Before a round a great way of feeling the correct rhythm of the swing is to practice swing with two clubs together.
Using two mid irons (6,7) hold the grips together and make full smooth swings really trying to feel the weight of the club heads making a wide circle around your body and picking up ‘their own’ speed through the impact zone.
Try not to force the swing just let it happen and you will have a sensation for correct swing tempo.
The only body movement that should be present in the golf swing is rotational. Both vertical and lateral body movement create many problems and are hard to repeat leading to inconsistency.
Imagine you are in a barrel when you make your swing, it will keep you from moving side to side or up and down and force you to simply rotate. You should notice more consistency of your strike.
The obvious target when aiming at a green is the pin, but unless the pin is in the middle of the green it will usually be guarded by bunkers or mounding which if you get the distance of your shot wrong, will leave you with a tough up and down.
Try aiming for the centre of every green. This way if you miss your shot you will still more than likely be on the green with a chance of holing the putt rather than tough pitch or bunker shot.
So forget the pin, ignore it, your target is the middle of the green.
As it is very cold conditions at present the ball will not fly as far as usual. If you are playing in the morning especially most cases will require 2 more clubs! You must take this into account when selecting your club, even if it is down wind, it is still cold air which reduces the balls flight.
So pick the club it usually would be and go up 1 or even 2 clubs, i.e. 9 iron- 7 iron. You wont be long!
Ever taken notice of which part of the ball you look at? Is it the top? Is it the whole ball? Or do you just close your eyes and hope for the best??
The best part of the ball to watch is the back of it, this is the part that gets hit and as our body often reacts to what we see then this spot will help us hit the ball cleanly more often.
If you often hit fat or heavy shots where the club impacts the ground before the ball, you are more than likely starting your downswing with your arms instead of leading with the hips.
Try thinking about turning your belt buckle towards the target to start the downswing. This will help you to get your body weight onto your lead foot before the club comes down allowing a clean, compressing impact.
One of the worst causes of poor contact of iron shots is when a player lets the clubhead pass their hands before impact, often known as scooping. This causes the leading edge of the club to work up through the ball making it impossible for the club to compress down into the ball and the ball come out of the sweet spot.
Try making your hands stay slightly ahead of the clubhead at impact by visualising a flat lead wrist (left wrist for right handers). This will allow you to compress down into the ball for better contact.
Even though the weather is colder and wetter now with winter here don’t think that your body doesnt need as much liquids on the course. You still burn energy on the course and therefore need to replace what you burn. Take a sip of drink at least once every second hole to keep on top of your game and keep your ability to concentrate throughout the round otherwise you will lose it without realising…….When it is too late!
Its really easy to hit a few bad tee shots and think that is the problem in your game. How many putts are you having each round? How many pitch or chips are you having each hole? You could be looking at the wrong area. The stats do not lie and you can clearly identify which areas are letting you down, especially after taking stats for a few rounds.
Try note the following from each round:
* Total putts
* Total chips
* Total Pitchs
* Total Bunkers
* Greens hit in regulation
* Fairways hit off the tee
This is a good start. Take these for 5 rounds and see if anything stands out. Im more than happy to help you further your stats but start with these.
With the dramatic drop in temperature of late we need to do what we can to compensate. One helpful tip is to warm your ball up before you tee off. A cold ball is harder to compress reducing the distance it will travel so while you wait to tee off on each hole stick your ball under your armpit to warm it up. This will soften it allowing better compression and distance.
