Visualization techniques help improve your game. All good players do it, whether consciously or unconsciously. PGA pros, for example, visualize every shot they take. It’s the key to their success. I also encourage it in my individual golf instruction sessions. Below are a couple of visualization techniques that I’ve written about in my golf tips.

To improve your scores quickly, try developing a good mental picture of your swing. Too many recreational golfers have a poor mental picture of their swing. Hence, their swings look awkward and disjointed.

This awkward, disjointed swing isn’t solely the player’s fault. It’s also the fault of the way we teach golf. When I give golf lessons, I often work on individual elements of the swing, breaking it down into discrete parts so we can focus on correcting it.

Recently, for example, I worked with a player on completing a full shoulder turn before initiating her downswing. We worked on it for a couple of sessions. You can bet she thought of her shoulder when she played her next round.

This approach, as golf instruction techniques go, works well. However, it encourages you to think of your swing piece-meal, instead of as one fluid motion. When we practice, we also encourage the piecemeal picture of our swing by focusing on correcting individual swing faults one at a time, instead of concentrating on rhythm and tempo.

There are two basic components to your swing: your trunk, supported by your legs and feet, and the unit of your hands, arms, and shoulders. Your trunk moves on a fairly horizontal plan. Your hands, arms, and shoulders, on the other hand, move on a relatively vertical plane. The trunk is the hub of your swing, around which the hands, arms, and shoulder component moves.

A good way to think of this is arrangement is to imagine your trunk turning within the confines of a barrel, while the club moves up and down along the rim of the wheel. As your body rotates to the right (for right handers), the clubhead moves up along the rim of the wheel to the top of your backswing. As your body rotates to the left, your club moves down the rim of the wheel and back up the other side as you complete your follow-through.

In reality, your swing is not a perfect circle, since the dynamics of motion require you to change planes. Nor does your trunk move in perfect rotation. You have to have a slight lateral motion to the left. But the barrel concept is a fairly good way of thinking about your swing as a whole. It encourages the major components to work together in harmony.

Another technique that can help your swing is visualizing the type of shot you want to hit. Establish a pre-flight target line in your mind before addressing the ball. Retain this image when hitting. Then, try copying it with your actual ball flight. This visualization technique forces you to think about the target line, not your mechanics.

However, if you have to think about something during your swing, try thinking about a phrase promoting a smooth takeaway. Slow and easy or slow and smooth are good swing thoughts. Anything that produces a nice takeaway works well.

Why? Because the takeaway is the key to the overall shape and tempo of your swing. Tempo is the speed of your swing. Actually, the time it takes you to complete your swing, from beginning to end. We all have a natural tempo. Try maintaining it when hitting a club, whether you’re hitting a driver or a sand wedge.

Individual golf lessons emphasize discrete parts of your swing. Visualization can overcome this. It focuses you on the harmony of your swing. In fact, you should get in the habit of thinking, “visualize to realize” on every shot. Golfers with single digit golf handicaps do.

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.

The chip shot is one of the easiest to learn in the game. Yet, many recreational players have trouble hitting the short chip shot, even after several golf instruction sessions. In fact, they’re so bad, they substitute their putter for wedge, which isn’t always wise, as I explain in my golf lessons.

Using a putter when you need a pitching wedge or a sand wedge is, needless to say, a poor decision. It can add strokes to your overall score or cost you a hole in match play. It’s a problem you must overcome to lower your golf handicap. If you can’t hit a short chip shot well, don’t despair. There’s help.

The inability to hit a short chip shot is as much mental as physical. To overcome these obstacles, you need to simplify both your mental approach and your physical technique. The next time you have a short chip shot, try using an 8 iron instead of a wedge. It’s an approach I sometimes use myself. That’s because it works.

Here are 6 keys to chipping as if you were putting that I recommend in my golf lessons:

• Replace your wedge with an 8 iron
• Take a normal putting stance
• Place hands and weight forward
• Hold the club vertically
• Hit the ball off the toe-end of the clubface
• Rock your shoulders to control roll of ball

First, set-up as if your were going to make a long putt. Use your normal putting grip and play the ball back in your stance, off the inside of the heel of your back foot. The 8 iron is ideal for this type of shot because it’s short enough to deloft without the club’s shaft hitting you during the shot.

Also, keep your hands and weight forward, favoring your front side, as you would if you were hitting a chip shot. Hold the club vertically, so that the club’s heel is raised off the ground, enabling you to stand closer to the ball. And spread your elbows

Moving the ball back in your stance and shifting your weight forward positions the ball off the toe-end of the clubhead when you hit it. Using the toe-end will deaden the ball when you make contact. It will also help control the ball’s roll.

Hit the ball with a gentle rocking of the shoulders, as you would if you were putting. This technique raises the club several inches off the ground in the backswing and forces you to hit down on the ball slightly, chipping it into the air. Concentrate on maintaining the width of the gap between your elbows as you swing thorough. It also ensures a pure arms-and-shoulders motion.

Using the 8-iron approach takes your wrists out of play. Recreational golfers who have trouble making short chip shots often have overly active wrists. With my approach, you’ll eliminate your wrists yet still strike the ball solidly—just keep your head still and focus on making a short, firm follow-through,

You can also use my approach for longer chip shots. Just lengthen your stroke to play the longer shot, as you would if you were hitting a long putt. For extra long chip shots, try using a 5 or 6 iron to get the required roll.

Chip under Target Drill
The key to accurate chipping is keeping the ball low so it runs like a putt when it hits the ground. Here’s a drill I use in my golf lessons designed to teach players to keep the ball low.

Lay a club or bag horizontally across two baskets placed about three feet apart. Then, step back a few feet and try chipping under the obstacle toward the hole, using either a wedge or an 8 iron.

To chip under the obstacle, you must deloft the club, which you can do by keeping your hands ahead of the clubhead when you swing. Having a visual obstacle to hit the ball under forces you to develop your ability to keep the ball low. Keep practicing this shot until it becomes second nature

Hitting the short chip shot well—whether you use a wedge or an 8 iron— is a start toward improving your short game, and chopping strokes of your golf handicap. And aren’t those the real goals?

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

June 14, 2006

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

1) Hitting from a Divot
2) Putting From the Sand

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1) Hitting from a Divot 
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No one likes hitting from a divot, especially when you’re only a pitching wedge or sand wedge away. While hitting thin here is better than hitting fat, the ideal is hitting to the green.

Here are 5 keys to hitting from a divot:

• Position the ball in the middle of stance
• Open your stance slightly
• Let hands lead club through impact
• Stay down longer after shot
• Finish with club pointing to target

Plan on using the same setup for this shot as for hitting a full pitching wedge or a sand wedge, but:

• Position the ball in the middle of your stance. This ensures that you strike the ball crisply with a slightly descending blow. Also, your left arm (for right handers) and the shaft need to be in a straight line at address to encourage ball-then-turf contact.

• Open your alignment slightly. This helps the left side clear through impact, just as in a wedge shot. However, aim the clubface directly at the target.

• Let your hands lead. Since hitting from a divot is similar to hitting from a downhill lie, let your hands lead the clubhead through impact.

• Stay down longer on the shot. A good tip is to hit the shot and stay down for three full seconds before looking up.

• Finish lower. You should end up with your club pointing at the target, not wrapped around your body.

The best way to practice this shot is to hit from divots at the range, duplicating fairway conditions. An alternative drill is putting a tee in the ground and practicing scraping the grass in front of the tee. Either way, you’ll find that practicing pays off.
 
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2) Putting From the Sand
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While it may not lower your golf handicap dramatically, knowing how to putt from a bunker can come in handy. For me, it’s been the right shot at the right time on several occasions, saving me a stroke or two each time.

Putting from a bunker has one advantage: You don’t make contact with the sand before hitting the ball. In other words, it’s easier to hit the ball cleanly with a putter than a wedge. Below are five tips on putting from the sand:

• Assess the conditions carefully
• Play the ball forward in your stance
• Shift your weight forward
• Keep your head down
• Pick out a spot beyond the cup

The key to this shot is the situation. You need a greenside bunker with a slight lip, a clean lie, and at least 15 feet of green, since the ball comes out of the bunker running hot and low. If any of these conditions are missing, use a wedge.

Setup as you would for a putt, but with the ball forward in your stance and your weight on your front foot. Moving the ball forward and shifting your weight places the bottom of your swing arc forward as well. Now, if you use a level swing, you’ll hit the ball cleanly.

However, you need to keep your head down throughout the shot. You also need to hit the ball 50 percent harder than a putt of the same length, since the ball must roll though the sand and the fringe of the green. To do this, pick out a spot beyond the cup and hit to it. This encourages you to hit the ball harder than you usually would.

And whatever you do, don’t let the putter touch the sand. Remember you’re still in a bunker. If you let your club touch the sand, you’ll be penalized strokes, just as you would if you were hitting a wedge.

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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

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
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About the Author
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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.

How you finish often reveals what’s happening during your swing In fact, I often key on a player’s finish in my golf lessons to determine exactly how to help he or she can improve their game. You can do the same for yourself—if you know what to look for.

Below I describe four of the more common finishes I see when giving golf lessons, possible causes of the finish, and ideas on how to eliminate, the swing faults that cause them.

High Finish
The high finish position is among the most common. Hands held high and a flying left elbow (for right handers) characterize the position, associated with pushes, thins shots, and shots struck toward the clubface’s heel. High finishers tend to swing on an in to out path that’s extreme, with the club traveling to the right of the target, minimizing control.

If you read my golf tips, you’ll find that the in-to-out swing is my preferred approach; however, in this case, it’s extreme. When the inside-out move becomes severe, you push the shot. When club comes too far inside with a closed clubface, you pull the shot. Also, swinging too far inside delivers the club below the swing plane, preventing the club from striking the ball on a descending path. The key is not to exaggerate the move too much.

Low Finish
The low finish stems from an overly out-to-in swing path, caused by a downswing motion initiated by the arms instead of the body. Players developing this finish come over the top of the plane, as I’ve explained in my golf tips, causing the clubhead to cut across the ball through the impact zone. The position is associated with pull slices, pull hooks, and shots off the toe. Since the club is moving steeply and across the ball, none of the shots are well struck. Nor do they fly toward the intended target.

If you freeze this finish, you’ll notice that the player’s hands and arms seemed to be all jammed up. That’s because the arms have moved earlier than the body, impeding the arm’s movement and limiting their extension. To fix this problem, you obviously need to work on the body/arm synchronization, so your arms don’t out race your body on the downswing.

Lunge Finish
I don’t know how popular this finish is statistically, but I often see it in my golf lessons. With this type of finish, the player’s head is in front of his or her left leg, or the golfer feels himself or herself falling forward. It stems from a poor rotation of the lower body through the hitting zone, causing the upper body to get ahead of the ball. The end result: the player fails to stay behind the ball during the swing.

To correct this fault, you need to work on your hip rotation. Try leading the down swing with your hips instead of your body. Try placing a chair to your front side, with the back of the chair just touching your hips. Take a few practice swings being careful to stay in contact with the chair’s back as you turn through impact. Also, try finishing with your head over your left leg.

Reverse C Finish
The Reverse C Finish, in many golf instruction courses, was thought of as the perfect finish— that is, up until a few years ago. Now, it’s not as highly regarded. With the reverse C, the golfer slides his legs and body laterally to the left (for right-handers) and too fast through impact. The weight, however, remains on the back foot. A reverse pivot—which occurs when you fail to transfer your weight from the front foot to the back foot—also produces a Reverse C finish configuration.

To correct this fault, you need more hip rotation and less slide. To cure the reverse pivot, you need more weight transfer. If your problem is the reverse pivot, try making your ordinary swing while lifting your front foot of the ground on your back swing, then replant it on the downswing. This helps transfer the weight from the front foot to the back foot, as it should. If you want to build more hip rotation in the swing, try taking practice swings with a shaft placed on right side of your hips. Your hips should rotate so that they never touch the shafts. If they touch, you slid.

The reverse C finish is one of the more prominent finishes. But like the lunge, low, or high finishes, it can indicate hidden swing faults that need correcting. The sooner you start working on correcting the swing faults discussed here, the sooner you’ll start lowering 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.