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How To Break 80 Newsletter

May 10, 2006

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

1) To Waggle or Not To Waggle
2) How to Avoid “Early Turn Syndrome”

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1) To Waggle or Not To Waggle 
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Gripping a club too tightly destroys your swing. Tense hands lead to tense arms, which in turn lead to tense shoulders. Anything that “tightens you up” restricts the body from making a free-flowing swing, causing a loss of power, a mis-hit, or another fault.

Waggling the club is often the antidote. Waggling consists of moving the club back and forth before striking the ball. You see it most often on the tee, although professional players use it on other parts of the course as well. To produce the waggle, you need to lighten up on your grip and arms. It is also a good antidote for players who tend to “freeze” over the ball or who start the backswing too early.

Waggling is a technique professional golfers, such as Arnold Palmer, often use to relieve tension. Palmer, for example, gives the club that one final, aggressive waggle before launching his shot. The key is making sure the waggle mirrors the intended path of the swing.

But waggling can do something else as well. It can serve as a swing trigger, encouraging a smooth first move away from the ball.

The swing trigger illustrates the idea that it’s easier to perpetuate motion than it is to start it. That’s why great players all start their swings with one. Gary player kicks in his right knee. Jack Nicklaus turns his head slightly to the right. Nick Faldo does the same.

Although different, triggers are all designed to do one thing: They help the player make a smooth start to the backswing, preventing any jerky movements that can destroy the linkage in the swing. Try experimenting with the waggle or another swing trigger. Developing an effective one can make a difference in your golf handicap.

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2) Keeping a Firm Left Side
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A weak or “soft” left side (for right handers) is among the game’s most common swing faults in golf. I see it all the time when giving golf lessons, especially with beginners. While it may seem like a minor fault to some, it’s not. A weak left side not only robs you of accuracy and power, but also hampers your ballstriking and bloats your scores and golf handicap.

Your legs are a source of power in golf. Problems arise, however, when your legs drive too hard toward the target in the downswing. As the lower body drives, the upper body drags behind the ball, placing pressure to adjust on your hands and arms, which must play catch-up to square the clubface in time for impact. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don’t. Whatever happens, the fault derails your swing.

The 5 keys to overcoming this fault are

• Follow your normal pre-shot routine
• Take you’re a good address position
• Turn your left foot inwards slightly
• Make a one-piece takeaway
• Complete the downswing through impact.

You must keep a firm left side through impact to have an effective swing, regardless of the club you use. In other words, the left side of your body must be firm enough to both support and resist the clubhead’s release as your trunk unwinds. It’s the secret to generating power. A weak or soft left side affords no resistance to the clubhead, since there’s nothing for you to hit against.

But the problem is easily corrected. Simply turn your left foot (for right-handers) in- wards slightly when you practice. Doing so eliminates the tendency to drive towards the ball as you swing through impact. It also encourages a much better rotation of your upper body against the resistance of a braced left leg.

The result is a much more efficient, effective release of the torque created in your backswing. That in turn enhances your ballstriking and generates the power you need to cut strokes from your scores and lower your golf handicap.

===================================================
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
break80ezine@aweber.com

===================================================
About the Author
===================================================
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 handicaps quickly. His free weekly newsletter goes out to thousands of golfers worldwide and provides the latest golf tips, strategies, techniques and instruction on how to improve your golf game.

I’ve been providing golf instruction for many years. And while I enjoy giving golf lessons and discussing golf tips, there’s something to be said about golf instructional videos as teaching aids. Increasingly popular, videos have several advantages other instruction methods don’t. Below are four advantages that I especially like about videos.

1. Visual Learning
We’re all different and we all like to learn in our own way. Research has found that two major categories of preferred learning styles exist—visual and auditory. (Those who use both are referred to as “balanced” listeners.) In other words, when it comes to learning new information we prefer to use either our eyes or our ears, depending on how our brain works. About 65 percent of us are visual learners. The rest are auditory or balanced learners. I see this theory at work in my golf lessons all the time. People prefer to see a technique or a specific shot executed, enhancing the learning process.

Instructional videos provide an excellent learning experience, given our preference for learning visually. Many of us tend to learn new information faster and retain it longer when the information is taken in through our eyes, making videos highly effective teaching tools. In addition, videos can provide two or three times the amount of information in a visual setting than other methods. One golf video I viewed covered the basics of golf in a little less than an hour. Thus, golfers not only receive information in their preferred learning style but also in greater quantities, reinforced by the latest visual techniques.

2. Money Savings
In comparison to a typical hourly lesson rate of anywhere from $50-$150 for a PGA Pro, a golf instruction DVD can provide that same information at a fraction of the cost. Better yet, you can watch it over and over again…without getting charged hourly.

3. Stop and Rewind
This technological capability must be singled out for its unique communication capabilities. Unlike a personal presentation, the instructional video allows the viewer to stop and rewind the tape, either from the beginning or from a certain point in the script. In other words, it lets us replay the tape again and again, helping us learn through repetition.

The capability also helps with complicated golf techniques. We can rewind the tape over and over again and watch how a shot was made, imprinting it in our minds. It’s especially helpful with difficult shots. Once we have this visual representation in our minds, making the shot when we face it becomes much easier.

4. Unique Technological Capabilities
Instructional videos employ the medium’s unique technological capabilities to drive home key points effectively—capabilities that support information presentation. Golf instructional videos use split screens, inserts, close-ups, and computer generated 3-D graphics to teach the game’s fundamentals such as how to grip, aim, and swing the club as well as how to create the proper angles at address and how to take the club back correctly.

These techniques also help maintain our interest, especially when combined with other visual aides. There’s nothing more boring in person, on television or during movies than watching a talking head. Human beings crave action, movement, and so on. If we don’t get it, we get bored quickly and turn our attention to other things, lowering the effectiveness of the presentation. Keeping us interested helps us focus on the material being presented.

In addition, the capability lets us hone in on details we might have missed the first time around, as well as things that we couldn’t see in print, like rhythm, balance, and timing. Much of our golf game depends on these details and key intangibles, and much depends on our getting a “feel” for what the moderator is talking about and demonstrating.

These are just four of the unique benefits provided by instructional videos. If you sat down and studied the question, you probably could come up with several more. These benefits explain golf instructional videos’ popularity over the last decade or so, and why they are so efficient in communicating information to a golfer. In short, they are cost-effective teaching tools for the average golfer.

Of course, we’re not saying that you should abandon all other instructional methods, like golf lessons and golf tips. Each makes a contribution to the learning process and each has its place among the different techniques. Golf lessons, for example, are great at providing feedback and correcting faults.

By combining teaching methods, however, you’ll learn the game faster than using just one method. You’ll also learn to lower your golf handicap faster using several teaching approaches than one. And isn’t that what golf instruction is all about?

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 was able to figure out the secrets of shooting in the 70’s on a consistent basis without quitting your day job. Jack has helped thousands of golfers from all seven continents lower their handicap immediately.

I don’t often mention green maintenance in my golf lessons. Nor do I often discuss it in my golf tips. That’s because golfers want to talk about hitting the ball instead. But the care and feeding of a club’s greens—how they are mowed, watered, fertilized— can have a major impact on a player’s golf handicap, especially if he or she plays the same course a lot.

Speed is the key factor when considering green maintenance. Usually, players want a superintendent to increase green speed. It’s probably the most frequent request about greens. Occasionally, players want a superintendent to decrease green speed, but these requests are few and far between. Misjudging the speed of a putt can add strokes to a score, as I’ve mentioned in my golf tips.

The term “green speed” is technically inaccurate. The device measuring “speed” —the USGA Stimpmeter —gauges the distance a ball rolls when released at a controlled speed on a putting surface, not the ball’s velocity. To talk about green speed then is a bit of a misnomer. Nevertheless, we continue to use the term when talking about greens. (I even use it when giving golf lessons.) A green with a relatively long ball roll is considered “fast.” A green with a relatively short ball roll is said to be “slow.”

Ball roll relates to relationship between the initial energy when a putter strikes the ball and the resistance between the ball and the turf’s surface, or friction. As the ball rolls across the green, its surface slows it down thanks to friction. A green with high resistance slows a ball down more than a green with low resistance. Moderating friction changes a green’s speed.

Environmental factors, such as humidity, can moderate friction and change a green’s speed. For example, high humidity increases green speed, a consideration when playing on a hot day. Soil type also influences green speed. Greens made predominately of clay are faster in spring than their sandier counterparts. While superintendents have little or no control over these factors, they have minimal impact on your game.

Management practices, on the other hand, like mowing or irrigation, can make a profound impact on a green, both short-term and long-term. Below is a summary of how some popular management practices affect green speed.

Mowing:

An effective way of increasing ball roll in the short-term, mowing has a significant impact on green speed. Decreasing mowing height by only 1/16 inch can increase ball roll from 6 to 10 inches. A similar response occurs when you “double cut” a green (mowing it a second time, perpendicular to the first cut) which can increase ball roll 6 to 12 inches. Mower type also influences green speed. Greens cut with a walk-behind mower are generally 6 to 8 inches fast than greens cut with triplex mowers.

Irrigation

Dry greens are faster than moist or wet greens. Withholding irrigation or decreasing it before an event requiring faster greens will increase ball roll 4 to 8 inches, depending on soil type.

Rolling

Rolling golf greens isn’t new, but it’s growing in popularity thanks to new research and better equipment. Depending on the type of roller you use, you can increase green speed from 4 to 10 inches, with minimal compaction problems on sand-based greens

Topdressing

Light frequent topdressing with or without vertical mowing or core aerating is common. Topdressing decreases speed for up to 1 week after application, followed by an increase of from 4 to 8 inches (above the speed before topdressing.) Vertical mowing has a similar effect. Core aeration reduces speed initially, and if you don’t topdress to fill in the holes, decrease it long term.

Fertility

Decreasing nitrogen fertility will gradually increase ball-roll distance. A decrease in nitrogen fertility of only 10 percent can increase ball roll 8 to 12 percent. The effects may take up to a year to see, however, depending on previous fertility practices. Plant growth regulators can increase ball roll from 4 to 8 inches, depending on product, rate, and frequency of application.

Keep in mind that these factors do not operate independently. Modifying one may require compensation by modifying another.

Next time you play your favorite course be aware of these factors and how they affect a green. Take them into account when putting. Doing so might just help you improve your round and 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 was able to figure out the secrets of shooting in the 70’s on a consistent basis without quitting your day job. Jack has helped thousands of golfers from all seven continents lower their handicap immediately.

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How To Break 80 Newsletter

May 3, 2006

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

In this issue we’ll discuss…

1) Making Better Contact with the Ball
2) The Proper Follow-Through Position

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1) Making Better Contact with the Ball 
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Making better contact, as I often point out in my golf lessons, isn’t a matter of swinging the club harder or faster, but of developing a balanced, free-flowing swing that produces tremendous clubhead speed through impact. Making contact often pays off in the form of lower scores.

One key to better contact is swinging through the ball, not to the ball, which even tour players sometimes forget to do. Below are 4 additional keys to improving your ball-striking capability:

• Create good angles
• Hover the clubhead at address
• Keep head up, away from chest
• Shift weight properly

Making better impact starts at address. Adopting a stance with good body angles at address—flexed knees, comfortably bent spine, and loose hanging arms— promotes a good shape to your golf swing, while hovering your clubhead above the ground encourages a smooth one-piece takeaway.

Lifting your head off your chest at address enables you to rotate your right shoulder under your chin through impact while extending your arms fully. Having a straight left arm at impact re-establishes the radius of your swing, enabling the clubhead to be returned to the ball squarely, with power, and at the right angle of attack.

One other thing that will help in making better contact is a proper weight shift. Take a loot at this drill to work on it:

Address the ball normally but choke down on the club. Take the club back with a good turn, making an effort to transfer your weight to the right side. Then shift the weight to the left side as you swing through impact. Make sure you keep your head behind the ball, which enhances your sense of being “over the ball” at impact. Continue forward and walk through the shot.

These keys will help you improve your ball-striking capability. Do so and you’ll soon cut that golf handicap down to size.
 
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2) The Proper Follow-Through Position
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A poor follow-through often results from an inhibited body motion coupled with a decelerating clubhead. This position is a result of a player’s tendency to guide the clubhead through impact instead of freely releasing the club in the downswing.

While you can’t influence the ball’s flight after hitting it, keying on certain post-impact “factors” during the swing often helps improve the swing itself. Try keying on these 4 factors for a better follow-through:

• Fire the right shoulder
• Maintain balance through impact
• Rotate all the way through
• Finish with spine straight

Getting good extension with your arms through impact not only generates distance but often results in a good follow through as well. To generate extension, drive your right shoulder (for right-handers) past your chin toward the target. Try staying with the ball as long as you comfortably can while maintaining your balance through impact.

To finish your swing properly, you must encourage the right side of your body to rotate all the way through the shot, so that you end up with the majority of your weight on your left side, with your right foot up on its toes.

You should finish with the spine straight, the right shoulder over the left foot, and in balance. Finishing out of balance is a sign of swinging too hard or too fast.

The following drill produces a more effective, rotary motion and transfer of weight:

Start by sticking a golf umbrella in the ground, about 6 inches to the side of the left hip, then:

• Setup as normal and swing back with your weight on your right knee.

• As you start your downswing, the left hip starts to move away in the hitting zone

• Follow-through without sliding into or disturbing the umbrella

• Finish in perfect balance, leaving the umbrella undisturbed.

The trick is to get a good rotation while not sliding the hips too much. A great visual is to picture yourself “turning in a barrel”. Try these tips and you’ll be sure to have more success with accuracy and distance of your 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
break80ezine@aweber.com
===================================================
About the Author
===================================================
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 handicaps quickly. His free weekly newsletter goes out to thousands of golfers worldwide and provides the latest golf tips, strategies, techniques and instruction on how to improve your golf game.