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How can video help your game of golf? Since you can’t see yourself, video lets you see yourself.

The golf swing can be an intricate action and video connects the gap between fact and feel. You can trust you will improve even though it feels incorrect or wrong because of this visual feedback. Also, when used correctly, video can be used to pinpoint the motor skill that needs the most work.

Video can also give the golfer an opportunity to alter their belief system so they can have the maximum impact on changing their feel. Video can then prioritize on first getting you to strike the ball solid, then second, to have directional control of the of the ball.

How is lag created and then maintained? Think of your left arm as one lever and the shaft as another. In your backswing, hinge your left wrist to create at least a 90° angle between the forearm and shaft. When you swing down, retain that angle for as long as you can. When you release it, the club head will speed up.

Many recreational players let go of the lag too early by unhinging their wrists to soon in the downswing. One drill to prevent this is to swing back with your left arm only, and as you start down, grab the shaft with your right hand and resist the unhinging of your left wrist. Repeat this feeling and incorporate it into your swing. In your regular swing, your wrists unhinge naturally at the bottom of the arc.

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1. Place your feet about shoulder width, and the ball just forward of center by an inch or two.

2. For starters, keep the feet square and not open.  And for most players, I would suggest you use a 60 degree or lob wedge, and not the sand wedge.  It will give you more loft, which will get the ball up easier without your help of scooping.

3. Bend the knees, almost as if you were sitting on a bar stool, this will help you hit the ball fat or behind an inch or so.

4. Follow through like a normal golf shot, with the weight on the left leg and the hips, chest, and head facing the target.

5. If you still struggle, draw a line in the sand.  Straddle the line with the line slightly ahead of the center of your chest.  Take practice swings hitting the line without a ball.  Pay attention to see if you are hitting too much behind or forward.  Make adjustments with your swing, not set up, remembering to always finish the golf shot on the front leg with balance.

6. If you are really fearful of the greenside bunker and there isn’t a lip on the edge of the bunker, putt it.

Give these tips a shot and if you need some more help in this area, give me a call and we will take care of it together.

Here is an idea I would like for you to consider.  If you take an average white tee golf course’s yardage of 6,500 yards and divide it by 150-yards you get a total of 43. I know that you won’t hit it in the hole every time, so if we add a 2 putt on every hole then we get a total of 36 putts.  When you add the 43 golf shots and 36 putts you would end up with a score of 79.  Now I know that there may be some water hazards and obstacles you may have to go around with only having a 150 yard shot, so we will add another 9 strokes for those situations and maybe missing a few greens on the approach.  When we add 9 more strokes we get an 88.  Remember, that is from the middle tees so if you are playing the front tees, the score could be even lower.  Also note, this is without using a driver, 3 wood and possibly those dreaded long irons.  Those are usually the clubs that mess with the swing and drive your score up.

I challenge you to try this sometime.  Go play nine holes with the clubs you hit 150 yards and less, then see what you shoot.  Keep track of where you lose shots and I bet it won’t have anything to do with loss of distance.  If you consistently score under a 45 then it’s time to add some more yardage.

And now that it’s over, I’m back to work on the lesson tee and the golf course probably teaching some of my students to hit a distance wedge of 72 yards like the one Phil attempted. Now it’s a relatively easy shot. What makes it difficult is to get it as close as Phil does. Amazingly he did almost hole it off the fly and then spun it back to about four feet. Now I don’t expect the majority of my students to do that but the fundamentals of the shot are not as difficult as one would expect.

First, ball position is important. Make sure you position the ball so you’re not going to hit it fat or skinny. That would probably be a little back in their stance for the majority of golfers. Then, by all means don’t over swing. A half to three quarter swing will be sufficient. The shorter swing will compel you have to accelerate the club through the ball.

The common errors to this shot are an over swing with a decelerated motion through the ball. Not good. Practice will help you to get it close. But knowing the fundamentals of the shot will at least give you a chance to hole the putt.

You need to have the feeling of consistent rhythm and pace of the stroke to control your distance. You also need this feeling of rhythm on the short putts; another benefit of practicing longer putts is that you will start to feel a rhythm and tempo in your stroke.

Address Position of The Putt:

Grip – thumbs straight down the shaft, very light grip pressure, hollow with the palms and general preference to the reverse overlap grip
Stance and Width – this will vary with individual preference but square to slightly open is acceptable with the width usually five to ten inches and wider on windy days
Ball position – one inch forward of center
Bottom of the stroke arc – one inch behind the ball, with the putter impacting the ball on a slight upswing
Butt end of the club – straight up and down with club head, not a big forward press
Contact point of clubface at impact – bottom half of the clubface

There are several common mistakes in putting, beginning with the attempt to control and influence the clubface to direct the ball toward the hole. Just like the full swing, your hands should be reacting to the direction of the larger muscles. Your shoulders and arms are the primary engine of the stroke, with your hands staying very quiet, passive and inactive.

Another frequent error is the attempt to hit the ball on a specific line which leads you to start watching the roll of the ball toward the target too soon, thereby moving you head forward as you stroke through. Listen for the sound of the ball dropping in the cup before you look up on the short putts.

Another familiar mistake is the attempt to make the stroke straight back and straight through. Because you stand to the side of the ball the arc is on an incline. As clubs get shorter, the arc goes more vertical. As club shaft gets longer, the plane of the arc is more horizontal. The ball is played away from your body; therefore the arc will never be vertical. The only way the club could swing straight back and through would be if the stroke were traveling on a vertical plane. Therefore, your stroke should be slightly to the inside of the target line on both back swing and through swing. Letting the club swing on its natural arc will reduce the tendency to influence the clubface with the hands. As you stroke on your arc, the clubface will appear to be opening and closing, however remember the clubface is merely staying square with the arc.

A worthwhile goal for your putting stroke is keeping your head and lower body (from the hips down) to remain motionless while your shoulders and arms execute the crucial movement. If you don’t, your stroke will lead to inconsistency. If you focus on feeling the correct distance, your tendency will not be to move your head, but to stroke the putt with the correct pace and rhythm for the appropriate distance.

Let’s talk about over-swinging. I have seen a lot of golfers take a swing and a half when they’re swinging the golf club. Maybe trying to get more distance or it just really feels normal. The over-swing can cause a series of complications that can render the swing powerless and encourage a loss of direction.

Here is a simple drill to help you get the feel of not over-swinging:

Put a swimming noodle or some plumbers foam in your right arm pit at address. Take your backswing until your left arm comes to a stop up against the swimming noodle. That’s approximately where your back swing should stop. Yes I know, it feels like a half-swing. But if you rotated your shoulders as far as you can without compromising your lower body, i.e. (straightening or bowing your right knee) that position is as far back as the club should go.

It’s amazing how you get a half-swing feel with a full-swing ball flight. Don’t believe me, schedule your next lesson and we’ll get you to feel it and see the proof.

I would recommend fanning your lead foot towards the target slightly, while keeping your trailing foot perpendicular to the target line. With your trailing foot square to your target, you are reducing hip turn. A limited hip turn joined with a full shoulder turn, can create coil and torque that leads to more power. By turning out your front foot, you will be helping to create a fuller finish, as it makes it easier for your hips to clear through impact.

For weight distribution, your weight should be distributed 50/50 between your feet for almost every type of shot. For a short iron you might put 5% more weight on your lead foot while swinging a longer club about 5% more on your trailing foot. If you’re a beginner it will be very difficult to distinguish that small amount of weight so just keep it 50/50 until you get more efficient at your ball striking. You may want to experiment with your stance during practice to see what kind of results you get from the different weight distributions.

Finally, your body weight should be distributed evenly between the toes and heels on the fat part of your foot. Meaning from the ball of your foot to the arch. If you start with too much weight on the heels chances are your going to shift to the toes during your swing to stay balanced.  This means you can very well have some off centered hits towards the heel of the club because you compensated the weight to stay balanced. The same goes if you start with to much weight on the toes, you’ll compensate during the swing to get the weight on the heels leading to strikes off the toe of your club.

Tension will destroy any fluidity and smoothness in your swing and make your rhythm, tempo and timing very inconsistent. Remember to “Swing em’ and fling em’. And what I mean by that is to let your arms “swing” and let your shoulder “fling” your arms. They work together. Notice a beginning golfer and how they are all tense in the arms when trying to “hit” a ball. Where as the accomplished player not only “flings” the arms back and up by rotating those larger shoulder, chest and upper back muscles they also swing their supple arms in conjunction with the upper body rotation.

Being tension free has a numerous positive effects for your swing. One benefit is extension. Notice the word “extension”, take away the “ex” and all you have remaining is “tension”. If you “ex” the “tension” you get “extension”.

Imagine hanging soft ship rope from your shoulders. If you rotated your upper body back and through, the ropes would extend as far as possible from the center of the swing. In your back swing don’t try to keep your left arm (right-handed player) straight, however keep it extended instead by being supple in those “ropes”. That extension gives you arc width, which generates swing speed. An effect all long hitters benefit from. Rotating creates centrifugal force. Being tense will reduce any built up centrifugal force your rotation has produced. Too much tension will also inhibit a proper release of the forearms, hands and club head. Let’s go back to that rope analogy. Imagine ropes are hanging from your shoulders and the hanging ends of the rope are tied into a knot. The knot represents your grip. In the forward swing the knot would turn counter clockwise following the rotation of your upper body and your arms swinging down and forward. That counter clockwise turn of the knot would represent your grip. Another words, your right hand would turn over your left hand producing a clubface that went from open (pre-impact) to square (at impact) to closed (post-impact) in the forward swing.

Countless students that I have worked with on this have told me that they feel as though they have no control. That is good because they are now swinging the club instead of hitting at a ball. They are transforming a feeling into their swing that they are now getting out of their own way. Pay attention to your tension and you too will gain control by letting go of your so called control.

Split Handed Drill

Split Handed Drill: Split your hands apart then swing the arms, hands and club to get the feeling of the proper release of the right wrist (for right-handed players) rolling over the left wrist through impact. Do this enough times and you’ll incorporate this feel when you need it, during your swing on the course.

Mirror, Mirror On The Wall Drill: I can’t over emphasize this enough. Look in a mirror at your set-up, down the line, face on and during your swing. You will see the difference of what you think your doing and what your actually doing.

Rehearsing Impact Drill: Take a mid-iron and find something solid like the corner of a wall and take your set up and press your club head against the wall making sure your club face is square to the direction of the pressure. Be aware of your flat left wrist, left arm against your chest, hips open in respect to your target line and shoulders slightly rotated in the same direction.

Weighted Club Drill