The Golf Blog

How to Hit "Down" on the Ball for Better Ball Striking

2011-10-20T22:08:00.000-07:00

To hit a consistent shot in golf, you need to have good ball striking. Everybody knows consistency is the Most important component of a golf swing because you need to be able to hit one good shot after another.

The biggest mistake people make in having bad ball striking is that they shift their weight to the right side of their body but then they don't shift their weight back to the left side so they end up either muffing the ball or topping the ball which is the worst feeling in the world!

To hit "down" on the ball what you need to do, is to
a. Stop the Sway in your Golf Swing
b. Create a Divot Starting at the Middle of the Ball
c. Have the Correct Thought Process

Stopping the Sway in your Golf Swing
This is actually the conventional way to swing a golf club, but it can be very inconsistent, the best way to improve your ball striking is to make more of a "Stack and Tilt" swing. What this means is that instead of starting out with 50% of your weight on your left leg and 50% on your right then on your back swing putting 75% on your right, i tell you to Start with 60% of your weight on your left leg and keep it that way throughout your swing. Never transfer the weight to your right side. In doing this you will increase your ball striking and consistency of your shot.

Create a Divot Starting at the Middle of the Ball
This is an easy way to track whether your hitting the ball correctly. Simply place a tee a few inches in front of your ball before you take a swing and after you hit the ball check the ground and if your divot starts from where the tee is, you most likely hit it good, if your divot is behind the tee then you most likely muffed it.

Have the Correct Thought Process
When practicing your ball striking, you should have only one swing thought in your head, "SWING DOWN ON THE BALL" when this is the only thing your thinking of, your brain will surprise you and actually do what your telling it to do, if you think your going to hit a solid ball, you have a much better chance than if you think your just going to hit another shank

So do these three steps and you should start hitting more down on the ball resulting in better ball striking!! If you have any questions or comments please leave a comment or you can send me an email, hope this helped!!

How to Have Better Ball Striking

2011-10-20T21:46:00.000-07:00

This is a very common mistake among all golfers. Any time youre not striking the ball solid, your simply not having fun. Nobody like the shank, top, muff, toe, or heel, and theres no reason these foul words should come into play when describing your ball striking!

Good, Consistent Ball Striking will ultimately result in:

More Consistent Golf Shots
More Consistent Ball Flight
Longer Distance
Straighter Shots
More Confidence

To get started I'll tell you the three steps that must occur to have better ball striking

You MUST hit the ball in the center of the clubface
You NEED to hit "down" on the ball
You NEED to Increase lag

If you can do these three things I guarantee you will have better ball striking!

How to Hit the Ball over 300 yards!

2011-10-14T13:23:00.000-07:00

Today I'm gonna be talking to you about how to increase lag, ultimately resulting in an increased club head speed and more power! Now everyone loves the long ball, nothing feels better than to be the one right in the middle of the fairway and 20 yards past everyone else in your group. Feeling like the big dog will give you more confidence, and confidence is vital to success in golf.

A lot of people say think they can't hit the ball far because of their physical size, they think they're too small and simply "unable" to hit the ball a long ways. Well I'm here to prove you wrong. By no means am I a "big" person, i am very thin, and rarely work out but I can consistently drive the ball over 310 yards because of a few things.

The number one way your going to increase your distance is to increase your lag. Most people when they try to hit the ball harder, they swing very hard with their arms, and not enough with their body, and when this happens they lose lag and can actually hit it a shorter distance than normal. It makes sense that you would use your bigger muscles if you want more power would it not? So when your making your golf swing, you want to swing with your hips. This is what I mean by this. When your at the top of your golf swing, you most likely start the downswing with your hands, INSTEAD, before you even start moving your hands down rotate your hips and let the club follow behind, you can look at any Professional Golfer and i can promise, they ALL make this move.

A couple things that improve your power

LAG
GOOD BALL STRIKING - you need to be able to consistently hit down on the ball making pure contact in the center of the club face.
GOOD TEMPO - Don't accelerate too fast on the backswing, but just remember "1,2,3"

So remember, Good Lag increases power, so next time your out at the range try making that conscious decision at the top of your swing to rotate your hips (Aggressively) and let the club head lag behind

Here's a video of my swing, and as you can see when i reach the top of my backswing, my hips rotate first and the clubhead drops into position lagging behind

How To Shape Your Shots

2011-10-13T15:05:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wanted to hit that dog leg right par 5 in two, yet you chose to lay up because you couldn't hit that fade? What about the dog leg left that would be so much shorter if you were to only be able to hit a draw? Well there's a few very easy steps you can take to shape your shot without having to work on the mechanics of your golf swing.

Me teeing off in a golf tournament

We'll start off with Fade, but first I'll tell you what all of this golf terminology means for you beginners who don't fully understand the nerd speak of golf. A fade is where after impact the ball starts left of your target and "fades" back to the right towards your target. A slice however, is where the balls starts right of your target after impact and "slices" even further right of your target. A draw is where the ball starts right of the target and "Draws" back to the left towards your target. A hook is where the ball starts lefts of the target and "hooks" even farther left. Okay now that were done with Basic Golf Grammar 101, we can get to work.

For those wanting to hit the fade, there's a couple basic things you need to know about how the golf ball fades. To perform a fade, a couple of things must happen.

The ball must start left of the target
The ball must have left to right spin

This is surprisingly very simple to do. Both of these things occur when you have a swing path that comes outside in while maintaining a square club face. To do this, Simply align your Feet to the left of your target the amount you want to fade the ball while keeping everything else aligned towards your target. (Your club face, Shoulders head, etc.)

For ex. if you want to hit a 5 yard fade, aim your feet 5 yards left of the target, if you want to hit a 15 yard fade, aim your feet 5 yards Left.

And that's it, it's that simple, just pull your left foot back a little bit and you've got a fade!

The same concept goes for the draw, except you pull your right foot back while keeping everything else square towards the target. This causes an inside out swing path forming a right to left spin on the ball resulting in a Draw.

Hope this helped you control your shots! if you have any questions or comments you can leave them below or send me an email!

How to Cure Your Slice

2011-10-13T00:52:00.000-07:00

The worst feeling, stepping up on that tee box in front of all your friends after hitting countless balls on the range the week prior and feeling ready to show them up and drive right down the fairway when after you strike the ball it seems to take a right turn a couple blocks early and crashes right into the trees.

Ever wondered how you'll be hitting the ball perfect on the range before you play, and then during your round it seems your cursed with the disease of the "Slice"? Well I'm here to help. With any fault in the Golf Swing, it takes hard work and time to repair and start hitting it straight again. One word of advice before I start talking about all the ways to fix this problem, is to work on one thing at a time.

The Number 1 mistake I see amateurs make is that they will think about every little detail in their golf swing besides hitting the ball in the middle of the club face, and when they shank it off the hozzle and chunk their brand new five iron into the water. So when your trying to fix something in your golf swing, focus on one thing, whether it be your grip, your stance, or any other mental thought, focus on one thing, and not several things.

The Slice

A vulgar word in the Language of Golf terms. Nothing can anger a golfer more than to have that repetitive slice every single time you hit the golf ball and it seems no matter what you try, you cant fix it. Trust me. Ive been there, I had to work hard to get rid of my slice because my natural swing quickly got me into the bad habit of making some wrong mistakes that led me to a lot of hazards. There is hope though! and I'm here to help. well first off I'll just list some reasons that people usually tend to hit the slice.

REASONS WHY YOU SLICE

Your Grip
Your Stance
Your Swing Path
You Try to Hit the Ball too Hard
Your Shoulders aren't Lined up Correctly
Your Alignment is off
Your Swinging with your Arms

These are the top Reasons of found that golfers make when they are tending to slice the ball.

REASON #1 : The Grip

The biggest reason golfers hit a slice is there grip. You probably hear it constantly how important the grip is, but it truly is the most fundamentally important key to your Golf swing. Would you build a beautiful mansion on a bad foundation? of course not! it's the same with the golf swing. If you want that big prize of the beautiful mansion, you've got to have a good foundation, the grip. You can interlock, overlap, full finger, or whatever you want, that part is you're preference, personally I use the interlock grip because it gives me a better feel of one solid contact with the club making a swing as a whole, but you can use whichever you like.

WHY THE GRIP CONTRIBUTES TO YOUR SLICE

The Reason people will slice because of their grip is because they have a weak grip. a weak grip can occur when your left hand is rolled too far to the left around the grip of the club to where you see less than 3 fingers and the same goes with your right hand to when it is rolled to far to the left around your grip. when your grip is weak, you tend to come through contact with the club face open, usually resulting in "Pushing" the ball off contact and gaining an end result of a slice.

HOW TO FIX IT

If something is weak, you strengthen it. That is exactly what your going to do here. Strengthen Your Grip. When gripping the club, the shaft should rest across the palm of your hand and when you grip the club, you should be able to see your first 3 and even 4 knuckles on your left hand, and when you place your right hand on the club, you should see the tips of your fingers rotated around the grip. This is going to feel very awkward at first, but if your grip is what is causing you to slice, I guarantee this will work.

Recap

Strengthen your Grip
See Three and if necessary, Four Knuckles on Left hand
See Fingertips on Right Hand

Grip for Your Left Hand

Strong Weak

REASON #2 : Stance

Another reason you might be slicing the ball is that you have an open stance. An open stance is where your body and club face are facing the target, yet your feet are aimed left (Most likely, your left foot is pulled back). This causes you to come "over the stop" and put a left to right spin on the ball. When somethings open, you close it, which is exactly what you need to do here. Close your Stance.

HOW TO FIX IT

The best way i know to fix this is with alignment rods, if you don't have alignment rods, two clubs work just fine. simply set the two clubs/rods on the ground parallel to each other and imagine there a railroad and if you were riding on that railroad you would crash right into your target. Now with your railroad aimed towards your target, place a golf ball in between the two clubs and place your feet to where each foot is an equal distance from the first club as well as placing your club face behind the ball to where it is perpendicular to the two clubs. this is a wonderful drill to help your alignment and you can use it every time you practice! (I sure do!)

Recap

Close Stance
DRILL - Use Clubs or Alignment rods to form an imaginary "Railroad"

REASON #3 : Swing Path

Your swing path determines the type of spin you're going to put on the golf ball, whether you come over the top, inside out, down on the ball, your top it, you're putting a different type of spin on the ball which is directing its path. Coming over the Top is where your slice the ball, because you're placing a left to right spin on the ball causing it to go right. This is probably one of the hardest habits to get rid of, but is still very much so possible. (This was the part of my natural swing i had to fix)

HOW TO FIX IT

A way i know to fix this and the way i fixed it myself, is to try and keep your right elbow close to your body and start the downswing with your hips, forcing the club head on the inside and securing a more inside - out swing path. A drill you could use is to get a basket and place it as close to your right foot you feel you can and hit balls like this. This will force a more inside out swing path, ultimately getting rid of the left to right spin and slice!

Recap

Elbow Close to body
Start downswing with Hips
DRILL - Basket in front of right foot

REASON #4 : Swinging too Hard

A very common mistake with amateurs. you feel you have to bomb it over 300 to beat your friends, when that's simply not true. ever heard the saying, "Drive for show, Putt for dough"? very wise words. the Goal of golf is to get the golf ball in the cup in as few strokes as possible. Everything in between is where we lose our heads. This is primarily the reason your probably slicing it when you get up in front of your friends after practicing all week and slice it into the woods. You were trying to be Macho Man and not on getting the ball in the fairway. When you swing harder than normal, your natural response is almost a sense of a "chopping" action where you come over the top and slice it in the woods.

HOW TO FIX IT

TEMPO TEMPO TEMPO. Tempo is the main ingredient of a consistent golf swing. Maintaining tempo is as easy as 1,2,3, when your swinging the golf club count in your head to three. you say one when you begin the swing, 2 when you start the downswing, and three when you hit the ball. for a slower tempo you could count to 4 or whatever you want, just as long as you have a constant Tempo.

Recap

TEMPO TEMPO TEMPO

REASON #5 : Shoulders Aren't Aligned to Target

When your shoulders are open, this can cause you to come over the top, resulting in a slice.

HOW TO FIX IT

To fix this, imagine there's another Line running across your shoulders that's parallel to the railroad pointing towards your target.

Recap

Compare Alignment of shoulders to alignment of feet

REASON #6 : Alignment

Your Alignment ultimately decides where the ball is going to start. if your aimed left, the ball where start left, and vice versa. where you go wrong in your alignment is when your shoulders head or feet are not synchronized in pointing the same direction. The only time you would want to alter this is if you were trying to control your shot to draw or fade.

HOW TO FIX IT

To fix your alignment, use the same thing i talked about earlier in aligning yourself up to either rods or golf clubs and be sure to have all of the components of your body pointing towards the same target.

You should always be pointing in the right direction. Alignment is key to maintaining a consistent Golf Swing.

Recap

Align all components of body toward target
Use rods or clubs to train Alignment

REASON #7 : Swinging With Arms

Swinging with your arms is the common sense thing to do right? Nope! in all actuality this is a very bad thing in the world of Golf. If you swing with your arms, you can and will come over the top, resulting in a slice.

HOW TO FIX IT

Swing with your hips! when starting your downswing you should always lead with your hips. your hips should be rotating while you lag the club behind. This move will also give you more power helping you hit the ball further!

Recap

SWING WITH HIPS!

Well that's my seven reasons why you might be slicing the ball! i hoped it helped, if you need more help or more information just let me know, leave a comment or shoot me an email.