Ahh, golf's toughest test is now upon us.  The U.S. Open, Pebble Beach 2010.

The last time the Open was here, in 2000, Tiger was the only player to break par in the tournament; he finished at 12-under par, and Ernie Els and Miguel Angel Jimenez tied for second place at 3 over.

But not sure I would expect that kind of a romp this year considering Tiger is still rusty.

Pebble is set up to run firm and fast.  Couple that with a links course with insane winds and ocean looming everywhere, it's gonna be  a struggle to stay at even par for most of even the best pros.

Now I haven't even made a pick yet for my favorite because there's one thing that scares me more than all the other conditions.  THE ROUGH.  Sorry Phil and Tiger and all you long bombers...gotta hit the fairways, gents...or you can start to look silly.

Because of the extreme difficulty of this event, anything can happen and anyone can win....but I'd like to hear from YOU. Who do YOU think will win this week and be crowned the reigning U.S. Open champ? Just post your answer here in the comments. Answer correctly and we'll put you into a drawing on Monday June 21st for selection my products. If your name is drawn, you get to pick any three of our award-winning DVD's or instructional books (we have thirteen to choose from)...on the house. And yes, we pay for the shipping too

There's only one rule....only those posts submitted by end of day Thursday will count. Those who vote after that won't be counted toward the contest because by then you will have an unfair advantage. You're more than welcome to post at any time though! Good luck and I hope you choose wisely and get some instructional products for free!

By Jack Moorehouse

To say that golf has evolved into high tech endeavor is an understatement. State-of the art golf learning centers use cameras, sensors, and accelerometers to help golfers perfect their technique and match the correct club, grip, and shaft to the golfer’s swing. GPS-base range finders measure yardage. Software keeps track of how well a golfer does. Whether you want to cut your golf handicap or ingrain key golf tips, technology is at your disposal. But you better bring your checkbook. Some are rather expensive.

For statistically minded individuals, there’s performance-tracking software, which you can buy relatively inexpensively. If you’re not into buying software, you can always find a Web site that tracks performance. All you do is log in and enter your round. The Web site does the rest. It provides an accurate record of time on the course, plus the ability to look back and track progress. Some sites also provide performance-based golf instruction sessions to help whittle down your golf handicap. Price: $4.95 per month or $29.95 annually.

Another interesting technological innovation is what the manufacturer describes as a “digital coaching” system. It teaches you concepts like ball flight laws, swing mechanics, and swing dynamics to help you analyze and correct your swing. It’s like taking golf lessons on demand. This system compares your swing side by side to that of a professional to help diagnose swing flaws. Once it isolates the flaws, it then describes drills to eliminate them. The price: about $100.

Teaching Feel
Other technological innovations focus on feel. These help identify the right “feel” of a swing by letting you know when you’ve done it correctly. The goal is to remember the shot’s feel on the course. These devices are rather expensive. One innovation, a swing vest, is really interesting. It helps improve your swing’s kinetic efficiency. The vest’s video and wireless sensors attached to your spine, hips, and clubshaft capture your swing. The vest then sends the data to the swing analysis software on your PC or laptop. The price: about $1600.

Some technological innovations are designed more for professionals giving golf lessons. But serious golfers with deep pockets can buy them, too. Launch systems, for instance, are more popular than ever. One is especially interesting. From a single swing, it calculates spin rate, speed, and vertical launch angle, giving a whole new meaning to the term “club selection.” This system is somewhat exclusive. It’s available only through equipment manufacturers, club retailers, and golf professionals. The price: over $4,000.

Simulating The On-course Experience
Golf simulators are another technological breakthrough growing in popularity. They’re for golfers who want an on-course experience. According to one manufacturer, his simulator is the “next best thing to being on the course.” This simulator uses a projection screen, topographic 3-D maps, and a set of clubs. The simulator lets you play a full round of golf, analyze your swing, or find the right clubs. The price: about $8000

And let’s not forget ball-tracking systems. These are growing in popularity, too. One innovation uses a unique 3-D tracking radar system—the same technology used extensively by military to track ballistics and projectiles at distances of 50 kilometers and speeds of 3,000 km/hour. This system measures things like clubhead speed, carry distance, drag, and backspin, giving you all the statistical information needed for club-comparisons and single-club analysis. The price: $15,000.

Whether you’re a professional looking to take your golf instruction sessions high-tech or a weekend golfer looking to lower her golf handicap, you’ll find technological innovations out there to help ingrain most golf tips. But as the innovations get more sophisticated, they get more expensive. So if you’re looking to buy, bring your checkbook. It can cost you.

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) Set Up To Crush It Off The Tee
2) Hitting A Chip With Side Spin
3) Drill of the Week #2: Running Start Drill
4) Article - Using Technology To Lower Golf Handicaps
5) Article - Consistency: The Key To Lower Golf Handicaps

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1) Set Up To Crush It Off The Tee

If you’re not hitting the sweet spot on the clubface, you’re probably not driving the ball well. One reason why you could be missing the sweet spot is that your head is over your back knee at address. This might not seem like much, but it affects everything else in your swing. The most efficient—and fastest— swing rotation occurs when your lower body is stable. You can only achieve this by being centered and balanced at address.

Below are seven keys to a power-laden setup:

1. Widen your stance at address
2. Shift more weight on your right side
3. Keep your chin up to allow for the turn
4. Make a full 90-degree shoulder turn
5. Hover the club head above the ground
6. Sense your right forearm crossing over left
7. Finish high and in balance with your swing

A balanced, centered position starts at address. A good setup allows you to make a good turn away from the target, yet still remain behind the ball at the top of your swing, with your weight over your back foot.

But it’s not uncommon for a golfer to create extra side bend at address by moving his head over his back knee. This imbalance ends in a setup that results in (1) a slice causing-reverse pivot at the top and (2) too much “hang-back” at impact.

Since your right hand (left for lefties) is below your left hand on the grip, tilt your back shoulder down the same amount. You want to feel as if you’re on top of the ball, with your head just slightly back of center. If you tilt too far back, you throw your entire swing off.

We all want to drive the ball longer off the tee. Hitting driver/8-iron into the green beats hitting driver/4-iron into the green every time. But you must be centered and balanced at address to do this. If you are, you’re in great position to hit a bomb.
2) Hitting A Chip With Side Spin

On tough courses it’s not uncommon to find a pin tucked tight to the green’s edge. Chipping on a green like this is a challenge. If you mishit the shot, you’ll probably add strokes to your score. A sidespin to the ball is another way to chip it close. But some golfers try to make dramatic swing changes to add sidespin. That’s hard to do. Here’s an easier and simpler way to make this shot.

Here are five keys to hitting a chip with sidespin:

* Stand closer to the ball
* Aim where you want it to curve
* Let the club go outside going back
* Turn your chest coming thru
* Pull your hands through to your pocket

If you want to curve the chip away from you, stand closer to the ball than normal. Aim your toe line/body line where you want the ball to start. Aim the clubface where you want the ball to curve. Let the club go outside a little going back. Then turn your chest coming through. Feel as if you’re pulling your left hand to the pocket nearest the target.

If you want to curve the ball toward you, set up farther away from the ball. Pull the club inside. And roll the toe over through impact. This shot has less backspin and rolls out.

Putting cut spin on a chip is like hitting a fade or a draw. When you want to hit a fade or a draw, you aim your feet and body where you want the ball to start. You aim your clubface in the direction you want the ball to curve. Then you make a normal swing.

Knowing how to hit a chip with cut spin helps with a pin cut tight to the edge of the green. The shot gives you another option to knock it close.
3) Drill of the Week: Running Start Drill

This putting drill promotes a smooth and level stroke by teaching you to keep the putter low to the ground going back. That way it’s delivered into the ball level. A level stroke helps you strike the ball at its equator, facilitating good roll.

The Drill:

When practicing putting, place the putterhead about four inches behind the ball, instead of directly behind it. Then putt. This promotes a low takeaway. You may also hold the putterhead slightly off the ground. This alleviates tension and promotes a big-muscle-controlled swing. When putting, you want to take your hands out of the equation as much as possible.

Try this drill next time you’re on the practice green, if your stroke isn’t as level or as smooth as you’d like.

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:

4) Article - Using Technology to Lower Golf Handicaps
http://www.howtobreak80.com/articles/using-technology-to-lower-golf-handicaps.php

5) Article - Consistency: The Key To Lower Golf Handicaps
http://www.howtobreak80.com/articles/consistency-the-key-to-lower-golf-handicaps.php

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.

By Jack Moorehouse

Wedges are among the most sophisticated clubs in your bag. In fact, they’re almost as sophisticated as drivers. Wedges come with a wide variety of designs and features and a broad range of lofts and bounce angles. Yet you probably pay as much attention to your wedges as you do to a sand trap. This disinterest may be packing strokes onto your golf handicap. If you’re serious about lowering your golf handicap, learn more about wedges.

Some golfers think shaft length, shaft flex, turf conditions, and lie when it comes to wedges. These factors are important. They can dramatically affect your shot. But sole design is probably the most important factor when selecting wedges. Sole design, which includes bounce angle, determines how your club reacts to the ground (or the sand) on impact. Other factors are gaps between wedges—as we’ve said in our golf tips newsletter—and sole design variation.

Effective Bounce Is The Key
Bounce is the distance of the bottom of the sole extending below the clubface’s leading edge when the club is squarely soled in the impact position—something often mentioned in golf lessons. Bounce is completely independent of loft, length, weight, and shaft flex. In other words, there’s no assigned bounce to specific types of wedges. The club’s designer chooses its bounce. But there is an optimal bounce for each of your wedges that will provide the best results for you and your swing. Get to know what the optimal bounce is for each wedge.

Depth of bounce also matters in wedge performance. Depth of bounce, as you may have heard in golf instructions sessions, determines the wedge’s “effective bounce” at impact. Effective bounce depends on how much bounce is designed into the club’s sole, how deep it is in the sole, and how open the clubface is at impact. An open clubface can dramatically affect a wedge’s performance. Wedges come with shallow, deep, or anywhere-in-between bounce. Shallow bounce wedges don’t change effective bounce much. Deep-bounce wedges do.

Gaps Between Wedges
Some golfers carry only two wedges—a pitching wedge, with a loft of about 48 degrees, and a sand wedge, with a loft of about 56 degrees. This approach leaves a huge gap between wedge lofts. Other golfers use three wedges, which let you easily cover shots from 100-yards in. They carry a pitching wedge for full wedge shots (about 100 yards out), a sand wedge used for shots about 30 yards out, and a gap wedge, with about 52 degrees of loft, for shots in between. Some golfers with low golf handicaps also carry either a lob wedge and/or a flop wedge. (We recommend carrying three or four wedges in our golf tips newsletter.)

Sole Design Variation
Sole design variation is just as important as gap coverage when it comes to wedges. You want to carry a set of wedges with a variety of sole designs to handle a broad range of lies. For example, always carry at least one wedge with a small and shallow-bounce sole design for hardpan and other hard-ground lies, and at least one wedge with a deep-bounce sole design for deep rough or sugar-fine sand. You never know what kind of lie you may be facing. Having the proper sole variation covers all contingencies.

As you can see, wedges are rather complex clubs. If you’re among those players who seldom think about them, you may want to change that approach. They can help shave strokes off your golf handicap, so the more you learn about them—whether through attending golf instructions sessions or reading golf tips—the better.

Also, when assembling a wedge set, remember these factors: bounce, gaps between wedges, and differences in sole variations. Above all, tailor your set to what you face the most, but have a wedge or two you can substitute when playing courses with different conditions.