Wouldn’t it be nice to score a round of golf where you could play a MULLIGAN every time you miss-hit a ball? I’m NOT talking about a shot that is a little off-line or short of your target. I’m talking about drives into the woods or fat fairway shots or thinned chips over the green. If you could cut out those miss-hits, you could shoot in the 80’s or even the 70’s. We have some suggestions to get you on track to avoid those miss-hits. [I wish we could totally eliminate miss-hits but I believe practicing as often as the pros could do the trick.]

Every successful shot has 4 DISTINCT STAGES. Don’t skip one: Preparation, Practice Swing, Mental Focus and Rhythm. Take your time and get these right to eliminate those miss-hits.

1/ Preparation
Take your time to chose the right club to reach your target and to setup on the right target line. Knowing your normal draw or fade or the slope break on a green are all critical to making a good shot on the right target line. Don’t try for the high risk shots. Hit a layup if you know your shot will not hold the green. Get rid of your dumb thoughts while you have plenty of time to sort this out.

2/ Practice Swing
After you choose your target line, take your practice swing stance. Make a perfect full practice swing with the exact backswing, lag and cadence that you need in order to hit your target line. Build confidence that you will swing with power for your drives; brush the grass with your fairway woods & hybrids and impact your ball before turf with your irons.

3/ Mental Focus
Establish your confidence by remember past excellent shots with your club, which were caused by a full backswing, smooth release and a balanced finish. Be confident that you are about to duplicate that amazing feeling. [NO negative thoughts.]

4/ Duplicate Your Perfect Rhythm [These are your only thoughts during your swing.]
Take your full, backswing (with time to flatten your leading wrist and add lag at the top). Let your hips start your downswing for a whooshing release that you can hear as you finish in a balance pose.

You may want to try using the count of “1 and 2” where “1 and” to help you slow down your takeaway for time to (a) flatten your wrist (to shallow your downswing) and (b) create wrist lag at the top. When you say “2”, starts your hip rotation for your downswing. Build confidence when you practice for consistent rhythm using your GOLFSTR+ to limit your wrist and arm angles. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

Golf Truism #81: Everyone replaces their divot after a perfect approach shot.
 

Getting out of any bunker with a short or long shot is every golfers dream. A recent blog by GOLF Magazine gave us the 10 steps for success. These steps may not guaranty that you make more SANDIES (a bunker chip plus 1 putt) but they should at least help you reach and stay on the green.

1/ Balanced Stance: Setup with equal weight on both feet.

2/ Forward Ball Position: Your club must contact the sand before it slips under the ball so place the ball a few inches forward of the center of your stance and aim for your club to enter the sand directly in the center of your stance.

3/ Shuffle Into the Sand: You want to lower the height of your body to ensure that you club will power through the sand. Dig your feet down so that the soles of your shoes are below the level of the sand.

4/ Swing to Take Sand the Length of a Dollar Bill: Your swing needs to enter the sand just before the ball but more important it needs to take sand under the ball and well after the ball. Imagine that you are placing a quarter after the ball and that you have to clear the ball and the quarter out of the trap.

5/ Practice Pounding the Sand (without a ball): For short bunker shots open your club face and swing by pound the flat back of the club through the sand to practice taking sand out of the trap.

And For Longer Bunker Shots
6/ Practice Swinging with a Square Club Face (without hitting a ball): Swing with more power but make sure that you are throwing sand out of the trap.

7/ For Longer Shots Use Less Loft: Test your Gap Wedge and your Pitching Wedge to learn how far you can blast them out of a bunker for longer shots.

8/ Longer Bunker Shots Need a Full Swing: If you are not getting enough distance when you use less loft, add more shoulder turn with a shallow backswing to power through the sand.

9/ Finish your Swing: Never decelerate when you are hitting short or longer bunker shots. For shorter shots use an open face and finish with the same distance as your backswing. For a longer bunker shot use a square face and finish with an aggressive long divot to a high finish.

10/ Long Bunker Shots Need Speed: Don’t forget that you are still taking sand under your ball so it steals energy from your shot. Take a full swing with energy to make sure that you power both the sand and your ball to reach the green.

GOLFSTR+ can be used on your trailing wrist to limit your wrist bend for short bunker shots. It should also be used to practice 5 other swing fixes. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

Golf Truism #80: The inevitable result of any golf lesson is the instant elimination for the one critical unconscious motion that allowed you to compensate for all of your many other errors.

I love to see great tips from the old pros like Lee Trevino. I notice that his swing, like Jack Nicklaus’ swing evolved as he got older. They added features to increase rotation to minimize distance loss as their bodies tightened up with age. Lee suggested these changes:

1/ MOVE YOUR FOOT AWAY: Move your trailing foot back a few inches off the line parallel to your target line. It allows you to rotate for more backswing and avoid swinging over the top and slicing the ball.

2/ MOVE YOUR BALL BACK IN YOUR STANCE: Lee noticed that most of the aging golfers and want-to-be-golfers impact the turf about 2 to 3 inches behind the ball. Of course, that kills the distance. He suggests moving the ball back in your stance slightly for every shot that you make. He points out that you are swinging your arms around you body in a circular motion which pulls your club away from your ball and your target line. If you hit a lot of THIN shots, just move your ball back in your stance. (Pros shift their weight forward to avoid thin shots.)

3/ SWING STRAIGHT BACK: By swinging the head of your club straight back to start your backswing, you will force your shoulders to rotate more. You need to rotate your hips and shoulders and your arms but if you rush your swing you often miss the chance to rotate all 3 and add lag with your wrists. Remember: there is no need to rush your backswing. It is just the windup for your body and it only gets your club in position for the perfect shallow downswing and release.

4/ AIM FOR THE INSIDE QUADRANT: Swing down to hit your ball at 7 o’clock (where 6 o’clock is directly back and 12 o’clock is straight up your target line). When you aim to hit up the inside quadrant of your ball you are adding draw to your flight path for more distance.

KNEE BEND FOR MORE ROTATION
GOLFTEC discovered that you should be setting up with your leading knee slightly more bent than your trailing knee. That bent leading knee is the trigger to help you continue to increase the bend in your leading knee during your backswing for more hip rotation. You my even want to lift your leading heel off the ground during your backswing to add to your hip rotation the way Jack Nicklaus always helped his hip rotation.

Hip rotation is the most important component to allow for more club rotation. Don’t depend on a bent leading arm in your backswing. Practice with GOLFSTR+ to keep your leading arm straight while your knees, hips and shoulders create rotation for more powerful hits. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

Golf Truism #79: No matter how bad you are playing, it is always possible to play worse.

We often hear the debate about distance and control to lower the scores for pros but is that relevant for your game? We all know that longer drives will get you closer to the green and shorter approach shots are easier to make than longer approach shots. But the real solution to take your scores below 100 or 90 or 80 for Weekend Warriors and Aging Hackers really lies in your ability to make consistent shots.

Bryson DeChambeau is the perfect example of a player who may be a little misguided. His efforts to build strength and distance are not helping his consistency in hitting greens and sinking putts. Mind you his driving distance as a pro is far more important than yours where YOU can choose a tee to suit YOUR game. You should be playing from a tee that allows you to hit the green in regulation on par 4’s and 5’s.

Where Distance is Critical
If you play with friends who chide you into playing longer tees because they are younger or stronger and love to hit longer drives, you have 3 choices: (1) Learn to hit longer drives, (2) improve the accuracy of your drives and approach shots OR (3) IGNORE THEM and play from the tee that suits your game.

The longer you try to drive your balls the more miss-hits you can expect to make and the more your drives will fly deep into the rough. Long ball driving contests are the perfect example. The harder they swing the greater the chance they have to miss their target grid (AND THEY OFTEN MISS ON MOST OF THEIR 8 TRIES).

Kyle Berkshire won the recent longest driver contest. It’s not a great idea to try to duplicate what he is doing. First he is athletic but not overly muscular like Bryson DeChambeau. His plan for speed and power takes years to develop. He trains his body for speed by hitting at least 50 balls as fast as he can about 3 days every week and he works on adding arm and body strength without adding a lot of body mass.

I’m recommending that don’t try to set a world record every time you swing your driver. Practice with GOLFSTR+ to focus on improving every swing in your game for consistency. Move up to the tees that fit your game and enjoy honing the perfect swing to hit more fairways and greens in regulation. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

Golf Truism #78: The less skilled the player, the more likely he is to share his ideas about the golf swing.

Wouldn’t it be nice to start your takeaway with a move that will guarantee a perfect swing with all of your irons? Well bless your stars because this is your lucky day. I have been working on using a flat wrist swing with lag that will power every shot directly up my target line. I have actually done this for years but I could not find consistency to do this with all of my clubs. 10% to 20% of my shots have often been miss-hits. I finally stumbled over a simple trick to create consistency using a wrist move at the start of my takeaway.

Many pros have used a forward arm “press” to start their backswing. Even Phil Michelson and Jordan Spieth use it for the start of their putting stroke. I have also noticed that a Pete Styles a PGA instructor on the Golf-Info-Guide training videos adds a forward press with a slight shift of his hands at the start of his backswing. No one has explained how this affects their performance.

Flatten Your Wrist to Start Your Takeaway
I have been trying to incorporate a flat wrist in my backswing before I reach the top of my swing where I also add wrist lag (with a 90 degree angle from my forearm to my shaft). Somehow I have not been able to capture these 2 moves consistently so I decided to copy Dustin Johnson.

Dustin Johnson must be doing something right with his swing. In addition to being the #1 golfer on tour, he just won 5 points for the USA Ryder Cup Team. He starts bowing his wrist (forming a bump on the back of his wrist) and gradually adding lag from the start of his takeaway. I don’t have his power so I decided to just STRAIGHTEN my wrist at the start of my backswing (instead of BOWING my wrist). This is my eureka move that creates consistent hits with better direction control.

I noticed that the leading wrist on every golfer during setup has a slight cup shape when you setup for any of your clubs (especially for your driver where you setup with the ball further forward in your stance). Only Bryson DeChambeau sets up with a flat leading wrist for his driver and all of his driving clubs.

The Shift
Just straighten out your wrist by moving the head of your club back from the ball by about 3 to 10 inches before you start your hip and shoulder rotation for your backswing. By doing this at the start of your backswing you can lock your wrist to a flat position during your complete backswing.

I’m not exactly sure why a Flat Leading Wrist gives you a more consistent swing with a more consistent direction control. Eliminating angles seems to force you to shift your weight forward during the downswing and to impact your ball before you take any divot or skim the turf.

I know that Hank Haney encourages the flat leading wrist so starting your swing with a wrist shift may be ideal for everyone. Practice for the control of your arm and wrist using GOLFSTR+ for 6 swing fixes but NOT for your leading wrist on your iron (as you need wrist mobility to finish your swing). Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

Golf Truism #77: If you are afraid a full shot might reach the green while the foursome ahead of you is still putting out, you have 2 options: you can immediately shank a lay-up or you can wait until the green is clear and top a ball halfway there.

We all want to improve our scores but we struggle to keep our focus as we play every round of golf. By now you must know that the most important shot in golf is your next one (Thank you Ben Hogan.) Unfortunately it takes about 3 great shots to par every holes. Yes, that would be 3 shots in a row on every hole. Unfortunately those miss-hits in the middle of your sequence don’t turn into Mulligans. I have found that your focus on hitting the fairway with your driver and hitting more Greens In Regulation (GIR) are critical for your success on every hole.

Rhythm and Direction Control
You may be able to hit further than others in your foursome but if you can’t hit the fairway or hit the ideal target for your next shot, your playing partners will usually take you down. You will never be successful in this game until you generate the following two (2) consistencies:

1/ Rhythm: Don’t let a burst of adrenaline spoil your rhythm. Consistent rhythm, at about an 85% swing speed, is so critical to allow time to shift your weight to your leading leg at the top of your swing. Think of it as “The PAUSE THAT REFRESHES”. Rushing at the top will kill your weight transfer and create an inconsistent impact. I use the mental words “1 and “ to give more time to add wrist lag and weight transfer at the top of my swing before I begin my down swing at the count of “2”.

Counting in your mind will slow down your backswing and give you time for the perfect position at the top.

2/ Draw or Fade Control: When you swing with the same rhythm, you should end up with a consistent draw or fade depending on the club that you are using. It is critical that you figure out when you will draw or fade with every club by sorting this out while practicing on the range. Of course sometimes our expected draw or fade turns into the dreaded straight shot. So make sure that you line-up properly to avoid trouble with any surprising straight shots.

Suggestion To Track Your Progress
If you want to improve your scores, you should track your successes at the end of every hole. Mark the upper left corner of your score for each hole with a 1 if you land your drive in the fairway (or on the green for a par 3). Mark the upper right corner of your score card for each hole with a 1 if you hit the green in regulation. I also add a coded letter below each score to identify the reason for my missed fairway or missed green in regulation (T-tree, R-Rough, W-water, MH- Miss-Hit, PP-Poor Pitch, OB etc)

If you aren’t adding a lot of 1’s to your score card you will also be missing a lot of pars and birdies. BTW you should mark your pars with a circle and birdies with a triangle (It’s a lot more fun to highlight your successes.) Practice with GOLFSTR+ for 6 fixes to improve you swing with every club. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

Golf Truism #76: When your shot has to carry over a water hazard, you can either use one more club or 2 more balls.

Golf is a wonderful game. ONLY YOU have the personal control over every aspect of every round you play. It’s up to you to consider your environment, your stance and your club selection. It’s even more important to manage your mental state of mind to create your success or failure for every swing that you make. That’s why we love and play this game.

Look for weaknesses in your game to improve your CONSISTENCY and your ACCURACY. Miss-hits and poor direction control with the wrong club are all downfalls for our games. Every swing that you make can be a learning experience. It’s up to you to mentally take note of the problems with your game and to take corrective action. So why not categorize the weaknesses and strengths of your game to improve your next round of golf.

Strategic Planning
1/ Accept Your Physical Strength and Limitations: It’s up to you to add exercise and stretching to your daily routine to improve your body for every round of golf. Your diet, shape and strength can all improve your game but as Weekend Worriers you will never achieve golf pro status, so limit your expectations based on your existing physical condition. Set your own personal goals for yearly improvement as it will not happen overnight.

2/ Test your Golf Skills at the Range and Putting Green: Before you play every round of golf you really should hit some balls and putts to confirm the cadence that you need for your driver, irons and putter. Apply the setup and swing that you know will eliminate miss-hits and improve your accuracy.

3/ Know the Limitations of your Clubs, Balls and Skills: Golf is a game that you play against your past successes. Don’t try to out muscle your playing partners. Know your limitations and play the game within your skill level so that you can hit the distance and direction you KNOW THAT YOU CAN ACHIEVE.

4/ Weather and Terrain Limitations: Scale back your personal expectations on a windy or rainy day. When hitting from a side hill, downhill or deep rough: change your club selection to the right iron to get out of trouble for your next shot. Limit your expectations when you land your ball in a poor location.

5/ Plan for Par on Every Hole: You know that you have been able to par many holes in the past with 3, 4 or 5 controlled shots on those par holes. You can achieve the same success on every hole as long as you choose a lower lofted club, lower your swing speed to 85%, and finish your swing in perfect balance. Control will help you land in the fairway and hit more Greens in Regulation.

Enjoy your golf by practicing with GOLFSTR+ for 6 swing fixes in one training aid. It reminds you to keep you leading arm straight, your wrist flat and to add lag with your trailing arm. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

Golf Truism #75: Never try to keep more than 300 separate thought in your head during your swing.

Have you ever considered that Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) is holding you back from lower golf scores? If you faced an accident, click over here now, or if you are suffering from injuries, read more. If you want legal help, you can contact Hale Law, P.A. serving Florida lawyers. You can also contact experienced attorneys for car accident injuries to get legal counseling and help. I first discovered this problem when I tried to develop a golf training aid to remind me to keep my leading arm straight in my backswing. All of the pros swing with straight leading arms. Our club pro pointed out my bent leading elbow during a golf lesson which was causing me to “swing over the top”. I quickly learned that it was difficult for me to change to a straight leading arm swing because I was hurting my arm with a Repetitive Strain Injury. It can also happen due to a highway truck accident or a slip an d fall accident. IT DOES RECOVER OVER TIME.

My Personal Swing Problem
I am naturally a left handed person. I write with my left hand and play baseball and hockey with a left handed grip. When I first started to play golf with friends in our local park I had no choice but to grab the only available clubs: right handed clubs. I somehow adjusted and just learned to swing with a bent leading arm.

PROBLEM
The longer you swing a golf club incorrectly the more difficult it is to correct your swing. Repetitive Stain Injury is very common for anyone trying to change to a straight leading arm golf swing. If you want to become a good golfer with a consistent swing, you have no choice but to retrain your body and your mind.

SOLUTION
I developed a golf training aid call GOLFSTR+ to remind me to keep my leading arm straight. At first I developed a minor Repetitive Strain Injury and I had to keep recovering and returning to my training program with GOLFSTR+. Physical changes in our bodies take time. I have gradually learned to swing with a straight leading arm by limiting my backswing and learning to rotate my hips and shoulders during my backswing.

BONUS SUCCESS
With my straight leading arm swing my swing consistency improved but I struggled to generate a lot more distance. I now realize that I was limiting my wrist release because I was bowing my wrist during my backswing. Another swing fixes with GOLFSTR+ is to train for a flat wrist swing. Again I briefly suffered with RSI during my transition but the change is paying off in spades.

I’m in my 70’s and for the first time I am hitting 250 yard drives with my flat wrist and a straight leading arm. I trained for my new swing with GOLFSTR+ and I’m glad that I finally adjusted to correct my swing. My goal is now to hit more Greens in Regulation and minimize my putts to shoot rounds in the 70’s. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

Golf Truism #74: Don’t buy a putter until you’ve had a chance to throw it.

You will never lower your scores until you master your Mind Control. There are 3 areas of Mind Control that you need to apply when you play golf: Memory, Mental Distractions and Focus. Golf is a very simple game if you could only APPLY your mind to control the PERFECT OUTCOME for your game.

Unfortunately we are not all professionals so our memory tends to forget to execute our most successful swing sequence with each club. We also let our mind get distracted as we think about a pain in our body or distracting comments by our playing partners. And the worst mind control problem is letting our mind think about the glory of success or the impact of failure instead of focusing on the execution of your most important shot: YOUR NEXT SHOT.

1. Memory of the Motion to Execute Each Type of Shot

After you discover the swing skills that work for your game for every club, you need to WRITE THEM DOWN (and don’t forget them). Learn to use those thoughts for each club in your bag. Control your mind to only think about the setup, stance, take-away, impact and cadence that works for your body. Forgetting to slow down your backswing or forgetting to shallow your backswing with a flat leading wrist or forgetting to finish your swing in balance can all be critical for your successful swing.

You should know (and write down) the single most important thought for your drives, fairway shots, chips, sand trap shots and putts (both long and short). Your notes and mental queues are the keys for every successful round of golf.

2. Ignore External Distractions

Our minds are mysterious animals. They seem to be looking for anything to change our attention from your primary interest. Abnormal noises like a bird chirping or a passing vehicle may cause a momentary distraction but comments from a playing partner often have longer lasting impacts. Even a comment like “Take your time!” can echo in your mind with a whole train of thoughts like “Wouldn’t you like to see me miss this putt?” or “I wonder how many shots I’m behind.” It’s up to you to first recognize this problem and then refocus your mind back on your calm and relaxed swing.

3. Focus on Your Perfect Swing

Your mind may be focused on your swing but the longer you take to execute your shot, the greater the chance you will flip to thoughts of your past failures or the reaction to the outcome of your shot. Your attention has to be on your target and how you get your ball to travel there. After you setup with the perfect grip and stance on your target line, you need to work back from your target to your relaxed grip and the controlled cadence for your perfect swing.

The chances of nervous tension and failure build when you think beyond your primary swing thought. My key thought is to slow down my backswing to give me more time to complete it with a flat leading wrist lag at the top. I internally saying the words “1 and 2” where 2 is the start of my downswing.

Greg Norman said that Jack Nicklaus give him the best tip that he ever received: “Be conscious of your grip pressure.” Ernie Els said that “tight muscles move slower than loose ones.” So remove your tension with a relaxed grip. They all got it right.

You will be a better golfer if you memorize a list of your success factors, ignore distractions and focus on the swing to hit your target line. Tiger was a master of moving his brain into his SWING ZONE. You can too! Practice with GOLFSTR+ for your Mind Control. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

Golf Truism #73: A golf match is a test of your skill against your opponent’s luck.

This game would be easy if we could hit every green in regulation. If your drive is reasonable and even if your drive is in the light rough you have a good chance that your next shot can reach the green. Unfortunately hitting the perfectly shaped shot to hit the green is the most difficult to make for pros and even more difficult for the Weekend Warriors.

When you are within 160 yards you can easily see the shot that will be ideal to land on or near the green and hold the green. You know the distance that your clubs will reach and you know that your lower lofted clubs will roll-out further on the green than on the fairway. So why is it so difficult to hit the green and stick on the green?

The Problem
For some strange reason, when the pressure is on to make the perfect shot we often push or pull the shot into the deep rough, a trap or the surrounding bushes. If your leading hand grip is completed correctly, the back of your leading hand should be facing directly up your target line. That is also the position that you want your leading wrist at the point of impact in order to hit directly up your target line.

If your club face is slightly open at impact, your ball will fade and if your club face is slightly closed at impact, your ball will draw. Your club face is just an extension of the position of the back of your leading wrist.

The Solution.
Colin Morikawa has the most consistent record for strokes gained when targeting the green. He slightly bows his wrist at the top of his backswing (which is nothing like the exaggerated wrist bow that Dustin Johnson creates and more like Jordan Spieth’s slight wrist bow). Colin’s goal is the same as all professionals. He wants his club to impact the ball when his leading wrist has a slight bow and is pointing directly up his target line.

NOTE: I’m not a PGA pro but I do know that we setup with our leading wrist slightly cupped for our driver and a flat leading wrist for the setup with irons (as the ball position for irons is behind the the ball position for our driver). I have tested bowing my wrist for my driver and my irons at the top of my backswing and find that adding too much of a bow shape on my leading wrist generates hooks and duck hooks. My drives and iron shots are straighter when I limit the bow on my leading wrist (as recommended by Hank Haney). My longest hits with the best directional control happen when I feel that my leading wrist is flat at the top of my swing. I also proved this when practicing with GOLFSTR+ (which is just one of the 6 swing fixes that it give you).

Controlling your leading wrist at the top of your back swing to a flat or slightly bowed position will also help you shallow your club for a more powerful impact up your target line.

Practice swinging your driver, fairway woods and irons with a slight bowed (or A FLAT) leading wrist to determine your best success. The power and strength of pros may generate the best result with a slightly bowed leading wrist but this may not apply to Weekend Warriors. Test your swing with GOLFSTR+. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

Golf Truism #72: Counting on your opponent to inform you when he breaks a rule is like expecting him to make fun of his own haircut.