More Golf Tips:

Tips for hitting the ground before the ball:

 

Hitting the ground before the ball, or "fat shots" is a very common problem that can lead to injury. This is caused by either coming into the ball too steeply, and/or decelerating the club head as you hit the ball. Proper weight shift is important and keeping your right shoulder back on the downswing (opposite for left handers) is crucial. There is a tendency to throw the right shoulder ahead as you come down creating an outside in steep club path.

Focus on swinging more around your body to remedy this. A good drill is to strap your upper arms to your body and hit balls. This makes it impossible to throw the shoulder forward. The one warning about this is, if you get too flat around your body, you may increase the chances of "shanking" the ball. You need to find that ideal swing plane.

Don't forget to accelerate through the ball. When you slow down at the bottom of your swing, you will hit it fat every time.

Tips for Aim and Alignment:

Poor alignment is a common problem that I too had. Sometimes we can hit straight pulls and pushes that are solid but offline even if we are aligned properly. So first of all make sure that when you are aligned properly, this is not happening.

Also the eyes are not that reliable for alignment, especially when we are set up to the ball. I would suggest that you line up the shot behind the ball and then find something on the ground about five feet in front of the ball that is on your line. You can usually find a weed or piece of dirt or something. Sometimes this is difficult on the course so you want to practise at the range where you can throw a tee or something as your intermediate target. By practising this you can "get a feel" for proper alignment and it will be more automatic. When you set up to the ball, first align your club to the target, then your feet, and finally your hips and shoulders. Many people align their club and feet OK but their shoulders and hips are off. Use a club, or better, have someone else check your hip and shoulder alignment at setup.

Remember that your feet and club are about three feet away from each other, and your club and shoulder alignment is actually more important than your feet. So concentrate mostly on aligning your shoulders and the club. Then trust your alignment even if it looks strange from your eyes when you are set up.

Tips for Using Visualization:

All great athletes know how to use visualization to enhance their performance. It is well known that the body cannot tell the difference between reality and imagination. Therefore using visualization to help your body perform is vital for peak performance.

For golf there are two ways you can visualize. The first is to play the shot in your mind in as much detail as possible from the moment of sweet contact to the ball flight, and after it hits the ground. The second is to actually see yourself swinging and hitting the ball.

Now you are not always going to get the result you visualize, but studies show that if you can keep extraneous mental activity out of the way, the body will create the result you are looking for. This of course is the difficult and the book on self-hypnosis that I recently came across can help you achieve it.

Tips for Tracking your game

Tracking your game is not only interesting but can also drastically reduce scores. By keeping track of your fairways hit, greens hit, number of putts, up and downs, and sand saves, you can start to see clear patterns that will show you where to focus your attention on the golf course.

Keeping track of these things does not have to distract you from your game. On each hole simply put a check mark above your score to the left for fairway hit, above right for green hit, below right for number of putts. Then put an "s" for whether or not you went into a greenside bunker. At the end of the round you can tally these stats.

For every one putt see if you were on the green in regulation or you chipped and then one putted. This would indicate a successful up and down, or sand save if you were in the sand. A two or three putt where you missed the green indicates a failed up and down.

Your goal (no matter what your handicap) should be to hit between 8-10 fairways, 10-14 greens, 32 or fewer putts, and 40-50% up and down and sand saves. When you do not reach these goals on a regular basis, you can focus your practice on these areas. Anyone can achieve the above if playing the appropriate tees for their ability. Hitting two more fairways and greens, and shedding two putts per round, can lower your scores by up to ten shots!

Our LowerScores Manual will help you do this and more.

There is also a great online tracking/handicap system that can help you. Click here for more information.

Tips for Winter Practice:

This is the time of year that many northern golfers head to the range to beat balls for the winter months. The truth is, hitting a lot of balls over the winter can actually hurt your game on the course if you are practising wrong technique and don't have goals.

The goal of winter practice is to be able to hit the course in the spring and score well. Good practice on technique is helpful but I suggest simulating games on the range.

To do this you simply need a scorecard of a familiar course, or if you want, a scorecard with hole descriptions (yardage books are even better) for famous courses that you may not get to play all the time. After warming up like you would before playing a round, Play the course on your scorecard. For your tee shots pick a target area that would be similar width to a fairway. Hit your tee shot and keep track of the distance so you know how many yards you have left. For your approach to the green imagine the size of the green and be honest about whether you would have hit it or not. If you miss, practice your chip shots by choosing a target and trying to get your chip within five feet of the target.

To finish give yourself a two putt unless you know you have hit it within three feet. You can keep track of penalties, and how many balls you had to hit from the rough and judge your game accordingly. At the end you can keep a score, or just keep track of fairways and greens hit.

This will not only help you concentrate better, but will help you focus on target and strategy. It also slows you down between shots so you don't get into smacking one ball after the other. Get a partner to do this with you and get some competitive pressure as well. Some of your friends will love this as an alternative to beating balls. When finished you can then immediately work on shots you had trouble with during your simulated game.

Tips for Winter Golf Fitness:

Obviously, getting out to the driving range will help you keep your golfing muscles in some kind of shape, but many people do not get to the range over the winter often enough. Also be careful not to overdo it at the range, especially if hitting off artificial mats. You hit about 35 to 75 shots in a round of golf, and if you practice effectively, you really don't need to hit too many more than this at the range after you have warmed up, which you should always do with a wedge for at least ten shots. In addition, there is much more to being "golf fit" than having your swinging muscles conditioned.

An average walk on the golf course is about four miles, so your conditioning is extremely important. I strongly recommend that you walk this distance (taking a few breaks is fine) at least once a week during the winter. If it is difficult because of the weather, get access to a treadmill so you can walk indoors.

Strength is also important as you see with the tour pros who are paying much more attention to this. Work on your back strength and thigh strength, in addition to arms, shoulders and wrists. A rubber tubing with handles on both ends is great for working some of the muscles that you use in the golf swing because it allows a fluid motion and works on flexibilty as well. A piece of broom handle with a three to five pound weight tied to it by a three foot string is excellent for working your forearms and wrists. Simply roll the weight up and down with both hands holding the broom handle with your hands straight out in front of you.

Flexibility is the most overlooked. Your hamstrings (back of the thighs) need to be very flexible to allow you to hold your spine angle throughout the swing. Loose hamstrings also contribute to a loose lower back. To stretch your hamstrings you should warm the muscles up first by doing a few minutes of walking or jogging (or in a warm bathtub is great). Sit with your legs straight out in front of you, toes pulled toward you, and bend from the waist with your arms extended foreward. See how close you can get your fingers to your toes. Your goal for the winter should be to get at least two inches farther than you are now. Ideally you will be able to hold your feet confortably. Hold the stretch for at least ten seconds and try to do it several times a day.

Get The Best Golf Fitness Ebook Here

Tips for Dealing with pressure on the golf course

 

Pressure is the killer of many rounds of golf. Whether you are playing for $1,000,000 on tour, or trying to break 90 for the first time, emotional pressure can cause the best of us to lose our brilliance. While some people thrive on pressure and intensity, golf is a game where it has to be kept under raps because tension in the body will ruin any golf swing, and especially putting. The first thing that goes when pressure is applied is our breathing.

Breathing speeds up and becomes shallow, causing the heart rate to increase. The brain then reacts by putting the body into fight or flight mode to regulate oxygen ratios in the body. When this happens our brain tends to get less oxygen, causing us to lose focus and rational thought. Our thoughts will tend to be panicky and usually negative, causing us to make bad decisions and overreact.

The two most important things to do when pressure is applied in golf are to focus on and slow down our breathing. Taking long (not necessarily deep, which can actually cause tension), slow breaths with the emphasis on getting all the air out, and making sure there are good pauses between exhaling and inhaling (without holding your breath) will help to invoke physical relaxation and steadiness. Focusing the mind on the breath will also invoke a state of thoughtlessness which is very important on the course. One way to do this is to actually count your breaths silently and rhythmically as you walk or ride between shots. When you start your preshot routine, make sure you keep this breathing going and do not rush or skip any aspect of your routine.

Learning self-hypnosis can be helpful with this as you build a cue (like tugging on your pants) that signals the body to relax. To easily do this you must practice off the golf course and at the range where there is no pressure. Get yourself into a relaxed, thoughtless state by doing the above breathing and then in that state perform the cue several times (I personally grab the bill of cap to anchor this state). This will begin to imprint the cue so that whenever you do it, this relaxation automatically happens if you repeat it enough.

A great resource for helping you have a strong mind under pressure is the Golf Mind Software put out by Dr. Fran Pirozollo who has worked with many professional athletes including Justin Leonard who is one of the most mentally tough players on tour.

Computer/Video practice:

 

Quite by accident a few years ago, I started playing golf on my computer. I used both "Tiger Woods Golf" and "Links". What I found was that these new games actually replicate a round of golf quite well. If you use the three click swing with your mouse, you can actually work on your tempo. The more I studied, the more I realized that the same flaws in their swing tempo on the course, tend to be replicated on the computer mouse.

In addition to timing, these games can help you with patience, course management, and especially concentration. You can set it up to be competitive and build pressure into it.

The one key is to set your distances the same as you would on the course for real. In other words, if you hit your driver 240 yards, don't use the driver on the video game, use the club that will hit it 240 maximaum. Same with the other clubs.

People laugh at me about this, but give it a try. It will help your mental and strategic game if nothing else.

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Sean Harder (owner)
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