Accuracy dramatically lowers golf handicaps. Hitting a ball where you want when you want time and time again chops strokes off your scores and golf handicap. To help golfers improve, golf lessons on accuracy usually focus on swing mechanics. That’s a great place to start. The better a golfer’s mechanics, the better are her chances of hitting the ball exactly where she wants.

But perfecting swing mechanics is only half the battle. The other half is mastering the non-mechanical fundamentals, for lack of a better term, that also help determine accuracy. Golfers don’t always work as hard on these fundamentals as they do on grooving the right swing mechanics. But make no mistake about it. They’re as important to accuracy as having the right grip or swinging on plane.

Start Off In Balance
A good golf tip on achieving accuracy is to focus on balance. Balance is among the most overlooked of all swing fundamentals. Every big name swing teacher agrees that it’s critical to maintain balance throughout the swing. The best way of doing that is to start out in balance. A balanced starting form sets the tone for a good swing. It also promotes feelings of simplicity, freedom, and confidence.

Determine The Shot’s Key Factors
Another good golf tip is to always determine a shot’s direction before hitting it. Too often golfers address the ball without determining direction. In addition, determine other key factors like distance, trajectory, and curvature. All these factors must be considered to hit a target. Determining a shot’s purpose, also essential to accuracy, greatly influences those other factors.

Visualize Ball Flight
Once purpose and direction are determined, golfers must visualize the ball’s flight path. They need a mental picture of how the ball will reach the target. Once they have that, they can let their subconscious take over. Visualizing ball flight includes drawing a target line mentally. Focus on starting the ball on the target line and getting the ball to do what you want it to. Use any visualization technique that works.

Focus On Striking The Ball
A fourth golf tip for achieving accuracy is to focus on striking the ball. That’s especially true when it comes to driving. Once a golfer picks out a target and determines the ball’s flight path, he or she needs to focus on striking the ball. Too often a golfer tenses up in an effort to blast a 300-yard drive only to lose focus on hitting the ball. That usually results in a flubbed or an off-target shot.

Maintain Target Awareness
Target awareness is probably an important factor in accuracy. Some consider it even more important than confidence or good swing mechanics. While that’s debatable, there’s no doubt that it’s among the top keys to accuracy. But choosing a target doesn’t mean picking out a spot “somewhere out there.” It means picking out a very specific target and aiming for it.

One day when Ben Hogan was practicing on the range, a colleague challenged him to hit a ball into a clump of trees. Hitting it into the trees wasn’t specific enough for Hogan. He asked the colleague which tree he wanted him to hit. While no one expects you to be as accurate as the legendary Hogan, the story is a great example of what picking out a target means.

These five golf tips help improve swing accuracy. When combined with the proper mechanics, they help golfers pinpoint their shots with consistency. Practice also helps. Hitting a shot exactly where a golfer wants to—over and over again—not only grooves mechanics, but also builds confidence. Together, confidence and accuracy shave 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.

Everyone has bad rounds—even the pros. Maybe you’re tired. Or you’ve had a long layoff since you last played. Or, it’s just not a good day: Whatever the reason, you’re not getting it done. You’re shanking drives, flubbing approach shots, and missing short putts. Days like that hurt your ego and your golf handicap. But they don’t have to be a complete waste of time.

In fact, days like that can be productive. While you should save major swing changes for the practice range, you can do things during a bad round that will help your game. Some of these things are physical. Some are psychological. But they all give you an opportunity to put your game back on track. And what you learn might just lower eventually your golf handicap.

1. Turn Your Thinking Around
First, turn yourself around mentally. That’s often harder than correcting your swing faults. But if you don’t turn yourself around mentally, you won’t turn yourself around physically. You’ll continue to hit bad shots. Put the day in perspective. It’s not the end of the world. And you still may be able to salvage something from the round.

2. Work On A Fundamental
Working on a fundamental helps on bad days. Often, when you’re playing poorly, golfers have too many swing thoughts running through their heads. Instead of focusing on their targets, they’re concentrating on their hands, theirs hips, and/or their legs. That’s too much thinking. Instead, focus on one thing, like making a complete shoulder turn, and work on getting that right. Think of the round as an extended golf lesson. Sometimes all it takes to salvage a bad round is one good shot.

3. Follow Your Pre-shot Routines
If you’re having a bad day, chances are you’re missing putts. One way to change that is to follow your normal pre-shot putting routine, even though you’re discouraged about how you’re playing. Also, follow your pre-shot routines on your drives and approach shots. Pre-shot routines prepare you mentally and physically to it. They’re one of the first things players abandon when they’re having a bad day.

4. Break The Cycle Of Bad Shots
Often when golfers are hitting bad shots, their concentration wanders. When their concentration wanders, they hit more bad shots. It’s a vicious cycle. Hitting bad shots also erodes confidence. Losing confidence is the worse thing that can happen to golfers. To break the cycle of bad shots, slow yourself down and concentrate on hitting every shot well. Focusing on every shot when you’re playing poorly isn’t easy, but it’s the first step in restoring confidence, as I’ve mentioned in my golf tips. It’s also a key step in turning around your round.

5. Play Within Yourself
Sometimes golfers try to do more than they can do. They try to hit shots they either haven’t practiced or aren’t capable of hitting, like a 300-yard drive. All of a sudden, they find themselves playing poorly. As soon as golfers see themselves playing that way, they should re-examine what they’re doing. If they’re trying to play beyond their capabilities, they must re-group, slow their games down, and do what they’re good at.

These golf tips don’t exhaust the list of things golfers can do to salvage a bad round. But they’re a start. Playing badly doesn’t mean golfers can’t learn something about their games or themselves. They can. They need to think of these rounds as extended golf instruction sessions and work on executing the fundamentals. That can help turnaround their play and keep their score—golf handicaps—in check.

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.

When Padraig Harrington won the British Open in 2007, he used his hybrid on the tournament’s final three playoff holes to secure victory. Later, he said it was his “go-to” club—the club he relied on in the clutch. He also said his hybrid was his go-to club in this year’s British Open and PGA Championship. That’s a ringing endorsement for hybrids from one of the world’s best golfers.

Hybrids are your most playable clubs, as I’ve said in my golf tips. They’re also the most versatile. And they’re probably the easiest to hit. You don’t need golf lessons to learn to hit them well. Most weekend players with mid to low golf handicaps learn to hit them effectively without going to special golf instruction sessions. You can hit high, powerful shots with hybrids. And you can make par-saving rescues with them. So why not make one your go-to club?

Hybrids Improve Shots
Tests prove that hybrids improve your shots—and your swing. What they show is that golfers adept at hitting a hybrid tend to hit the ball longer than players who hit long irons —about 15 percent farther. The hybrid allows players to cock and uncock their wrists more easily while swinging. This in turn allows them to maintain a longer cocking action and a steeper angle of attack.

The hybrid also enables players to generate more hip action—in the case of players with low golf handicaps as much as 38 percent faster. That generates more clubhead speed. The body feels this increase and adjusts, moving faster through the ball. Thus, hybrids deliver more power without having to swing harder.

In addition, the latest trend in hybrids makes them even more playable. If you look at the newer models, you’ll see that newer models have slightly bigger clubheads than older models. Bigger clubheads give you a higher moment of inertia for stability and a deeper center of gravity for height. With all these advantages going for hybrids, why not use one to your advantage?

Swing Shape Is Key
Swing shape is often the key to determining how well you hit a hybrid. Few players hit both a wood and a hybrid well. Usually, players tend to hit one much better than the other. Players like Vijay Singh, Tiger Woods, and Paul Casey, who have flatter swing arcs through the ball, tend to hit their woods better than their hybrids.

Players like Harrington and Parker McLaughlin, who have more of a descending arc through the ball, tend to hit their hybrids better than their woods. If your swing is naturally steep (your divots are deep even with your long irons), you’re probably better off hitting a hybrid than a 5-wood or long iron.

Another key is the club’s shaft. Hybrids were meant to replace long irons not fairway woods. That’s how they were first designed and that’s how they perform best. As a result, most golfers do better with hybrids when the clubs are fitted with shafts designed for irons rather than shafts designed for woods.

Golf Tips On Playing Hybrids
If want to make hybrid you’re go-to club, but are having trouble hitting one, here are some golf tips that will make hitting one easier:

* Start up square at address
* Stay as relaxed as possible
* Make a good strong turn
* Employ a smooth transition
* Start down with your hips
* Push the club at impact.

In addition, position the ball farther back than a wood. The club is shorter than a wood, so you need to move the ball back a little.

Most weekend golfers benefit from making hybrids their go-to clubs—even those players with high golf handicaps. If you’re having trouble hitting one, look to your swing shape and the club’s shaft as the causes of your poor shotmaking. If these elements are okay, incorporate some or all of the above golf tips in your swing. Making your hybrid your go-to club—with its playability and versatility—is a great way to chop 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.

Teaching your child to play golf doesn’t have to be a dogfight. On the contrary, it can be a fun-filled, enjoyable experience, if you approach it with the right mindset. The key to teaching your child to play golf is letting her call the shots. By doing so, you’re letting her explore the game on her own—and that’s fun for her. Kids aren’t interested in improving their golf handicaps or absorbing golf tips. They’re interested in having fun. Make it so and they’ll learn to love the game.

Below is some advice I’ve gleaned from years of teaching kids to play golf. The advice is more common sense than anything else, but it doesn’t hurt to be reminded of it every so often. Golf might be your passion, but it’s not your child’s. Learn to make golf lessons fun and it might become their passion.

Play More Than Teach
Getting your child to equate golf with fun may be difficult to handle when you’re paying for it. We want to see the child learn something that he or she can take away from the lesson. To adults, that means focusing on the task at hand. But a child’s attention span is short. He doesn’t really start to focus on something until he’s ready. So keep the golf lesson short. Make sure it lasts no more than 30 minutes. Break that down into 10 minutes of a lesson and 20 minutes of just banging a ball around or maybe drawing faces on golf gloves.

Use Fun Ways to Teach Technique
Teaching your son or daughter how to hold a golf club is a key golf tip. But to a little child that golf lesson could be drudgery. That’s where you need to use your creativity. Invent a fun way to teach technique. Let’s say your child has difficulty shifting her weight to her left side. Try cutting out two smiley faces from a children’s magazine or book. Paste one on your right heel and one on hers. Now, show her how you shift your weight so that your right heel comes off the ground, showing the smiley face. Have her do the same.

Work On The Short Game
Most adults would rather hit at the driving range than putt on the practice green. But we all know that it’s the short game that cuts strokes from our golf handicaps. Work on chipping and putting with your child. Try to heighten his or her interest in this part of golf by making it a game or a contest instead of a “practice session.” Kids love games and contests. Their fun, especially when they win. Try losing on purpose so the child enjoys the contest. When he wins, make a big deal out of it.

Teach Safety First
Kids don’t always think when they do something. On the golf course, that can be a problem. How do you keep a child from getting hurt? Follow these common sense suggestions:

* Always keep the child in your line of sight.
* Don’t let a child drive the golf cart.
* Never let a child site in a golf cart alone
* Have the child occupy the stall in front of you on the practice range, never the one behind you.
* Draw an imaginary safety line three feet in front of the child that he or she is not allowed to cross.

Teaching a young child to play golf doesn’t have to be like taming a fire-breathing dragon. It can be fun and enjoyable, if we make it so. The child will learn to love anything he has fun doing. And if he has fun doing it, he’ll continue playing it no matter what his or her golf handicap turns out to be. And you’ll have a family activity you can enjoy together for years.

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.