Shot Shaping
17 05 2010Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: ball flight, golf, golf instruction, swing path
Categories : ball flight, full swing, game improvement, golf, golf instruction, video
Swing myths
9 03 2010How many times have you heard keep your head down? Don’t do it! What I am saying may sound like heresy but all you have to do is look at tour players and see that they release their heads on their follow through. What do Annika Sorenstam, David Duval and Robert Allenby have in common? They all release their heads before impact. They are actually looking at the target before they hit the ball. They are not even close to keeping their heads down. They do maintain their spine angles but releasing their heads makes their bodies explosive through the hitting zone. I am not saying you have to exaggerate as much as these players but realize that every tour player is looking at the target on the follow through. If you cannot see your ball flight immediately, your head is down too long.
How many times have you heard swing slower? If you swing slower, your ball will go shorter! I have been teaching for 15 years and almost every student has asked me for more distance. You cannot hit it farther by swinging slower. If you have a technical fault in your swing, slowing down is not going to fix it. Fix the mistake and then speed up your swing to get distance. Don’t confuse slow with smooth. Ernie Els and Vijay Singh are smooth swingers but they are not slow.
How many times have you heard to hit down on the ball? This advice may be the reason 90% of golfers slice the ball. While good ball strikers do compress the ball, it is a function of having a forward leaning shaft and their weight shifting correctly through impact which creates a divot that is past the ball. If you look at the spine angle of a tour player from the face-on point of view, you will see that every one of them has a spine angle leaning backward away from the target. This is the same spine angle you would create if you were going to throw something up in the air. Golfers misinterpret hitting down on the ball by swinging down steeply which creates deep divots, pulls and slices. Try swinging up on the ball and you will become a drawer of the golf ball.
Before taking any swing advice from friends or golf professionals for that matter, always ask the following question. Will this advice help my ball flight and impact? If so, go for it but beware of swing myths!
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Tags: golf instruction, myths
Categories : ball flight, full swing, game improvement, golf, golf instruction, mental game
Wrist position at the Top
28 02 2010Be careful about taking swing advice from your fellow golfers. One of the tips I often hear golfers giving is to flatten your left wrist (for right-handed players) at the top of the backswing. Does this apply to you? Well there is only a 33% chance it does. If you are slicing the ball, flattening your left wrist will help. Do not take this advice if you are hitting it straight or hooking the ball as flattening your left wrist will close the clubface and make the ball go more left.
As you can see in the video, the position of the left wrist at the top of the backswing has a lot to do with how you grip the club. If you have a strong grip, your wrist should look cupped at the top. If you have a neutral grip, your wrist should be flat or slightly cupped at the top. If you have a weak grip, your wrist should be flat to slightly bowed at the top.
I look at the golf swing as a recipe of many different ingredients. After we pour all these ingredients into our pot of boiling water, we are looking for the end product to be a solid golf shot with the desired ball flight. As an instructor, I love the challenge of putting the puzzle together to help my students achieve their desired results. Every piece of advice I dole out has an effect on the quality of the shot. I never give advice to make something look prettier or because it is the latest swing fad. I give advice to help your game and it has taken years to learn the cause and effect of each ingredient.
So are you willing to take advice that may or may not be correct from a “helpful” friend? I feel like I have invested a lot of time, effort and money on my golf swing. I will only take advice if the person can give me a good explanation of cause and effect. Find a teacher you trust and stick to the plan. If you do, your recipe will turn out delicious!!
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Tags: back swing, golf instruction, wrist position
Categories : ball flight, full swing, game improvement, golf, golf instruction, video
Impact, the Moment of Truth
16 08 2009I have been playing golf for over 30 years. I have been teaching golf for the last 15 years. I have studied all the great golf swings and all the great teachers. There is so much information out there and we all have access to it in this age of information. So how do we make sense of it all? All you need to do is ask yourself this one question. Is this information, this technique, this tip, or this swing thought going to help me improve my impact? All great golf swings don’t look alike. All great players don’t look alike. But all great impact positions look alike! You can just hear the wonderful smashing sound of a solid golf shot. As an instructor, I don’t even have to see it. I can hear what Bobby Jones called a “true blow”.
In this video, I have explained how to achieve the desired impact position. You will know you have struck a solid iron shot when your divot is a few inches past the ball, the divot is wide and fairly shallow (Byron Nelson once described the divot as looking like a dollar bill), and the divot goes slightly left of target line for a right-handed golfer. As golfers, we have all had that wonderful feeling of hitting a great golf shot. Some golfers, especially the ones we see on TV on Sunday afternoon, tend to repeat that great impact more often.
John Jacobs, a famous English golf instructor, stated that the sole purpose of the golf swing was to achieve a correct, repetitive impact. He went on to say that the method of achieving this was not important as long as it is repetitive. Jim Furyk has a unique swing but he achieves a correct, repetitive impact. Adam Scott may have a more conventional swing but also has a correct, repetitive impact. If you could remove Jim and Adam’s body from the picture and just see the golf club at impact, the picture would look the same. When I take a golf lesson, I always ask the instructor how the information I am receiving will help my impact and the ability to repeat it. Make this the litmus test for any information that comes your way and you will have more fun hitting “true blows”. -jz
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Tags: golf instruction, impact position
Categories : ball flight, full swing, game improvement, golf, golf instruction
Your Eyes Affect Your Swing Path
11 08 2009Hitting a golf ball straight and solid is very difficult to do. Ken Griffey Jr., an all-star baseball player and seven handicap golfer, stated that golf was harder than baseball because you are not only worried about hitting the ball solidly, but also where it goes. He went on to say that he doesn’t care where the baseball goes after he hits it solidly. As golfers, we have to play our shots to right and left field even though we prefer to hit the ball to center field.
As you can see in the video, your eyes have a significant influence on both the solidity of the hit as well as the direction. I like to get my students to align themselves correctly and that means getting their feet, knees, hips, shoulders and eyes parallel to the target line. When observing a student from face on, I am looking for a stacked set up. You can think of your body as a set of building blocks. You want your feet to provide a nice foundation and then you want to get your knees, hips and shoulders to stack up as you move on up the chain. The last link is your eyes. If you can get your eyes level, it gives you the opportunity to swing with balance and on plane.
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Tags: alignment, golf instruction, swing path
Categories : ball flight, full swing, game improvement, golf, golf instruction
Great golf in the wind
19 07 2009Let’s face it. Wind makes golf hard! In 1992, I was a rookie on the Asian Golf Tour. I flew over to the Philippines to enter my first event. I survived a Monday qualifying to get into the event and then went on to make the cut easily. I thought that there was nothing to this touring pro thing. The came the weekend and a ferocious 30-40 mph wind. I finished last of all the players to make the cut. The wind simply beat me. There’s a saying out on tour that when conditions are difficult, par goes up. Well my par went way up and both my weekend scores started with an 8 and you can’t survive as a touring professional with those numbers. A Chilean player named Roy MacKenzie was nice enough to take me to the driving range after my weekend debacle and teach me some tricks on how to deal with windy conditions. Through the years, I have added more tricks which I would like to share with you.
The first thing that Roy noticed was that I was trying to power the ball through the wind. That strategy does not work because the harder you hit it, the more backspin you put on the ball. Backspin spins the ball up into the oncoming wind and the ball balloons up into the air losing its distance. Roy and I spent time hitting smooth, slow 5 irons and I started to see a lower ball flight with less spin. The result was that the wind was not messing with my golf ball! There another saying on tour, “When it’s breezy, swing it easy”. Throw your ego out the door, take more club and swing easy. I have no problem swinging a smooth 5 iron from 120 yards. Greg Norman did it last year and almost became the oldest player to win a major.
Accuracy is always difficult when you are playing into a cross wind. The key to hitting it straight in these conditions is to always try to spin the ball into the cross wind. We call this holding the ball into the wind. If you are facing a left to right wind, play a right to left shot. The wind will counteract the spin and the ball will fly straight. Remember that as you spin the ball into the cross wind, the ball will lose some distance so adjust your club selection accordingly. Only experience will dictate how much you want to curve your ball into the cross wind in order to achieve a straight ball flight.
Hitting a ball downwind is a lot of fun because you can hit it so far. The challenge here is to control your distance and not hit it over the green. More double bogies are made from hitting it over the green than hitting it short. Obviously, you need to adjust your club selection as your ball will fly farther. Also, you want to go to a shorter club because the added loft will help you spin the ball better as downwind shots decrease the backspin on the ball. This may sound weird but sometimes, I will hit a low shot downwind because I can control the distance better than sending it up into the elements.
Lastly, I want to comment on putting. If you watch the European Tour players, they tend to have wide stances when they putt. Since they play in windier conditions, they have learned to widen their stance to stay balanced. I feel like my feet are rooted into the ground and I engage my core muscles to increase balance. It is crucial to stay steady as you putt in order to make the right contact. The wind will also affect your putts so plan your break with that in mind.
Remember, par goes up in the wind and the conditions are the same for everyone. Follow some of the before mentioned advice, and you will have fun the next time you face the wind. -jz
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Tags: golf instruction, low ball flight, wind
Categories : ball flight, full swing, game improvement, golf, golf instruction, mental game
Your Wedge Game
3 07 2009How important is your wedge game? Just ask Masters Champion Angel Cabrera. After hitting a tree on his second shot of the first extra playoff hole, he hit a wedge shot to about 6 feet and holed the putt to stay alive in the playoff. The rest as they say is history. The bottom line is that your wedges are important scoring clubs. They can help you birdie par 5’s and save pars on par 4’s when you cannot reach the green in two. Tom Kite made a great living on tour being a master with the wedge. In fact, he pioneered the three wedge system as he knew that wedging it the proper distance was the key to scoring.
Notice that barring a miss-hit or miss-alignment, you don’t hit your wedges off line. The misses tend to be short and long. Do you know how far you hit your wedges? Can you hit a 55 yard shot, a 68 yard shot, or a 91 yard shot? The tour players can. It’s not because they have super-human talent, it’s because they practice wedging the ball different distances. I want my students to be able to land their ball within 2 yards of their target so they have no more than a 6 foot putt left. This gives them a reasonable chance at getting it up and down. When I was a touring professional, I had 36 distances that I knew I could hit right on the number. I was excited when I had a wedge in to the hole as I knew exactly the swing that would get me near the hole. At that point, it was all about execution.
There are a couple of very good methods to hitting wedges precise distances. One is to vary the length of your backswing. You can do this with several wedges to give you even more distances. This system made famous by Dave Pelz requires the player to maintain a consistent tempo. Another system is to find a comfortable backswing position and accelerate through at different speeds to adjust your distance. Both are effective but require practice in order to achieve precise distance control. When you hear about a player having great touch with his wedge game, it means that he has great distance control. Cabrera had great touch on that wedge shot at Augusta National.
I have found that the best wedge players are the ones who trap the ball and bring the shot in on a lower trajectory with more spin. They de-loft their wedge which allows the ball to rebound off the face and produce more consistent distances. For those of you who may scoop the ball or add loft at impact, the ball tends to run up the face and lose it’s distance. Paul Azinger is a great example of a player who traps his wedges and has great distance control. Find your best way to control your wedge distances and lower scores will be right around the corner. -jz
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Tags: golf instruction, wedge
Categories : ball flight, full swing, game improvement, golf, golf instruction, pitch shot, short game
Play My Golf version of Tic Tac Toe
1 06 2009I remember being in a room with Chuck Hogan, a renowned mental guru, when he asked a group of accomplished college players the following question: “Who here is done with their golf swing?” As you may imagine, none of them raised their hand. He then followed up with a second question: “Who here knows when they will be done with their golf swing?” Again, nobody raised their hand. I recently came across a college player who is about to graduate and turn pro. He was so excited because he said that his golf swing was done and that all he was working on now was becoming a shot-maker. How cool is that!
As you can see by the video that accompanies this blog, I talk about the nine shots in golf when it comes to the full swing. There is a draw, a straight shot and a fade. And there is a low, medium and high trajectory of each. I had an opportunity to watch Tiger warm up for a Ryder Cup match and sure enough, he went through the nine shots. I call it playing Tic Tac Toe as the nine squares represent the nine golf shots.
For those of you who are accomplished players, ask your instructor for a shot-making lesson. I guarantee that you will become a better player. An instructor can help you make a swing change simply by teaching you how to hit a specific shot. Instead of bogging you down in mechanics, you can make a swing change by learning to shape a shot. I remember going to golf camp at the PGA junior academy and participating in fun competitions. One contest was trying to hit the ball under a bungee cord that was tied across two posts. I learned how to hit a low shot and nobody told me to put the ball back in my stance or to lean the shaft forward and bow my wrist. The picture of the shot made me do it or I was not going to win the contest.
Playing with your ball flight is not only fun but key to getting your game to the next level. And lets face it, once you learn how to play tic tac toe, you realize that it always ends in a tie if both players know what they are doing. But my golf version of Tic Tac Toe can help you win your match against your buddy. -jz
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Tags: ball flight, golf instruction
Categories : ball flight, full swing, game improvement, golf, golf instruction, mental game, video
How to Hit It Low
3 05 2009Ben Hogan was a master at ball-striking but also a master of golf course management. One of his strategies was to hit the ball low to a back pin. This way he could land the ball on the front third of the green and have the ball release to the back. If you have played enough golf, you know that missing a green long makes for a difficult up and down. Bringing the ball in low is a safer strategy. Learning the low shot will help you in many other ways as well. Low shots help you in when hitting into the wind, hitting under tree limbs, and playing links style golf which feature greens that enable the golfer to play a run-up shot.
As you can see in the video, there are many ways to hit the ball low. You can select a longer club and grip down, you can abbreviate your swing, you can swing easier, and you can play the ball back in your stance although that comes with consequences as you can see in the video. The one thing you may not hear much about is how hitting low shots helps many golfers find their swing mechanics. By making your swing more compact, you simplify your motion and get more predictable results. When you hear about touring professionals “tightening up” their swings, they are looking to make their motions more efficient and repetitive. After all, so much of great golf is being able to predict the outcome of your shot. Ben Hogan’s swing became better when he shortened it. Phil Mickelson is in the process of simplifying his swing and Tiger’s stinger speaks for itself. I have never seen Tiger miss a fairway when he hits the stinger. If he ever adds a stinger driver to his arsenal, you might see the first calendar year grand slam since Bobby Jones.
So add the low shot or your own personal stinger to your game. It will add a layer of sophistication to your game and enable you to be more creative in your shot-making. -jz
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Tags: golf instruction, low ball flight, wind
Categories : ball flight, full swing, game improvement, golf, golf instruction, video
How to Hit the High Shot
30 04 2009Whatever you do, don’t slow down your swing! You often hear amateurs giving their friends the advice to swing slowly. Slow equals low. The faster you swing, the more backspin you will impart and the higher you can flight your ball. If you watch elderly golfers or little kids hit the ball, it is difficult for them to hit it high because they lack clubhead speed. The great high ball hitters like Jack Nicklaus and Greg Norman were also some of the longest hitters of their time. Geoff Ogilvy is a great example of a modern day player who hits his long irons nice and high enabling him to land it softly on the green. This is great for hitting par 5’s in two shots.
The ability to hit it high opens up a lot of scoring opportunities. You can carry bunkers, cut doglegs, and access tucked pin placements. Understanding when not to try to hit the ball high is important. Hitting it high into the wind is a mistake as it will disrupt your distance control. Never try to hit the ball high on a downhill lie. The slope delofts your clubface and trying to get loft leads to poor contact. Finally, don’t try to bring it in high to a back pin.
In my fifteen years as a golf instructor, one thing that has remained consistent is that all my students want more distance. If you are a low ball hitter but you have good clubhead speed, you may be losing distance because you do not have enough loft on your driver. Adding a few degrees will help you launch the ball higher and help you carry the ball farther. This is especially important for golfers who play in wetter conditions where the fairways are lush and don’t produce much roll. For those of you who have slow clubhead speeds, you should consider a 15 degree driver or switching to a 3 wood to get more distance. Lastly, pay close attention to the portion of the video where I describe the difference between how to hit it high with your driver versus your irons. Understanding the difference will improve your ball striking. -jz
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Tags: golf instruction, high ball flight
Categories : ball flight, full swing, game improvement, golf, golf instruction, video
