2019 October

If you are one of those golfers who swings from OVER the top creating a boomerang slice, get UNDER IT. You can make 2 simple changes to get rid of that slice by getting under your ball. A wide take away and a flat leading wrist will make all the difference. Great golfers don’t have to kill the ball, they just release their wrists and their ball flies up the center of the fairway. You can do it too but you will have to focus on 2 SIMPLE points during each shot.

I recently saw a promotion video, “Reverse Slice Sequence” by Eric Cogorno which highlights the common theme by most PGA trainers. Don’t CUP your leading  wrist (with your hand bent up) in your backswing as your brain will naturally try to close the club face by swinging over the top and slicing across the face of the ball.

It’s not easy to change old habits but many pros have discovered the best solution to break the bad habits causing your slice. Make a wide takeaway keeping your leading wrist flat, loop down at the top to swing from the inside and up your target line. Yes, get under the ball not over it.

Step 1: BACKSWING WITH A HIGH PLANE ANGLE – During your take-away (rotating your shoulders and hips), swing your club straight back along your target line and point the blade of your club directly up at the sky while keeping your leading wrist flat. Continue your straight leading arm backswing and cocking your trailing elbow to point the grip end of your club down along your extended target line.

This is an exaggerated view of looping your club to swing down from the inside with a flat leading wrist and up your target line.

Step 2: DOWNSWING ON A FLATTER (lower) PLANE-  Keeping your leading wrist flat and cocked to create a 90 degree lag angle with your club to your leading arm.  Loop your club down on a lower plane to swing from the inside and up your target line.   Your flat wrist at the top and down through impact on a lower plane angle is the key to the elimination of your slice.

Increased distance will come from the proper release sequence in your downswing. Start with your hips, then your shoulders and finally releasing your wrist lag as you whip your hands through impact (from the inside and up your target line).

Your flat wrist is the critical factor during your back swing and downswing. One of the 6 swing fixes provided with GOLFSTR+ is to LOCK YOUR LEADING WRIST FLAT during your backswing.

This fix is only designed to let you feel your flat wrist during your backswing. Ideally, you should do this many times in slow motion (the way Ben Hogan perfected his swing). You can feel your wrist flat against the flat plastic plate. Then remove GOLFSTR+ and make your full swing with a flat wrist from the inside and up your target line. Your slice will be gone forever. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

PS:  GOLF LAW #4:  Golf balls never bounce off of trees back into play. If one does, the tree is breaking a law of the universe and should be cut down.

Chipping and pitching are probably the most frustrating shots in Golf. Many of us, including myself, get tight when we prepare for an easy chip shot in short grass. We swing with a tight body and create fat, thin or misdirected shots. Chipping is really a putting motion. Pitching uses more body and wrist rotation to pitch your ball over a hazard. They really are 2 different swings with different lofted clubs.

Split your Short Shots into Either of these Options:

A. Chips with a putting stroke using irons up to your 9 iron or a hybrid.
B. Pitches with a longer swing and more body and wrist release to power your ball over a hazard using wedges which are more lofted than a 9 iron.

Hitting it FAT? Stop swinging so hard. Accelerate through the ball and finish your swing.

We all know how to use a putting stroke with a chipping iron. Pitching is where our problem happens. When you practice pitching, you may have a few mishits but when you pick up the rhythm of the swing, you can make endless perfect pitches. So why is it that everything changes on the golf course? You seem to duplicate your swing perfectly in your practice swing but when the moment of truth arrives, your hands take over and the fat and thin yips begin.

Rewind That Video:

1/ Setup with a strong grip, an open stance and 20% more weight on your leading foot. These changes will help you complete your swing (even though it is a short shot).

Pitch with a full shoulder follow-through and your eye on the ball.

2/ At the top of your limited backswing, wait for the weight of your club to start the acceleration down though your ball. DON’T RUSH IT!  Pros pitch with an EFFORTLESS SWING.
3/ Remember that your practice pitch swings were easy because you let your trailing shoulder rotate through impact. Finish your swing AS YOU KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE BALL.
4/ Let your trailing wrist lag as your hips and arms pull your swing down to LIFT your ball using the angle of your club face. [In Deeper Rough: Pitch with a higher lofted club, ball back further in your stance and more backswing to power through the grass.]

For pitching, practice lagging your trailing wrist by wearing your GOLFSTR+ on your trailing arm letting the angle of the plastic limit the lagging angle of your wrist. That will help you build confidence as you finish the rotation of your trailing shoulder through your pitch. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

PS:  GOLF LAW #3: Brand new golf balls are water-magnetic. Though this cannot be proven in the lab, it is a known fact that the more expensive the golf ball, the greater its attraction to water.
COROLLARIES: (a) Never wash your ball before you hit it over water. (b) Very clean and new balls tend to be attracted to water. c. Old golf balls rarely find water.

There are always a few (or more) holes in every round where our games can go off the rails.   Hitting our maximum handicap number on any hole is a crisis for me and should be for your too.  I hate to hit my max.   So I’m always looking for a way to create consistency on every hole. I was glad to be reminded of a great solution by Todd Kolb, PGA Professional on the USGolfTV blog. He recommended that Clarity of Mind is the best solution for Consistency.

One bad shot can often be corrected by one or two good shots to salvage a par or bogie. A lapse in clarity for each shot can destroy your next shot. Just understanding that you lost your focus to create that bad shot is a good starting point to get your mind back on track for your next good shot.

Simplify your swing by clearing your mind to focus on the flight direction of your ball during your back and down swing.  “See the flight in your minds eye.”

Understand What Caused your last Poor Shot
Clay Ballard at Top Speed Golf, provided the following check list to sort out where your last swing went wrong when you try to generate more power for more distance:
1/ Setup with at 10 degree body tilt to your trailing side and hold it through impact.
2/ Hip AND shoulder backswing rotation are critical for distance.
3/ Load your wrist lag as you bend your trailing elbow to finish your backswing.
4/ Start your downswing with your hips as you swing from the inside.
5/ Let your driver drop down to swing from the inside slot.

Each of these points need to be built into your swing. Focus on making them all happen in your practice swing and THEN CLEAR YOUR MIND.

Stare at your target and then VISUALIZE hitting that target line (in your minds eye) AS YOU RETURN YOUR EYES TO LOCK ON OUR BALL (until after impact).

You may want to count “1,2” during your backswing (as you cock your trailing elbow for lag) and “3” in your downswing (to block all other thoughts) as you visualize swinging to hit your target line..

Clarity of your mind during your swing to see the perfect flight of your ball is all that you need to think about. Putting needs the same confident clarity that you have chosen the right line and swing-power to pass the hole by a foot. Practice with your GOLFSTR+ for 6 swing fixes. Buy one today at www.golfstr.com

PS:  Golf LAW #2:
Your best round of golf will be followed almost immediately by your worst round ever.   The probability of the latter increases with the number of people you tell about the former.

Putting is a target sport. If you can’t control the direction of your putter straight up your target line, you will never be a great putter. All racquet and club (golf, baseball, cricket) sports have one critical point in every swing. It’s the point of impact where the direction of your swing controls your success. Unfortunately the arc in the swing of your putting stroke is limiting your success.

I just watched a YouTube Strategy Video for Pickle Ball. Control of the direction of your shot directly up the LINE of your launch angle and target line are the keys for success. Putting is even easier as you only have to swing your club up the direction of your chosen target line (without worrying about a launch angle).

Kevin Na set a putting record by sinking 558 feet of putts during the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open. A straight-line swing was critical for his success.

Rotation of your putter around your body is the killer for every putting swing.
Even Dave Stockton, the world renowned putting instructor, advises that you can setup your feet and hands in any way that your body feels comfortable as long as it helps you:
1/ Bottom-out your swing before impact to allow your putter face to swing up on the ball (forcing the ball to roll over instead of skidding across the surface).
2/ Swing directly up your chosen target line by rocking your shoulders and allowing your arms to swing freely up your target line through the point of impact.

Problem Habit for Justin Rose
For the last few years I noticed that Justin Rose made a habit of tucking the shirt sleeve on his trailing arm under his arm pit for short chips and putts. He chose to do this to force his trailing arm to lock tight to his body and force a shoulder rotation in his backswing. Unfortunately the tight trailing arm creates an arc in his putting swing. I saw him miss a critical, 4 foot, 18th hole, tournament losing putt last year where he pulled his putt to the left. A tight trailing arm to your body for short chips may  help your hips and shoulders rotate back and through the ball but FOR PUTTING it’s a BIG MISTAKE!

Grain of the Green DOES Affect Your Putts
The grain of the grass (the direction that the grass leans) does have a small effect on the break of your putt as it slows down near the hole. Look for the rough edge of grass around one side of any hole. The rough edge (where there is a fringe of grass falling into the hole) is the down-grain side. The softer you stroke your putt the more the grain will affect the break. On a 3 or 4 foot putts you should putt more to the clean cut side of the hole as your ball will want to fall to the down grain or rough side of the hole. OF COURSE THE SLOPE OF THE GREEN IS OVER 90% MORE IMPORTANT TO CONSIDER THAN THE GRAIN DIRECTION.

Practice putting with a locked leading wrist using your GOLFSTR+. Rock your shoulders and free arms to swing straight up your target line. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

PS GOLF LAW #1:
No matter how bad your last shot was, you should have Inner Peace knowing that a worse one is yet to come. This law does not expire on the 18th hole, since it has the supernatural tendency to extend over the course of a tournament, a summer and, eventually, a lifetime.

Too many golfers fall back when they swing their driver and then they duplicate the same problem with their irons. All driver and fairway club swings are meant to end in a balanced pose on your leading foot. Unfortunately the ball forward setup for your driver tends to make you fall back if you rush your arms through the swing. Using the same swing for your irons, is deadly. If you are falling back or out of balance for your drivers and your irons, you need to change your swing.

Tiger gets it right by finishing in balance on his leading foot.

Because you setup to drive by lining up your ball with your leading heel, it should be easy to finish your driver swing in balance and posing on your front foot. During every swing, you are trying to make a weight shift from your trailing foot to your front foot.  If you swing with your arms without any weight shift (at the top), you will fall back at the finish of your swing.

DON’T hang back on your trailing foot especially when you are using your irons.

When you are swinging any iron your swing should be made so that your weight is shifting to your leading foot and your club is swinging down at the ball to take turf after the impact with the ball. Unfortunately irons are shorter and lighter than a driver, so we tend to swing faster (with our arms), before our weight is transferred to our leading foot,

Trick to Correct Your Iron Swing
Our friends learned this trick from their club pro and passed it on to my wife when they saw her falling back on her trailing foot as she completed her swing.

Place a bottle cap or a golf tee flat on the grass about 2 or 3 inches on your target line before your ball. Your goal is to allow your body to transfer your weight forward (during your transition at the top of your swing) to ensure that you are swinging to impact the ball without hitting the cap or tee before your ball. Hitting the ball and then the turf will only happen if you transfer your weight to your leading foot and end your swing in a balanced pose on your leading foot.

If you practice with a bottle cap or tee behind your ball, you will learn to slow down your backswing to allow a little more time to transfer your weight forward during your swing. Of course you need to keep your eye on the ball through impact.

Practicing this down-stroke swing with your irons will save a lot of shots for every round by giving you a more consistent and longer hit. For your higher lofted clubs and wedges, you will also see that your ball checks-up faster on the green or even backs up with back-spin. Learn all of your iron shots using your GOLFSTR+ for 6 swing fixes. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com