Golfing News & Blog Articles

I write these blogs based on interesting golf insights that may affect your game as well as mine. This week I watched a training clip by Quintin on Top Speed Golf that reminded me of a match that I played where all of my iron shots were in perfect control for direction and distance. Why did this happen? I took a divot after impact with the ball on most of my shots.

Like most recreational golfers, I typically make a perfect practice swing for my iron, pitch or chip shots. Then I proceed to put a little more oomph and power into my actual shot before my hips start to rotate. Yes, I rush my shot from the top of my swing without giving enough time for my weight transfer to my leading foot. I often that I rush my swing with my arms while my weight is still on my tailing foot.

I found this image in Golf Digest with a perfect position in the transition. Unfortunately many of us execute the downswing without transferring weigh to our leading foot.

The lesson that I watched focused on “Why we Chunk Chips“. It’s also the same reason why we mishit our iron shots.
1/ It’s easy to make a practice swing for a Chip Shot. You don’t need a lot of power so we easily swing to bottom out our swing exactly where the ball is resting or beyond that location.
2/ Then we move up our ball, take a look at our target and start to think about the last chucked chip shot that we made. The body tightens and we turn into a robot.
3/ In our backswing, we limit our hip and spine rotation as we tend to shift the trunk of our body about 2 or 3 inches sideways to create a little more power with a slightly faster backswing and downswing.
4/ Unfortunately we never recover from the side-sway in our backswing. We then bottom out the swing 3 inches before the ball or we blade it like a bullet across the green.

Solution: DON’T SHIFT YOUR BODY SIDEWAYS IN YOUR BACKSWING.
–Keep your head directly over your ball as your shoulders and hips ROTATE [Not Shift].

Your leading knee doesn’t straighten, it turns with your body rotation and points more to your trailing knee.
Stand up right now in a golfer’s stance and cross your arms over your chest and rotate (or coil) WITHOUT SHIFTING SIDEWAYS.
Do this about 20 times and then complete the same rotation while swinging your wedge. Your club face will ground-out at or just after the ball. No more chunking.

Now practice the same swing with all of your irons using your GOLFSTR+ AND A STRAIGHT LEADING ARM. Make sure that you take a slight divot after your ball. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

You will never be a low handicap golfer if you don’t figure out a consistent takeaway that works for your driver and possibly a different one for your irons. Some pros have a wide or narrow takeaway and some flatten their leading wrist and others bow their leading wrist. So what should you focus on for your takeaway?

Rory McIlroy has a wide takeaway. It lets him slightly loop down at the top and shallow his club with his elbow into his side as his leading hip rotates his body through his downswing. I personally had a problem with coming over the top and slicing the ball so Rory give me the perfect swing to shallow my downswing for a square impact.

On the other hand Dustin Johnson does an early wrist cock in his takeaway. He has no problem visualizing the open face of his club as he bows his wrist at the top of his swing. He also has no problem starting his downswing on the same plane as he drops the butt end of his golf club and fires his hooded club up his target line. Most of the teaching pros recommend that you don’t try to copy this amazing swing as you need brute force to get away with his bowed wrist swing.

Bryson DeChambeau keeps his leading wrist perfectly straight in his setup, during his backswing and down on the same plane in his downswing. He looks like a robot but his strength delivers amazing club-head speed.

The Morning-Read Blog provided this this photo of Dustin Johnson after his Masters Win. No-one swings like Dustin but he is the best. He definitely swings from the inside and up his target line and you should too.

Does your take-way matter? NO, as long as you can still change your downswing path to release your wrists at the bottom of your inside swing arc and up your target line.

Swinging a putter is a pretty simple process. Or is it? Why is it so difficult to choose a line and then to putt a golf ball up that line? Unfortunately sloped greens affect our choice of direction and our bodies are designed to swing a putter in an arc. Putters are not designed to be hit in a straight line like a croquette mallet. You have to learn the tricks to swing in a straight line at the point of contact.

Your goal in putting is to plan for a straight putt on a planned target line. Unfortunately your chosen direction and speed of you swing will determine how much your straight putt will break. I love the tip that Rory McIlroy uses in putting.
1/ He checks the slope from below his putting line to the hole as he stands perpendicular to the line of his putt.
2/ He then stands behind the hole to see the break at the hole where the ball will break the most as it slows down.
3/ Then he stands behind his ball for a final check on the slope of the green and to choose his target line. He actually imagines hitting directly at the hole to get a feel for how far his ball will fall down (D) from the hole if he hits the perfect weight to reach the hole. Then he chooses a line to hit his straight putt so that it will fall about the same distance (D) down to the hole.
Now that you have your target line you need to swing your putter with enough force to pass the hole by about a foot (or it will never go in the hole).

Don’t waste your time practice putting until you setup a string over a straight putt and learn to swing so that your putter is on a straight line at the point of impact.

You need the skill to hit a straight putt on your target line.
• 85% of your initial putt direction is caused by your putter face direction and 15% is caused by your swing direction. Both must be on the right line-up and your ball needs to be slightly in front of the centerline between your legs to allow the upward impact of your putter to start the roll of your ball.
• Your putter grip should have a flat surface which is perpendicular to the putter face. Let your thumbs line up on the flat surface of the grip and ensure that the back of your leading hand is pointing up your target line.
• Use the rocking motion of your large shoulder muscles for straight putt. Take any wrist or hand action out of your putt to avoid shaking hands.
• Your body naturally want to swing in an arc (around the axis of your spine). KEY FOR SUCCESS: Swing through the point of impact, lock your eyes on that point and let your arms SWING UP at the point of impact instead of arching around your body.

Learn to putt straight using GOLFSTR+ to lock your leading wrist. You may want to try releasing your trailing hand at the point of impact so that you leading hand will carry your putter straight up your target line. (It’s the only way I can swing my putter straight up my target line. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

Golf Truism #33 The wind is in your face on 16 of the 18 holes.

Have you ever noticed how your friends can hit amazing clean shots and then they fall apart on the next shot? Could it be a change in their psyche or a physical change in their body? I’m convinced that I have a combination of both problems and you may have the same.

I really started thinking about this when I saw an article about the ups and downs in Brooks Koepka’s game. He ended 2018 as the number 1 player in golf but a knee injury and a stem cell operation to repair his knee have really made it difficult for him to return to his winning form. As it turned out the repair of his knee caused him to lose his rhythm.

Fortunately he spent some training time with Claude Harmon III and discovered that his weight shift at impact was not moving to his left side. During his peak performance his weight shift was 70% on his left side at the point of impact. He learned that he was not swinging well because he had lost his rhythm and his point of impact was with 70% of his weight still on his trailing side.

Golf Tips Magazine came up with the idea to think 1,2,3 as you step forward into your swing. It’s a minimized “Caddyshack” swing.

Brooks had to retrain his swing because his knee recovery made a huge impact on his swing. ARE YOU RUSHING YOUR SWING?

If you are favoring an injury or you are frustrated with your results, your psyche may be out of whack. Your brain may be rushing your transition so that you never start your weight transfer at the top of your swing. DISAPPOINTMENT and ANGER may be limiting your golf results.

I just played one of my final rounds of golf for this year. It was a perfect autumn day, the sun was shining and there was a light breeze. How could I ask for more? Well as it turned out this was the day that my body decided to hook my drives. I just couldn’t shake it until I finally discovered the magic in my swing.

We arrived at a par 5 dog-leg to the right. Being a right handed golfer I watched carefully as each player setup and executed their best fad. One hooked his shot, one completed a dead straight shot beyond the fairway bend and one sliced into the trees. It was my turn and I was concerned that I had been hooking most of my drives. The moment of truth had arrived.
I setup with a slightly open face on my driver and took and open stance. My backswing was wide and looping at the top so that I could nail that shot dead center up the fairway. A fad would have been nice but a hook would have been deadly. As it turn out I hit the longest drive of the foursome and with a slight fad. I pared that 512 yard hole with a 5 foot putt. Success!

If you are trying to add distance, slow down your back swing. Give yourself time to create lag. Open your trailing foot to improve your hip and shoulder rotation and let’er rip.

Get Out of Your Rut
When your game is going sideways, why not setup for change:
1/ If you are mishitting your shots, slow your backswing down by counting 1, 2, 3 as you (1) start your takeaway, (2) as you rotate your hips and spine and (3) as you set your wrist lag.
2/ If you are hooking, setup for a fade and check out the results.
3/ If you are hitting your chips fat, put more pressure on your leading foot
4/ If you can’t control your approach chip with a wedge, try punching your shot with an 8 iron for a chip and run.
5/ If you can’t reach the green without risking a shot in the water or sand, just select a club for the perfect layup and then pitch or chip it close for a 1 putt.
6/ If your lag putts or chips are missing to the left or right, spend more time checking out the slope of the green and pay more attention to the roll from the shots by others. Pay attention and get in the game.

If you find yourself complaining out loud about your consistent bad shots, do something about it. Break out of your slump. Get back in the fairway. And make your next shot count.

Turn every round of golf into a learning experience. Learn from your mistakes and change your swing or your club selection to improve your game. Enjoy your great shots and stop trying to hit the longest shot in your life with every club in your bag. It so much easier to layup and then hit the perfect shot iron shot. Practice with your GOLFSTR+ for 6 swing fixes. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com .

Golfers at any level benefit from every round that they play. Unfortunately we all have mishits or shanks or poor side hill lies where we only get upset with our game. Wouldn’t it be great to have a second chance to try every one of your poor shots over again? Why not play the occasional round of golf where you take a mulligan for every one of your poor shots. Then add up your score and appreciate how low your score can be.

You learned to play golf hitting buckets of balls at a driving range on a flat surface or mat. So how will you ever learn to improve your game on the rolling terrain of a golf course? Or in the rough? When you play a round of golf, the pressure is on and you really don’t have time to learn from your mistakes. Wouldn’t it be ideal to take corrective action to fix your swing or setup to improve your shots?

Here are 3 pros (Sergio, Tiger and Jim Furyk) with 3 different back swings. Why not tryout a change and learn from your results.

SOLUTION: Play a Self-Training Round of Golf
Of course you can’t enter your score for your handicap when you take a number of mulligans. The real benefit is that you can:
1/ Figure out how to hit balls from a poor lie or from a side or downhill lie.
2/ Practice hitting a draw or fad to land your ball where you want it to land.
3/ Avoid the anger that builds up when something goes wrong with your swing.
4/ Enjoy seeing how well you can actually hit the right shot. [Of course, the old saying goes, any idiot can hit the second try.]
5/ Best of all, you can total up your score with all of your great shots to see how low your score can get. It will build confidence in your game.

Playing a practice round will let you make all of those short putts that never reach the hole. Gives you that second chance to get out of a sand trap. Lets you find the perfect direction to aim off your side hill lie. Try out a more lofted club on a downhill lie to actually make your shot count. And best of all you can make that chip with confidence to cozy your ball up to the pin for a 1 putt green.

Mark down the score using your best ball when you take an alternate shot. You will really be pleased to see your score drop by 10 to 30%. When you add up your score at the end of your round, you will really be pleased to know that you have that low score capability in your game.

Your setup for every shot on a fairway may need adjustments. Every course is rated with a SLOPE. It is drastically affected by the rolling terrain of the fairways. Every time that you find your ball on side sloping ground or a forward or backward sloping surface, you need to make adjustments or your will lose control of your shot.

Find a FLAT Surface for Your Tee Shot
The simplest mistake that I notice is when recreational players don’t check out the slope on the tee. Premium courses ensure that the tee is flat but many club and public courses don’t pay enough attention to the flat surface on every tee. A side slope to the left will automatically force your ball to pull to the left and a slope to the right is just as dangerous. Find a flat surface to setup your tee shot to avoid pulls or pushes or slices.

Setup for any Shot
Clay at Top Speed Golf recently pointed out the importance of your body position for your setup:
1/ Ball position (forward or back in your stance) affects your angle of attack and shot shape. Practice and know what to expect from your swing.
2/ Let your arms hang to avoid stretching to reach your ball.
3/ Your stance width relates to your stability and power, You need a shoulder width stance for driver power, a narrower stance for irons and even narrower stance for gentle chip shots.
4/ Bend your back forward (don’t hunch forward) at your hips (and stick your butt out) for more power using any club.
5/ Shoulder tilt is so critical to ensure that your club path will add launch angle to your drives.

Hitting from a side hill lie can throw your ball 20 yards in the wrong direction. Adjust your direction based on the severity of the slope.

Adjust for Slope (side, up or down)
A. Your mind expects to make every swing on a flat surface. It is difficult for you mind to adjust for your swing on sloped surfaces. Adjusting for the 5 points listed above will all be affected. To help your mind adjust, make a full speed practice swing on the same slope where your ball is resting. You need to “customize and sensitize” your body and mind for the swing that you need to make. Then duplicate that exact swing without changing your swing speed.
B. You swing a golf club in an arc. Expect that a side slope to the left will pull your shot to the left. If the slope is to the right and you are standing above the ball, you are faced with more problems. You may have to bend your knees a little more (or widen your stance) to reach the ball and to keep your balance. Your club will not lie flat on a down side slope. A severe side slope can catch your hosel and twist your club before impact. Don’t expect a miracle shot. Prepare for the worst and take your medicine to reach a safe location for your next shot.
C. When you hit from any up or down slope, adjust your stance to ensure that you swing on the plane of your slope and your club will bottom out just after your ball. Use a higher lofted club for a down slope and a lower lofted club for an up slope to compensate for added or reduced angles.

Your clubs are designed to hit from flat surfaces. If you don’t adjust for sloped surfaces you can expect direction and distance control problems. GOLFSTR+ is a great training aid to help you learn the correct swing for every club in your bag. Golfing on sloped surfaces needs your special attention. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

Golf is a strange game. Successful swings have evolved over the years. It really is surprising that we can almost recognize any golfer by their different profile and swing. They all have their quirks. Matthew Wolff and Bryson DeChambeau are 2 of the most quirky swingers but their risky swings are really turning out to be rewarding.

So what is this new quirky swing by Matthew Wolff doing? If you watched the US Open, you definitely saw that strange knee wiggle and looping swing by Mathew Wolff. He does a quick practice trailing knee bend to start his swing sequence. He’s actually feeling his impact position so that he can feel it before he swings. He knows where he wants to end up at the point of impact.

Matt also uses a wide takeaway (like Jim Furyk) with a loop at the top to swing from the inside to straight up the target line. His swing is risky because he doesn’t hit a high percentage of fairways but he certainly uses this power and swing motion to hit a lot of greens in regulation. Especially out of the rough.

Matt Wolff adds a knee wiggle, a foot lift waggle and a huge loop at the top. The pros don’t recommend this as there are too many angles that can go wrong. Matt has a high percentage of fairway misses but he sure can get them out of the rough and on the Green in Regulation.

Bryson DeChambeau’s collection of irons that are all the same length; adding on muscle for more swing speed and his leading arm-lock for every club in his bag are all new innovations. He starts with a FLAT WRIST and keeps it throughout the swing. He is just cutting down on angles for a square club face impact.

Why not try out something quirky to improve YOUR Game
1/Swing to Putt Straight Up Your Target Line: Release your trailing hand at the point of impact and swing your leading hand Straight UP YOUR TARGET LINE. (This is my favorite.)
2/ Trailing Knee Bend Wiggle: Find your point of impact with your trailing knee before you start your swing. (Ala Matt Wolff)
3/ Setup with a Straight Leading Arm: Moe Norman and Bryson setup this way for extreem direction control.
4/ FLAT LEADING WRIST: Either setup with a flat leading wrist or waggle your driver to flatten your leading wrist before you start your backswing (keeping your leading wrist flat). That flat leading wrist will force your trailing elbow to bend into your side for an inside to out swing.

Hitting greens in regulation is the number 1 objective in golf if you want to lower your scores. Unfortunately we normally end up with a lot more chip shots than hitting GIRs. So chipping close to the hole for a one putt is really the most important shot for recreational golfers. Patrick Reed took an early lead in the US Open by chipping it close and then making a lot of 1 putt greens. Stabbing your wedge at the ball is NOT a good solution. You need to finish with hip rotation.

Clay Ballard at Top Speed Golf highlighted the setup and swing needed to avoid fat chips or worm burner bladed chips in a recent blog. NOTHING can mess-up a hole worse than a simple short chip. When the pressure is on you may go into a yip mode. With the proper setup and rotating finish you can break out of your missed chips.

1) Narrow Your Foot Separation and Open Your Stance: Keep your feet about 8 inches apart. When your feet are too far apart, it can cause you to be too rigid during the swing, and if they’re too close it can create issues with your balance. A chip is a simple rocking back and through (like a putt), but you want to be loose. Having your feet closer together also allows for a better ball position at the bottom of your swing arc.

2) Ball Position: You want the ball to be “directly under your lead ear”. That’s the natural low point of your swing (where your club grounds out). By having the ball under your lead ear, you’ll naturally be hitting the ball just before the club hits the ground. It helps you hit your ball first. NOTE: Other pros recommend more weight on your leading foot and lining the ball up with your trailing ear. Why not try both and sort out what’s best for you?

3) Shaft Lean: Setup with your shaft pointing up to your leading shoulder. This will also force you to keep more pressure on your leading foot during setup and throughout your chip. You want to impact the ball before you skim the turf.

Why is a flat wrist so important to your swing? As it turns out, you may already be setting up with a flat leading wrist for your irons, hybrids and woods. Unfortunately your forward teed up ball position for your driver forces you to cup your leading wrist. Pros have no problem changing that cupped leading wrist to a flat or bowed leading wrist but it’s not so easy for recreational golfers. If you are having problems creating a flat leading wrist in your backswing why not do it BEFORE YOU START YOUR DRIVER BACKSWING?

Iron, Hybrid and Wood Setup
When we setup with any of our clubs, the grip should run across our the fingers on our leading hand (NOT ACROSS THE PALM). Holding our shorter clubs this way allows us to point the shaft in line with our leading arm and shoulder. It also forces us to setup with a flat leading wrist (not cupped or bowed). This is one of the main reasons why we hit more consistent shots with our irons and hybrids.

Bryson DeChambeau, like most golfers, setups up with a flat leading wrist for his irons as well as for every club in his bag.

Driver Setup
When we setup with our driver, gripping with our leading hand in our fingers, you would think that we would get the same consistent result as our irons. The main difference is that we want to drive up on our teed-up ball so we place the ball forward in our stance. As we place our trailing hand on the lower part of the grip it naturally forces our trailing shoulder to tilt down but the shaft of our driver points at the center-line of our body. That forces us to cup our leading wrist during our setup.

Problems Adjusting Angles During Your Backswing
During your driver backswing your cupped wrist setup needs to flatten and then cock 90 degrees to create lag. Dustin Johnson actually bows his wrist immediately at the start of his takeaway to take advantage of his amazing power and release for more distance. Recreational golfers should NOT be trying to add the extra angles caused by bowing your wrist (according to Leadbetter, McLean and Hank Haney) . Your goal should be to minimize angles and keep your wrist flat throughout your backswing. Bryson DeChambeau flattens his leading wrist in his setup to avoid angles.

Bryson does NOT waggle his driver back to create a flat leading wrist. He setups up with a flat leading wrist and very sloped shoulders. Teaching pros do NOT teach this setup.

New Swing Opportunity
1/ Swinging with a flat wrist will help you avoid coming over the top and causing a slice.
2/ Keeping your wrist flat during your backswing allow you to shallow your club at the top of your swing.
3/ Your flat leading wrist also forces you to bend your trailing elbow to allow you to graze your side (with your elbow) as you swing from the inside and up your target line.
4/ As you swing from the inside you should imagine that you are hitting the inner quadrant of your ball (on the inside of a line running across your ball and up your target line). That also allow you to swing up on the ball to maximize your distance.

It’s amazing when we hit perfect shots and wish that we could capture that swing in a bottle. It seems to be magic but it’s really the fact that you used the swing skills that you already know. You just need to bottle up the right moves in every swing.

My Recent Awakening
After I played 9 holes of golf with consistently poor drives my wife suggested one of my swing thoughts: “Are you swinging with a flat wrist?” I thought “What a stupid question!” Of course she may not really know what I mean when I tell her to swing with a flat leading wrist but she said it as a serious reminder. Sure enough that was my exact problem. I immediately pared the next 4 holes. It was that one simple thought that I forgot during my backswing. I had been cupping my wrist.

Recreational golfers should avoid cupping your wrist in your backswing. You need power like Dustin Johnson to manage a severe bow shape in his wrist. Flat wrist is the best solution. GOLFSTR (used in this image) helps you learn to swing with a flat wrist.

It’s the same thing that a teaching pros will do with professional golfers when they sees a swing mistake during a tournament. I’ve heard interviewers discover after a round of golf why a pro has had an amazing turnaround during a round of golf. There is one small detail in their swing that they tend to forget about as they get frustrated with their game. Their trainer spotted the problem and the fix is instant.

FLAT WRIST IN YOUR BACKSWING
That’s one of the 6 swing fixes that you can discover when practicing with GOLFSTR+. I invented this training aid to remind me to keep my leading elbow straight in my backswing. Teaching pros suggested 5 more uses for GOLFSTR and that’s why we call it “GOLFSTR PLUS”.

1/ STRAIGHT ARM BACKSWING: It’s applies pressure on the back of your arm to remind you to keep your leading arm straight and to limit your backswing to avoid bending your elbow.
2/ FLAT WRIST PUTTING: Forces you to learn to putt by rocking your shoulders and NOT bending your wrists.
3/ FLAT WRIST BACKSWING: Swinging with a flat wrist forces your tailing elbow to graze your ribcage during your downswing and to swing from inside-to-up-your-target-line. That was my recent BINGO THOUGHT and it really works..
4/ FLAT LEADING WRIST for CHIPPING: It prevents you from bending your leading wrist while chipping for better direction control to your target.
5/ MINIMIZE TRAILING WRIST LAG while chipping: It stops your wrist from bending more than 30 degrees as you sweep down into the ball.
6/ LAG TRAINER: Reminds you to bend your trailing elbow 90 degrees during your backswing to feel that you have loaded up a proper lag.

I started to write this article about hitting straight drives with your driver. In my research I learned about the bulge and roll across the face of every driver that creates a “gear effect” which causes your ball to curve back to the center line of your swing direction. Then my research stumbled on the way to gain 20 to 50 yards with every drive. The pros do this, so why don’t you?

As an over 70 year old golfer, I can hit my drives 220+ yards but I wanted to know how to turn that into 250 to 270 yards. I have limited strength and a limited swing speed. I just wanted to find that magic formula to gain at least 30 yards on 75% of my drives. I found it with a higher launch angle.

I’m not going into all of the theory of the science behind distance but I do want you to know that topspin and too much underspin both reduce the distance that your ball travels. So we need to eliminate topspin and minimize underspin. Gear effect (caused by hitting off center) will draw or fade the ball back into our target swing path so that should not be a major factor unless you are killing your shot by impacting near the hosel or the toe of your club.

Swing speed is another important way to gain distance. Unfortunately if you have a swing speed which is crossing the face of the ball, you can either add a duck hook or a violent slice on your ball. So power and swing speed really have limitations for all recreational golfer.

The Magic Distance Solution [“Strike Plan” by Adam Young]
It’s a combination of swinging to launch a ball at a higher angle about 4 degrees up (plus the angle of your club face) without adding underspin to the ball. You can minimize the spin by impacting exactly on the perpendicular face of your driver launch angle.

I now realize that when we change to a slower swing speeds for any club, it tends to change our release rhythm. That results in poor directional control for our shots. By this I mean that our muscles fire at different rates during the swing and cause us to push or pull shots. The result can be a DISASTER!

Bryson DeChambeau may be on to something good with his uniquely designed identical iron shaft length for all of his irons. He sets up with the same athletic stance and tilt at his waist so that he can feel the same motion with every iron shot.

Consistent swing speeds are critical for consistent muscle firing. This is why we need to setup squarely along the target line for our maximum swing speed with our DRIVER and possibly with a more open stance for slower controlled swings with our IRONS and especially with our WEDGES. If you know that you have too much club for the distance of your shot, choke down on the club and take a practice swing to feel the different depth of your swing at your NORMAL SWING SPEED. (NOT FASTER AND NOT SLOWER).

Clay Ballard who creates the TopSpeedGolf blog is a real promoter to generate longer drives with faster Swing speeds. [It’s a fact that an extra 1 MPH impact speed increases your driver distance by about 2.5 yards.] In the past I have provided blogs from others who promote “controlled” swing speed or “limited” back swing for recreational golfers to land more drives in the fairway and to hit more Greens in Regulation. Now I personally find that inconsistent swing speeds result in inconsistent direction control.

Muscle Memory
Clay is now promoting a cutting-edge technology called Neural Adaptation Practice. I Googled this process and found the following: ‘Muscle memory‘ also known as neuromuscular facilitation, is the process by which muscles become familiar with certain motor skills. Furthermore, when signals from the brain are sent to the muscle, a pathway becomes established and this process becomes semi-automatic.”

We all love watching Phil Mickelson Bomb It! He loves to do it too, especially when he wants an extra 25 yards. Phil normally plays conservatively with a soft fade to ensure that he can hit the fairway. But when he knows that he needs some extra distance he plans for a lower spin rate and a nice looping draw. Should we be trying to copy Phil?

It was interesting to follow Phil’s drives on his bogey holes in the first 2 days of the WGC FedEx St Jude Invitational. He had 6 bogeys. 4 out of those 6 drives were in the left rough but all 6 were short drives of about 270 yards. His most amazing shot was a bomb where he hit a perfect draw around a dog-leg 338 yards to the right. Yes that was his perfect BOMB!

Phil Mickelson Bombing his driver, but this one was a soft fade.

Narrow, tree lined fairways don’t always give you the chance to create BOMBS but judging by the success that Bryson DeChambeau is having we should all put more effort into creating long bombs that land in the fairway. Bryson gained 40 pounds to put more muscle (or weight) behind his drives. On the other hand Phil has lost weight and worked on building up his strength.
Phil’s Fade is his Go-to-Shot
He sets up for a fade when he needs to land it in the fairway (even though it knocked him out of contention at the FedEx St Jude Invitational). He tees his ball lower to cut his ball to create a higher spin rate for more control and a soft landing.

Phil’s BOMB is a Draw
He tees it up higher and a little further forward in his stance so that he can hit up on the ball at about a 5.5 degree angle. He even uses his taller black tees to commit to this shot. His spin rate drops from his fade shots but he picks up well over 25 yards.

If it is difficult for a seasoned pro like Phil to hit every drive the way it was planned, how can we expect the same out of our games? As a recreational players you need to work on a consistent draw or fade so that you know where to aim for each drive. Consistency is so much more important than powering it into Never Never Land.

If golf wasn’t so bloody difficult, we could all be scratch golfers. Each facet of the game forces you to examine so many setups for the condition of the lie of your ball and the target that you are trying to hit. No wonder why this game drives us all crazy. Your analysis and your execution is the reason why we love this game so much. Most of us play for personal self-satisfaction. To enjoy this game, you really need to narrow your focus for each shot to get all of that clutter out of your brain.

Mentally we all set an outcome that we want for every round. Why not set an easy objective to take the pressure off: Break 100, 90 or 80. Success in Golf really comes down to a few decisions. Start with a mental goal, appraise the hole that you are on, plan the right shot and setup to execute the right shot.

A beginner just wants to hit the ball but recreational players with a reasonable skill level know that they can work back from the hole to decide where they want to land their ball on their first shot. If they don’t hit their target, they just rework their plan to layup or go for the center of the green. All of this is obvious for a golfer but it does come down to the club you select, the setup that you need and the swing that you plan to execute.

Ernie Els is the perfect golfer image to keep in your mind to help you swing with controlled tempo. It allows you to finish your backswing and to hold your lag in the downswing.

The Moment of Truth: Your Swing Thought Sequence
Each club demands a unique swing thought so choose wisely by testing out your focused thought during your practice swing. What is your primary thought?
–A mental image of the shape of your shot to hit your target
–Using a waggle to loosen up your body or as a reminder to start you backswing with the rotation of your hips (followed by your shoulders and then your arms)
–Keep your wrist flat at the top of your backswing
–Start shifting your weight to your leading foot during your transition
–Count “1, 2“ during your backswing to add time to cock your wrists at the top
–Shallow your swing to ensure that you swing from the slot to the outside
–Keep your head and eyes focused on the ball location until after impact
–Finish your swing balanced on your leading foot as you marvel at your shot

[The text in red are my 2 key thoughts.]

We all look for a trigger to make our swing feel like a knife cutting through butter. You know that feeling when everything clicks and your ball just take off with unexpected power and your friends ask you if you have been working out. Sure I work out but it’s timing that creates excellence in my swing. Get the panic out of your swing by feeling the STEP that makes your swing effortless.

I got this idea when watching a few videos about the rocking motion from your trailing foot to your lead foot. Be happy with a 90 mile per hours swing and just let your arms go for the ride. As you feel your swing reach the top, take that moment to feel the momentum of your club shifting more body weight to your leading foot. YES, that’s the STEP that I’m talking about.

Start your STEP forward at the top of you swing during the change of direction for your club. If you rush your swing, you will miss the weight shift STEP. Baseball batters STEP forward as they lung into their forward swing. You may even notice golfers who turn their foot forward (or STEP forward) as they transfer their weight to the leading foot at the top of their swing.

It’s a strange feeling if you have never PAUSED for your weight shift at the top of your swing. You will feel like you are delaying your swing but that momentum shift to your leading foot actually allows you to start opening the leading side of your hip and pressing with your trailing foot as your arms drop.  Then release your wrist through the bottom of the swing.

If you don’t rush at the top of your swing, you can feel your weight shift forward as your LAZY arms let your club lags from the top of your swing and then whip through the release with more power through impact. MAKE SURE YOU FINISH YOUR SWING or you will leave the face of your club open for a push or a slice.

Each type of club requires a unique approach for your setup and swing. Unfortunately many recreational golfers attempt to use the same swing for every club and they pay the price. Actually the sweep of your club across the ground has the same type of arc but your point of impact has a huge affect on your success with each type of club.

You can easily adjust your draw or fade with any club by changing your face direction, your swing path and your trailing foot back or forward. A side hill lie (up or down) also has a huge impact on the success of your shot. Before you can master your swing with any club you need to see the resulting impact of a properly lined-up shot verses a poorly lined-up shot. This blog is primarily concerned with avoiding mishits with your driver, your fairway woods/hybrids and your irons.

Setup to LAUNCH your Drives
Your driver has a limited angle on its face. It’s really designed so that you can hit up on your ball and LAUNCH it in an upward angle. Of course that’s why you tee your ball up and line up your ball with the heel of your LEADING foot. That’s also why you need to impact your ball as your club arcs upward on an inside to outside path (AFTER it passes the low point of your swing arc).

To help you create longer drives you should setup with your shoulder line tilting slightly down on your trailing side and 55% of your weight on your trailing foot. Give yourself a count of 1, 2 to create time for a full backswing rotation (and count 3 for you downswing). Keep your leading ear behind the ball through-out your swing. Release up your target line as you thrust forward to LAUNCH YOUR BALL UPWARD.

All of your golf clubs are made with a wide head face to help you avoid mishits. You can get away with hits off the toe or heel of your driver, woods, irons and putter but you are losing distance and direction control if you don’t impact your ball in the balanced center of mass on your club face. Using tape or powder on your club head is a great way to understand where you are normally impacting your ball on the face of your club.

GolfersRX recently released another video by Gene Parent at Golf Laboratories illustrating the lost distance for driver mishits at 90 MPH (the typical recreational golfer swing speed). At that swing speed you will hit a ball about 200 yards in the air and it will roll out to about 230 yards IF YOUR IMPACT IS ON THE DEAD CENTER OF YOUR DRIVER CLUB FACE.

If your impact is ¾ of an inch inside or outside of dead center, you will lose about 10 yards of distance. Impact toward the toe will push your shot about 10 yards to the right of a right hander’s target line and impact toward the heel will pull about 10 yards to the left.

Unfortunately if your swing path is over the top and from the outside to inside when you impact toward the toe you will compound your error and slice away from your target line. An inside to outside swing path, when your impact is near the heel of your club, will create a duck hook.

It’s amazing to read the Monday morning reviews about the changing scores as both the Professional and Amateur tournaments wrap-up ever Sunday. Streaks of birdies or bogies and double bogies seem to happen for no explainable reason. The only way that we can explain these successes or failures is through rays of sunlight or dark clouds that pass over every golfer under pressure. Your brains controls all.

If only we could control our positive mental attitude, even after an unexpected double when we hit into the ruff, sand trap, water or a low hanging tree branch. It’s the unexpected shot that seems to cloud our next few holes, if not the rest of our game. We need to recognize and accept our failures and get back into a positive mental attitude. GET OVER IT!

When Should Our Alarm Bells Go Off  Pay attention to the problems that can throw your game off:
1/ Your playing partners start kidding you about the pressure on your next shot.
2/ You just hit an amazingly long drive on your last hole and expecting to hit even further on your next drive.
3/ The joy of making birdie affecting your next drive (PBSU: Post Birdie Screw-Up)
4/ Hitting the perfect shot only to nip a branch and lose 100 yards on the shot.
5/ When you have 3 other sets of eyes watching you prepare to make a 3 foot putt.

What Happens to Your Mind and Body
1/ Flashbacks of past failures
2/ Your heart and mind start to race so that you rush and limit your backswing
3/ Your muscles tighten up to limit your flexibility.

Why are there so many styles of putters and so many different ways to improve your putting? We are all made up with different body structures, minds and strengths. What works for one person will not necessarily work for another.  Some methods work better than others and stubborn golfers find it hard to change.  As it turns out there are only 3 consistent skills that you need to master for putting success.

You need to understand that every method of putting CAN BE successful. Every different style of putter and putting stoke has won the US Open and The Open (British). You can be successful by swinging your wrists or rocking your shoulders and swing in a straight line or arc. You can also jab at the ball or swing with the consistency of a pendulum or accelerate through the ball. Only you can determine what works best for your physical limitations and ability.

I recently read an article by Phil Kenyon, who is now the director and principal owner of Harold Swash Putting in the UK. He has trained many of the top professional golfers and recent winners to the US Open and The Open  to help them hone their personal putting styles. He believes that they must achieve three key outcomes to have success.

The 3 Key Skills:
1/ Control the starting direction of the ball,
2/ Control the speed of your ball.
3/ Predict the break of your ball.