In this issue we'll discuss...

1. Reading Break From Off The Green
2. Achieving A Good Swing Plane
3. Question of the Week - Hitting From a Bare Lie
4. Article - Five Golf Tips From An Old Caddy
5. Article - Fixing Your Game When Things Go Bust (Part II)

Reading Break From Off The Green

Playing from the fringe is trickier than it looks. Unfortunately, some weekend golfers take this shot for granted. Smart players don't. They approach the shot with the idea not of sinking the shot, but of just getting it close. But dropping one in from off the fringe every so often saves strokes and boosts confidence.

Below are three golf tips for playing the fringe:

1. Play the same amount of break
2. Hitting a low running shot
3. Hitting a high shot onto the green

Next time you're on the fringe, remember these three scenarios:

* If you're putting from the fringe (or hitting a low or high shot) that's going to land on the fringe, play the same amount of break as you would for a putt. Be sure to take into account the direction of the fringe's grass. If the grass is dark, the grain is against you. It will slow down your ball. If the fringe is shiny, the grain is with you. It will speed up the ball.

* If you're hitting a low running shot with a low lofted club, a fairway wood, or a hybrid, the amount of break depends on the slope of your landing area. Low shots hit with these clubs travel faster than those hit with wedges. Thus, the slope in the line will affect your ball less, at least until the ball slows down as it approaches the hole.

* If you're hitting a high shot onto the green with a short iron or wedge, keep in mind that shots with these clubs travel slower than those hit with less lofted irons. That means they'll be more affected by the slope in the line.

Don't take the shot from the fringe for granted. Study the break carefully and put a good shot on it. Sinking one from the fringe saves you at least one stroke and sometimes two. It also boosts your confidence.

Achieving A Good Swing Plane

Some experts consider swing plane the most important concept in golf. Others disagree. But one thing is clear: achieving the correct swing plane is critical to solid ballstriking. Staying on plane in golf relates directly to how straight, high, and far you hit the ball.

Below are five keys to a great swing plane:

1. Rotate your upper body against steady hips
2. Retain the triangle formed at takeaway
3. Keep the hands parallel to the target line
4. Maintain the bend in your knees
5. Don't move the club behind you

To envision a perfect swing plane, imagine a dotted line drawn from the ball through the club shaft and grip. This is your swing plane line. The club should remain on this dotted line on the same plane angle through takeaway until the club shaft is parallel to the ground. From there, the club may move slightly off plane as you complete your backswing. This is natural.

At the top, the transition from backswing to downswing drops the club back on the dotted line so the club approaches the ball on the same plane as before. The rotation of your forearms through impact keeps the club on line well into the finish. While the bend in your knees formed at address creates a solid platform to support your return. Don't allow the club to get behind you or under the swing plane during your backswing.

Swing Plane Drill:
Grip down on the shaft of a short iron so that the club's butt end almost touches your belly. As you swing back, maintain the triangle formed by your hands and forearms by keeping the butt end of the club pointing at your belly until the head is just outside your back foot. As you start our downswing the drop your arms so the butt end of the club points away from your belly. This is the correct delivery position.

Do this drill correctly and your clubface will remain square and on plane. As a secondary check make sure the club head lies outside the hands and your top arm sits above your bottom arm.

No one has a perfect swing plane. But good ballstrikers keep the club on plane throughout the key parts of the takeaway and follow-through.

Question of the Week - Hitting From a Bare Lie

Q. Hello Jack, Thank you for all your advice. What are you supposed to do when you're 50 yards from the pin on a bare lie? I find sand wedge has so much risk (topping/thinning etc.) that it's just too much trouble. Yet, you're too far out for a putt/chip. It looks like a sitter at that range — but it seldom is.

Best regards,
Tony

A. Hitting from a bare with a sand wedge is risky. It's an easy shot to botch, since the ground is less forgiving than the grass. So you want to be as conservative as possible with the shot.

To avoid a mis-hit, use a 9-iron instead of a sand wedge. A 9-iron has a sharp leading edge, which cuts through the back of the ball, but offers less risk than the sand wedge. Also, use more of a chopping motion when you swing. Aim for the lower half of the ball when you swing. You want to hit the ball cleanly off the ground.

Otherwise, you don't need to make many other adjustments. Take your normal stance, put your weight on the front foot, position the ball toward the back of your stance, and place your hands in front of the ball.

You must practice the shot to perfect it. Pick a spot about 50 yards from the green with a hardpan lie. Take the setup described above except with no ball. Practice by sticking the club in the ground using an up-and-down motion, instead of a back-and-forth one. After taking several practice swings, drop a ball on the hardpan and hit away using the same motion.

Repeat this sequence until you hit clean shots regularly. Don’t worry about distance or accuracy in the beginning. It will come as you master the shot.

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

Here are some of my recent articles:

Article - Five Golf Tips From An Old Caddy

Article - Fixing Your Game When Things Go Bust (Part II)

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.

The fastest way to lower your golf handicap is to sink more putts. Nearly 40 percent of your shots are putts. So if you can cut down on these, you'll quickly trim your golf handicap. But few golfers spend enough time practicing putting. Even fewer spend time sharpening their green-reading skills—a critical factor in sinking more putts. In fact, accurate green reading is so critical to better putting that you should work on this skill constantly.

In addition to sharpening your green-reading skills, you also need to develop a green- reading routine. Developing one helps improve your putting. It not only provides a systematic way to putt, it also relaxes you, and it prepares you physically and psychologically to putt, which helps sink more putts. This in turn boosts your confidence. And confidence—as I've said in my golf lessons and golf tips—is the key to lights out putting.

Below is a green-reading routine I use in my golf instruction sessions. It gives you an idea of what a good routine looks like so you can develop your own.

Approaching the Green
Getting the big picture helps when putting. Take a mental inventory of the green as you approach it. Note its general shape. Also, note which way it slopes. Is it sloping away from your ball or toward it? Does it fall off to one side? The green's larger features impact your putts more than the smaller breaks, so get a good look at these as you approach the green.

Calculate Distance
Most golfers take only general assessment of distance before putting. Accurately assessing distance is as critical to good putting as judging the break correctly. Pace the distance from the ball to the hole, just as you would if you were in the fairway. In general, figure one inch of backswing for every foot of green.

Determine Speed
In addition to calculating distance, you also must determine the putt's speed. Always look up slope to get an accurate idea of the elevation. As the elevation for your putt changes, so does your target. For an uphill putt, hit the ball with enough speed to go a few feet beyond the hole. For a downhill putt, hit the ball with enough speed to stop a foot or two in front of the hole.

Judge the Break
Since few greens are perfectly flat, odds are your putt breaks. Try squatting behind the ball to gauge the high and low side of the break. Look from your ball to the hole. After determining the break, walk over to the low side and look at it. Looking at the break from the low side offers a better picture of the slope than looking from the high side. The closer the break is to the hole the more impact, since the ball slows down as it gets to the cup.

Put It All Together
Having determined distance, speed, and break, you now must put it all together. You must create an accurate picture of the ball rolling to and falling into the hole. Keep these rules of thumb in mind:

• Putts breaking left to right enter the hole left of center.
• Putts breaking right to left enter the hole right of center.
• Downhill putts break more because you hit them softer at the start.
• Uphill putts break less because you hit them harder at the start

Putts from the fringe need special attention. How the break affects your ball with putts and chips depends on how long the ball spends in the air. The longer your ball stays in the air, the less your ball breaks.

Sinking more putts, as I've said in my golf tips and golf articles, is the fastest way to chop strokes off your golf handicap. Among the keys to sinking more putts is improving your ability to accurately reading greens. Accurate green reading helps you determine a putt's speed, distance, and break. Make sure you spend time developing this skill whenever you visit the practice green. It's worth the time and effort.

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 might not think that a swing machine invented to test shafts could also help lower golf handicaps. But it can. You just need to study it. Called Iron Byron, this machine was developed by a leading research facility for a shaft manufacturer more than 40 years ago. Iron Byron has the world's only perfect swing—one with power, accuracy, and control. It's a swing that every golfer strives for when he or she goes to the range. Let's see what golf tips we can glean from the machine's swing that can help you transform your swing.

But first, here's a little history of Iron Bryon's birth. It all began in 1963. Gurdon Leslie, vice president of True Temper, asked Battle Memorial Institute, an Ohio research and development facility, to build a machine to test his company's shafts. In response, Battle engineered Iron Byron, which copied the swing of the legendary Byron Nelson. Why him—because even at 50, he hit shots with machine-like consistency when tested by George Manning, the project's head engineer. Today, there are more than 40 Iron Byron machines installed worldwide.

Three Key Elements
While the machine's key purpose is to test golf equipment, its can also be used to illustrate swing's critical features. While you might think the machine's design is rather complex, it's actually quite simple conceptually. It contains three key elements that all good golf swings—human or machine—have:

1. Circular Body Rotation
2. Unrestricted Hinge
3. Constant Forward Tilt

All three elements are critical. If you "disrupt" one or more during a swing and it breaks down, causing you to mis-hit. Do this often enough and you'll add strokes to your scores and golf handicap.

Iron Byron's power source is its drive cylinder. Attached to it is a rigid metal arm holding a golf club. A pneumatic motor drives the arm. It has no power of its own. It needs the motor to work properly. What implications does this design have for your golf swing? The rigid metal arm resembles your arms during a swing. They should remain powerless and still until you coil or uncoil. Your legs and hips, on the other hand, act like the machine's motor. They drive your torso. If you want drive the ball farther, you must use your "pneumatic motor" (legs and hips) to rotate your torso faster, not your arms.

An Unrestricted Hinge
The metal arm has a sleeve that grips a club. The sleeve attaches to the arm by an unrestricted hinge. It enables the club to hinge fully at the top of the swing, unhinge at impact, and re-hinge during follow-through. If rust occurs, it restricts the hinge's movements. Tension in your wrists is like rust on the hinge. It "builds" in your wrist the harder you try to hit the ball with your arms. This slows down the unhinging process. Eliminate the tension from your arms and wrists and you'll unhinge faster and keep the clubface square at impact.

The third key element of Iron Byron's golf swing is forward tilt. The machine is mounted at an angle, enabling the club to reach the ball. Once the machine is set on this angle, it never raises its drive cylinder or lowers it during the swing. Your torso is your "drive cylinder." When you bend from the waist to assume the step up position, you set your body's spine on an angle. Just like the machine, you have to maintain this spine angle throughout the swing. This maximizes your chances to find the ball's sweet spot.

This article contains a brief overview of Iron Byron's mechanics and how they compare to a human's golf swing. If you want a more in-depth golf lesson-type analysis, you can go to www.swingmachinegolf.com. There you'll find a book written by Paul Wilson, a veteran teaching professional. Titled Swing Machine Golf—The Fastest Way To A Consistent Swing, the book shows you how you can become a human swing machine and improve your power, accuracy, and control. Accomplish that and you'll trim strokes from 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.

Huge drives. We all want them but sadly most of us have no clue how to do it.

And if you can look me in the eye and tell me your game couldn't use more distance off the tee, I'd say you're probably not telling the truth.

So let's talk about distance. There's this guy who has created quite a buzz recently in the golf world. He's been featured in Golf magazine and many other golf outlets such as the Golf Channel.

And I'm gonna show you how he hit it 400 yards in just a minute.

But surely you've heard of this him...guy named Nyle Pruitt. I have been getting a bunch of emails and inquiries about this guy so I got a hold of Tim Oyler from Performax Golf (the guy who shoots all those HD videos for Nyle).

Now, I'd never heard of that product before so many of my readers started asking about Nyle but do remember one teaching Pro friend of mine mention his name recently.

Tim (from Performax) and I chatted and it turns out he has a pretty interesting story. Tim told me he is a fanatic golfer but he was sick and tired of being out driven and ridiculed by his friends. So he
drove from Oklahoma to Texas to track down a Long Drive Champion called Nyle Pruitt in the hope of finding out his secrets to hitting long drives.

Now Nyle has a really impressive long drive resume (he even played on Tour for a number of years) and Tim convinced Nyle and a bunch of his buddies to spill the beans on all their secrets...then he videotaped them doing it.

You can check it out here.

YES! You heard that right. Tim has Nyle the "Nyleator" Pruitt and his long drive buddies showing you their secrets...and it's absolutely FREE.

In the videos you'll see step by step stuff like:

==> The #1 mistake most bad golfers make with their swing.

==> How to easily and naturally add yards to your drive using stuff you already know. (If you can hit a baseball, swing a tennis racquet or even skip a rock on a lake...this will work for you)

==> Why everything any golf pro has ever told you is dead wrong...and how your lower body is the secret to longer drives and a safer back.

==> And much, much more...

Tim has agreed to give my readers access to some of Nyles' best videos.

But don't worry...even though Nyle is a pretty solid well built dude...these techniques will work for you no matter where your game is or what physical condition you're in.

In fact Nyle's Power Secrets have been scientifically tested by doctors, chiropractors, engineers, orthopedic surgeons and are proven to prevent injury and increase longevity. (Heck--half the people who use his techniques are in the golf business as players, coaches or therapists.)

Now I got Tim to give you a special never before released to public video when you visit this page.

There's more great content coming for you from Tim and Nyle over the next few days so keep an eye out for it.

Enjoy!

Jack

P.S. By the way, these guys have a complete system for hitting the ball a country mile called "Power Secrets". They normally sell it for $97 on their web site but I've arranged a deal with them so you can get it for free. Read here for more details.