Friday, June 29, 2007

Tips to Help you Improve Distance and Accuracy on the Golf Course

We all want to get more distance and accuracy off the tee and to be able to putt accurately and consistently, with this advice, I hope you will be able to do all of those things.

One of the most famous of all golf tips is supposedly from Sam Sneed. It says, hold your club as though it were a young bird. You don't want to hurt it, but you don't want it to get away either.
This best sums up the notion that very little grip pressure is to control the club. Another way of emphasizing this idea is found in a similar tip: Hold the club so that it is pointing straight up in the air. Lighten your grip until it reaches the point that the club starts to fall straight down through your hands then tighten up a slight

amount. You want only enough pressure to keep the club from slipping through. A tight grip will cause the muscles in your arms to tense up. This will reduce your clubhead feel and reduce your swing speed.

The only fingers that should feel any pressure against the grip itself for the right-handed player are the pinky, ring and middle fingers of the left hand and vice versa if you are a left handed golfer. They alone are capable of exerting enough force to control a club throughout the swing.
When asked how he got so much distances off the tee as a senior, Jay Sigel responded, "The way I grip the club so lightly is the main reason."

Try it...it works!!

It doesnt make any difference if you have an unorthodox grip or stance when you putt, but two things are vital: Your eye must be directly over the ball, and you must stroke the ball to make it rotate end-over-end.

You have undoubtedly noticed that manufacturers are now making putters more upright. This is to help the golfer keep his eye directly over the ball. Every great putter I have seen does this. In effect, their eyes act in the capacity of eyes for the ball. The ball can only see the line when your eyes are directly over it. If they are not, your eyes will see one line while the ball sees another, and I dont think I need to go into the results of that.

When your eyes are over the ball, you have a much better chance of stroking it accurately and imparting end-over-end rotation. End-over-end rotation means that the ball is contacted so squarely that it rolls over itself, on the same vertical axis, there being no side-spin as there inevitably will be when the ball is cut or pulled or mis-putted in some other manner. If a putt stroked with end-over-end rotation hits a corner of the cup, it will not spin off and will usually drop.

I hope you find this advice helpful and that it will improve your putting ability, accuracy and distance. My Golf training DVDs make great golf gifts.

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Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Managing Stress on the Golf Course to Improve Your Game

Golf involves stress and at times, this stress can be detrimental to your game. It may influence your behavior in negative ways and get you into a negative thinking process, which only deters your skills. Remember that a certain amount of stress is needed to facilitate your performance but too much stress can manifest itself in negative ways. Players need to learn how to objectively assess their levels of vulnerability to stress and how to set up appropriate strategies to compensate them.



It is important to remember that the grandest quality of the true achiever is persistence. This often means fighting off discouragement and difficult times and in playing through slumps in performance.



There are several strategies that may be helpful in assisting you to maintain a standard of confidence and a winning attitude. They are balance, positive thinking, respect, vision, goal setting, commitment to continued improvement, and character.



OK, so how do you make it happen? Instead of getting mad when you play a bad shot, stay calm, remember everyone makes mistakes, if we did not, there would be no professional golf – we would all be playing to the standards of Phil Mickleson, Tiger Woods et.al. Don’t beat yourself up about it, even if you have a really bad round. You know you are better than that, the next time you will play better. A more difficult technique is visualisation, many top sportspeople can and do visualise themselves performing well.



When goal setting, set realistic targets, beware of pointless and low targets, but be aware of your ability when setting high targets. If you don’t achieve them, think why? Maybe they were not realistic. Maybe there are too many other things in your life right now. Avoid using them to generate negative thoughts, you didn’t reach a target – it is not the end of the world!



Yoga for golfers can help you to improve your concentration and also helps with anger control. This will help you to keep things in perspective out on the golf course. A yoga for golfers DVD would make an ideal golf gift for yourself, or for the golfer in your life. Having the instruction on DVD means that you can go over the techniques as many times as you want. It will pay for itself financially and out on the golf course very quickly and you can practice the exercises whenever you feel like it. It is like having a portable golf yoga guru!



So, with your improved mental attitude, you should find that you can enjoy your golf better even when having a bad round. But please remember, a little stress can add that winning edge to your game, just try to get the balance right!

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Friday, June 22, 2007

How You can Improve Your Golf with Two Simple Practice Drills

The average golfer will hit many bad shots in a round but that does not need to be the case. Get a head start on your buddies with these two easy but effective drills that could reduce your errors by over half. For many more golf tips and easy practice drills see our training DVDs.

Commitment Builder

This simple drill works on making sure you totally commit yourself through the ball. A major fault of many amateur golfers is their inclination to come off the shot. This simply means not committing yourself all the way through the impact zone. Contact, after this fault has occurred is rarely solid. This basic drill is an effective way of improving your impact position and encouraging you to extend through the ball. The way to correct this is just place a tee about 6 inches in front of your ball (using a driver) and imagine you are trying to hit another ball off that tee.

Taking The Club Back Smoothly

Seventy five percent of the average player’s bad shots are caused by getting out of position on the backswing. He or she gets out of position mainly for two reasons. Grabbing the club at the start of the backswing and starting back abruptly. When you take the club away from the ball abruptly, you destroy your normal tempo. This of course invariably leads to getting into improper position on the backswing. Experience has taught me that whenever I hit a bad shot, it’s due to the fact that I put myself into a bad position on the backswing.

Thus the importance of starting the clubhead back smoothly from the ball can’t be overemphasized. For the average golfer, this smooth takeaway is largely a matter of concentration. Before starting your backswing, you must think just what you want your hands to do with the club. This same discipline applies to grabbing the club at the start; you have to concentrate on not doing it. The average player is often too impatient. He is thinking of hitting the ball before he even gets the club back. A smooth takeaway, I might add, is just as important in putting as in driving. You’ll find you’ll yip far fewer putts.

So, by following these two simple and easy drills, you could significantly reduce the number of bad shots you play on the golf course and lower your score. If you know a golfer, our golf training DVDs make great golf birthday gifts or if you are the organiser of your club competition, why not give a set as a tournament gift or prize?

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