A week later than planned I will now, as promised, share with you how I normally practice felt. Of course the practice at the beginning of the season is not the same as the days before a competition. It’s pretty obvious that you can’t place foreign object in the course while you are preparing for a competition.

First out is a favourite of mine, which I used a lot before I could master both spin shots. What you need is a straight lane with a gate and a piece of smooth wood. Place the wood in the opening and make sure it covers about 40% of the opening. Place the ball all the way out on the tee, on the same side you have covered (wood covering right side, place the ball to the right), and make spin shots trying to ace the hole. After a while you switch sides and covers up the other side of the gate and play with the other spin. Make sure you have chosen a lane with a green that doesn’t fall to either side. When Karin and I used this method a lot of years ago we made it a bit tougher as we used a lane with two gates, covering up different sides and thereby demanding a more diagonal shot.

Nowadays when I practice spin shots I mostly concentrate on making a good backswing and striking the ball cleanly. I got a question a couple of years ago how I could possibly make spin shots, since I never flex my wrists. I’m a firm believer in that wrists, in minigolf, are never to be flexed. There are some exceptions, like when you’re stuck behind an obstacle on felt and need extra speed, but other than in those occasions, you should never use the wrists. The spin on the ball is generated by altering the swing plane. To simplify the theoretical part, a shot without spin are made with a swing straight back and then straight forward through the ball. If you want hook, the head of the club should move back and towards your body and the forward and away. If you want slice the head of the club should move back and away from you and then forward and towards you. It’s very important not to make a loop in the backswing. Most players can play with hook, not many can play with slice and control the direction of the shot. The problem is almost always that the player is making a normal back swing and then pulling the club viciously towards the body when hitting the ball. The control is close to zero when playing a shot like that. If they could just focus on making the back swing to the correct point, then the swing forward will give you a lot of spin.

Now when I’m on the subject of swinging the club, I feel the need of sharing my thoughts on the standard swing. When playing felt you should use the natural force of the club along with a controlled acceleration to set speed on the ball. If you need more speed on the ball you should use a longer back swing generating more speed to the club. And you should always hit through the ball, never hit the ball. I don’t know if that actually made any sense. What I’m getting at is that the ball is not the ending point of the swing, it’s the middle point. Take the most consistent player in the world, Harald Erlbruch. His swing never ever hesitates or accelerates when he’s about the hit the ball. He just swings through the ball as it wasn’t even there. On a short side note, last winter Anders Olsson and I were in Jönköping educating some players from the south of Sweden in minigolf techniques. There was a lady who had just started playing and had a real short back swing. I asked why and she said that she had been told by a player in her club to never swing back longer than the tee. That would translate to about 30-35cm. I told her that the “teacher” obviously didn’t know anything about playing in an easy way and asked her to double her back swing. Need I say that she improved?
Now back on track. If you use a longer back swing, smooth acceleration and swing through the ball, it’s not really difficult to play as hard as I do on felt. Being able to play a hard shot on felt is often very good. A lot of times long lanes are falling in one direction and the harder you play, the less fall will influence the ball. But you should not ever try to “over swing” and lose control of your shot just because you want more speed on the ball. Everything comes down to timing and you can only get timing by practicing. We used to have a bridge as lane 2 on felt and 4 meters after the green we hade an inclined channel as lane 4. We were several, very young, players who tried to hit so hard that the ball flew from the actual bridge onto lane 4 and passing through the channel. Realizing that pure strength didn’t have anything to do with making this shot we used the things I’ve talked about and actually succeeded with the shot many times. This is NOT anything I would like to recommend practicing when there are visitors at the course, but with an empty course you can do a lot of things…

As a final idea for you all, I will tell you of how simple I practice my swing at the beginning of the season. As probably all of you that have seen me play felt have noticed I tilt my club towards my back foot. This is because I want to lock my right wrist preventing any movement. Adding to the tilt is the fact that when I broke my wrist some 28 years ago in a huge ski slope (0,5 m high), the doctor wasn’t that good at putting in back exactly in place. This was not so good for my tennis career, but an advantage for minigolf as I can’t move the wrist as much. Anyway, the tilt of the club causes me to hit slightly on top of the ball some times. To minimize this I have made a hellish practice routine.
I start at lane 1 and should have 10 shots going through AND they should all be with a clean hit on the ball. If I succeed, I move on to lane 2, but if I fail the lane, then I start over. My record is clearing lane 5 which took me close to two hours.

I will end this time with a good rule on accuracy.
Rule of Accuracy: When working toward the solution of a problem, it always helps if you know the answer.
Corollary: Provided, of course, that you know there is a problem.