Expanded Content: Feb/March Book Reviews

By Les Schupak

"Rinker's Five Fundamentals of Being A Great Player" by Larry Rinker (One Putt Music Publishing, $18.95) offers golfers a concise, comprehensive and understandable roadmap to game improvement.

Rinker, a former PGA Tour member and currently Director of Instruction at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club at Grande Resort in Orlando, FL, is from a prominent golfing family whose mentor was Bob Toski.  He has revised and updated his original instructional ebook published in 2009. 

The new edition focuses on the short game of which he is an acknowledged expert.  Rinker spends a substantial number of pages on how to play from inside of 100 yards and includes several videos demonstrating the proper technique to execute four types of the most important short game shots -- two low trajectory ones he calls the putt-chip, and the bump & run, and two high trajectory ones described as the long bunker blast and the flop-short bunker shot.

Having competed in 15 majors, Rinker stresses that all golfers should practice perfecting their short game more than any other aspect. He notes that once you begin hitting the ball near the hole from close range distances, you will experience a renewed confidence level built up by looking at a four foot putt rather than one from 20 feet away. He then offers five pages of putting instruction and advice covering subjects such as practice drills, set-up, speed control, and energy, which he defines as correct club head position at impact.  Photos provide a visual to take to the practice green.

Rinker adds two closing sections. One is entitled "Mental Weapons" and the other, "Goal Setting."  As important as executing the shots Rinker demonstrates, just as crucial to a golfer's game are these two non-physical, but fundamental factors.  He discusses these elements from a vantage point not found in traditional golf instruction manuals. For instance, he professes that we all have a voice in our head that talks to us.  If you listen, the voice will instill doubt which leads to fear.  That negative voice will cause a golfer to miss a shot, he claims.  He instructs his students to stay in the present and have no thoughts whatsoever other than executing the shot.

These are valuable additions in a golfer's arsenal presented in a conversational tone by an author who is an articulate and knowledgeable instructor of the game whose wealth of experience spans 35-plus years as a player and teacher.