Ever wondered how to putt properly?

Putting can be very frustrating for all levels of golfers but mastering it does not take forever.  After working with hundreds of thousands of golfers, there are a few big mistakes people make when putting so I decided to put a video together.

You've GOT to see this video.

It tells you the biggest mistakes amateurs make when putting, how to read greens (very cool) and how to "groove" your stroke.

You'll love the little trick I use to help me get my putting stroke going perfectly on line from backstroke to follow-through...and it takes about 30 seconds to "groove".  (Grooving part is at the 3:02 minute mark in the video).

It's simple but more importantly, very effective.  It gets rid of nerves, puts your clubhead on the right path and builds confidence.

Watch the video and next time you're on the putting green, try this baby out and see what happens.

Remember, learning how to putt doesn't have to be difficult, it can be fun as well.

Enjoy,

Jack

P.S. You know that  you can get the full length Precision Putting DVD at a fraction of the retail price? Just go to the above page and read below the video.

As I said before, "retirement" can be a four letter word to some people but the fact is that many of us will face it eventually...whether we like it or not.

I don't know about you but when I retire, I want to play golf...A LOT.  Not get a part-time job or worry about money...just live and enjoy!

One of my subscribers sent me a message the other day about his retirement story and I thought you'd like to hear it.  He wanted to update me on his golf game but what I found in his letter was much more than that.

Zach Kelleher worked til he was about 65.  He had no pension but had some money saved up from IRA's and 401k plans.  Zach retired for four years and then came to the realization that he was going to live a lot longer...but he didn't have the funds to cover himself for the foreseeable future.  So, he bit the bullet and went back to work...kind of.

See Zach was not able to get his old job back but instead got something more along the lines of minimum wage.  So, back at work now for a few months, his health took a turn for the worse and Medicare would not cover his claim.  So now he's got a substantial medical bill, peanuts for income and a dwindling reserve of savings.

Sound familiar?

I really was feeling bad about Zach's situation when I read his letter but here's where it gets interesting...

Later in the letter, Zach tells me he is now fully re-retired.   He laid out exactly what he did and I want to share it with you below:

(I will paraphrase to be concise)

Zach's advice:

"A couple of years before you plan on retiring you should begin to create a preliminary budget. This checklist below will give you a good idea of what to expect during retirement.

Categories you must include in your retirement budget are:

• Housing (taxes, insurance, home repairs and maintenance)
• Utilities
• Transportation (car payment and gas)
• Vacations
• Personal expenses
• Entertainment
• Miscellaneous loans

Some of these categories will stay “fixed” from month to month. For example, your mortgage is not likely to change – unless you have an adjustable rate loan. On the other hand, there are categories that can and will change such as home repairs and entertainment. You may spend $1k on a home repair this month but $0 next month. Make sure you are prepared for these fluctuations.

Just because you are retired does not mean you should stop saving money. 85% of retirees and prospective retirees underestimate how much money they will need.  You either need more income or more savings.

For me, the answer was simple.  I was able to leverage the biggest asset I owned (my house) and for me, it made all the difference in the world.  In one fell swoop I was able to virtually quit my minimum wage job and get back to my golf game.

The nice part of this whole learning experience is that the people I talked to are real people who specialize in retirement.  They answered all my questions, gave me some very helpful advice and really came across as caring and sincere.

My handicap still lingers around 17 but at least now I know I have got enough to retire comfortably.  feel free to share this with your readers.  Retire Easy is the name of the company I talked to."

One thing Zach forgot to mention is that the company he talked to offers free consultations.

Anyway, I hope this helps those of you who are in "retirement" mode.  As they saying goes "It's never too early to start thinking about retirement".

If you want to save strokes—and lower your golf handicap simultaneously—learn how to ht from uneven lies. They cost you more strokes than you probably realize. Hitting from an uphill or downhill lie may not seem too challenging, but it can be the difference between hitting or missing a green in regulation. Or, it can be the difference between making a par or a bogey.

Basically, there are four uneven lies you must deal with—an uphill lie, a downhill lie, a lie with the ball above the feet, and a lie with a ball below your feet. The key to hitting each of these tricky lies is to know how to sole the club, set your body, and swing at the ball. If you know how to do all of these three things on each of the four lies mentioned above, you’re more than halfway home. With experience—and some practice, hitting from these tricky lies will become second nature.

Uphill Lies

Hitting from an uphill lie maybe the easiest of all uneven lies to hit from. Most golfers in our golf lessons learn to hit from this lie quickly. The biggest mistake golfers with high golf handicaps make is pushing the club to far forward to avoid hitting the ball too high. Instead, sole your club so that the back edge of the club’s sole is on the ground.

With the club correctly soled, you can now address the ball. At address, you want the butt end of the grip pointing between your zipper and your left hip (right hip, for left-handers). This is the same position you would have your club on a normal shot with the ball forward. Now swing up the slope. Since uphill shots fly high—and shorter—and go left, remember to aim right for the shot.

Downhill Lies

If the uphill lie is among the easiest to hit from, the downhill lie is probably the hardest, judging at least from the golfers in our golf instruction sessions. The tendency here is to do the opposite of what you do on an uphill lie—drop the handle back to make sure the loft to the clubface. Instead, make sure the club’s leading edge is flush to the ground. That will set your club position up perfectly for this shot no matter how steep the slope.

With the club correctly soled, you can now address the ball. In this case, the butt of the club’s grip should point between your zipper and your left hip. Also, play the ball father back in your stance than normal. Swing down the slope. Shots from downhill lies fly lower and go right, so take less club and aim left. Above all, don’t try to lift the ball in the air. That usually ends in disaster.



Ball Above Your Feet

Soling the club correctly is critical to hitting this shot well. With this shot, golfers will tend to have the clubhead sitting on its toe. That’s asking for trouble. Instead, make sure the club’s heel touches the ground. Otherwise, you’ll hit the ball of the toe.

Since the angle of the club in this position makes the club slightly longer, you need to stand a little taller in your address position. To compensate, grip down an inch or two on the handle. That will set the handle at a more horizontal position. With the ball above your feet, the club will move around your body more than normally. This creates more of a clubface rotation and can cause you to hit the ball right to left, if you’re right handed. Aim farther right to make up for this. Expect a lower flight and more roll.

Ball Below Your Feet

To a ball below your feet, you basically have to do the opposite of what you do when hitting a ball above your feet. Here, the club head will tend to rest on its heel, instead of its toe. To compensate, raise the clubhead so the toe is on the ground. That will help level out the lie for you a bit.

Since the angle of the club in this position makes it slightly longer, you must shorten it to hit from this lie successfully. To do that, you need to bend from your hips a bit more than usual. You also need to tilt a bit more forward to reach the ball. These two moves position the shaft a bit more vertically. With this type of lie, the club will move more up and down, with less face rotation. This can produce a right-to-left shot for right-handed golfers. Aim farther left to compensate. Expect a higher ball flight and less roll.

Uneven lies can cost you strokes. But the golf tips above can help you play it like a flat lie. To do that, make sure you first sole the club properly, than take your address position. Depending on the lie, you’ll need adjustments to make up for the lie, including aiming more left or right depending on the lie. Swing at 75 percent to make sure your hit the ball solidly. Mastering uneven lies will not only build more confidence in your game, it will also help chop strokes off your golf handicap.

When professional golfers overswing, they know they must make adjustments with their hands to hit the ball solidly. More often than not, they’re able to do it without a problem. That’s because they have super-fast hands that let them get the club in the right position coming down. When they time it right, the pros hit it a mile. When they don’t, they miss the fairway.

But it’s different with weekend golfers. When players they overswing, they’re in trouble. They don’t have the super-fast hands that the pros have. Nor have the hit as many practice balls. As a result, they can’t make the same adjustments coming down a pro can make. Thus, golfers with high golf handicaps can’t save things when they overswing. The result is poor contact and all kinds of bad shots.

The most common ways golfers overswing are (1) the arms swing too long or (2) the body turns too much.  Both swing faults get you into deep trouble. In golf lessons to take wider but shorter backswings. In this article we look at what happens when you overswing, review some simple fixes for this fault, and provide golf tips to overcome it.

Arms Swing Too Long

This version is the more common of the two versions we see in golf instructions sessions. With it, the arms keep going back after the body has stopped turning. If you’ve ever seen John Daily hit a driver, you have a mental picture of what this swing fault looks like when you commit it. The difference is that John can make adjustments on the way down and still make solid contact. Weekend golfers don’t often have this ability. If they overswing, they mis-hit.

This version of overswinging causes the arms to collapse at the top. The arms get too close to your head. When this happens, the player tends to throw the club from the top, hanging back on the right side (left side for left-handers). That, in turn, pushes the club on the outside path, causing the wrists to unhinge too early. The result: poor contact and bad shots.

The way we teach students in golf lessons to eliminate this swing fault is to push their hands away from their heads. This simple adjustment promotes a wider arc. The wider arc allows you to swing the club back in front of your body on the downswing. If you focus on keeping your right arm wide (left arm for left-handers) you’ll keep your left arm wide as well, eliminating the fault.



Too Much Body Turn

We don’t see this version of overswinging as much in our golf instruction sessions as the previous one. Few weekend golfers are flexible enough to overturn. But some do. When you overturn, your legs run out in front on the downswing. This causes the spine to tilt away from the target to counterbalance the overturning body. The swing, in turn, gets narrow coming down because the club is too close to the body. This leads to an out-to-in swing path that produces pushes and hooks.

Fixing this problem is easy: Keep your back knee flexed to the top. This move restricts the hip turn, resulting in a more controlled rotation. A more controlled rotation keeps the arms and hands from getting too deep and positions them to swing the club back to the ball on a straighter path. The result: You make solid contact and hit straighter shots.

How do you eliminate overturning? That’s simple—practice hitting three-quarter short iron shots. It’s much easier matching up your arm swing with your body turn when the motion is shorter and wider going back than when taking a full swing.  Work on three-quarter shots at the practice range before teeing off the next time you play. Remember the feeling and then take it to the course. You’ll find yourself making solid contact and hitting better drives.

Many players with high golf handicaps overswing with the driver. This causes them to hit pushes, hooks, and slices, and it costing them strokes. Use the golf tips we provide above to stop overswinging. A couple of golf instruction sessions with your local pro can also help. Eliminating overswinging will pay off in the end. You’ll not only hit more fairways, you’ll also shoot lower scores.