Australia’s Geoff Ogilvy has made a great start to his campaign at The Memorial Tournament on the US PGA Tour, firing a blistering 7 under par 65 to be tied for the lead after the 1st round.

The Bann Lynch Golf/Yarra Bend Golf team member made 8 birdies in his round against the lone bogey to share the lead with England’s Justin Rose and American Ricky Fowler.

Ogilvy seems to have carried into this week the positive momentum from his final round at last week’s Crowne Plaza Invitational where he shot a 6 under par 64 in the final round to vault up the leader board and finish T13. His putting was the key stat, as he needed just 26 putts in his round (T8 in that category).

With the US Open at Pebble Beach approaching, the return to form bodes well for former champion Ogilvy who has had a bit of a quiet season since his win at the opening event in Hawaii. At The Memorial however, Ogilvy is once again displaying his knack for playing well in tournaments with strong fields (the field includes Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and some of the top ranked players in the world).

“I’m happy the way I’m hitting the ball.” said Ogilvy. “I hit the ball great last week. I hit the ball great really since Augusta. And I feel like it’s been on the improve. So that’s nice.”

KJ Choi was the best of the other Bann Lynch Golf players, shooting a 3 under par 69 to be tied for 16th place. Having finished 4th at this year’s Masters, Choi is looking to peak at the right time once again for the US Open at Pebble Beach and get that first major.

Scores for other Bann Lynch Golf/Yarra Bend Golf players: Aaron Baddeley -1 (T34), Stuart Appleby +1 (T67), Mat Goggin +1 (T67), Marc Leishman +4 (T109).

Australia’s Aaron Baddeley notched his best finish of the season by far by finishing 3rd at the Valero Texas Open on Sunday.

“Badds” as he is popularly known bounced back from an opening round of 75 to shoot 66 in the second round. After poor weather had forced a 36 hole Sunday finish, the Aussie fired rounds of 67 and 68 on the marathon final day to finish at 12 under par for the tournament, 2 shots behind eventual winner and fellow Aussie Adam Scott.

While it was the end of a long victory drought for Scott on the US PGA Tour, Baddeley would be encouraged that he too is not too far from winning form and ending a drought of his own (his last victory came at the 2007 FBR Open). Going through swing changes while competing at the highest level can be tough for even the most talented players in the world, however with his performance this week Baddeley seems to have turned a corner.

Baddeley returned to his childhood coach Dale Lynch earlier this year after having experimented with other swing methods. The pair had plenty of success early in Baddeley’s career as he lifted the 1999 Australian Open as an amateur and retained his title the following year having turned professional. He has been looking to return to the same principles in his game that brought him all that success, the basis of which is taking a holistic approach to golf as outlined in Dale Lynch and his coaching partner Steve Bann’s Pure Golf Training program.

The numbers:

Baddeley was typically strong on the greens this week ranking T4 for Putts Per Round (26) and 3rd for Putts Per Green In Regulation (1.574). He also bombed it off the tee ranking 2nd in driving distance (averaging 310.5 yards). Driving Accuracy (57.1 %- T25) and Greens in Regulation (65.3%- T24) might be two areas in which he did quite well but might look to improve a bit to get him over the line for that win.

With Baddeley’s putting talent, more greens will surely mean more birdies. More birdies ought to lead to that breakthrough win sooner rather than later.

Thanks to the Pure Golf Training team for this article, and well done Badds!

Stuart Appleby sent out the following message on his Twitter on the Sunday before the 2010 Verizon Heritage tournament in Harbor Town:

“Time, age, quality, coaching, competition, direction….many more. All of those but still to know how then play like a kid…swing away….Your direction, what you want.Paint the picture of how you want your game to be.To putt with confidence you need to be ok with missing putts…that’s the most important thing. All good putters don’t get wrapped up in missing only excited at the chance to make the next putt“.

Appleby stayed true to those words all week as he “played like a kid” all the way to a t-8 finish at Harbor Town Golf Links, his best of the season so far.

Shooting rounds of 69, 67, 73 and 67, Appleby finished at 8 under par, 5 shots outside the playoff between Jim Furyk and Brian Davis, which Furyk went on to win. The 67’s he shot in the 2nd and 4th rounds were his best scores of the season, one in which he has continued his struggles from last year.

Prior to this week, Appleby’s best finish of the 2010 PGA Tour season was T30 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. This coming on the back of his worst season on the PGA Tour where he lost his playing privileges finishing outside the top 125 on the money list. For a man who is ranked 16th in career earnings on the PGA Tour, this was uncharted territory. In fact, he is using his one-time exemption for being ranked in the top 25 in career earnings to play on Tour this year.

For the likable Aussie’s fans around the world, it has been a frustrating experience watching a player with such beautiful technique struggle this way. However even the best players in the world can sometimes get too caught up in being technically perfect and lose sight of the most important thing in golf: get the ball in the hole in the least amount of shots.

Judging from Appleby’s tweets before this week, he understood the need to go back to having fun playing the game, like he did as a kid. His coach Steve Bann spoke earlier in the week about their preparation for the Verizon Heritage:

“Harbor Town is a course where even if you’re in the fairway, you often have trees in your way and it just forces you to be creative with your shot making. Add to that the fact that these are some of the smallest greens you’ll see on Tour all year, and you’ve got a course where you need all the shots….Stuart and I have been working on our 9 ball drill a lot in practice, i.e draws, fades and straight shots at low, medium and high trajectory. It really brings out your creative side and makes you visualize shots…he’s had lots of fun with that“.

The numbers tell the story: Appleby ranked T8 in Greens in Regulation and T19 in Putts per Greens In Regulation. That translates into lots of birdies and par saves, exactly what you need to do well at Harbor Town.

Appleby’s legion of fans will be hoping this is just the spark he needed to kick off a run of strong play to get back to being a regular contender on the weekends.

Thanks to Pure Golf Blog for this article.

22nd March|South Korea’s KJ Choi continued his recent run of good form by finishing 2nd in the USPGA Tour’s Transitions Championship at Innisbrook. Choi shot an impressive final round of 4 under par 67 to finish just 1 shot behind winner Jim Furyk of the United States.

The strong finish was doubly satisfying for the man known as “The Tank” as it moved him up from 75th to 47th in the Official World Golf Rankings. That means that as of now, Choi is in the field for the Augusta Masters which begins on the 8th of April. He needs to stay within the top 50 for the next couple of weeks to ensure his spot in the field at the first major of the 2010 season.

It has been a tough couple of years for Choi who has struggled with his game due to equipment changes as well as what he described as his own impatience with regards to his fitness regime:

“I had a lot of excess fat stored in my body,” said Choi. “But I think we tried to do it in such a short time that I lost more than what I needed to, and that threw my body off a little bit. I lost a lot of energy. Just compared to the reduction of the weight, the specs for my clubs, they didn’t feel right. So everything was kind of thrown off-balance.”

His  3rd place finish at last year’s Northern Trust Open at Riviera was pretty much the only bright spot in a season where he struggled enough to almost fall out of the top 100 ranked players in the world. Meanwhile, his compatriot Y.E Yang took the golf world by storm, not only winning his first PGA Tour event at the Honda Classic, but backing that up with an epic win over world number 1 Tiger Woods at the US PGA Championship to become Asia’s first Major Champion.

Plenty of motivation to get his game back on track.

Choi showed some signs of a resurgence towards the end of last year as he won the Iskandar Johor Open on the Asian Tour , where his pro golf journey began. He began the 2010 season in promising fashion with top 20 finishes at the Farmers Insurance Open and the Mayakoba Golf Classic. He also came close to winning the Maybank Malaysian Open on the Asian Tour, losing out to 18 year old compatriot Noh Seong-yul by a shot.

Choi’s coach Steve Bann has been predicting a solid performance from KJ over the last few weeks, having seen him perform really well in practice: “KJ was just rearing to go after a practice session before the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am” said Bann. “Something just clicked while we were working on his swing, and he said “that’s it, lets go play”". “He couldn’t wait for the tournament to start”. For the record, Choi finished T21 at that event after sharing the lead at one point in the opening round.

Moving forward, KJ is just looking to continue to trust his skills and using Pure Golf Training concepts such as “The Confidence Cycle” to believe in his ability to perform under pressure, when it counts. Of course, there is no bigger test of nerves than a major championship, and Choi admits it has been in the back of his mind to continue his run of playing in every Masters tournament since 2002, with a 3rd place finish being his best (in 2004).

“When I started out this year, I didn’t really think about it that much, but obviously it was in my mind,” said Choi. “I just said to myself to take it week-by-week and just try my best. To hear that this finish puts me in 47th in the world, it’s actually better than what I thought I would be at this point. All I can say is I will try my best next week to maintain or better that position.”

Pure Golf Training would like to congratulate KJ Choi on a wonderful performance and wish him the best of luck in the coming weeks. Hope to see you at The Masters KJ!

P.S Here is a link to an audio interview of KJ after the Transitions Championship:

A big thanks to Pure Golf Blog for this content:

Monday 15th March| 2009 South Korean LPGA Tour Rookie of the Year Shin Ae Ahn came down to the Bann Lynch Golf school in Melbourne earlier this year to take her game to the next level and start competing on the world stage. It appears she is headed in the right direction after a solid showing at the 2010 Handa Women’s Australian Open.

A big thanks to Pure Golf Blog for the following content:

Shin Ae finished T12th at +2 for the week after rounds of 78, 70, 75 and 71 at the par 73 Commonwealth GC layout. Playing in windy Melbourne conditions on sand belt golf courses such as Commonwealth pust a premium on being able to control your ball flight, and that was the focus of Shin Ae’s practice session with coach Steve Bann prior to the tournament.

She made the cut at the ANZ Ladies Masters in Queensland the previous week, however she finished well behind the winner Karrie Webb, and was not happy with the way she was hitting the golf ball in the wind.

Below you will find the latest installment of our Fly on the Wall video series. What you will see in the following video is how she discussed this problem with Steve Bann and how they worked to help her control the trajectory of her golf shots by simply adjusting her setup. She was making the mistake of putting the ball back in her stance and then trying to force the ball low with a change in her golf swing. This was causing her a few problems in controlling her distance.

Steve got her to get back to simplifying the process by simply allowing an adjustment in ball position to change the trajectory while using her normal golf swing. The result was that she averaged nearly 70% in greens in regulation for the week which went a long way towards helping her get a top-12 finish.

You will also see how a Tour Pro works out how far they hit a club by calculating carry distance + roll distance. In this case, the hybrid Shin Ae is hitting usually carries 148-150 yards for her, while for this week, as her caddy points out, they were expecting to get about 5-7 meters of roll with that club once the ball lands on the green. So this club would be perfect for a total distance of about 157 to the flag.

Alright, enough talk…time for you to see the action. Enjoy being a fly on the wall!

We would like to thank Pure Golf Blog for the following content:

At Pure Golf Training, we are always trying to find new ways to bring you golf training information. We understand that not everyone has the opportunity to train with a PGA Tour coach, and that is why we took the opportunity to film Steve Bann coaching some very talented young Korean golfers at his academy in Melbourne.

Over the next few days, we will bring you a number of free videos through which you can be a fly on the wall as Bann teaches his players a number of different skills including putting, short game, long iron shots, swing plane and much much more.

Now this is all unscripted and put together with minimum fuss- we won’t be winning any filming awards any time soon but we’re sure you will pick up some great tips for your own game and enjoy the experience of watching a master at work. It’s the next best thing to being there!

Let’s start with the first video. In this video Steve is teaching Korean LPGA Tour player how to make the correct transition from the top of the backswing. This move sets up the sequencing of the body and helps drop the club on plane halfway down while also helping the golfer generate maximum power through the golf ball. Basically, it’s an awesome drill!

Dr. Gio Valiante knows the value of finding creative ways to drive a message home to a client- each person is unique and sometimes you’ve got to think outside the box to get your point across. So about a month ago, he took one of his star clients, Columbian USPGA Tour player Camilo Villegas out onto the practice green and told him they would play a little game:

For every putt Villegas made, he would get a rare silver coin with a value of $500 and eventually a $1000 gold coin. Villegas drained 12 straight putts of different lengths.

Then, Dr.Valiante took his wallet and told him that for every putt that he missed, he would lose $100, and then $200, $300 and so on. “He missed on his third putt” said Valiante.

The purpose of the exercise? It showed Camilo that he plays much better golf when he feels like he has nothing to lose and only something to gain.

Fast forward a month ahead and Villegas closed out his third victory on the USPGA Tour at the Honda Classic with a final round of -2 (68) to finish at -13 and 5 shots ahead of American Anthony Kim.

All week, Villegas spoke about a shift in his mental attitude as being the main reason behind his improved play from last season. He mentioned the importance of appreciating the opportunity that he has to play on the best tour in the world, and basically being positive and going for his shots without fear. This, of course, is a central principle of Dr. Gio Valiante’s “Fearless Golf” philosophy.

This philosophy fits in perfectly into the Pure Golf Training program, and that is why the golf training academy is proud to have Dr. Valiante on its coaching staff. “Gio gets it. Playing good golf is all about trying TO do the right thing, not trying NOT to make mistakes” says Pure Golf Training co-founder and USPGA Tour coach Steve Bann.

“You need to make an assessment of what you can improve in your game, set some realistic goals for improvement, find specific drills/activities to help you achieve those goals and then focus your attention solely on that. Don’t stand there worrying about what could go wrong in your game- focus on a positive improvement plan and you will be very pleased with the results”.

Villegas is sure to be pleased with the results- look for this to be a big year for the popular Columbian.

Thanks to Pure Golf Blog for the story

Stuart Appleby came down to BannLynch Golf last week to work on his game with his longtime coach Steve Bann, before heading off to the U.S to play in the Fall Series on the PGA Tour.

It has been a tough year for Stuart on Tour with his best finish a tie for 8th at the Transitions Championship. However, having spent some time back in Australia, ‘Apples’ is raring to get back out there and make a strong push towards the end of the year to set himself up well for next season. Another goal for Appleby is to get a win under his belt so that he can make it into the SBS Championship in Kapalua (formerly known as the Mercedes Championship) which is limited to winners on the PGA Tour. He is a 3 time former winner of that tournament and it is sure to be a huge motivating factor for him as he heads back stateside.

Go ahead and enjoy watching one of the purest swings in all of golf. You will get to see all the work that goes in behind the scenes as a dedicated professional prepares himself for the toughest Tour in the world.

Stuart has been working with his coach Steve Bann since he was a junior golfer. In this session they were working on Stuart’s leg action, a good full upper body turn and a slightly lower position of the left shoulder through the ball.

Stuart will be working with Steve at the IIG once they both return to the U.S.

A special thanks to our friends at BannLynch Golf for the footage.