Golf Instruction
Master the most difficult shots and learn long drive secrets with our golf instruction articles. Our online golf lessons will help you transform your game.
Friday, March 2, 2007 Anchor Your Right Foot One key to hitting more powerful golf shots is keeping your body behind the ball before impact. A premature lifting of the right foot during the downswing causes golfers to shift too much of their weight to the left side, resulting in a loss of power and distance. |
Friday, March 2, 2007 Get Happy As an instructor, one of the most common swing flaws I see is the dreaded reverse pivot. This move wreaks havoc on any golfer’s ability to hit consistently good golf shots. One of the best ways to overcome the reverse pivot is to try a drill designed to make it impossible to hold your weight back on your downswing. I call it the baseball drill, or the “Happy Gilmore,” named after the title character in the film who steps into the golf ball the way a field goal kicker lunges toward the ball. |
Friday, March 2, 2007 High Hopes You’ll discover the need to hit over an obstacle—tree, fence, even a scoreboard—during the course of an everyday round. And while amateurs fear the shot, pros know that only a few setup adjustments can fuel success. |
Thursday, March 1, 2007 Accelerate The Putter Acceleration is the increasing speed at which the clubhead moves through the ball and is important not only for hitting shots of substantial distance, but also for short putts. In fact, if you find that you’re missing too many short putts, the cause may be failure to accelerate the putterhead. Here’s a drill that will help. |
Thursday, March 1, 2007 Triple Overlap One of the most common causes of bad pitches and chips is the dominant
hand (right for righties) taking over the swing. The result is
typically scooped or thin contact that produces fat or sculled shots.
To alleviate this tendency, learn to make your hands work together by
experimenting with the triple-overlap grip. This technique effectively
takes the dominant hand out of the swing, and promotes a descending
blow, which is absolutely critical to creating crisp contact and
consistent results. |
Thursday, March 1, 2007 Turn Three Shots Into TwoUse these simple chips to become a scoring machine Whether your skills are strictly amateur or allow you to keep pace with any single-digit handicapper, you’ll never reach your true potential as a golfer unless you learn one of the game’s great tricks: turning three shots into two around the greens. In other words, you must find a way to become a scorer. Scoring is what separates the better players you know from everybody else. Taken to a higher analogy, it’s what separates the likes of Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Vijay Singh from the rest of the players on the PGA Tour. |
Thursday, March 1, 2007 Alternate DrivingWhen your driving goes south -- or when situations call for something other than the big dog -- ?don't forget your options The well-worn cliché “drive for show, putt for dough” is familiar to
most golfers, but heeded by few. Hitting big drives is, in fact, often
the most desirable accomplishment in the game for many recreational
players, most of whom are less concerned with score than the bragging
rights that accompany a long drive. Players who are interested in
shooting good scores, however, know that accurate driving, or
strategically positioning the ball off the tee, is a critical part of
playing solid golf, and sometimes mandates the use of different clubs. |
Thursday, March 1, 2007 Myth BustersMany popular swing tips and equipment theories are just plain wrong If you practice your backswing at a gas pump while talking on your cell
phone, the station will explode. It’s myths like this—though hardly as
ludicrous—that can send golfers who need the right answers into a
tailspin. The trouble with myths is that most sound reasonable, and
usually are passed from one golfer to the next with only good
intentions. Nevertheless, the common tip shared across grill room
tables and on tee boxes nationwide tends to do more harm than good if
only because the true reasoning behind the suggestion is misunderstood.
Let’s clear the air, shall we? |
Thursday, March 1, 2007 Ten-Minute Swing ChangesQuick Fixes To Save You From Suffering A Bad Day On The Course The situation: You’re on the range hitting balls, extremely off line
and not very solid, with only 10 minutes remaining before your assigned
tee time. The remedy: W.O.O.D.—quick adjustments that Work Only One
Day, otherwise known as the “quick fix.” These “Band-Aids” are a
necessary part of the game and come in handy when you don’t have time
to seek out a long-term correction from your teaching pro. The key is
knowing what needs adjusting. If you choose the wrong adjustment,
things could get worse.
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Wednesday, February 28, 2007 Is Your Swing Out Of Date?In with the new. The swings of today?s top young golfers are vastly more efficient than those used by yesterday's heroes, which begs the question The trophy cases of the likes of Nicklaus, Irwin, Miller, Stewart and
Trevino are full of championship hardware, but all had swings that
would now be considered old-fashioned. Yesterday’s players used a
significant amount of lateral lower-body movement, which placed a lot
of undue stress on the neck, hips and back. The great young players of
today strive for a more stacked position at impact, which is both more
efficient and much healthier for the body. |
Sunday, February 18, 2007 Sweet Spot: Retief Goosen Currently ranked fifth in the world, Retief Goosen is an elite-level player who has two U.S. Open titles on his resume and the potential to win several more. Known for long, accurate driving and clutch putting, Goosen’s swing is somewhat idiosyncratic, filled with compensating moves that make it less than ideal by modern standards. |
