Good golf shoes are critical to playing well. They stabilize you, provide leverage against the turf, supply traction and protection, keep your feet dry, and provide comfort during a round of golf. It’s hard to hit with power or accuracy when you’re slipping and sliding all over the place, or your feet hurt because of your footwear. More importantly, golf shoes help you manage weight transfer during your swing. Technically, it’s called weight management in golf instruction sessions, and it’s a big part of a swing’s success.

Weight management, as I’ve explained in my golf tips, is the science of how you transfer weight from one foot to the other when swinging a club. Technically, it’s how you transfer your center of gravity in relation to the toe and heel of each foot as well as where your weight is at impact. When it comes to swing, proper weight management is critical. It enables you to hit the ball farther and straighter more consistently. It also is a key to chopping strokes off your golf handicap.

Cutting Edge Designs Featured
Today’s golf shoes feature cutting edge designs—the kind of designs once reserved for hiking boots, climbing shoes, and running and walking shoes. Golf manufacturers have spent countless hours applying technological advancements, like dual-pod soles, variable-flex shoe shanks, and multi-density blends of thermoplastic urethane, to designs to create golf shoes that help you transfer weight to the correct regions of your foot during the swing.

For example, many of today’s top shoe models feature two-pod soles. It’s one reason why they are more expensive than other models. Why are two-pod soles important—because the soles are bridged together by a cradle that cups the foot’s arch for better weight displacement toward the ball and heel of each foot. For golfers, this means improved weight movement, leading to a balanced, more powerful swing.

Spikes Have Gone High-Tech
Spikes are another area where manufacturers have made great strides. Once, metal spikes were all the rage, but alternative spikes quickly replaced them. Alternative spikes didn’t last long, since they did little more than prevent you from slipping and sliding on dry grass. Today, spikes have gone high-tech. They not only provide superior traction and comfort, they also allow you to aim where you need traction the most.

Then, there are spikeless golf shoes. Spikeless shoes, which resemble track and running shoes more than ever, provide traction-integrated soles. Thanks to this innovation, these shoes are more practical and comfortable than spiked shoes for a lot of golfers. Spikeless shoes offer several advantages in addition to good weight management. Their spikes don’t have to be replaced and they don’t need to be removed right after the round. Nevertheless, they give the same traction as with spiked shoes.

Ventilation is just as important to playing well as good traction. Manufacturers have made significant improvements here also. Many offer golf shoes with advanced designs that let the foot breathe while keeping the toe, heel, and bottom of the foot dry. Some shoes use a high-tech metal mesh to keep feet cool and comfortable as well as dry and clean.

For golfers that love hot weather, there are shoes that breathe from not only the top but also the bottom. These shoes afford the utmost in ventilation and comfort while still retaining structure, stability, and gripping action. These shoes aren’t your best bet on rainy days. But if you play on a day when it’s blistering hot, these shoes keep your feet cool and dry.

Great Strides In Insoles
Insoles are a fourth area where manufacturers have made great strides. Today’s insoles are not only removable, they’re also designed to levy superior support, comfort, durability, and ventilation using a series of perforations, canals, and mixed materials. Some insoles vary in thickness, allowing golfers to customize the way each shoe feels. Other insoles mold and conform to the foot’s shape.

Golf shoes are vital to playing well. They provide traction, comfort, protection, and leverage. More importantly, they enable you to transfer your weight properly during your swing. Proper weight management is one secret to hitting the ball farther and straighter more consistently. Doing that can help you slice 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.

Power alone can’t shave strokes off your golf handicap. But power combined with accuracy can. Together, they can put you in great position to attack the green in regulation. The more greens you hit in regulation, the better your chances of making pars and birdies. If you can squeeze out another 20 to 30 yards off the tee while still maintaining accuracy, you’ll dramatically increase your chances of reducing your golf handicap.

But weekend golfers often try to create power the wrong way—by either swinging their arms faster or firing their hands at the ball. This approach sacrifices accuracy for distance. If you swing your arms faster or fire your hands at the ball, you may get more distance but you’ll probably miss the fairway. So how do you increase distance off the tee without sacrificing accuracy? That’s easy—engage the four key elements of power that weekend golfers too often ignore—tempo, stability, torque, and a dynamic lower body.

Maintain Tempo
Everything starts with tempo. Sometimes a tight fairway or menacing bunker tempts you to change your swing. Resist that temptation. Abandoning the basics seldom works. That’s why golf lessons emphasize them. The basics are the key to hitting the ball longer and straighter because they produce solid contact. If you want make solid contact you must maintain good tempo. Unfortunately, weekend golfers abandon tempo when trying to hit bombs. The result is a lot of fast, jerky swings that deliver poor contact. Savvy golfers keep tempo in mind whenever they’re on the tee.

Good golfers also concentrate on maintaining a solid base. Keeping your rear knee flexed as you take the club to the top is the secret to achieving accuracy and power off the tee. This move helps you shift your body weight to the right side so that it rests on the inside of your right foot (left foot for left-handed golfers) during the backswing. It also helps prevent you from executing a reverse pivot and allows you to make a powerful move back to the front side in the downswing. Without a solid base from which to hit, you’ll leak power and curb accuracy.

Create A Wide Arc
In addition to maintaining good tempo and a solid base, you’ll need a wide arc width on the tee. It creates the torque you need to hit it longer. If you want more distance off the tee, you must create a wider backswing than normal without disrupting your tempo. You can do this by maintaining a solid—but not locked— rear arm. This move creates maximum arc width. Folding both elbows at the top, which you see golfers do a lot in golf lessons, creates a narrower arc width and a significant loss of power. That’s because it forces you to pull the club too far inside on the takeaway, robbing the backswing of the arc width needed to generate more power.

Drive Your Weight
The last of the four basics for generating distance and accuracy—and perhaps the most important—is an active lower body. You must drive your weight toward the target on the downswing, if you want to hit longer, straighter drives. You want to feel like your throwing your legs at the target, while actually staying steady. This move is also known as making a power shift. Failing to do this short-circuits your power, resulting in a weak tee shot.

To check your weight shift, take your address with a driver. Then, tee a second ball just inside your back ankle. Make your normal swing, moving your weight away from the target going back and toward it coming down. If you transfer your weight correctly, your back angle will roll inward on the downswing, knocking the second ball off the tee. If you leave the ball on the tee, you know you haven’t made a good power shift, leaving yards on the table.

Using your lower body to generate more distance is a forgotten power fundamental. It’s one of those golf tips that really pay off if executed properly. When combined with the other three power elements—tempo, stability, and torque—you can add an extra 20 to 30 yards to your drives. That enables you to power the ball over menacing fairway bunkers or cut corners on doglegs and still find the fairway. In addition, it increases your chances of hitting more greens in regulation. Hitting more greens in regulation will result in making more pars and birdies and lowering 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.

Consistency is key to achieving a low golf handicap. If you play well for long stretches, you’ll reduce your handicap. If you play poorly for long stretches, you’ll increase your golf handicap. But playing well for long periods is a challenge. When your swing is in tune, you’ll need to practice and play a lot to keep it that way. When your swing is out of tune, you’ll need to know why it’s out of tune and how to improve it. But correcting swing flaws can take awhile. So unless you can afford golf lessons whenever your swing goes south, you’ll have to be your own swing doctor.

One area where consistency is imperative is off the tee. Good drives key low scores. To diagnose a swing flaw in the tee box, play a few “practice” rounds first. Note the characteristics of your drives. The characteristics will tell you where your swing flaws are. Once you’ve identified them, you can apply the right cures to resurrect your swing. To help you get started in this process, we’ve detailed four swing/ballflight indicators below that tell you what’s wrong with your swing. Use these golf tips wisely and you’ll reduce your handicap without having to attend golf instruction sessions.

High Ballooning Slice
If you’re hitting a high ballooning slice, your club is approaching the ball from outside the target line and moving across it. The angle of your descent into the ball is too steep. So even if your clubface is square at impact, your ball will fly to the right, thanks to the sidespin imparted to the ball. To cure this flaw, you need to set up correctly. Make sure your grip is correct, your hips and shoulders are square, and your head is behind the ball. Also, make sure your body is tilted away from the target and your hands are just inside the pleat of your front pant leg. From this viewpoint, the club may look too closed, but it’s not.

Tailing Ballflight
In this case your ball starts out well with good distance, but then drifts off line with either a fade or hook. The problem is not the club path or plane. It’s with your grip and clubface at impact. To cure this flaw, you must square your clubface at impact and fit your hands to your natural ball flight. If you naturally hit a fade, make sure the Vs in your hands are pointing to your back shoulder. For hooks, a slightly weaker grip, where the V in your left hand (right, for left-handers) points just to the right of the sternum and the V of your right hand (left, for left-handers) points at your back shoulder, reducing your chances of hitting a snap hook.

The Pop-Up
A pop-up is caused by an excessive weight shift forward and a club that approaches the ball from a very steep angle. This delofts the club and makes the topline of the club its leading edge instead of the other way around. Hence, the ball pops straight up. That’s most embarrassing. To cure this flaw, make sure your setup encourages a longer, bigger backswing arc, which shallows out your swing plane and reduces the steepness of your downswing. This will also ensure the proper weight shift. Golfers who pop up tend not to shift their weight to the back foot, resulting in either a pop-up or a reverse pivot.

The Pull Hook
If you’re hitting a pull hook, your club is approaching the ball from outside the target line inward from a setup that’s too open. Instead of having an open or square clubface at impact, as with a slice, your clubface is closed shut. Square up your stance and use a weaker grip, which will help prevent you from over-rotating the clubface. In addition, adjust you left hand (right-hand for left-handers) grip so the V is pointing toward your sternum, instead of having both Vs pointing to your back shoulder. Unfortunately, the pull hook signals a bigger problem—swinging too much from outside the target line across to inside the target line. Ultimately, you’ll want to get your club moving inside out.

The golf tips explained above will get you started diagnosing your swing. Once you discover what your swing flaws are using the ballflight characteristic of your shots, you can then apply the cure. Eliminating your swing flaws goes a long way to improving consistency off the tee. That in turn will help you reduce your golf handicap without having to take golf lessons.

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

Gift certificates to a sports store or golf warehouse are great gift ideas. It gives the golfer in your life a chance to buy something useful for his game, like a dozen golf balls. Great golf balls exist in every price range. But you must find a ball that fits your game for it to work—whether you have a high golf handicap or a single digit golf handicap. When it comes to golf balls, the right one can contribute as much to your game as your clubs, as I’ve said in my golf tips newsletter. Below are some tips on choosing the right ball:

Be Realistic and Practical
Golfers often buy Pro V1 or MC Lady balls just because they make them feel like real players. That’s not wise or practical. Your goal when buying balls is to find one that’s compatible with your game, course, and budget. Key factors to consider are distance, feel, and spin. Distance alone is the most expensive. Expect to pay more for combinations of the three. But ball companies are always offering specials. Take ‘em up on these offers. Be realistic. Be practical. Be smart.

Buy For Your Home Course
Golfers should by balls based on which course you play the most. If you need to work the ball, buy a spin ball. If you need to hit it long, buy a distance ball. To decide between distance and control, try this experiment from Bob Toski, the famed golf instructor:

Every time you miss a fairway, move your shot back 15 yards and place it on the fairway. Now compare scores. You will probably find that you did much better than you normally do. The exercise may show you that there’s more to a good golf ball than it’s distance potential.

Trial And Error Is Best
You’ll never really know which ball works best until you actually try them. Here’s a systematic way to do that:

Hit 10 shots each with different balls to determine trajectory, carry, and distance after they land. If possible, ask a pro to help you find a ball you can launch at optimum angle. Now hit five shots with your long and mid irons. Check trajectory and the spin you get on the greens. Now hit a variety of scoring shots from 100 yards in—shots with a lot of spin, bump-and-runs, and pitches. Here you want to check your ability to hit scoring shots with these balls.

Narrow your choices down to two or three balls. Then try each for a few weeks. See which provides the best result. That’s your ball.

Spin Essentials
You don’t have to understand how balls are made. But it helps to know something about what the dimples do. You need dimples on a golf ball to get it airborne. No dimples, no lift. It’s that simple. Dimples add “drag” to a ball. But adding too many dimples to a golf ball doesn’t help either. Diminishing returns come at about 500 dimples. The minimum number of dimples on a golf ball is about 300, with optimum performance at about 350 to 450 dimples per ball. Try golf balls with different dimple designs to find one that gives your shots a good lift.

Take Care Of Your Golf Balls
Some players are diligent about taking care of their clubs, but not so diligent about taking care of their golf balls. While golf balls are more durable than ever, you still must take care of them, as I tell students who take my golf lessons. Leaving balls in your trunk on a scorching hot day is not taking good care of them. Store your ball at normal room temperatures, away from the furnace if possible, is a good way to take care of balls. If you have to err on one side, better to let them get cold than hot,

These golf tips on buying balls will help you narrow down your choice. While you may not want to spend your paycheck on golf balls, you also don’t want to buy “pond” balls or X-outs either. Some are fine. But most aren’t. Instead, buy new golf balls that help chop strokes off your golf handicap and provide value for your money. It’s the only way to roll.

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.