Category: Playing Tips

Gripping the club in the fingers – not the palm – frees up tension in the hands, wrists, arms, and shoulders. It allows for a smoother motion and a faster uncocking of the wrists, adding power and accuracy. Sam Snead once said that you should grip the club as if it was a baby bird: tight enough to keep the bird safe, but light enough that you don’t crush it. Keep the club light and in your fingers for better shots.

Practice fades and draws on the range. If your normal shot is a draw, experiment until you find the smallest possible change that provides a fade. Note the difference in distances (fades tend to go higher and a bit shorter) and how different clubs react to the same swing (the longer clubs tend to impart more sidespin than the shorter ones). Practice punched three-quarter and half 3I slices and some huge bending 7I hooks. You never know when you’ll need a slight fade to a back-right pin position or a huge hook to get you out of trouble.

Many players hit thin lobs and pitches when they try to help the ball into the air. Your pitching wedge has about 50° of loft, and your lob wedge around 60°. Believe us, they’ll hit the ball in the air. Swinging down and through the ball and the ball will pop up with some spin. Trust the loft on your clubs and stop thinning the ball over the back of the green.

Too many golfers believe that raw power = distance from the tee. If the power is misdirected, then you may as well spend the energy forking over cash to your buddies at the end of the round. Rhythm promotes balance, and balance promotes clean ballstriking. Nick Price and Tom Watson may have a fast tempo, but they’ve maintained the same rhythm for 30 years. You get a lot more power making solid contact with the ball at the right moment in your swing than you do lashing wildly at the infuriating little white ball.

On tight holes, get the ball into the fairway. Let’s pretend that hole #4 at your club is a 450 yard hole with water right and OB left. You could hit driver or 3W, but if you hit into trouble even 50% of the time you may be better off playing 5I, 5I, PW and leaving yourself two putts for bogey – a far better average than triple, bogey, par, triple, quadruple, bogey, double. Get the ball in the fairway off the tee, and keep the ball there to score well on psych-out holes.

Setup is vital when faced with a pitch shot. The clubface and your body should be set up slightly open. Play the ball in the middle of your stance and put your weight on your front side (left side for righties). The pitch is a mini-swing as far as hand and shoulder action goes, but keep your lower body quiet and your weight forward. Quiet, it should be noted, does not mean “absolutely still.”

Many amateurs take too much sand from greenside bunkers, shoving their sand wedge deep into the sand. A fat sand shot, they’ve no doubt learned, is better than thinning it 40 yards over the green. The problem is not typically a matter of tactic (who has trouble hitting a shot fat on purpose?), but of setup.

The key to using the bounce that God (or Titleist, Cleveland, Ping, etc.) gave you is setting up left of the hole (for righties), aiming the clubface at the hole or slightly right, and then taking your grip. Opening the face of the club increases the bounce on your wedge. You can still slam the club down into the sand pretty hard, but with the increased bounce, it should exit the sand a little easier.

One of the things drilled into us in a series of swing classes I took over the past year is having a consistent pre-shot routine. Whether it be a cartwheel, two claps, address the ball and swing or stand behind the ball, hike up your pants, take your stance, waggle 40 times then swing, it should be the same every time. After a while, you stop worrying about things like standing too far away from the ball, position of the ball in your stance, etc. Those things will come naturally with a good pre-shot routine. Need a good example? Watch Mike Weir. That little pre-swing swing isn’t for his health.

Arrive at the course early. Stretch. Hit some putts, and then some chips. Move to the driving range and hit some soft pitch shots, progressing into full swings. Finish with your driver and/or the club you plan to use on the first tee. Move back to the putting green, stretch, and practice your putting a little more. It’ll relax you for your first tee shot anyway.

But warm up properly. It’ll save you five strokes a round… probably on the first three holes.