Infinite Ideas (Firm) - Instant golf 2: advanced tips and techniques

Instant golf 2

Advanced tips and techniques

Infinite Ideas

Chips with everything

The key to any setup and the only way to be sure that you are aiming correctly is to put the club head behind the ball before you set your body in position. The chip shot in particular relies heavily on proper aiming. You are trying to get the ball as close to the hole as possible, and are therefore aiming at the smallest target there is. When you put your club on the ground keep your feet together. This will allow you to focus primarily on aiming your golf club. Keep your club in its position and spread your feet so your heels are no more than six inches apart. Decrease the gap if that is more comfortable for you but do not increase it. A narrow stance should make your swing a little steeper which is good for chipping because it helps ensure a downward strike on the golf ball. And a downward strike is the only way to make good contact. You should have plenty of balance because the swing is so short and you dont need a lot of power.

More chips with everything

When you are positioning yourself for a chip shot your feet should be fairly close together (about a foot apart) with your weight on your forward foot (for right handed golfers thats the left foot). You should almost be able to lift your back foot right off the ground. Keep your hands ahead of the ball, and make a short back stroke and follow-through (still keeping your hands ahead of the ball, with no wrist break, like a putting motion). Keep your legs and upper body still only your arms and shoulders should be moving during the stroke. If you flex your wrists and try to help the ball up into the air this will de-loft your club and you will most likely scuff the ball, getting no lift at all. Getting the ball into the air is the name of the game and this positioning of your body will help.

Getting a grip

There are traditionally three main types of grip in golf but no one can dictate to you which you should use. Go with whats comfortable. You can test the best grip for you by simply clapping your hands. Take your stance without having a club to hand but allow your arms to hang naturally. Now bring your hands together with the palms flat. In this position, youll see that your palms are parallel. This is the one stipulation of a good grip; your palms must be in a parallel position to allow the hands to work together. Now assume your usual grip on the club, and then open your hands, straightening out your fingers while continuing to hold the club between your palms. Are your palms parallel? If not, they should be. In an ideal neutral grip, the back of your left hand and the palm of your right will be facing your target.

Getting a grip 2

A proper grip on the club has been variously described as being like holding a toddlers hand, or keeping a small bird contained in your hands but allowing it to breathe. A proper grip pressure is essential - and its as difficult to describe as it is to achieve. One method that has helped some pros (Greg Norman especially) to apply the proper pressure through the left hand is the short-thumb technique. Take your usual grip on the club, with your left thumb extended straight down the shaft. Now slide the thumb upward about a centimetre. Notice the effect this has on the tightness of the hold in the last two fingers of your hand. This is exactly what you want; a firm, secure grip. If you occasionally experience a looseness in your swing, and the inaccuracy it always causes, experiment with the short thumb.

Practise swings made perfect

How often have you taken two or three beautiful looking, fluid practice swings, squared up to the ball and then made a complete mess of the proper shot? You might even have said, If only I could hit the ball with my practice swing, or something similar. This happens because the swing is pointless when theres nothing to hit. You might be getting the swing just right but if theres nothing to aim the club head at youre not squaring it properly. In future when you take a practise swing, aim to actually hit something such as a daisy or a blade of grass. That will make your practise swings much more valuable.

No (age) limits

Golfs a game that can be played and enjoyed at any age. Just look at Tom Watson fighting it out with the young guns in recent opens. But as you age your strength and flexibility can suffer. Its not advisable to muck around with a swing thats stood you in good stead all these years, but you may want to consider using more lofted clubs like 6 or 7 woods. Additional loft is a very good substitute for youth and raw strength. Its also a good ideas to use softer shafted clubs and tryo to spend about 75% of your practising time on your short game. Keep that honed and youll still be able to score low despite loss of distance. As far as physical fitness is concerned if you can still walk around the golf course do so rather than using the golf buggy as this really will help to keep you fitter and stronger. If lugging the caddy behind you is tiring you out buy an electronic golf caddy to help you, that way you can keep walking for as long as youre physically able to.

That bunker mentality

How can you learn to get your ball out of a bunker with any degree of control? Watching most average golfers, four times out of ten theyll need two strokes to extricate themselves from the sandy horror and four times out of ten theyll hit the ball so cleanly that theyll fire it out of the bunker and off the other side of the green. Try holding your sand wedge high on the shaft and gripping hard with the little finger and ring finger of your left hand so the club face wont close in the sand. Point the shaft at your groin and have your hands a little ahead of the ball. Now open the stance slightly by moving the left foot back a little. Your shoulders and hips should move accordingly leaving your body aimed to the left of the pin with the clubface pointing straight at it. Putting more weight on the left foot, hit about three inches behind the ball (the longer your shot, the further behind the ball you need to aim and the less sand youll take). Practice bunker shots regularly, then when you need them youll be prepared.

Throw your game

Try this to help develop the perfect swing but, first of all, take yourself off to an open space. Make sure theres no one within a couple of hundred yards of you. Or indeed, make sure there are no windows, cars or family pets within range either as this can get dangerous! What you do is take a normal swing with your club, but without a ball, and let go of the club. The intention is that your club should fly towards the target. Start on small swings first so that the club only flies 20 or so feet, but when youve mastered that go for the full swing. The club will probably end up all over the place initially as your hands and body tense up, but when you start throwing the club successfully in the direction youre aiming youll have achieved the perfect swing. Practise this as much as you can so that you do it every time. Then use that same flow when youre addressing the ball. You should notice an immediate improvement in all your shots.