Will Curry

Direction Accuracy and Distance Control are the most important aspects that you need to break 80 in every round. We all know this, so why do we miss so many important shots? Instead of paying attention to the basics our minds wonder. We focus on the shot that a pro would make. We put a lot more power into the swing to clear water or sand traps when we should be laying up and chipping to 3 feet. This game would be so easy if we just play with a comfortable swing and the following basics.

In an article by Zephyr Melton in Play Smart on the GOLF.com blog I found the basics that “Joe Durant used in order to be among the straightest drivers in golf history.” . During his peak performance years his driving accuracy was between 75% and 82%. The following 3 points were key for his success.

1. Check Your Lines: You have to check your setup to line up your shot. He used alignment sticks to pick his direction and the square of his feet to his target line. He would imagine that he had alignment sticks through his shoulders, hips and feet and set them up parallel to each other.
2. Use Alignment Sticks: When Durant hits shots on the range, he kept two alignment sticks on the ground in front of him. One was inside his ball, while the other was parallel to it just outside the ball. He was trying to make sure that his foot line was parallel to the inside pole. The outer pole was a guide for his club swing plane. If he could take his club along the same path on the takeaway, he knew he was in good shape.
3. Tee It Low: Generating as much distance as possible is a popular strategy among pros these days, and that usually involves teeing it high and swinging up on the ball. But when you want to promote accuracy, it’s in your best interest to tee it low. It helps you take spin off your ball.
   When he was under pressure, he teed it lower to squeeze it out there with a fade for better control. Overpowering the ball was never good for his shots.
   Practice with GOLFSTR+ to control the flat of your leading wrist and elbow for more consistent hits. Joe Durant recommended controlling your direction and your power to limit the spin on your drives. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

Most courses are designed to destroy shots within 75 yards of the green. If you can’t hit a perfect shot to land on the green the course designers make you pay for your poor shot by landing in water, sand or on a steep pitch beside or over the green. Hitting a great shot to land in the perfect location for your approach shot will save more strokes.

Bobby Jones said that the easiest way to lower your score is to turn 3 shots into 2. One difficult missed shot can easily turn 2 approach shots into 3 or more shots (depending on the level of your anger).
The most important
One of the most important tips that I received from a scratch golfer was to plan for your preferred approach shot. He did this by developing a consistent carry distance for his wedge from 100 yards. (The total distance is frustrating because it includes the rollout depending on backspin and the contour of each green.) On a par 4 or par 5 he would always lay up to 100 yards. Using this commitment, it give me the focus to hit more Greens In Regulation and save a lot of strokes.

1/ Break 85 by eliminating penalty strokes (including sand traps, trees and water). Try these tips for a more controlled hit for your approach shot from the ideal location and distance.
• Tee the ball lower for more control.
• Move the ball slightly back in your stance
• Choke down on your grip
• Use cruising speed versus your full speed. A pause at the top my your solution to slow down your transition.

2/ Know your Carry Distance as you can never trust the ground to increase your Total Distance

3/ Sink more short putts by practicing 3, 4 and 5-foot putts. Practice to hit past the hole by 1 or 2 feet so that you eliminate any imperfections at the hole as well as the increasing amount of break as your ball slows down.

Don’t blast your shots and hope that they will miss the penalty areas. Focus on hitting to the perfect point where you know you can make your approach shot land close to the hole and stay on the green. Practice with GOLFSTR+ to add more control to your direction and distance for every club in your bag. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

When you understand that there are 2 arcs in every golf swing and low points in each arc, you will have a better chance to control direction and shape for every shot. This may sound a little confusing, but your club is swinging with a Target-Arc up your target line as well as a Body-Arc wrapping around your body. Its your job to sort out what is happening with the position of YOUR body at the Low Point with each arc on every swing. Use your practice swing to determine your low point before you move forward to your ball. First we are looking at iron swings.

Target-Arc (swinging up your target line)
Danny Maude was the inspiration for this blog as he described the bottom of the swing arc as either FORWARD, CENTERED or BEFORE the ball:
-FORWARD is typical for High Handicappers who bottom the arc 1 to 4 inches beyond the ball.
-CENTERED for Low Handicap Players bottoming the arc at the ball position.
-BEFORE for Professionals who bottom their arc 1 to 4 inches before impact.

Recommendation: If your body is out of sync with your Target-Arc, setup with your leading knee slightly bent to ensure that the bottom of your swing arc happens before you impact your ball to compress it before you take any divot.

Body-Arc (swinging around your body)
Right handed players impacting the ball before the low point, will push the ball to the right. Impacting it after the low point will pull the ball to the left. A closed or open face at the point of impact will add more motion to a draw or a fade and turn them into a hook or a slice.

The bottom of your arc is normally below your leading armpit so you can’t afford to allow your body to sway back during your backswing and freeze-up in that position during your downswing. That’s why you need a consistent tempo throughout your swing so that your body can recover with your follow-through.

Recommendation: Determine if you are hitting early or late in your Body Arc swing and slightly close or open your stance to minimize the affect of an early or late impact.

Driver Swings: You have the same arc issues with your driver but in all cases you should be teeing your ball so that half of the ball is higher than the crown of your driver and somewhat forward of the center of your stance to impact during the upward finish of your target-arc. You may have to close your driver stance slightly to avoid pulling your shots as your club wraps around your body-arc.

The low point of your swing should be below your leading armpit as long as your body rotates with your backswing and downswing. Your hips, shoulders and arms can’t afford to be out of sync with the arcs of your swing. Practice with GOLFSTR+ to learn the proper straight arm or flat wrist to control the distance to your ball throughout your swings. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

Sports Illustrated blog GOLF.COM published an interesting article by Nick Dimengo last week about the shot you need to score well in every round of golf that you play. Of course, every shot counts but a good drive landing in the fairway gives you the chance to par or birdie every hole.

Control Your Swing Path
If you’re a slicer, lining up for a slice is a bad solution. To break 80, you have to eliminate your slice and avoid lost balls and balls going out of bounds. Swinging over-the-top, causes the clubface to open-up and cut across as it impacts the golf ball.

One drill that Dimengo found really helpful is to draw a line on your golf ball — similar to what you’d do to line up putts. Instead of pointing this line straight at the target, point it a little out to the right (for right-handed golfers). This is the path that you want to swing on.

Line-up your feet square to your target line and close your shoulders in line with the line on your ball. That’s the direction that you want to swing into the ball to create a straight or a draw shot. That’s going to keep your upper body closed to the target and get you to swing a little bit more from the inside.

Shallow Your Swing Path
To ensure that you are swinging from the inside for your driver as well as your iron shots, flatten your leading wrist during your backswing so that your trailing elbow will stay close to your side during your downswing. This process was not in Demingo’s article but I find that it forces my swing to come from the inside and across the ball.

SIDE NOTE
Even Bryson DeChambeau has decided to change his approach to golf after he failed to make the cut in The 2024 Open Championship. We all know that he had ended his diet adding massive muscle and fat in order to hit longer drives. His latest awakening was to stop trying to hit every drive as long as possible with a high draw. He has now decided to add more control to the shape of his drives to account for the wind, hazards and contour of each fairway. Managing his driver for draws and fades has become his new focus.

If you are committed to eliminating your sliced drives, practice your swing in slow motion with GOLFSTR+ on your leading wrist to hold it flat. It will also shallow your downswing so that you feel your trailing elbow pass close to your side. Buy one today at www.golfstr.com  

If you can eliminate mishits and stupid shots I guarantee that you will break 90 during every round that you play. It’s really easy, just chose the correct club and keep all of your shots in the fairway. Hitting greens in regulation and misjudging your putts are the primary reason why its NOT EASY to break 80 or 70 . Weekend Warriors should be focusing on the elimination of Mishits and Stupid Shots to break 90.

The more time you spend practicing and playing golf with the proper swing, the better will be your chance of eliminating mishits. You may not see pros mishitting shots on TV as the producers focus on the perfection of the low scoring leaders. The higher scoring laggards are make their share of mishits and struggling to recover from the rough.

Mishit Elimination
By mishits, I’m referring to hooking and slicing your ball as well as missing the center of your club face (for toe or housel hits), topping it and hitting it fat or thin. We all make some of these shots but our goal is to eliminate or minimize them. Why not try:
-Using a consistent shot routine to improve your mental approach to golf.
–Practice with GOLFSTR+ to learn a straight arm backswing with a flat wrist for a square impact to eliminate slices, hooks, thin and fat shots.
–Plan to hit shorter shots, so that your 3rd shot on every par 4 will chip close to the hole.
-Be more strategic to miss every sand trap and pond on the course.
–Select one club lower in loft so that you can swing at 80% with MORE control.

Stupid Shot Elimination
By Stupid shots I am referring to avoiding those shots that have a 60% chance that they will get your next shot in trouble. It really is easy to hit a chip shot out of a poor lie or to aim a safe shot into the fairway instead of hitting up a tree line or between 2 trees. Hitting 200 yards over a pond is often a poor decision. You can always recall the poor shots that you should never have tried at the end of each round. Why not finish rounds shooting under 90 and enjoy the success of playing smart.

Don’t get frustrated and follow a poor shot with a Stupid Shot. The same thing holds true for putting. Ben Hogan said, “A shot that goes in the cup is pure luck, but a shot to within two feet of the flag is skill”. Be happy with your close misses and make sure that you sink the next putt.

It really is difficult to decide to make a recovery shot where you know that it may cost you a stroke. Unfortunately, a Bad Decision is most likely going to add a lot more strokes to your score. YOU are not a pro. Eliminate stupid shots to keep your score under 90 or even 80. And practice with GOLFSTR+ to eliminate mishits with every club in your bag. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

We all love to watch the Major Golf Tournaments for the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. Of the 4 Majors, The Open Championship at Royal Troon is by far the most challenging because of those crazy pot bunkers, wild greens, the spiny gorse bushes, the ocean winds, cold fog & rain and that out of bounds railway track on the 11th hole.

What can we learn from the 2024 event to improve our games? Avoid the major golf courses in Great Britain? They are a challenge for the pros so you just may not enjoy playing there. Playing the forward tees will help but that won’t get you out of trouble.

World Class Golfers Missed the Cut
It is amazing how many top golfers missed the cut at +6. Seeing the names of the rejects will reinforce how hard this course was: Bryson DeChambeau (+9) Rory McIlroy (+11 with only 3 birdies and 10 bogeys or worse after 2 rounds), Tiger Woods (+14), Wyndham Clark (+16). Ernie Els and John Daly each dropped out after their first rounds shooting 82.

Golf Tips
I could not believe how Rory and Tiger both hit a booming slice OB on the #11 railway hole. So many other pros make the same disastrous slice. These are pros and they know how to hit a slice and how NOT to hit a slice especially in a heavy wind. How could this possibly happen? Guess that explains why all golfer have occasional surprising slices.

Could it be nerves? I don’t think so as they were on their eleventh hole.
Could it be the wind? It certainly made the slice worse, but their swing caused the slice.
Swinging hard for distance was the cause: They were both hitting 300+ yard drives so they had to make a 100% swing. Let that be a lesson to all of us. The harder we swing, the easier it is to leave our club face open and pound a screaming slice. [Rory hit a duck hook for his provisional and Tiger hit a beautiful straight recovery shot.]

Don’t get greedy in bunkers, especially pot bunkers. Take your penalty gracefully. Always take enough club to get out of the bunker or even hit out sideways if you don’t feel you can clear the front lip. NOTE: A new PGA rule allows the option to remove a ball plugged in a bunker lip and place it on the line of entry outside of the bunker with a single stroke penalty.

Practice with GOLFSTR+ to improve your straight shots if you plan to take on Royal Troon or any of the other wonderful courses in Britain or Ireland. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

Golf is an impossible game played with clubs that swing in an arc on terrain that is rarely flat, so how can SQUARE create perfection? As it turns out SQUARE is the new buzzword in golf. And that is why it is so difficult to figure out. We all struggle to create an impact with our golf ball in the split second when our club face is exactly square to the ball.

When you watch a high-speed video of a club impacting a golf ball, you can see that the ball is partially flattened during the point of impact. That flat surface controls the direction of your ball. So your swing path on the flattened surface of your ball is the critical factor in creating a square impact on your ball.

Setup Perfection
Ideally you should setup with a perfectly square alignment (shoulders, hips and toes) on a flat surface with no prevailing wind. Your setup position will create straight hits by using a swing that allows you to follow-through in the direction of your club face. Tiger Woods can actually feel the face of his club throughout his swing as if it’s happening in a super slow motion.

You will never hit enough golf balls to duplicate the emotions and feel for your swing that Tiger and so many other professional golfers do. But you can learn to setup with your ball in a proper position and hold your club in a square position to your ball so that you can execute your swing to your identical square setup position with the following adjustments:

• Adding draw or fade spin only requires a slight adjustment for your club face direction but your impact should still be square to your ball.
• Identify the best ball position for your natural swing with each of your clubs. Impact the ball before taking any divot or starting your upswing with your driver (off your leading toe).
• Adjust for wind speed by selecting the correct club to compensate for distance.
• Modify your stance and shoulders to offset the slope of the ground that you are standing on.
• Putting is so much easier if as your slow swing is easier to control to impact your ball squarely on the center line of the face of your putter.
• Choosing the correct target line for each putt is the most critical issue but a SQUARE impact is still the key factor for putting perfection.

Don’t let one hand overpower your swing and cause an early rotation of YOUR SQUARE club face. Build confidence in your swing by practicing these tips with GOLFSTR+ at the driving range. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

Stubbing a chip has got to be the most frustrating shot in golf next to missing a 3 foot putt (the way Rory McIlroy did at the US Open). We cover so much ground with our driver and irons and then waste so many shots when we try to finish our hole with a weak short game. Why is this so difficult? Sort out the right technique and you will save 10 to 18 strokes by hitting more one putt greens on every round.

Choose the Right Club for the Right Job;
Mid to High handicap golfers get frustrated hitting fat chips that often only dribble up to the green, so as an easy fix you may choose a putter to make your short approach shots. Choosing a putter to hit from off the green is the loser’s choice.
a. The grass surface is typically rough so you can’t control the direction with your putter.
b. Your mind is tuned into swinging your putter on the faster putting surface of the green . It’s extremely difficult to change your mental outlook when putting from off the green. You will most likely putt short or well past the hole.

When you are off the green use the right lofted wedge to clear the rugged grass, land on the green and roll to the hole. LEARN to use a wedge by practicing and using the right technique.

When pitching from off the green and especially on an uphill lie, practice for consistent success and to learn the flight and roll out for each of your lofted clubs.

Technique for Pitching Success up to 25 Yards:
At address, center the ball between your feet, position your chest forward of the ball (don’t think weight forward), think chest forward, allow your shaft to tilt forward and lift your club head slightly off the ground. From there, you should feel like you’re making an extended putting stroke.

Practice by keeping your leading wrist flat using GOLFSTR+. Buy one today for 5 more swing fixes at www.GOLFSTR.com

Today I received 2 blogs from amazing golf instructors who made opposite recommendations for your backswing and both claimed that you will get longer drives. As it turned out, they both may be correct, but I will bet that more Weekend Warriors will benefit more from a limited backswing than a longer, faster backswing.

Hank Haney recommends that you will hit your drives longer if you take a longer, faster backswing (even with a bent leading elbow) and a faster downswing. His logic is that your longer backswing will allow you to make a faster downswing. You will gain 2.5 yards for every mile per hour of impact speed. This fact has been proven under test lab conditions with “Iron Byron”, an electronic driver testing machine.

Danny Maude’s blog helped a student gain about 40 yards by limiting his straight leading arm backswing and generating a square clubface hit on the ball for a huge gain in yardage by eliminating a banana slice. The slice was killing his distance. The limited backswing allowed his student to control his drive directly up his target line for a lot more distance.

The problem with a longer faster backswing and downswing is that mid to high handicap golfers who try to swing faster will inevitably swing across the ball causing a horrible slice and send more balls into never-never-land. You will find that you can hit more balls in the fairway and longer than your normal attempts if you swing with a flat wrist, straight arm and a limited backswing (at about 1/3rd of a John Daly swing.)

As your confidence improves you will gain a lot more distance as you increase rotation of your hips and shoulders in your backswing. Then you can increase the speed of your backswing to build in wrist lag at the top and catapult your clubhead in the downswing to add even more speed AND DISTANCE ( as recommended by Hank Haney).

Practice this limited backswing technique with GOLFSTR+ and enjoy controlling longer straighter drives and hitting more fairways. Then you can add more rotation and speed for more distance with your future confident swing. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

Over the years we have seen amazing performances by Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods GOAT-(Greatest Of All Time) and now the new blood like Scottie Scheffler perform at a level so much better than other golfers. As they age their skills drop off but we should all learn to enjoy golf with the energy and skills that we have learned. Don’t let anger over a missed shot kill your game.

Bad Breaks Should not Kill Your Next Shot
Bad breaks, like hitting a branch or landing in a trap happen. Yes it would have been nice to miss those problems but there is nothing you can do to change the result. What you can change is the reaction for your next shot. Great golfers don’t swing their club in disgust. They step back, appraise their mistake, make the right practice swing and get ready for the next shot. They move on mentally with a fresh frame of mind.

Let Your Hands and Club do Their Work
Your hands make or break your next shot. They need to square your club face and add speed to the release through impact. Flatten your wrists in the backswing to shallow and square your club face with the plane of the back of your hand. Relax your wrists at the top of your swing to let your club add lag that will release with a whipping action AND SPEED at the bottom of your swing.

Scottie Creates Relaxation During his Pre-shot Routine
He plans his shot and then moves into a CALM MIND AND BODY to execute the shot that he wants. Whether he is driving, launching an iron or putting he visualizes the path that he wants his ball to take before he executes his swing. He know what he wants and can do.

Make the Best of a Bad Lie and Hit Shots that You have Practiced
Learn from the reaction that you saw so many pros take throughout their games at Pinehurst #2. Scottie’s game was not great during the US Open but he kept a “good head” and was able to bounce back on many holes. Build confidence with shots that you know you can make.

Keep positive mental goals in your head and stay patient. Scottie commits to what he can control and does not worry about the results. He said that, “It’s all about responding to the bad and kind of rolling with the good.” Put some effort into your game by learning the basics with GOLFSTR+. Straight elbow and flat wrist allow you to shallow your club and launch with power. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com