2018 October

We have all created perfect swings where the ball feels like butter as it float up your chosen path to the perfect landing area. Choosing the right club for the right distance is important but if you can’t make a consistent swing for each type of club you will never get better at this game. Your grip and your setup stance is different for each club in your bag. Remembering to use the correct swing for each type of club is critical for your success.

Adjusting for the angle of ground that you are standing on is a critical starting point. If your feet are below the ball, you will pull your shot to the low side. Feet above the ball will tend to squirt the ball away from you (in the direction that your chest is facing). For downhill and uphill shots you need to adjust your stance so that your shoulders are lining up with the plane of the hill. You also have to change your club to adjust to a higher lofted club when hitting downhill or a lower lofted club when hitting uphill.  Swing with the plane of the hill.  You have to anticipate and adjust for the right direction or distance to hit.

Get rid of your slice by taking your club back wide and high at the top. Then loop it down to swing from the slot and up your target line.

Driver: Swing to impact as your club is rising (after your club passes the bottom of your swing arc). So set up your ball off the heel of your leading foot and tee it up to connect on the upper half of your club face at the center line. [ Cameron Champ, who averaged 343 yard drives in the Web.com Tour last year and has now joined the PGA Tour has a swing speed of 130 MPH. Don’t try it as you will most likely never find your ball.]

Fairway Woods and Hybrids: Impact the ball at the bottom of your swing arc and taking minimal turf after impact. Setup with the ball forward of the center of your stance.

Irons and Pitching Irons: Impacting the ball just before the bottom of you swing and then take a divot as you create a reverse spin on your ball. You can’t take turf after the ball unless you are finishing on your leading foot so make sure that you start with a forward shaft lean pointing at you left hip (for right handed golfers). That shaft lean helps you place more pressure on your leading foot from the start of your backswing.  NOTE THIS TRICK: EARLY IN YOUR ROUND IF YOU FIND THAT YOU ARE TOPPING YOUR BALL, SETUP WITH MORE PRESSURE ON YOUR LEADING FOOT TO MAKE SURE THAT YOU CAN GET YOUR WEIGHT TO SHIFT TO YOUR LEADING FOOT DURING YOUR FOLLOW-THROUGH.

Chipping Irons: Impacting the ball at the exact bottom of your swing arc. Use a narrow stance and swing to let the weight of your club do all of the work to lift the ball and allow the ball to run to the hole.

Putter: Impacting on the balanced center of your putter, creating a top spin roll as you swing exactly up your target line (without any side spin). [NOTE: For short putts you need to test your putter [TEST WITH 10 IDENTICAL PUTTS]to find the balanced center of your putter to avoid side spin (left or right). Then focus on impacting that point on your putter face for every short putt.]

Your setup should change for every swing in your game but your swing speed and rhythm should be consistent. Know the distance that you hit each club so that you can grip down on a club that you know you hit too long for your shot. Golf is a game of refinement. Get it right and your scores will drop. Practice with GOLFSTR+ for every swing in your game. Buy one today at www.golfstr.com

ALERT: In the Morning Read Blog, MIKE PURKEY predicted that the rising stars for 2019 will be Tiger Woods, Tony Finau, Tommy Fleetwood, Brooks Koepka, Joaquin Niemann (a 19 year old from Chile playing in a limited number of tournaments had 4 top-10-finishes) and Xander Schauffele (guess who won the tournament last week). The falling stars will be Rickie Fowler, Matt Kuchar, Rory McIlroy, Phil Mickelson and Jordon Speith. Do you agree?

Are you pushing or pulling your full swing shots? You may be a right handed golfer with a stronger right arm and that may be causing the major problems with your golf swing. It’s so easy for you to push and power through your swing with your right hand creating an over the top swing. That extra power causes you to swing across your ball from the outside to inside. That’s where your banana slices or duck hooks come from.

You really need to learn to let your leading arm (your left arm for right handed golfer), pull your club through the swing. Here are some tips to help you fix your swing problems:

1/ Light Grip: A light grip allows your arms to relax and release your club at the bottom of your swing.

2/ Looser Grip with your Trailing Hand: To ensure that you let you leading arm take control of your swing, use a leading hand grip pressure at about a 6 out of 10. Even more important, your trailing hand should be gripping with a pressure of 4 out of 10. Long Ball Driving Champions use this rule to create maximum power with their leading arm. Limiting your grip with your trailing hand also limits your chance of turning your club face over at the point of impact and creating duck hook.

Brooks Koepka is the number 1 ranked golfer in the world so pay attention. He creates a slight loop at the top of his swing to swing up the slot from inside to up his target line.

3/ Loop at the Top: If you are a chronic over the top swinger, make sure that you take a wide takeaway so that you can slightly loop your club at the top to shallow your downswing with lagging wrists from the inside to outside and up the slot (as David Leadbetter describes it).

4/ Your Left Side Starts your Downswing: Most recreational golfers start their downswing by pulling down with their arms and casting their club from the top of their backswing. That KILLS YOUR POWER. Start your downswing with a pressure shift to your the left side (leading side of your body) by allowing your weight to shift to your leading leg as your club reaches the top of your backswing (don’t rush at the top). That weight shift allows your leading hip to start the downswing as you drop your arms down and releasing your wrist through the ball.

5/ Weight shift forward allows you to finish your swing balanced on your leading leg: If you are falling back when you finish your swing, you are not giving yourself the time and the tempo to shift your weight forward at the top of your swing. Let the momentum of your club, changing directions at the top of your backswing, give you the rhythm to press forward with your leading foot and hip to start your downswing.

Remember this sequence and practice to get this feeling as you reach the top of your backswing: weight shift (pulling your leading hip, shoulder & leading arm in sequence) and finally letting your wrist release at the bottom of your swing. If you can’t create a whooshing sound with your club you are not generating the hidden power in your club head.

Practice with your GOLFSTR+ to swing with a straight leading arm. Don’t rush at the top of your swing. Let your lower trunk start your downswing so that you can uncoil from the bottom to the top as you swing from the inside & up your target line. Buy one today at www.golfstr.com

One of the most frustrating shots in golf is the short chip where you chunk into the ground before the ball and drop the shot short of your target. Your problem is that you should be chipping your short shots and pitching your longer high shots. Chipping and pitching are 2 totally different shots. Learn the difference to get more shots close to the pin and make more 1 putt greens.

Chipping is all arms. [Your hips are not rotating.] Swinging through the ball like a full pendulum putting stroke with your shoulders for perfect directional and distance control. Your leading arm and wrist are held straight through your limited backswing.  Your stance is tight (feet 6 inches apart) and open (flared 30 degrees toward the target).

Practice with a putting stroke backswing and an equal amount of follow through to determine how a few of your favorite clubs [possibly a Pitching Wedge or 8 Iron] will perform in different depths of grass. Use the weight of your club to create the swing as this is NOT a power swing with full body rotation. Train for this modified golf swing with GOLFSTR+ mounted on your leading wrist and your trailing wrist to limit your wrist hinge.

For better direction control you can even make longer chip shots (a bump and run shot) with lower irons but you must avoid any wrist action. When you avoid hinging your wrist, it’s much easier to control the depth of the bottom of your arc as well as the direction of your swing. Setup with a narrow stance, feet flared forward and the ball resting off your trailing foot. Let your shoulders do all of the work.

Here is a YouTube Video of Zack Johnson helps you see the simple, short, “unrushed” swing of a chip shot.

Pitching uses a higher back swing and a wrist hinge so that you can release through the ball with more club head speed to launch the ball higher and with back spin. Setup with an open, narrow stance and the ball is in line with your trailing foot. For this shot you use body rotation (shoulders and hips rotated back) and then finish rotating through the ball.

Zack Johnson beat Tiger Woods on the 18th hole at the 2013 Northwestern Mutual World Challenge by sinking an 80 yard pitch shot (with backspin).  Zack and Steve Striker both have amazing control of their longer pitching swing by just swinging with a straight leading arm and a limited wrist lag. Zack had hit his second shot on the par 4, into the water surrounding the green. He jarred his pitch shot from the drop area. Tiger was shaken and made bogie to lose the tournament.  This is a great YouTube video of Zack’s pitch shot:

Missing shots that are 1 to 20 feet off the green are the most frustrating shots in golf. Don’t make a pitch swing when a nice short chipping swing will bump and run to the hole. Practice with your GOLFSTR+ on your leading wrist or your trailing wrist to minimize your wrist break and just “putt” through the ball.  Buy one today at www.golfstr.com

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Golf really is an easy game.  Right!  If you play a very conservative game, avoid mishitting any shots and hit a maximum of 2 putts on every green, you can easily break 90 or even 80 on every round. The key is to hit consistent shots every time you swing. All you have to do is determine the limited speed of your swing (60%, 70% or 80%) and limited backswing that will allow you to consistently hit every shot.

Of course you love to smash every drive and try to hit it 250+ yards. I noticed that the long ball driving champions often mishit all 8 of their shots because they are trying to kill the ball. Even in their case, the harder they swing the more inconsistent they get. So why not find your happy medium where you can hit 10 balls consistently for each of your clubs?

If you are NOT creating consistent hits, even with reduced swing power, you may not be impacting the ball with the correct ANGLE of impact FOR YOUR CLUB SHAFT.   Pete Mitchell, an instructor at Golf-Info-Guide by Thomas Golf gave us the following tip:

Setup with your iron handle pointing at your leading hip. This also help you keep your weight forward on your leading foot to finish in a perfect pose.

NOTE: I love this setup as it forces you to put a little more pressure on your leading foot and that in turn helps you to transfer your weight to your leading foot during your swing through impact. NO MORE FALLING BACKWARDS DURING YOUR SWING.

1/ For your higher angle irons like a pitching wedge, setup with the ball in the center of your stance and hold your club pointing forward toward your leading hip. That angle will allow you to impact the ball on a downward swing and then taking your divot. [If you setup with you club pointing at your nose, you may bottom the club out before you connect with the ball and end up with a fat hit.]

2/ For lower angled clubs and fairway woods you should setup with the ball progressively further forward of the center line between your feet and with the shaft still pointing at your leading hip.  (This is very similar to the club angle created by Dustin Johnson during his takeaway using an early wrist cock.)

3/ For your driver, you should be setting up with the ball forward and in line with your leading heel and the shaft of you club pointing at your nose so that the shaft has a slight tilt away from vertical (away from your target). This allows you to bottom out your swing before you reach the ball on your elevated tee. The driver impacts your ball on the upswing to give you an elevated hit without taking any divot.

Don’t try to kill the ball. Creating a consistent accelerating swing speed to control your consistent hits is the most important step that you can make to improve your game. Of course you also want to practice with GOLFSTR+ for 6 swing fixes to improve every swing in your game. Buy one today at www.golfstr.com

Guys, let’s face it, playing like Tiger Woods is just a pipe dream for recreational golfers. Unfortunately, every time we hit into the rough or behind a tree or take a long shot over a lake, something snaps in our brains. We forget who we are. Instead of saying “what would Tiger do?” we should back off and go for the safe shot to the fairway. Learn to play the game within YOUR capability.

In the Ryder Cup we saw players, like 48 year old Phil Mickelson playing out of his league. Nerves played a big part in his downfall and they affected his 29 year old, first time Ryder Cup partner, Tony Finau. On Day 1, he was so nervous that he missed 2, gimme-range putts. Let this be a lesson to all of us. Nerves can kill our games.

In a golf blog called the Morning Read they reminded us that the total prize money at stake for the Tour Championship was $39 Million. Total prize money for the Ryder Cup was Zero Dollars.  As it turned out the pressure of glory for your country was more pressure for Phil than the money.

Jim Furyk chose Phil as one of Captains picks based on his past performance as an inspirational team leader. Le Golf National Course is a short 7200 yards so he felt that Phil would be avoiding the use of his driver. After all, Phil was ranked 192 out of 193 players in driving accuracy this season. Phil crumbled in the alternate shot format on Day 1 with his playing partner DeChambeau. They were 7 shots behind after shooting 40 on their first nine holes.

Troy Mullins, long ball champion, uses a loose grip to get rid of her nerves and hold her lag in the downswing.

Nerves play an important part of YOUR game too. Aim for a safe location with reasonable expectations. Get rid of those nerves and hit it like Troy Mullin’s who hit a 402 yard drive to win a national long ball championship. As she says, just “hit it like a girl”. I found her slow takeaway and rhythm in her swing video to be a great inspiration:
1/ Start with loose hands, especially in your trailing hand.
2/ Good body rotation without swaying and with a straight leading arm.
3/ She starts her takeaway similar to Dustin Johnson by starting an early wrist cock.
4/ Let your hips lead your downturn through the ball as you hold your lagging wrists,
5 Load on your leading foot as you impact with your ball.
6/ Just think about your target and swinging through the ball.

Troy’s slow takeaway allows her to keep her swing rhythm as she accelerates through the ball. Check it out in the following video.  Practice with GOLFSTR+ for every swing in your game and buy one today at www.golfstr.com

Check out the Golf Digest 2 minute Video of Troy Mullin’s swing.  We can’t run it from this blog so copy and paste the following link in your browser. https://video.golfdigest.com/watch/troy-mullins-shows-you-how-to-hit-it-like-a-girl