Don’t look for the ball to fall into the cup, listen for it!
When putting, listen for the putt to drop. This will help you keep steady and prevent you from looking up too quickly, which often results in a push. Listen for the putt to drop instead of looking for it, and you’ll probably hear the sound more frequently!
An online yardage calculator… that’s useless.
This is just about the lamest thing I’ve ever seen: a yardage calculator.
Today’s tip of the day is a simple one: take enough club. Most trouble is at the front of a great. Very rarely are there bunkers and water behind the green. 90% of the time, amateurs come up short. Often, perfect ball-club contact would result in the proper shot, but 90% of the time perfect club-ball contact is not made. Choose the club that’s most likely to get you to the hole, imperfect contact and all. If that’s a 7I from 150 instead of a 9I, hit it. The confidence you’ll have in the club will do more for you than swinging harder at a weaker club.
Of course, this is an affront to our masculinity, is it not? We all want to hit 9Is from 150, right? It’s great to say to our partner “I’ll just hit an easy 9I” from 150 yards. But unless your playing partners are watching you very carefully, saying you hit an easy 9I is completely independent of the soft 7I you just hit. Besides, there’s a rule against giving advice. 🙂
To summarize today’s tip: you’re a bigger man 10 feet from the hole with a stronger club than the guy who hits it into the front bunker with a weaker club.
The physics of ball flight are simple: your slice may not be a matter of swing path, but an open clubface.
A lot of people worry and wonder about their slices (or hooks). It’s very easy to get caught up into thinking that your slice is caused by one particular thing, such as an over the top move.
Guess what? You can buy the Inside Approach swing aid, come down the line or even slightly from the inside, and still hit a big honkin’ slice. How? Your clubface is open, stupid.
The physics of hitting a golf ball are relatively simple. If the angle of approach is not perpendicular to the angle of the clubface throughout impact, your ball will curve in the direction of the clubface. Slicers who come over the top and square the clubface hit a slice. If their clubface is square to their swingpath, they pull the ball. If their clubface is somewhere in between, the ball starts to the left and fades back to center.
Changing the angle of the clubface at impact is often a far easier solution than changing your swing to accommodate a new path of attack. Have an observer stand behind you and tell you exactly where the ball starts out off the clubface. If it’s dramatically right of your swing path, your clubface is open.
It’s simple physics.
