Swing Solutions

I was reminded about the importance of TIMING while watching one of my favorite weekly blogs by Danny Maude. He actually copied the phrase that I have been exposing in many of our past blogs. He suggested that you count the words: “one and two” during your back and forward swing to add time to slow down your backswing. There really are 2 reasons why you need to repeat these words. The first is to add rhythm to your swing and the second is to block out distractions.

Swing Rhythm
I use the phrase “one and” during my backswing to slow my backswing and to give myself time to rotate my hips & shoulders as I lift my arms while I cock both wrists at the top of my swing. Wrist cocking allows me to shallow my club during my downswing as I swing up the inside slot. Releasing my cocked wrists, during the bottom half of my swing, generates most of my power through my ball. Listen for the woooshing noise near YOUR point of impact.

Block Out Distractions
Our minds can be tricked to avoid distractions. For example, you may be watching advertising on TV while your mind is thinking about getting ready for an upcoming event and you have no recollection of the content of the ad that you are watching. Another example is that you can say the words “one annnd” but you are not able to mentally say another word at the same time as your eyes stare at a dimple on the back of your ball.

You can pre-program your mind to create a full backswing (hip rotation, shoulder rotation, arms rising, and wrist cocking) during the time it takes to say “one and”. By the time you say the word “2” or “finish” you should only be making your downswing with a focus to reach a balanced finish on your leading foot.

Golf is a MIND GAME!
You are only playing this game against yourself and your personal past performance. It’s up to you to focus on your swing and to block out any other thoughts. Your ball is at rest. Natural elements like wind, rain and the sounds from birds or passing cars or planes or machinery could be distracting you. If others in your foursome are talking, you can ask them to keep quiet. The only thing that you can’t control is their constant stare or any mental hex (or evil-eye) from others in your foursome.

During Tiger’s hay days, he would put himself into a mental trance. Anything to disturb that trance caused him to stop his swing and then start the process again. You need to have the same dedication for your swing. Practice with GOLFSTR+ to build your swing as you say the words “1 annnd 2” or “1 annnd finish”. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

Wouldn’t we all like to create longer tee shots when we start a round of golf? I happen to be golfing on northern courses in the Fall so the cooler mornings seem to be having more impact on my driver success. This limitation got me thinking. Why do I generate shorter and more inconsistent drives during my first 9 holes?

We all need to accept the fact that our minds and bodies need to be tuned into our game before we generate the success at golf that we expect. Younger golfers may not be experiencing the problems of aging golfers, but I just wanted to list the causes that may be limiting our games.

Rev Up Your Engines
While driving to a golf course at the start of a day or at the end of your workday we all need to recognize that our minds and bodies need to change modes.
1/ Relax Your Mind: Easier said than done. Get the frustrations of the day out of your mind before you arrive at the golf course. Choose a calming station on your radio and get your mind thinking about successes in your last round of golf.

2/ Flexibility: Use your arrival time at the course to ensure that you can flex your body and rotate with your clubs to relax your swing. A few swings of your club will not do the trick.
3/ Practice: You really need to hit balls into a net or on a range before your body will adapt from driving in a car to playing a great round of golf. Test your swing and make sure that you test out your putting to get a feel for the speed of the greens. Over 40% of your strokes are on the putting greens so make sure that both your full swing and your putts are turned-in for the golf course.
4/ Body Rotation: If you rush your backswing you will never allow enough time for a full hip, shoulder and arm rotation, especially early in your round. It’s amazing to see how much further your can drive a ball with better direction control as you get well into your round.

Golf is a game that needs your full attention. Make sure that you change your mental station over to the game that you want to play.

Practice with GOLFSTR+ when you have time but make sure that you apply the key principles for your successful swings. Slow down your back swing to improve your rotation and focus on a full rotation to a balance finish to improve your direction control. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

If you are paying attention to your game, you will discover techniques that work and others that don’t. You really need to keep a mental note of all of the positive things that you learn about YOUR game (after every recent round). I know that my successes change with the flexibility of my body and the state of my mind as every round progresses. You may have the same problems.

I was reminded about the minor changes in our minds during a recent round of golf. One of our friends in the foursome playing in front of us commented: “Every time your catch up to us, I hit a poor drive.” This comment was a reminder that golfers are in a heightened or distressed state of mind. Very touchy! The slightest change can set any golfer off. We become a strange breed of human. Following are a summary of techniques that you may want to consider to help your game.

For Your Driver and Approach Shots
-Standing behind your ball, stare at your target for 2 or 3 seconds to lock that image into your mind’s eye.
-Follow your target line back to a point 2 or 3 feet in front of your ball. Then step forward to line up your toes on a line parallel to your mini-target-line.
-During your setup, rotate your leading elbow to face your target line (clockwise for right-handed golfers). This move will help you keep your leading elbow straight in your backswing. Practicing with your GOLFSTR+ will also help as a great training aid.

-Avoid jitters during your tee shots by waggling your club with a 2 foot takeaway by only rotating your hips (like Justin Thomas or the start of Tiger Woods’ swing).
–Start your backswing with your hips then your shoulders, arms and finally add wrist cock.
-Give yourself more time for a full backswing and wrist cock for lag before your downswing
-During your downswing (your eyes are focused on your ball) so your only thought should be to swing through your ball to a balanced finish on your leading foot. Don’t kill the ball.

Putting:
-Determine the slope and choose your target line. Focus on hitting your ball on the center of your putter face directly up your target (over a point about 1 or 2 feet in front of your ball).
–Don’t look up until at least 1 second after your impact. [Early look-ups will pull your ball.]
-Always practice your putt with enough force to pass the hole by at least 1 foot to eliminate surface distortions near the hole and the faster break as your ball slows down.

Keep your game simple. Practice to improve 6 types of swings with GOLFSTR+ and use the techniques that work best for YOUR GAME. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

Too many golfers create poor golf shots because they only focus on hitting the ball. In reality, you will hit more consistent shots if you focus on swinging through the ball to a balanced finish. Your setup should take care of all of the most important variables. Finishing your follow-through will help you control your club face THROUGH the point of impact.

Your Setup Solves All of the Important Swing Issues
1/ Choose the correct club to reach your target.
2/ Stance and grip are corrected for any slope on the ground.
3/ Select your target line to lineup your toes on a line parallel with a point a few feet beyond your ball.
4/ Look directly at your ball with a calm state of mind.
5/ You know that your driver is swinging to launch your ball UP and all other clubs are powering DOWN into your ball to possibly take a divot AFTER the ball.

Your Actual Swing Thoughts Are Simple
A. Take enough time to rotate your hips then shoulders, arms and wrists for your backswing.
B. SWING TO A BALANCED FINISH.

Enjoy the moment. Swing through your ball and up your target line with enough power to end your swing, balanced on your leading foot and your club over your leading shoulder, as you watch your majestic ball flight.

During every golf shot, focus on your finish position so that your club face will automatically square-up with your ball as it powers up your target line (avoiding any rush in your hands to slice or hook your ball). Practice with GOLFSTR+ to focus on the end result of your balance swing. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

If you’ve been golfing for some time, you know that you have a club which is far more dependable than any other in your bag. If you haven’t found your MONEY MAKER CLUB (the one you can take to the bank), you are not enjoying this game. It’s time for you to take this game more seriously and find your club that will make your “money shots”. We are talking about the shots that really count when the pressure is on.

Of course the pros count on every club to perform and you would like to achieve the same consistent performance with every club. Why not grow the strength of your game with a club that you can control.

Driver: This club is designed for distance, but you have to learn to draw or fade every shot back into the fairway.

Fairway metals and Hybrids: They are designed to nip your ball off the grass and work very well as long as you keep your head on a level plane and swing with power through the ball within a quarter inch of the ground.

Putter: Only the most premium courses have pristine smooth greens and even then, divots and ruts from clumsy feet can distort the direction for every putt. That’s why you should be pleased when you 2-putt every green.

Middle to High Irons: Used properly by taking some or no divot, these clubs should be your most forgiving clubs and should give you more successful Money Shots. By swinging with weight transfer to your leading foot, you have more height forgiveness than any other club. Of course, your setup and lineup must be correct, but these irons don’t have to be swing quickly for speed and more distance as your choice of the correct club with a moderate swing speed should be the easiest to execute.

Start enjoying your game more with a controlled swing using irons to hit your target. Spend more practice time with your irons to hit more greens in regulation and watch your scores drop. GOLFSTR+ is a great golf training aid to practice your controlled swing with a straight leading arm. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

Victor Haviland is on a tear. His game is effortless and if he keeps this up the Europeans will win the Ryder Cup. Of course, he is only one of the players on their team but his consistency will be contagious. Wouldn’t we all like to catch his disease?

Ball Fight Control
Learn from Victor’s success. He chooses his target for every shot but even more important, he decides on his ball flight to hit every target. Pros know how to control their ball flight and that’s why they have so much success. Bend’m like Beckham, rip’m like Bubba or pitch’m like every major league pitcher. You have to choose the shape for your delivery to nail your shot.

Driver Flight
Your driver is designed for distance—PERIOD! The most successful drivers control the flight of their drives. They know that a straight drive is not easy to accomplish on every drive. It’s definitely easier to plan a draw or a fade in order to avoid a slice or a hook. We all need to learn to control the shape of our drives. DON’T expect a straight drive every time you pick up your driver.

Iron Flight
Long irons are more difficult to control than short irons. That’s why you need to develop longer drives to shorten your approach shots. The good news is that irons are designed to give you more control of your ball flight to a known distance. Victor Haviland admits that his control of ball flight with his irons is the most critical part if his game. When he has an iron in his hand, he knows that know that he can get his ball close to the pin and that gives him the chance to birdie every hole.

In Tiger’s hay days, he was one of the longest drivers, but he was not the best as hitting fairways. Fortunately for him he was one of the best scramblers to reach the green from the rough.
You should be practicing every aspect of your game but practicing to hit close to the pin from the fairway or from the rough will benefit your game more than any other shots. Victor and Tiger both know this and you should too. Practice with your GOLFSTR+ to learn to control the flight of every shot and “hit’m close”. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

As we age, our flexibility and strength deteriorate as well as the distance of our drives. I was surprised when I saw the following chart displaying Driving Distance by age and by handicap. This data was accumulated by all users of the Arccos Golf Caddie Smart Sensors so it must be the average for all of the hits and mishits for every male player as the numbers seem low.

According to the chart below, low handicap players in the age range of 70 to 79 have an average drive of about 215 yards and a mid-range handicap player is averaging about 180 yard drives.

Every golfer that I play with, admit that they are losing distance with every club as they age. Unfortunately, most of the aging golfers hate to consider moving up the a forward tee. To compensate for their shorter hits they tend to swing faster and mess-up more shots.

Best Tips for Aging Golfers to Lower Their Handicaps
1/ Move up to the tees where you successfully reach the green in 2 shots on par 4 holes.

2/ Don’t swing harder, swing smarter. Tee up your drives so that half of your ball is above your club head when it’s resting on the ground. If you aren’t getting good altitude with your drives, slope your shoulders back in your setup. Setup with your ball forward and power your driver up as your club arcs upward.

3/ Mark the face of your clubs with foot powder or a dry powder marker to that you can determine where you are impacting the face of your club. The ideal impact is slightly higher and outside of the dead center of your club face.

Practice with GOLFSTR+ to slow down your backswing and give yourself time to rotate your hips and shoulders and to cock your wrists for lag. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

Ever wonder why your next drive, after sinking a birdie putt, sucks? It’s either adrenaline or that demon in your brain that makes you feel invincible. Golfers all suffer from this problem after you make a perfect drive and step up for the next tee shot, expecting perfection. The pros do it, but you are not a pro. What should you do to avoid our physical or mental demise in order to duplicate excellence in every shot?

What is the Cause of a Poor Shot?
Mishits are caused by rushing our swing and tightening up our muscles. We tend to shorten our back swing and reduce the length of our outstretched arms. I have learned that power, when serving a tennis ball, comes from relaxed muscles and the same applies to our golf swing.
(a) A loose grip helps your arm, wrist and hand muscles relax and whip through the ball.
(b) Tight arm and shoulder muscles tend to shorten your swing arc and generate hits off the outer end and toe of your club face.

Rotation Fix
Because we shorten our swing arc when we try to hit our drives further, try setting up with your ball inside of the centerline of your club face by up to an inch.
–In the worst case: if your impact is at that inside point of your club face, you will lose about 10 yards on your drive. But if you are adding more power and swing speed, with tense muscles, you will most likely find more success with your driving distance by impacting your ball at the mid point or outer club face.

-Best of all: you will not be hunting for your ball in the rough or OB, after you at least connect with your ball with the outer part of your club face. Why not setup to err anywhere on the inside of your club face?

Learn to Relax by Testing with a Pain Reliever

After taking a mild pain reliever, we all tend to relax and take the pressure off our next swing. You will be surprised at the successes of your next relaxed swings. This should be a wakeup call to stop trying to overswing and kill the ball.

Solution for Your First Tee Shot and Your Front Nine Jitters
Too many golfers lose distance or make mishits when they swing primarily with their arms. You need to wake-up your shoulders and hips to get them involved with your swing. After your practice swing, step up to your ball, relax and then waggle your club with a 3 foot back-swing by ONLY rotating your shoulders and hips. You need to get them both activated in preparation for your full backswing. Than make sure that you take enough time to rotate your body and add wrist lag at the top.

If you really want to take your practice swing from the range to the course, practice a controlled backswing with GOLFSTR+ to build power into every swing. Take your time to turn your shoulders and hips as well as your arms to add rotation and wrist lag. Buy GOLFSTR+ at www.GOLFSTR.com today.

Watching the FedEx Cup St Jude Championship, I saw Rory McIlroy missing too many putts on the first 3 days of that tournament. Just sinking 1 more putt, would have put him in the playoffs on the final day of that tournament. Please forward this blog to Rory as the content could have earned him an additional $2.5 Million. Of course, it should also help you too.

All golfers want to use any advantage to sink more putts. Choosing the right line to start your putts and swinging with the right weight are the 2 critical issues that I hope to help Rory and you for short putts. Pros sink about 44% of all 10-foot putts and their success drops significantly for longer putts. Distortions on the surface of the green will change the direction of every putt but small distortions closer to the hole are a much bigger problem as your ball slows down near the hole. So hitting firm enough to pass the hole is critical for your success.

1/ Ball Momentum is MORE Critical Near the Hole
Every putt needs enough speed to carry the ball at least 12 to 24 inches past the hole to avoid the distortions caused by imperfections near the hole. The most damage on every green is caused by golfers carelessly bending down at the hole to remove their ball from the hole. Pressure from a footprint or the head of a putter used for balance, cause these hidden distortions.

NOTE: When you putt to pass the hole you should plan on less break at the hole.

2/ Every Putter Can Sink ANY Putt
You can’t afford to worry about using the wrong putter for each day that you play a round of golf. Rory had his caddie cut down his putter by 3/16ths of an inch “because it was not exactly the same length as the putter length that he preferred”. This was a crazy request as he was using a flat grip and could easily slide his hands up the grip. This was a dumb excuse.

3/ Pointing Your Putter Is a Dumb Solution
In the middle of the 3rd round Rory was pointing his putter to line up his ball with the hole. That was a big mistake as he missed 2 putts from about 5 feet using that method (which he rarely uses). You can’t see a break by pointing a putter and you can’t feel a slight break at the hole by standing over your putting line at any distance along your putting line. You need to trust the break near the hole as your ball slows down. ( breaks along the path of the ball need to be considered to a lesser extent)

There are only 2 legal ways to measure OR feel the break near the hole: (a) by seeing the break as you look along the line of your putt from your ball to the hole or (b) by using GRAVITY to determine the amount of break at the hole, using your “calibrated” putter as a Plumb-Bob. [Stand near the hole on the line from the hole to your ball to see if the handle end of your putter shaft lines up above or in line with your ball (to find the high side of the slope at the hole).]

NOTE: You can only accurately plumb-bob with your putter if you “calibrate” it by lining up BOTH a known side (left or right as it is tapered) of the shaft and the direction of your putter face, with any door frame.

Practice putting with GOLFSTR+ with a flat leading wrist. Buy one at www.GOLFSTR.com .

Our golfing failures are caused by our perfect expectations for each shot. Yes, we watch the successes of pros on TV and expect that we can create those successes on the golf course too. Unfortunately, your progress in golf should be taken one step at a time. Like losing weight, you can’t do it over night. Set a plan for your game and take advantage of your progress.

Work on Improvements in Every Component of Your Game: You have to accept the fact that you have weaknesses in your game. List them and then go to work on each segment of your game:

1/ Driving to Hit the Fairway: Trying to drive for distance is a killer for most golfers. Set a goal to hit more fairways (or par 3 greens) for all of your tee shots. Hitting out of the rough, behind a tree or OB are all killers for your next shot. Why not focus on hitting the fairway with an iron, a fairway wood or your driver but keep moving up to longer clubs as your success in hitting fairways improves. [Pros are happy to hit 14 out of 18 drives to hit their target.]
2/ Approach Shots: If you know that your chance of reaching the green is a low percentage shot, why not layup on the safe side of the green (away from traps and penalty areas). It’s so much easier to pitch and roll a shot onto the green.
3/ Reading the Green from the Fairway: Hitting the green and rolling off into the fringe can be another killer shot. Determine where your shot will land and roll before you take your approach shot. Take advantage of the roll to give yourself a change for a 2-putt green.

4/ Practice to Cut Your Putts: Practice putting is the best way to cut strokes on every round that you play. Don’t expect to improve your putting without practice. You can only learn to reduce your putts by learning the feel for putting and reading greens. At least 40% of your practice time should be spent practicing your putts from every distance. Learning to make a good lag putt and then sink your second putt. A single putt green is just a bonus.
5/ Reading the Break: You may have 2 or 3 breaks in your putting line, but the slope closest to the hole is the most critical as your ball will break more as it slows down near the hole. Look at the line for any putt from the slope below the hole and again from behind the line from your ball to the hole. You need a good feel for the direction of the break and the distance of your putt.
6/ Short Putts NEVER Go In: Always putt to ensure that your ball will pass the hole by up to 2 feet. Even a 3-foot putt should be hit firm enough to pass the hole by at least a feet to avoid the many imperfections on the surface of the green next to the hole as most damage on the surface is done by golfers as they remove their ball from the hole. When you consistently pass the hole by up to 2 feet with every putt, you will learn to account for less break at the hole.

Practicing with GOLFSTR+ is a good starting point for every club in your bag. Stick to your plan to hit more fairways; make realistic layups or approach shots, hold more greens and make more 2 putt greens. If you make a poor shot, ensure that your next shot gets you back on track. Buy your GOLFSTR+ today at www.GOLFSTR.com