All golfers want to improve. Those serious about doing so take golf lessons from professionals or study golf tips offered in books, magazines, and newsletters, like mine. Usually, the golf lessons and golf tips focus on swing flaws. Refining your swing to eliminate flaws is a great way to improve ballstriking. Understanding how club design dictates the quality of impact is also a great way to improve ballstriking. In fact, it may be just as good, if not better than, working at eliminating swing flaws.

When we discuss club design, we usually talk clubhead size or shaft materials. These can affect your ballstriking and shot distance. But here we want to discuss a different aspect of club design. A club has three key design features:

* shaft lean toward target,
* significant lie (or shaft lean toward body),
* center of gravity

These features exist in every club, even your putter. They contain secrets on how to swing your drivers, wedges, and irons to improve your ballstriking, if we interpret them correctly. In other words, if we look at the features closely, we’ll see how they dictate proper golf swing mechanics.

Shaft Lean Toward Target
Shaft lean is the first, and possibly the most important, club design feature to consider. If you sole a club properly in your normal address position, you’ll see that the club sits on an angle where the handle leans slightly toward the target. The angle is important. It represents the angle at which the club must be delivered to the ball at impact to create optimal pressure. This pressure compresses a ball to a portion of its original size when hit, just like a racquet does with a tennis ball does when it’s hit or a wall does when rubber is thrown against it.

Effective ball compression causes the ball to spring off a clubface at maximum velocity. The only way to effectively compress the golf ball—and produce crisp, clean shots—is to deliver a forward leaning shaft at impact, whether you’re swinging a driver, iron, or wedge. This leads to maximum distance. A backward leaning shaft, on the other hand, doesn’t achieve maximum distance because it lacks the pressure needed to compress the ball enough to maximize impact.

Using A Backward Leaning Shaft
Most golfers present a backward leaning shaft at impact, where the club’s handle leans away from the target instead of toward it. A backward leaning shaft reduces the compression being delivered to the ball, leading to poor contact, poor direction, and a serious loss of distance. But you can learn to deliver a forward-leaning shaft with few simple chipping and pitching drills:

Begin by using a sand wedge. Place the ball well back in your stance to play a chip shot. The shaft should lean forward so that the handle is positioned in front of the clubhead, with your hands in front of your left pant pleat. Using your arms and shoulders only, swing the club back and through. Make sure you lead the handle of the club through the impact area. Hold the finish. The shaft should line up with your left arm and the ball should pop in the air. You’ve just hit a chip.

Next, widen your stance. Place the ball in the center of your feet. Make the same swing as before, but add some wrist hinge on your backswing. This will carry the ball a little further. Make sure to lead with the handle through impact as before. Continue to the same follow through position as the chip. You’ve just hit a pitch and run.

Keep Impact Attitude in Mind
Finally, hit some shots with your full swing, while keeping the same “impact attitude” in mind, as you have for the previous shots. You should notice a big difference in the quality of contact you get from this swing.

Forward-shaft lean is one of three key club design features. These features point the way to efficient swings when examined closely. Forward-shaft lean encourages you to swing the ball with a forward-leaning shaft at impact just like you’re taught in golf instruction sessions and like how the clubmakers designed the club to be swung. If you want improved ballstriking, you must strike the ball with the impact attitude designed into the club. If you do, you’ll hit longer, straighter shots that will help take strokes off 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.

“Band-aids” are a necessary part of the game—especially if you want to keep your golf handicap low. Band-aids are quick on-course fixes that correct swing flaws. They’re not permanent solutions. Designed to work only one day, band-aids help you salvage a bad day on the course. They also help tide you over until you can take some golf lessons to correct your problems. Once the round is over, you can consult your teaching pro or review your library of golf tips to see what you should change.

When weekend golfers have a bad day, the cause is often found either in their set-up, their take away, or at the top of their swing. For example, weekend golfers often flex their knees too much when setting up to hit the ball. This can play havoc with your swing. Fixing set up flaws on-course can turn what could become a bad day into a not so bad day. The key is finding the flaw first, as I say in my golf instructions sessions. Once you’ve done that, you can then make the proper adjustments.

Below are the key checkpoints to review on bad days:

Shoulders And Hips
To increase the chance of a solid, on-line shot, you must set up with feet, knees, and shoulder parallel to the target line. It’s easy to allow the shoulders to rotate open at address when you’re having a bad day. Take one of your long irons from your bag and line up the shaft at a target, with the butt end positioned where you would normally place a ball. Align your body parallel to the club. If this position doesn’t feel right, then you may need to work on aim and alignment.

Posture
Posture errors are not only uncomfortable, they are disastrous to your swing. Check your posture to make sure you’re in a balanced and athletic position. Set up to the ball with your feet together and you legs straight. Tilt from your hips allowing your arms to hang naturally from your side, and set the club behind the ball. Next, set your feet apart (about 6 inches) and flex your knees slightly. You should feel balanced. Repeat the drill and make a few swings. Do the same but hit some balls. If you make solid contact this way, this is your drill for the day.

The Takeaway
On bad days there’s a good chance your backswing’s is a little too far inside, forcing an over-the-top, outside-in swing. That’s not good. To regain the sense of what a good take away feels like, set up with the butt of a long iron in your stomach and choke down on the shaft. While maintaining your spine tilt, turn your hips and swing the club back until it reaches about eight o’clock. From there hinge the wrists, so that the club points down the target line. Do this a few times, then hit some balls. If your ball striking improves, do a few of these stomach drills before each shot.

Top Of The Swing
If your swing feels out of control at the top, you may be reverse pivoting or losing control at the top. Neither flaw is good. The fix: Grab two irons and make some swings holding the club together. During these swings make sure your front shoulder turns behind the ball and over your back thigh. If this is hard to do, you may be sliding your hips instead of turning them. Next, assume your set up, take one of the clubs and place it across your chest, and make some mock backswing. If this feels odd, then your pivot was your problem. Continue making mock swings with your eye toward turning your left shoulder behind the ball.

No one wants to have a bad day on the course. But it happens. The key to overcoming bad days—and maintaining a low golf handicap—is determining what needs adjusting and then applying quick on-course fixes. Weekend golfers, as I’ve learned in my golf lessons, tend to form flaws in their postures and backswing a lot. These are the most logical places to start when finding and fixing flaws. If you still can’t get back on track after doing this, then play simple high percentage shots. Afterwards, seek out your teaching pro as soon as possible. He or she will help you correct your swing flaws with some quick golf tips.

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.

By Jack Moorehouse

Ever wonder what’s the toughest shot in golf? Candidates abound. There’s the restricted swing, the controlled fade, and the feet inside/ball outside fairway bunker shot, as well as the ball in the rough on an upslope, the double breaking putt, and the traditional flop shot. Truth is, every one has his or her own set of tough shots. You may have covered them in golf lessons or read about them in golf tips, but you still can’t hit them. They intimidate you and add strokes to your golf handicap. Below are my candidates for the five toughest shots in golf. See if you agree.

Some players consider driver off the deck the toughest shot in golf. Many golfers never use this shot. The just read about it in golf tips. But in the right situation, it can help. The problem is your driver has the least amount of loft, so it’s hard getting the ball in the air. If you hit up on the ball, you’ll probably mis-hit. The only way to get the ball in the air is to cut the shot. Play the ball off your front heel and aim 15 yards left of your target (right for left-handers). Then swing across the ball, instead of down on it. Feel like you’re pulling your right hand toward you’re left hip on the way down.

The Plugged Bunker Lie
Other players consider the plugged bunker lie the toughest shot in golf. It’s certainly a candidate. Since you’re ball is buried in the sand, you can’t hit the typical sand blast you learned in golf lessons. There’s too much sand. Instead, come down hard into the impact zone. You should feel like you’re jamming the heel of the club into the bunker with the toe pointed at the sky. If you keep your hands low to the ground through impact, you’ll create an explosion big enough to unplug the ball and escape the bunker.

Then there’s the severe downslope from the rough. The hill’s slope moves the bottom of your swing arc back, making it easy to catch the ball fat or thin. The rough compounds any errors you make. Set your body level with the lie by tilting your torso to the left (right for left-handers) until your front shoulder sits lower than your back shoulder. Now swing. Don’t hang back to fight the pull of gravity. Doing that moves your swing arc back even farther and makes missing the ball a real possibility. This shot isn’t always addressed in golf instruction sessions, but it’s so tough maybe it should be.

One of Two Bunker Shots
For my money, the toughest shot in golf comes down to one of two shots. The bunker blast from a downhill lie is one. You have to hit the ball high to get it out of the bunker, which is difficult because the slope negates the club’s loft. The secret to hitting this shot is to take a wider stance than normal for balance and then align your shoulders with the slope. Now open your clubface and make your normal bunker swing. Don’t try to swing too hard or get under the ball too much. The ball will come out lower and with extra roll.

My other candidate for the toughest shot in golf is the feet outside, ball inside bunker shot. This is one tough shot, not only for weekend golfers but also for pro players. Almost anything can happen. Spread your feet wider than shoulder width and position the ball just inside your front foot. Also, bend your knees and rear end down more, so you can get down to the ball. Hinge your wrists quickly when you swing and keep your body quiet for balance. The steeper the slope the more the ball will go right (left for left-handers).

What matters here isn’t which shot is the toughest, but how you handle a tough shot. Don’t let it intimidate you. When it does, you tense up and forget the keys to hitting the shot correctly. Next time you face a tough shot, relax. Run through the keys you learned in golf lessons or read about in golf tips, and then swing away. And remember, you don’t always have to put the ball a foot from the cup. Be realistic with your expectations. You’ll conquer more tough shots that way and knock strokes off your golf handicap in the process.

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 instructi

By Jack Moorehouse

Most of us bring our A games to the course about 10 percent of the time. The rest of the time we bring our B, C, or D games. Sometimes, we even bring our F games. This variation in games is based on inconsistency. We’re inconsistent because most of us learn our swings through trial and error, not by taking private golf lessons or attending group golf instruction sessions. As a result, our swings are a hodgepodge of adjustments that make consistency elusive and kill our golf handicaps.

But what if you could design the perfect golf swing—one that encourages consistency. What would it look like? Of course, it would have to be flexible, so it could be adjusted to your body type and to your other attributes, like flexibility and height. But the swing would still contain certain key elements that would promote consistency. Not long ago I read an article by a noted golf instructor who addressed this issue. Her are the elements of his perfect swing.

Fade Over Draw
The ideal shot shape is the fade. We’re not talking slice. A fade curves just at the end of its flight, falling softly to the right only a few feet. A slice has a much more violent curve to it. It starts curving much earlier because it has so much sidespin. The advantage here, according to the instructor, is that a fade is easier to hit under pressure. You can hold onto your release a little longer and still get a decent shot. That compensates for our natural tendency to hold onto the club a little longer under pressure.

Low To High
The average golfer plays the swing from high to low. In other words, before the golfer’s hands drop down into the slot of the swing, his shoulder and chest spin out toward the ball. This early upper body rotation forces a steep, cut-across path. Other golfers do the opposite. They go from low to high, keeping their backs to the rotation while the hands drop toward the back foot. It’s not until the hands drop to waist high that the majority of rotation takes place. It’s this “late” turn that carries the hands into a good position.

Passive Over Active
Timing, as I tell students in my golf lessons, is a poor foundation on which to build your swing. But that’s what happens when your hands are active instead of passive in the swing. Active hands try to open or close the clubface. Passive hands don’t try to manipulate the club at all. With a passive release, the hands are responders, not initiators. It’s the lower body that sets up the release of the angles of power, removing the need for conscious timing. Thus, there’s no need to time the release because the move is timed for you by the correct use of your lower body—a much easier process under pressure.

Right Before Left
There are three “miss patterns” in golf: (1) You know exactly where the ball is going; (2) you know where the ball isn’t going (Jack Nicklaus used this pattern); and (3) you’re unsure where the ball is going (majority of golfers). The first two you can count on. The third has a variable miss pattern—both right and left. So you don’t know where the ball is going. Right misses (left for left-handed golfers) are soft. They hang in the air. When you’re not playing well, you can go all day missing to the right.

Thin Before Fat
You can miss a ball either fat or thin. With a thin shot, the club contacts the ball at its equator. This is a better miss pattern because the ball goes almost as far as a normal shot, while the side spin provides a sliver of control when it lands. Fat shots, where the club hits the ground, are to be avoided at all costs. They not only cause major distance loss, but they also mess with your confidence. The pro’s thinking makes sense. Personally, I still favor the draw over the fade, if the draw is your natural shot. If the fade is your natural shot, then go with that. You’re more likely to revert to your natural shot under pressure anyway. But overall the approach is conducive to creating consistency in your swing. Once you have a consistent swing, you’re sure to knock strokes off 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.