Category: Playing Tips

You’ve got a 20-yard pitch to a tight pin over a little bunker. You reach for your lob wedge, give it a good swing, and advance the ball 10 yards into the bunker.

Why?

Because you were pitching from an upslope, which added loft to your 60° club, launching the ball nearly straight up in the air. From an upslope, a PW, 9I, or even an 8I might have the same effective loft – 60° or so – as a lob wedge.

The opposite is true on downlopes, of course: your pitching wedge may have the loft of a 7I. Take a loftier club to counter the negative effect of the slope.

If you’re looking to improve your hand-eye coordination, spend $24.99 on 15,000 green plastic BBs and a few bucks on a wooden broom handle. Visit a nearby field, toss the BBs up in the air one at a time, and hit them with the broomstick. A baseball swing is fine – but you’ll probably want to start with very short swings until you can make contact reliably.

Of course, there are other ways to increase your hand-eye coordination. Bounce a golf ball off your clubface. Then try bouncing it off your grip. Got an old club? Try to hit golf balls with the grip end. Invent other games, such as playing darts with your golf swing – just throw the dart underhanded. A quick word of warning here, though: you may want to clear the room until you can get reasonably close to the dart board every time.

These tip come from a Chuck “The Hit Man” Hiter segment I just watched on The Golf Channel.

Golfers rely on their equipment, and in no other sport is precision as important as in golf. An eight of an inch here or a quarter of an inch there, and you’re hitting three from the tee.

Why then do so many golfers neglect these three areas:

• Grip
• Glove
• Spikes

These three things affect your grip and grasp of the club and the ground. If your grip is worn down, you won’t have a solid grasp of the club. The same holds true of gloves – and I’ve seen some ratty looking gloves. Worn down cleats? You can’t get a firm grasp of the only stationary object in the golf swing: the earth.

Check your grip, your gloves, and your spikes for wear. Replacing any of them is fairly inexpensive, and well worth the cost. You’ll see – and feel – the results immediately.

Especially worthy for beginners, but helpful for review by those that play often, the etiquette of golf is an important topic. The last day of a six week “Golf 1” course I took at my local course a while back involved going on the course for the first time as a class. Before that, however, we all sat down and were shown a short golf etiquette film. Admittedly, a lot of what was shown was common sense, but worthwhile none the less. A great primer of golf etiquette is here. Do yourself and others a favor and take a refresher course.

Golfers who get elaborate in their swings usually aren’t consistent. The true golf swing is a very simple affair when you’re playing well: you swing the club back, you swing the club through, and the ball goes where you’d like.

People often worry about their weight shift. A weight shift gets complex when the head starts moving about – that’s more of a slide than a shift, and it causes consistency problems.

The next time you’re on the range, try to keep your head absolutely still. I like to imagine a giant rod going down the back of my head, through my spine, and into the ground. I turn around this giant rod – my left shoulder working under, my right shoulder working around the top. I have no choice but to maintain both my spine angle and position through impact!

In reality, the best pros move their heads and their spines a little, but far more than the average amateur golfer thinks is necessary. Stick a giant rod through your spine next time and see how your consistency improves.

The Rules of Golf allow you to carry up to fourteen clubs. There’s no law that says the clubs must be comprised of a 1, 3, and 5-wood, 3I-SW, and a putter. First of all, that’s only thirteen clubs. Second of all: choose a set that best fits you!

In choosing a set, you want to consider a few things. First, you need a putter. You’re down to 13 clubs. Are you good? Consider going with four wedges. Just starting out? Consider going with the stock two or three. Not very strong off the tee? Why carry a driver or a 3I?

Consider alternative clubs. If you have trouble hitting a 3I, or want a club with more loft, look into one of the utility clubs now available. With players like Vijay Singh carrying high-lofted “woods” these days, that 9-wood in your bag can’t even take down your macho level!

We could get into much more depth than this (and we may in coming days), but today’s tip is simple: take a look at your set makeup and see where you might make some changes.

Today’s tip will be a short one on grip pressure. Here it is: experiment!

One tour player found that to hit a fade, he merely had to grip the club tighter in the pinkie and ring finger of his left hand. Another found that the looser his right hand held on to the club, the more solidly he struck the ball. Your grip pressure should never be so tight that the pressure or tension goes into your arms and shoulders – but you will want to grip the club firmly enough to counter nearly 100 pounds of force, too.

The pros hit the ball unbelievably low. They “cover” the ball with their chest (and clubface) through impact. They do this by keeping the left arm against the body and moving their chest through impact: the arms “tag along” and the wrists snap at impact, resulting in a “pinch” and a low, boring trajectory with a lot of spin.

We’ve all seen Vijay Singh hitting balls with a glove tucked into his left armpit. He does this to help him keep his arm “attached” to his body. If his left arm moves away from his body, the glove falls out. Chris DiMarco, as part of his pre-shot routine, folds his sleeve into his left armpit to force the same swing thought (his is course legal; Vijay’s is not).

If you’re having trouble keeping that arm attached, try sticking a glove in your left armpit – and keeping it there – throughout the swing.

Good putters share two consistent factors in their strokes: their hands are slightly ahead of the ball at impact and they employ little or no wrist action. Bad putters tend to break, cup, or bow their wrists through the stroke, resulting in bad direction and distance.

To eliminate wrist action, find two common objects: a wristwatch and a 12-inch ruler. Put your watch on your leading wrist (the one closest to the hole). Slide the ruler through the watch band on the outside of your forearm. Take your putting stance and keep the ruler in place so that the back of your hand, wrist, and forearm stay connected to the ruler.

This drill helps to develop firm wrists, leading hands, a solid triangle (arms and shoulders) throughout the stroke, and a square clubface at impact. Use a ruler when you practice your putting and soon your opponents will be bowing down before you, King of the Carpet, Ruler of the Rug.