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How To Break 80 Newsletter

April 19, 2006

“The Web’s Most Popular Golf Improvement Newsletter”
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In this issue we’ll discuss…

1) The Best Club For Pitching?
2) How To Apply Proper Grip Pressure
 
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1) The Best Club For Pitching?
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Seventy percent of all shots are played from within one hundred yards of the green. That’s a startling but accurate statistic. Needless to say, one of the keys to lowering a golf handicap is accurate pitching, and one of the keys to accurate pitching is club selection.

Now, some people use a pitching wedge, some the sand wedge and others the lob wedge. Hands down, the best one to use though is the sand wedge. Why? Well, it has an advantage over the pitching wedge because it generates more loft than the latter, giving the ball more height in flight and more backspin. Thus, you can hit a fuller shot with the sand wedge than the pitching wedge from the same spot. The pitching wedge does not have enough loft and the lob wedge in many cases has too much.

So, here are the keys to pitching with the sand wedge: Adopt a normal address as if you were hitting a drive. Keep the grip and posture the same as well, then do the following:

• Divide your weight equally between sides
• Move the front foot back slightly
• Play the ball in the center of your stance
• Position your hands ahead of the ball
• Keep your backswing short and steep
• Hit the ball cleanly before the ground

The emphasis of the swing is on your hands and arms, not your body. Moving your front foot back (away from the ball) opens your stance slightly, allowing the club to clear your hips. Keep the shoulders lined up with the intended target line, however. Also, keep your wrists flexed in the backswing, ensuring that the club remains in the slanted position—as it was at the beginning of the swing—when it strikes the ball. The steeper swing creates a deeper divot.

Some golfers shy away from using a sand wedge unless they’re in a bunker. That’s because of the club’s sole, which differs substantially from the pitching wedge’s. Placing the hands in front of the ball, however, neutralizes the difference in the soles, enabling you to capitalize on the sand wedge’s advantages.

So, next time you’re 100 yards and in and especially for the “half shots” like 50 yards, try using the sand wedge. You may just be surprised at the results.
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2) How To Apply Proper Grip Pressure
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Losing control of your grip is a serious fault. Any loosening of your grip leads to re-grip at some stage, affecting the alignment of the clubface at impact and the ball’s flight path. Overswingers are prone to this fault.

To avoid the fault, apply pressure at three key points (for right-handers):

• the last three fingers of left hand
• on your left thumb
• on your right index finger

Never hold a club tightly. Apply just enough pressure to provide a secure hold yet still feel the clubhead’s weight in your fingers. Wrap the last three fingers of your left hand firmly around the club’s butt-end, securing the club. Apply a little pressure with your left thumb as you place the lifeline of your right hand over it. Push the right index finger lightly against the shaft, sealing your grip.

If you know how to do it, you can use grip pressure to control the ball’s path. To hit the ball from right to left, lighten the grip pressure of your left hand, enabling your right hand to take over at the swing’s bottom and closing the clubface at impact and drawing the ball. To prevent hooking, hold on tightly with the last three fingers of your left hand, preventing your right hand from taking over at the swing’s bottom.

To test grip pressure, imagine this-pretend you are holding a tube of toothpaste or a small bird like a dove. Too tight and you’ll squeeze the toothpaste out of the tube too rapidly. Too softly and it will slide through your hands. Most of it hold it too tightly so work on getting a more “neutral” grip pressure and watch your scores start to drop.

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If you want to truly discover the secrets of shooting like the Pros
and creating a more reliable and consistent swing,
check out: http://www.HowToBreak80.com

Also, for past issues of this newsletter and some of my most
recent articles, visit our blog at www.HowToBreak80.com/blog

Until next time, Go Low!

Jack
 
P.S. Feel free to share this newsletter with family and friends. If you
would like to subscribe to this newsletter, send a blank email to
htb80newsletter@aweber.com

Practicing your golf game properly is vital to improving. Knowing how to practice increases self-confidence, reduces scores, and lowers golf handicaps. It also increases the fun of playing as you see your scores drop on each round. I consider it so important that I discuss how to practice with all my students during golf lessons.

Unfortunately, some students don’t always follow my advice. They either focus on the wrong things during practice or they practice without purpose. Some students do both, preferring instead to flail away with the driver on a driving range time and time again. When their scores don’t drop as quickly as they’d like, they stop practicing, forfeiting any chance of improving.

You have only so much time to practice, so you must make the most of it. To optimize practice time, try organizing your sessions into a structured program with specific goals clearly in mind. The program needs to focus on fundamentals and address your weaknesses. Developing an organized program speeds learning, maintains focus, and cuts strokes from you golf handicap.

Here’s one organized practice program I suggest in my golf lessons:

Adopt a set of exercises and drills to practice at home. They should concentrate on grooving your fundamentals, like your takeaway or your backswing. My golf tips highlight drills and exercises that fit nicely into a program. The phone book drill, for example, improves your putting stroke:

• Drop two phone books on the floor. Position them far enough apart so your putterhead just squeezes through them. Place a ball between the books, assume your putting posture, and make your stroke. Use the books as a visual guide to match the lengths of your back stroke and forward stroke. This approach ensures a smooth stroke with perfect tempo. You’ll find it difficult to guide your putter between the books unless your stroke follows the intended line. If you strike the side of either phone book, your stroke strayed off-line.

Go to a practice range as often as you can. Split your time between your short game and your long game. If you can’t work on both in one session, try working on the short game in one session and the long game in the next. Your goal might be to perfect your pitching in the first session and to master long distance driving in the next. Also, organize your time within each session. An organized session could look like the following:

• Hit some warm-up shots for five minutes to loosen up your muscles. Start with a short iron, then move to a mid-iron. In my golf lessons I suggest starting with a pitching wedge, then dropping down to a 7-iron, but you can use other clubs as well. Hit several shots with each until you feel comfortable swinging the club.

• Next, spend about 15 minutes or so working on areas of your short game needing improvement, like chipping. Try dividing the time into four 15 minute mini-sessions, with each mini-session devoted to one phase of your short game— pitching, putting, chipping, or bunker play.

Use drills during the 15 minutes that focus on improving weaknesses within that phase of the game. For example, use this drill to practice chipping from the rough shot:

• Place a ball just outside the first cut of rough on the green’s fringe. Make sure the grass is about one to one and one-half inches in length. Instead of hitting the ball, practice just sweeping the tips of the grass. Use a low sweeping motion employing just your arms and shoulders. After ten sweeps, move immediately to the ball and chip it using the same motion. Then move the ball back to higher grass and repeat the sequence.

In the next hourly session try focus on your long game. You can work on hitting your woods and long irons during this session. Spending 5-10 minutes on warm up shots, then 10-15 minutes each on your woods and long irons. Once again, use drills should be designed to improve a specific problem.

Work in some realistic game situations in your practice sessions. For example, try chipping over a wading pool in your backyard to practice hitting over an obstacle on the course. Another good technique is to actually play holes on the driving range. So, let’s say the first hole you’re going to play on Saturday is a 440 yard par four. When practicing during the week or prior to the round, you would actually “play the hole” but starting by hitting your driver, then maybe a 6 or 7 iron for your approach shot and then maybe a small chip in case you missed the green. The more of these you can program into you session, the more you’ll prepare yourself for hitting a shot under the pressure of actual game situation.

This program is just an example of how you can structure your practice. It might not be appropriate for every golfer, but I think you get the idea of how to organize a session or session. Developing an organized program—and following it closely —produces results. The more you work on it, the more you’ll build self-confidence, reduce scores, and slash your golf handicap.

Jack Moorehouse is the author of the best-selling book “How To Break 80 And Shoot Like The Pros.” He is NOT a golf pro, rather a working man that has helped thousands of golfers from all seven continents lower their handicap immediately. He has a free weekly newsletter with the latest golf tips, golf lessons and golf instruction.

If you’re serious about lowering your golf handicap and doing so quickly, master the three scoring clubs—the driver, the wedge, and the putter. These clubs have the greatest impact on your golf game and provide the greatest opportunity for cutting strokes from your scores. Mastering these clubs will improve your game as much as 5 strokes per round.

Specifically though, let’s focus on the wedges. Knowing which wedge to hit in different situations is really the best way to drop shots because if you have the right club selected, it makes it so much easier to pull the intended shot off. While learning to hit a wedge is not difficult, hitting one with confidence comes in handy, especially 40 yards of so from the green. Golfers face this situation two or three times a round, maybe more. Hitting a good shot from 40 yards out often leaves you with just a short putt, as I emphasize in my golf lessons, so you want to hit the shot well.

The most critical decision with the 40-yard pitch shot is which wedge to use—the pitching, the sand, or the lob. These clubs are easy to hit to the green, but landing on the green is one thing and getting the ball to do what you want after it lands is another. Let’s look at three typical 40-yard situations and the type of wedge shots each requires.

Lob Wedge
In first situation the pin’s up front and there’s little green to work with. Here, you need a high-flying shot with little run—a shot you can easily learn to hit with a some practice. The lob wedge is the club of choice for getting the ball in the air, so it’s recommended in this situation. (If you’re on the fairway with a tight lie, however, you might want to try one of the other wedges.) The lob wedge has from 58 to 60 degrees of loft, so there’s no need to open the clubface. Just square the face to the target and swing. Since the ball will fly high and come to rest softly, you need to be careful about where you land the ball.

Sand Wedge
In the second situation the hole is in the middle of the green, so you have some green to work with. The sand wedge is the club of choice in this situation whether you’re on the fairway or in the rough. The sand wedge enables you to customize your shot more easily than either the lob or the pitching wedges. You can learn to alter the roll and the trajectory with very little golf instruction. I personally like the sand wedge as my “go-to” club.

If you want a shot with less carry and more roll, square the clubface to the target. If you want a shot with slightly more roll than loft, then close the clubface slightly. If you want to hit the ball higher, just open the clubface more, in which case the shot will resemble a shot from a lob or a pitching wedge. Also, keep in mind that with an open clubface, the shot tends to go right.

Pitching Wedge
In the third situation the pin is back and there’s plenty of room for the ball to roll. The pitching wedge is the club of choice if you’re on the fairway or in some light rough. (If you’re in heavy rough, try one of the other wedges.) Keep in mind that the ball will run lower and hotter, even if you open the clubface a little, so don’t swing as hard as you might with another iron. It’s a mistake I see a lot of when giving golf lessons. The ball is also going to roll more than with the other wedges, so get a good reading on the green, just as if you were going to putt the ball. More often than not you will get closer to the pin with this type of shot than a high-lofted shot.

The mechanics of a wedge shot are easy to learn. The key is choosing the right club at the right time, and making slight adjustments in your shot. That’s something that only experience can teach. At the same time it’s important to practice these three shots as much as you can, so you can master the technique of each shot, develop control of it, and build self-confidence in your ability to execute them. That, in turn, will make shots easier to make.

The wedge is as important the driver or the putter when it comes to minimizing scores. Wedge shots from 40-yeards out may not have the drama of sinking a 30-foot birdie putt or powering a 300-yard drive down the middle of the fairway, but over the course of a round, they’ll save you as many as five strokes or more from your scores. And that result is bound to lower your golf handicap.

Jack Moorehouse is the author of the best-selling book “How To Break 80 And Shoot Like The Pros.” He is NOT a golf pro, rather a working man that has helped thousands of golfers from all seven continents lower their handicap immediately. He has a free weekly newsletter with the latest golf tips, golf lessons and golf instruction.

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How To Break 80 Newsletter

April 12, 2006

“The Web’s Most Popular Golf Improvement Newsletter”
===================================================

In this issue we’ll discuss…

1) Left Arm Straight- Is It Really Necessary?
2) Aiming the Club Properly
 
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1) Left Arm Straight- Is It Really Necessary?
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How straight should I keep my left arm? That’s a question I get asked a lot during my golf lessons. My answer: Keep it as straight as comfortably possible. Some people because of age, a lack of flexibility, or another reason have to bend the left arm somewhat. That’s okay, as long as the rest of the swing is sound.

A bent left arm often indicates another, more serious swing problem: overswinging caused by an out-of-position right arm (for a right-hander). In addition to intentionally swinging too hard, there are two main causes of overswinging:

1. losing control of your grip at the top of your swing or

2. losing the natural width of your backswing because of a
bad position with the right arm.

The right arm controls the width of the swing arc. If the angle of the gap at the top of the swing between the right forearm and the right biceps is less than 90 degrees, you’ve overswung, forcing the left arm to bend in the process. An ineffective coiling of the torso often accompanies the overswinging, causing inconsistency.

The key to shortening your swing is re-establishing the correct width of your backswing arc. To re-establish the width, your right elbow must form a right angle as it folds back at the top of the swing, forming an “L” shape. In this position, your left arm is comfortably straight (not tense) and your club is parallel to ground, assuming you hinge your wrists correctly.

The “split grip” drill is one way to train your backswing for this. Split your hands a few inches apart on the grip, then try swinging the club back and push your right arm away to form that 90 degree angle at the top. Do this drill until you have the “feel” of the swing arc. Then slide your hands together again and try to “recapture” the same feeling while hitting balls with your normal grip.

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2) Aiming the Club Properly
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If a shooter aims his rifle off line, he’ll miss his target every time, regardless of how good he is or how accurate his weapon. The same principle applies in golf. If a golfer aims his club off line, he’ll miss his target every time, regardless of how talented he is or how expensive his club.

Aiming a club properly is one of four stages in an alignment process that enhances accuracy. The four stages are

• Visualize the shot
• Aim the clubface
• Align the body
• Build the stance

The first stage is visualizing the shot. Stand behind the ball—whether on the tee or the ground—and look down the target line. Try to visualize not only where the ball will land but also the type of shot required and the flight of the ball.

With a clear picture in mind, pick out an intermediate spot, such as a divot or a leaf, a club-length or so beyond the ball. This spot should be along the intended target line. Aim the club directly over the spot. Now, align your body to match the clubface’s angle, keeping the clubface square to the target.

With the clubface squared and the body aligned, take your stance. Align the shoulders, hips, and feet square to the clubface position. Flex the knees slightly and assume the correct spine angle, bending from the waist. This stage of the process locks you in the correct position.

This whole process is known as perfect parallel alignment. Pros like Ernie Els and Tiger Woods adhere to it because it has a positive effect on the shape and quality of their swings, ensuring accuracy. Aiming your club is a key stage in the process and if you incorporate this process into your set up, you should start to see more accurate shots.

===================================================
If you want to truly discover the secrets of shooting like the Pros
and creating a more reliable and consistent swing,
check out: http://www.HowToBreak80.com

Also, for past issues of this newsletter and some of my most
recent articles, visit our blog at www.HowToBreak80.com/blog

Until next time, Go Low!

Jack
 
P.S. Feel free to share this newsletter with family and friends. If you
would like to subscribe to this newsletter, send a blank email to
htb80newsletter@aweber.com