In this issue we’ll discuss…

1. Throw Away Those Bunker Problems
2. Five Equipment Tips From The Pros
3. Question of the Week - Making Captain Hook Walk The Plank
4. Article - Sink More Putts With The Quiet Eye
5. Article - Five Match Play Strategies That Work

Throw Away Those Bunker Problems

The biggest obstacle to getting out of bunkers isn’t always physical. Sometimes it’s psychological. Many golfers execute the mechanics of a bunker shot perfectly. But after a bad shot or two, they become too tentative with their swings. That, in turn, causes them to mis-hit the shot, which costs them strokes.

Below are six tips to keep in mind when hitting from a bunker:

• Open the clubface
• Form the grip
• Choke down on the club
• Open the stance
• Aim right of stance
• Dig a solid foundation

The mechanics of bunker shots are straightforward. Start by opening the clubface first and then gripping the club. This ensures that the clubface stays open throughout the swing. Many weekend golfers do the opposite.

Also, choke down on the club to improve control and compensate for digging your feet into the sand. Digging your feet in tells you how soft the sand is and how the club will react when it enters the sand. Digging your feet in also provides a solid foundation, so you won’t slip when swinging.

Open your stance by pointing your feet, hips, and shoulders left of the target line (right of the target line for left-handers). Aim the clubface right of your stance, placing it in line with the target. Then, swing away.

Here’s where weekend golfers often mess up. Afraid of mis-hitting the shot, they take a half-hearted swing and either skull the shot or hit it fat. To prevent this, imagine yourself picking up a handful of sand and then throwing it back over your shoulders at the finish.

Visualizing this commits you fully to the shot, improves the shape of your swing, and allows your sand wedge to glide evenly through the sand, splashing the ball out softly on the green.

Don’t let bunker shots intimidate you. Adjust your stance to the type of sand in the bunker. Then, commit fully to the shot using the sand-tossing image. You’ll get out in one every time.

Five Equipment Tips From The Pros

How important is confidence to your game? Most experts say it’s a critical to playing well. Usually, you can boost confidence by practicing. But sometimes you can boost confidence by finding a club that feels just right. Since that’s hard to do, you may be forced to tailor your existing clubs to improve feel.

Below are five equipment tips employed by the pros to improve feel:

1. Shrink the putter grip
2. Tip the club’s shaft
3. Change shafts completely
4. Counterbalance the club
5. Check the driver’s clubface

Good putting requires a good touch. That’s especially true on the Tour, where the greens are fast and slick. To enhance feel, the pros will often fit their putters with thinner grips. Better feel can only improve your putting, not harm it.

Tipping refers to how a shaft is cut before being placed in the club head. Most times, players who shorten their clubs cut from the grip’s end. But for extra stiffness and increased control, the pros cut their shafts from where it’s inserted into the clubhead.

Today, shaft options exist for nearly every kind of player. If you want to imitate the pros, change your shafts to high-performance ones. Better yet, get fitted for your clubs by a clubfitter.

Counterbalancing a club adds weight away from the clubhead. That shifts the club’s balance point more toward the shaft’s middle, providing a more balanced feel. Look for counterbalanced shafts when buying clubs. Or, add lead tape.

Tour players carry drivers with either square faces or faces that are a few degrees open. These types of faces help prevent big hooks. Consider making the change if hooking is a major problem. But be careful, they also produce a lower ballflight.

Making equipment changes won’t guarantee you’ll shoot par next time you play. But it can boost your confidence. And confidence is vital to playing well, so anything that boosts it is worth considering.

Question of the Week - Making Captain Hook Walk The Plank

Q. Hello Jack, I’ve been playing golf for two or so years and have been trying hard to apply as many golf tips (plenty from you!) to my game as I can. I very rarely slice the ball, but instead I hook/draw the ball too often without getting the ball in the air (mostly from the fairway).

Thanks
Mark Piper

A. Thanks for the question, Mark. Fixing a hook can be just as hard for some as correcting a slice is for others. To correct a hook, you must adjust your swing and then practice the new swing until it’s ingrained.

Basically, there are three ways to fix a hook:

Use a slicer’s grip
Hooking is sometimes due to excessive hand and wrist rotation through the downswing. So instead of hitting the ball with a squared clubface, you hit it with a closed one. If that’s why you hook, the cure is to adopt a slicer’s grip. At address, instead of having the two folds in your hands between both thumbs and index fingers pointing to the right shoulder (right-handers), point both folds more toward your sternum. The change prevents a too closed clubface at impact and encourages you to get more of your body into your swing.

Turn and burn
You may also be hooking because you fail to turn your body during your swing. When the body fails to turn, the clubface closes too fast, causing the ball to hook. To cure this problem, speed up your turn to the target. Increasing your body’s rate of rotation delays the closing of the clubface, eliminating the hook.

Equipment Changes
A third way to fix a hook is to through equipment changes. You could fatten your grips, making it more difficult for you to over-rotate your hands and hook the ball. Or, you might try shortening the shafts on your club. The shorter shafts make you stand a little more upright. You may lose some distance by doing this, but it’s better being on the fairway short than out of bounds long.
Any of these three approaches will correct your hook. The trick is discovering which one works for you. When you do, practice until it becomes second nature.

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, we’ll make sure to include your name and where you’re from.

If you want to truly discover the secrets of shooting like the Pros and creating a more reliable and consistent swing, check out: http://www.HowToBreak80.com

To view this newsletter online, please visit:
http://www.howtobreak80.com/newsletter10212009.php

Here are some of my recent articles:

Article- Sink More Putts With The Quiet Eye

Article - Five Match Play Strategies That Work

Until next time,

Go Low!

Jack

P.S. Feel free to share this newsletter with family and friends. If you would like to subscribe to this newsletter, go to http://www.howtobreak80.com/newsletter.htm

About the Author

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 handicaps quickly. His free weekly newsletter goes out to thousands of golfers worldwide and provides the latest golf tips, strategies, techniques and instruction on how to improve your golf game.

I’ve seen it a million times and it’s just as painful now as it was the first time I saw it.

Painful because it is SO EASILY CORRECTABLE that it just kills me to think someone is robbing themselves of distance and accuracy without even knowing it.

If you’re 55 years or older and are starting to lose distance on your shots or can’t seem to hit the ball consistently straight, then you’ve absolutely got to watch this video.

http://www.break80today.com/seniors/senior-golf-swing-mistake.php

Pay close attention at about the 34 second-mark…Bobby will show you exactly how many seniors look when attempting a backswing.

Today’s drill will show you exactly how to cure this problem and even if you don’t have this problem, this video will help you realize how to hit the ball properly with less effort.

Tap on the link below to check it out.

http://www.break80today.com/seniors/senior-golf-swing-mistake.php

Enjoy!

Jack

P.S. This video tip is part of the brand new Seniors DVD which we recently launched. Learn how to play the best golf of your life with this unique and proven system.

This is the second of two articles on fixing your game when things go bust. The first article covers driving, iron play, and the short game. This article covers putting and sand play. Like the first article, this article has golf tips to improve the problem areas.

No one plays well all the time. No matter how low your golf handicap, sooner or later you will have some problems. Even the pros go thru rough patches now and then. When they do, they work hard on correcting their problem areas. That’s why you often find pros working on their games long after playing in a tournament. When things go bust, you must fix your game, if you want to achieve—and keep—a low golf handicap

The first step in fixing your game is determining problem areas. Once you’ve done that, you can develop a game plan designed to abolish swing flaws. Lastly, you must work on ingraining technique. Determining your problem areas does you no good if you don’t correct them. Below are some areas of your game to examine when things go bust. We’ve also provided some golf tips to help streamline practices.

Ups and Downs
When you miss greens, you must be prepared to play different shots. The only thing you should think about after missing a green is making par. Scrambling up and down trims strokes from your golf handicap. When facing a chip shot, think in terms of two techniques—hitting the ball with a closed clubface or an opened clubface. Use your closed clubface when you want to run the ball or hit from hardpan. Use your open clubface when close to the pin or from long rough.

Also, use the club’s leading edge, not the toe, to determine the club’s true angle. At practice, spread balls at various spots off the green and then chip them on the green. Experiment with different shots to get the feel of each. While taking golf lessons and reading golf tips in magazines are also good ways to improve your chipping, the best way is to practice chipping as much as possible. The best chippers are self-taught.

Rough Escapes
Shots that miss the green often find the rough. Previously, players used the sand wedge from the rough. Today, players have the 60-degree wedge. They need to use their imaginations a lot less. The key for playing from the rough with the 60-degree wedge is follow-through. Good rough players complete their follow-through. Poor rough players don’t. Don’t get so concerned about getting out of the thick stuff that you stop at contact. Also, try to prevent your right-hand (left-hand for lefties) over the other hand. Keep the clubface open and you’ll get more height on your shots.

Lag Putting
Lag putting is all about pace. Golf tips in sports magazines agree. To lag put well, read the green before getting to it. You want to see the fall of the ground before you reach the hole. Also, after determining your line, make a few practice strokes while looking at the pin. When you look at the target, it sends signals to your brain to move your arms and shoulders the correct speed to putt the ball the right distance. This doesn’t happen when taking practice strokes with your head down.

Putting
Some say that the key to putting is maintaining the triangle formed by your forearms and hands during your stroke. Others say that it’s confidence. More than likely it’s a combination of the two. By keeping the keeping the triangle intact, you eliminate al wrist action, which can kill a putt—short or long. Instead, power your stroke with the muscles in your shoulders. If your wrists push the putter past your hands, you won’t be able to control distance putts. Practice with a metronome for rhythm. Or try putting with your eyes closed. It forces you to visualize the stroke and helps feel and speed.

Hopefully, these two articles give you a game plan to implement when things go bust. And trust they will. Like the pros, you’ll experience a rough patch when it comes time to playing. But if you stop to fix your game, you’ll never go bust. Pre-empting major problems before you ingrain bad habits keeps your golf handicap low.

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.

A short time ago I came across an article penned by a local man who had been caddying since he was a kid. Few courses still have caddies. But back then many courses had them. During his career he had caddied for players with both high and low golf handicaps. He had even caddied for a few professional golfers in his time that had wandered into town for one tournament or another.

The caddy chatted about a number of things, like the changes he saw during his time on the bags, such as the introduction of metal shafts and metal clubheads on drivers. The best part of his article, though, was his take on what he thought was the difference between weekend golfers and professional golfers. Below are some of the golf tips he thought would help weekend players trim strokes from their golf handicaps.

Play To Your Strengths
Playing good golf isn’t about shaping shots. It’s about shaping shots to your strength. Many players with high golf handicaps don’t play this way. Instead, they let the course dictate their shots. In other words, they hit without thinking. Then play whatever lie they get—uphill, downhill, etc.. But smart golfers control their shots. They look for targets that favor their strengths—even if they’re adept at working the ball. In most cases they stick with what comes naturally—no matter where the pin is on the green. Play to your strengths and you’ll cut strokes off your golf handicap.

Stick With Your Routines
Pre-shot routines are the key to consistency. Players like Justin Leonard and Jim Furyk are known for their pre-shot routines. But fans don’t realize the amount of pressure professional golfers face. To achieve consistency under great pressure, pro golfers use a routine for each shot. This systematic approach ensures that the golfer is in the right frame of mind to hit a shot. More importantly, it ensures proper setup, which, in turn, dictates proper positioning of the body. Develop a routine you’re comfortable with. And remember to set the club first before the body.

Keep A Solid Forward Leg
Not keeping a solid forward leg is among the most common errors instructors see in golf lessons. Watch the pros on TV—men or women—and you’ll notice that that they all keep a solid forward leg. They have to if they want to generate the kind of shots they need to compete on the tour. A solid forward leg helps you swing along your body, not around it. Keep the knees flexed, but the forward leg solid. You’ll see both your ballstriking and shotmaking greatly improve.

Move On
Golf is as much mental as it is physical—maybe more. One of the keys to conquering the mental side of golf is not letting bad shots get to you. That’s why it’s important to acknowledge—and accept—that you will occasionally hit a bad shot. Nobody hits perfect shots every time, not even Tiger Woods. And sometimes, luck works against you. It’s okay to get a little angry now and then, but don’t let that anger get to you. And don’t dwell on it. Let it go. Move on. There’s nothing you can do about the bad shot anyways. It’s done. Focus on the next shot. Remember, winning is a positive state of mind.

Use Shadowing Putting
Professional golfers are all great putters. When they err, it usually isn’t mechanical. It’s things like keeping their eyes on the putter head or poor rhythm. To combat this, the pros use a simple drill, called shadow putting. When it’s your turn to putt, turn your back to the sun so it casts a shadow in front of you. While watching your shadow, make a few practice strokes. Imagine you’re swinging to the beat of a metronome. Once you have your rhythm, move to the putt. In golf instruction sessions, instructors tell people to back off the putt if they feel their rhythm is off. Then take a few practice strokes emulating the metronome all the while. That’s good advice.

One other golf tip from the caddy is to perfect your posture. Good posture leads to proper weight shift and a more fluid release through the ball. Weekend golfers often over look good posture as a key fundamental, as they do the other fundamentals in this article. But my thinking is: if a fundamental is important enough for the pros, it’s important enough for myself and players trying to whittle down their golf handicaps.

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.