Thursday, March 26, 2009

Pro Swings

Check out this website http://widedivots.com to watch all kinds of pro swings from various angles

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Get Your Swing Under Control

Playing good golf is dependent on controlling the direction, distance and trajectory of your shots. Good players control the flight of the ball more consistently than the average player. No matter what your swing thoughts or theory might be, there are four major factors to be aware of as the club strikes the ball.

1. The Clubface: which can be open, closed or square. The basic rule to remember is that the ball will land where the clubface was aimed at impact.

2. The Swing Path: which can be in-to-out, out-to-in or inside to straight to inside. This will usually influence the starting direction of the shot. (At slower swing speeds this is not always the case, the clubface alignment at impact has greater influence)

3. The Angle of Attack: which can be too steep, too shallow, or correct for the individual club. The swing path is related to this, an out-to-in path creates a steeper angle of approach while an in-to-out path shallows the angle of approach.

4. Clubhead Speed: to suit the shot at hand.

Understanding these four factors is critical in improving your game. Anytime you think about making a change in your technique it should be related to changing these impact conditions. For example, if you tend to slice your tee shots it probably won't do much good to slow down your swing or trying to keep your head down longer. The root cause of your slice is the clubface being open at impact and you correct this by checking your grip. Turning both hands to the right on the grip will help you square the clubface and reduce your slice.

If you want to get better control of your swing, and the results it produces, take the time to think what adjustments you need to make in the four impact conditions that will change your shots.

Friday, March 13, 2009

What Are You Doing For The Next 3 Months?

A swing change takes time. If you've sliced the ball all your golfing life, you're not going to instantly hit a draw consistently. Sounds reasonable, right? Many times on the lesson tee I can have a student make an adjustment in their grip or swing and achieve quick results but sometimes it doesn't work when they leave. They often come to one of two conclusions-either "Scott didn't give me the right information" or "I just can't do it."

You have to remember that it takes time and effort to make a change. It might take 3 months of practicing to make it stick. Now this might make you think "Holy cow, if it takes 3 months to change one bad habit and I've got 10, it'll take almost 3 years before I get better"!

My answer to that is simple. If you solve your number one bad habit it will make the others better or simply go away. For example, let's say you slice your driver. The number one problem might be a poor grip that leaves the clubface open at impact. However, you probably have developed other errors to offset the poor grip, like aiming too far to the left of your target. Well, once you correct the grip and the ball doesn't slice, guess where your shots will go - left! Now if you keep your grip correct and the ball consistently goes left you will eventually start to aim less to the left, solving problem #2. The good news is you can practice your grip correction without even going to the golf course.

If you are wanting to improve your game, keep in mind that you have probably made thousands of swings with your dominant errors so don't expect to learn good ones by next weekend.