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How To Break 80 Newsletter

January 5, 2012

"The Web's Most Popular Golf Improvement Newsletter"
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In this issue we'll discuss...

1) Tip: Regaining Your Form
2) Tip: Chipping With A Wood
3) Question: Sticking a Greenside Bunker Shot
4) Article: Five Must Read Instruction Books
5) Article: Five Simple Steps For Great Driving

Jack's Note: Happy 2012 everyone! Promising to be a spectacular year for golf and I hope the same holds true for you as well. Remember, it's important to keep those "golf muscles" working during your off season so even if it's just holding a club while you watch television at night, it'll keep your grip in check.

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1) Regaining Your Form
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Has this ever happened to you? You’re sailing along during a round and hitting the ball well. Plus, everything is going your way. Drives are finding the fairway. Approach shots are sticking. And your putts are all dropping. Then, you hit a bad shot…and the wheels come off. You can’t drive anymore. You can’t stick your irons anymore. And you can’t hit full wedge shots anymore. You’ve let your anger get to you, which has thrown your swing completely out of sync. How do you regain your rhythm?

Here are five steps to regaining rhythm:

1. Rehearse your takeaway
2. Take a deep breath before you swing
3. Make a slow, smooth takeaway
4. Make a fluid transition at the top
5. Let the club drop naturally into the downswing

First, compose yourself. Instead of getting angry and upset, calm yourself down and fo-cus on regaining your rhythm. One reason your swing is off is because you’re snatching the club back during the takeaway. That throws destroys your rhythm and tempo, throw-ing your swing out of whack.

Instead, address the ball as you usually do and take a deep relaxing breath. Now, start back smoothly with your arms and hands. Focus on making a slow one-piece takeaway. Making a good takeaway is the key to getting your swing back on track.

Another danger zone is at the top of your swing. A quick, jerky transition almost guaran-tees a poor swing. Instead, make an unhurried and fluid transition and gradually accele-rate during your downswing. A smooth transition inspires rhythm.

Don’t let one bad shot spoil your day. Instead, compose yourself down by taking a nice deep breath, make an unhurried one-piece takeaway, and accelerate during your down-swing. Slowing yourself down often works wonders. Before long, you’ll have regained your rhythm and tempo.

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2) Chipping With A Wood
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Occasionally, golfers find themselves with unusual lies. Sometimes these lies can be downright strange, like inside the trunk of a hollowed out tree or lodged between the branches of a tree. Unfortunately, you can’t always hit the ball with these lies. But when you can you often must get creative to advance the ball forward. That’s when its good to know some non-traditional shots, like chipping with a wood.

Below are six keys to this shot:

1. Choose the right club
2. Stand close to the ball
3. Set the wood on its toe
4. Bow your wrists
5. Use your normal swing
6. Make a descending blow

The wood chip is great in heavy rough. But it also works in light rough. A wood’s smaller head separates and slides through the grass, unlike the heads on irons, which often get caught up in the grass. Use the 5-wood or the 7-wood for long grass and the 3-wood or the 4-wood for lighter grass.

Start by taking your normal chipping stance, with the ball positioned even with or just behind your back foot. Shift your weight on your front foot and place your hands just in front of your back thigh.

Now move close to the ball. Set the wood on its toe. This move is key. It minimizes the clubface’s exposure to grass. Use a normal chipping swing and a descending blow, but bow your wrists as you deliver the blow.

If your practice swing isn’t descending sharply enough, choke down on the club more. But don’t try to scoop the all. The club’s loft will start the shot up and out. The ball comes out without backspin, so it can run like mad.

Strange lies can come out of nowhere. So practice some non-traditional shots, like chip-ping with a wood, for times when you need to get creative. You want to have the feel of the shot when you need it.

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3) Question: Sticking a Greenside Bunker Shot
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Q.

Hi Jack,

A very enjoyable issue as usual!

I was wondering if you had any tips for very short bunker shots—the ones where you have to pop the ball up to a pin that’s only a few meters away. I played the other day, and although I was hitting nearly everything very well, I got hurt three times with these shots, which ruined my round. Would you change your technique for this shot if the sand is wet/dry/soft/hard?

Many thanks in advance.

Regards,
Nick McKimm

A.

Yes, Nick. You do have to change technique depending on the lie. Failing to do so is gets weekend golfers in trouble. Below are some keys to a greenside bunker shot:

Make sure you hold the clubface open through impact. This enables the club to slide under the ball, throwing it up and out of the sand. If you don’t open the clubface, you'll probably mis-hit the shot, costing you strokes.

Also make sure you swing the club on an outside-to-in path along your stance line. That’s critical. And don't stop when you hit the sand. Keep accelerating through the swing to a full finish. Deceleration is among the most common errors in greenside bunkers. To pop the ball up, play the ball forward a couple of inches from the middle.

With a buried lie, use a more descending blow. Gripping down on the club helps you make more of a descending blow. With a partially buried lie, open your clubface a little more. With wet sand, set up as a normal sand shot, but make a shorter and shallower back swing. Play hardpan bunker shots like a normal bunker shot, but enter the sand a little closer to the ball than normally. Use your SW or LW, but make sure you open the face wide.

Dave Peltz, the short game guru, explains of how to escape a bunker in his book, Dave Peltz’s Short Game Bible. It’s a great read.

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,
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