Shouldn't you change the way you mark your ball?
By David Owen
Some people, when they’re having
trouble with their
golf game, take a lesson or even sign up for golf school, but others
make a slight change in the way they mark their golf ball while also
switching to a
different color of Sharpie. At any rate, that’s what I did recently. And
-- who
knows? -- maybe my new ball-identification strategy will add 30 or 40
yards to my tee
shots. In the photo below, the ball on the left is marked with my old,
discredited pattern and color, and the ball on the right is marked with
my new:
I
made the change because Rick had suddenly begun marking his ball almost
exactly the way I was accustomed to marking mine. Or maybe he'd always
marked his ball that way and I'd only just noticed. Either way, I was
ready for a change, and I was happy to have an excuse to order an entire
box of red Sharpies:
When
most golfers mark their ball, they don't mark it enough, in my opinion.
Whatever technique you use, you should make sure you can identify your
ball without touching it, no matter how it's lying on the ground. I use
eight widely spaced dots, and even when my ball is in the rough I can
almost always see at least a couple of them. Too many players check
their ball by picking it up, then putting it back down in an obviously
better lie. Who do they think they are? Tom Brady?
Courtesy Golfdigest.com
