2010 PGA Champion Martin Kaymer With Some Golf Lessons
O'DONOGHUE: Welcome back to LIVING GOLF in Scotland. Now on a Links course such as this, a loose drive usually means a lost war. And wherever we're playing, we'd love to have a shot that we know we can put on the fair way every time. Well former world number one and PGA champion, Martin Kaymer does and he very kindly invited us to his home course in Arizona, to show us how to play it.</s>O'DONOGHUE: So Martin, it's time to get the big dog a hit.</s>MARTIN KAYMER, PGA CHAMPION, 2010: What driver is a, in honesty is a very important stuff to put the ball into play first. And to be consistent with the drivers to hit the fairways in all this too good sports. My favorite pet is still the little cat.</s>O'DONOGHUE: OK, let's find out more about why you consistently hit this ball well.</s>KAYMER: OK. If I want to fade the ball for example, I tee the ball up a little bit lower. I hit more down on the ball. So I cut a little more outside. And if I knew to draw the ball, I tee that up a little bit higher because it feels for me that I have to be -- I swing, I have to swing a little bit more shallow.</s>O'DONOGHUE: OK, let's see you hit the ball.</s>KAYMER: OK. That's a perfect little fade. It's a very consistent shot and maybe another thing, when I want to, cut the ball, I address the ball a little bit more on the heel. And when I draw the ball, I address it a little bit more on the toe. You know, my swing doesn't change. If I hit the mid on, if it's seven, nine or drive, the thing is, its swing shouldn't change. Even with the driver, I pay even more attention(ph) if it's more sturdy, more stable. And keep my back swing a little bit shorter. Keep lower half still, shot my back swing but not short in your shoulder.</s>O'DONOGHUE: Correct.</s>KAYMER: That should always be the same. And then really commit to the golf shot. Yes to finish, you follow through, commit to the golf shot and then just see what happens.</s>O'DONOGHUE: Exactly the same as the previous ball, it's amazing. I actually would love to be able to hit and control. They hit often it seems so I am actually going to tee it a little bit lower. And I'm going to address it off the hill ever so slightly. Well, that's a slight fades.</s>KAYMER: Then you have to come with me every time I play golf.</s>O'DONOGHUE: Well I travel a lot so it will tough now. Truly tough one.</s>KAYMER: Yeah.</s>O'DONOGHUE: OK, we can actually see down the line now as Martin shots. So we want to check on that consistency, we want to see the shape of the shot that he hits, which is traditionally in fades. How he sets off to us, and we're going to give him five shots to hit in a roll, and we're going to check the numbers on track path. All right, best of luck Martin. OK, Justin, what are the numbers?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, so we're looking at spin axis number, and we're looking for a positive number so that positive three just means, it's just a touch of a fade. And Carry, distance was 277.</s>O'DONOGHUE: Beautiful looking drive again. And here are the numbers.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A little bit more of a fade, spin axis was positive nine, Carry 270.</s>O'DONOGHUE: So that was a much more pronounced fade.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, six, seven and half. 276 Carry.</s>O'DONOGHUE: He's very consistent on the Carry. Wow, now that looks like a perfect drive for me.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, it's about the same. Spin axis nine, Carry 270.</s>O'DONOGHUE: Very consistent. Here's your final ball. Pretty straight.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Amazed, that's straight. Negative .9, so zero would be a very straight shot.</s>O'DONOGHUE: OK.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And Carry on that was 265.</s>O'DONOGHUE: That must be a very satisfying experience. We all view that consistency.</s>KAYMER: It's just nice that you have accept the view, so you know, you can hit it anytime.</s>O'DONOGHUE: Martin Kaymer, and accuracy of the tee is going to be critical for anyone hoping to win this year's open championship, now just two months away. It is Royal Lytham and Saint Annes, a course famous for its 206 bunkers, and its roll call of distinguished open champions.</s>O'DONOGHUE (voice-over): The tone was set in 1926, the very first open held at Lytham. Bobby Jones who four years later would go on to claim the only grand slam in the history of golf, had yet to win an open championship. As he teed off the 17th on the final day, he was tied for the lead. The shot he hit next would help to find his career and the legend.</s>DR. STEVEN REID, AUTHOR, BOBBY'S OPEN: For the point we're coming to now is where Bobby Jones actually wrote his name in the history of golf. It was where he won his first open championship and for a few minutes, it looked as though this wasn't going to happen. He struggled all the way through the last couple of days, and he came to this hole, all square without Walters. Jones had pulled his shot into dreadful ways to sand trap -- effect to the play, he just would not want to be. Between here and the range, and beyond the range, it was bunker after bunker after bunker. And if he failed in the slightest respect, his whole trip was finished. It was basically an all or nothing shot. But he had the nerve and the guts to take on the shot, and play the shot which it finds him as a champion. He came and quickly settled over the ball and with his bashy, nowadays a four-on. Picked it clean off the sand, and to everyone's amazement up here the green, the ball suddenly landed on the green, a 170 yards away. And Walters was rattled, and Jones was triumphant.</s>PETER DAWSON, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, THE R&A;: Over the years, since we first were here in 1926, we've had a succession of really good champions here. They've been on top of the sport. They were not over powerless of course, you got to do it with accuracy and finish them. If you look back at those players, that's how they won.</s>RAMON SOTA, FORMER PROFESSIONAL, UNCLE OF SEVE BALLESTEROS: When he won the first British shot in Lytham, in 1920, times in the bunker, only one miss -- what they call up and down. He told me that, the bunker shot, I beat all the players with a bunker shot.</s>O'DONOGHUE: And of course Lytham seen its first share of iconic shots since Bobby Jones stroke of genius.</s>DAWSON: I think the three that stand out for me was two by Seve. One when he first won from the car pack, on the right of the 60. When he made his debut from there. And then later when he won for the second time in '88, that fantastic chip shot, here at the 18.</s>REID: And he played left off the green, he didn't even go for the green because the flag was tied against the right hand side and just played to here. And everyone seen on film, they exquisite shot he played to finally squeeze out Nic prize, when his ball meandered across the green to find the hole, left the hole and stayed just a few inches beyond.</s>DAWSON: And then for me, back in '69 when Tony Jacklin won. And Jacklin's drive of the 18, a British commentator Henry Long said what a cocker. In 2001, when they Open was last year, the breakthrough in technology in golf equipment hadn't really happened, it has happened since. We've taken steps to make the course, to require more precision than before. But it still roll with it.</s>PAUL SMITH, HEAD GREENKEEPER, ROYAL LYTHAM AND ST. ANNES: Greg, is it a little big hole or something. Just for us --</s>SMITH: Yeah, there's been some quite extensive changes made at Royal Lytham and St. Annes since 2001. And they mainly compressed the tee positions. New bunkers, drive length, swails in front of the several of the greens. But probably, the most radical one is been the repositioning the seventh. The green was originally positioned here probably, this was during probably the front sense of the green where this approach bunker is situated now. This is one of the original Junes that was incorporated with the new design element. We still kept that sort of AMP theater feel of the original hole but we thought we'd probably improve upon it. So overall it's going to proof quite a formidable challenge. Well I suppose he has to test, probably post the open. But as we all know, Lytham was a formidable test before the change in it, and that's been strengthened.</s>O'DONOGHUE (on camera): Well, that's it for this edition of LIVING GOLF. Don't forget all our reports are online and you can keep across what we're up to on twitter. But for now, from the Junes of the Trump course on the north east coast of Scotland. It's goodbye.