4 golf books that deliver the goods

Here are four new golf books you don't want to miss.

2. “The A Swing: The Alternative Approach to Great Golf,” by David Leadbetter with Ron Kaspriske

One of the premier golf instructors in the game puts forth his strategy for learning an “A” (for alternative) swing that aims to provide golfers of all levels better results with minimal practice. The emphasis is on a simple, biomechanically sound swing that can be repeated consistently, yet allows for leeway for individual execution. 

Here’s an excerpt from “The A Swing”:

“I like to think of the A Swing as an approach or style to playing good golf. It’s not a strict method and has some latitude in learning it and executing it. Besides, I’ve never liked the word method when it comes to teaching golf. A method implies there is only one way to swing the club effectively, but as Ernie Els’s and Jim Furyk’s swings consistently demonstrate, that can’t possibly be true. However, all swings that hit the ball consistently have one commonality – they’re synchronized.  By that I mean there is a harmonious movement of the body, arms, hands, and club – they move in proper sequence at the proper time. If you can sync your body’s rotational movement with the swinging action of the arms and club, you’re on your way to hitting good shots more often and, just as important for good scoring, to improving the quality of your not-so-good shots. When the ball-striking is off, even for top players, synchronization is normally to blame. It’s the essence of the A Swing – to get you synced up!”

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Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

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