Swing Solutions

Are you pushing or pulling your full swing shots? You may be a right handed golfer with a stronger right arm and that may be causing the major problems with your golf swing. It’s so easy for you to push and power through your swing with your right hand creating an over the top swing. That extra power causes you to swing across your ball from the outside to inside. That’s where your banana slices or duck hooks come from.

You really need to learn to let your leading arm (your left arm for right handed golfer), pull your club through the swing. Here are some tips to help you fix your swing problems:

1/ Light Grip: A light grip allows your arms to relax and release your club at the bottom of your swing.

2/ Looser Grip with your Trailing Hand: To ensure that you let you leading arm take control of your swing, use a leading hand grip pressure at about a 6 out of 10. Even more important, your trailing hand should be gripping with a pressure of 4 out of 10. Long Ball Driving Champions use this rule to create maximum power with their leading arm. Limiting your grip with your trailing hand also limits your chance of turning your club face over at the point of impact and creating duck hook.

Brooks Koepka is the number 1 ranked golfer in the world so pay attention. He creates a slight loop at the top of his swing to swing up the slot from inside to up his target line.

3/ Loop at the Top: If you are a chronic over the top swinger, make sure that you take a wide takeaway so that you can slightly loop your club at the top to shallow your downswing with lagging wrists from the inside to outside and up the slot (as David Leadbetter describes it).

4/ Your Left Side Starts your Downswing: Most recreational golfers start their downswing by pulling down with their arms and casting their club from the top of their backswing. That KILLS YOUR POWER. Start your downswing with a pressure shift to your the left side (leading side of your body) by allowing your weight to shift to your leading leg as your club reaches the top of your backswing (don’t rush at the top). That weight shift allows your leading hip to start the downswing as you drop your arms down and releasing your wrist through the ball.

5/ Weight shift forward allows you to finish your swing balanced on your leading leg: If you are falling back when you finish your swing, you are not giving yourself the time and the tempo to shift your weight forward at the top of your swing. Let the momentum of your club, changing directions at the top of your backswing, give you the rhythm to press forward with your leading foot and hip to start your downswing.

Remember this sequence and practice to get this feeling as you reach the top of your backswing: weight shift (pulling your leading hip, shoulder & leading arm in sequence) and finally letting your wrist release at the bottom of your swing. If you can’t create a whooshing sound with your club you are not generating the hidden power in your club head.

Practice with your GOLFSTR+ to swing with a straight leading arm. Don’t rush at the top of your swing. Let your lower trunk start your downswing so that you can uncoil from the bottom to the top as you swing from the inside & up your target line. Buy one today at www.golfstr.com

One of the most frustrating shots in golf is the short chip where you chunk into the ground before the ball and drop the shot short of your target. Your problem is that you should be chipping your short shots and pitching your longer high shots. Chipping and pitching are 2 totally different shots. Learn the difference to get more shots close to the pin and make more 1 putt greens.

Chipping is all arms. [Your hips are not rotating.] Swinging through the ball like a full pendulum putting stroke with your shoulders for perfect directional and distance control. Your leading arm and wrist are held straight through your limited backswing.  Your stance is tight (feet 6 inches apart) and open (flared 30 degrees toward the target).

Practice with a putting stroke backswing and an equal amount of follow through to determine how a few of your favorite clubs [possibly a Pitching Wedge or 8 Iron] will perform in different depths of grass. Use the weight of your club to create the swing as this is NOT a power swing with full body rotation. Train for this modified golf swing with GOLFSTR+ mounted on your leading wrist and your trailing wrist to limit your wrist hinge.

For better direction control you can even make longer chip shots (a bump and run shot) with lower irons but you must avoid any wrist action. When you avoid hinging your wrist, it’s much easier to control the depth of the bottom of your arc as well as the direction of your swing. Setup with a narrow stance, feet flared forward and the ball resting off your trailing foot. Let your shoulders do all of the work.

Here is a YouTube Video of Zack Johnson helps you see the simple, short, “unrushed” swing of a chip shot.

Pitching uses a higher back swing and a wrist hinge so that you can release through the ball with more club head speed to launch the ball higher and with back spin. Setup with an open, narrow stance and the ball is in line with your trailing foot. For this shot you use body rotation (shoulders and hips rotated back) and then finish rotating through the ball.

Zack Johnson beat Tiger Woods on the 18th hole at the 2013 Northwestern Mutual World Challenge by sinking an 80 yard pitch shot (with backspin).  Zack and Steve Striker both have amazing control of their longer pitching swing by just swinging with a straight leading arm and a limited wrist lag. Zack had hit his second shot on the par 4, into the water surrounding the green. He jarred his pitch shot from the drop area. Tiger was shaken and made bogie to lose the tournament.  This is a great YouTube video of Zack’s pitch shot:

Missing shots that are 1 to 20 feet off the green are the most frustrating shots in golf. Don’t make a pitch swing when a nice short chipping swing will bump and run to the hole. Practice with your GOLFSTR+ on your leading wrist or your trailing wrist to minimize your wrist break and just “putt” through the ball.  Buy one today at www.golfstr.com

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Golf really is an easy game.  Right!  If you play a very conservative game, avoid mishitting any shots and hit a maximum of 2 putts on every green, you can easily break 90 or even 80 on every round. The key is to hit consistent shots every time you swing. All you have to do is determine the limited speed of your swing (60%, 70% or 80%) and limited backswing that will allow you to consistently hit every shot.

Of course you love to smash every drive and try to hit it 250+ yards. I noticed that the long ball driving champions often mishit all 8 of their shots because they are trying to kill the ball. Even in their case, the harder they swing the more inconsistent they get. So why not find your happy medium where you can hit 10 balls consistently for each of your clubs?

If you are NOT creating consistent hits, even with reduced swing power, you may not be impacting the ball with the correct ANGLE of impact FOR YOUR CLUB SHAFT.   Pete Mitchell, an instructor at Golf-Info-Guide by Thomas Golf gave us the following tip:

Setup with your iron handle pointing at your leading hip. This also help you keep your weight forward on your leading foot to finish in a perfect pose.

NOTE: I love this setup as it forces you to put a little more pressure on your leading foot and that in turn helps you to transfer your weight to your leading foot during your swing through impact. NO MORE FALLING BACKWARDS DURING YOUR SWING.

1/ For your higher angle irons like a pitching wedge, setup with the ball in the center of your stance and hold your club pointing forward toward your leading hip. That angle will allow you to impact the ball on a downward swing and then taking your divot. [If you setup with you club pointing at your nose, you may bottom the club out before you connect with the ball and end up with a fat hit.]

2/ For lower angled clubs and fairway woods you should setup with the ball progressively further forward of the center line between your feet and with the shaft still pointing at your leading hip.  (This is very similar to the club angle created by Dustin Johnson during his takeaway using an early wrist cock.)

3/ For your driver, you should be setting up with the ball forward and in line with your leading heel and the shaft of you club pointing at your nose so that the shaft has a slight tilt away from vertical (away from your target). This allows you to bottom out your swing before you reach the ball on your elevated tee. The driver impacts your ball on the upswing to give you an elevated hit without taking any divot.

Don’t try to kill the ball. Creating a consistent accelerating swing speed to control your consistent hits is the most important step that you can make to improve your game. Of course you also want to practice with GOLFSTR+ for 6 swing fixes to improve every swing in your game. Buy one today at www.golfstr.com

Guys, let’s face it, playing like Tiger Woods is just a pipe dream for recreational golfers. Unfortunately, every time we hit into the rough or behind a tree or take a long shot over a lake, something snaps in our brains. We forget who we are. Instead of saying “what would Tiger do?” we should back off and go for the safe shot to the fairway. Learn to play the game within YOUR capability.

In the Ryder Cup we saw players, like 48 year old Phil Mickelson playing out of his league. Nerves played a big part in his downfall and they affected his 29 year old, first time Ryder Cup partner, Tony Finau. On Day 1, he was so nervous that he missed 2, gimme-range putts. Let this be a lesson to all of us. Nerves can kill our games.

In a golf blog called the Morning Read they reminded us that the total prize money at stake for the Tour Championship was $39 Million. Total prize money for the Ryder Cup was Zero Dollars.  As it turned out the pressure of glory for your country was more pressure for Phil than the money.

Jim Furyk chose Phil as one of Captains picks based on his past performance as an inspirational team leader. Le Golf National Course is a short 7200 yards so he felt that Phil would be avoiding the use of his driver. After all, Phil was ranked 192 out of 193 players in driving accuracy this season. Phil crumbled in the alternate shot format on Day 1 with his playing partner DeChambeau. They were 7 shots behind after shooting 40 on their first nine holes.

Troy Mullins, long ball champion, uses a loose grip to get rid of her nerves and hold her lag in the downswing.

Nerves play an important part of YOUR game too. Aim for a safe location with reasonable expectations. Get rid of those nerves and hit it like Troy Mullin’s who hit a 402 yard drive to win a national long ball championship. As she says, just “hit it like a girl”. I found her slow takeaway and rhythm in her swing video to be a great inspiration:
1/ Start with loose hands, especially in your trailing hand.
2/ Good body rotation without swaying and with a straight leading arm.
3/ She starts her takeaway similar to Dustin Johnson by starting an early wrist cock.
4/ Let your hips lead your downturn through the ball as you hold your lagging wrists,
5 Load on your leading foot as you impact with your ball.
6/ Just think about your target and swinging through the ball.

Troy’s slow takeaway allows her to keep her swing rhythm as she accelerates through the ball. Check it out in the following video.  Practice with GOLFSTR+ for every swing in your game and buy one today at www.golfstr.com

Check out the Golf Digest 2 minute Video of Troy Mullin’s swing.  We can’t run it from this blog so copy and paste the following link in your browser. https://video.golfdigest.com/watch/troy-mullins-shows-you-how-to-hit-it-like-a-girl

Increasing your club head speed is the most important way to increase your driving distance. Cocking your wrists to create “lag”, so that you can release your wrists at the bottom of your swing, is the best way to increase your club head speed.  Unfortunately too many recreational golfers don’t know the tricks to create and hold lag in their backswing. The normal way to create lag is at the top of your backswing.  But there is another way to create lag and to learn to hold lag in your downswing for a powerful release.

Most pros like Adam Scott and Rory McIlroy make a wide straight arm takeaway followed by a wrist cock at the top of their backswing as their trailing elbow bends near their side.  The good news is that there are tricks that you can use to create lag and to release lag at the right time.

Dustin Johnson starts his wrist cock (for lag) before he starts to rotate his shoulders and leading arm.  His leading arm is still pointing dead straight at the ground and his club head is well back from his ball in his backswing.

I noticed that Dustin Johnson, Michelle Wei and many others on the European Tour start their wrist cock as they start their takeaway. The face of their club has already opened almost 90 degree from their setup point by the time that their club is horizontal to the ground. From that point they lift their straight leading arm to the top of their backswing.  Creating lag, if you start your wrist cock from the bottom of your swing, may be easier for you too. I find that this method helps me feel and hold lag as I start my downswing by dropping my arms (without releasing my wrists) for more power and distance. NOTE: (Avoid bowing your wrist like Dustin Johnson at the top of the swing as it just adds complexity that you don’t need in your

Dustin still has the same amount of wrist cock before his leading arm is horizontal.  He finishes his wrist cock for lag at the top of his swing.

swing according to Hank Haney.)

Tips for the Early Wrist Cock Technique:

Light Grip: To avoid tension in your arms and hands, I recently watched a long ball champion say that his leading hand grip is a 4 out of 10 and his trailing hand grip pressure is much lighter.

One Continuous Motion: Make sure that your wrist cock takeaway is in one continuous motion as you continue lifting to the top of your backswing. [Don’t cock and then lift.]

Your Backswing Rotation Should be Inside:  Your backswing could be completed in a single plane which is identical with your downswing plane. If your takeaway is wide and high, you can avoid pulling your shot by looping your club at the top to shallow out your downswing from the inside (to the outside) as you impact your ball.

Keep your Trailing Knee Bent in your Backswing: Don’t try to get more rotation by straightening out your trailing leg. You will lose total control of your direction and most likely push your shot.

Limit Your Backswing: Accept your limited spine rotation. As you age, your flexibility may be limited. Don’t try to create more rotation by bending your leading arm but you can lift your leading heel slightly.. A three quarter backswing will still give you a powerful long hit as long as you release your lag at the bottom half of your swing.

Starting the wrist cock lag at the start of the takeaway has improved driving consistency and power for Dustin Johnson and many other professional golfers. Use your GOLFSTR+ to ensure that you 1/keep your leading arm straight, 2/keep your wrist flat at the top and 3/to make sure that your lag is completed at the top of your swing. Buy one today at www.golfstr.com

On May 2, 2018 I released a blog titled: Is Tiger Over the Hill at 42?   In that blog I made the following statement:

Prediction:  Tiger Will Win (if not this week, soon)
Tigers returns to Quail Hollow and the PGA Tour’s Wells Fargo Championship this week in Charlotte, N.C. His last win was on this course in 2007. It was his 57th career victory. The then-31-year-old Woods finished with a 13-under 275, the lowest score in the history of the tournament at that time. I’m expecting at least a top 3 finish this week for Tiger.

Tiger’s victory walk on the 18th at the Tour Championship was one for the history books. It’s Golf the way it used to be appreciated.

My prediction has finally come true.  With that Tour Championship win yesterday he almost won the FedEx Cup at the same time if Justin Rose had not made that birdie on the 18th hole.  How exciting for both of them.

This is a major milestone for golf and will only add to the attention for the Ryder Cup.  Did you see the size of the audience.  Looked like the good old days of Jack Nicklaus & Arnold Palmer or even Ben Hogan.

I hope you are all back on the bandwagon?

There is nothing more frustrating than missing putts up to 4 foot. You are standing directly over your ball and you can see the hole directly in front of you. This is especially frustrating when you know that your firm putt should not break to the left or right. Why are you pushing, pulling or slicing your putts?

At the BMW Championship Tournament, Justin Rose sank 45 out of 45 putts under 5 feet before his final putt during the playoff hole. He pulled his putt left and lost the tournament. I noticed that he setup for every putt with his bulky rain shirt tucked under his left elbow. The extra tension on that final putt must have caused him to tighten up and he pulled his putt. Possibly his tight left arm caused the pulled putt.

This may have been Phil Mickelson missing another short one. The pros know how to avoid missing a short putt and you should too.

Tension in your grip and tension in your arms will prevent a straight putt every time you get into a must make situation. Just focus on hitting a straight putt at your target point.

Putting Tips
1/ Don’t stand over your ball for more than 3 seconds thinking or preying. Take your practice swing to loosen the rocking motion in your shoulders and then make your putt.

2/ Don’t Slice or Pull Your Putt. Our bodies are designed to swing a club or a putter around our bodies. That motion causes a slice if you slide your putter face off the ball as you rotate by the ball. To swing your putter straight up your target line, focus on rocking your shoulders to force your putter to swing directly up your target line.

3/ On short or long putts try swinging with both hands to impact and then release your right hand from the putter to allow the putter to swing up the target line while holding the putter with your leading hand. Only the point of impact counts when you are making your putt on the center of your putter face. NOTE: Justin Rose putts with a loose claw grip on his trailing hand. It’s a great way to let your leading hand take control of the direction of the swing of your putter as you rock your shoulders up your putting line.

4/ Always plan to putt 10 to 15 inches past the hole to allow your ball to bounce over ruts and damage on the green near the hole. Because you are making a firm putt, plan for less break

5/ Always take a practice swing or two to get your motor running (to get your body moving) and to get the feel for the right amount of swing to pass the hole.

6/ Stare at your Target Point near the hole and then stare at Your Ball: Staring at your target point gives your brain an optical feeling for the distance and direction that you need to swing.

7/ Always putt by keeping your eye focused on the back edge of your ball to prevent your head and shoulders from lifting and turning if you look up at the hole as you swing. DON’T FOLLOW THE SWING OF YOUR CLUB WITH YOUR EYES and DON’T LOOK AT THE HOLE DURING YOUR PUTT.

8/ Focus on hitting the ball on the dead center of your putter. Off center hits will change the direction of your ball. NOTE: Your putter may not be perfectly balanced for your swing. By making 10, 3 foot putts in a row you may find (like I did) that you need to hit slightly inside or outside of your putter center line to complete straight putts.

After you choose the direction of your putt and determine the amount of swing to pass the hole you only have to hit your ball on the center line (or balance point) of your putter. Practice with a flat leading wrist using your GOLFSTR+. Buy one today at www.golfstr.com

I developed GOLFSTR to break my habit of bending my leading arm in the backswing and then swinging over the top causing a slice. It really does take a lot of effort to change. GOLFSTR+ gave me the reminder that I needed, especially as I played while wearing it for 18 holes. The key for my success [AND FOR ANY BENT ARM SLICER] is to limit your backswing, lag your wrists and swing from the inside to outside across your ball. Unfortunately old habits are hard to break so you SHOULD list your tips AND READ THEM OFTEN to avoid falling back into old habits.

This blog was written for golfers who want to avoid Bad Banana Slices.

If you swing from the outside to inside, you will create the Big Banana Shot.

The more confidence that I build with great shots the more I build up the threat of an occasional BIG BANANA SLICE. It sounds easy to just swing with a straight leading arm but when your game is going well, the Bogey-Man jumps on my back and asks for a little more power. That’s when the bent arm and extra backswing returns to create a tremendous slice, right out of the blue. What were you thinking?

Fortunately I have learned a few things to keep my mind under control:
1/ Write down Your Tips for Success: In very brief points, list the special things that you do in your setup and swing for each type of club. It may only be 1 tip for each club but when you know how to correct a swing flaw or habit, write it down and make that correction for every swing.

2/ Limit Your Backswing: I don’t have a lot of flexibility in my spine but I need to use the rotation (avoiding shifting to the back foot) that I have in order to generate power. Leaving your weight on your trailing foot is a shot killer.  [If you can’t shift your weight to your leading foot during your follow-through, try setting up with a narrower stance.]

3/ Lag with my Wrist for a 90 Degree Bend: Power comes from lagging your club by cocking your wrist and letting it release at the bottom of your swing. Don’t rush your backswing. Make sure that you create lag at the top of your swing even if you only create a ¾ or ½ backswing. Learn to lag using your GOLFSTR+ to feel your trailing arm pulling your leading wrist to a 90 degree bend.

4/ Down Swing from the Inside to Outside: Especially on my driver and fairway woods I have to start my backswing with a wide takeaway. This forces me to loop my club at the top of the swing so that my club drops slightly to the inside. Brooke Henderson won the Ladies Canadian Open this year using that motion. The commentators highlighted her move as “a little unconventional” but it really works for her and it works for me too. [It can lead to a push or a pull so make sure that you don’t raise your trailing heal as you swing through impact.  Of course you have to lift your trailing heal as you finish your swing.]

You can’t change your swing thoughts without writing the points down and then practice them at the range. Slightly looping your driver at the top of your swing requires attention. Don’t swing in autopilot. This is a game for focused golfers. Buy a GOLFSTR+ today to get your game back on track at www.golfstr.com

Knowing that you CAN choke when you are under pressure is half the battle. When you know that you are in a critical situation, expect the “choke” and beat it. Use your past experience to seize the moment and take charge of your mind to win this game against yourself. It will also impact the rest of your game.

I realized the importance of avoiding the choke, when I was in a life and death situation on the golf course recently. I had a 150 yard shot to the green but my ball was about 6 feet behind the base of a very large tree. I could see that a perfectly straight shot to the green would miss the left side of the trunk by about 6 inches. I knew that my worst miss would be to tighten up, shorten my swing arc and toe the shot into the tree (which could bounce anywhere including into my head). I COULD NOT CHOKE.

My preferred shot is a draw but that would definitely hit the tree. Recognizing that I could not afford to choke, I setup for a fade and hit the perfect 6 iron. I cleared the trunk and landed on the green. The critical issue here was that I knew that I had to stay loose and make the shot exactly as I knew how to make the shot without that tree getting in the way.

On the final hole of The OPEN in 1999, Jean Van de Velde choked on many shots and lost his lead and the tournament. Choose the shots that you know how to make.

Improve Your Odds of Winning
The best way to avoid choking is to put yourself under pressure conditions to prove to yourself that you can make the right shot. You need to be under the gun a lot so that you get use to the pressure putt or chip or approach shot (over a sand trap or over water).

1/ Challenge yourself to play putting games or chipping games against yourself. Focus on sinking more putts or chipping within 5 feet of a spot or the pin.

2/ At the range, don’t just hit balls with different clubs. Always pick a target flag and a shot shape. Hit a draw and land near the target. Hit high shots, low shots and use different clubs to make the same shot.

3/ When you play golf with your friends you need a little pressure. Play for few bucks on the front 9, back 9 and overall. Or play a game that we call “Greenies” on all of the par 3’s (you can play it without a handicap). Your drive has to stay on the green and the player with the closest to the hole has to par to win a buck from each of the other players (double for a birdie or if you miss your par you have to pay a buck to anyone else who landed on the green).

Realize that a choke shot happens when we think too much and lose our rhythm or cadence. I notice this most when golfers rush their chip because they are not using the weight of their club head with a normal swing arc. By shortening our backswing we end up rushing our downswing and hitting a fat shot. The same problem happens when we stub a putt. Don’t change your swing cadence.   Make a full swing to a balanced finish for every shot.

Always compete against your friends with small competitions so that you will be ready for your important pressure shots. Learn to focus on every shot when you practice with your GOLFSTR+. Buy one today at www.golfstr.com.

Missing a putt by 1 inch is just as bad as missing it by a foot. If you can’t read the break near the hole, you will never make those 3 footers or those 10 footers. The best way to lower your score is to cut your number of putts as they count for almost half of your strokes on every round of golf. .

Our blog released August 20, 2018 covered the important rules for putting. We also mentions using your putter as a Plumb-Bob (PB) to determine the break for your putts. I have received so many requests to clarify PB that I decided to explain the 2 important factors for PB: Calibrate Your Putter and PB only measures the angle of the slope where your putter is hanging from your hand.

I couldn’t find an image with Justin Rose but here is Rickie Fowler Plumb Bobbing incorrectly (I suspect) from behind the his ball.

Special NOTE to Justin Rose
I often see Justin Rose and other professional golfers on TV using their putter as a plumb-bob to determine the slope of the green. They are wasting their time trying to PB from behind their ball because they are only measuring the slope where they are standing.

ONLY PLUMB-BOB A PUTT NEAR THE HOLE IF YOU REALLY CAN’T TELL THE SLOPE OF THE GREEN NEAR THE HOLE. The most break occurs as your ball slows down at the hole, so plumb-bobbing by standing on a line from behind the hole to your ball is the most important slope that you should be measuring. Of course the changing slope that you see on your putting line to the hole is also important as it will throw your ball in different directions as it roles along that path. Always check the changing slope by observing it from the low side of the slope to estimate the impact on your putt line.

This is a good shot of Kenny Perry. I hope his putter was calibrated to drop straight down when the face is pointing at the hole.

1/ Calibrate Your Putter
Every putter head is weighted differently and is attached to the shaft differently so the putter will not always hang perpendicular to the ground. If you don’t determine your correct eyeball and the correct direction to face your putter when it is perfectly perpendicular to the earth, you should NOT EVEN TRY to use your putter to plumb-bob.

Inside a building hold your putter with 2 fingers in front of you and close ONE of your eyes as you line up the straight line of ONE SIDE of the shaft of your tapered putter shaft with a door frame about 6 to 10 feet away from where you are standing. Try turning the putter and changing your open eye to determine the PERFECT MATCH to line up THE LEFT OR RIGHT SIDE of the shaft with the door frame. [In my case I use my right eye (left eye is closed) and position my putter face directly at the door and only line up with the left side of my putter shaft.] You have to remember: 1/the eye, 2/the direction of the putter face and 3/ the side if the putter shaft to use every time you PB. [Don’t include the grip as part of the putter shaft.]

Not sure who this is but it is a great idea to get close behind the hole and down low to see if your putter shaft end up left or right of the ball to find the HIGH SIDE OF THE SLOPE near the hole.

2/PB to Determine the Break at the Hole:
Make sure that the slope on your putting line behind the hole is similar to the slope at the hole. Stand about 3 to 5 feet behind the hole and visually line up the hole with your ball [without using your putter]. Then hold your putter up, to line-up with the hole at the BOTTOM of your shaft. If the top end of your shaft ends up on the left or right side of your ball then that is the high side of the slope. Your ball will curve down from that side of the green as it slows down near the hole.

Would someone please pass this blog to Justin Rose and ask him to call me if he doesn’t understand this. Don’t forget to practice putting with a flat leading wrist straight up your putting line for consistency using your GOLFSTR+ . Buy one today at www.golfstr.com