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Dave Stockton’s Unconscious Scoring

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tequila4kapp

tequila4kapp

Tom Watson called to say “Hi”
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Many of us are familiar with Stockton's "Unconscious Putting," and Hawk is doing a review of Stockton’s “Own Your Own Game”. I’ve started reading "Unconscious Scoring." The premise is somewhat interesting: there are two and only two types of shots around the green - the low shot and the high shot. Stockton claims that each are technically simple, and provides instruction for how to perform them. Stockton also claims most amateurs underperform in short game because they hit an in-between shot. Stockton's view is that we can't control distance consistently on in-between shots, but we can with the low and high shots.

The best thing I’ve gotten out of the book so far is this practice technique:

Pick a spot where you think the ball should land (he’s big on visualizing the shot first and never hitting until you determine where it should land and seeing in your mind how it will roll out). Put a tee in the ground at that spot. Hit your practice shot. If you can’t hit the spot keep practicing the technique until you are more proficient. If you hit the spot but the ball doesn’t end up close to the hole we learned that we aren’t seeing the shot properly. So we move the tee and repeat, learning where the ball needs to land to get close to the hole. Stockton explains that this trains our brains how to see the shot, allowing us to manage our game and score. Personally, I thought this tip was brilliant and worth the read alone.
 
Just wrapping up unconscious putting and will be moving onto Scoring shortly. really looking forward to it.
 
I'm about halfway through this book after downloading it last week. I like how simple the approach is, and how he recommends getting rid of the "in-between" action that most amateurs have on their short shots. Being able to pick high or low will hopefully help simplify my approach around the greens.
 
It is a good, simple read jlukes. FYI - Stockton says Chapter 10 of this book (recap of UP) or UP should be read before getting into this book.
 
arydolphin said:
I'm about halfway through this book after downloading it last week. I like how simple the approach is, and how he recommends getting rid of the "in-between" action that most amateurs have on their short shots. Being able to pick high or low will hopefully help simplify my approach around the greens.
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I am very interested in your thoughts about the high shot. The technique isn't resonating with me...that whole right palm up thing seems uncomortably close to a flip, which leads to the dreaded skull shot.
 
tequila4kapp said:
I am very interested in your thoughts about the high shot. The technique isn't resonating with me...that whole right palm up thing seems uncomortably close to a flip, which leads to the dreaded skull shot.
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I'll let you know about it when I can actually hit balls again, which won't be for a few weeks. I agree with you that it seems to encourage a flip at first, but I think what he's trying to say is to release the right hand instead of leading with the left hand as in a putt or low shot.
 
Palm up doesn't mean flip your wrists. It really means open the face, thereby imparting a higher lofted angle of attack and higher launch.
 
I wanted to give this thread a bump and this book a fist pump.

There is a beauty to the simplicity of Stockton's approach: Walk up to the green. Decide "Low shot or high shot?" (90% should be low). Find a specific landing spot. Hit the shot. It clears the mind, saves us from hitting overly complex shots and gives you a very specific goal (hit that spot). Even the techniques are pretty simple. Low shot = stand tall, move the left wrist to the hole.

I have not been out playing much. I certainly haven't been practicing short game. I played 9 today and made it a practice round so I could have a bunch of different shots. Every low shot was effective, consistently getting the ball closer to the hole than normal and giving me very reasonable putts. I was really struck by the consistency with the technique, it is hard to chunk or thin the ball. If I had been practicing I probably would have had a bunch of kick-ins.

The high shot technique isn't super natural to me but started coming to me with just a little practice. I chunked the first one. The second one was a 30ish yard shot to a pin tucked behind a bunker; the ball came to rest about 10 feet from the pin. The third was off an elevated mound to a sloped green; the ball few high, landed softly and stopped about 5 feet from the hole.

Easy and effective is good stuff. Others may want to give it a try.
 
This book has saved me. Simplifying things and narrowing it down to two shots around the green is exactly what I needed. I commit to the shot type and landing spot before I address the ball and then make the swing I need (left hand for low shots and right hand for high shots.

This book also helped me realize that I was standing too far from the ball and two bent over. Those too things were causing me to hit the ground behind the ball rather than get ball first contact.

I can't even begin the number of up and downs that I've had since using these techniques on the course over the last few rounds.
 
I read both of these books this weekend (Thank you Kindle!) and took the low chipping method straight to the range. It's so easy to do that I can 'chip' a 4iron low to the 150yd flag. No wrist movement involved and flushed it every time.

I'm really hoping this transfers to the course.
 
Golf is hard enough awake , let alone unconscious .. :) . Just wanted to say that .. No disrespect
 
Mystery Meat said:
Golf is hard enough awake , let alone unconscious .. :) . Just wanted to say that .. No disrespect
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Clearly you're missing the point Stockton emphasizes then. Maybe we should overanalyze a swing and spend pages trying to defend it instead.
 
I just finished chapter six of Unconscious Putting....I LIKE IT. Just tried it out and holed three 35-40' putts from the collar, the rest were an easy two putt. From 5' was at lest at 90% holing them. I took his advice and did not practice too long. Will read some more and be at it again tomorrow.


Unconscious Scoring is in the mail.
 
Mystery Meat said:
Golf is hard enough awake , let alone unconscious .. :) . Just wanted to say that .. No disrespect
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Haha maybe Subconcious Scoring would been a better title. Now that I think about it Unconscious Scoring sounds like a date rape drug...eek!

If you guys have a Kindle these books are $16 and $17.
 
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I'm reading it now and it's a great book thus far. Its themes really appeal to me and I've seen an improvement with the putting already.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
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