Golf Instruction

Would you like to take your golf swing to the next level? Try closing your eyes.

Although this piece of advice is contrary to the old adage – Keep your eye on the ball – closing your eyes during practice swings can actually help you improve your swing. This is especially true if you have trouble with keeping balance or over swing.

Closing your eyes while doing practice swings lets your brain get a ‘feel’ for your swing. With your eyes open, your brain is processing all of the normal visual information it receives, on top of the kinesthetic information it’s receiving from your body’s movement. By closing your eyes, you’re allowing your brain to focus on just the feel of your body and help you overcome the natural tendency to right yourself when your body feels like it’s falling over, during your golf game.

Looking for an instructional book for the beginning junior golfer? Take a look at the Junior Golf Book: An Instructional for Beginning Players, Ages 8-18. This book was written by Larry Hayes, the Trophy Club’s Head Professional and Director of Golf. Larry has given over 30,000 lessons in his time as an instructor since he turned pro in 1970.

Organized in a series of 10 separate lessons, The Junior Golf Book is an illustrated how-to that covers all of the basics of the game. Its written in language any beginner can understand and covers golfing vocabulary, course etiquette and the mechanics of play.

The book also covers information and tips for parents who wish to teach their children to play, including buying and making equipment for juniors. There aren’t a great many junior golf books out there, but this is one of the best introductory books you’ll find anywhere.

Golfers all share some striking similarities at their very core. For the most part, golfers all want to improve themselves and they all want to play the best courses in the world. From Tiger Woods to the average 36-handicapper, everyone wants to play the best, just to say that they’ve done it. For this reason, a world’s best golf course book is an awesome gift for any serious player.

From Scotland to Australia, all the way down to the coast of South Carolina, there are some awesome golf courses. Luckily for those of us who cannot get to all of these fancy locations, a great golf course book can take us there. There are plenty of these out on the market, and some of them go so far as to rank the golf courses in the world against one another. Whatever the case, a golf course book can give golfers something to look forward to, or at least dream about.

Some golfers have a sharp left or right slice and many have a slight slice they have improved but not eliminated. So many players simply accept the slice and try to work around it when, in fact, it is not difficult to eliminate. The slice occurs because of the impact of the club on the ball and this impact can be improved through grip and stance. Grip plays a part in that many slicers do not rotate through impact. The club should be gripped with the fingers and not the palm. Right-handed golfers should be able to see two or three knuckles on the left hand while addressing the ball. Strengthening the grip in this manner provides stability that can reduce slicing. Stance is important in that many try to compensate for a slice by re-directing their stance, but actually this can work to exacerbate the slice.

Getting the ball to go where you want it to go has everything to do with the delicacies of your swing. If you are totally focused on how hard you’re hitting the ball, your body, your arms and your hands tense up and you’ll most likely slice, which means sending the ball far off to the side of your target. So worry less about how hard you’re hitting. Focus instead on keeping your left arm straight if you are right handed; your right arm straight if you are left handed. Keeping this arm straight all the way from your back swing to your follow through will keep the club face in the correct position and it will contact the ball at the angle necessary to create a straight, clean trajectory. Once you can control the direction of your ball, then worry about hitting the back wall at the driving range.

Going out and golfing with grandpa is one experience in the game that is recommended for everyone. There is no better way to enjoy and learn about the game than from someone that has been playing it for a lifetime. Grandpa will have a thousand wonderful stories about odd shots, hole-in-one’s, and secret tips that no one else knows about the game. These stories can become treasured memories on a cool afternoon on the course.

Also, taking grandpa out for a round of golf makes for quality family time. There is almost no other game where you can leisurely enjoy quality time with someone in the outdoors. Golf has a gentle pace that offers time for interaction, memories, and great tales of games won in the past.

When we talk about getting better at golf, the only real medicine is lots of practice and tons of solid instruction. But there are a few little things that you can do in order to shave strokes off of your score. These won’t take a long time, and they are ultimately little reminders that you’ve probably already heard before.

The first is to slow down, and not try to hit the ball so hard. This is especially true with your irons. The best players are the ones who let their power come naturally from the development of a good swing. They have solid tempo and from that they get better than average distance control on their approach shots.

The second is to always have a plan with every shot. Too many golfers step up to the ball and don’t have any clue what they want to do with the shot. This is especially true around the green, where players will lose strokes because they haven’t thought about exactly where they want to land the next chip. If you can concentrate on having a distinct plan with every stroke, you will notice your score going lower.

When taking golf instruction, it is important to pick a teacher who has had solid experience in the game. The teaching should be hands-on, with practice in the essentials of putting, the swing, use of all the various types of clubs, and tips for different situations.

Once the basics are presented and practiced to some degree of efficiency, the skills should be taken to the course and put into action. During play, the instructor should offer feedback, suggestions, and correct errors when they are seen so that bad habits are not formed. The best kind of golf instructor, though, has the necessary ingredients of passion for the game and patience with his or her students. These two things make for an effective teacher and a wonderful experience in learning the game of golf.

Breaking down the golf swing is difficult, since a good swing requires so many different things to go right. But if you look closely at some of the best golfers in the world, you will see some common elements.

What do Tiger Woods and Padraig Harrington do so well that the average weekend golfer can’t? They put it all together. The first step to having a solid golf swing is the setup. Proper alignment and a good grip will carry a golfer a long way, and this is the first place that poor golfers should look for improvement.

After that, it comes down to good tempo and a solid swing plane. The backswing should be neither too fast nor too slow, and it should be steady. When the club goes back, golfers should practice hitting towards the inside of the ball, instead of coming over the top and chopping down on the ball.

Putting together all of these things is difficult, but in order to have low scores, it’s absolutely essential