What is the scoring shot in golf? Many recreational golfers would say driving, or putting. The pros advise us that we should become good chippers. But for the pros themselves, the shot that makes the difference is the iron into the green. They win more tournaments by putting for birdies than by chipping for pars. Here are three ways to make your irons your scoring shot, too.
1. Make good contact. That means ball first, ground second. The divot mark should start in front of the ball, not underneath it, and definitely not behind it. Here's one way to train yourself to do that. Put a tee in the ground, lined up with the leading edge of the ball, but far enough away so you can hit the ball without hitting the tee.
When you hit the ball with, say, a 7-iron, the start of the divot mark should be in front of the tee. If the divot mark starts behind the tee, that is a sign of swing errors, to numerous to mention here, that contribute to hitting the ball off line. Get this part right, and your shots will straighten out. [Note: you can only do this drill on a grassy area, not on mats.]
2. Build your iron swing around your wedge swing. The wedge swing is compact and precise. It's the swing with which your tempo and rhythm are the best, and where you're thinking only about hitting the ball straight, not far.
Hit three balls with your pitching wedge, using a full swing. Then hit one ball with an iron, copying the unforced feeling of your wedge swing. This will teach you to associate an easy, smooth swing with your irons, and that is how you hit them straighter.
3. Work on your setup. Yes, turn setting up into a drill, starting with the placement of your hands. Grip down so about an inch of the butt end of the shaft sticks out. This will give you more control of the clubhead.
Put the ball in the center of your stance, in this fashion. Stand with your heels together, the ball centered between your feet. Move your left foot to the left, and your right foot to the right by an equal amount, so that your feet are now as far apart as they should be for the shot, and the ball has remained in the center.
Aim yourself at the target. Many golfers hit beautiful shots, but miss to the right because that is exactly where they were aimed. Put a golf club on the ground, pointed at a marker in the distance. Put another club on the ground about two feet away and parallel to the first one.
Take your stance with the club in your hands resting on the shaft of the first club, and your heels resting against the shaft of the second club. Turn your head to look at the marker. Study where it is in your field of vision. On the course, where you cannot use alignment clubs, this picture is what you will rely on to know that you are properly aligned.
Now, practice these three aspects of your setup over an over. Place your hands right, place the ball right, aim yourself right. Then step away and start again. The more times you repeat this drill, the farther you go to making these three things automatic.
Good contact, easy swing, good setup. These are three steps that will have you hitting more greens and putting for more birdies.
At last! A golf instruction book for the 15-handicapper and above. Better Recreational Golf shows you how to play consistently, starting from where you are. Weekend golfers, this is the book you've been looking for. Get started right now by reading this FREE download at www.therecreationalgolfer.com.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Bob_E._Jones
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6260833
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Monday, May 09, 2011
Drive Your Ball Into the Fairway With a Safety Shot
Probably the hardest thing to do in golf, and yet the most important, is to get your drive in the fairway. Recreational golfers have a love-hate relationship with their driver. They can't hit it that well, yet they can't stop pulling it out of the bag. It's time for you to get this most difficult golf club under control, and you do it by thinking of the drive as a safety shot.
In general, a safety shot is one you fall back on when your swing starts acting up and you have no idea where the ball will go. It might be a half-swing with a 7-iron or maybe one of your hybrid irons. It's a shot you rely on to go straight and eat up enough yards that good scores are still possible.
To hit this shot, you slow down your swing, shorten your backswing, and concentrate solely on making clean contact with the ball. That is the way you should hit your driver, too, all the time.
Go to the range with your driver, just like everyone else does, only instead of trying to knock the ball over the boundary fence 300 yards away, try to hit your driver 125 yards, dead straight. As I said before, slow down your pace, shorten the swing, and concentrate on clean contact. Make sure the left hand leads the club through the ball.
After you get the hang of hitting a soft, graceful shot with the Big Dog right to the 125 flag, you're all set. You have figured out what it feels like to swing so that you make centered contact with your driver. From there, all you have to do is speed up your swing enough to get playable distance out of the shot.
Speed it up to the point where the swing feels "polite," that is, you feel no effort at all at any time. You never have the feeling of HIT in your swing. That's your safety shot with the driver. Use it for tight driving holes on par 4s, and on all par 5s.
There will be a few holes on which you need to hit the ball farther than this wing will let you. These are the long par 4s with a wide fairway, where you switch from the Safety Drive to the Bomb It Safely Drive. To make the switch, use a moderately faster version of your safety swing. You're still focusing on square, centered contact.
It's still an effortless swing, grip pressure is light, your backswing is still short, your rhythm is still flawless, but your sense of propriety is gone. Bang the ball. You should be good for another 15-20 yards, and still straight.
Let the pros flail away on the tee. If you swing the driver only so fast as you can make perfect contact, you'll hit the ball straighter than you ever imagined, and hit more fairways than you can count.
At last! A golf instruction book for the 15-handicapper and above. Better Recreational Golf shows you how to play consistently, starting from where you are. Weekend golfers, this is the book you've been looking for. Get started right now by reading this FREE download at www.therecreationalgolfer.com.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Bob_E._Jones
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6248489
In general, a safety shot is one you fall back on when your swing starts acting up and you have no idea where the ball will go. It might be a half-swing with a 7-iron or maybe one of your hybrid irons. It's a shot you rely on to go straight and eat up enough yards that good scores are still possible.
To hit this shot, you slow down your swing, shorten your backswing, and concentrate solely on making clean contact with the ball. That is the way you should hit your driver, too, all the time.
Go to the range with your driver, just like everyone else does, only instead of trying to knock the ball over the boundary fence 300 yards away, try to hit your driver 125 yards, dead straight. As I said before, slow down your pace, shorten the swing, and concentrate on clean contact. Make sure the left hand leads the club through the ball.
After you get the hang of hitting a soft, graceful shot with the Big Dog right to the 125 flag, you're all set. You have figured out what it feels like to swing so that you make centered contact with your driver. From there, all you have to do is speed up your swing enough to get playable distance out of the shot.
Speed it up to the point where the swing feels "polite," that is, you feel no effort at all at any time. You never have the feeling of HIT in your swing. That's your safety shot with the driver. Use it for tight driving holes on par 4s, and on all par 5s.
There will be a few holes on which you need to hit the ball farther than this wing will let you. These are the long par 4s with a wide fairway, where you switch from the Safety Drive to the Bomb It Safely Drive. To make the switch, use a moderately faster version of your safety swing. You're still focusing on square, centered contact.
It's still an effortless swing, grip pressure is light, your backswing is still short, your rhythm is still flawless, but your sense of propriety is gone. Bang the ball. You should be good for another 15-20 yards, and still straight.
Let the pros flail away on the tee. If you swing the driver only so fast as you can make perfect contact, you'll hit the ball straighter than you ever imagined, and hit more fairways than you can count.
At last! A golf instruction book for the 15-handicapper and above. Better Recreational Golf shows you how to play consistently, starting from where you are. Weekend golfers, this is the book you've been looking for. Get started right now by reading this FREE download at www.therecreationalgolfer.com.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Bob_E._Jones
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6248489
Thursday, May 05, 2011
Play a Draw With the Driver
Learning to play a variety of shots in golf is a great advantage. One of the best shots to learn is a draw and a big advantage on any hole is hitting good drive. So if you can play a draw with a drive you have a great advantage.
In this article I am going to describe how to play a draw and why it gives you an advantage.
To play a draw you need to have an inside-out swing and a square club-face through impact. For me one of the easiest clubs to do it with is the driver.
An inside-out golf swing sounds easy enough but so many players struggle to get it right. From my experience this is from trying to hit the ball too hard by swing with the arms. It is far easier to control the swing path if you simply let your body rotate and keep the connection between your arms and torso intact.
Firstly the "how" to play a draw with the driver.
Here are a couple of things that should help:
Place the ball on the inside of your target foot toe - that is the left foot for a right-handed golfer.
Ensure that the club face is square to the target at this point. To do this imagine two parallel lines - one running along your toe line and the other from the ball to the target. Set you club face square to the ball to target line.
Now move your non-target (back) foot two inches back. creating a slightly closed stance but keeping that club-face square to the imaginary line.
Cock your head so that it is behind the ball and not directly over it.
Move your hands back so that the shaft is in line with your spine and your hands are not ahead of the ball as would be the case with your irons. This is to get you to strike the ball on the correct launch angle which, with the driver, is on the up. This slight hand movement should mean you have to drop your non target shoulder slightly. This is perfect.
Start your backswing by turning your target shoulder away from the target concentrating on keeping the connection between your arms and torso the same throughout the swing.
Take the club back along your toe line. Remember that you have moved the non-target foot back slightly so it should be a slight inside take away.
Start your down-swing by turning your hips back towards the target until your belt buckle is facing directly to the target.
Keep the club on the toe line on the down-swing and follow through making sure that you finish with high hands.
If you do everything correctly you will have a nice draw.
Now for the "benefits" of playing a draw with the driver.
First and foremost is distance. The inside-out swing (going across the ball) with the square club face creates top-spin and top-spin creates roll which will give you more distance. That's what we want with a driver - maximum distance. The closer you can get to the green the shorter your approach shot will be. Unless you are very different (I nearly said a freak!) playing a 9 iron is far easier and more accurate than playing a 5 iron.
Secondly is you have a bigger target if you can hit a particular shot such as a draw with the drive. Knowing the ball will curve from right to left (again for the right-handed golfer) means you can safely aim for the right hand side of the fairway. You have the entire width of the fairway - left of where you are aiming - as a landing area. Aiming for the middle would mean you only have the left half of the fairway to play with. I hope that makes sense!
So there you have how and why you should play a draw with a drive whenever possible. Sometimes though you will get holes that are not set up for the draw which is why you should learn to play a variety of shots.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Lawrence_Bredenkamp
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6232248
In this article I am going to describe how to play a draw and why it gives you an advantage.
To play a draw you need to have an inside-out swing and a square club-face through impact. For me one of the easiest clubs to do it with is the driver.
An inside-out golf swing sounds easy enough but so many players struggle to get it right. From my experience this is from trying to hit the ball too hard by swing with the arms. It is far easier to control the swing path if you simply let your body rotate and keep the connection between your arms and torso intact.
Firstly the "how" to play a draw with the driver.
Here are a couple of things that should help:
Place the ball on the inside of your target foot toe - that is the left foot for a right-handed golfer.
Ensure that the club face is square to the target at this point. To do this imagine two parallel lines - one running along your toe line and the other from the ball to the target. Set you club face square to the ball to target line.
Now move your non-target (back) foot two inches back. creating a slightly closed stance but keeping that club-face square to the imaginary line.
Cock your head so that it is behind the ball and not directly over it.
Move your hands back so that the shaft is in line with your spine and your hands are not ahead of the ball as would be the case with your irons. This is to get you to strike the ball on the correct launch angle which, with the driver, is on the up. This slight hand movement should mean you have to drop your non target shoulder slightly. This is perfect.
Start your backswing by turning your target shoulder away from the target concentrating on keeping the connection between your arms and torso the same throughout the swing.
Take the club back along your toe line. Remember that you have moved the non-target foot back slightly so it should be a slight inside take away.
Start your down-swing by turning your hips back towards the target until your belt buckle is facing directly to the target.
Keep the club on the toe line on the down-swing and follow through making sure that you finish with high hands.
If you do everything correctly you will have a nice draw.
Now for the "benefits" of playing a draw with the driver.
First and foremost is distance. The inside-out swing (going across the ball) with the square club face creates top-spin and top-spin creates roll which will give you more distance. That's what we want with a driver - maximum distance. The closer you can get to the green the shorter your approach shot will be. Unless you are very different (I nearly said a freak!) playing a 9 iron is far easier and more accurate than playing a 5 iron.
Secondly is you have a bigger target if you can hit a particular shot such as a draw with the drive. Knowing the ball will curve from right to left (again for the right-handed golfer) means you can safely aim for the right hand side of the fairway. You have the entire width of the fairway - left of where you are aiming - as a landing area. Aiming for the middle would mean you only have the left half of the fairway to play with. I hope that makes sense!
So there you have how and why you should play a draw with a drive whenever possible. Sometimes though you will get holes that are not set up for the draw which is why you should learn to play a variety of shots.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Lawrence_Bredenkamp
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6232248
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