Will Curry

I recently found a blog titled: “Trevino’s Left Hand Secret”. In 1974 he exposed his secret for accurate tee shots: “Keeping your left hand ahead of the club-face.” He said: “If the other guys ever learn that it is the back of the left hand that controls the club-face, there would be a lot more winners, and I would have a lot more to worry about.” He also recommended this “with an open stance which will give your arms room to extend along the way as your body turns.”

I have never heard any pros recommending an open stance for drives, but it really caught my attention as this is exactly the way I setup and drive off a tee to control the direction of my drives. An open stance helps me shallow my downswing so that my trailing elbow grazes my side as I drive up my target line.
Lee also bowed his wrist at the top of his swing (where I flatten my wrist) to shallow the downswing for an in-to-out swing. It’s described as a push-cut swing causing a slight fade.

I’m sharing this description to highlight the fact that you can choose the setup (open stance), transition (cupped wrist) and delivery (inside to out) for your swing as long as it gives you consistency and control.
Your dominant strength in one arm, wrist and leg or a tightness in your hips, spine or neck will all have an impact on the swing that works for your body.

Changes in any position in your swing will continue to provide inconsistent results. You don’ t have to stick to the text book swing. Find the swing that gives you a consistent result and then groove that swing for your driver and another swing for your irons.

Trevino and every other pro found the right swing motion for their driver and irons. Once you find it you need to lock it in for consistency. Unfortunately, the older you get the more the more you have to be aware of your bodies tending to change throughout each round of golf depending on your stamina, the changing temperature and your energy level.

Practice to improve the consistency of your golf swing with GOLFSTR+ and find out what works best for your clubs the way Lee Trevino has done. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

This is the ninth in a series of blogs to help you simplify your knowledge of golf and hopefully improve your game. [These tips are distilled from an article published by Luke Kerr-Dineen for a GOLF franchise called “Play Smart”.]

28/ Flare Your Feet: If you’re sitting at a desk all day, you’ve probably got tight hip flexors. That will limit your ability to rotate during your golf swing, which will cost you power—and could even lead to lower- back pain. To increase your hip turn on either side of the ball, GOLFTEC’s resident GOLF Top 100 Teacher Nick Clearwater has found one method works almost instantly and easily: flaring your feet. “Turning your toes out 20 degrees—maybe even more—effectively makes you more flexible,” Clearwater says. “It creates greater range of motion in your hips, which produces a distance boost in short order.”

29/ Use Your Logo Wisely: At the 2012 World Scientific Congress of Golf, researcher Dr. Joan Vickers revealed the fascinating results from an eye-tracking study performed on a group of golfers. She found that highly skilled, lower-handicap players tend to keep their eyes fixed on one portion of the ball. Higher handicaps tend to move their eyes to multiple points.

This is not only important for your fairways shots but also for your putting. Don’t follow your backswing or your follow-through with your eyes. Just focus on swinging in a straight line up your target line.

It may not solve all your problems, but keeping your eyes focused on one tight spot is a quick upgrade you can make to your game. Tiger Woods, places the Bridgestone logo on his ball toward the back (where he wants his clubface to impact) as he tees it up. It acts as a bull’s- eye to hit on every tee shot.

30/ Temperature Impact on Ball Fight: GOLF Top 100 Teacher Andrew Rice and PING have studied the effects of temperature on ballflight. A 30 degree drop in temperature from 80 to 50 degrees Fahrenheit will reduce your drive and iron shots by about 6 yards. Warmer air temperature is thinner and causes less resistance for the flight of your golf balls.

This ends the selection of 30 mini tips to simplify your game for more success. BTW Tiger’s father always reminded him that “you only get out of your game what you put into it“. Practice with GOLFSTR+ as a reminder to limit your leading elbow bend and to keep you leading wrist flat in the backswing and at point of impact. You will love the results. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

This is the eighth in a series of blogs to help you simplify your knowledge of golf and hopefully improve your game. [These tips are distilled from an article published by Luke Kerr-Dineen for a GOLF franchise called “Play Smart”.]

26/ Know Your Cover Number: There are lots of numbers that come into a pro golfer’s consideration whenever they set their sights on the green. But there’s one above all else that reigns supreme: It’s the yardage to the front of the green, which pros call the “cover number.” “The COVER is a number players know they absolutely need to hit their shot,” says GOLF Top 100 Teacher Boyd Summerhays, who teaches Tony Finau. “It’s really important.” When your COVER NUMBER is paired with the distance to the back edge, it illustrates the size of your target zone.

You should know the distance that each of your clubs will cover when you execute a great shot. Unfortunately your perfect shots occur less than 50% of the time. Why not up your club and hit with 80% of your power to ensure that you reach the green or roll out to the center of the green.

27/ Improve Your Green Reading: Is it better to over-read putts or under-read them? Mark Sweeney, the inventor of the groundbreaking green-reading system Aimpoint, found that it is better to err on the side of over-reading putts. Putts rolling downhill keep rolling and take longer to lose their speed. In the example below a putt that has been over-read (above the hole) by 12 inches will trickle down to about six inches above the hole. A putt of the same speed that has been under-read by 12 inches will take more of the slope and keep rolling all the way out to 36 inches.

Golf is a game of perfection, but you will never improve your scores if you don’t apply the basic swing to improve the consistency of your hits. Practice with GOLFSTR+ for all of your swings to limit wrist and elbow bends where you should not be bending. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

This is the seventh in a series of blogs to help you simplify your knowledge of golf and hopefully improve your game. [These tips are distilled from an article published by Luke Kerr-Dineen for a GOLF franchise called “Play Smart”.]

25/ Know What To Do When You’re In Trouble: You’ve done your smart preparation, but some-how things still aren’t going according to plan. Don’t worry, it happens. Golf is a game of misses. So you should try to minimize your misses and take your medicine and make a good recovery shot. Stay calm. Following are 4 solution to avoid a blow-up hole:

25a/ Try variable training: “It may sound counterintuitive, but one of the best things you can do when you’re struggling to hit the sweet spot is try to hit misses,” says GOLF Top 100 Teacher Mark Durland. “The next time you’re struggling, try intentionally to hit shanks or shots off the toe. This kind of ‘variable training’ will help your brain get a better sense of the club face when it’s time to hit the center.” [I don’t really understand how this tip will help but I don’t make these up. However, we should give it a try to see what happens in a non-competition game.]

25b/ Eat something: You may simply be running out of energy if you’re playing poorly. Sugar and carbs will spike your energy the fastest but fade fast. Higher-protein snacks will last longer. Drinking water throughout is essential. Weight Watcher’s former head of nutrition says golfers should choose a blend of everything but try to stick to a 2-to-1 protein-to-carbs ratio (a protein bar and banana or apple), with up to 10 glasses of water per day.

25c/ Time your tempo: If you’re playing in the wind, one of the first things to go is your tempo. First brought to light in their pioneering book Tour Tempo, John Novosel Sr. and Jr. say good rhythm can come at different speeds, “but the ratio should always stay 3:1, meaning your back- swing should be three times slower than your down- swing.” If it’s not, your tempo is out of sync. [LOVE THIS TIP!]

25d/ Don’t be a hero: As Tour statistician Mark Broadie writes in his book Every Shot Counts, PGA Tour players average 3.8 shots to hole out from 100 yards when they’re in the trees. Hitting a 60-yard recovery shot vs. pitching out directly sideways gains you ONLY about 0.2 of a stroke, from 2.8 shots to 2.6 at best. At worst, you’ll hit a disaster shot and make a big number. Play stress-free and get the ball back in play. [I love this tip but find it the most difficult to execute.]

We all get in trouble over the course of a round of golf. The person with the lowest score is most often the golfer who hits the smartest recovery shots to ensure that their next shot is an easy success. Improve your swing with every club by practicing all 6 swing fixes with GOLFSTR+. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

This is the sixth in a series of blogs to help you simplify your knowledge of golf and hopefully improve your game. [These tips are distilled from an article published by Luke Kerr-Dineen for a GOLF franchise called “Play Smart”.]

21/ Plan for Your Shot Pattern: In golf, we deal with luck in terms of shot patterns (according to Scott Fawcett, Founder of DECADE GOLF). Think of your shot pattern like the spray of a shotgun blast: Some pellets may end closer to where you were aiming, but others may veer off slightly, and you never know which one ends where you want. This fact is what makes golf so darn hard. That’s why you should plan around your typical dispersion pattern for each type of club and distance. Instead of trying to hit your approach shot inside of eight feet, choose a target that results in a safe location for an occasional birdie putt. You would be stunned at to know how many PGA Tour players aim away from a hole, as you should to stack the deck in your favor.

22/ Count Down Your Swing: Dr. Matthias Grabenhorst, who has spent his life researching the subject of human reaction, published a study last year that showed humans tend to react best to events a few seconds into the future. Instantaneous reactions are often clumsy, but a little head start can go a long way. Dr. Bob Christina of UNC Greensboro, wanted to see if that held true for golf. They took a group of 32 golfers and found that those who counted backward from four (as in “four, three, two, one”) before hitting shots performed the best in terms of accuracy. Those who decided on their own when to hit their shot often stood over the ball for a lot longer and fared much worse.

23/ Understand “Spin Loft”: As defined by TrackMan, it’s the measured angle between the loft delivered by the club at impact and the angle of attack into the ball—the larger the number, the more the ball will spin. When hitting driver, it’s optimal to generate the lowest spin loft number as possible because that’s what fuels distance. So you should be driving into the ball with a positive angle of attack. For shorter shots, a higher spin-loft value is key for shot-stopping power into the greens.

24/ Practice the Money Putts: Sinking an 8-foot putt is a “money putt”. Sink more of them and play like the pro golfers who sink 53% of them. Golfers shooting in the 80’s sink 33% of 8-footers and golfers shooting in the 90’s sink 27%.

Tip# 22 suggests that you count down from 4 to start your swing. I believe that it helps you focus on the countdown in order to ignore any other thoughts. To help me avoid other thoughts I count my cadence. When putting I count “1,2 “ where 2 starts my downswing. For every other club I count “1 and 2”, where thinking “1 and” forces me to take my time to complete my backswing AND wrist lag. At the count of “2”, I start of my downswing. Practice with GOLFSTR+ Training Aid for 6 swing fixes. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com
 

This is the fifth in a series of blogs to help you simplify your knowledge of golf and hopefully improve your game. [These tips are distilled from an article published by Luke Kerr-Dineen for a GOLF franchise called “Play Smart”. These nuggets of knowledge are designed as a quick reference to help you as they have helped so many other golfers.]

17/ Don’t Try to ‘Fix’ Your Miss. Narrow it: For decades, conventional golf wisdom has bemoaned the terrors of the “two-way miss.” Lou Stagner, the data lead over at Arccos Golf, is here to tell you it’s not so bad—and he has an army of statistics to prove it. Stagner puts forward Dustin Johnson as a prime example. Lauded as one of the statistically best drivers of his generation, DJ’s drives have missed left 2,203 times and 2,238 times to the right, almost an exact 50-50 split. It’s a trend that holds all the way down through the Tour. While it is true that it’s beneficial for players to have a preferred shot shape (DJ’s, for instance, is a slight left-to-right fade), the statistics simply don’t bear out that players use it to eliminate one side of the course. “As a player, you’re better off trying to narrow your biggest left miss and your biggest right miss,” says PGA Tour coach Shauheen Nakhjavani.

18/ Pay Attention to Posture: As human beings, we’re hardwired with an innate instinct to balance ourselves in order to avoid falling over—and, potentially, hurting ourselves. It’s what helps us take our first steps, but, sometimes, it can throw your swing out of whack.
For the average male golfer, your head encompasses about 8 percent of total body weight; your trunk about 55 percent, your arms about 12 percent and your legs make up the rest. If you’re not in a balanced setup position to start, your body will attempt to balance itself during the swing—and it won’t be pretty. That’s why GOLF Top 100 Teachers like the middle of a golfer’s foot, kneecaps and armpits to form a straight line with each other when viewed from down the line. That’s the position of optimal balance at setup because it “stacks” your heavy body parts in one line. The official term is “joint centration.”

19/ Know Where Your Clubface Is Pointing at Impact: Where your clubface points at impact, has the greatest influence on what direction the ball will start its flight pattern. For a right-handed golfer, an open clubface (relative to the target) will result in the ball starting right of the target, and if the face is closed, the ball will start left of the target. According to TrackMan, around 80 percent of the ball’s starting direction is dictated by where the clubface is pointed at impact, with the remaining percentage caused by the direction the club is traveling (club path). Configuring the clubface with club path at impact will help you create a more consistent ball- flight, shot after shot.

20/ Determine YOUR Most Effective Hold: How you place your trail hand (right hand for right-handed golfers), plays a huge role in how you square the clubface at impact. Placing your right hand in a “stronger” position— more on the side of the club—tends to result in a more passive orientation, with a slower clubface rate of closure. The opposite is true if your trail hand is more on top of the club, in a “weaker” position. There’s no right or wrong way: Different golfers will do better or worse depending on what hold they’re predisposed to.

Golf clubs are swung in an arc so the skill to hit perfectly straight shots is all about knowing and trusting your swing for each type of club as your body weight is transferring throughout every swing. Practicing with GOLFSTR+ with every club in your bag is a good way to learn and trust your swing. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

This is the fourth in a series of blogs to help you simplify your knowledge of golf and hopefully improve your game. [These tips are distilled from an article published by Luke Kerr-Dineen for a GOLF franchise called “Play Smart”. These nuggets of knowledge are designed as a quick reference to help you as they have helped so many other golfers.]

13/ Manage your Expectations: One of the keys to happier golf is to be realistic with your own expectations. Just like playing at Online casinos, you should pay attention to your successes and learn from your weaknesses to overcome your frustrations. Unfortunately, too many golfers have expectations that are wildly out of whack with the reality of their game. A great way to work on this is to keep track of the basic stats from your own game as you play. Keep your personal score card on every round with a tick when your drive lands in the fairway, a tick when you hit a GIR and add the your number of putts for each hole. Add-up your results for each round and track your progress.

Do you know that from 150 yards, a scratch golfer hits the green only about 60 percent of the time and hits Greens In Regulation 61% of the time? Don’t expect to reach these target numbers.

14/ Find Your ‘Center’: Yes, it’s important to “load” on the backswing and shift your weight forward on the down- swing. But 3D motion-capture systems reveal both happen earlier than you might expect. GOLF Top 100 Teacher Shaun Webb and coaching partner Mike Granato, co-founders of Athletic Motion Golf, have used the GEARS system to demonstrate that pro golfers have fully shifted their weight to their trail foot halfway through their backswing, but by the time they reach the top of their swing, weight is already beginning to shift toward their front foot.

“By the top of the backswing, pros reverse this move off the ball and shift back to just slightly forward of where they started at address,” Webb says. “That’s how you should complete your backswing: by BY SHIFTING SLIGHTLY TOWARD THE TARGET.”

15/ Practice With Pressure: “I try to make my practice sessions emulate tournament conditions. The goal is to structure range time so it’s as difficult and mentally exhausting as possible, so that when I play in a tournament it just feels like simple golf.” Justin Thomas

16/ Optimize Your Launch and Spin: Now that you appreciate the importance of the loft- and-spin relationship, allow us to introduce you to the Optimal Launch Conditions chart. This
is what good club-fitters determine as they’re helping dial-in your driver specs. Everyone’s ideal loft and spin numbers are slightly different, depending on their ball speed and angle of attack. The closer you can get to matching these numbers with your gamer, the less distance you’ll be sacrificing.

We all need the right clubs to match our swing and swing speed, but you also need to practice the correct basic swing to improve your game. GOLFSTR+ gives you 6 swing fixes in one Training Aid. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

This is the third in a series of blogs to help you simplify your knowledge of golf and hopefully improve your game. [These tips are distilled from an article published by Luke Kerr-Dineen for a GOLF franchise called “Play Smart”. These nuggets of knowledge will provide you with a quick reference to sharpen your games.]

9/ Randomize Your Practice: A study was performed in multiple sports to determine the best way to practice. (a) Block Practice, practicing one thing over and over again and (b) Random Practice, where you never do the same thing back-to-back. Randomized practice is by far the best where you hit different shots with different clubs and never the same shot twice in a row. It makes you think about each shot and make adjustments to get them right.

10/ When to Hit Driver (or NOT): So, you’re standing on the tee of a tight hole, wondering what to do. Should you play it safe? Or hit driver and hope for the best? DECADE Golf founder Scott Fawcett dived deep into the PGA Tour’s ShotLink data to find the answer. He says that to solve that problem, golfers need to answer two questions:
a. Are there less than 65 yards between penalty hazards?
b. Is the fairway less than 40 yards wide to the spot where your driver would land?
If you answered “yes” to either of these, then you should play it safe. Club down. If you answered “no” to either—or can carry your driver over the hazards—then pull the big stick and in Fawcett’s words, “Send it!”

11/ A speed-boosting concept: When it comes to hitting the ball far, more muscle mass certainly helps. But you can only get so far with brute strength. In order to maximize how efficiently you transfer your body’s strength into your swing, pros are using a concept that’s known as “over-speed-under-speed training.” It’s the concept that helped Matt Fitzpatrick boost his speed to win the 2022 US Open. Overspeed training is when you swing some-thing like the shaft of a club at very high speeds to increase your swing speed. Underspeed is the opposite: Swinging your weight loaded driver slower than your driver. Overspeed trains your muscles to be explosive and Underspeed improves your strength. Fact: You need to train both ways to hit booming drives.

12/ Change Up Your Breathing: An intriguing point of interest among pro golfers is learning how they use their breathing to play better golf. Nick Bolhuis, who works with Bryson DeChambeau, Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth, among others, the vice president of performance programs at Neuropeak Pro, explains: Golfers perform their best in an optimal zone. “Sometimes that means taking slower, deeper breaths” (to reduce their heart rate when they are nervous). “Other times it means quicker, shallower breaths.” to speed up your heart rate and help you focus during those mid-round lulls.

Each of these tips will only work if you stick to the proven basics. Practice with GOLFSTR+ to swing with a straight leading arm, a flat leading wrist and shallow your downswing to LAUNCH your drives up, POWER your woods and hybrids flat through the fairway and BOTTOM the swing arc of your irons after impact. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

This is the second in a series of blogs to help you simplify your knowledge of golf and hopefully improve your game. [Includes abbreviated tips from an article published by Luke Kerr-Dineen for a GOLF franchise called “Play Smart”.] I have only distilled nuggets of knowledge from his article to provide you with a quick reference to sharpen your games.

5/ Understand the loft and spin relationship: A properly hit golf ball will create an undercut or reversing spin on every golf ball. [Not to be confused with side spins caused by the path of impact or the open or closed face of the club which cause a draw, fade, hook or slice.] Too much spin with a driver will rob you of distance. That’s why your driver has a very low loft and you typically gain height with the launch angle off a tee. (A topped ball is never desired as it creates an over-spin which will force your ball to dive down and along the ground.)

The more loft on your club, the more it’s going to spin the ball. That’s why your pitching wedge stops on a green much faster than lower lofted clubs. A little extra spin can help you hit the ball straighter off the tee or land softer on the green, but too much of it can send the ball ballooning up into the air. Less spin can help you hit the ball lower for more roll-out. The key is getting control over spin, which starts with a good club-fitting

6/ Adjust Your Tee Height: Changing tee height has a direct impact on the launch and spin of the ball off your driver and can be used to help you get more distance with a simple adjustment. A higher tee also creates the opportunity to hit the ball above the middle of the club face. These 2 factors increase launch angle and reduce spin, which, in turn, help optimize launch conditions for up to 25 yards more distance. So, if you’re struggling to keep up with your buddies off the tee, experiment with teeing the ball higher. You could pick up serious yards.

7/ Practice Swinging in Slow Motion: Will Zalatoris said “Whenever I’m working on something, I rarely ever do it at full speed. My practice? A lot of slow-motion work. It’s something my dad really drilled into me growing up. It helps me with my body awareness and matching stuff up.” [Will’s recent successes may indicate that he is on to something.]

8/ A Slower Roll Makes A Bigger Hole: Gravity exerts its greatest effects when the ball is moving at its slowest, like when you’re putting. Thanks to a recent Trackman study, a putt entering the hole at 0.01 mph uses 100 per- cent of the hole’s size, meaning it’ll catch the lip and almost certainly fall into the cup. But as the ball rolls faster, the less likely that it will happen. A putt that’s traveling fast enough to end one and a half feet past the hole makes the effective size of the cup about 25 percent smaller. Firm and in, is not always the best way to putt those short puts. [Longer putts should be stroked with enough power to pass the hole by up to 18 inches to ensure that gravity and flaws in the green do not miss-direct your putt.]

For Tip #8 try practicing with GOLFSTR+ to lock your leading wrist flat when you are putting. We also suggest that you stare at your ball location as you complete your swing (DON’T follow the ball with your eyes). For short and downhill putts, choose your line on the high side of the hole and putt with enough speed to reach the hole and die into the hole. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

For our next few blogs, I am sharing a series of 30 tips that will help you simplify your knowledge of golf and hopefully improve your game. I found these tips in an article published by Luke Kerr-Dineen for a GOLF franchise called “Play Smart”. I have only distilled nuggets of knowledge from his article to provide you with a quick reference to sharpen your games.

1/ Avoid Doubles Bogeys: I love this line “The difference between the lowest handicap golfers and the rest of us isn’t the quantity of good shots. It’s what happens after the bad ones.” We all have bad shots in every round, but you need to avoid a succession of poor shots. Clear your brain and get back in the game with a great recovery shot to avoid a double or triple bogey.

In a recent study by Sherman (The Four Foundations of Golf) golfers with a handicap of 2, average 1 double bogey/round and 2 birdies/round. Golfers with a handicap of 20 average 5.5 double bogeys and only .2 birdies/round. So, focus on great recovery shots and not on trying to birdie every hole.

2/ Stretch to Improve Your Speed: We are all aware that you need to activate your muscles before any sport. To generate more power in your golf swing you need to load up your muscles or coil them up like a spring before you release that power. One of GOLF Top 100 Teachers, Chris Como, says: “Stretching your arms wide away from you on the backswing sets up a ‘rubber-band effect’ in your muscles, which allows them to contract forcefully and send the club whipping through impact with extra speed.” If you fail to feel this stretch, you’re leaving yards on the table. After you warm up your body with body stretching make sure that you hold your shoulders, arms and wrists in the same wide stretch that you want to achieve in your backswing.

3/ Swing a driver you can handle: Most recreational golfers swing their driver under 90 mph. We are all looking for more distance and control off the tee. So Luke recommends changing to a lighter club with a lighter shaft and club head to stay in better balance so that you can swing faster. He suggests trying the XXIO: “The use of lightweight and strong materials creates a distinct advantage and can help you get the most off the tee.”

NOTE: I have tried an XXIO driver and loved the feel and control but also know that you can generate a lot more momentum or whipping action when you use a heavier club head (like a sling-shot). That’s exactly why golf retail outlets sell lead tape which can be added to the head of golf clubs. I’m just making this comment to suggest that you may want to gradually test the addition of lead tape on your existing clubs before your make any expensive changes.

4/ Aim close, not far: Our eyes are designed to look straight ahead and level. Looking at a target in the distance while standing in your address posture tilts your eyes and can often make you feel like you’re aiming too far left. It’s called the “Parallax Effect”. A study that found golfers hit the ball straighter and farther when they use a spot about two feet in front of the ball and directly in line with their intended destination. Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus have used this method and you should too. So, aim close, not far.

Tip number 2 (above) shows an exercise to stretch and load your straight leading arm and body for more power. You can also use GOLFSTR+ as a training aid to remind you to keep your leading arm straight in your backswing while you play. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

Watch for the next set of TIPS in your GOLFSTR Swing Tips Blog next Thursday morning.