Let’s explore some of the subtle challenges that you will find on many courses.  These are things that can and often do affect your game and score yet you tend to not realize that they are part of the problem until you have a seriously bad shot and start wondering why.

Take a look at the choices that this tee presents.  Rich Harvest Farms Hole #4

The famous fourth hole Devil’s Elbow has one of the most intimidating tree-lined tee boxes and fairways of any golf course.…

The Most Demanding Shot in Golf

So on to the tee box.  That place where you take your first shot.  Generally these are rectangular, giving the grounds keepers the ability to change the location of where you tee off so they can keep the grass growing over the whole tee off area.

Speaking of grass on the tee box many courses with low budgets have tee boxes that have multiple divots making it difficult to find a level place to stand or tee off.  Even if it is only a subtle difference, the ball can wind up above or below your feet which can contribute to a slice or a hook.

So far so good, but what about the direction that the tee box points to?  In an ideal world the tee box would be pointing directly at the middle of the fairway.  In the real world that is rarely the case.  I’ve inserted this crude little drawing to illustrate my point.

Now it is rarely the case that this exaggerated picture  is what you will see, but this is very often present in a subtle way.  Simple mis-direction in your setup will lead to a number of difficulties.   I can think of several holes where the tee box is pointing straight at an obstacle or some form of trouble.  There may be trouble on the opposite side as well.   Your task is to thread the needle by aiming slightly to the left or right to avoid the obstacle.  The challenge is that it is almost instinctive to align your body to the tee box, and you may find yourself hitting directly at the obstacle.  In other cases your body will sense that you are lined up wrong and try to adjust the swing to point in the proper direction with equally disastrous results.

Driving range tip

Many of us are affected by the geometry of our environment.  Think about the driving range mats for instance.  Most of them are square with an embedded tee in the center of one side.  It is only natural to figure that aligning yourself to the square of the mat will align you square to the target.  To illustrate the point, go to a nice range that has a number of target greens dotted around the driving range.  Take a tee block in the center (if you can get it) now intentionally turn your body and aim at the green that is one fifty out on the center left. Take one shot, where does your ball land? In the center?

Take your next shot at the more distant green on the right you get one shot (just like playing on the course).  How about that shot did it head toward the center of the green?

Now for full effect, change up and hit a shorter pitch to the green that is 80 yards out on the near left.  This shot requires you to align your body almost diagonally with the driving mat.  What are your results?  If your shots tended to favor a center of the fairway direction you are being affected by the placement and direction of the mat or by extension the tee box.

While we are on this topic another place to pay attention is the not so subtle placement of the tee blocks. You know the golds the whites the blues and blacks.  The fellow running the mower picks those up when he mows, then quickly throws them down again as he races off to mow another one.  Quite often he will not take the time to align the blocks to be square with the direction of the fairway.  The casual golfer will draw a mental line between the blocks, line up squarely between the blocks and be aimed way off target.  Remember it is quite easy to set your feet and knees in one direction then turn your shoulders to point a bit differently; the results are not pretty.

Finally there are the distractions.  I could write a book about this one.  Have you heard the one about the cart-lady or marshal who is waiting for you to tee off?  She is just up there on the cart-path  on the right.  She thinks she is far enough away that you will  not hit her, but she is close enough for you to see her.   (Okay, if it is the one who wears the micro shorts maybe you want to see her…) The fact that you can see her and the fact that your eye is being drawn by that distraction will often cause you to unconsciously hit toward or away from it.  Courses that have back and forth fairways often have golfers who inadvertently hit into the oncoming fairway.

I have seen it a hundred times; the cart driver comes up the side of the fairway, realizes that your group is teeing off and parks just off the fairway thinking that every golfer in your foursome is “Mr Accuracy,” sure enough before we are finished teeing off one of us will be yelling fore!  Why? He is in our field of vision, he does not belong there, he is distracting our focus from the target and subconsciously we aim toward our last dominate thought as we swing.

Three Tips to help you hit the fairway

• Decide on your ideal landing area.  Now pick a target beyond your landing area that is exactly in line with your target.  It should be stable (not capable of moving like the flag) like a tree or a  even a house off the course.  This is the absolute direction  you wish to hit your ball.
• Next pick an intermediate target that is inline with your distance target. Your intermediate target should  be visible from your setup, no more than 10′ from your ball.  This is your sole reference point as you set your alignment for your tee shot.  Ignore everything else in the tee box, especially the tee blocks.  Align your body to the ball with reference to the intermediate target.
• To get your ball to the target landing zone you need the best swing to get it there.  Your final focus should be on the golf ball itself.  Look  at the back of the ball and imagine the club-face making contact with the ball.  By focusing on the dimple on the back of the ball your last dominate thought is making contact with the ball.  If you are distracted by anything, step away, go through your setup again.

I believe it was Jim Flick who famously said, “Golf is 90% mental, and the other 10% is mental.”  You may have superior physical skills, but your golf mental game needs to be in excellent shape as well if you expect to perform to the best of your ability.  A sad example these days is the struggle that Tiger Woods seems to be having. He knows that he is capable of executing incredible shots from anywhere on the course, unfortunately these days he is putting himself into places where even superior talent will not get the job done.

My first game of the season, I went to the range, hit 60+ balls and then played 18 holes.   At the range I practiced my irons and my setup routine, pausing to walk away – look – then approach each shot.  Finally I spent some time with my driver to insure that I could hit it straight.  Basically, I was pleased with the results as I only had a few errant shots.

On the first tee, I had a nice drive and hit the green with my approach shot which rolled slightly off the back of the green.  My chip landed softly and rolled within two feet of the cup which I holed for par.  Whohoo, nice way to start off a round for the season.  After two more par’s I looked at the score card on the way to the fourth hole and had an interesting thought.  ” Wow, first round of the season and I am even par after three, not bad after laying around for the last five months.  I then proceeded to have two  double bogies in a row.

What happened?  My golf mental game went right into the tank! What was I doing? Peering into the future, imagining some congratulatory glory in the club-house or car on the way home.   In a word, I took myself right out of my game by loosing focus on the most important thing.  Being present to what I am doing right at the moment that I am doing it.

golf mental game tips

You and I both know this, but sometimes we need a gentle reminder; we only have control of what we are doing right now,  not the future or the past.  A previous bad shot needs to be noted, corrected (what did you learn) and forgotten.  A future fantastic shot has not happened yet and all we can do about it is to hone our fundamentals to give ourselves the chance for it to occur.  The thing we control is “now,” the “what am I doing at this exact moment.”

There is only one place where you can “Be Here Now” on the golf course; that is in your setup. A good setup is going to include some thoughts about the future as in where will my ball be going. It will also include many thoughts in the present;what am I doing right now to insure that I will get the ball to that future target.

First things first! That last shot you took is gone, good or bad it is not coming back, so forget it. Now you need to focus on what you are doing to make this up coming shot the best you can make. This also means that any attitudes that you have about a given hole need to be put out of your mind as well.

In your setup routine you should select a landing zone,(future) then select the club that you know will get there (Experience from past). The rest of your setup should be in the present. Are you lined up to your intermediate target with your feet, knees, hips and shoulders? Check! Is your grip set properly for the best swing you can make? Check! Is your posture correct, do you feel that your back is straight and a slight tension in the big muscles of the thighs, is your weight balanced on the inside balls of your feet? Check! Now all you have to do is to perform.

I have personally changed my setup and do not use a practice swing, but if you do use a practice swing then use it to learn. Is it going back from the ball square? At the nine o’clock position is the toe of the club pointing straight up at the sky? If it is, it should come down the same way which increases the chances of hitting a square and straight shot. Are your shoulders maintaining a relationship with your arms hands and chest; all moving together so the club will fold naturally in the correct swing-path? Good for you! You have now put 90 percent of the mechanics on your side to make the best golf swing that you can make.

The final 10 percent consists in two very important things. Your swing thoughts and your focus. At the moment you are about to make a golf swing you are the only one on the golf course and you are aware of nothing but your body and the golf ball. In your beginning routine you selected a landing zone, out there, on the fairway or the green. Now your job is to get it there. You have already established the mechanics for the swing so now your focus needs to narrow to the execution. For me, the swing thought is to stay relaxed as in “Ree-Laax.” (Yeah I know its not a word but it works for me) I start thinking this as I take my grip on the club.

The final thing is focus! For me to get the ball to the imaginary landing zone out there (in the future) I need to put my now swinging club into the back of a stationary ball. Nothing is going to happen until I make contact with the ball in the “NOW” so where is my focus? You guessed it, I do not start my back-swing until I am seriously focused (looking right at) a dimple on the back side of my golf ball. I know that if I can make good square contact with the ball in that precise spot, that the rest of the swing and the game will take care of itself.

The fascinating thing about the golf mental game is training the mind to be calm and not interfere as the sub-conscious body mechanics do what they know how to do. By staring at that dimple on the ball, focusing my total attention on that spot, I am able to distract myself from other potential thoughts that could harm my swing.

I have two caveats. You need to know, relatively speaking, how far your clubs will travel. For that, you need to spend enough time on the driving range to establish some personal statistics. Secondly you need to develop a good repeatable setup routine that you can use with every shot that you take. It may take a while to develop it and initially it will seem like you are taking much longer to make your shots (which may be true for a while). You will quickly learn to go through your routine in a matter of a few deliberate seconds and it will be worth its weight in gold for your new found scoring ability.

Hit them straight and seldom!

Michael Brown

P.S. If you enjoyed this article please let your friends know about it with a “tweet” or a “like”. I have many other suggestions for improving your mental game in my free 10 part course. You can sign up in the box on the side-bar. Thanks

Golf courses—eutrophication hypoxia (Flickr.com)

I went out to play today as a single at one of the many public courses in the Denver area. This course is owned by the city, the rates are great by comparison to some of the privately owned public courses. City courses also attract a different clientele than the more expensive courses. The threesome that I joined were not beginners, but they were not exactly scratch golfers either.

One of the threesome had an interesting swing, in his take away he would start with his hands lift the club to get his wrists cocked and then turn his shoulders to catch up with his arms and hands.  The results were uhm, “different” the ball would start off in one direction then tail off in a serious golf slice. Most of the time the ball would start off moving seriously to the left before it lost impetus and then the rightward spin would take over and the ball would move back to the right. In 15 or so drives his ball never found the fairway, in fact he was ecstatic when he found the left rough as the ball was usually in another fairway entirely.

The even more amazing thing though, was his continual question, “Why does my ball do that?” I really did want to answer his question but I have found that I can really mess up someone’s game by offering advise during a round. The analysis of what is wrong and how to correct a golf slice or a golf hook should not be a subject of discussion during an actual game. Your new trainee will try to correct the problem by trying your suggestion for the rest of the round with limited or no success, conclude that you gave him bad advise
and never go to the range and work on the actual golf swing mechanics necessary to learn the new technique.

There are so many parts to the golf swing that it is really difficult to explain to a beginning golfer how many points of coordination he has to be paying attention to at one time. You don’t have to play golf very long to learn the name and flight pattern of a golf hook or slice. Unfortunately, learning what caused the golf hook vs slice is another story.

The important question you need to be able to answer for yourself for every shot is “what did I do to create that ball flight pattern?”

Your Setup Can Cure That Slice

Hooks and slices and their more controlled partners the draw and the fade are always caused by one of two things or both working in combination. They are usually caused by something that you are doing with the swing-plane.  If they occur when you don’t want them to happen then you must learn to find out what you did to create the result that you got. The nice thing about golf is that your ball flight will tell you exactly what you were doing to produce the pattern.

Lets look at the best golf swing that you have in your “bag.” The ideal swing is straight back and straight through with a club face that is perpendicular to the target line. This will produce a straight shot with no right or left spin on the ball. This is the swing that you are looking for in ninety percent of the cases.

If you go to the right of your target line then you are “pushing” the ball and that is because you hit it “early.” By “early” I mean that in an “ideal” swing-plane the club-face is exactly square to the ball for only a few inches of its travel (as the club descends it will be open, then travel square, then begin to close as it ascends on the follow through) so if your ball is going to the right the club-face is still open or pointing to the right.

If your ball is going straight but to the left of your intended target line that means the club-face was closing as it struck the ball, you are pulling the ball. Or, putting it another way, you hit the ball late, the club-face was starting to close after the brief period of being straight in the “ideal” hitting zone.

As you can see from the video above, there are a number of things that contribute to the proper set-up for a perfect golf swing. Usually ball flight that goes straight but is off target, is a set up or stance problem. On the other hand if you are fighting a tendency to hook the ball or trying to correct a golf slice your problems are more likely in the way in which you grip the club.

Have you ever played with a golfer who has a serious slice problem and watched him setup for his tee shot by deliberately aiming to the left.  Hoping that his slice will start left and then come back to rest in the fairway?  He knows that he has a challenge with his slicing problems and his self correction is to compound the problem with a poor setup.

A good golf slice definition would be that at impact the standing golf ball was struck with glancing blow cutting across the ball which imparted rightward spin on the ball.  The initial flight of the ball will tell you the direction of the movement in the club-head at impact.  The finish of the ball flight will tell you whether your club-face was open (Slice) or closed (Hook). In the case of the slice your club-face is open which is caused by an outside to inside swing path and probably an open club-face  (caused by improper grip) from the time of the setup.

There is no substitute for a good setup.  Your body should be perpendicular to the target line.  That means your feet, your knees, hips and shoulders all pointing the same direction.  (perpendicular to the target)   In your back swing there should be no independent movement of anything.  The triangle formed by your shoulders and your hands as they grip the club should remain as a triangle throughout the swing as you swing back from the ball. The butt end of the club starts out pointing at your chest during address, as it moves around in the back-swing it continues to point at your chest because you are turning your shoulders at the same time.  The final portion of the back-swing the butt end will indeed point at the ground for a moment as you complete your swing and start your down-swing, but if you have kept your left arm straight and folded you right arm against your body going up then coming down it will revert to point back at your chest.  Watch this clip from Ben Hogan, who fought hooks for most of his professional career.

While I don’t agree with the commentator about the “Waggle” (you can drive yourself crazy trying to copy an idiosyncrasy)  The rest of Hogan’s swing is flawless.

Your Grip Can Cause A Slice Or A Hook

I won’t go into the various types of grip that you can take, choose the one that is comfortable and works for you. The key here is to make sure that your hands are working together.  To insure this, it is critical that the palms are always facing together.  You can check this easily by looking down at your hands on the club and noticing the “Vee” formed by your thumb and forefinger.  Imagine a line pointing from those “Vee’s” pointing at your chin or shoulder.   The pro’s will tell you that the further toward your shoulder that the line points the stronger your grip will be. The rule of thumb is that the vee’s pointing at the chin indicate a weak grip; while the vee’s  p0inting at the shoulder are called a strong grip.   Another way to tell is to look down and count how many knuckles you see on your left hand when you setup to the ball; the more you see the stronger the grip.

Let’s put this into context.  How does your grip affect a slice?  Look at this video:

Setting up for a golf swing with a weak grip can prevent you from fully closing the face at the point of impact. By knowing the causes, you can make the changes. I would have told my new acquaintance to keep his wrists out of the swing by simply swinging back with his chest and shoulders along the target line and letting the “wrist-cock” happen naturally at the top of his back swing.  His challenge was too many moving parts in his swing, when he cocked his wrists on the back-swing, he could not get back square to the ball on his down-swing.   Study these videos and you will go a long way toward understanding what is happening in your golf swing.

Finally remember that the most important part of the golf swing is the person who shows up at the course that day.

How To Fix A Hook Golf Swing Correct Golf Slice Correct Your

Hit them straight and seldom,

Michael Brown

Are golfers gadget freaks?  You bet!  That is why we carry these huge bags around.  Look inside any one and you will find any number of strange creatures, from plastic wiffle balls that don’t go anywhere when you hit them to straps to tie on to various parts of our anatomy. We’ve got the weighted clubs,  the hinged clubs, the telescopic extention water-ball retrievers, the Alien wedges.  Lost, in the multitude of pockets, you can find ball markers from every course we ever played, with the complimentary golf green repair tool as well.  The ones that we don’t like to use very often, come from that fancy course we played last year and don’t want to loose.

At all the tournaments that we play in we get these sponsorship packages, with the spyglass range finder that does not work.  (But, its got the name of the local bank engraved on the outside of it you know)  We’ve got the latest club-logo clip on our hat ball marker, the new club cleaner wash cloth with the plastic on one side so we can keep it in our back pocket.  And most of all when we travel, we like to get a new tag from the exotic golf club that we played on vacation to dangle off of our bag for the boys when we get home.

If you look in our garages you will find the portable driving mat and capture net.  Don’t even ask about our personal den/home office with the roll out putting green and automatic ball returner.  Don’t even ask about the collection of VHS tapes and later DVD’s on the shelf or the two solid rows of books on the shelves.  After years of frustration at not being able to put the Wilson golf ball on the tee of my sno-globe I gave it away to a collector.  Imagine my frustrated amazement when he deftly flicked it and floated the golf ball onto the tee in one flick of the wrist.  But hey, I play golf for fun and frustration…he just collects things, and I glued my “Hole-in-one ball to the tee on my own homemade plaque.

Are these gadgets and training aids useful and do they work?  You bet, a weighted club will help you to warm up (Be sure to stretch and get loose before you start swinging).   Are there specific areas of your game where you are having a challenge?  When you are a beginning golfer that can be a lot of places, or everywhere, but as you get better you will begin to identify areas that need more work than others. Lets look at a few of the offerings that will help you to improve your game.

Ok Mike you are going off the deep end now!  Hold on a sec and let me explain.  You can be short an horrible off the tee, it may take a while to learn to get distance with your irons, but the place that you can improve the most and in the quickest time is in your short game.   I pointed this out in my short game post; you need to know how far your wedges travel at a certain length of back-swing.  The best way to find out is to go to a practice facility and measure it off and see exactly what that distance really looks like.  If you go out in the spring when your local course first opens up there are days when the course is not crowded at all and you can play by yourself.  Break out the tape when you  get close to the hole and take a few measurements.  Now that you know what 50′ (or 100′) looks like you will know which wedge you can use a full swing or an 11 o’clock swing or a 9 o’clock swing  to get you close to the center of the green.  See the post for more information.  When you get lethal around the green you can keep up with the gorillas who can drive the ball a country mile and tend to use this same prowess around the green when they really need touch and finesse.

If you are just starting out one of the challenges you will face is learning how to make full and correct contact with the ball.   The professionals have teamed with the statistical types and discovered that for every quarter of an inch you  are from hitting the center of the ball with the center of club face you loose about 15 yards in distance.   Ouch! And that is for a direct  hit!  What about when you hit the ball in a glancing way with the club-face at a slight angle to the direction of the swing?  Yep you guessed it, you loose even more potential distance.  That is why from the very first lesson you take a good instructor will tell you to make sure that all the elements of your posture and setup are correct.

Here is the biggest challenge for any golfer.  Total awareness of what all the parts of your body are doing in the approximately 3.5 seconds that it takes to start and complete a golf swing.  As a beginner, it seems like quite an accomplishment to simply complete the swing without falling down let alone to be aware of where your knees, hips and elbows are.  Here is a tool that will help you with a part of that dynamic.

 Are you bending your target side arm during your back-swing?  If you are you, are loosing distance.  Now a good setup will correct part of that problem, and eventually you will learn to keep your target side arm straight while you fold the other arm in toward your chest at the top of the swing.  This simple strap sits just below the elbow and helps you to insure that you are not bending.  Genius! for a piece of velcro and a piece of plastic you will be given an automatic reminder when you do not feel that pressure on your bicep you have bent your arm.  Obviously you cannot play on the course with this (unless you are alone  or your partners agree) but it is a great training aid to remind you to keep your arm straight.

This little golf training aid is called “Golfstr”  it is available from http://www.golfstr.com/

Why is a bent arm such a detriment?  There are 2 things here,  radius and wrist-cock.  When you bend your arm you are shortening the potential length of your swing ever so slightly which reduces the speed of your club-head and increases the chances of topping the ball.  The other element is wrist-cock, it is your wrist that should bend in the upper part of your back-swing.  At the top of the swing you transition into the down-swing; the feeling that you will chase for the rest of your golfing life is learning to feel when your wrists open up for that final snap as the club-head whips through the ball.   This takes just a few milli-seconds so don’t expect to isolate it;  you can see it in slow motion videos as the hands of the pro get to a position of being parallel with the ground on the down-swing the wrists un-cock and the club-head gets an extra boost of speed through the ball for an amazing increase in distance. This ain’t gonna happen with a bent arm back-swing!  (See Tigers Swing)  There is much more that could be said about this part of the swing but that will be the subject of another post later on.

While we are on the subject of straps here is one more for the lower part of the anatomy.  Do you know anybody that sways during his back-swing?  That was only me for the first 15 years that I played golf.  Of course no one ever told me (Hey we gotta be polite and all that you know) so I did not even know I was doing it.  When I finally found out in a lesson, my pro had me turn my right toe in toward my left foot.  When I tried to swing my 7 iron I almost broke my right knee; ouch that hurt.  This is much more humane and guess what?  It will cure the sways in a hurry.  Once again when you learn proper setup procedures and  keep your weight distribution on the inside balls of your feet you will stop swaying.   This strap assembly will give you the ability to feel and to see the difference staying centered over the ball really feels like.  It can be an amazing feeling for someone who has never felt it.  You can find The Power Leg Strap at: The Purepoint Golf Site

Technorati Tags: Golf Training Aids, Golfstr, Power Leg Strap

you think you can’t, you’re right.

The statement above is attributed to wise old Henry Ford who built one of the most successful companies in America that is still going strong today.  He may have had other things in mind when he made the statement, but it certainly applies 100% to the game of golf.

Today we are going to discuss attitude. Do you play regularly on one single course? Are you familiar with this course enough to be able to play it mentally even away from the golf course. Have you heard the story about the pilot who was shot down in the Vietnam conflict, and wound up in prison for the next 3 years?

Every day of his capture he would play a round of golf in his mind. When he was released and finished with all the debriefing he went to that course and played his first round in 3 years of “no golf.” He shot a 76!

Prior to leaving for Vietnam his best round had been 85. How could that happen? After three years of torture and sleep deprivation, anguish about surviving another day with not much hope of even being released, he returns to his golf course and performs a near perfect round of golf.

(For the record, Snopes.com says that this story is an urban myth. Though it has been repeated often from some fairly reputable sources including Zig Ziglar, and Dr. Denis Waitley which is where I originally heard it.)

While it may indeed be an urban myth, the concept is not. You can use your imagination and visualization techniques to vastly improve your golf game. Lets go back and look at your home golf course as an example.

“Attitude is Everything”

Golf tee box, ScoundrelScramble2009-1050933—rioncm (Flickr.com)

There are times when you arrive at a certain tee box on your course and you may remember that the last few times you were here that you may have performed poorly on the tee shot or approach or whatever. Over time this can lead to developing an attitude about this hole. “It always gives me fits,” or “Every time that I play this hole I,___fill in the blank_____.” “When I compete with my buddies and I double bogie my first 2 holes, the game is finished.”  “I will never catch up.”  You know that these attitudes are game killers, but you are not quite sure how to correct them.

Lets examine those statements a bit. Notice that they have a universal finality, the words “always” , “every” and “never” are called universals in logic. These words are also making statements about your behavior that are not necessarily true. You really don’t “know” always and every, you “know” that in the past you have had that experience.

However, you do not “know” that this is true of your future performance. So, the first step is to watch your self talk and catch yourself when you are tempted with an “I’m always” thought. It simply is not true on the golf course or even of life in general.

Speaking of self talk, this should be a part of your set up routine. You have probably played your home course often enough to have accomplished a great shot on any given hole. Remember when you chipped in for a fantastic birdie? Remember when you sank that 60’ putt or that drive down the middle that left you with the perfect approach on the dog-leg? (the shot that you accomplished that was absolutely a thing of beauty) This is the kind of victorious thinking that you want to have on every shot that you take.  Part of your setup routine as you stand behind the ball looking down the fairway should be a knowing attitude that you have done it before and can do it again.

Your Mental Game is the Key!

In a word it could best be described as a visualization which leads to an attitude of “I can”. The power of visualization is certainly a strong factor in everything that you learn to do. When you think about it you have already been through this process many times before.

We move through 4 stages of learning from unconsciously incompetent to conscious incompetence, to conscious competence and finally unconscious competence.  Put another way, when you are totally new to a subject you don’t even know that you don’t know, but when you get it completely learned you can execute without thinking like tying your shoe.

Think back to when you learned how to ride a bike or drive a car, the first few times you performed it was scary for you and for others watching. Eventually you got to the point where you did what you needed to accomplish without even thinking at all.

With visualization you can spend some time off the course playing the hole in your mind and seeing yourself make those perfect shots. The professionals are taught in “Q” school to “see” any shot from 120 yards as being a “make-able” shot. Your chances of making a putt are significantly better when you “see” the putt going into the hole. When you know that you can make any given shot on a golf course then it becomes a matter of attitude. You approach every shot with the confidence that since you have done it before there is no reason why it will not happen again, right here and right now.

“Relax and Visualize”

Golf is touted as a non-contact sport. It is one of the few sports that can and often is performed with only yourself playing against the challenges of the course itself. Then you add in the challenges presented by the fact that you are playing with presence of others. You are adding a competition element that can sometimes get the best of you.

Beginning golfers or even professionals have encountered challenges in their own minds that come from the presence of an audience. It is amazing to watch sometimes as some uncouth heckler yells some unkind words at a professional during a tournament. The “Pro” ignores the remark and executes a perfect shot anyway.

Sometimes however, we let that uncouth spectator be ourselves and yell in our own minds. In a word, “Don’t” There is no substitute for practice, you need to know that you can execute. You discover that on the practice facility first. You need to know how far your irons and woods travel. You need to own some wedge shots with a half swing or quarter swing that you know you can repeat.

As you develop a successful “golf shot ownership” you will know that you can execute. When you know that you “can” then all that is left is that you “do.” You need to concentrate on your knowledge of past successes. Meaning “success” is your dominant thought when it becomes your turn; don’t self sabotage by thinking of past failures.

Thanks for taking the time to read. If you liked this, be sure to sign up for my 10 part course on  golf mental habits that you can develop to improve your game.

Until next time, hit them straight and seldom.

Michael Brown

Technorati Tags: golf attitude, golf mental game, Mental Golf Game, visualization in golf

For most of us weekend warriors, golfing is more about relaxing and having a nice time on the golf course. Having the ability to shape your golf shot to draw or fade (not slice or hook) at will can add immensely to that enjoyment. After we have succeeded in learning to hit the ball straight at the target, the next important thing is to learn how get around the occasional tree or obstacle in the way.

The fade and draw are important to know even when there are no obstacles in our path. More often we will encounter situations where the ball is above or below our feet. The simple act of trying to hit the ball straight at the target is then complicated by the hill-side lie. So learning to compensate for the conditions you naturally find on most golf courses will go a ways in training you to hit these shots

For instance the draw is a shot that you want to curve to the left (if you are a right handed golfer). When you find yourself on a hill side with the ball below your feet you will be forced to set up to the ball in a way that will slightly emulate the same stance you would use for a draw if you were hitting off of a level lie. This is just so you can produce a straight shot.

Why?

Because you will automatically draw the ball to the left if you adopt your normal stance without compensating for the hill side. Here is what I mean, the ball below your feet will have you bending over more and your swing will be more around yourself than normal. If you address the ball with your shoulders pointing directly at the target your shot will wind up left of the target, because your club-face is closing more quickly with this type of “around” swing. Instead, set up to the ball with your club-face aimed slightly right of the target(don’t change that club-face alignment), move your right foot (non-target foot) back about 2″ depending on the severity of the hill, aim your shoulders in the direction established by your feet and then make your swing. Here is what should happen: your body alignment will have you making a more inside to outside swing, your club-face will be closed with respect to your body, the ball should start out heading to the right and then curve back to the left.

You would think that the opposite should be true for the different lie of the ball above your feet. However, the dynamics are the same, in both cases you are swinging around your body more than you would be for a level lie. In the case of the ball below your feet you bend more at the waist/knees and stand closer to the ball, with the up-hill lie you are standing more upright waist and knees (TO KEEP YOUR BALANCE) and also swing more around your body. The correction is also the same. Drop your right foot back a few inches and swing inside to out with a shoulder/body alignment pointing to the right of the target. Having grown up playing mountain courses with un-level fairways I have proven this to myself on numerous occasions. On too many of those occasions I found myself way left of my intended target until I learned to correct for the hill-side.

The next time you go to the driving range try to find an un-level lie situation and try this out for yourself. You may need to watch the video more than once to understand the technique, but these shots are a great thing to be able to pull out of your bag for certain situations. Comments are most welcome, let me know what you think.

Technorati Tags: Curved Golf Shot, Draw Golf Shot, Draw or Fade, Fade Golf Shot

The introductory video that I watched had an interesting feature to it that I had never seen or heard about.  Tracy gives a thorough explanation of  the value of balance in the golf swing and what he says makes a tremendous amount of sense.   Before I heard Tracy’s ideas my standard approach to the golf swing was a rushed address and a hasty swing which was rarely a deliberate setup  with an “in balance” stance.

After viewing this small piece of information I went out to the course to give it a try.  As someone who rarely broke 90, my swing was inconsistent, my setup routine was non-existent and my drives and fairway irons rarely went as far as they should have.  The balance aspect was the root cause of most of my problems.  In a word, I was “SWAYING.”

I would move over onto my right side in my back-swing, usually too far.  Then struggle on the downswing to get back to center to hit the ball, much less have any sort of weight transfer to my left foot for a proper finish. On top of that my timing was poor and my wrist cock was expended before the club had even passed 9 oclock on the downswing.

Tracy’s simple counsel was to start with a balanced stance, that you settle into so that you truly feel balanced.  Then tilt your upper body slightly toward your right or non target side.  In other words instead of moving there in your back-swing you start out there.   This puts you in a position to take an efficient back-swing without moving your weight outside of your back foot enabling you to focus on transferring your weight onto your front side.

There is no magic or hocus/pocus here, when you start your swing in balance and stay within the parameters of the balls of your feet the weight transfer occurs naturally. The consequence is that you are able to deliver maximum power to the ball.  The results are immediate, your swing improves immensely.  The timing takes place naturally and your body co-operates by spending  it’s energy swinging through the golf ball instead of trying to regain your lost balance.

If you add to this a good setup routine in which you insure a correct grip, insure that correct muscles are engaged (every time you address the ball) and a short mental/visual check-list (where do you plan to land).  You will have given your self a chance at curing the most common complaint that golfers have.  Which is: Golf Consistency!

That is what I discovered.  Those two simple video’s on Tracy’s site showed me how to setup in balance, how to swing in balance and finish with my weight transferred to my target side foot.  The swing became repeatable because the steps to get into balance were repeated every time and this made the results predictable.  I did not have to change my grip, or change my swing or add anything new.  I simply learned how to setup in balance and stay there through-out the swing.

Tracy  spent 20 years developing and refining his technique to come out with Golf Swing Control .  The issue of staying in balance is the beginning of building a consistent golf game, once that is mastered the game becomes much more exciting as you can now focus on mastering the ability to draw or fade the ball at will.  When you have learned to craft your shots you can then move on to learning how to control your golf focus to get even more consistency into your golf game.

You can opt in to see the two video’s that I mentioned at http://ultimategolfsystem.com I won’t make any outrageous claims as to decreased strokes for your game, for each golfer it will be different.  I can tell you however,  that  having a predictable golf swing is priceless.

Technorati Tags: consistent golf game, Golf Consistency, Golf Swing Control, Tracy Reed

Getting up and down from the sand does not have to cause any jitters for you if you know what to do. I have only heard stories of famous sand-traps on some golf courses which give even the professionals trouble. The 17th hole of St. Andrews comes to mind, Hells Bunker looks pretty scary. Certainly, when you are confronted with a ten foot wall the prospect of making your shot go straight up will be intimidating.

Lets take a look at some strategies for getting out. There are two strategies for dealing with bunkers. With a fairway bunker the obvious choice is to get out of the bunker with maximum travel for your ball. In most cases the lip of a fairway bunker is a bit lower than a hole-side bunker. So you will want to take a club that will clear the lip of the bunker and still give you the most distance. On occasion your ball may alight in a place where it is not possible to do much more than get out and sometimes that even mean by going backward. I can hear you you saying, now you have lost me “why would you want to go backward?”

Consider, your ball sits in the sand right next to the 3′ lip, if you try to advance the ball it will hit the lip and remain in the bunker. In this case the best strategy would be to go sideways or even backwards to lose one stroke getting out and being favorably set up for your following shot. The fellow in the video below obviously missed this part of the lesson as he takes 10 strokes before he decides that backwards is a better course of action.

So, take enough club loft to clear the edge of the bunker. Next for the fairway bunker you want to pick the ball as cleanly off the sand as you can. To insure the best chance for that to occur you should line up to the ball with the ball slightly behind the middle of your stance. This will insure that your club comes into contact with the ball before it hits the sand. As long as you hit the ball before the sand you will get most of the distance (I would venture at least 80%) for whatever club you are using. I have used as much as a 3 Wood to hit from the sand with reasonable results.

For the fairway trap that is the only thing that will change as far as alignment. Your shoulders, hips and knees should remain on the target line with just the adjustment of ball positioning being the only change you would make.

The green-side bunker is a different animal entirely. Here you are faced with number of decisions. Club selection may vary depending on how close or how far you are from the hole. You could go from using a 64° lob wedge for something nearly up and down to a 9 iron if you are 75 yards away from the pin.  For the green-side bunker your body alignment will change to an open stance. By body alignment I mean the knees and the hips, your shoulders should always be pointed to the left of the pin or your target.  The reason for the open alignment is to insure that the club will swing through the sand and the ball and not be inhibited or blocked by your body.

Two things real quickly.  Number one is attitude; if you landed in the sand next to the green you are close and your next shot could be “in” so remember, “Sand is my friend” is a good saying to have.  Secondly the technique and swing is always the same for a green-side bunker shot, to get more distance for your shot you may change clubs to decrease the loft and increase the distance.  Finally, a well struck sand shot will have a lot of back-spin and tend to stop unless you are above the hole so it is usually safe to aim for the shot to go straight for the pin.

Now here is the important thing to remember sand shots are always full swing shots.  The fact that you are close to the hole makes no difference in the size or fullness of your swing.  Your distance is controlled by the loft of the club and the openness of the face.  If I need the ball to travel three yards laterally I would use a very open faced 60° lob wedge.  On the  other hand  if I needed 40 yards of carry I might use a 48° pitching wedge with a square facing alignment.  In both cases I would take a full swing into the sand expecting to hit behind the ball by an inch or two at the most and accelerate through the ball knowing that the ball was coming out with a cushion of sand to slow it down and land it softly.

How do I know that I will hit behind the ball?  For every golf shot you take  the bottom of the arc of the swing will be in the middle right? That is when the leading edge of the club is at it’s deepest point.  Knowing this, I simply line up with the ball in the center of my stance, the butt end of the club will be pointed directly at my belly button.  I know that at this point the clubhead will be burried in the sand during my downswing.  Next I want to open up my body so I don’t block the swing and to do that I simply move my target side foot back about 6″, this opens my lower body and I keep my shoulders aimed at the target.  This is the set up that I use on every sand shot, when I want to reduce the distance of lateral travel I open the face of the club as well.  I would do this for a very close shot.

A few trips to your local range will give you an opportunity to try this out.  Here is what you want to find out.  How far does the ball travel with my lob60°, sand56° and pitching48° with a square face alignment.  Next by degrees open up the face of your club you want to know how open your clubface needs to be to take the shortest (Laterally)possible shot.  In 45 minutes at the practice facility you can own 3 full swings for 3 different clubs that will give you a range of distances from 60 yards on in.

I hope this helps you to feel comfortable with the sand.  By practicing to own a swing you can repeat it any time any where with a good degree of confidence that you will be close to the pin every time.  The ball in the center setup eliminates the fear of “flyer’s” when you know the club will be beneath the ball for every shot that you take.

Agree? Disagree?  Hit the comments below and we will talk, thanks.

Hit them straight and seldom,

Michael Brown

Technorati Tags: full swing, sand shot, sand-traps, sandtraps

garmin-approach-s1-gps-golf-watch

Garmin has finally seen the light with this wrist watch. The Garmin Approach S1 GPS Golf Watch gives you all the essential information you need to make the correct club selection without the hassle of fumbling for a separate device.

Why?

Because the device is attached to you in the form of a wrist watch. What a great idea. Glance down at your wrist period, no fumbling through your golf bag for the laser finder, no running back to the cart to check the GPS (If the course has one).

Duh, where have I been? I love to play golf and it is a lot of fun to play new courses. It is especially enjoyable when the new (for you) course you are playing has GPS in their carts so you will have some clue about distances. Over the years I have played around with many different range finding devices, from the simple $10 telescope with a line on the top of the inner glass to a fancy program for my palm pilot.  I discovered with the palm  that I needed my reading glasses to make use of the program. This became so much of a distraction that I stopped carrying it after the third round.

I never had the urge to buy the laser binoculars as one of the guys in my normal foursome already has a pair.   I find it interesting to watch as I am standing next to a marked sprinkler head and watch as my partner struggles to hold the binoculars steady to get a reading and then tells me a couple of yards more than the head indicates. The bottom line is that all you need is a fair approximation of the distances.  Assuming you have done your work on the range and know the distances that each of your clubs will carry then you will know which club to choose.

The Garmin Approach S1 GPS Golf Watch has three modes besides telling you the time.  It will keep track of the total distance (odometer) that you have walked on the entire course.  It will track the distance of your individual shots,  so you can set it after you take your shot, walk to your ball and get the distance.  Finally, it will give you a distance to the pin so you can make the best choice of an approach club.  For your local course you probably already know that, but for an unfamiliar course this can be highly useful.  (My first round on an unfamiliar course usually adds 4-6  strokes due to miscalculations)

If you are looking for a full-blown GPS lay-out with maps to the hazards, you will probably not like this device.  It does not yield this kind of information. But if simple distance and convenience is important then this is the best choice I have seen.  No more digging in your bag for the glasses or laser finder, no trips the cart to check the map (especially on a “cart path only” course).  It comes with 14,000 courses pre-loaded, with more being added, so your course is probably already there.  Plus you will not have any software subscriptions or extra fiddling.  The only serious complaint that I have heard is the charge time, apparently it is only good for a single round before it needs to be recharged.  (36 hole days are rare for me so this will not be a problem).

You can see the approach watch at the In The Hole Golf

Simply scroll to find your pre-loaded course.

 You can see the entire line of GPS range finders on this page.

Technorati Tags: Garmin Approach S1 GPS Golf Watch, golf range finder, GPS for golf

Online golf lessons are becoming increasingly more prevalent. In just a few short years you are now able to go to the internet and search on Youtube for almost any aspect of your golf game. You will find after a bit of searching a little snippet of video that will begin to address some of your concerns.   I say begin, because 2 minutes is hardly enough to satisfy you when you have just spent 4 hours  of misery on the golf course trying to figure out what went wrong with your swing.

When you take lessons from a professional you typically show up in your golf attire with your bag in tow.  He comes out and begins to speak, he will then demonstrate his desired result and then turn it over to you to attempt to duplicate. Since this is a hands on training, you will probably not whip out your notepad to take notes.

You may or may not be able to copy his swing pattern and accomplish the required motion.  Forty-five minutes later the lesson is finished and you are “fixed” with new technique.  For this you paid at least $50 if the professional is worth his salt.  I know, you bought the package for $300 and you get a two day intensive or a 10 lesson series.  Rarely do they send you home with the “Cliff notes” that you can refer to when you are having challenges later on.

What do you do two months later when the exact motions begin to fade and you have reverted to your old patterns?

Today you are able to purchase DVD’s that will address the specific areas of golf that  challenge you.  Not only are you able to own a DVD with the lesson but several of the available coaches also offer forums and live webinars that enable you to ask questions directly.

Bobby Eldrige and Purepoint golf offer both of these things.  You are able to select from a series of online golf lessons that deal with several different aspects of the game. Whether it is the driver, the long irons or closer to the pin with your wedges, there is a training DVD available to address that specific area of your game.  The sweet thing about owning the DVD is the ability to go back and review a year or two later if any problems crop up.  Not only that the DVD’s are often priced at less than the cost of a single lesson.

You may want to simply brush up on your skills or find some warm up exercises.  The Apprentice club may be just what you are looking for.  For $1 you can sample a month’s worth of the great training tips, short training videos (downloadable) with a private forum and monthly training webinars.  A major key to improving your game is knowing your statistics, the “apprentice club” gives you a series of tools to track your game and chart your improvement as the weeks go by.

Each month there is a different focus, from putting to the driver, all aspects are covered over the course of a year. This is a great investment, for $14.97 a month you will receive a complete golfing education.  Online golf lessons on demand for your total golf game, you can tune in on your own schedule and work on any aspect you need to focus on.  If you are serious about improving your game it deserves a look; it worked for me.  The Apprentice Club

Technorati Tags: online golf lessons