2019 February

What’s your primary goal if you want to par every hole that you play? You have to know that getting your ball on or near every “Green In Regulation” (GIR) will give you the best chance to par every hole. A long drive landing on the fairway is the perfect starting point. The shorter your approach shot the easier it will be to stick a high arching shot on the green. Of course you would like to land every approach shot next to the hole.

If you don’t practice every day like the pros, landing near the hole is just a wonderful dream. Recreational players like you will be much better off playing a safe shot for a better chance to get down in 2 putts or with a great pitch and a putt.

Pros on the PGA Tour average about 12 our of 18 GIR on every round. So don’t feel so bad if you can’t get 9 out of 16 GIR.

Why not try these ideas to hit more GIRs? Play with caution and you will par more holes. Choose the highest probability shot to get your ball on the green. Controlling a putt for direction and distance is always easier then chipping for a one putt.

A. Choose the right club for the right job. Of course you need to pitch a high shot over a green side sand trap to land and stay on the green but if your shot is 150 yards you may want to aim for a wider part of the green or the front access to the green so that you still have a good chance for a 2 putt green or a chip and a putt.
B. The longer your shot and the harder you swing the worse result you can expect. You lose control when you swing at 100% of your swing speed. Don’t risk missing your target. Wake up and use the club to make sure that you can make a controlled swing to land in a safe location for a chance to make a 2 putt green.
C. Swing every club at 80%. You may not always have the perfect distance to match your club to the distance you need to hit and land and rollout. Choke down on a less lofted club and accept the fact that you will not stick on the green for tight shots. You need height and space to land and stay on every green. A good alternative is to run your shot to the front edge of the green or to a side that avoids the sand or water hazards.
D. If you are hitting with a strong side wind, don’t swing harder and faster as you will lose direction and distance control. Just choose a lower lofted club and play it safe.

This is a great green to hit in regulation and it’s a bad one to miss.

E. Hitting into heavy wind is always difficult to judge for the right club selection. Let your playing partners go first and check out the loft that they are using. (It’s not legal to ask what club was used during a competition but use your eyes and brain to figure it out.) Don’t be afraid to down club by 2 or 3 clubs in a heavy wind. The fun part is stopping dead on a green (without a roll) when hitting directly into a heavy wind.
F. 2 putt greens are easy if your first putt stops within a foot of the hole. Fat chance that will happen very often. Before every round get a good feel for the green speed on the practice green. Practice your long lag putts as well as your 2 to 4 foot putts as they are the putts that make your pars.

IMPORTANT STRATEGY to sink your short putts:
A. On a steep downhill putt you may want to leave the flagstick in but for short flat putts you should always take the flagstick out. [The flagstick acts like a wall and stops you from putting through the hole at a reasonable speed.]
B. When the flagstick is out, you will be more comfortable putting through the hole about 12 to 18 inches past the hole to minimize the break as your ball slows down.
C. Be consistent in the weight that you use to make sure that you are putting to stop past the hole (not at the hole). All short putts never go into the hole and all very slow putts tend to bounce off line when hitting the imperfections around the hole.

Practice with your GOLFSTR+ to control your flat leading wrist for putting and control the lag with your trailing wrist for chips. Buy one today at www.golfstr.com

Several years back, Dr. Bob Rotella had an article featured in Golf Digest that basically said: “Your muscles have no capacity to remember anything.”   The only Muscle Memory resides in your brain. So the only “muscle” that really counts is the one between your ears. It’s your brain filled with bad memories playing in your head that creates bad shots. Wouldn’t you like to force your brain to only use good thoughts for great shots?

It really doesn’t matter how much you practice or even how great your swing may already be. If your mind isn’t letting your body function properly, then you will mess up your swing every time. Of course repetition of great swings with great results give you a lot of positive thoughts. So if your head is filled with bad thoughts, then your game will likely be filled with bad shots. Your task is to find a way to block out the bad thoughts.

Case in Point:
I love to golf but I also play tennis. When I need to make a great second serve my mind often recalls the serves that I hit into the net. Sure enough, it happened again. Yesterday I was playing a doubles tiebreaker where it was my serve and I had to make 2 serves to win the match. My partners said “hit your serves to the backhand!” This is the only thought that was in my mind. I nailed 2 serves to the backhand of both players and took the final 2 points to win the set and match. I forgot to think about my historic bad thought of hitting into the net. My focus was on my positive thought to nail a slice serve to the backhand of my opponent. That positive thought proved to be the winner.

Unleash your hidden tiger.

We all need to replace bad thoughts with positive thoughts. That’s why Jack Nicklaus and Jason Day visualize the shot that they know they have hit many times before. They visualize the ball flight. You need a positive mental attitude. Just calm your body and swing with a controlled backswing to create lag and then release through the ball. CALMING YOUR MIND and BODY are KEY!

Keep your eye on the ball and take that relaxed swing from the driving range along with you to the course. Your goal is a smooth-swing-rhythm to a balanced finish. Swinging to kill that ball is the one thought that should NEVER ENTERS INTO YOUR MIND. Relax your shoulders and feel your weight shift forward as you transition into your down swing and into a balanced finishing pose. When you focus your mind to swing to a final balanced pose, direction will take care of itself and distance will be generated naturally.

You can: Just do it! Finish your swing in balance.

Trick to Eliminate Bad Thoughts   Focus on your balanced finishing pose. If you do everything right in your swing, you can’t help but finish in balance. [There is no time for bad thoughts to enter your mind.] If your focus is to end up in balance, your mind won’t let you take a killer swing. The only way that I can swing to a balanced finish is to take more club than I need and give myself time to finish my backswing as I transfer my weight to my leading foot. Voila! I finish in balance and execute the perfect swing and shot.

Focus on the end result where you finish your swing in balance on your leading foot. It’s all about a smooth swing to finish in balance. The pros do it and you’ve seen Ernie Els do it. [Get Nick Price’s rushed swing and John Daly’s super windup out of your mind.] Use the swing that will allow you to finish in balance as you enjoy watching the amazing flight of your ball flying to your target. Practice with GOLFSTR+. Buy one today at www.golfstr.com

When you don’t hit the center line of your driver, you lose distance and direction control.  I recently watched a video that summarized the problems that we cause when we mishit our drivers.  Gene Parente, the president of Golf Laboratories and the designer of the golf swing robot (often call: Iron Byron) shared some amazing test results.

His lab tests all brands of golf clubs to determine the distance and direction that you can expect when hitting a ball in the dead center of the club face as well as ¾” to the inside and to the outside of dead center.

Iron Byron tests clubs for the perfect swing to determine the problems caused by the point of impact on the club face. Center Line is perfect. Anywhere else can be a problem.

When the Robot is setup with a Swing Speed to hit a 200 Yard Shot (with a right handed driver):
1/ Dead Center impact provides the straightest and longest hit.
2/ An impact at ¾ of an inch to the OUTSIDE of dead center will lose about 9 yards in distance and the shot will fade to the right by about 10 yards. Faster club head speeds create worse fads.
3/ An impact at ¾ of an inch to the INSIDE of dead center will ALSO lose 9 yards in distance and will push the shot left of center and then fade back to the target line.

Of course if the club face is crossing the ball from the outside to inside or inside to outside you will add more fad or draw respectively.

This explains why it is so hard to control a driver. Hitting on the center-line and half way up the face creates a dead straight shot. Mishits inside or outside of the center-line will BOTH add fade to your ball. That’s also why it is so critical to swing from the inside and up the target line WITH A SLIGHTLY CLOSED FACE to add a draw spin to your drives. Any swing mishitting the face of your driver with extra swing speed and especially an over the top swing will exaggerate your fade into a killer slice.

Your driver may give you the opportunity to get further down the fairway but that extra distance can all be wasted when you land in the rough or behind trees. Because a mishit driver on the outside or inside of the center-line will create a fade, you should either setup to create a draw (with your trailing foot lightly back from your target line) or line up your aim for the left side if every fairway and accept the fade is it happens.

Understanding the natural fade of a mishit driver is critical for every round of golf. You really should test your driver marking the face with a powder marker or by spraying the face with Dr Scholl’s Foot Powder. Knowing where your ball impacts on the face of your club and seeing the result can be a real wake-up call for corrective action.

Practice for a consistent swing with every club in your bag. Use your GOLFSTR+ to help you focus on the control of your straight leading arm to impact on the center-line of every club. Buy one today at www.golfstr.com

Is it really possible to find that special MIRACLE that you need to consistently hit every shot?  It’s most likely a personal thing for every golfer but I’m happy to report that I discovered that single SIMPLE THING that was messing up my consistency. Of course there are many things that we all need to do as reminders for every shot in golf but my missing MIRACLE was so simple that I am embarrassed to report it. Keeping my Eye on the ball!

I know that there are many things that we all need to do to maintain a consistent swing so I have decided to share my personal list and you should create your list too.

1/ Keep my Eye on the Ball: Do not take your eye off the ball during the back swing and down through impact. This is so important for my drives, fairway shots, chipping and putting that I can attribute every one of my missed shots to the instant that I must have taken my eye off the ball. If I focus on the ball I don’t hit the ball fat or thin. [Shanking and toeing the ball are 2 other issues that I cover later.]

Don’t sway back. Ben Hogan loaded onto his leading leg at the top of his backswing. You should too.

I now draw an eye ball on 2 sides of my ball (with eye lashes) as a reminder to keep my eye on the ball. It ain’t pretty but I love it when my playing partners call out “there’s an eye on that ball”. Of course there are other things that I do for consistent hits but not keeping my eye on the ball is a killer.  It keeps me from taking too much backswing and it forces me to STOP swaying back like a baseball batter windup.

2/ Never Gloat: Never talk or think about my success as it goes right to my head and kills my next hole.

3/ Stay in MY Mental Golf Zone:  It’s like a numb feeling or mental fog that keeps me calm and relaxed. On critical shots I mentally say “Sweep-In-Pose” to block out any other thought during my swing. “Sweep” for a wide takeaway, “In” to remind me to loop my club down at the top and lag before I swing inside up the slot and “Pose” to finish in balance and watch my amazing shot.

4/ Waggle to Relax: Use a take-away waggle (like Rickie Fowler) to ensure that I start my take-away with my spine and hip rotation. It also loosens up my body for a consistent take-away.

Get the feeling for weight forward by hitting balls with your weight forward. That shift will start to happen naturally during your backswing.

5/ Lag: I take my time in my backswing to ensure that I create my wrist lag as I shift my weight to my leading leg. [If I can’t slow down enough for my weight shift or “bump”, I just start my round with more pressure on my leading leg.  Eventually the rhythm and bump work their way into my natural backswing.]

6/ Special Setup for my Driver and Woods: Line up the center-line of the club face beyond the ball for a wide takeaway and “swing up the inside slot” (AKA Jim McLean’s mantra) to avoid hitting off the toe.

Create your critical swing factors and then put them to the test. Track your success on every hole by marking the corners of the square for each hole on your score card: Upper left mark a 1 for hitting the fairway, upper right corner mark 1 for GIR and lower right for number of putts. At the end of every round total these numbers and count your pars (birdies count as 2 pars). Compare your progress from round to round and keep track of your Personal World Record.

Of course GOLFSTR+ is the training aid that I use to help build a consistent swing for every club in my game. Buy one today at www.golfstr.com