If you slice and hook shots off the tee indiscriminately or you make contact on the heel or the toe of the club more than on the sweet spot, your swing tempo may be off. For some, the loss of tempo is only temporary. They quickly gain it back. But for others, it’s habitual. Either way, fine-tuning your swing tempo helps drive the ball farther, straighter, and longer—and lowers your golf handicap.

Tempo is often ignored as a swing fundamental, but it’s as critical as the right grip or a smooth one-piece takeaway. Tempo is the speed at which you swing. You can swing fast, slow, or in-between. Lanny Wadkins and Tom Watson have fast tempos. Ernie Els and Fred Couples slow tempos. All are good ballstrikers. When it comes to tempo, technical golf instruction is often irrelevant. It’s a matter of feel. You have your own natural tempo, as I’ve explained in several golf tips, and it can be fine-tuned to produce better shots.

So how do you determine what tempo is best for you? In essence, it’s a question of discovery. In the same way you developed your walking pace as a baby, you need to discover your natural swing tempo as a golfer.

Here’s one way I use in golf instruction sessions to find your natural swing tempo:

Tee up four balls in a row. Address the one that’s closest to you and hit it 25 percent of your normal swing speed. Now move to the next ball and hit it 50 percent of your swing speed. Hit the third ball at 75 percent and the fourth ball at 100 percent. Focus on the feel of the different speeds. Do this a few times. Note at which speed you hit the ball best.

Your goal with this exercise is not to try and hit the ball farther or straighter. It’s to find out what your natural swing speed feels like. That’s your best swing speed and the one you should be using. Of course, every day is different and so is your swing depending on the day, so you must learn to adjust your swing speed. Thanks to this drill, you’ll at least know whether to speed up or slow down your swing to achieve your natural swing tempo.

Once you’ve determined your ideal swing speed, work on building rhythm into your swing. Tempo and rhythm go hand in hand. Whatever your swing speed, the various movements of your swing must be blended together to develop a smooth, consistent stroke. The result is rhythm.

Rhythm is the flow or look of your swing, as I’ve described in my golf tips. If you have good rhythm in golf or anything for that matter, you look good doing it. Your swing might not be efficient or effective but you get points for style. Some players who take my golf lessons, for example, look great hitting a ball, but their tempo is off and their swings are ineffective. The biggest problem area as far as rhythm is concerned is the transition period between the backswing and downswing. Although we break these movements down to discuss them in golf instruction sessions; they really are one fluid movement. And they should be treated that way by golfers. Unfortunately, in our efforts to hit it long and far, we speed up the transition period and throw our rhythm and tempo off.

To generate more rhythm in your swing, you first need to relax, especially your hands. If your hands are tight your arms and shoulders will also be tight. Next, you need to start thinking in terms of swinging to a beat. Think of the swing process as a one-and-two motion. Use a swing thought such as “back and through,” “low and slow,” or “turn and turn,” anything that helps you keep the beat.

To help you feel rhythm, try swinging a club with your eyes closed. Feel the weight of the club and sense its speed gradually accelerating from the top of your swing all the way through to a controlled finish. Then try to recreate the same rhythm on the course the next time your play.

Tempo and rhythm are like a horse and carriage, to borrow from the old Sinatra song. You can’t have one without the other. When the two are present, they generate substantial benefits. When they’re not, they wreak havoc with your swing. The key is focusing on fine-tuning them. If you are able to, you’ll find yourself hitting the ball longer, farther, and straighter more consistently—and generating a lower 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

December 6, 2006

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

1) Eliminating Your Slouch
2) Balance is Power
3) Question of the Week- Uphill Lies
4) Article- How To Fine Tune Your Tempo and Rhythm
5) Article- Five Golf Exercises That Strengthen and Tone

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1) Eliminating Your Slouch
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Many players try so hard to keep their heads down during their swings they end up tucking their chins against their chests. Tucking your head down leads to hunching your upper back, which eventually leads to slouching—one of the biggest killers of a good swing. Slouching makes a full turn and a free swing almost impossible.

Good posture at address requires you to lift your chin away from your chest, eliminating your slouch. This in turn enables you to rotate fully and turn your left shoulder under your chin.

If you slouch at address, here are six tips to help eliminate this problem.

1. Keep the head in a natural position
2. Back straight
3. Flex knees
4. Bend from the waist
5. Stick rear end out
6. Tip front shoulder up slightly

It’s not crucial that you keep your head perfectly still during your swing. Even the best players move their heads during their swings a little. What’s important is lifting your head from your chest so that your body is free to rotate during the swing. That’s your natural head position.

Address the ball by bending from your hips, not by curling your spine. This aligns your head and spine so that you can rotate your body fully and can turn your left shoulder under your chin. Also, flex your knees and stick your butt out while tilting your front shoulder up slightly.

Good posture eliminates your slouch. It correctly positions your spine angel and center of gravity. That results in a fuller turn and better shots. Check your posture regularly in a mirror and compare your body position with that of the pros on TV. If it feels awkward, it’s probably correct.

=================================================== 2) Balance is Power
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Many high-handicappers fail to flex their knees enough at address. They also slide left or right during their swings. Some even sway. These swing faults inhibit good ballstriking and decrease power.

Maintaining sufficient knee flex and remaining centered over the ball are crucial to crisp ballstriking and increased distance. In the golf swing, balance and stability reign supreme, regardless of your golf handicap.

OOne drill to improve balance and stability uses balance disks, rubbery flexible discs designed to be stood, sat, kneeled, or laid on, with the intention of stimulating the core muscles of your body. Your core extends from your neck to your lower body, not including your legs, and is arguably the motor that drives your swing. If you don’t have balance discs, try two bare feet on fluffy pillows.

Practice standing on the discs. If you’ve ever tried standing on balance discs you know it’s a challenge. Once you have a feel for that, assume your address position with a club in your hands. Standing on the disc helps you get a feel for posture, which includes a straight back and a forward tilt from the hips. The lack of stability on the discs trains you to flex your legs more to maintain stability.

Once you’re comfortable standing on the discs, try taking a few swings. Immediately you will see that staying balanced means keeping your knees flexed and minimizing excessive sway or lean, whether forward, backward, or to the side. Finally, take the discs to the practice range or the course and hit some balls. You’ll soon be striking them better than you ever have.

This drill drives home the importance of staying centered over the ball and preventing excessive slide or sway. Too much sliding or leaning produces swing problems, cripples ballstriking, and generates inconsistency. More importantly, they decrease power.

Work on the drill whenever you can. If you eliminate excessive sliding and swaying from your swing, you’ll not only generate more distance, you’ll improve your ballstriking and consistency as well.

=================================================== 3) Question of the Week- Uphill Lies
=================================================== From Quinton Burgess

Uphill Lies

Q. Hi. Jack. Your book, How to Break 80, is great. I am down to 14. I was a19. The tips from your newsletter are very helpful as well. I need to develop my technique for hitting from 150 to 190 yards, with an uphill body position and ball position. Thank you.

A. Hitting from an uphill lie is tricky from any distance. Consider these three factors when hitting uphill (1) your setup, (2) the slope, and (3) the shot’s trajectory.

Club selection is a key consideration with uphill lies. The angle of the slope changes the effective loft of a club. In severe cases, a 7-iron becomes a 9-iron. Experience tells you just how much of a change to expect.

Tailor your stance to the slope. Your spine must be perpendicular to the slope, meaning your shoulders will tilt back and your right knee will support most of your weight (for right-handers). Weight distribution at address ultimately determines the shot’s success.

Keep your weight pretty much where it was at address during the backswing. The less drift, the cleaner the shot. And concentrate on making a wide takeaway and keeping your wrists quiet in the backswing’s early stages.

Since your weight’s farther back and your lower body less active than usual, you’ll have a tendency of pulling the ball left, caused by your hands getting over active at impact. To avoid this, keep the clubface looking at the ball as long as possible by swinging with the slope. Finish in balance, with the right leg supporting some of your weight.

The best drill for hitting from an uphill lie is to drop a ball on an upslope and hit. Work on the shot until it becomes second nature.

If you’ve got a golf question you’d like answered, send an email to us at questions@howtobreak80.com and we’ll review it. I can’t guarantee that we’ll use it but if we do, we’ll make sure to include your name and where you’re from.

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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

To view this newsletter online, please visit:
http://www.howtobreak80.com/newsletter12062006.html
Here are some of my recent articles:

4) Article- How To Fine Tune Your Tempo and Rhythm

5) Article- Five Golf Exercises That Strengthen and Tone

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.

Slicing is among golf’s top swing faults. In fact, it’s probably the biggest fault in the game, bigger even than hooking—another major swing error—or topping. For example, more players who take my golf lessons slice the ball than hook or top it. Unfortunately, a big slice gets you into trouble, hurting your golf handicap.

If you’re among the thousands of frustrated players who slice, don’t despair. There’s hope. You can correct your slice by making a few simple adjustments to your swing. After that, it’s just a matter of practice and you’ll be slice-free.

Slicing comes from hitting the ball with an open clubface, as opposed to hooking in which you hit the ball with a closed clubface. There are several ways to correct a slice. Below we look at three of them.

Get A Grip
One reason players slice is their grip. The way a player grips his or her club at address determines the swing’s shape, and more importantly, the clubface’s position at impact. That in turn determines ballflight, as I’ve pointed out in my golf tips. If you slice the ball, you may have a “weak” grip at address—that is, your hands are placed too far to the left of the shaft.

A correct grip rotates the hands more to the right (for right-handers). To strengthen the grip, position the thumb of your left hand to the right of the shaft’s center. Two or three knuckles on your left hand should be showing. The right hand rotates to the right to match the left hand’s re-positioning. One way to determine how much to rotate your hands is to turn them to the right until you start hooking, then back off on the grip until you’re hitting the ball the way your want.

Lighten Up
Many golfers—in an effort to hit real bombs—tighten up on their grip before swinging. Tightening up on your hands (and arms) at address inhibits the clubface’s natural rotation during the swing. Hence, you finish with an open clubface at impact. Instead of a deep drive down the middle, you slice the shot to the right, landing you in the rough or maybe out of bounds.

Obviously, you need to “lighten up” your grip. Relaxing your grip pressure encourages a freer, more natural rotation of the clubface. Thus, you have more of a chance of having a square clubface at impact instead of an open one. How do you determine sufficient pressure? Imagine a scale running from zero to 10, where 10 is the tightest your grip could be and zero the lightest it could be and still hold onto the club. The ideal grip pressure would be a three. That number provides just enough pressure to hold onto the club firmly but not enough to inhibit the clubface’s natural rotation prior to impact.

Flatten Your Plane
Another swing error that causes a slice is approaching the ball on too vertical a plane during the swing. A flatter swing plane promotes a more natural rotation of the clubface, squaring it at impact and generating the preferred right-to-left ball flight.

To learn the feel of a flatter swing plane, try swinging with the club moving at a knee- high level, as if your were swinging a baseball bat. Swinging the club like a bat helps you feel the flatter, more rounded swing plane you need to allow the toe of the clubhead past the heel. After a few baseball swings, try hitting a ball with the same feel. Your ball flight will be straighter, maybe even a little right to left.

These tips will help you cure your slice. Try them on the practice range, then when you’ve ingrained them in your swing, take them to the course. While there’s nothing wrong with hitting a power fade, like Jack Nicklaus, slicing only gets you in trouble, which does nothing for your score or 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.

Putting represents almost half of the strokes played during a round, so anything that improves your putting—whether it’s taking golf lessons or practicing golf tips provided by a professional—improves your scores and your golf handicap. Just think how many putts you make in a typical round, without three-putting a hole.

One way to fine tune your putting is improving control of your speed. In many ways speed is the single most critical factor in sinking a putt. A long putt could be dead-on and still not go in if your speed is off.

Key Factors in Precise Putting
Good putting, as I emphasize in my golf lessons, starts with a good pre-shot routine. The preparation for a putt, whether you’re facing a short or a long one, should always follow a fixed routine. Most players who have high and medium golf handicaps don’t have a fixed putting routine.

Address is also a factor. Everybody addresses a putt in the same way, especially when it comes to standing over a putt. If you stand hunched over the ball, like Japan’s Isao Aoki, instead of erect, your stroke resembles that of a pendulum, straight back and through. If you stand erect, like Curtis Strange, your stroke moves slightly inside going back, then returns straight through “impact” and on towards the target.

Another factor in good putting is technique. Nick Price is one of the tour’s top putters. His technique is based on a locked left wrist and a shoulder dominated stroke. Price’s putterhead still faces the initial line of the ball well after impact. Curtis strange keeps his wrists firm and uses a pendulum action controlled mostly by his shoulders. Both players keep their eyes focused directly over the ball when putting.

Another important aspect is movement. Aoki brings the head of the putter back into a square position at impact, while his head has remained perfectly still throughout the putt. The slightest head—or body movement—during your stroke can cause you to miss a putt. A good putter remains motionless even after a ball is struck, as I’ve often written in my golf tips. As with other golf shots, the club’s position at the end of the stroke is a good indicator of the shot’s success.

Controlling Speed is the Key
To really fine-tune your putting stroke, you need to control speed. Producing the correct speed is one of four crucial skills needed to be a good putter, the other three being reading the putting line, aligning the putter, and executing the moment-of-impact factors. Improving any one of these three factors improves your putting. Improving all four improves your putting dramatically.

Ultimately, however, speed is a key factor. The ability to control putterhead speed translates into the ability to control ball speed, and ultimately, the ability to make more putts. If your control isn’t what you want it to be or has diminished, this drill that will help you learn to better control speed.

Find a hole on the practice green that requires a flat, straight putt. Place a sand wedge perpendicular to the line of the intended putt. Place the club’s face down and the narrow part of the shaft in front of the hole, just at the cup’s edge.

Now putt the ball from three feet or so. Hit the putt so that the ball hits the shaft, pops into the air, and falls in the hole. If you decelerate the putterhead through the stroke, the club stops the ball from going in. If you accelerate through the stroke, the club drives the ball over the shaft and in.

In addition, narrow your focus when putting. Instead of concentrating on the hole, zero in on an imperfection at the back of the cup or a mark on the inside of it. Then stroke the putt toward that spot.

When putting on the course, visualize the wedge’s shaft in front of the hole. Visualizing fosters acceleration and focuses you on the putting process, not the outcome, helping you sink more short putts. This in turn boosts confidence and cuts strokes from your golf handicap, so work on this drill to improve control of your speed and keep the other putting factors in mind when practicing.

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.