Top-level golf can be watched and bet on almost every week of the year.
The PGA Tour, for example, has only a two-week off-season. But there are a few factors you need to grasp before shouting about your golf bets at the local boozer.
New to the game of golf? We have plenty of golf tips for beginners that will help you learn how to swing, correct shanks or slices, and improve your overall understanding of the difficulties one can have on the course.
Contents
Keep Your Hands Low
Limiting the height of the follow-through will effectively reduce the height of your shots. The lower the hands, the lower the ball flight. Moving the ball back in your stance or choosing a stronger club and trying to swing easy are other ways to accomplish the same thing, but they’re less reliable and more difficult to execute. Instead, keep your hands low in the finish (compare the two photos at right), and the trajectory of your shots will be lower.
Use Your Body For Power
Every good golfer knows that power comes from the body, not the arms. To learn to power the club with your body instead of your arms and hands, put the club behind the ball at address, with your body in a dead-stop position. Without taking a backswing, try to drag the ball into the air. If you’re a player who uses his or her hands to control the club, you’ll probably struggle at first. However, you’ll quickly find that once you start moving the club with your body, you’ll begin to get the ball in the air more consistently. This helps you turn fully through the ball on the downswing.
Give Your Slice The Elbow
Some players like John Daly swing with their elbow flying out, while others like Sergio Garcia keep it in, proving that it’s possible to hit great shots with either method. However, my biomechanical studies indicate that the flying right elbow position favors a fade ballflight while a tucked right elbow promotes a draw. If you struggle with slicing or have always wanted to develop a power-rich draw, then the right elbow may hold the answer. Plus, when you let the right elbow fly, it has the tendency to raise the right shoulder skyward, which almost always causes an over-the-top move during the downswing and an array of bad results.
The key for long-term success is to eliminate the faulty shoulder tilt and right elbow position at the top. The most efficient right elbow position for keeping slices at bay and promoting a draw is on or just inside the seam running down the right side of your shirt. When you place your right elbow in this general area, it allows the shoulders to turn level to the spine, making it much easier to drop the club inside on the downswing for maximum power and improved control.
Course Type
Golf courses come in all different shapes and sizes that lend themselves to different facets of a player’s game. Courses can be long or short. Fairways can be wide or narrow. Rough can be thick or thin. Nailing down the attributes of a course can really help when backing a player.
One particular type of course to pay attention to is links (courses situated on the coast). The Open is always played on a links track and requires a completely different skillset. You will often find PGA Tour regulars coming over to play the Scottish Open prior to the Open so they are accustomed to the conditions.
How to Practice More Effectively
In this article we talked about a player who took a 30-day challenge with a great training aid called the Orange Whip. Sometimes it’s better to do something for 5-10 minutes each day, rather than one long session per week. It will keep your game fresh, and prevent more rust from building up.
2) Play games
It’s been proven that the brain can’t learn unless you are challenging it with random tasks. Showing up to the range and hitting your driver for 20 minutes won’t do much to improve your golf game. This is exactly why practice games are so effective. They simulate real pressure that you will feel on the course, and encourage you to practice like you play. We have a library of more than 20 drills available for our members.
3) Establish your feel first
Jack Nicklaus was a huge proponent of making sure he dialed in his feel on shorter shots before he moved into his full swings, and this is one of the greatest golf tips that has been making its way around for years. Establishing your feel on shots from 15-45 yards is a great way to warm up and get your swing in sync before you move on to your longer clubs. Try this in your next practice session, or before a round.
4) Figure out your impact location
One of our coaches, Adam Young, specializes in helping golfers figure out how to maximize their impact. When your club makes contact with the ball this is “the moment of truth,” and the ball gets its marching orders. Almost every golfer has no understanding of where they are making impact on their irons and woods, and it’s extremely important information. The next time you are on the range use a dry erase marker to figure out where you are making contact with your irons, or get a can of Dr. Scholls Odor X to see where your tendencies are with your driver and fairway woods.
5) Work on your tempo
The timing of your swing is massively important, and it’s why I wrote this feature article last year. Great golf is all about repetition, and the tempo of your golf swing is at the heart of it. Working with beats can be an extremely effective way for all golfers to find a rhythm that works for them, and allow them to repeat it from swing to swing. I consider this to be one of the most ignored golf tips in the whole industry.
6) Practice your putting…the right way
Strokes are waiting to come off your scores if you can spend more time on the practice green and become a more effective putter. Most golfers ignore this part of the game to their own detriment. The stats show that most golfers can improve by making more putts inside 10 feet, and eliminating three putts (read this article to find out why). There are two ways you can do this. The first is by working on your speed control, and the second is learning to square the putter face at impact.
7) Experiment with your swing
A round of golf will throw so many different scenarios at you. Your ball might be stuck behind a tree, on a steep sidehill lie, or catch an awkward lie in the rough. This is exactly why you need to make experimentation a part of every practice session. Try hitting low hooks with your 6-iron. Throw some balls in the deepest part of the rough around the practice green. Figuring out how to alter your technique in this process will prove invaluable during your rounds! Most golf tips don’t discuss what happens when things go wrong on the course, and all great golfers know how to deal with all kinds of adversity.
