2014 August

As the inventor of the GOLFSTR GOLF TRAINING AID, I hear from many of our 4,000 users.  One of them gave me an ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.  My wife’s mother died from this terrible disease so we are anxious to find a cure as it may affect others in our family and it may affect your family too.

Of course I took the challenge and also donated to the ALS Association.

I am now challenging the 4,000 GOLFSTR+ users to take my Ice Bucket Challenge and get drenched within 24 hours or CLICK HERE to make a donation at the ALS Association  or both.

Best Regards, Bill Curry

Facts About ALS
ALS (Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) also called “Lou Gehrig’s Disease” is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects the nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord, according to the ALS Association.

Lou Gehrig was a Hall of Fame first baseman for the New York Yankees in the 1920s and 1930s. He was diagnosed with ALS in 1939, and died of the disease in 1941.

With ALS, the motor neurons degenerate until they eventually die. When this happens, the brain loses its ability to control the muscles. Since voluntary muscle action is affected, patients with ALS eventually become totally paralyzed.

“Glass coffin”: That’s ALS in a nutshell,” wrote Ron Schaffer, a 67-year-old ALS patient who communicates through a speech app on an iPad.

According to the ALS Assocation, there are around 5,600 people in the US who are diagnosed with ALS each year.

ALS can happen to two in every 100,000 people. It occurs globally and can affect any ethnicity.

Although the cause of ALS is not completely understood, the recent years have brought a wealth of new scientific understanding regarding the physiology of this disease. While there is not a cure or treatment today there are drugs in clinical trials that hold promise.

Thank you for learning about ALS and considering this challenge as an opportunity to help so many people avoid an agonizing end to their lives.

This notice is brought to you by GOLFSTR WWW.GOLFSTR.COM   Please accept my challenge and pass it on to all of your friends.

Strength or Flexibility? Unfortunately most of us sit at a computer or commute for too many hours in a day. There is never seems to be enough time to get in the proper exercise before we play a round of golf. After all, golf is exercise so why should you have to get in shape for a friendly round?

Unfortunately golf is an explosive exercise. If you are looking for a way to strain your muscles . . . GOLF is a good way to do it. Strength is important but flexibility and timing are far more important in golf for you long term enjoyment.

STRENGTH: You need a planned exercise program to build up over time. Good golf depends on strength in your arms, core and legs. Core conditioning is most important for a golfer because all movements in your entire body stem from the strength in this area. Tiger is an example of a great golfer who needed a more balanced exercise program.

Rory’s drives were over 300 yards before he focused on strength exercises to lose body fat. Flexibility and core strength gave him his distance, NOT his newly developed muscles.

Men’s Health Magazine published an article about Rory McIlroy’s new exercise program since winning his first major in 2010, “McIlroy was a classic skinny-soft golfer, with obvious natural ability and flexibility—but with a tiny bit of paunch and jiggle.” He has since changed some body fat to muscle, “gained stability” and he still hits over 300 yard drives. My point here is that his flexibility gave him his distance NOT THE EXTRA MUSCLE.

John Daly’s driving distance comes from his AMAZING flexibility. There must be some core strength in there too.

FLEXIBILITY: Ideally you should warm up all of your muscles before you start your stretch exercises. 5 minutes on a stationary bike or treadmill are recommended. If you don’t have time to warm up, make sure that you don’t stretch to your limit. Here are 3 flexibility exercises that I received from the Revolution Golf Blog and a personal trainer. Always start any program in moderation with a limited number of repetitions and increase over time.

Neck Mobility: Power comes from rotation of your spin and core but if you want to keep your eye on the ball then your shoulders need to rotate while your head stays stationary. EXERCISE: up to 10 turns to the left and then 10 to the right, 10 times nodding of your head up and chin down to your chest and then 10 head tips to the right (ear toward your shoulder), center and left. [Build up the stretch over time.]

Arm and Shoulder Mobility: If you are ever going to swing with a straight leading arm during the backswing and follow through, you need to do this EXERCISE: Lay on your back with your arms at your sides. Slowly slide them up along the floor to form a U shape and then slide them over your head. ONLY move your arm up to the point where they lift off the floor and stretch that position for 30 to 60 seconds. Do this daily to stretch out your chest.

Spine Mobility: Lay on your back with your arms pointing straight out from your side and both knees bent with your feet flat on the floor. Roll your knees to the left while keeping your shoulders and arms outstretched on the floor (or as close as you can) and hold for 10 seconds. Then return to your starting position and roll to the right side. Repeat this 3 to 5 times.

Flexibility is the key for longer distance and better golf. GOLFSTR+ is the right training solutions for 6 swing fixes for a straight arm or flat wrist where you need it for Putting, Chipping, Drives or Fairway Shots. Order your GOLFSTR+ today. Buy it on line at www.golfstr.com.

Michael Breed, The Golf FIX guru on the Golf Channel preaches straight arms in the backswing (YES, both arms are STRAIGHT)  for a WIDE takeaway to build more torque and power. He talks about “swinging with your chest”.  His focus is on forming a triangle with your straight arms during the takeaway to force your chest to rotate more than your hips. BINGO, this builds up the latent power in your backswing.

Wide Takeaway [Shown by Rory McIlroy (blue shirt)]
The lines across your shoulder and arms form a triangle. Keeping both arms straight during the takeaway until your club is parallel with the ground will force a wide swing arc and chest rotation.

Rory McIlroy (on the right) showing a Wide Straight Arm Takeaway. Jason Day (on the left) is showing his bent trailing arm creating wrist lag.

Wrist Lag [ Shown by Jason Day (red shirt)]
1/ Complete your backswing by lift your straight leading arm across your chest.
2/ Use the 90 degree bend of your trailing elbow to cock your leading wrist to 90 degrees for the perfect lag position.

PREFERRED SETUP: GOLFSTR helps you feel when your trailing arm is bent 90 degrees to force a 90 degree lag in your leading wrist.

Takeaway Lag Trainer:  Using this swing we developed an improved use for GOLFSTR+ as a lag trainer to gain over 30 yards on drives. Bend your trailing elbow 90 degrees and strap GOLFSTR+ on your upper arm and resting on the lower arm.  It helps you feel when your arm is bent to 90 degrees (forcing your leading wrist to bend 90 degrees).

Note:  There are 3 ways to use GOLFSTR+ as a Lag Trainer: PREFERRED SETUP: On the trailing upper arm and point to your lower arm,  Option 2/ On the inside flat of your trailing arm and pointing to your upper arm or Option 3/ On your leading arm and pointing to the back of your thumb.

Lag Trainer Assembly OPTION 2: On the flat surface of your trailing arm pointing to your upper arm

Always start with a loose grip and relaxed arms.  Your trailing hand is just guiding the hinge of your lagging wrist. Bending the trailing elbow to 90 degrees in the backswing will pull your club down to create the 90 degree wrist lag (while you keep your leading arm straight).

Lag Trainer Option 3: On your leading arm pointing to your thumb.

At the top of your backswing you can feel the black rubber extender press against your upper arm. At this point, you know that your elbow is bent 90 and your wrist lag is 90 degrees.
To start your forward swing, shift your weight forward while holding the wrist lag and release from the inside to out as you swing through the ball to a balanced finish.

Check out this video for the complete story.

Check out the GOLFSTR+ website for all 6 of the swing fixes at  www.golfstr.com

Do you mishit shots when you really WANT to hit the perfect shot?  Henrik Stenson shanked a shot in the final round of the PGA Championship (and placed 3rd). The pros all shank shots but you rarely see these shots replayed on TV. Knowing what causes this unexpected mishit will help you minimize your shanks. We also found a simple practice swing that will help you recover your perfect swing.

First you need to understand that your mind and your intensity to hit the perfect shot can cause you to freeze up. Yes, you are actually missing part of your swing when you mishit the ball. Your practice swing may be perfect but that pause before you commit to hitting the ball tends to clutter your mind with too many bad thoughts. Memories of past mishits tend to freeze up your muscles (especially the big one between your ears).

You are actually missing part of your perfect swing. When your mind and body tighten up (in preparation to hit the ball) you may be rushing your backswing, minimizing shoulder rotation, forgetting to shift your weight to your forward foot or falling back before you reach a full balanced finish.

YES: You just messed up your shot. [Mispronouncing “mishitting” is more like it but I’m not going there.]

I see this happen in my swing and also when I watch every golfer mishit their ball. The practice swing is perfect. Why does a little white ball in front of you cause a disaster?

Winning pros like Rory McIlroy at the PGA Championship, practice relentlessly to build confidence in every swing.

SOLUTION: When you know that you have an important shot and you are waiting for others to hit, just relax your body by completing a few Spit Grip Swings with a slow speed swing. I picked this up from the Jim McLean Golf School. It gives you the correct backswing rotation, the correct feel for wrist lag and the correct release through the ball to a balanced finish position.

For the Spit Grip Practice Swing, just place your leading hand on your club as you normally would grip it. Then place your lower hand with a separation of about 2 inches lower on the grip. Now complete your back swing with a straight arm & full 90 degree wrist lag and swing rolling your wrist through the hitting area to a balanced finish. You can feel a full shoulder and chest rotation as you make this mid-air practice swing.

Use this practice swing to break out of your failure mode. Of course you need to do this practice with a straight leading arm just the way you practice with your GOLFSTR+. If you don’t have one, please check it out on www.golfstr.com and don’t leave home without it.

Do you ever wonder how a 5 foot 5 inch tall, Lydia Ko at the age of 17 can hit a longer drive than your best effort? It sure is not strength or height or arm length.  With her small frame, she has earned over a Million $$$ this year with an average driving distance of 250 yards and 78% of her drives land in the fairway.  What’s holding you back.

I received a wonderful summary from Golf-Info-Guide.com (by Thomas Golf) providing a simple way to generate more club head speed and distance. Practice the following in slow motion to get the feel for the release of POWER at the bottom of your swing as you connect with the ball.

Create the POWER . . . Store the POWER . . . Release the POWER

Rory’s game is on fire winning The Open and WGC Bridgestone with amazing lag and power.

Create the POWER: Train with GOLFSTR+ to learn your straight arm backswing. At the same time you need to cock your wrists to hold your club at a 90 degree bend from your straight arm. This is called LAG.

Store the POWER: You need to hold the LAG in your 90 degree wrist bend until your arms swing down to horizontal (to the point where your thumbs are pointing up to the sky). If you release your wrists at the start of your down swing, you will just waste the POWER.

Release the POWER: Let your wrists whip the club head through impact with the ball. All of the power comes when your hands are moving 2 feet (at 25 miles/hour) and your club head is moving about 8 feet (at 100 miles/hour). The more you can relax your wrist muscles the faster you can snap the club through the ball.

Understand this POWER in slow motion and then practice the whipping action at full speed. Get this right and you can add 50 yards to your drives.

I love to reference Golf-Info-Guide.com (by Thomas Golf) because they included a reference to GOLFSTR+ as a golf training aid to help you learn The Right Way to Keep the Left Arm Straight

In addition to GOLF-Info-Guide.com,  golf celebrities and golf professionals have called us to praise GOLFSTR+ as a wonderful golf training aid. We hope to share these endorsements with you someday soon. In the meantime please check out our user endorsements by clicking GOLFSTR TESTIMONIAL PAGE.

Recent Testimonial:  One of our golfing Friends from Florida sent us this note which she received from Diane (her friend):  “I had a really bad day of golf on Thursday so when Bruce and I golfed yesterday I wore the GOLFSTR training aid that you gave me and Boy! Did it ever work! After my game, I showed my friend and she plans to order one too.”

Please tell your friends about GOLFSTR+