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How To Break 80 Newsletter

May 21, 2008

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

1) How To Leave Yourself A Tap-in
2) Hitting Clean Irons
3) Question of the Week – Two Drills To Improve Short Chipping
4) Article – Golf’s Four Toughest Bunker Shots
5) Article – Golf Challenge Sharpens Your Game

Jack’s Note: Hi all. You guys getting revved up for the golf season? Take a peek at the article on hitting your irons…this is the method I’ve used for quite some time now with great results. Enjoy the long weekend, States golfers!

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1) How To Leave Yourself A Tap-in
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When a golfer is indecisive, she usually gets herself in trouble. Not knowing whether to chip it or pitch it when you’re 5 to 25 yards from the hole can cost you strokes. But when you’re that close to the pin, the terms chip and pitch don’t mean much. Realistically, you’re either going to hit a high soft shot or a low running shot. And the key to both of those shots is your address position.

Here are six keys to the basic address position:

1. Take a narrow stance
2. Grip down on your wedge
3. Position the ball properly
4. Keep shoulders level
5. Use a downward stroke
6. Finish with hands high

Use the same address position for both shots, but make adjustments based on the type of shot. To hit a high shot, rotate the clubface open in your backswing and keep the club in front of your body. For a low shot, close the clubface and swing the club behind you a bit. Also, grip down on your wedge about an inch and a half for better control. And use a narrow stance, with your feet inside your shoulders.

For a low running shot, play the ball just back of center, with your weight stacked over your front leg. For a high soft shot, position the ball forward, with your weight evenly distributed.

The downswing is the same for both shots. So is your body movement. Rotate your body around your front leg and keep your shoulders level at impact, just as they were at address.

Now, finish with your hands high. You’ve done it right if the clubface position in your finish matches the one you’ve established in your backswing.

With these shots, all you have to do is make some simple adjustments based on the type of shot your making and you’re good to go. Keeping this concept in mind when hitting those shots eliminates indecision. That, in turn, boosts self-confidence and helps you of get the ball close.

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2) Hitting Clean Irons
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To score well, you must hit good iron shots. Unfortunately, many golfers don’t. Instead of hitting solid irons, they slice or pull their irons short, take poor divots, and/or mis-hit their long irons. These mistakes often leave them short of the green. They also cost them strokes. If this is you, you need to learn to generate the extra 10 or 15 yards that puts you on the green.

Here are six keys to adding 10 to15 yards to your irons:

1. Keep your head behind the ball
2. Keep your hands together on the club
3. Hips/arms are in the same place at impact
4. Shaft is ahead of the clubhead at impact
5. Back of front hand faces the target
6. Weight is on your forward foot

The key to adding yards to your irons is making consistent impact, not swinging the club faster or harder. When you try swinging the club faster or harder, your arms outrace your body, reaching the ball before you’re able to shift your weight. To make consistently solid contact, you must arrive at impact simultaneously with both your arms and body, using a slightly descending blow.

How can you tell if you’re doing this right? Have someone film you hitting an iron shot. Then review it. If you’ve swung the club correctly in the video, the club’s shaft will be ahead of the clubface at impact, your weight will be over your front foot, and your hips will be open to the target. These positions indicate that your arms and hips are moving together at the same time.

Don’t let poor iron shots ruin your scores and your golf handicap. Work on arriving at impact with your arms and body simultaneously, rather than trying to swing the club harder or faster. If you can master this fundamental, you’ll hit solid iron shots.

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3) Question of the Week – Two Drills To Improve Short Chipping
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Q. Hi Jack, I’m a 17 handicap. I hit the ball well off the tee. My long irons down to a wedge are quite reasonable, too. My problem occurs when I miss the green and need to play a chip from inside 20 yards. I tend to either hit the ball 15 feet past or duff the shot, leaving it 10 feet short! Are there any exercises I can use to get some consistency from this distance?

Many thanks
Jon Crane, Wales

A. Thanks for the question, Jon. Below are two faithful drills for improving chipping from inside 20 yards:

Left Wrist Pen/Pencil Drill
This drill builds the left-wrist and left-arm position needed to hit sold chips. Stick a pen or pencil under your watchband. Make sure one end touches your first set of knuckles. This automatically flattens out the left wrist. Now hit numerous short chip shots like this, making sure to brush the grass after hitting the ball with a slightly downward stroke. If you’re not used to the feeling produced by the drill, don’t give up. Eventually, you’ll get used to it and you’ll start hitting better chip shots. Left-handers need to use the right-wrist and right-arm with this drill.

Watchdog Drill
This drill improves your hand-eye coordination and distance control. Take your normal chipping stance. Place the clubface of a chipping club squarely behind the ball and perpendicular to a hole, about 20 feet away. Next turn your head and look at the hole. Maintain that head position and make a smooth chip stroke. Hit about 10 chips like this, each time watching how the ball reacts in the air and on the ground. Now, go back to your normal address position, keeping your eyes on the ball. Hit the same number of chips with the same club.

These drills are simple but effective. If you master them, you’ll not only improve your chipping, you’ll also chop strokes off your golf handicap.

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/newsletter05212008.html
Here are some of my recent articles:

4) Article – Golf’s Four Toughest Bunker Shots
http://www.howtobreak80.com/articles/golfs-four-toughest-bunker-shots.html

5) Article – Golf Challenge Sharpens Your Game
http://www.howtobreak80.com/articles/golf-challenge-sharpens-your-game.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.

Every year golf magazines feature articles on the game’s toughest shots. Usually, each article has its own specific criteria on what it considers a tough shot. But by and large it means a shot that’s not only difficult, but also intimidating. When missed, these shots boost scores by two or three strokes. Missed often enough, they also boost golf handicaps.

A recent article in one golf magazine lists over 20 of these troublesome shots. They range from shots involving a full swing to shots requiring a delicate touch. The article ranks them in order of difficulty. But they also discuss them in terms of frequency. Amazingly, five bunker shots rank within the article’s top 10 most difficult shot. Two made the top two spots.

While these shots are hard, they’re not impossible. Making simple adjustments to your address and/or your swing helps you conquer them as long as you don’t try to do too much with them. In other words, the adjustments help as long as you stay within your capabilities. Trying to hit that miracle recovery from a difficult lie shot seldom works.

1. Feet Inside/Ball Outside Fairway Bunker
Your ball rests near the edge of a fairway bunker. The only way you can hit it is to stand in the bunker. You must use a baseball-like swing here instead of a golf swing. You also have to be practical. You can’t try to do too much. Advance the ball as far as you can and set yourself up for the next shot.

Grab a 7-iron from your bag, choke down on it, and dig your feet into the sand for support. Choking down lets you set up your clubface behind the ball at address. Now, make a few practice swings above the ball to get a feel for the motion. Use your shoulders and chest muscles, just as you do when swinging a baseball bat. Increasing grip pressure a bit stops you from rotating the face open or closed during the swing. And bend your front elbow a bit, so it’s not too stiff in the backswing.

2. Feet Outside/Ball Inside A Bunker
Your ball is in a bunker, but the only way you can hit it is to stand outside the bunker, which means the ball is several inches below your feet. Be careful with this shot! It’s not something you face every round, but anything can happen with it—a shank, a slice, or even a miss. Again, don’t try to do too much. Focus on getting the ball out of the bunker and positioned for the next shot.

The steeper the slope, the more the ball goes right (or left if you’re left handed.) Spread your feet wider than your shoulders and position the ball just inside your front foot. Now bend your knees and drop your backside so your club gets down to the ball. Don’t bend your torso forward! And hinge your wrist quickly. Lowering your body instead of bending forward helps you maintain balance.

3. Fried-egg Bunker Lie
Your ball rests in the depression it made when it dropped into the greenside bunker. So it looks like a fried egg. Hence, the name. With sand behind it as well as under it, you need extra muscle to get the ball out in one shot. Don’t try being perfect with this shot. Your goal is getting the ball out of the bunker and onto the green in one.

The key to this shot is opening your stance, squaring your clubface, and favoring your front side with your weight. Use a steeper swing path than with normal and enter the sand about an inch behind the ball. Imagine you’re burying the club in the sand and leaving it there.

4. Plugged Bunker Lie
This shot is similar to the last but the ball is really buried in the sand. You can’t float the ball out on a cushion of sand because there’s no sand to do it with. Come down hard, almost as if you’re jamming the club’s heel in the bunker, with the toe pointing at the sky. Keep your hands low to the ground through impact. This creates an explosion big enough to unplug the ball and flip it onto the green.

5. Bunker Blast From a Down Hill Lie
The article considers previous shot the second toughest to hit. It ranks this shot the most troublesome. Your ball comes to rest on the downslope of a greenside bunker. Hitting the ball high enough to get it out of the green isn’t easy. That’s because the slope de-lofts your club. The key is aligning your shoulders with the slope.

Take a wider stance than usual. Align your shoulders with the slope. Then, open the clubface and make your normal bunker swing. Don’t try swinging too hard or cutting under the ball too much. The ball comes out lower and with less spin than if you were on a level lie, so plan for extra roll.

Those are five tough shots we just described. No doubt about it. All are intimidating for weekend golfers. But try the solutions we propose, which were provided by Tour pros. If you still have problems hitting these shots, take a golf lesson or two. And continue reading golf tips and golf magazines. You may not face these bunker shots often, but mastering them is a good way 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.

Most golfers like a good challenge. That’s because it provides many benefits. A good challenge drives you to perform better, increases your interest in playing, and pushes you to achieve a specific goal. A good challenge also forces you to take the game more seriously, to hone your skills more, and to practice more. In addition, a good challenge provides the objective feedback you need to improve. In short, it makes the game more fun.

Taking the Golf Digest Challenge (www.golfdgest.com) also makes golf fun. That’s one reason why I encourage golfers to take it. This Web site is easy to do and free to join. All you have to do register and then enter in your stats after playing 18 holes. The Web site does the rest. In addition to the benefits mentioned above, the GD Challenge drives you to work harder at our game. Anyone who’s serious about chopping strokes off his or her golf handicap should take the Challenge.

Highlights of The Challenge
Conceived by the publishers of Golf Digest, the GD Challenge provides numerous features to improve your game. It offers a library of video golf lessons from pro players, like Phil Mickelson, video tips on golf from Jim Mclean, one of the game’s best and most respected teachers, and health and fitness tips. This year it also offers a free video analysis of your swing by Jim Mclean and his instructors. All you have to do is upload a video of your swing.

In addition, the GD Challenge tracks key stats, like greens in regulation. It also provides a lesson tracker to plan and map your progress. New this year is the Challenge’s giveaways. It provides a weekly prize (King Cobra golf gear) and a grand prize (a golf getaway for two at the lavish Marina Inn at the Grand Dunes, Myrtle Beach, SC) just for registering. The site also let’s you sign up a buddy to help him or her improve his or her game. Getting Started
Taking the Golf Digest Challenge is easy. The first thing you do after registering is create a profile. Here’s what’s involved: First, you select your top priority. Choices include power, consistency, short game, scoring, and golf for woman. Each profile has a program designed specifically to strengthen that area of your game. Each profile also has a pro assigned as a Tour model. For example, if you choose the short game profile, you get golf tips and golf lessons to hone your short game. Your Tour model is Phil Mickelson.

After creating your profile, you can view golf tips in the respective category. With the short game category, for instance, you get tips from Annika Sorenstam, Todd Anderson, Butch Harmon, Stan Utley, Tom Watson, and Hank Harvey. The tips are simple, straightforward, and easy to read. You can even comment on the golf tips after you read them. When you finish with these, you can move on to the library of video lessons.

In addition, the short game category offers a bonus tip focused on the mental aspect of the game as well as some video drills. For example, one video drill covers the circle drill for short putts, in which you put several balls around the hole no more than three feet from the pin. Then you try to sink all the putts without missing. There are also drills like this on pitching, chipping, and sand play. Like the golf tips, these video golf lessons are simple and straightforward.

Progress Tracker Rocks
The best feature on the Web site is the progress tracker. First you update your stats, which includes providing information after playing 18 holes. You enter your score, how challenging the course was, its slope, and its course rating. The site also asks about things like how many chips and pitches you took and how many saves (one putts), and how many sand shots and saves you made. Once you save this information, the Tracker graphs the information so you can see how you’re doing.

From this info, the site provides a long game and short game handicap. And you get to see how well you’re doing on pitch and chip shots, plotted out on a graph to provide a snap shot of your progress. You can also print out a scorecard designed specifically for the Challenge, with all the appropriate categories marked, including greens in regulations and total number of putts. And the site even gives you a mulligan. It lets you erase one round from your stats.

All in all, the Golf Digest Challenge is a super way to improve your game. It’s great fun. It’s addicting. And it’s interesting. Taken seriously, it helps you achieve lower scores and knock strokes off your golf handicap. All you have to do is update your stats faithfully. What more could you ask?

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.