't you drink red wine cold? You can drink red wine cold. Or at least some red wines. The important thing to remember is that temperature changes the balance of a wine. And cooling a wine will suppress its aromas and heighten your perception of those bitter tannins that leave a drying sensation in your mouth. Chill a California Cabernet and you'll just have a rather rasping, lightly flavoured disappointment. But lighter, less expensive Pinot Noirs can be wonderful, elegant and bright when chilled, as well as some of the Grenache-based wines of France like Cotes du Rhone or Spain, like Torres' Sangre de Toro. Give these just ten minutes in a refrigerator - no more - or some time in cold - but not iced - water for a refreshing, fruity red perfect for summer salads or lighter meat dishes. Why do some wines have screw tops vs. corks vs. synthetic corks?
Why does red wine have to "breathe" while white doesn't? This is maybe the most misunderstood topic in wine. Simply pulling the cork to let a wine 'breathe' does little or nothing for a wine - it only affects the top 1/8th inch in the neck. If you have a young wine and would like to let it 'open up', wine jargon for allowing more aromas to develop and the youthful tannins of a red wine soften up a little, then you can decant the wine into either a decanter or simply another bottle. Do this perhaps an hour or so before you want to enjoy it. And you can do it with reds, or fine whites. It's just that we tend to do it more with reds as these tend to be the wines that really benefit. Think of Cabernets, Malbecs, Bordeaux, good Burgundy, Australian Shiraz. But you can see similar benefits in aromatic intensity and complexity from decanting fine white Burgundy or California Chardonnay too. What is the normal shelf life for a bottle of wine once opened? Left out in a room it's maybe only a day or so. And delicate whites like Riesling will decline more quickly than oaky Chardonnays and those in turn more quickly than big, red Zinfandels or Cabernets. But what I do is preserve a wine longer by keeping it in the refrigerator. This slows down the wine's decline - red or white. Kept in the door of your refrigerator a Riesling is good for a couple of days and Zinfandel might last three or even four days. With reds just bring it out two hours before you want to drink it and let it gently return to room temperature. But no putting it in the microwave or in a pan of warm water to speed it up though. If you are a wine maker, would you rather use Cabernet grapes from the Sonoma side of Mt. Veeder (steeper slopes, volcanic soil, more sun exposure) or Cabernet grapes from the Rutherford appellation in Napa...not from a sales standpoint but from a better glass of Cab standpoint? This is one of those loaded questions that wine people debate through the night until, as the sun rises outside, they retire to bed having made no progress towards a conclusion. I'm European, so there's a part of me that would head East, to the Sonoma side. Mount Veeder and the Mayacamas mountain ridge divides Sonoma and Napa like a line of pillows down the middle of a bed. If you're on the Sonoma side you have to be above the fog line for Cabernet - any lower and the grapes won't ripen. But ever since the first Cabernets came out of Louis Martini's Monte Rosso vineyard we knew these can be stunning wines in the right conditions. Moon Mountain Vineyards and Arrowood in the middle of the valley and St Francis and Chateau St Jean to the north are all glorious and if I could make something like this I'd be delighted. But I'd maybe be tempted to work a little more with blends in the Bordeaux style like Vérité, whose La Joie (Cab and a little Merlot) is wonderful. But if you want to make big, bad blockbuster Cab, then you have to head east to the warmer slopes of Napa. And then once I'd made it, I'd want to retire. 'Value' seems the hardest word to say on this side of the mountain. Colgin Cellars, Araujo, Harlan, Mondavi, Viader - all great Cabernets when money's no object. But my pet favourites come from a little further up and down the valley. Frank Family Vineyards Cabernet from Calistoga is rarely seen outside California, but pick some up if your there, whilst Napanook - the second wine of Dominus just to the south of Oakville is much the better value, more approachable of that pair. Joe Fattorini, TPC Wine Guy |
Corks are a wonderful way of closing wines and have worked for hundreds of years. But they have a fatal flaw. Maybe one in twenty of them is tainted by the fusty, rank odour of wet cardboard, that leaves the wine inside 'corked'. The chemical that causes the odour - 2,4,6 trichloranisole - is perfectly harmless. But really stinky. One teaspoon is sufficient to ruin every bottle of wine produced in California in a year. Screwcaps and synthetic corks were developed to overcome the problem of 'cork taint', and have really taken off. Think of the very finest Australian and New Zealand aromatic white wines like Sauvignon Blanc. These are particularly susceptible to cork taint and are almost universally packaged with a screw cap, leaving them fresher, brighter and ultimately better to drink. Top producers in Chablis, the Barossa Valley and even Bordeaux are now using screw tops for their very finest wines, so it's no longer just for cheap, jug wine. Synthetic corks are useful for mid to lower priced wines for immediate consumption but there are problems in aging wines for a long time as they tend to allow in oxygen to the wine. In the end the 'best' closure depends on the wine though, and if wine experts are honest, they'll tell you that we still don't know all the answers on this.