2014 September

Putts are missed as a result of indecision in your mind. You need a process to commit, feel the swing and make the putt.  The longer you stand over a putt thinking about your last missed putt, the more your muscles tense and the worse your tempo becomes.

I saw a series of lessons called The Four Factors by putting guru Geoff Mangum. It made me realize that indecision and tension are your 2 worst enemies when you putt.

Here is a 4 step plan to help you sink a lot more putts.

Swing with the large muscles controlling your shoulders. Lock your wrists to avoid the yips!

1/ Learn to Hit a Straight Putt:
Place your ball just in front of the center line between your feet to hit the ball on the upswing of the putter face for a true roll of the ball. Learn to swing your putter with the rotation of your shoulders (not your wrists). Follow through with your putter UP your intended putting line. Use your GOLFSTR+ to learn to putt with locked wrists to gain confidence with your putting stroke. Choose your target line. Line-up a line on your ball with your target line. Focus  on the line on your ball as you swing your putter to impact on the exact center of the putter face.

2/ Get a Feel for the Green Speed
If you have played this game for any time at all you have a feel for the impact of rolling speed up, down or across a hill or any combination. Unfortunately the speed changes based on when the grass was last cut, rolled and watered. You have no control over these changing conditions so it is up to you to get a feel for the greens on the day that you are playing. Practice putting is a must before you start any round of golf.

3/ Read Your Putt to Choose Your Line:
Walk around the hole and the line of your putt to understand the slope of the green. Read the final roll of the putt from below the hole and choose your line when you are standing below the hole. [When you stand above the hole you tend to lose the perspective of the general slope of the green.] Plan to hit 10 to 18 inches past the hole to allow the speed of the putt to minimize the impact of slope and surface imperfections. For example: When putting across the slope, the smaller the slope the less you should account for the arc as most of it will occur as your ball slows down in the last 10 inches of roll.

Some of the top pros like to “let the putt die into the hole”. Dumb idea as 25% of those putts never reach the hole and 100% of short putts never go into the hole.  Slope of the green and distortion at the edge of the hole (from wear and tear around the hole) will always have the greatest impact on the roll of the ball as it slows to a stop. Always plan to putt hard enough to pass the hole by 10 to 18 inches and avoid the worst impact of the slope or distortions of the green. Try to figure out if your ball normally breaks above or below the hole. Then adjust for this and watch your putts drop.

4/ Practice the Right Amount of Swing:
You need to (1) choose your target line and (2) you need to PRACTICE THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF BACK SWING, before you make your putt. Get your spine and shoulders moving. Practice the right length of back swing and follow-through so that you know that you will be putting firm enough to hit 10 to 18 inches past the hole (the same way the best putters in the world did at the Ryder Cup). Feel it in your practice swing and then make that putt.

GOLFSTR+ is a great training aid to help you lock your wrist and get ride of the yips.  Click here to buy one and make more putts.  Thank you for passing this on to a friend.

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If Horschel and Kirk had been on the team, USA would have won the Ryder Cup. When you’re hot you’re HOT and when you’re not . . . .

Congrats to the USA Team for a well fought battle.  The amazing part of this story is how the Rookies played.   Imagine what could have been had Chris Kirk and Billy Horschel played.  Time to move the old guard out.

You may have seen how Patrick Reed suffer through a missed short putt and we all know how this happens.  All the more reason to work on your putting game.

What a great line to remember!  Jim McLean preaches this at the Doral Golf School and summarized it in his recent Golf Link Blog. Knowing that tension kills the golf swing is a great starting point but you need a plan to overcome tension for more consistent golf. You need to expect that tension will creep into your game when you really want to make a shot. Recognizing tension is only half the battle.  The other half is to learn the ways to overcome tension on every shot.

Have you ever heard the saying that bad shots come in groups of three. A fourth bad shot is actually the beginning of the next group of three. Funny but it is so true that your body just gets tighter after a bad shot and we ALL tend to tighten up and swing harder to compensate for the last poor shot.

Recognize when you are up-tight and get over it. Take your medicine. Hit to a safe location with a swing that you know you can make or take an unplayable penalty stroke. Reset your body and your brain. Accept the fact that you have lost a stroke. Don’t try to recover with a miracle monster swing or impossible shot.  No matter how bad you are playing, it is always possible to get worse.

A great scene from Caddyshack or is this what you look and feel like after your last bad shot.

GET THE TENSION OUT!
1/ RIGHT MINDSET: Admit to yourself that you can tense up before every golf shot. You may want to use the mantra “calm and relaxed” as a mental starting point when you setup to the ball. Recognizing that you are squeezing your club too tightly should be a mental trigger that you are uptight, so back away and shake it off.

2/ LIGHT GRIP: Whatever you do, start your setup with a light grip on your club. On a scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is very tight, you need to be at 5 or below. Jim McLean said “grip pressure goes into the wrists, and when the wrists are tight you take a lot of speed out of your golf swing. Mobility in the wrists and soft arms will relax your shoulders.” So let your shoulders drop and relax during your setup.

There should not be any stain in the muscles in your arms when you keep BOTH arms straight in your takeaway for drives  or when you rotate your shoulders during the putting or chipping stroke. Try holding your arms straight without tensing your muscles right now. Practicing with GOLFSTR+ with a light grip will help you learn to control your swing without rigid arms.

3/ MOTION BEFORE YOU SWING: Standing over your ball just builds tension. Jim McLean suggests trying any of the following: “waggle the golf club, look at your target or get some nice rhythm and balance into your body before you start your swing”.

Getting your mind, grip and body relaxed before you swing are absolutely crucial to hitting great golf shots. GOLFSTR+ will help you learn the correct motion for every swing in your game but you need to swing without tension. Check out all of the Swing Tips in Your Swing Support Center on www.golfstr.com.

Are you coming over the top? I heard it first on the Golf Channel: up to 80% of golfers are making this mistake so you need to learn the most important golf swing move to avoid coming over the top. In the last event for the FedEx Cup the slow motion swing analysis of Chris Kirk, Rickie Fowler and Billy Horschel showed that they all have the move but they all do it differently.

Don Trahan calls it the BUMP, others call it THE KEY or the SHIFT. As your hands reach the top of your swing, start your downward swing by moving your hips forward.  Tip of the week from Golf-Info-Guide by Thomas Golf   highlights that this shift of the hips will guide your hands down without casting at the top.

It’s that simple. Start the swing from the HIPS and up to the shoulders, then the arms and finally the wrists not from the shoulders down. If you start your swing by rotating your shoulders you will release your wrists too early in your downswing and lose all of your power. You need to be shifting your hips forward as you punch THE BUTT OF YOUR CLUB DOWN. CASTING your club at the top and early chest rotation will just cause a steep swing down at the ball. If you are slicing or pulling your shots then CASTING is causing you to swinging from outside to the inside of the ball (across the target line).

Forget the “cool” RLX brand Ralph Lauren pants. Check the great straight arm swing position. Billy has rhythm.

LEARN FROM THE PROFESSIONALS: I was amazed to see that 3 of the top players at the Tour Championship by Coca-Cola have radically different swings but they all had the same hip motion to initiate their downswing.

• Chris Kirk actually pauses his swing at the top as he moves his hips forward to initiate the downswing.
• Ricky Fowler swings so fast that his hands are still rising as he starts his hip shift.
• Billy Horschel actually has the best rhythm. He combines his hip motion exactly at the same time as his hands start to punch down with his club. It sure paid off as he picked up $13.5 million over the past 3 weeks.

Last year Billy was almost out of control. Everything that he did was in a rush. He looked so tense. He would setup and smash it. We all need to bottle whatever his coach did to calm him down,  give him RHYTHM and a swing that we should all try to duplicate.

Why not practice with GOLFSTR+ to learn the correct positions before you execute your hip shift and downswing. Chris Kirk proved that you don’t have to have a fluid motion. (1) Get to the top pulling your club shaft 90 degrees from your straight leading arm, (2) shift your hips and weight to your leading foot and (3) swing from the inside.

This game is so simple.

We are pleased to announce the improved ways to use GOLFSTR+.      4,000 of our customs including PGA Professionals from around the world love this golf swing training aid. Fortunately they suggested a number of improvements .  And now with added Velcro and better ways to use GOLFSTR+, it’s easier to assemble & more stable on your arm.

GOLFSTR was designed as a reminder to keep your leading arm straight in the backswing.  As a result of your input we added a Black Rubber EXTENDER to give you 3 options to increase pressure on the back of your arm during your swing. Best of all, you can wear GOLFSTR when you play 18 holes as a brain trainer to see results as you play.

Double Click page 1 of the User Guide  to increase the  size

The product name was changed to GOLFSTR+ to highlight the fact that it is the only GOLF TRAINING AID IN THE WORLD with 6 swing fixes.  CLICK TO CHECK OUT THIS VIDEO WITH ALL THE LATEST DETAILS

We are now adding 4 inch strips of Velcro to both ends of the arm band to simplify the assembly and to make this product ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL. With this change the arm band fits around any 5 inch to 14 inch wrist or arm.  Our User Guide has now been updated to show 2 NEW WAYS to improve lag for more control and power in your golf swing:

User Guide #1: TAKEAWAY LAG TRAINER:

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  Double Click page 2 of the User Guide to increase the size

  We have now moved the Wrist Lag Trainer Position to the front of your trailing upper arm for more stability.

• We call this the “Takeaway Lag Trainer” because you need a wide takeaway with BOTH arms straight until your club is horizontal to the ground. This forces your chest to rotate. We learned this from Michael Breed on the Golf FIX show [Golf Channel] when he pointed this out as the reason for Adam Scott’s powerful drives.
• As your club continues to rise, bend your trailing elbow 90 degrees (to feel the rubber EXTENDER press on your lower arm as you pull your leading wrist to 90 degrees. Holding this lag angle at the start of your downswing gives you more power and distance in your hits.

User Guide #4: LIMITED WRIST LAG TRAINER:
Train with GOLFSTR+ on the back of your trailing wrist to limit your wrist lag in the backswing and to lead with your hands as you impact the ball. This limited lag swing gives you more control and consistent hits. Let the momentum of your club head complete the chip. Just sweep through to finish with a flat leading wrist and pointing your club in the direction of your target. Phil Mickelson calls it “hinge and hold”.

For the full story, check out this updated video which you can also find on our website: www.golfstr.com