First I line up my ball (I mark straight lines on all my balls to make the process easier) on the path consistent with my reading of the green. Next I concentrate on placing my hands on the putter — the markings on my putter grip enable me to do this exactly the same way every time. I now build my stance @12 inches away from the ball, with my feet 6 inches apart (about 1 & a half the length of my putter head), and with the ball position directly under my left eye.  I place the putter behind the ball, look at my target, look back at the ball, and then within one second start my stroke. I start my stroke by concentrating on moving the putter head back with my left arm and moving the putter head forward with my right arm. This whole process takes me between 15 to 20 seconds.

My putting process is a sequence of steps that I perform in the same order every time. I never have to think of more than one at a time, with each step naturally leading to the next. Concentrating on the sequence of steps breeds consistency & builds a putting motion that you can repeat time after time.

A huge bonus to concentrating on the putting sequence occurs under pressure — when you have that 4 foot putt to break 90 for the first time or to close out a match.  Rather than battling crunch time thoughts about how important the putt is, you will be actively engaging your mind in going through your sequence.

Let me repeat a thought from my last post.  The best place to build a repeatable putting stroke is away from the golf course, away from all the distractions of the slope & grain of the green, lag putting, the wind, etc.  Your living room rug provides you with the perfect consistency needed for you to groove a repeatable putting stroke. And you never have to worry about the weather either.

Lee Triplett ***
The Frugal Golfer

Golfers who regularly shoot over 100 typically take more than 40 putts per round. Golfers shooting in the 90s average about 37 putts per round. Golfers in the 80s, about 34 putts per round, and golfers shooting in the 70s, about 31 putts per round. The pros average about 29 putts per round.  The lesson is clear — improve your putting and watch your handicap go down.

Most of the game requires a high level of coordination, strength, & athletic ability to play at the highest level — but not putting. Compared to the full swing, there is very little motion that goes into putting, which is exactly why most of us have the capability of becoming excellent putters.  We just need to learn how!

Judging slope, reading the grain of the greens, learning how to lag putt, etc. are all important to putting, and are best learned on an actual green. However, none of these skills will do you much good if you do not have a repeatable putting stroke — the foundation of all golfers who putt well.  Even if you have a putting stroke that is flawed with the grip, stance, or how you maneuver the club, the ball will still travel basically the same path every time when your stroke is repeatable! Once you are confident that your ball will follow the path you want, getting it to the hole becomes a much more reliable process.

So how do you go about building a repeatable putting stroke? We’ll talk about that in my next post.  But I can tell you where right now — it’s not on the golf course or the putting green –  it’s on your living room rug or a piece of indoor/outdoor carpeting in your basement.  And when? When there’s snow on the ground or you’re waiting for your laundry to dry or watching tv or in the middle of the night when you can’t sleep, in other words — whenever!

Lee ***

The Frugal Golfer

Those of you who have visited this site before will notice a total makeover in style and format. But don’t let that confuse you.  All the content of the site has been retained — it has just been reorganized to be more user friendly.

In the last couple of years Frugal Golfer has grown in both content & traffic. Exploring different ways to maximize your golf dollar and then publishing them for you has been exciting and rewarding for me.  However, I felt that the website needed to be more dynamic. My experience and research have only started the journey to becoming a frugal golfer. Your experiences, your feedback, your input will help to accelerate that process!

I plan to post entries on Frugal Golf fairly frequently. Some will be new and some will be updating information from my previous pages. I invite your comments and ideas responding to the post and/or some other related subject.  The more input I get from you guys (and gals), the more useful Frugal Golfer will be for everyone. Give me some ideas and let me run with them!

Lee ***
The Frugal Golfer

Note: Special thanks is warranted for my wife and daughter for providing me inspirational and technical support for this site!

“Frugal” – meaning costing little, inexpensive, & marked by economy in the spending of money. If you’re time limited in how often you can play, frugal golf means spending your golf dollar in ways that will increase your enjoyment of the game. If time is not the issue, but you have limited funds, it will simply enable you to play more golf!

WE SHOW YOU that bargain equipment doesn’t have to mean “cheap” equipment. Brand names & value offbrands are available at closeouts & discounts.

Lessons, training aids, & instructional media don’t have to be expensive. WE SHOW YOU discounts, bargains & other alternatives that sometimes can be better or, at the least, just as good. AND…

WE SHOW YOU that you can play at the better quality golf courses for less money. Plus, with all the money you’ll be saving, you can ocassionally splurge & treat yourself to a course you ordinarily can’t afford.

Let’s face it – golf is not inexpensive – and most of us don’t have unlimited budgets. Over the years, necessity has demonstrated to me that being a frugal golfer is satisfying, and yes, FUN. Check out some of my pages & you’ll find out too!

Lee ***

All too often a golfer will choose a ball based on some advertisement they’ve seen or a recommendation from a friend. When the Titleist Pro V1 was first introduced, many pros and low handicap golfers fell in love with it because of how it improved their game. Naturally, other golfers not familar with the design of the Pro V1 thought that it would be the best ball for them. However, this was not the case.

The best ball for you depends entirely on the type of game you have. Typically, the four basic groups of golfers (beginning & high handicap golfers, mid handicappers, low handicappers, and senior, junior, & ladies) have different types of swings, requiring balls that have significantly different performance characteristics.

Beginners & high handicappers generally are distance challenged with ball flights that curve left and right. These golfers need a hard ball that will maximize their distance while reducing the spin that causes their ball to curve so dramatically. Fortunately for them, this type of ball also tends be the least expensive ball.

At the other end of the spectrum is the low handicapper. This golfer is generally happy with their ball flight and is more concerned with being able to control or “work” the ball. So a high spin ball that doesn’t sacrifice distance is the ball they want. Not surprisingly this is the most expensive ball.

In between is the mid handicap golfer who seeks a compromise ball that best balances distance and control.

The fourth group of golfers who need to select the right golf ball are the senior, junior, & lady golfers. These golfers generally have in common a relatively slow swing speed and require a ball that is softer, easily compressed, spins less, rolls more, & get up in the air quickly.

You can find more about how to select the right golf ball at knet Golf and at Guide to Golf Equipment But make sure you come back here for more advice from the Frugal Golfer on buying new or recycled golf balls.

March 30, 2009 – a new page where you can add your favorite course to a growing list of frugal courses. Check it out at Frugal Golf Courses!

February 28, 2009 – It dawned on me that I check out Amazon.com for just about anything I’m planning to buy, so why not golf stuff? Find out more at Buying At Amazon!

If you’re like me, you have one area of your house, apartment, or garage filled with golf equipment you no longer use. Although maybe this equipment has been replaced by newer technology or you’ve grown tired of them or they just don’t work for you, most of it would probably work for someone else just fine. So donate it!

Donating items of value to qualified charities can significantly reduce your tax burden. I suspect that most of you reading this are probably in the 25% tax bracket.That means that donating $200 worth of golf equipment could reduce your federal taxes by $50 (& also your state taxes).

Now although you might be able to sell that equipment for more money, donating your golf equipment greatly reduces the hassle factor! Simply take the equipment to your local charity thrift store. Many charities will even come to your house for a pickup! For a list of the charity thrift stores near you, go to The Thrift Shopper. Make sure you get a receipt and follow the IRS guidelines on Charitable Contributions.

And since we are talking about donating golf equipment, what better organization is there for doing so than The First Tee program? The First Tee is a nation-wide program that provides young people of all backgrounds an opportunity to develop life-enhancing values such as confidence, perseverance and judgment through golf and character education. All contributions are tax-deductible to the fullest extent allowed by law.

It used to be that the biggest hassle in this process was figuring out how much to value each item. Not anymore! There is lots of help on the web. Also, many of you already have it loaded on your computer. The tax program TurboTax contains a module called It’s Deductible that does it all for you!

Of course, other good things happen when you donate your golf equipment to charity. First, donating to charity benefits your community. The proceeds from the resale of your equipment help charities fund numerous worthy causes.

Then there are the additional benefits of the smiles & good will you engender from your significant other from “clearing out the clutter” while reducing your taxes! When the money you can save on taxes is added to these intangible benefits, the frugal golfer doesn’t hesitate to donate golf equipment to charity!

Now the first thing to come to mind for most of you involves pounding ball after ball at your local driving range. Hitting real golf balls with a full swing is certainly an integral (& fun!) part of improving your game, but the full swing still is only a minor portion of the game. Keep track of all your shots during your next round & you’ll find that you will hit full shots approximately 35% to 40% of the time, short shots (pitches, chips, & greenside bunkers) 20%, and putting between 40% & 45% of the time.

While most mid and high handicappers spend most of their time practicing their full swing, most low handicappers & virtually all pros focus much of their energy on short shots & putting. That’s because they know the short game is the quickest, easiest, & most efficient way to lower scores. And perhaps the best news is working on your short game doesn’t involve a lot of money!

There are two basic ways to practice your putting — on your living room rug and on a outdoor putting green. Each is best for working on a particular part of putting. The artificial uniform nature of the living room rug limits the usefulness of practice involving aiming & distance control, but it can be an outstanding place to groove a putting stroke. By utilizing simple training aids to get your eyes behind the ball, to line up your shoulders and to restrict your backswing, you can build a fluid, accelerating, repeatable putting stroke. I strongly recommend checking out the The Putting Plane Alignment Systemwhich is ABSOLUTELY the best aid I have found for grooving your stroke. Check out the rest of my website — I don’t give out my total, unqualified endorsement to any other product!

Now take your new grooved putting stroke to your local golf course or practice facility. This is where you will work on aiming, slopes, & distance control. Since you don’t have to concentrate on the mechanics of the stroke itself, you can spend your time & energy on pace, feel, & the alignment of the ball. And outdoor putting practice is cheap or costs nothing! Full outdoor facilities normally charge only a nominal amount for use, and golf courses don’t charge anything at all. The key to working on your putting at a golf course without getting hassled is to either arrive early before actually playing or to look like you belong. I worked on my putting & short game for years at a private club without hassle because I dressed and acted like I was a member!

Practice your pitching & chipping, indoors and outside! Focus on mechanics indoors. It should go without saying (although I’ll say it anyway), use an indoor golf ball like the realistically reacting AlmostGOLF Point3 Practice Golf Balls . Then take your mechanically sound pitching & chipping strokes outdoors to work on feel, aiming, & distance control. If you have a decent size backyard, you can hits balls there. Again, some facilities and golf courses have very nice setups for chipping, pitching, & sand work. Actually any reasonably sized open area works well enough. Just make sure you have a target to focus on or bring one.

When you work on your full swing at the driving range, make sure you do so efficiently. Watch how the low handicapper (or if you ever get a chance to, the touring pro) practices. Many of them will place an extra club on the mat so they can constantly ensure they are aligned correctly. Also, few of them will just pound ball after ball. Typically, they will step away from the ball every few shots to go through their preshot routine. You should too — it will slow you down, help your concentration, & make your session more efficient (& cheaper, since you will hit fewer balls!).

Also, make sure you utilize all those lost golf balls you find on the golf course. I save up the ones I don’t recycle, put them in a baggie, & supplement the ones I buy at the driving range. Occasionally, I’ll hit them in an open field or into the woods as long as there’s no danger of hitting anything (or anyone) of significance.

The Frugal Golfer knows practicing efficiently saves dollars, leaving more money to play the game!

Just about the time my wife convinced me to get myself another part-time job (in addition to working at the golf course), we drove by a new strip mall anchored by a well known golf superstore.

Although a job in retail has never had any appeal for me, talking about golf all day has. As with working at a golf course once again I’m working in an environment that I love being in! The money’s reasonable & the time flies. However, for the frugal golfer, the best reason to work at a golf store are the benefits!

I’m in the market for a new set of irons (my current ones are eight years old). Now like many of you, this prospect carries with it equal parts of excitement and apprehension for me. When you shell out several hundred dollars on clubs with the potential of significantly improving your game, you want to make sure you go about it the right way. There is no better way than when you have a golf store job. I have ready access to tons of information about equipment, the most important of which are the other employees, some of which have been in the business for decades! Also, since I can demo anything in the store in our hitting bays, I can quickly zero in on those irons that are best for my game.

After hitting a number of ultra game improvement irons, I’ve identified the set that works best for me. Now this is where the biggest benefit the frugal golfer gets from a golf store job comes in — the incredible discounts available! Depending on the brand and model of equipment, you can expect to pay somewhere between 35 to 65 percent of retail price! Fortunate for me the set of irons best for me is a lesser known brand that has a very deep discount for store employees.

So students, retires, teachers, or anyone else with some spare time (I only work about 12 hours a week!), get yourself a job at a golf store & reap the benefits. Some of the big chains with numerous store locations in the United States are Edwin Watts Golf and Golf Galaxy . There is simply no better way for the frugal golfer to maximize his golf equipment dollar that to get a golf store job!