How to Get to Spin Central

Pros Use Backspin When They Hit Shots Into the Green Without Breaking a Sweat; Their Secret

I don't have a lot of illusions about my game. I'm never going to bomb it over the trees at the corner of the dogleg. They can put the back tees across the street and stretch the course to 8,000 yards for all I care; I'll be up at the whites, or maybe the blues if they're around 6,500.

There's one thing, though, that gets to me: I watch on TV as the pros hit these beautiful shots that fly to the green, land, then suck back toward the front. I can stop the ball on the green, but I can't jerk it back like Phil Mickelson does. Not even close.

The basic explanation is that professionals get more spin—"Tour juice" is the polite term for it—because they strike the ball at a downward angle, and they swing at a higher speed. Also, unlike most amateurs, they hit the ball before they hit the dirt.

Phil Mickelson and the instructor Dave Pelz work on the short game at the 2008 Masters. ENLARGE
Phil Mickelson and the instructor Dave Pelz work on the short game at the 2008 Masters. Getty Images

The conversation can quickly get more complicated. "When you impact a golf ball obliquely [at an angle], it's inclined to roll up the face, while at the same time it's being compressed and deformed," said Frank Thomas, who for 25 years was technical director for the U.S. Golf Association (disclosure: I co-authored a book with him). "During recovery, it's going to try to recover based on the torque you're applying to the ball, and the degree of adhesion of the ball to the clubface will increase the spin."

This adhesion factor—he also called it "stiction"—is why shots from the rough don't spin as much as shots from the fairway. In the rough, grass comes between the ball and the club at impact, and the moisture in the grass keeps the ball from riding up and increasing the spin. The grooves on the face help by channeling some of that moisture away from the point of impact.

Jack Lumpkin, senior director of instruction at the Sea Island Golf Learning Center and one of Golf Digest's top 50 teachers in America, puts his emphasis on the last point. "To put [pro-level] backspin on the ball, you must make crisp contact so that the full effect of the grooves is exerted on the ball," he advised. "Backspin is the byproduct of a shot hit with a square face with full compression of the ball. If you want more backspin, hit better shots. It's a byproduct, not a goal."

So all I have to do is hit crisper shots and the ball will come zooming back?

"You also have to remember that at a tournament, the fairways are cut much shorter than at the average club and the greens are shorter as well," he said. "So there's even less grass between the club and the ball than there would be from the average amateur's lie. And then when it reaches the green, with the speeds they get on the greens on Tour, the ball might back up 6 feet while with the same spin it would only come back a foot or so on an average green."

Dave Pelz, short-game guru to Mr. Mickelson and a host of other professionals, suggested that some of the problem could be solved by throwing money at it. "Most amateurs play with a Surlyn-covered ball, because they're a few dollars less on average," he said. "Surlyn is a very durable material, but a Surlyn ball has a very low spin rate, because an iron can't dig into the surface."

Mr. Pelz's research shows that compared with a urethane-covered ball (like the Titleist ProV1s, the Callaway HX Tours, the Bridgestone B330s and e5, the Nike One Tours), a Surlyn ball generates only half as much spin on wedge shots.

So if I play with the same ball as the pros…

"The second thing is that you've got to have clean grooves. I've seen amateurs who haven't cleaned their grooves in a year. The pros clean them on every shot. They also go through a few sets of wedges a year, because they want to have the grooves as sharp and clean as possible."

The USGA put in new specifications for grooves in its most recent revision of the Rules of Golf. The grooves must be significantly shallower, their volume decreased by about 40%. This change was adopted on the pro tours for 2010; the average golfer can continue using his old clubs until 2024, but clubs manufactured after Dec. 31 must have the new grooves to be considered conforming.

Mr. Pelz recommended that every amateur buy a few sets of wedges before this year is out. "It's an absolute travesty that [the USGA] is going to take the bigger grooves away from amateurs who need all the help they can get," Mr. Pelz said. He suggested picking up a replacement and a few spares for any wedge of 50 degrees loft or more.

Mr. Pelz's research shows that the smaller grooves have had no real effect on the professionals' results. Compared with the first half of 2009, PGA Tour players got their short-game shots slightly closer to the hole in 2010, even when hitting out of the rough. They recognized that the ball wouldn't stop as quickly, and now they bounce the ball to the hole more often, with equal accuracy.

Probably that's what I should work on instead. And it wouldn't be a bad idea for me to remember the words of Tommy Armour, the Silver Scot, one of the great teaching and playing professionals of yesteryear. An amateur went to see him, asking how to get more backspin on his shots. Mr. Armour said he'd be happy to show him, but first wanted to know: When the amateur hits to the green, does he generally go past the hole, or does he come up short?

"I usually come up short," the amateur told him.

"Then what the hell do you want backspin for?"

—Sportswriter Jeff Neuman is co-author of "A Disorderly Compendium of Golf."

—John Paul Newport is off this week. Email:

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