Golfing News & Blog Articles

Lining up your shot is critical for your success in golf. Unfortunately, too many golfers are too casual about their approach in getting the best line up for the shot and the swing that they should be taking. Deciding on the right swing for draw or fade and then setting up your line-up both contribute to your success.

Success in golf depends on hitting more fairways and greens in regulation. If it was easy to hit every shot straight with every club, then this game would be much easier. If you played golf with a pool cue instead of clubs which swing around your body, then straight shots would be easy. In golf you have no choice but to plan for the draw or fade before you line up every shot. Controlling the direction of the face of your club at impact and the direction of your swing will both determine the direction of your ball.

You will never be a great golfer until you control your draw or fade as well as choosing the right direction in order to choose the point where you want your ball to land.
1/ It’s up to you to practice creating a draw or fade for the shot that you want. Because your club is swinging around your body, your best opportunity to add distance, is to aim to the right side of your target (for right-handed golfers) and slightly close the face of your club to add draw to your ball flight.

2/ I like Jack Nicklaus’ approach to line up shots. Stand behind the ball, choose your target line and then pick a point in the grass about 2 or 3 feet in front of your ball along your target line. [In the photo above he also used his club to line up his shoulders square to his target line.]
3/ Move forward to line up your feet parallel to your target line and then take a practice swing with your chosen club for the shot that you want to make. [Some recommend taking your practice swing before you move forward to your ball but this spoils your chance to line up and feel the swing for the shot on the line that you want to take.]
4/ Move forward to you ball and take a final look up along your target line to the point where you want your ball to land. Visualize your shot and then trace back to your ball to execute your perfect swing to a balanced finish.

Practice with GOLFSTR for every shot in your game but make sure that you FEEL your swing on the line that you chose before you execute your shot. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

Knowing the stats for Mid and Low Handicap golfers is critical in helping to create an Attach Plan for all golfers who want to lower their handicap. I’m glad that I found this article by a GOLF Top 100 Teacher Jon Tattersall and published by GOLF.COM blog. Arrcos offers a golf shot tracking device that records every shot for all golfers using their stroke recording system. The following summary provides the performance and analysis for mid (13 handicap index) as compared to low (5 handicap index) golfers. Knowing the difference and reason for the difference will assist you in YOUR plan.

Longer drivers have an obvious advantage as they are always hitting shorter approach shots but they also hit some errant shots which are further into no-man’s land. The key here is to slow the handle of the club and let the whipping action, of the clubhead, speed up for to deliver more power and distance.

Comparison of 5 Handicap and 13 Handicap Averages

1/ Focus on better Ball Striking: Optimize your drives by keeping more of them in the fairway to give yourself a better chance to hit the green in regulation.

2/ Your second shot makes all the difference: The approach into the greens is where the biggest gain in strokes is made. The 5 index golfer hits 17% more greens in Regulation. Focus on hitting the center of the green and distance control will follow.

Every golfer is aging. We all need tips to take advantage of methods to improve our game. Flexibility and strength are always changing as we age so we should be using every trick in the book to keep up with our rivals. Christo Garcia recently provided a great list of tips to improve any golfer’s game.

Lift your Leading Heel: As you age, you lose flexibility, so your ability to windup in your backswing gets shorter every year. One way to increase your rotation is to lift you leading heel in your backswing to give you a little more rotation for more swing distance and longer drivers. Jack Nicklaus did it throughout his career.

Shift Your Grip Back: Take your normal stance and then rotate both of your hands back on your grip. When you try this, shallow your downswing and swing with your trailing elbow closer to your side as you power your club up the slot for more distance and a nice draw.

Swing to Swoosh Your Club: If you can’t hear your club swoosh through impact, your swing is most likely too slow. Practice by holding the head end of any club and creating a swooshing sound as your wrists release your handle through the bottom of your swing. Now flip your club and create that sound by holding your grip properly.

Start your Downswing with Your Hips: Your downswing actually starts while your hips start to shift their weight forward during the transition at the top of your backswing. Let your weight shift to your leading hip as you rotate your shoulders then your arms and finally your wrist release. Unwind and deliver more power and distance.

Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods agree that the most important component for your golf swing is “speed” (club head speed). They both agree that you need to learn swing speed first and accuracy will come later. Without speed you can’t generate more distance. Without long driver distance you will never reach anywhere near the 300 yards that you want, to get closer to the green, for easier short approach shots.

Control Is the Second Most Important Component
Jack and Tiger felt that direction control was less important than distance. All golfers can eventually learn to make setup adjustment to control their draw or fade to improve their percentage of fairways hit in regulation. Tiger was not worried about missing fairways with his longer driver distance. His skill to hit more Greens in Regulation proved that he could recover from difficult locations and still land his ball in great putting locations.

Overall Tiger’s had a worse percentage of hitting Fairways In Regulation than his Greens In Regulation. That means that his ability to recover or scramble from off the fairway was the best part of his game. This make sense when you see his backyard. He has 3, par-3 holes and can practice whenever he had spare time. Way to go Tiger!

I have never been a big fan of swinging faster but I do realize that a faster club head speed is the only way to gain distance. I’m getting back on the bandwagon, but I will definitely focus on hitting more fairways with a stronger release. Of course I still practice with GOLFSTR+ to keep my leading arm straight in the backswing. Setting up with my leading elbow pointing up my target line AND KEEPING MY LEADING ARM STRAIGHT are both real success factors for my improved game. My goal is to shoot every round in the 80’s or better. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

Golf opinions researched by GOLF blog: 3. “The cart fee should be shared with your riding partner.” What do YOU think?

Why are you making golf so difficult for yourself?  You learned to throw a ball well before you picked up your first golf club.  If you consider the elbow bend required to windup and throw a ball, you will realize that this is the same motion that your trailing right arm makes when you throw a sidearm baseball. Yes, your hand comes over the top when you throw a baseball, but the same power is there when you throw a side-arm pitch.  Shouldn’t you be able to generate more power when you swing a driver as if you are throwing a side-arm pitch with your right arm?

Just use your normal body movement to generate more power.  If you are right-handed, you have thrown a ball with your right arm hundreds if not thousands of times.  That motion is the only motion that you need to generate more speed.  Tiger is naturally right-handed and he only thinks about throwing his RIGHT wrist to release his DRIVER through the ball as fast as he can.

I’m naturally left handed in every thing that I do except playing golf.  [Right-handed clubs were the only clubs in the attic when I was younger.  So I had no choice but to learn to swing with those old right-hand clubs.]  Now that I have learned to swing without coming over the top, I finally understand the importance of building speed and power with my trailing weaker right arm.

Using my right arm to generate power in my golf swing was a major physical change for my body and mind.  Fortunately, I have also learned to use my right arm to make single handed shots in tennis and pickleball.  If you are naturally right-handed you really should enjoy the natural feeling of generating power with your right “throwing arm” for your golf swing.

Treasure the next moment that you pick up your driver and think about generating more power and swing speed with your right arm. Use your side-arm throwing action to generate that power.  You now have a new perspective when you deliver powerful drives.  Let your trailing arm shallow in your backswing and take over the power of your swing up the slot on your target line.

What do you think is the easiest way to improve every golf shot? It’s important for our driver, irons and putter. The distance from your shoulders to your ball should remain the same for your setup and your point of impact. The shaft of your club is not changing so it’s up to your spine, shoulders and arms to find the same distance at impact. Early extension at the point of impact is a killer.

Shoulder Control
Most golf pros suggest tilting your shoulders at setup for your DRIVER to ensure that your impact is in an upward direction. It keeps your swing arcing upward toward the forward position of your teed up ball. For all other clubs your shoulders should be level and square to your target. In all cases, your job is to just rotate your shoulders with your spine.

Spine Control
Your hips and spine generate a lot of the power in your swing. You can’t afford to sway back during your swing. Spine ROTATION allows your hips and your shoulders to wind-up in your backswing.

Arm Control
In your arms you have 3 active sets of joints: shoulders, elbows and wrists.

A normal arm socket can only rotate about 45 degrees across your body when your shoulders are square to your body. Don’t try to move them further (like Rory and many of the pros).Your leading elbow should remain straight throughout your back-swing and down-swing or you will be forced to make split second (potentially disastrous) corrective actions at the point of impact. GOLFSTR+ will help your train for a straight arm back-swing.Your wrists both need to cock for lag at the top of your swing and then release at the bottom of your swing, for direction and power control.

Feel the weight of your club head taking charge during your back-swing and down-swing as you rotate your body to a balanced finish. John Daly and Jon Rahm are examples of the 2 extremes in the back-swing. Find your happy medium without swaying or bending your elbows. And, heaven forbid, never extend your legs and back until after impact.

Every golfer hits errant shots, and some hit more than others. Wouldn’t it be great to have an easy reminder, like getting a kick in the butt, when your game goes off the rails. Two bad shots in a row are enough to trigger a melt-down. We all tend to knock the poop out of the next shot. The pros have better solution to control their games and so should all of us.

Over the past many years, I have seen golfers like Billy Horschel and Jon Rahm react violently when they miss a shot. Of course, their coaches see this on TV and realize that they can make these examples a real learning point. Blowing up can only ruin your next shot. And possibly the rest of your round. When you mishit your ball, take action and get back on your game.

Whether you make a mishit from a bad lie or a poor tee shot from a perfect setup we all need to reset our minds, get over the mistake, reevaluate our next shot and get on with our game. Compounding an error with another bad shot is not going to help your game. Following are remedies that have been suggested by trainers in GOLF MAGAZINE.

Take These Specific Step for Corrective Action
1/ Admit that You Made a Mistake: Use an abnormal wake-up when you don’t like the outcome for any shot (especially a mishit). You need to pause, calm down and ADMIT TO YOURSELF that you made a mistake. Trainers suggest that you should make an ABNORMAL ACTION like pinching your hand or slapping the flat of your hand on your side to force a pause before you make another stupid shot.
2/ Identify your Mistake: Was it caused by early extension, a poor lie, a wrong club selection, irritation from others talking during your swing or just a rushed backswing causing a poor result? Identify it and take action to correct it.
3/ Take a Corrective Practice Swing: Many pros (like Jim Furyk) will pause and make a perfect practice swing after they identifies their mistake. Focus on your correction during your next practice swing.

Changing your mood from ugly to positive is always the first step that you need to take when CORRECTING your game. Get over it. Life is too short to live it in anger. Practice with GOLFSTR+ to feel the correct swing and improve your game. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

I was reminded about the importance of TIMING while watching one of my favorite weekly blogs by Danny Maude. He actually copied the phrase that I have been exposing in many of our past blogs. He suggested that you count the words: “one and two” during your back and forward swing to add time to slow down your backswing. There really are 2 reasons why you need to repeat these words. The first is to add rhythm to your swing and the second is to block out distractions.

Swing Rhythm
I use the phrase “one and” during my backswing to slow my backswing and to give myself time to rotate my hips & shoulders as I lift my arms while I cock both wrists at the top of my swing. Wrist cocking allows me to shallow my club during my downswing as I swing up the inside slot. Releasing my cocked wrists, during the bottom half of my swing, generates most of my power through my ball. Listen for the woooshing noise near YOUR point of impact.

Block Out Distractions
Our minds can be tricked to avoid distractions. For example, you may be watching advertising on TV while your mind is thinking about getting ready for an upcoming event and you have no recollection of the content of the ad that you are watching. Another example is that you can say the words “one annnd” but you are not able to mentally say another word at the same time as your eyes stare at a dimple on the back of your ball.

You can pre-program your mind to create a full backswing (hip rotation, shoulder rotation, arms rising, and wrist cocking) during the time it takes to say “one and”. By the time you say the word “2” or “finish” you should only be making your downswing with a focus to reach a balanced finish on your leading foot.

Golf is a MIND GAME!
You are only playing this game against yourself and your personal past performance. It’s up to you to focus on your swing and to block out any other thoughts. Your ball is at rest. Natural elements like wind, rain and the sounds from birds or passing cars or planes or machinery could be distracting you. If others in your foursome are talking, you can ask them to keep quiet. The only thing that you can’t control is their constant stare or any mental hex (or evil-eye) from others in your foursome.

Wouldn’t we all like to create longer tee shots when we start a round of golf? I happen to be golfing on northern courses in the Fall so the cooler mornings seem to be having more impact on my driver success. This limitation got me thinking. Why do I generate shorter and more inconsistent drives during my first 9 holes?

We all need to accept the fact that our minds and bodies need to be tuned into our game before we generate the success at golf that we expect. Younger golfers may not be experiencing the problems of aging golfers, but I just wanted to list the causes that may be limiting our games.

Rev Up Your Engines
While driving to a golf course at the start of a day or at the end of your workday we all need to recognize that our minds and bodies need to change modes.
1/ Relax Your Mind: Easier said than done. Get the frustrations of the day out of your mind before you arrive at the golf course. Choose a calming station on your radio and get your mind thinking about successes in your last round of golf.

2/ Flexibility: Use your arrival time at the course to ensure that you can flex your body and rotate with your clubs to relax your swing. A few swings of your club will not do the trick.
3/ Practice: You really need to hit balls into a net or on a range before your body will adapt from driving in a car to playing a great round of golf. Test your swing and make sure that you test out your putting to get a feel for the speed of the greens. Over 40% of your strokes are on the putting greens so make sure that both your full swing and your putts are turned-in for the golf course.
4/ Body Rotation: If you rush your backswing you will never allow enough time for a full hip, shoulder and arm rotation, especially early in your round. It’s amazing to see how much further your can drive a ball with better direction control as you get well into your round.

Golf is a game that needs your full attention. Make sure that you change your mental station over to the game that you want to play.

If you are paying attention to your game, you will discover techniques that work and others that don’t. You really need to keep a mental note of all of the positive things that you learn about YOUR game (after every recent round). I know that my successes change with the flexibility of my body and the state of my mind as every round progresses. You may have the same problems.

I was reminded about the minor changes in our minds during a recent round of golf. One of our friends in the foursome playing in front of us commented: “Every time your catch up to us, I hit a poor drive.” This comment was a reminder that golfers are in a heightened or distressed state of mind. Very touchy! The slightest change can set any golfer off. We become a strange breed of human. Following are a summary of techniques that you may want to consider to help your game.

For Your Driver and Approach Shots
-Standing behind your ball, stare at your target for 2 or 3 seconds to lock that image into your minds eye.
-Follow your target line back to a point 2 or 3 feet in front of your ball. Then step forward to line up your toes on a line parallel to your mini-target-line.
-During your setup, rotate your leading elbow to face your target line (clockwise for right-handed golfers). This move will help you keep your leading elbow straight in your backswing. Practicing with your GOLFSTR+ will also help as a great training aid.

-Avoid jitters during your tee shots by waggling your club with a 2 foot takeaway by only rotating your hips (like Justin Thomas or the start of Tiger Woods’ swing).
–Start your backswing with your hips then your shoulders, arms and finally add wrist cock.
-Give yourself more time for a full backswing and wrist cock for lag before your downswing
-During your downswing (your eyes are focused on your ball) so your only thought should be to swing through your ball to a balanced finish on your leading foot. Don’t kill the ball.

Putting:
-Determine the slope and choose your target line. Focus on hitting your ball on the center of your putter face directly up your target (over a point about 1 or 2 feet in front of your ball).
–Don’t look up until at least 1 second after your impact. [Early look-ups will pull your ball.]
-Always practice your putt with enough force to pass the hole by at least 1 foot to eliminate surface distortions near the hole and the faster break as your ball slows down.

Too many golfers create poor golf shots because they only focus on hitting the ball. In reality, you will hit more consistent shots if you focus on swinging through the ball to a balanced finish. Your setup should take care of all of the most important variables. Finishing your follow-through will help you control your club face THROUGH the point of impact.

Your Setup Solves All of the Important Swing Issues
1/ Choose the correct club to reach your target.
2/ Stance and grip are corrected for any slope on the ground
3/ Selecte your target line and a point a few feet beyond your ball for your line-up.
4/ Look directly at your ball with a calm state of mind
5/ You know that your driver is swinging to launch your ball UP and all other clubs are powering DOWN into your ball to possibly take a divot AFTER the ball.

Your Actual Swing Thoughts Are Simple
A. Take enough time to rotate your hips then shoulders, arms and wrists for your backswing.
B. SWING TO A BALANCED FINISH.

Enjoy the moment. Swing through your ball and up your target line with enough power to end your swing, balanced on your leading foot and your club over your leading shoulder, as you watch your majestic ball flight.

During every golf shot, focus on your finish position so that your club face will automatically square-up with your ball as it powers up your target line (avoiding any rush in your hands to slice or hook your ball). Practice with GOLFSTR+ to focus on the end result of your balance swing. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

If you’ve been golfing for some time, you know that you have a club which is far more dependable than any other in your bag. If you haven’t found your MONEY MAKER CLUB (the one you can take to the bank), you are not enjoying this game. It’s time for you to take this game more seriously and find your club that will make your “money shots”. We are talking about the shots that really count when the pressure is on.

Of course the pros count on every club to perform and you would like to achieve the same consistent performance with every club. Why not grow the strength of your game with a club that you can control.

Driver: This club is designed for distance, but you have to learn to draw or fade every shot back into the fairway.

Fairway metals and Hybrids: They are designed to nip your ball off the grass and work very well as long as you keep your head on a level plane and swing with power through the ball within a quarter inch of the ground.

Putter: Only the most premium courses have pristine smooth greens and even then, divots and ruts from clumsy feet can distort the direction for every putt. That’s why you should be pleased when you 2-putt every green.

Victor Haviland is on a tear. His game is effortless and if he keeps this up the Europeans will win the Ryder Cup. Of course, he is only one of the players on their team but his consistency will be contagious. Wouldn’t we all like to catch his disease?

Ball Fight Control
Learn from Victor’s success. He chooses his target for every shot but even more important, he decides on his ball flight to hit every target. Pros know how to control their ball flight and that’s why they have so much success. Bend’m like Beckham, rip’m like Bubba or pitch’m like every major league pitcher. You have to choose the shape for your delivery to nail your shot.

Driver Flight
Your driver is designed for distance—PERIOD! The most successful drivers control the flight of their drives. They know that a straight drive is not easy to accomplish on every drive. It’s definitely easier to plan a draw or a fade in order to avoid a slice or a hook. We all need to learn to control the shape of our drives. DON’T expect a straight drive every time you pick up your driver.

Iron Flight
Long irons are more difficult to control than short irons. That’s why you need to develop longer drives to shorten your approach shots. The good news is that irons are designed to give you more control of your ball flight to a known distance. Victor Haviland admits that his control of ball flight with his irons is the most critical part if his game. When he has an iron in his hand, he knows that know that he can get his ball close to the pin and that gives him the chance to birdie every hole.

In Tiger’s hay days, he was one of the longest drivers, but he was not the best as hitting fairways. Fortunately for him he was one of the best scramblers to reach the green from the rough.
You should be practicing every aspect of your game but practicing to hit close to the pin from the fairway or from the rough will benefit your game more than any other shots. Victor and Tiger both know this and you should too. Practice with your GOLFSTR+ to learn to control the flight of every shot and “hit’m close”. Buy one today at www.GOLFSTR.com

As we age, our flexibility and strength deteriorate as well as the distance of our drives. I was surprised when I saw the following chart displaying Driving Distance by age and by handicap. This data was accumulated by all users of the Arccos Golf Caddie Smart Sensors so it must be the average for all of the hits and mishits for every male player as the numbers seem low.

According to the chart below, low handicap players in the age range of 70 to 79 have an average drive of about 215 yards and a mid-range handicap player is averaging about 180 yard drives.

Every golfer that I play with, admit that they are losing distance with every club as they age. Unfortunately, most of the aging golfers hate to consider moving up the a forward tee. To compensate for their shorter hits they tend to swing faster and mess-up more shots.

Best Tips for Aging Golfers to Lower Their Handicaps
1/ Move up to the tees where you successfully reach the green in 2 shots on par 4 holes.

2/ Don’t swing harder, swing smarter. Tee up your drives so that half of your ball is above your club head when it’s resting on the ground. If you aren’t getting good altitude with your drives, slope your shoulders back in your setup. Setup with your ball forward and power your driver up as your club arcs upward.

Ever wonder why your next drive, after sinking a birdie putt, sucks? It’s either adrenaline or that demon in your brain that makes you feel invincible. Golfers all suffer from this problem after you make a perfect drive and step up for the next tee shot, expecting perfection. The pros do it, but you are not a pro. What should you do to avoid our physical or mental demise in order to duplicate excellence in every shot?

What is the Cause of a Poor Shot?
Mishits are caused by rushing our swing and tightening up our muscles. We tend to shorten our back swing and reduce the length of our outstretched arms. I have learned that power, when serving a tennis ball, comes from relaxed muscles and the same applies to our golf swing.
(a) A loose grip helps your arm, wrist and hand muscles relax and whip through the ball.
(b) Tight arm and shoulder muscles tend to shorten your swing arc and generate hits off the outer end and toe of your club face.

Rotation Fix
Because we shorten our swing arc when we try to hit our drives further, try setting up with your ball inside of the centerline of your club face by up to an inch.
–In the worst case: if your impact is at that inside point of your club face, you will lose about 10 yards on your drive. But if you are adding more power and swing speed, with tense muscles, you will most likely find more success with your driving distance by impacting your ball at the mid point or outer club face.

-Best of all: you will not be hunting for your ball in the rough or OB, after you at least connect with your ball with the outer part of your club face. Why not setup to err anywhere on the inside of your club face?

Learn to Relax by Testing with a Pain Reliever

Watching the FedEx Cup St Jude Championship, I saw Rory McIlroy missing too many putts on the first 3 days of that tournament. Just sinking 1 more putt, would have put him in the playoffs on the final day of that tournament. Please forward this blog to Rory as the content could have earned him an additional $2.5 Million. Of course, it should also help you too.

All golfers want to use any advantage to sink more putts. Choosing the right line to start your putts and swinging with the right weight are the 2 critical issues that I hope to help Rory and you for short putts. Pros sink about 44% of all 10-foot putts and their success drops significantly for longer putts. Distortions on the surface of the green will change the direction of every putt but small distortions closer to the hole are a much bigger problem as your ball slows down near the hole. So hitting firm enough to pass the hole is critical for your success.

1/ Ball Momentum is MORE Critical Near the Hole
Every putt needs enough speed to carry the ball at least 12 to 24 inches past the hole to avoid the distortions caused by imperfections near the hole. The most damage on every green is caused by golfers carelessly bending down at the hole to remove their ball from the hole. Pressure from a footprint or the head of a putter used for balance, cause these hidden distortions.

NOTE: When you putt to pass the hole you should plan on less break at the hole.

2/ Every Putter Can Sink ANY Putt
You can’t afford to worry about using the wrong putter for each day that you play a round of golf. Rory had his caddie cut down his putter by 3/16ths of an inch “because it was not exactly the same length as the putter length that he preferred”. This was a crazy request as he was using a flat grip and could easily slide his hands up the grip. This was a dumb excuse.

Our golfing failures are caused by our perfect expectations for each shot. Yes, we watch the successes of pros on TV and expect that we can create those successes on the golf course too. Unfortunately, your progress in golf should be taken one step at a time. Like losing weight, you can’t do it over night. Set a plan for your game and take advantage of your progress.

Work on Improvements in Every Component of Your Game: You have to accept the fact that you have weaknesses in your game. List them and then go to work on each segment of your game:

1/ Driving to Hit the Fairway: Trying to drive for distance is a killer for most golfers. Set a goal to hit more fairways (or par 3 greens) for all of your tee shots. Hitting out of the rough, behind a tree or OB are all killers for your next shot. Why not focus on hitting the fairway with an iron, a fairway wood or your driver but keep moving up to longer clubs as your success in hitting fairways improves. [Pros are happy to hit 14 out of 18 drives to hit their target.]
2/ Approach Shots: If you know that your chance of reaching the green is a low percentage shot, why not layup on the safe side of the green (away from traps and penalty areas). It’s so much easier to pitch and roll a shot onto the green.
3/ Reading the Green from the Fairway: Hitting the green and rolling off into the fringe can be another killer shot. Determine where your shot will land and roll before you take your approach shot. Take advantage of the roll to give yourself a change for a 2-putt green.

4/ Practice to Cut Your Putts: Practice putting is the best way to cut strokes on every round that you play. Don’t expect to improve your putting without practice. You can only learn to reduce your putts by learning the feel for putting and reading greens. At least 40% of your practice time should be spent practicing your putts from every distance. Learning to make a good lag putt and then sink your second putt. A single putt green is just a bonus.
5/ Reading the Break: You may have 2 or 3 breaks in your putting line, but the slope closest to the hole is the most critical as your ball will break more as it slows down near the hole. Look at the line for any putt from the slope below the hole and again from behind the line from your ball to the hole. You need a good feel for the direction of the break and the distance of your putt.
6/ Short Putts NEVER Go In: Always putt to ensure that your ball will pass the hole by up to 2 feet. Even a 3-foot putt should be hit firm enough to pass the hole by at least a feet to avoid the many imperfections on the surface of the green next to the hole as most damage on the surface is done by golfers as they remove their ball from the hole. When you consistently pass the hole by up to 2 feet with every putt, you will learn to account for less break at the hole.

Practicing with GOLFSTR+ is a good starting point for every club in your bag. Stick to your plan to hit more fairways; make realistic layups or approach shots, hold more greens and make more 2 putt greens. If you make a poor shot, ensure that your next shot gets you back on track. Buy your GOLFSTR+ today at www.GOLFSTR.com

After Rory McIlroy’s win at the Scottish Open I anxiously read a blog which highlighted his victory which was based on a fresh new swing thought.  That heading was a real teaser as the article never exposed his wonderful thought.  But it certainly made me realize how your focus on a single swing thought can turn your game around.

I agree that a swing thought is critical if you want to be successful with each type of club, but it may change with every type of club. Each of your clubs have a different weight and swing characteristic so it’s only in your best interest to focus on a thought that will help you achieve excellence for each type of shot.

Driver Thought: This club is designed for distance so any swing thought should be to generate power with a shot that will land in your target fairway.  I personally aim to the right side of the fairway and setup to create a draw by slipping my trailing foot back slightly from my target line and teeing the ball up to ensure that the ball will launch higher.   My swing thought is to bow my wrist at the top (to shallow my down-swing) and rotate my leading hip to swing up the inside slot. (Rory does not use a bowed wrist.)

Iron and Hybrid Thought: These clubs are designed for a unique distance with better direction control.  At the point of impact, your sternum needs to line-up just in front of your ball to ensure that the lowest point in your swing arc is just beyond the point where your ball is resting.  Low handicap golfers shift their chest to line up their sternum during their down-swing.  Higher handicap golfers may find it easier to setup with extra bend in their leading knee to lining-up their sternum forward of the ball at setup (and hold that position through out their swing to impact).

Wedge Thought:  Plan your shot by choosing the right club and setup to allow your ball to land and roll out to the hole. Impacting with the ball before the ground is important but you need to practice the right amount of backswing to generate the distance and rollout that you want.  Focus your thought on the right amount of backswing.

I found 3 surprising opportunities that fired up Brian Harman to win The Open. They are not what you are thinking. He has NOT been winning for many years, but his game has recently been improving in spit of his aging body at 36. He has finally rejuvenated his game after 20 years of trying to find the magic again.

The most important fact that we should pay attention to, is that he never stopped trying to find perfection in his game and we should all do the same. These 3 points were critical for his success.

1/ An Unpleasant Inspiration
On day 3 of The Open, he started his day leading the field. Unfortunately, he made 2 early bogies in his round. Most golfers may see this as the end of their good fortunes and continue to crash and burn. Fortunately, a hostile fan heckled Brian with the comment: “ Harman, you haven’t got the stones to win” . Those vicious words were enough for Brian to turn around his day. It put fire in his belly. It not only inspired him on Saturday but carried him to victory by 6 strokes.

2/ Sticking to His Strategy
Harman had decided that the pot belly bunkers were the evil plague that destroyed the rounds for so many of the pros. He decided to select clubs on every hole to hit short of the bunkers. Most of the greens were surrounded by those bunkers so he also used high shots onto every green to avoid them. Even more important was his skill to hit long iron shots safely to the greens.

3/ Always Searching for Success
In recent years Brian was making a good income from golf but he wanted to find perfection. Knowing that his putting was letting him down, he found an old Golf Training Aid in his collection of golfing paraphernalia. He called it a “silly mirror”. He was “cutting” his putts and used the mirror to help him put a “baby draw” on his putts. [These are very strange words to describe any putting motion when the object is to hit putts STRAIGHT.]

Can you learn from Scottie Scheffler’s swing? He recently returned to World Number 1 with 6 wins since February 2022. He achieved this feat in spite of his wild footwork during his swing. Most swing lessons tells us to finish in balance. Scottie does this but his feet are flying throughout his swing. Should you attempt to duplicate his fancy footwork?

Scottie adds a lot of motion to his footwork during his downswing in orderto add more power. Others, like Rory McIlroy, achieve the same distance with a balanced finish using a more conventional golf swing.

I found this interesting review of Scottie’s swing in a recent blog:

[The defining trait of Scottie Scheffler’s golf swing is his footwork. During his downswing, his trail (right) foot slides towards his left. Greg Norman did something similar, and Scottie himself says it’s become a way that helps him feel athletic through the shot. His feet slide in the same direction as the club when it swings through, which helps transfer his weight and prevent a left miss.

It’s a move that may have been coached out of a player in a bygone era. But Scottie and his longtime coach, Golf Digest Top 50 coach Randy Smith, built around it. And therein lies the lesson, said fellow PGA Tour player Michael S. Kim on Twitter: “Find your best swing, don’t copy others.”