Help me, please! See, the U.S. Open this year is at Torrey Pines in San Diego and I’d like to go but don’t have a ticket yet Now I know there are a ton of ways to get a good ticket but I don’t want to pay an arm and a leg if ya know what I mean. So, where do you guys get your tickets for these events? I’m ashamed but I’ve actually never bought one…I usually just get invited by some friends or colleagues in the game but this is a big time event. Got a suggestion for me? Leave a comment below. I’m sure we can all benefit if you guys come up with some great ones. Thanks a million!

Good golfers learn to get out of trouble with a minimum of damage. Damage control is what keeps their scores and golf handicaps low. Watch Tiger Woods, Ernie Els, Sergio Garcia, or any other golfer with a low golf handicap. You’ll see that they’re masters at getting out of trouble without costing themselves strokes.

Recreational golfers need to learn to do damage control. While it requires focus and concentration to do it successfully, it also takes mastery of a range of shots that are helpful when extricating oneself from trouble. The keys to hitting two of theses shots—the on-demand slice and the on-demand hook—are described below.

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Stay Cool
But let’s talk about your emotions first. What do you do when you find yourself in trouble? Get mad. Rant and rave. Getting angry doesn’t help. Instead, stay in the moment and start thinking about how to do to minimize the damage. Watch Tiger Woods when he gets in trouble. Instead of bemoaning a bad shot, he concentrates on his next shot, especially in pressure-packed situations. And then he goes about executing it coolly and calmly.

In addition, make an honest assessment of your situation, weigh your options carefully, then decide which is the best option for you. Try to make an honest evaluation of your ability to execute each option. Trying to make a miracle shot often gets you into more trouble than the original shot. So assess your capabilities honestly. Then pick the shot that makes the most sense.

The Low Hook
Often, the best course of action option is just punching out on to the fairway. If that’s your choice, make sure you get the ball on the fairway in good position. That will set you up for your next shot.

But other times the best course of action is playing the shot you’ve been given. I teach students in my golf lessons to consider hitting a low hook or a low fade in these situations.

Here are the basics of the low hook shot:
1. Adopt a closed stance
2. Position the ball back in your stance
3. Deloft the clubface
4. Follow an inside track
5. Release the club through impact

Start by setting up with a slightly closed stance, but position the ball slightly back from your normal position, with your hands in line with the inside of your front leg. Deloft the club by squaring up the leading edge to the target line. And flex your back knee inwards to settle your weight on your front side.

During the shot keep your legs and hips quiet, your weight slightly forward, and your body low. You don’t want to get too much body into the shot. As you take the club back, follow an inside track, maintain your arms and hands ahead of the club, and keep your head still. You want to use mostly your hands and forearms for this shot. Release the club through impact.

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The Low Fade
With a low fade the idea is the same—go around trouble— but your stance and swing are obviously different. Set up with a slightly open stance, but position the ball forward a little more than normal. Deloft the club by squaring up the leading edge to the target line. And flex your back knee inwards to settle your weight on your front side.

Also, keep your legs and hips quiet and your head still. And start the club outside the target line. You want to follow an out-to-in-to-out swing path. You want to use mostly your hands and forearms for this shot as well. Release the club through impact.

You’re going to hit into trouble sooner or later. No matter how low your golf handicap or how many golf lessons you’ve had, at some point you’ll find yourself with a bad lie, in a patch of deep rough, or behind a clump of trees. These situations can cost you. So take your time, evaluate the situation honestly, and choose the shot that’s right for that situation.

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.

The hardest part of giving golf lessons is diagnosing a student’s problem. I give hundreds of golf lessons every year and the most difficult part of working with a new student is diagnosing his or her problem. Once I’ve done that, I can plan a golf instruction session around it or suggest a golf tip designed to correct the problem. In addition, I can prescribe drills to correct the problem.

Spotting swing flaws in other people’s golf swing is a good way to learn about your own swing and a great way to improve your game. By watching what others do and then comparing it to what you do, you can isolate your own swing flaws. Then you can find golf tips or golf drills that will help you correct the problem or problems. Incorporating the tips in your swing and working on the drills in practice will help you correct the flaw.

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Diagnosing the Problem
Observing others is, as you may have guessed, merely one step in a four-step process that you can apply to your own game to improve play and cut strokes from your golf handicap. Let’s take a closer look at the process.

The first two steps in the process are observing and diagnosing your problem. Numerous tools exist for observing your swing. For example, video cameras are great game improvement tools. You can have a friend film you hitting balls at practice range and then view the film on a computer or the television to observe your flaws.

But investing in video cameras and software can be expensive. In some cases, it is also unnecessary. Among the best—and least expensive ways—of diagnosing a swing problem is to simply to watch the flightpath of a shot. You can tell a lot about a golfer’s swing by simply observing the flight of his or her ball. It will tell you what the golfer is doing wrong. By observing someone else’s flightpath and comparing it to yours, you can identity your swing flaw or flaws.

Next, you need to diagnose the problem. Let’s say you’re a right-handed golfer and you observe yourself or someone else hitting weak slices the right. This is one of the most common flight paths among recreational golfers. The question is what caused the problem. Was it the result of excess body movement, standing too far from the ball, too little wrist cock, or not enough hip turn?

Normally, this type of flightpath results from too little wrist cock on the backswing. A player who exhibits this flaw merely lifts the club into the air with his arms and then starts the downswing by spinning his front shoulders toward the ball. This forces the club outside the line of play and requires him to cut across the ball from outside to in, causing the slice.

However, the lack of distance indicates that in addition to the above swing flaw the player used no wrist cock and little hand action during the swing. This in turn reduced the force of the swing at impact, resulting in a loss of distance.

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Now that you’ve diagnosed the problem, you need to prescribe a remedy. So how do we correct for this problem? Several drills exist for correcting it. One of the most effective is the cross-handed grip drill. To teach the golfer what the feel of a good wrist cock is like, you have the golfer grip the club with a cross-handed grip and then hit balls at a practice range.

By holding the club in this manner, the golfer can’t help but increase the angle between clubshaft and the left forearm at the top of his swing. With more wrist cock he is able to pull downward with his left wrist along an inside path. Once the player gains the feel for a good wrist cock, he can go back to hitting balls with a normal grip. With additional practice, he’ll be able to apply the remedy on the course.
Observing, diagnosing, prescribing, applying – four steps in a simply process that can help you improve your game. Use the process to help correct our flaws, lower your scores, and cut golf handicap. It can work wonders.

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

February 7, 2008

“The Web’s Most Popular Golf Improvement Newsletter”
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In this issue we’ll discuss…
1) Stabilize Your Head and Body
2) Hitting Short Irons Higher
3) Question of the Week – Selecting The Right Wedge
4) Article – Learning From Your Mistakes
5) Article – Getting Out Of Trouble

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1) Stabilize Your Head and Body
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The simplest things can make a big difference when putting. Keeping your head and body still, especially on short putts, is one thing that recreational golfers often take for granted on short putts. Anxious to sink the putt and move on, the golfer looks at the hole before completing the stroke. If you look at the hole too soon, your head and body will move, throwing your putter off line.

Here are five tips to remember when faced with a short putt:
* Visualize hitting the back of the cup
* Adopt the right ball position
* Make a confident stroke.
* Set your weight back on your heels
* Listen for the ball to fall in

Stabilizing your head down and your body until well after you’ve putted the ball is critical to making short putts. An effective way of stabilizing your head and body is to set your weight on your heels at address and leave it there until after you’ve stroked the ball. With your weight back, it’s hard to move your head and body without falling completely off balance.
Also, make sure you adopt the right ball position for the type of grip your using. Generally speaking, that position is an inch forward of the bottom of your swing arc, whatever stroke you use. That way the putter makes contact with the ball on a slight upswing, which starts the ball rolling.

Lastly, focus on a particular part of the cup, not the entire hole. Aim for the cup’s front lip, right lip, or left lip. Visualize the ball going in at that spot before making your shot. And make a confident stroke. Recreational golfers miss hundreds of putts each year because they’re too tentative.

Keeping your head and body still when putting is a simple thing that can mean a lot to your game. Putt your weight back on your heels when putting and you’ll keep your head and body still, which will help improve your putting

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2) Hitting Short Irons Higher
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Usually recreational golfers benefit more from hitting lower shots with their short irons than higher ones. Lower shots are easier to control because they get the ball on the ground sooner. The sooner the ball gets on the ground, the easier it is to control, which in turn increases your chances of getting the ball close to the pin.

But sometimes golfers need to hit higher shots with their short irons, like when a flagstick is tucked behind a bunker. These shots require not only a higher ballflight but also less roll, so the ball will stopwhen it hits.

Here are five tips on hitting higher shots with your short irons:
* Place the ball forward in your stance
* Tilt your spine away from the target
* Keep your chest behind the ball
* Release your hands earlier
* Swing to a full follow-though

Club selection, ball position, and setup are keys to achieving higher ballflight with your short irons. First, make sure you select the right club for the shot. You’ll need one with sufficient loft to get the ball in the air quickly. Next, move the ball forward slightly in your set up, about an inch or two in front of the logo on your shirt, and tilt your spine away from the target a little. You want your back shoulder to be slightly lower than your front shoulder.

When swinging, keep your chest behind the ball, place more weight on your back leg than normal, straighten your back arm at impact, and release your hands a little earlier than normally—all of which adds loft to the shot. Swing to a full follow-through, just as you normally would on a typical short iron shot.

Following these keys will help you hit the ball higher with your short irons. Keep in mind that the ball won’t go as far as it usually does because it’s higher and has more spin on it. Take those factors into consideration when hitting the shot.

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3) Question of the Week – Selecting The Right Wedge
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Q. Hi Jack, Do you have a recommendation on which degree wedge I should use in which situations around the green? For instance, should I use my 56-degree or 60-degree wedge out of the sand? I have 52-, 56-, and 60-degree wedges.

B.C. Robins

A. Thanks for the question. Green play is more of an art, than a science, so it’s hard saying which clubs you should use in which situations. There are just too many variables. For example, many players use a sand wedge out of a green side bunker if the sand is soft and the lie is decent.

But what if the sand is wet? What club do you use then. It depends on the sand’s condition —hard packed, just firm, or soft with a crust.
* If the sand is hard packed, you might opt for a pitching wedge instead of a sand wedge. The PW digs in and under the ball better than a sand wedge, preventing skulling.

* If the sand has a thin crust, play the shot as a typical bunker shot. Use a sand wedge, especially if the sand is deep and powdery.

* If the sand is powdery on top but hard packed underneath—perhaps the most difficult of all sand shots—you may want a heavier flanged club, like a sand wedge or something lower like a lob wedge.

What you use also depends on how well you swing a certain club, how good a bunker player you are, and where the hole is, to name a few other variables. Experience and practice are the best teachers of what clubs to use around the green.

Also, keep you eyes open and watch other players around the green, especially those who are good at it. See which clubs they use in which situations. Don’t be afraid to ask questions of better players as to why they used a certain club in a certain situation. You can learn from asking questions In addition, read as much about golf as you can. You never know when you might pick up a tip that can help you.

If you do all these tings, eventually you will be able to decide yourself which wedges to use in which situations.

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/newsletter02062008.html

Here are some of my recent articles:

4) Article – Learning From Your Mistakes
http://www.howtobreak80.com/articles/learning-from-your-mistakes.html

5) Article – Getting Out Of Trouble
http://www.howtobreak80.com/articles/getting-out-of-trouble.html

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.