Grasslands Golf Tips

Grasslands golf tips will help you become a better golfer.

Golf Tips to improve your Distance

Pass the Pole for More Distance

If you want more distance and consistency, use a proper weight shift. Imagine a pole coming vertically out of the ground where the ball is resting at address. Make it your goal to get your left shoulder behind the ball and the imaginary pole on the takeaway--without swaying the hips. This ensures a good position to initiate your downswing. On the follow-through, your right shoulder should move past the ball and imaginary pole. When you do this correctly, you not only make a good turn, but a good weight shift as well.

Start at the Top

The real secret to hitting straighter, more-consistent shots is to have a square clubface at impact. If your clubface connects squarely with the ball, your shots fly straight. It's that simple! One way to promote a square clubface at impact is to have one at the top of the backswing. If you're not square at the top, you have to manipulate the club in some way to make it square at impact. This can lead to all kinds of timing problems. Here's a good drill that teaches you how to play from a square position. With a club in hand, lift your arms just up to the forehead, and then rotate the shoulders as far as possible, allowing a full backswing. This sets your hands in a square position at the top and encourages a full turn. If you can hold this position for a few seconds, it helps ingrain the proper feeling that you should have at the top of the swing.

Stabilize Your Left Knee

Long distance hitters have a significant discrepancy between hip turn and shoulder turn. The place for a big hip turn is on the follow-through, not the backswing! One important body part that affects what the hips do is the left knee. When it collapses or bends inward, the hips are able to turn too much, making it impossible to create the necessary torque required to build clubhead speed. To improve this, simply feel the left knee staying out toward the target at the top of the backswing. This keeps some distance between the knees.

Turn Your Way to More Distance

The key to hitting a golf ball a long way is minimizing your hip turn and maximizing your shoulder turn. The easiest way to accomplish this is to make sure that your left knee doesn't slide to the right on the backswing and that the right knee stays firm and flexed throughout. (Opposite knee for left-handed players.) Also, get your shoulder behind the ball at the top of the backswing. This ensures good weight shift and allows for a longer swing.

Release is the Key to Distance

To improve distance, you must have a proper hand release in the swing. Take a short backswing and stop when your club and hands are about waist high. Look as though you are shaking hands with your thumb pointing up in the air. As you swing down into the follow through, make sure your hands are doing the same thing that they did on the backswing (thumb up). This technique ensures that you use your hands properly.

Golf Tips for Bunker Shots

See Yourself in the Clubface

One of the keys of this bunker tip to getting out of greenside bunkers is to keep the clubface "open." When you close the face, you get a lower trajectory and the Golf Club tends to dig in the sand. Here's a trick to help you achieve this: Imagine that the clubface is a mirror, and that you're going to see your reflection in it at the finish of your sand shot. This will ensure that you take the club all the way to eye level and that you've kept it open all the way to the finish.

"Splash" Some Sand

Next time you're in a bunker, focus on sliding a thin "divot" of sand from under the ball and onto the green. Open the clubface a few degrees (clockwise) and line up slightly to the left. "Splash" the sand toward the target and the ball will follow!

The perfect Bunker Backswing

This drill helps you get a feel for taking the Golf Club back in a more upright plane out of the bunker. By taking the club back more abruptly, you increase your chances of getting under the ball properly and impacting the sand more precisely. Have a friend stand behind you in the sand and place a rake about two feet behind your ball--holding it in approximately a 45-degree angle. The goal here is to get you to swing up the rake handle and feel as though your bunker backswing is steeper than that of a normal swing. Take several swings like this and soon you'll hit high, soft shots from the bunker.

Chipping from the Bunker

Many golfers make the sand trap shot more difficult than it has to be. This is because they were taught that the only way to come out of a trap is with an explosion shot, a rather unnatural stroke for the beginner since the club head has to strike the sand behind the ball and does not strike the ball itself.
There are a number of occasions when the lie of the ball and the lay of the land make playing an explosion shot unnecessary and even unwise. Whenever the bank of the trap is low and there is enough putting surface between the trap and the hole, a golfer would be more sensible to play a variation on a chip shot—with the club head contacting the ball cleanly and lofting it onto the green. Allow for some roll.
A chip from the sand is played the same as a chip from any other lie, with two modifications. First, you grip the club low on the shaft, as far down as the bottom of the leather if this is comfortable. Secondly, glue your eyes on the left half of the ball rather than on the right half as you do on ordinary shots. This enables you to deliver a clean, descending blow, and that is the essence of all chip shots.

Fairway Bunker Shot

When taking on this shot be sure the club you are using has sufficient loft to get the ball over the front lip of the bunker. You do not want to strike the ball perfectly only to see it smash into the face of the bunker and dribble back to your feet.

If you are to hit your ball 150 yards out of a bunker towards the green you must catch it cleanly, that means removing as little sand as possible. In order to catch the ball cleanly just below its equator, you should stand tall and grip a couple of inches down the handle. Also, don’t shuffle your feet down into the sand as you would for greenside bunker shots where you are trying to hit the sand before the ball. Try to remain on the surface. Play the ball an inch further back in your stance that normal to help guarantee you catch the ball, not the sand. Keep the swing short and quiet-that means a smooth takeaway and no lunges from the top of the backswing-and pick the ball off the top.

Get out of the Sand

Sand play around the green really is a different concept. Here's all you need to know to have great sand play...Open the blade of your sand wedge so that it is directed about five feet to the RIGHT of the flag. Open your stance so the tips of your feet and shoulders are aligned with each other such that you are aiming about five feet LEFT of the pin.

When you swing back, only swing the clubhead as HIGH as your right shoulder. Don't use more than about 60% power on the swing. The clubface should slice ACROSS AND DOWN THROUGH the sand, behind the ball.
More than any other shot on the course, follow through is essential to lift the ball out of the sand. If you want the ball to stop more quickly, hit the sand about 1 inch behind the middle of the golf ball. If you want the ball to run, you need to hit about 2.5 inches behind the middle of the ball.
Use this method and your days of poor sand play are behind you, but of course nothing comes without practice. And the course isn't good enough. Find a course in your area that has a chipping green with a bunker you can practice out of. After a while, your confidence will skyrocket.

How to fix Shoulder Turn In Golf Swing

Are you struggling with your shoulder turn in your golf swing. Do you want to fix it once and for all? Making a full shoulder turn in golf is a crucial element to improving golf driving distance quickly. There are some physical requirements to a proper shoulder turn, but most of them can be overcome with a little effort. Nothing in life (and golf) comes easy if it’s worth anything, so realize right now, you’ve got to give your shoulder turn issue some attention to fix it.

Like the older golfer pictured to the left, this is a “false” shoulder turn. It may look like a should turn, but if I were a betting man, this golfer is struggling with distance. He has swayed off the ball, and picked up the club. He has not properly rotated behind the ball with a correct shoulder turn. Does this look like you? If so, we’re going to fix it, and give you another 30 yards on your drives.

One of the first issues if you’re struggling with your backswing, is tension. If you have muscle tension, it will be very difficult to make a proper, bigger golf backswing This tension can be caused by nerves, or from stiff muscles. Most likely it is muscles that have become tight over the years, that are keeping you from making a complete backswing. All it takes is a simple golf backswing stretch to quickly improve your turn back away from the golf ball.

Another issue is like the picture. Sliding instead of rotating. Your first move away from the ball if you’re a slider is toROTATE your right shoulder immediately behind you! This will get you turning and not sliding to the right. Once you feel the rotation in your core, you will be able to unwind with a much higher clubhead speed.

Slowing Down Your Golf Swing

Do you want a slow golf swing like Ernie Els. Learning how to slow down yuor golf swing with your driver is not hard, but you’ve got to apply the right tips to achieve it consistently.

Even though Ernie is swinging an iron in this picture, his driver swing is no different. Beautiful tempo and rhythm. God gave him this, but you can emulate him and definitely see improvement in the speed of your swing, both on the backswing and definitely on the downswing.

One of the biggest mistakes in swinging your driver is “trying” to swing too fast. When you do this, you lose any tempo and timing you had before. This loss of timing will result in mishits and swing flaws; and even a lack of distance. So your intention of swinging faster (harder) will most likely backfire on you, as this will also create tension in your golf swing.

Some of the below golf tips you might have heard before, but have you consistently applied them? That is the key. You’ve got to do them regularly to see results.

Speed Up Your Golf Swing Takeaway

You might be thinking I’ve lost my marbles on this one, but hear me out! I know when I personally try to take the club back “low and slow”, I innately triple my speed coming down. I defeated my purpose of a good tempo golf swing. When I work on this normal speed golf swing take away technique my overall golf swing speed is slower, but not so slow I lose distance. I actually gain distance, because my golf swing sequence was better, so my ball striking improved. So next time you want to slow down your golf swing for better contact, don’t take the club away too slow.

Pause At The Top Of Your Golf Swing

This is a very common tip, but every time I do it on the course, I crush the ball! In my humble opinion, as amateurs we really screw it up in the transition. We get way too quick, and jerk the club down from the top, throwing our golf downswing sequence off, making it nearly impossible to come into impact in the correct position.

If you watch Ernie, Freddie Couples or any of the touring pros, none of them come down fast, with a jerk from the top. Their golf swing transition is smooth and slow. For us mere mortals, we almost need to think of stopping at the top, before we make our move down. It doesn’t actually happen, but it almost feels like that.

Once you’ve done your pause at the top, then don’t rush it. Let your body unwind in the proper sequence. When you do this, you come into the ball powerfully. It’s amazing when you think you’re slowing down your downswing, because in reality, you are just giving your body a chance to unwind properly. We do not ever want a HIT impulsecoming down. of the week 20.01.2012

Tens Arms Kill Golf Swing Speed

Tension in your arms is not a good thing! If you want to hit your drives as far as you can, it’s not the effort (tension) you put into it, it’s the higher clubhead swing speed. How many times have you tried to KILL it and the ball went nowhere? I know, because I’m guilty of that more times than I can count. Why, as golfers can’t we learn it’s not how hard we swing, but how relaxed and fluid we swing that creates higher swing speeds and ultimately more distance.

Relaxed Golf Grip

Once you learn how to grip a golf club, you must relax those hands. It starts with the fingers and goes up through your palm, and ultimately the pressure on the grip itself. Look down at your hands just before you make your swing. Do your knuckles look a little white? Are the veins in your hands sticking out more than normal? These are telltale signs you are gripping the club too tightly, causing excess tension to run right up your arms and into your shoulders. This is a KILLER of swing speed and distance.

It’s All In Your Waggle

You’ve seen all the pros do it. Maybe even your golf buddies. It’s called the golf waggle. This is one of the most effective ways to release tension in your hands and arms before you start your swing. The waggle is movement. Movement decreases tension. Doing this right before you take the club away will eliminate 90% of the tension in your arms, enabling you to maximize clubhead speed and distance. Next time you play, make sure to waggle the club and feel the tension leave your arms. Then within a second start your swing. Do NOT waggle, then set your club behind the ball and freeze! This is a waste of your waggle and will not release any tension in your arms before you swing.

Get Your Breathing Right

You’d be surprised how many golfers hold their breath when they swing. When you stop breathing, you create tension. Just think of yoga. They are constantly working on their breathing DURING their stretches. As a golfer, you should be aware of your breathing when you start your swing. After your swing starts, it happens to quickly for you to pay attention to it, but definitely before you swing, take a deep breath and then LET IT OUT before you start your golf swing. When you let your breath out, you will feel and even see your muscles relax.

One last thing

This may sound counter-intuitive, but learning how to slow down your golf swing, will actually help speed it up. Your arms will be so loose, your speed will be better.

Golf tip of the week 20/11/2011

Driving on Doglegs

Dogleg holes need special planning, particularly when they bend acutely. Direction obviously is a critical factor, but so is distance. What is more frustrating than striking the ball solidly, and then watching it fly or roll through the corner of the dogleg into trouble? You even see the tour pros make that mistake, but the ones who do it often aren’t the names you see in the headlines. Doglegs demand astute club selection based on knowledge of distances- the course’s and your own. So here’s dogleg rule No 1: If you think the driver might put you through the elbow of the dogleg, take a club you know will not matter how well you hit it.

Knowing the pin position before you plan your tee shot is a fundamental of golfing strategy. It’s never more important than on a dogleg, where the green probably is hidden from the tee. Tour caddies get us that information on pre-round course inspections. If you can’t do that, at least make every effort to note upcoming pin locations as you play along. You are looking for the best angle of approach. If the hole doglegs to the right and the pin is on the right, then the left side of the fairway generally will offer the best angle. But if the pin on a left-to-right hole is on the left, your best angle likely will result from cutting the corner as closely as possible. If you find trouble on the right, you still should have a shot directly across the fairway to the pin. The converse strategies apply when the hole doglegs to the left.

Doglegs don’t always have to be played safe. They sometimes offer the better golfer a fine opportunity to gain a competitive edge.

The keys gambling on doglegs are recognizing your true capabilities and then minimizing the risks as much as possible. For example, if you don’t normally fly the ball high with a driver, you shouldn’t attempt to hit over tall trees with it. Use the 3-wood instead. If that’s not enough club in terms of distance, then don’t attempt the shot. Also, consider the consequences if you miss. If you face or thick jungle or out-of-bounds, attempting to carry a corner may be sheer foolhardiness. On the other hand, if the worst you could encounter is light rough or a few well-spaced trees – and you are playing well – it can make sense to gamble.

If you have the ability to curve the ball either way at will, using that talent on doglegs will gain you some advantage. For instance, by aiming the ball down the left side and fading it toward the centre of the fairway on holes that turn from left to right, you shorter your approach without risking corner cutting. You gain the same advantage by aiming down the right side and drawing the ball on holes that swing from right to left. But even if you have this “finessing” capability, keep in mind that distance is rarely all-important on an acute dogleg. These holes tend to be short, which means they generally have small, well-trapped greens. You angle of approach is more critical than yardage.

Golf tip of the week 14/3/2011

Reading Greens

Friendly advice is generally in abundant supply on the golf course, and nowhere more so than on the greens. Good manners may dictate that you appear to “listen”, but my suggestion is that you best not to actually hear. Do you own surveying and make up your own mind on all putt readings, for three reasons: (1) The amount any putt breaks depends upon its speed, and no one else knows hard you are going to hit the ball. (2) Too much discussion about the line of a putt tends to distract your attention from the distance, which is usually the more difficult factor to judge. (3) You need to be more absolutely clear and confident about your intentions as you stroke the ball, and you won’t be if someone else’s ideas keep edging into your consciousness.

If you’ve watched some players in tournaments you may have noticed that they usually squat when assessing a putting line, whether from behind the ball or beyond the cup. I believe this positioning affords the best overall view of slopes and contours. Lying flat on the ground to get a worm’s-eye view might seem an even better idea, but I think if you try it you’ll find that it frequently hides more than reveals – it provides a good perspective only in the immediate foreground area. Also it soils your clothes. Conversely, standing fully erect can provide a good view of distant terrain but tends to flatten out the foreground slopes and angles. The squatting position affords the best vantage.

Should you always study the line of a putt from both sides of the hole? Definitely not, would be my advice. If the view from behind the ball (which should always be your first assessment) tells you all you feel you need to know, then go ahead and play without further ado. That way you don’ t risk the drop in confidence you’d experience if the other view didn’t exactly confirm or correct your first impression. However, if you’re in doubt after looking behind the ball, the view from beyond the hole often will confirm or correct your first impression. If it doesn’t, your last resort is to take a peek from the sides, looking particularly for rises or falls that you couldn’t detect from front or back. In the interest of keeping play moving, do as much of your surveying as you possibly can while others are reading their putts.

Be sure you know how to read the direction of grain and what to do about it. With most grasses, the grain is against you when the surface looks dull or dirty, and it is with you when it looks slick or shiny. For a further check, identify which way is west and the direction of drainage: grass generally grows toward the setting sun or with the nearest flow of water. Grain running against you slows down the ball, which necessitates firmer stroking. Conversely, grain running with you causes the ball to run more freely, requiring a lighter touch. When the grain is across the line of a putt, the ball will veer in the direction of growth. It is particularly important on short cross-grain putts to asses and allow for the breaking effect of the grass if you plan to “die” the ball into the hole. On long putts across grain, be sure to allow for the ball’s tendency to veer more and more with the grain as its forward momentum diminishes – especially when the ground also slopes in the direction of the grain. On all puts, recognize that the effects of the grain increase as the grass gets longer and longer late in the day. Aim and stroke accordingly.

Occasionally you’ll run into a putt that seems to beak one way when you look at it from one direction and the other way you look you look at it from another direction. At some courses the greens on the mountain side of the course slope away from the mountains, even when they appear to slope forward them. You’ll find similar optical illusions on many hilly or rolling courses. The land immediately around the green usually provides the correct answer: the putt-if it breaks at all- usually will do so in the direction of the overall slope. Better to always check the surrounding terrain as you walk onto the green.

Golf tip of the week 7/3/2011

Surviving Odd Obstacles

The restricted swing

Playing From under the tree limbs and other swing restrictors isn’t as difficult as it might seem, given three conditions. First, acclimatize yourself to the feel of the restricted action by properly “measuring” it with plenty of practice swings. Second, forget the obstacle and concentrate on swinging as slowly and smoothly as possible. Third, prevent the anxious peeking that always wrecks these shots by really looking hard at the ball until it vanishes from sight. Also, don’t give up in these situations too quickly even when there is no room to make any kind of normal backswing.

The southpaw recovery

Given a reasonable lie, consider a left-handed swing if there is no other way to attack the ball. Take a well-lofted iron-say a 6, 7 or 8 – and turn the blade upside down so you can hit with the face of the club, not the back. Reverse your hands to make a left-hander’s grip, and take plenty of practice swings to get as much feel as possible for the southpaw action. Then watch the ball closely and try not to rush the stroke. Unless you’re ambidextrous, you shouldn’t try for too much distance on a shot like this – simply making decent contact to get clear obstacle is the best objective. Use your putter and just bump the ball out left hander, if anything else seems too difficult or risky.

The water shot

Extracting a ball that’s more than about half an inch under water is a tough assignment, so use common sense and don’t risk compounding the original error. If the ball is only that deep or partly above the water, start by putting on you rain gear - that will help you reduce the tendency to flinch or quit on the shot that that naturally results from the prospect of getting wet. Next, make sure of solid footing, even if that means removing shoes and socks and rolling up the pants. On the shot, pick the club pick the club up abruptly and hit down steeply and hard into the water a little farther behind the ball than you instinctively would- much the same as playing from a buried lie in sand.

The bump and run

Here’s a shot you’ll frequently see on the pro tour when nothing else will work, especially from a close lie to a tight pin position when mounds or a hard-surfaced bunker intervene. To play it through sand take a long iron, choke down, position the ball back near your right foot with your hands well forward, and make a firm descending blow. This is really a desperation shot, but practice will improve your success ratio. In your practice, include hitting some shots into the sides of mounds, using a medium iron, to get some feel for how much speed various degrees of slope take off the ball.

Fenced in

There are two possibilities here. The easiest is simply to bump the ball between your legs by beating straight down on top of it with a well-lofted iron. For a more adventurous effort, take two clubs less than you’d need form the fairway, close the club face acutely, look hard at the ball, and swing normally. If you manage to make clean contact, the severely closed clubface will direct the ball well left and away from the fence, rather than in the direction of the swing. Allow for a low flight and lots of roll.

Golf on the rocks

Hitting off stones obviously imperils your equipment, and it can also damage your eyes, so don’t be foolhardy. If you decide to take the risk, and the surface is loose and gravelly, try a bunker-type shot, hitting very firmly down about an inch or two behind the bal. If the rocks are boulder-size, your only chance is try to nip the ball cleanly. This frequently results in further rock trouble, so consider your other options carefully before trying it.

The ditch-digger

The lower the ball in relation to where you can stand, the riskier the shot, thus more the more you should weigh taking a drop and unplayable lie penalty against having to ditch-dig all over again-and again. If you decide to take the chance, get as close to the ball as you can by banding your knees and leaning over from the waist; swing the club up sharply with a quick wrist-break and then punch the club head straight down into the ball. Keep your head and upper body as still as possible and don’t worry about a follow-through.

Golf tip of the week 1/3/2011

Playing From Angled Lies

Strategy No 1 for dealing with angled lies is to avoid them as much as possible by driving and laying up to the most level fairway areas. This is one reason you will often see god players teeing off with less than a driver. Almost always rather hit a longer club into a green than approach it from a severely angled lie. This is also the reason most players see the most level area they can find for all tee shots. Strategy No 2, when you can’t avoid uneven lies, is to accept them as a basic part of the game and get on with meeting their special challenge, rather than bemoaning your bad luck or cursing the design of the course. Meeting the challenge requires knowledge of the light pattern produced by angled lies, and the adjustments necessary to deal with them. Let’s look at the four main ones.

Uphill Lie

The ball will fly higher and thus not so far then from level ground, so give yourself sufficient club. You will have a tendency to stay or even fall back on your right foot through impact, which promotes a pull or pull hook to the left, so plan accordingly. The more severe the uphill slope, the harder it becomes to counteract both these effects, so make ample allowances and don’t be overambitious. On a really steep uphill lie, be certain to take a club with sufficient loft to clear the top of the hill or mound, even if that means laying up. To offset the effect of the slope as much as possible, set up as perpendicular to it as you can, thereby encouraging a club head arc through impact that matches rather than fights the slope. To avoid swaying on the backswing or losing balance swinging through, restrict your body turn a little and swing more with your hands and arms. There’s an instinctive tendency to rush theses shots so think “smooth”. Don’t worry about making a full turn follow-through.

Downhill Lie

When the angle is severe this can be the toughest shot in the game, even for the best shot makers. The ball will tend to fly lower and thus farther and “hotter” than normal. Because you will have difficulty getting the weight off your left side going back and a tendency to sway with the slope coming through, the ball often will be pushed or push-sliced to the right, so allow for that. The longer-shafted the club the shallower the arc through impact and thus the tougher it becomes to avoid catching ground before ball. On really acute downhill slopes, it pays to favor the shorter-shafted, more lofted clubs even at the expense of laying up. Again, the more perpendicular you can set up at address the better your chance of matching the club head arc to the slope. Setting most of your weight on your right foot and keeping it there throughout the swing will help prevent swaying or falling forward, as will swinging more with your arms and less with your body. Think “smooth” again, and really try to stay down on this shot; try for a feeling of “chasing” the ball with the club head well beyond impact.

Ball Above Feet

The higher the ball lies relative to your feet, the more effect you should stand at address to give yourself maximum swinging room. Standing more erect will move you farther away from the ball, so choke down on the club until you are a comfortable distance from it. Setting and keeping your weight more towards toes can help you retain balance on a severe slope. Try to swing compactly and smoothly, allowing the club to move naturally on the flatter plane established by your more erect posture, which will help you to sweep the ball away rather than digging for it. The ball will always tend to hook from this type of lie; you can either allow for this in aiming, or modify the right-to-left curve by opening the clubface at address. If you prefer the clubface, take at least one more club to offset the higher flight this will create.

Ball Below Feet

Getting and staying well “down” to the shot is the chief problem here. Solve it on a slight incline by increasing your knee bend to produce more of a “sitting” posture. This will have the effect of moving your weight more to your heels. Grip the club near the end to help bring yourself as close as possible to normal distance from the ball. On severe slopes you will probably need to lean over more from the hips in addition to increasing your knee bend. Swing compactly and as smoothly as possible, chiefly with your hand and arms; try to retain your knee bend and angle of inclination from the waist right through impact; and keep your head still-any upper-body sway here can easily result in a shank. Shots from this type of lie tend to fade or slice. If you must attempt a straight shot, close the clubface a little and move the ball back in your stance an inch or two-but allow for a lower flight than normal.

Golf tip of the week 7/2/2011

The Not-So-Simple Art of Teeing Up

A basic of god golf strategy is seizing every advantage the game offers you. You can grasp several in the seemingly simple act of teeing the ball, although most players unwittingly ignore them. As a general principle, tee the ball so that you aim and hit away the worst potential trouble area. For example, if a hole has bunkers down the left side of the fairway but out of bounds tight down the right side, the peg the ball the right side of tee and hit for the left half of the fairway. If you catch the sand it may cost you a shot, but if you go out-of-bounds it definitely will cost you two shots. (stroke and distance). Conversely, when the more sever trouble, water perhaps, lies to the left, tee up left and aim and hit away from it. Other things being equal, you generally will get more distance in crosswinds by letting the air currents keep the ball flying longer. Tee up left and aim down the left side of the fairway when the wind is from left to right, and do the reverse when the wind is from right to left. As I’ve said before, and it bears repeating, it’s important to find level area on the tee from which to play. In seeking out such an area, the markers and to a depth of two club-length behind them.

The policy on almost all normal driver shots is to tee the ball at the same height- the height where you can catch it exactly at the bottom of the swing arc or very slightly on the upswing. One theory-erroneous, in the opinion- is that the ball should be teed higher for a high shot and a lower for a low shot. That is not a general rule for two reasons. First, varying the height of the ball for a driver shot forces you to change your swing path and that breeds inconsistency. Second, teeing the ball lower than normal promotes a steeper angle of club head approach that imparts more backspin to the ball and diminishes the forward thrust of the club, causing the ball to soar higher and fall shorter. In another case, the ball is at its proper height when its center is about opposite the top edge of the driver face when the club is grounded.

You often see golfers teeing up on short holes where they are using less than a driver simply toss the ball down and hit it from the grass. On every tee, whenever the club or the shot, I set the ball on a peg. Usually, the longer the club and the higher I want to fly the ball, the higher I tee up the ball. That way I eliminate the possibility of grass reducing backspin and also reducing backspin and also reduce the chance of hitting backspin and also reduce the chance of hitting behind the ball.

Golf tip of the week 24/1/2011

How to Cope with Wind on Tee Shots

You need every advantage you can muster playing in the wind, and there’s no better place to start strategizing than on the tee. In a crosswind most weekend golfers, if they don’t let their egos or emotions get in the way, will choose to aim off to one side and let the wind blow the ball back on target, rather than try to fight the wind by curving the ball against it. In that case, if the wind is from left to right, setting up is far is possible to the left side of the tee and aiming down the left side gives you the maximum amount of fairway to play with. Conversely, of course, you get more driving area when the wind is from the right by teeing up as far to the right as possible and aiming down the right side of the fairway.

As you undoubtedly know from experience, the more loft on the club the less likely you are to hook or slice badly. Take advantage of that fact on downwind tee shots. The breezes are going to give you extra yardage anyway, so you don’t always have to beat on the ball with the biggest club in your bag. If your driver tends to do you injury, or hazards make accuracy imperative, use your 3-wood or even more lofted club. However, don’t let the lesser firepower in your hands cause you to subconsciously ease up on the shot. To take full advantage of the wind you need to get the ball well up in the air, so make a good, full, firm swing, and release trough impact. Don’t let the wind lure you into “steering” your shots- a definite danger in rough conditions.

Should you tee the ball lower hitting directly into the wind? This sometimes is advocated for a lower flight, but this is not always true. First, the lower the ball is teed the more downward blow it encourages, and the more downward the blow the greater the backspin, and the greater the backspin the more ball will soar. Second, many golfers will involuntarily open the face of a driver trough impact when the ball is teed low in an instinctive effort to get it airborne, which produces the one thing you don’t want: height (not to mention a slice or push). Third, if there’s any time you really need a solid hit it’s driving into a high wind. You have a better for a plush impact if you get all the clubface on the back of the ball. So my advice is to tee the ball at normal at normal height, headwind or no.

Perhaps the toughest hole in championship golf to figure out in any kind of wind is No. 12 Augusta National. It’s only 155 yards, but many a Masters has been lost right there. The narrow, diagonally angled green with Rae’s Creek in front and sloping bunkers and a rough bank behind are worrisome factors. But the most frightening consideration is what will happen to the tee shot when it climbs above the thick stand of trees sheltering the right side of the tee and beyond. The best clue is to carefully study which way and how forcibly the tops of the tees are blowing, and this is a tactic most experienced tour players use on all drivers and approach shots on wooden courses in windy weather. You’ll receive fewer unpleasant surprises if you make a habit of doing the same.

To me, the toughest of all winds is a following wind that also quarters from left to right. This type of wind prompts many golfers to make a special effort to keep the head and upper body well behind the ball trough impact. However, if you era not careful this effort can in turn promote tendency to sway rather than coil on the backswing, and it is also can inhibit your leg and hip action trough the ball. The best defense against both these dangers is simply to be aware of them, perhaps to the point of consciously prefacing each swing with the thought to turn fully and clear fully.

Golf tip of the week 17/1/2011

Finessing the Ball for Lower Scores

Finessing the ball is a good golfer’s phrase for shaping or flighting shots at will. Essentially it involves creating special spin effects to produce particular trajectories and/or landing characteristics. The better you can become at finessing the ball, the more strategically you can play and the lower you will score. High and low shots should be your first goal. When you want to hit the ball high, use all the shaft of the club- in other words, hold the club as close to its end as you comfortably can- and keep your grip pressure as light as possible. When you want to hit the ball low, choke down on the shaft and stay firm in your grip pressure, wrists and forearms from address right through impact and beyond.

The ability to hit the ball high and thereby stop it quickly has been greatest single golfing asset over the years, especially in major championships where much long-iron play is called for and greens tend to be firm and fast. Height comes from backspin, which comes from maximum use of the loft build into the clubface, which in turn comes from a full, free release of the club head through the ball without the face closing. You should set up at address to promote these impact ingredients. Play the ball as far forward in your stance as you comfortably can and open the clubface. In aiming, allow for a left-to-right-flight. Then, using light grip pressure and relaxed wrists to help you do so, be sure to really release the club head- even to the point of feeling you are flinging or slinging it through the ball. Work on this action in practice before you try it under pressure on the course. Try for the feeling that your right hand is staying under your left until the ball is well on its way. Use this technique only from decent lies-it’s extremely difficult when the ball is sitting “tight”.

Even good golfers find it tough to hit the ball both very low and reasonably straight, the tendency generally being to hook or pull-hook. However, learning to reduce height by “driving” the ball more directly forward, rather than upward, is within the capability of anyone who breaks 90 regularly. Such shots are useful when hitting into the wind, in playing beneath tree limbs and when you need extra roll for maximum distance. Set up to the shot at address by moving the ball back n your stance with your hand well ahead of the ball and the clubface square or slightly closed. These adjustments have the effect of delofting the clubface, and the object in swinging is to keep it that way through impact. A firm grip will help you do so, as will the feeling of keeping the back of your left hand well beyond impact. On this shot it’s essential to unwind the hips in good time to make way for the arms to swing freely past the body. If they don’t, your wrists will flip the club head in too early and you’ll get too much height-and probably in a left-to-left direction. Practice the technique before you try it in play, and allow for more draw or hook the less lofted club.

There are many times in golf where extra “bite” is useful-or even imperative. The only way to achieve this is by imparting additional backspin to the ball, which creates extra height and thus a steeper angle of descent, plus more “grab” on landing. Goal No.1 for maximum backspin is a very clear hit-i.e., ball before grass or ground- and the easiest way to achieve this is to steepen the angle at which the clubface meets the ball. A good player often will do this simply by moving the ball back a little at address and swinging more uprightly, perhaps by bringing the wrists into play a little earlier going back. Try this technique yourself in practice, but if it’s too tough, then get your extra bite from the fade – a shot that automatically creates a steeper angle of hit and thus a higher trajectory. Simply open the clubface at address, aim yourself left of target, then swing normally. When the ground is hard, allow for the ball to hop and run from left to right as well as curving that way in the air.

One sign of a good finesse player is a full armory of “part” shots: shots with less than maximum distance and at varying trajectories with the iron clubs. There are three keys to such shots. The first is to reduce distance by shortening the swing, then hitting with normal force, rather than risk quitting on the stroke by swinging fully and trying to reduce the force through the impact. The second key is to “measure” the lengths of the backswing to the lengths of the shot by making enough practice swings to fully program the mind and muscles to the abbreviated action. Watch the pros and you’ll see all of them doing this before any less-than-full shot. The third key is experience, which can be gained only through practice. If you’re not prepared to work at these shots, you will risk less if you simply take whatever club seems right for the distance, swing fully and hope for the best.

Golf tip of the week 10/1/2011

Slopes

The more level the lie, the easier the game. Keep that in mind in evaluating every shot, beginning on the tee. Don’t just mindlessly stick the ball midway between the markers, as so many players do. Seek out the most level patch of ground you can find in the teeing area that complements your intended shot. Remember that you can tee the ball up to two club-lengths between behind the markers, and that only the ball (not yourself) has to be within the markers.

Take into account slopes, as well as hazards

And approach angles, in all your shot planning. The less level the lie, the worst the worst your percentage become, irrespectively of distance. For instance, much rather play a 5-iron from a level stance than an 8-iron from a severe slope. If you want a level lie for the next shot, especially avoid downhill lies. If you think you might clear the crest of a hill with a driver and leave your self a down hill lie, than go for the crest with a 3- or 4- wood. That way, even if you come up short, you’ll still have an easier approach from the uphill lie than you would from the downhill slope.

Consider side slopes as carefully as unslopes and down slopes. If a hole curves left and the fairway slopes from to right to left, leveling out as it goes, the intelligent place to aim is to the right side of the fairway. That way you use the slope positively in three ways: (1) to increase distance by obtaining maximum roll for the slope’s banking effect, (2) to bounce the ball in the direction of the fairway curve, and (3) to runt the ball towards the level left half left half of the fairway. Reverse strategy applies for the reverse situation.

Golf tip of the week 3/1/2011

Putting’s as Important as the Full Swing

No matter how well you hit the ball from tee to green, your score won’t reflect your shot making skills unless you also putt in the hole in comparatively few strokes. On the other hand, no matter how badly you hit the ball through the air, by putting skillfully you’ll always save something in terms of your overall score. Never lose sight of those two facts if you want to be a successful golfer.

If you believe you can get the ball into a hole or close, you generally will-and if you don’t, you generally won’t. That’s why I think the No.1 rule of putting is not a rational part of golf’s challenge. What I’m really saying is, don’t begrudge this portion of the game-simply accepted its special challenges as you do other aspects of the game. I promise you, the more positively you can approach the job mentally, the better you will putt- and score.

Watch the finest putters in the game and you’ll notice that all of them follow their own particular pattern of putting. If you don’t already have such a procedure, I strongly advice you to develop one. Here are the elements I believe such a routine should include: (1) Time to study the grain, break and speed. Don’t dawdle or procrastinate, but never hurry just to get a putt over with. (2) A positive plan based on that reading, in which the starting line of the putt and the force of the hit are clearly visualized. (3) A mental picture, derived from that plan, of the ball rolling over the green and dropping regimen that maximizes your physical feel for executing what you have mentally planned and visualized. (5) Some device to keep tension out of your muscles, such as a practice swing or two-rehearsals of the upcoming stroke. (6) The courage to stroke the ball only when you feel fully ready to do so.

Advice

There are all kinds of reasons-physique, age, strength, etc.-why you may not be able to get to the green in less than a certain number of strokes. But, assuming you are in good command of your basic faculties and have reasonable band-eye coordination, there is no reason why you should'nt learn to putt as well as any man or women in history. Most professional tournaments today are won with about 120 putts for 72 holes, a per-round average of 30 or so. Determine your present standard by averaging your putts over your next 10 rounds. If you’re around 30, go get some long-game lessons because you are definitely tour material on the greens. If you average 36 or just over, there is definite room for improvement, in your attitude. If you’re coming in at 40 or more, you need major surgery in all three.

Golf tip of the week 20/12/2010

Maneuvering the Ball

Most good golfers rarely try to hit longer shots dead straight. They prefer to spin the ball either slightly from left to right or right to left. Being able to repeat one or the other “shape” consistently breeds confidence, so intelligent players go with their preferred pattern whenever possible, because it’s the high percentage shot. When you try to play routine approach shot, let’s say you plan to fade the ball 15 feet, if you spot on, you in the hole. If you inadvertently hit the ball dead straight, you will have a 15-foot putt. If you double the amount of fade that you’ve planned, you’ll still have a 15 –foot putt.

To learn how to consistently fade or draw the ball, it helps first to clearly understand the difference between these shots and there ugly sisters- the slice and the hook- plus what causes these differences. In a fade the ball starts slightly left or straight along the target line and curves slightly right to that path toward the end of its flight. A sluice of a hook is simply much larger – and usually much more punishing - than a fade or draw. How do they get that way? The answer lies in the interaction of the clubhead path and clubface angle a t impact. Any time the clubface looks to the right of where the clubhead is swinging, the ball will be spun to the right; and any time the clubface looks left of the clubhead’s direction, the ball will be spun to the left. The ball curves only slightly in the fade or draw because these angles mismatch only minimally. The greater the mismatching, the more the ball curves. So, to turn a slice or hook into a fade or draw, the primary area for work is always your clubhead/ clubface interaction at impact.

Now, let us add a qualifier to the foregoing. If you match top golfers carefully, you will notice that the shorter the shot the less they curve the ball. Also, if you care to analyze your own game, you will almost certainly discover that you, too, slice or hook progressively less the shorter your shots- although you still may often miss the target by pulling or pushing the ball. The reason for all this is build into your golf clubs. To explain it simply, the more loft a club possesses the greater the backspin the ball caries the more resistant it is to the effects of sidespin. Thus, the more lofted the club, the less the ball can be curved in flight; the shorter the shot, the more directly to the target you should set up, and swing. And that pulls and pushes? With little, if any, sideway curve on the ball, these are true reflections of you swing path through impact- and thus a sure indicator of what you most need to work on in practice.

There are two ways to intentionally fade or draw the ball with the longer clubs. One is to change your grip and swing path, moving your hands farther to the left and swinging from out to in for a fade, or turning your hands more to the right and swinging from in to out for a draw. Use these techniques if they work consistently well for you. But if they don’t, try the other method- much simpler one. To fade a shot, leave your grip alone but open the clubfaces lightly at address, align yourself a little left of target, then swing normally. To draw a shot, reverse the procedure: grip as usual, close the clubface slightly and align your body a little right of the target. These adjustments allow maximum shot-curving potential for minimal disruption of playing patterns and “feels”. But a word of warning: swinging normally in both cases means swinging so that your clubhead path on the takeaway and at impact matches your body alignment, not your direct ball-to-target line.

Here are three tips that will feather help you to curve the ball. First, match your waggle to the swing path that will produce your desired curvature, i.e., from out-to-in for a fade and in-to-out for a draw. Second, in practice, work on matching your hip clearance to your intended flight path, unwinding quickly but smoothly for a fade to help keep the clubface open trough the ball, and less quickly when you want your hands and arms to roll it closed to produce a draw. Third, seek the feeling of matching your hand-and-wrist release to your desired flight pattern, delaying the roll of the right forearm over the left for a fade, and allowing your hands and arms to release as quickly as possible for a draw.

Golf tip of the week 15/12/2010

How to Putt Better Before Reaching the Green

The best reason to learn to putt well is simply that your score better. But there is another reason, too, which is that the better you putt the less pressure you impose on your long game.

Everyone who can play golf half decently has, I’m sure, been through those ugly cycles where the more often you three-putt or miss what seem makeable putts, the closer you feel you have to hit the ball to the pin from the fairway, and therefore the farther down the fairway you have to drive it from the tee.

Many amateurs regularly place themselves in three-putt territory simply by neglecting to asses pin placement in relation to the depth of the green. Big greens-are particularly long greens-seem to be a feature of much modern course design, and they can make putting extremely demanding unless you pick the right clubs on approach shots. The second green , a staggering 78 yards from front to back, calls from anything from a wedge to a 5-iron on the approach shot, and the 14^th has required me to hit just about everything from a 6-iron to a 3-wood depending on the location of the pin. Those are exceptionally huge greens, but the point applies on many modern courses: club yourself poorly and you’ll be working on a lot of monster putts.

The faster the greens the better I like them, so long as they are also smooth and true. This isn’t because fast greens are easier to putt then slow ones-generally they are not-but rather because of the effect on the opposition. The tougher the conditions, the quicker they separate the wheat from the chaff, and the less change luck or a hot strake will play a large role. The quicker shots and recovery shots from just off the green to be trying putting uphill on my next stroke. It’s my guess that more major championships have been lost on short downhill putts than by any other means. Conscious of greens, even to the point of preferring a breaking side-hiller to a straight putt down a sharp slope.

Should you chip or putt from close to the green? The condition of the intervening surface must be the primary factor in that decision-the less close-cropped or smooth it is the less you can control a putted ball. Given decent ground conditions, a big factor becomes confidence. And common sense indicates that you should generally go with the stroke you think you can execute the best. In my case that usually means I’ll reach for the putter because, putting so much more often than I chip, I figure I am bound to be better with that club.

Interesting information

Quite often the first player to putt in a foursome will have the pin removed, and everyone else will automatically leave it out of the hole while they putt. By so doing, I believe, they often deprive themselves of a better target than the cup alone offers, even when it’s fully and clearly visible. On almost all puts over, say, 25 feet, I find that leaving the pin in the hole definitely helps both my depth perception and my sense of aim and alignment.

Golf tip of the week 06/12/2010

How to Get Out of Sand Every Time

Bunker play strategy starts with the right club and the right attitude. The right club is a sand wedge: a heavy-headed, highly-lofted iron with a flange that protrudes below the club’s leading edge to prevent it from cutting too deeply into the sand. Bunker shots are possible with other clubs, but they are almost always more difficult.

Most golfers fear bunkers because they are unclear about the techniques for escaping them and never practice from sand. The basic technique for getting out of sand is to slide or knife or bounce the club through the sand beneath the ball. There are, however, many variations on that theme, and the more you know about them the better you’ll play from bunkers. The best way to learn these techniques initially is via lessons, but sand shots are essentially “feel” shots, and there are is no substitute for personal experiment and regular practice.

Rule No.1 of bunkers strategy is: get out in your first attempt.

Some things are possible from bunkers and some things are not, and you should learn the difference and play accordingly. If you aren’t sure, play safe. Be sure first of getting the ball back on short grass from a tough fairway bunker lie, even if doing this means you can’t reach the green on your next shot. Similarly, make getting the ball somewhere on the putting surface your first priority from any kind of risky lie or awkward in a greenside bunker.

The lie of the ball directly influences how much backspin you can put on the shot. If the ball is sitting nicely on top of the sand, you can nip it out with a shallow cut. This applies a lot of backspin and lets you stop the ball quickly. But if the ball is buried, you must strike a sharply descending blow just behind the ball, at about the edge of the crater of sand surrounding it. You will get very little if any backspin. The ball will come out at a lower angle and will run farther. Since it is almost impossible to stop the ball quickly, don’t try for a miracle if the pin is cut close to you with another hazard behind it. The intelligent choice is to strike the ball to a safe part of the green, preferably leaving you a straight or an uphill putt.

Your feet are great strategic weapons in bunker. How you should attempt to play any given shot depends first on the texture and condition of the sand. The rules forbid you to test it with your hands or the club, but they say nothing about your feet. Use them along with your eyes as you walk into the bunker to sense the quality of the sand-its fineness or coarseness, its dryness or wetness. Wiggle your feet into the sand as you address the ball to confirm your initial impressions as well as to build a firm stance. As a general principle, the finer or drier the sand to bury in it and the more shallow you should attempt to cut beneath the ball or the more firmly you should swing.

The first thought of many high handicappers when they enter sand seems to be “Get it over with fast!” This is poor policy on any recovery shot, but it has two particularly bad effects in bunker play. One is a failure to do any green reading before hitting. Because shot bunker shots are predominantly struck with an open clubface and an outside-in swinging action, they generally break from left to right on landing. Allowances need to be made for that in relation to green contours and speed. The second fault bread of anxiety is rushing the swing. Control of the club is paramount on every sand shot, and the slower and smoother your swing tempo the greater your club control is likely to be.

Golf tip of the week 22/11/2010

Hitting Long and Shot from the Rough

The amateur’s best friends when a long way from home in light or moderate rough are almost always the fairway woods, especially the 4, 5 and up. These clubs have bigger and more smoothly rounded heads that enable them to cut trough long grass more readily than the longer irons and deviate less in face alignment as they do so. Also, by flying the ball high they will produce a softer-landing shot that is normally possible with a long iron when grass intervenes between its face and the ball at impact. You can farther increase height, and thus stopping power, by applying some cut action to the ball. Play the ball back a little in your stance, aim left, open the clubface, be sure to lead the downswing with your legs and hips, hit sharply down into the ball, and allow for a fade. Remember that, by choking down on the club, you can use this shot for considerably less distance than the full potential of the club. Consider it for approaches from shaggy or soggy fairways, as well as from light or moderate rough.

Getting distance and height, from really heavy or matted rough is usually impossible. SO is getting distance and pinpoint accuracy. However, there is a way to advance the ball considerably from some types of tall grass, so long as you don’t have to stop it quickly or place it precisely. This technique becomes a useful tactic on a par 5 or long par 4 following an errant drive when there isn’t too much trouble up ahead. To play the shot, take a club with a reasonable amount of loft-say a 4- or a 5-iron-and move the ball back in your stance as far as you comfortably can, with your hands set well ahead of it and the clubface square or even slightly hooded at address. Then grip firmly, make a good turn, and-leading always with your left hand-punch the club head down into the back of the ball as hard and abruptly as you can. This is not an elegant stroke so don’t concern yourself to much with form-make “hit the daylights out of it“your primary thought. The result won’t look elegant, either-usually a low, squirting shot with a good deal of hook-but, used intelligently, it could very help you salvage a par intelligently, it could very well help you salvage a par or better.

One of the most common trouble shot in golf is the short pitch from rough around the green. Often the ball has to be made to carry some sort of obstacle, such as a bunker or water hazard, and frequently it must also be made to stop quickly, either to get within possible one-putt range or, in some cases, simply to hold the green. When the rough is not too severe or the ball is lying fairly well, forget about trying to impart heavy backspin and play a lob shot or “floater”. Select a pitching wedge or sand wedge, use all the shaft, move the ball well forward in your stance, open a clubface a little at address , and backspin, using mostly your arms. Coming down, try to retain the same overall slow-motion pace of arm swing while sliding the clubface firmly beneath the ball without overtaking or closing over your left hand. And look hard at the back of the ball throughout the stroke. Properly played, the ball will float out slow and high and land softly with very little roll. Adjust the distance by the length of the arm swing, rather than be accelerating the club head with your hands and wrists through impact.

When the rough is heavy or wet and the ball lies well down in it, you face a much sterner challenge and should beware of becoming overambitious. Simply getting the ball somewhere on the putting surface-or even out onto shorter grass-may be the best you can hope for. To do so-but only after off-course practice-try the explosion shot, using the sand wedge. Essentially, this is the same stroke you’d play from a greenside bunker. Set up as you would for the sand shot: ball well forward, stance a little open, clubface well open. Then fix your eyes on a point an inch or so behind the ball, pick the club up abruptly with your hands and wrist and hit equally abruptly and very firmly with the right hand down into the grass behind the ball at the point you are looking at. Try not to let your left wrist break down through impact, or your right hand roll over your left. The objective is to force the club head down through the grass to slide its face under the ball, so you must never baby this shot.

Leaves and pine needles

Leaves and pine needles can present problems in some areas at certain times of the year. You can, of course, try to clean up as much as possible around the ball, but when it is actually balanced above ground on a bed of loose material there is a severe risk of incurring a one-stroke penalty by causing it to move. So be cautious: keep those itchy fingers away and never ground the club at address. Remember that on a full shot you probably won’t be able to “grip” the ball on the clubface as cleanly as you’d like, which will make it fly lower and run farther. So go to a more-lofted club. For a short or high pitch, use the explosion technique I just described: ball forward, clubface open, abrupt backswing and downswing, hitting about an inch behind the ball. You don’t need as much force here as you do from heavy rough but be firm.

Golf Tip for the Day.

Today's tip is the important
role the left hip plays. So
many weekend golfers get
this wrong.

So , take note of what Charles is saying not to do with the left hip - don't slide the hip forward but turn your left hip back out of the way as you start the down swing........make sure you turn the left hip back out of the way.

Go practice this a few times to see how you do - then do as Charles says to correct what you might be doing wrong and try the exercise again. You may need to practice this in front of a full length mirror to ensure you are doing it correctly

TIP NO 2

Choosing the proper golf shoe for your game:

Choosing the right golf shoe depends on your feet. Basically, golf shoe or not, shoes must be comfortable to wear and should fit good. Also, the shoes should fit your budget as well as your lifestyle.

Review Before You Buy!
The best way to pick the right golf shoe is to know your shoe size and your budget. There is no better way to find the right golf shoes than to read reviews of the most popular brands and then make an educated choice as to which golf shoe will be best for you.

Type of Feet
If you have wide feet and spread-out toes, then you might want to use golf sandals, or look for shoes that have wider soles. Many shoes for golf are built for slender female feet, or average male feet. If you opt for these sneaker-type shoes, you can find it painful to walk around the golf course. Comfort is your first priority in golf, so be sure to pick shoes that will fit your feet perfectly without you cringing as you take that swing.

Choosing the correct golf cleats:
Most golf shoes these days come with removable or replaceable cleats, so look for such shoes. Do not feel confined to a single set of cleats: it is good to have spikes for dry days and larger spikes for those rainy, wet slippery days.
How often should you change your golf shoe cleats?
To maximize your performance, we recommend that you check your cleats after every 10 rounds of golf. Most avid golfers should change plastic cleats twice per season. Also, you should note that cleats in certain parts of a shoe wear out faster than in other parts. Keep an eye on the bottom of your shoes to ensure the maximum in traction.

Tip No 3.

Hitting Long and Short from the Rough

The amateur’s best friends when a long way from home in light or moderate rough are almost always the fairway woods, especially the 4, 5 and up. These clubs have bigger and more smoothly rounded heads that enable them to cut trough long grass more readily than the longer irons and deviate less in face alignment as they do so. Also, by flying the ball high they will produce a softer-landing shot that is normally possible with a long iron when grass intervenes between its face and the ball at impact. You can farther increase height, and thus stopping power, by applying some cut action to the ball. Play the ball back a little in your stance, aim left, open the club face, be sure to lead the downswing with your legs and hips, hit sharply down into the ball, and allow for a fade. Remember that, by choking down on the club, you can use this shot for considerably less distance than the full potential of the club. Consider it for approaches from shaggy or soggy fairways, as well as from light or moderate rough.

Leaves and pine needles

Tip No 4

Long Bunker Shots

In anything less than perfect conditions, your first thought when you find yourself in a fairway bunker should be position, not distance. Apply three rules in assessing what is feasible: (A) the more “cuppy” or buried the lie, the less cleanly the ball can be struck and the less far it can be hit. (B) The more angled or awkward your stance, the more you are likely to err in direction even though you may get good distance. (C) The higher the lip of the bunker ahead of you, the more lofted the club you must take to clear it and the less yardage it will produce. Given any or all of these conditions, figure out your best percentage recovery in terms of playing the next shot. With a severe lie and stance, the best percentage recovery for most players would be a sand-wedge blast out sideways. In a less severe situation, you might to get closer to the green by coming out obliquely with an 8- or 9-iron. Whatever you do, don’t compound the original into error into a major disaster.

Even when you feel you can go for all or most of the marbles, double-check what lies ahead before you do so. Give yourself as much margin for hazard such as water guarding the right side of the green and the pin is over that way, aim for the left side and rely on your putter. If there’s big trouble between you and the green that you can’t be sure of clearing, unless you meet the ball perfectly, consider laying up. Remember, distance for its own sake might do something for your ego, but it can also do a lot of damage to your score. So, even when you think you can get distance from sand, use it intelligently.

You’ll find it easier to meet the ball cleanly on long sand shot if you move it back a little in your stance so that your hands stay well ahead of the clubface through impact. However, moving the ball back and keeping the hands in their normal address position has the effect of delofting the clubface, so adjust for that by using more loft then you would from the fairway-say a 5- or 6-iron instead of a 4-iron. Whatever club you use, remember to choke down on it a little to offset the effect of having lowered yourself in relation to the ball by digging your feet into the sand for a firm stance. One more tip: I find looking at the top rather than the back of the ball helps me to make cleaner contact on long sand shot, especially when the lie is less than perfect.

What’s to be done when you absolutely have to go for distance from a fully lie, as for example when a gamble is your only chance of staying alive in a head-to-head match? Probably, the best tactic is what may best be described as a “cut blast” shot. Start by giving yourself a good solid stance by wiggling your feet firmly into the sand, and play the ball in your normal address position. Aim left to allow for the ball’s left-to-right flight. Open the clubface and swing it back slightly to the outside, making the fullest back swing you can without losing balance. Then hit as close behind the ball as the sand will permit, and as hard as you can with your right hand to keep your wrists from rolling over through impact and closing the clubface. This isn’t an elegant stroke, but it can be played with just about any club except the driver or putter. With good execution, the ball will carry about two clubs less than from the fairway, i.e., a 5-iron “cut blast” will go about as far as a normal 7-iron shot.

Tip No 5

Putting is as Important as the Full Swing

If you believe you can get the ball into a hole or close, you generally will-and if you don’t, you generally won’t. That’s why I think the No.1 Rule of putting is not a rational part of golf’s challenge. What I’m really saying is, don’t begrudge this portion of the game-simply accepted its special challenges as you do other aspects of the game. I promise you, the more positively you can approach the job mentally, the better you will putt- and score.

Watch the finest putters in the game, and you’ll notice that all of them follow their own particular pattern of putting. If you don’t already have such a procedure, I strongly advise you to develop one. Here are the elements, I believe such a routine should include: (1) Time to study the grain, break and speed. Don’t dawdle or procrastinate, but never hurry just to get a putt over with. (2) A positive plan based on that reading, in which the starting line of the putt and the force of the hit are clearly visualized. (3) A mental picture, derived from that plan, of the ball rolling over the green and dropping regimen that maximizes your physical feel for executing what you have mentally planned and visualized. (5) Some device to keep tension out of your muscles, such as a practice swing or two-rehearsals of the upcoming stroke. (6) The courage to stroke the ball only when you feel fully ready to do so.

Advice

There are all kinds of reasons-physique, age, strength, etc.-why you may not be able to get to the green in less than a certain number of strokes. But, assuming you are in good command of your basic faculties and have reasonable hand-eye coordination, there is no reason why you shouldn’t learn to putt as well as any man or women in history. Most professional tournaments today are won with about 120 putts for 72 holes, a per-round average of 30 or so. Determine your present standard by averaging your putts over your next 10 rounds. If you’re around 30, go get some long-game lessons because you are definitely tour material on the greens. If you average 36 or just over, there is definite room for improvement, in your attitude. If you’re coming in at 40 or more, you need major surgery in all three.

Pitching and Chipping Ploys

Most pitches and chips are recovery shots, and all recovery shots, require first an acceptance that you’ve made a mistake or got an unlucky bounce and then an immediate deletion of that fact from your mind. What just happened is history, and there is nothing you can do about it. What you are confronted with now is the present and the more exclusively your mind focuses on it the better you will deal with it. Don’t compound the error (or the tough break, if you prefer).

The first though would be getting the ball somewhere on the green so you two-putt at worst and move on with your hide still fairly intact. In other worlds-be realistic in all your shot planning.

Developing great confidence in the driver and the 1-iron is beyond the physical resources of most amateurs. Developing confidence in the little shots is within almost everyone’s capabilities. If you’d like to boost your confidence, begin by settling on a particular club with which you’re going to do most of your pitching and chipping. My belief that your best starting point is one club that you feel will get you closer to the hole that any of the others.

You might notably improve your pitching and chipping by conducting a little experiment to determine which is you best natural route to the hole from one routine greenside situation.

To identify your most natural route, play 20 shots using your favourite club and trying to loft the ball most of the way to the hole from just off the green, then 20 for equidistant flight to roll. The batch of balls that finishes the closest tells you the type of shot to prefer.

The good player’s full swing is sufficiently “grooved” that it rarely needs rehearsing. However, when the swing is to be anything less than full, it needs ample rehearsing to “fit” its length and force to the distance to be covered, and to implant a “picture” of the required action in the mind and muscles.

You wouldn’t stroke a putt before looking over the terrain to be covered -the pitch should get like consideration.

In chipping, or whenever the ball will roll extensively, take into account grain, contours and turf condition as much as when putting.

Good luck!

Charles Rich 082 777 8912 or Chip Rich 076 014 2549

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