Professional golfers practice harder that most fans think. It’s what makes them so good. They practice so hard because the know that no matter how much physical talent they have they know that practice is the best way of improving their games. So they develop programs designed to abolish their weaknesses. Then, they build their schedules around their practice sessions.

Most weekend golfers can’t build their schedules around their practice sessions. They have too much to do. If they want to improve their games, they must squeeze practice in between going to work, shopping for food, painting the house, cutting the lawn, going to church, chauffeuring their kids, and so on. To whittle down their golf handicaps, they need to find productive, efficient ways of mastering the four basic swings.

Mastering Four Basic Swings
Golf requires you to learn four basic swings—a power swing, a target swing, a finesse swing, and a putting swing. Your power swing gets you off the tee. Your target swing helps you hit greens. Your finesse swing gets you close to the pin when you miss with your target swing. And your putting swing sinks putts. Unfortunately, weekend golfers don’t always devote sufficient time to mastering the different swing types.

Weekend golfers focus most of their practice time on their power swings. If they take individual golf lessons or attend golf instruction sessions in a group, it’s to improve their power swings. Their reasoning: if they hit the ball farther, they won’t need their target swings or their finesses swings as much. That’s the hard way of cutting a golf handicap. Since owners of ranges want to accommodate their customers’ needs, they build facilities designed primarily to help weekend players improve their power swings.

Remedying The Problem
If you’re serious about chopping strokes off your golf handicap, you must do four things when it comes to practicing. First, find a facility that lets you practice as many of the four swings as possible at its location. That’s not easy. You may have to drive a little farther than normally and set aside a little more time for each practice session, but it’s well worth the effort. This type of facility lets you practice all your swings in one session. If you can’t find one that lets you practice all four swings, find one that let’s you work on at least three.

Second, divide your practice sessions (whatever time you may have) into four equal segments. Then, practice them in this order. Focus first on your finesse swing, then on your putting, then on your power swing, and finally on your approach swing. If you don’t have enough time to do that, divide the sessions in half. In the first session, focus on your finesse swing and then your putting swing. The next practice session, divide the session in half and focus on your power swing and your approach swing. Keep rotating sessions. And try to practice regularly.

Structure Practice Sessions
Third, plan your practice sessions. Keeping accurate statistics when you play tells you what areas of your game need the most practice. If you’re stats tell you that your lag putting is costing you strokes, build in drills designed to improve your lag putting. If your stats tell you that your short chipping is costing you strokes, build in exercises designed to improve your chipping. Structure your practice sessions as much as possible. It saves time and lets you get more done.

Fourth, create goals and/or objectives for your practice sessions. Think of objectives as being milestones on the way to larger goals, such as cutting two strokes from you golf handicap. For example, the star drill requires you to make a certain number of putts before moving to the next station. Set an objective of moving two stations in one session, then three, and then completely around the hole. The larger goal is improving your short putting.

Structuring and planning helps you get the most from individual practice sessions. Dividing the practice sessions up into segments—given the time you have—enables you to master the four different swings you’ll need to lower your golf handicap and raise your game to a new level. Taking golf lessons, reading golf tips, and/or attending golf instruction sessions for groups also helps you master each type of swing while conducting productive, efficient practice sessions makes you a better—more complete—player.

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.

In this issue we’ll discuss…

1) Improving Your Lag Putting
2) Finding The Right Stance Width
3) Question of the Week – Learn To Leave A Divot
4) Article – Master These Four Swings
5) Article – Making Hybrids A Go-To Club Cuts Golf Handicaps

Jack’s Note: What a Ryder Cup huh folks? Earlier in the year I said we had no chance without Tiger and I’m glad I was dead wrong.

But I’m right about one thing. When I said hitting irons properly is one of the most overlooked fundamentals of the amateur player I wasn’t kidding. It’s also one of the easiest to master with the proper instruction. I’m talking about making perfect, pure impact to compress the ball properly on each shot and I’ve just put the finishing touches on a brand new DVD called “Perfect Impact” that shows you how in under an hour.

It’ll be ready for you next Tuesday the 30th. Watch your email. And by the way, I’ll be giving away something very special to some lucky subscribers. Talk soon.

1) Improving Your Lag Putting

Approach shots often stop anywhere from 20 feet to 40 feet from the hole. So if your not a good lag putter, you’ll find yourself three-putting more often than you’d like. Good lag putting is a function of your ability to gauge ball speed. If your speed is off, you’ll end up way short of the hole or go flying well past it—maybe right off the green if its fast.

Below is a three-step drill for improving lag putting:

1. Take your putterhead back to your toe
2. Take your hands back to your toe
3. Take your hands back beyond your toe

Controlling ball speed is a matter of stroke length, not speeding up or slowing down your motion. To get the ball close on a lag putt, you need to change your stroke length while maintaining the same rhythm and tempo as you do on your other putts. Here’s one way to use stroke length instead of rhythm and tempo.

Find a green with a long flat putt. Settle into your normal putting stance. Take the putterhead back as far as your big toe using your normal rhythm and tempo. Strike the ball as you normally would. When it stops, measure the distance. For most golfers, it’s about 20 feet.

Repeat the process. But this time take the putter back until your hands are even with your big toe. Measure the distance. Normally, it’s about 30 feet. Repeat the process a third time. But this time take the putter back until your hands go beyond your foot. Measure the distance. Usually, it’s about 40 feet.

The distances mentioned above are approximations. You need to measure your putts when you do this drill to get your true range. To fine-tune your stroke for in-between distances, take the putter back a little farther or a little shorter depending on the putt’s length.

Practice this drill until you have the distances down pat and you’ll dramatically improve your lag putting. You’ll also cut down on how often you three-putt.

2) Finding The Right Stance Width

In golf, small things often make a big impact. Take your stance width for instance. It’s a critical part of your game. If your stance is too wide you’ll not only be out of balance, you’ll place your wieght over your toes, which sets you up for an outside-in swing and a potential slice. The right stance width helps maintain balance and allows you to swing on plane with every club.

Here’s how to check your stance width:

* Stand in front of a full-length mirror
* Note how your hands hang at your side
* Widen your stance by three-inches
* Check your hand position at this width
* Repeat the process to find the right width

When you’re perfectly balanced, your hands hang at your side the same way. Your balance changes every time you widen your stance by three-inches. Keep widening it by three-inch intervals until your feet are just outside your shoulders.

Now, repeat the drill using a yardstick. Note the widths that allow your hands to hang together the same way. Find three stance widths: one for your driver, one for your mid irons, and one for your wedges. Note the three widths on your yardstick. Then use it at the driving range.

This exercise creates muscle memory. On the course, you’ll know exactly how wide to spread your feet for every club, from woods to wedges.

Starting with a correct stance width is critical. It doesn’t guarantee you’ll hit the ball longer and straighter with all your clubs. But gives you a better chance of swinging a club on plane more often, helping you eliminate a slice and curbing undue hand rotation, which in turn enables you to set your clubface square at address. You’ll hit the ball longer and straighter more often.

3) Question of the Week – Learn To Leave A Divot

Q. Hi Jack, Recently, I’ve started making poor contact with my irons. It’s costing me strokes big time. I can’t seem to overcome this problem. I’ve gone to the range a few times and I do okay. But when I get to the course, the problem is still there.

Casey Bartlett
Irving, TX

A. Thanks for the question. To make good contact, you must create a divot when you hit your irons. That means learning to hit down and through the ball. The best way of doing that is by hitting off the grass. You can also do it by hitting off a practice matt, but you need to make an adjustment.

When you hit off a mat, you’re hitting on a nice soft lie. Even if you hit the ball thin, you still get a good shot. Do the same thing on the course and you end up making clunky contact with your irons.

Next time you’re at the range, grab some grass and place it one club head in front of the ball on the practice mat. On each swing, try to hit the ball, then the grass. Catching the grass grooves the down-and-through swing you need to be successful with your irons.

If you have problems swiping the grass in front of the ball, pull your front hip pocket toward the target at the start of the downswing and then turn it behind you. That helps.

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

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/newsletter09242008.html

Here are some of my recent articles:

4) Article – Master These Four Swings
http://www.howtobreak80.com/articles/master-these-four-swings.html

5) Article – Making Hybrids A Go-To Club Cuts Golf Handicaps
http://www.howtobreak80.com/articles/making-hybrids-a-go-to-club-cuts-golf-handicaps.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, go to http://www.howtobreak80.com/newsletter.htm

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.

Teaching your child to play golf doesn’t have to be a dogfight. On the contrary, it can be a fun-filled, enjoyable experience, if you approach it with the right mindset. The key to teaching your child to play golf is letting her call the shots. By doing so, you’re letting her explore the game on her own—and that’s fun for her. Kids aren’t interested in improving their golf handicaps or absorbing golf tips. They’re interested in having fun. Make it so and they’ll learn to love the game.

Below is some advice I’ve gleaned from years of teaching kids to play golf. The advice is more common sense than anything else, but it doesn’t hurt to be reminded of it every so often. Golf might be your passion, but it’s not your child’s. Learn to make golf lessons fun and it might become their passion.

Play More Than Teach
Getting your child to equate golf with fun may be difficult to handle when you’re paying for it. We want to see the child learn something that he or she can take away from the lesson. To adults, that means focusing on the task at hand. But a child’s attention span is short. He doesn’t really start to focus on something until he’s ready. So keep the golf lesson short. Make sure it lasts no more than 30 minutes. Break that down into 10 minutes of a lesson and 20 minutes of just banging a ball around or maybe drawing faces on golf gloves.

Use Fun Ways to Teach Technique
Teaching your son or daughter how to hold a golf club is a key golf tip. But to a little child that golf lesson could be drudgery. That’s where you need to use your creativity. Invent a fun way to teach technique. Let’s say your child has difficulty shifting her weight to her left side. Try cutting out two smiley faces from a children’s magazine or book. Paste one on your right heel and one on hers. Now, show her how you shift your weight so that your right heel comes off the ground, showing the smiley face. Have her do the same.

Work On The Short Game
Most adults would rather hit at the driving range than putt on the practice green. But we all know that it’s the short game that cuts strokes from our golf handicaps. Work on chipping and putting with your child. Try to heighten his or her interest in this part of golf by making it a game or a contest instead of a “practice session.” Kids love games and contests. Their fun, especially when they win. Try losing on purpose so the child enjoys the contest. When he wins, make a big deal out of it.

Teach Safety First
Kids don’t always think when they do something. On the golf course, that can be a problem. How do you keep a child from getting hurt? Follow these common sense suggestions:

* Always keep the child in your line of sight.
* Don’t let a child drive the golf cart.
* Never let a child site in a golf cart alone
* Have the child occupy the stall in front of you on the practice range, never the one behind you.
* Draw an imaginary safety line three feet in front of the child that he or she is not allowed to cross.

Teaching a young child to play golf doesn’t have to be like taming a fire-breathing dragon. It can be fun and enjoyable, if we make it so. The child will learn to love anything he has fun doing. And if he has fun doing it, he’ll continue playing it no matter what his or her golf handicap turns out to be. And you’ll have a family activity you can enjoy together for years.

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.

You don’t have to be a pro to know you can have a disastrous hole anytime anywhere. It could be on a long par 5 or a short par 3, or on a par 4 with a lake in it. It doesn’t matter. All it takes is one bad shot and you’re done for. Whatever it is, it throws you off your game, causing trouble and costing you strokes.

Avoiding bad holes is critical to chopping strokes off your average score and your golf handicap. Holes where you card a 7, 8, or more balloon your score, turning a good round into a bad. String enough of these rounds together and you’ll kick-up your golf handicap more than a notch or two. Avoid them and you’ll see your scores and your handicap drop dramatically.

One way to avoid them is by working on your game. Visit the practice range, take a golf lesson or two, or read golf tips in magazines—do whatever it takes to improve the weakest areas of your game and you’ll cut down on the number of bad holes you have. If you’re not sure which areas of your game are the weakest, try working on your driving and your bunker play.

Driving For Accuracy
There’s no denying the benefits—or the thrill—of smashing a 275-yard drive down the middle of the fairway. But when golfers over swing, they often end-up slicing or hooking into trouble, assuming they can find their ball. Starting a hole this way spells disaster. Instead, stay within yourself and learn to eliminate power-draining swing flaws that also hamper accuracy.

One way to increase accuracy is to focus on your right elbow (for right-handers). The right elbow keys the delivery of power and accuracy. Keep the right elbow in front of your hip, with the club parallel to the target line and the toe of the club pointed straight up during your takeaway, and you’ll hit the ball longer and straighter, with much less effort and without over swinging. You should feel as if your elbow is attached to the front of your hip.

Unfortunately, players with high golf handicaps often let their elbows fly. Swinging over your hip produces slices and pulls, delivering the club on an outside path and with the butt of the club aimed left of the target (right-handers). Swinging under your hip produces pushes and hooks, delivering the club on an inside path and with the butt of the club aimed right of the target. Swinging the club behind your hip generates weak shots. Learn to keep your elbow in front of your hip and you’ll hit the ball longer and straighter.

Work On Your Bunker Play
Another area to work on to avoid disastrous holes is bunker play. Weekend golfers often need several shots to escape a greenside bunker. Even with a good lie, they frequently take two, three, or more shots to escape. Hit into a greenside bunker a couple of times a round and you’ll boost your score dramatically. If you’re not a good bunker player, consider a sand strategy that helps you get out of a bunker with the least amount of strokes.

Here are four alternatives in a greenside bunker:

1. Blast at the pin
2. Blast to the middle
3. Clean chip shot
4. Putting out of the bunker

Accomplished players often choose blast at the pin, hitting a high soft shot that lands within 10 feet of the pin. That’s great for a good bunker player, but risky for mid- and high-handicap players, who are less skillful. They should consider other alternatives, unless they have no other choice.

For less accomplished players, blasting out to the middle of the green is safer and easier. If that’s your strategy, play the ball to the middle or fat part of the green. Your key is getting out of the bunker in one. Do that and you’ll avoid writing down a big number on your card.

If you’re not a good bunker player, consider the last two alternatives. Picking the ball cleanly off the sand with a chip shot, using a 7-iron, a 9-iron, or a PW, is a good option when the bunker lip is low. Putting out is the safest escape from a shallow bunker. You’ll rarely catch it fat, and with practice, you’ll extricate yourself every time.

You can’t eliminate bad holes from your game. Even the pros have them. But you can reduce them by working on your game. Stop at the range as often as you can, take golf lessons to enhance your play, adopt golf tips that improve your swing—do whatever it takes to cut down on your bad holes, and you’ll see both your scores and your golf handicap drop dramatically. Count on it.

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