Just a few things to remember.

Swing coach Dr. William Murray.

In Search of the Perfect Golf Swing by Andy Dolich

One of the great scams in human history is the effluvia spewed from magazines, books, videos and websites on how to improve your golf game.

Now that we are into full-contact golf season I picked up a leading golf magazine and found the following articles and tips in the same issue. There is no BS to this BS.

1.      My secrets for pure contact

2.      How to play like the best

3.      How to line up putts for success

4.      Start every putt on line

5.      How to hit a dead straight drive

6.      How to stop pushes and pulls

7.      Hit every iron flush

8.      Hit on target chips

9.      Putt from a top tier

10.   Sink a 100-ft. putt

11.   Punch your hybrids

12.   Escape the junk

13.   Find your weak spots

14.   How to hit pure iron shots

15.   How to get balanced at address

16.   How to coil around your right side for more yards

17.   How to stop thin shots

18.   How not to hit it fat

19.   How to strike the ball, not the ground

20.   Lower scores this year

21.   Sync up for proper alignment

22.   Master your 3-wood

23.   Handling crosswinds

24.   Neutralize a hook or slice

25.   How to hit every shot

I enjoy hacking like millions of others, especially on all the spectacular courses we have in Northern California. My swing coach is the esteemed Dr. William Murray, who is the longtime and legendary teaching pro out of both the Venckman and Bushwood country clubs.

"Spack," as he is known to his students, preaches one simple truth for improved play. "Take a deep breath, close your eyes, lighten up your grip, think Fred Couples, and just focus on the 27 important keys at the top of your backswing."

Fore!

MVP Steph Curry

LeBron James

LeBron Is Tough, but It's 5 Against 1  by Glenn Dickey

In early 2003 I was chatting with Garry St. Jean, then general manager of the Golden State Warriors, and he told me, "There's a high school player out there that you're not going to believe. He's going to be a star in this league from day one."

The player was LeBron James. If I'd been paying attention I would already have known about him because he'd gotten national publicity. But when I left Watsonville and came to the San Francisco Chronicle in 1963, I had left high school basketball behind. The only exception was

-- after a year's campaign by my friend Sam Spear -- I went to see Jason Kidd and wrote after that game that Kidd would be an even bigger star in college and the NBA when he got teammates who were prepared for his amazing passing skills.

But James was on an even higher level, an amazing athlete who could have starred in football as well; he was all-state as a sophomore. The first time I saw him in an NBA game I saw some resemblance to Oscar Robertson, but he was four inches taller than Robertson and, of course, four years less experienced when he came to the NBA.

He has done nothing but add to his r?sum? each year he's played. He started with his home state team, the Cleveland Cavaliers -- Akron is his hometown -- but became disgusted when ownership did not bring in enough good players around him to win a championship. So he joined with Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade to go to Miami and make the Heat champions.

This year he returned to Cleveland and, surprise, the Cavaliers are the Eastern Conference champions and facing the Warriors in the conference finals, starting Thursday.

It's an interesting matchup because the Warriors are led by Stephen Curry, the league's Most Valuable Player. Curry doesn't have the strength of James, but he's an incredible shooter, hitting 3-pointers from different spots, and his ball handling and passing meet Globetrotter standards.

There is no question the Warriors are a much deeper team, and coach Steve Kerr can throw any number of combinations at James. Kerr is very imaginative, and I think he'll use every trick available to slow down James.

This will be a much different final from the last one the Warriors were in, their only one since coming to the Bay Area. That Warriors team, a very young one except for Rick Barry, was on a roll, and the players for their opponent, the Baltimore Bullets, were stunned. I was courtside for that one and I remember the defeated look the Baltimore players had. It was over quickly, in four games.

I'd expect this one to go seven games and be tight right down to the last whistle. I also expect the Warriors to win it. James will have to carry too much of the load himself and, ultimately, he won't be able to do it. Even an athlete as great as James can't do it all himself.

Draymont Green is unstoppable.

The adulation continues.

Warriors' Win Sends Fans Into Fenzy  by Bruce Macgowan

Has it really been 40 years since the Warriors have been to the NBA finals? It hasn't seemed that long, but then I remember the last time so vividly, as I was just a kid out of college and got to cover all the Warriors home games for a little sports paper in San Francisco called City Sports.

"What won it for us? Defense," Rick Barry said after Golden State had knocked off the Chicago Bulls on that long-ago May night. "It's been defense all season long."

The Warriors' defense that year came at opposing teams in swarms, with five or six guys coming off the bench. The Warriors' defense in this postseason has been comparable to that Cinderella club of 40 years ago, as tenacious defenders Draymond Green, Klay Thompson, Harrison Barnes and Andrew Bogut have swarmed the ball, creating turnovers and fast-break opportunities time and again.

Getting a chance to cover this year's postseason for KGO radio in San Francisco was lots of fun. The crowd during the series-clinching win over the Houston Rockets this past Wednesday night was rapt with joy after young Barnes sparked a mid-fourth-quarter rally that pretty much put this game away. His nine straight points featured a long-distance shot from behind the arc, a driving slam dunk, a short bank shot and a lay-in. By the time this brilliant 22-year-old athlete had finished his handiwork, the crowd was in a frenzy. Houston coach Kevin McHale looked flustered, and the Rocket players were visibly slumping in frustration.

Before Barnes took over, I had the feeling the Warriors were going to break loose with one of their patented offensive bursts. Midway through the fourth quarter, it couldn't have come at a more opportune time.

They had shot poorly early in the game. They picked up the pace a bit later, but sloppy passing didn't help their cause, and the Rockets' James Harden kept getting to the foul line for easy free-throw opportunities. Houston had nearly twice as many free throws as the Warriors, and the fans didn't like it one bit. The boos for the refs were as lusty as those directed at the Rockets' big man, Dwight Howard, who started to show his frustration late.

The elbow that Howard threw at Warriors forward Andre Iguodala's shoulder was infuriating enough for Warriors fans, but late in the contest another scary incident occurred, as potentially devastating as the one involving Steph Curry in Game 4.

Thompson was whacked hard on his right ear by a flying knee from Houston's Trevor Ariza and was unable to return after suffering a mild concussion. As you'd expect, with the Rockets trying to stave off elimination, this did not sit well, and Green immediately got into Howard's grill.

Luckily for the Warriors, the Rockets couldn't find their range for almost the entire game and had to depend on free throws to stay close. So when Barnes scored nine straight points to turn a four-point Warriors lead into a 13-point advantage late, the crowd finally got a chance to really cut loose, and you could sense the excitement of a conference title only minutes away.

I remember back in 1975 how Barry went up at the top of the key for a shot during the final minute of the tense, tight Game 7 and then in midair fired an unexpected bullet pass to center George Johnson.

A tall, spindly shot-blocking specialist who backed up Clifford Ray, Johnson then scored the most important basket of his NBA career. He took the ball and in one motion flew over everyone for a thunderous slam that put the Warriors up by five with less than a minute left.

When the game ended a few minutes later, a hysterical group of fans swarmed the middle of the basketball floor and celebrated the win by hugging Barry and Johnson, who were all smiles.

When the Warriors finished off Houston to exorcise the demons of some 40 years of frustration, the crowd was on its feet and in full roar. The fans cheered madly for a good 20 minutes as the players hugged and the post-game trophy ceremony took place.

Like those Warriors of 1975, this current Warriors club is deep, smart, talented and in sync. The players are like a happy family around each other. They have set quite a standard, winning 67 games in the regular season before taking 12 of their first 15 playoff games. It now seems clear to hard-core Warriors fans that they will win it all, and why not?

Sure, Lebron James and the Cavs looked tough in their four-game sweep of Atlanta, but the Warriors have more depth, more youth and better health-and they play in a much tougher conference.

And it seems this current Warriors team has too much good mojo to miss out on a rare opportunity. It reminds me of what I was lucky enough to watch in person so long ago.

And for the long-suffering fans who stuck with this team during the leanest of times, it has now come full circle. All I can say is "Wow!"

  Highly Recommended! 

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5988 Pacheco Blvd., Pacheco, CA 94553

(925) 685-8397

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  Odds to win the 2015 World Series

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