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(153).."THE SWING PLANE"

PROBLEM:
Staying with in the swing plane.... Regardless of whether you are 6' tall or 5' tall, if you do not stay in the swing plane while making the golf swing, you are in trouble.

RESULT:
Depending on when and how you came out of the swing plane, you can produce about any ugly bad shot imaginable.

FIX:
The easiest way to stay in the swing plane is to focus on how the clubshaft works during the swing. In trying to get the clubshaft to move on-plane, the hands, arms, and shoulders might also move on-plane. Since each club lies differently and each golfer differs in stature and build, technically there will be different planes. Yet, there is a common trait that can be identified by this simple drill:

Place a pencil or golf tee in the vent-hole (hole at butt end of the grip) of your driver, 5-iron, and a pitching wedge. It is easiest to think that the end of the club that is closer to the ground always points to the target line. There will also be four positions when the clubshaft is parallel to the target line: halfway back, at the top, halfway down, and halfway up to the follow-through finish.

With each club, slowly go through the swing and notice these positions, as well as when the left arm is parallel to the ground in the backswing. The pencil or tee should point at the target line or slightly inside it. This will also occur when the right arm is parallel to the ground in the follow-through. Note that small changes in the wrists and forerarms can set off the angle the club points.

This works for each club because the ball gets farther away from the body as the club gets longer. The plane itself may get shallower as the club gets longer, but you can always identify where the clubshaft and arms should be.



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(154).."PLUMB BOBBING"

Determining the break of your putts might improve by using the tips below.

Look at your putt from the side to determine whether it is uphill or downhill. Check the cut of the cup to see if it will tell you anything about the slope, but the truest read of the line is generally achieved from behind the ball.

Get down low and don't just look at your ball and the hole, track the entire line, from ball to hole. Do it at the speed with which the ball will roll. It will give you a better feel for the line and help you visualize your ball following that line.

Plumb-bobbing can be helpful, but it also can be deceiving until you master its nuances. To plumb-bob, you must first determine the angle at which to dangle the putter shaft to establish a vertical line. Do this by sighting the putter shaft against the corner of a building, which is presumably plumb, with your "dominant eye".

Now, align yourself so that your dominate eye, your ball or marker, and the cup form a straight line. Holding your putter loosely with thumb and forefinger on the grip, close one eye and with your dominant eye cover the ball with the bottom of the shaft. If the cup appears to the left of the shaft, the green slopes left. If the cup appears to the right of the shaft, it slopes right.

Use all your senses. Feel your feet. What does your balance tell you? Are you leaning into a hill or back away from a slope? Is your weight on your heels or toes? Is the green damp? Is the wind strong? Those factors can affect the roll of the ball. Once you have a handle on speed and slope, marry them.

Practice your putting and your green-reading skills. find a breaking putt, pick a line, and hit several ball. Study the slope to determine why the putt behaved as it did and what you can learn from it. If you can't putt, you can't score well (40% of your strokes occur on the green). And if you can't read greens, you can't putt!



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(155).."WHY DO I SLICE ?"

Very simple...Because your clubface is open at impact.

An open clubface at impact is the only factor that causes a slice. Of course, there are other contributing factors, such as an out-to-in path, but they only worsen a slice if you open the clubface farther. So fixing a slice must start and end with squaring the face.

The two faults most responsible for keeping the clubface open are excessive tension in the hands and arms and a misunderstanding about how power is produced. The clubface rotates only as much as the hands and arms do, so most slicers need to find a way to promote more hand, arm, and clubface rotation through the hitting area, with the toe of the clubface turning over through impact. A softer grip is a good place to start, but you probably need an in-swing key as well. This brings up the second fault: a misconception about power.

Most golfers try to generate power by lunging or twisting their upper body at the start of the downswing. This may feel powerful, but putting the torso in control deactivates the hands and arms, preventing them from releasing on the downswing. As a result, the grip leads the clubhead through impact in a dragging motion, and the face stays open.

To fix this, you must appreciate that power comes from clubhead speed, not upper-body force, and clubhead speed is maximized when the hands and arms swing freely. The following drill will help quiet your body and encourage the arms to make a releasing motion of the clubface through impact.

Take your normal set-up with a 5-iron, then turn your stance 90 degrees to your right so your back is to the target (keeping the clubhead in its original position). Hit balls to a normal target from this stance, swinging your arms freely but minimizing body turn. Your hands and arms will naturally rotate and close the clubface through impact. Back in your normal set-up, try to repeat the feeling of your arms swinging freely as your shoulders stay coiled. Your hands and arms will turn the toe of the clubface over through the strike, and your slice should fade away.



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(156).."UPHILL PITCH"

Even players with good touch have trouble with uphill pitches, often sticking their wedges into the turf and leaving these shots well short of the pin. Their mistake is playing the uphill shot exactly as they would one of the same length from a flat lie. To compensate for an upslope lie, you need to make three easy changes.

1) Tilt your shoulders so they are parallel to the slope. Angling your shoulders so they mirror the slope has two advantages. First, it allows you to make a full follow-through. Second, having a follow-through greatly enlarges your margin for error through impact. If you don't align your shoulders correctly, contact must be perfect: Hit it fat, and the ball goes nowhere; hit it thin, and the ball is driven into the slope, bounces straight up in the air, and, again, goes nowhere. But with your shoulders parallel to the slope, hitting a little fat or thin can still produce an acceptable result.
2) Let the slope tell you which club to use. Since the upslope adds loft to the shot (when your shoulder line tilts, the shaft tilts back the same amount), you must use an iron with less loft. The swing length is he same for the uphill pitch; only the club has changed.
Which club?
Check the hill:
For every four or five degrees of upslope, use one more club than you'd normally use (the loft difference between clubs also is four to five degrees). If you're on a 15-degree slope at a distance from which you'd usually hit a lob wedge, hit a 9-iron instead (that's three clubs more -- lob wedge, sand wedge, pitching wedge, 9-iron). The extra loft of the hill is matched by the reduced loft of the club, so the result will be about the same.
3) Make the same length swing. Your swing should be the same length as if you were on a flat lie using the original club (in this case, the lob wedge). Don't be fooled by whatever is written on the club: That 9-iron is no longer a 9-iron; because of the upslope, it's a lob wedge, so make a swing long enough to get a lob wedge to the hole.

Stick all this information in the back of your mind, marked with a small red flag that pops up whenever you face an uphill pitch somewhere around the green. Then make the three adjustments: Tilt your shoulders, use a less-lofted club, and make the same length swing. A little practice from different slopes with different clubs will help you see how they produce various shots. Then, you'll be able to handle uphill lies -- no matter how sharp the slope.

The swing length is the same for the uphill pitch; only the club has changed.



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(157).."INTUITION & GOLF"

Why is golf so hard to learn to play well?
Simple...Because your instincts are dead wrong.

Golf is counterintuitive: To play well, you must do the opposite of what your intuition tells you. To make the ball go up, you must hit down. To hit it farther, you must hit the ball more precisely, and not necessarily swing harder.

Following are three examples of when the opposite way of thinking is the right way.

DISTANCE.
Most golfers think that to hit the ball farther, they must swing the club harder. In reality, you need more precision, not more power. Distance is the result of clubhead speed applied effectively, not speed alone, so it's critical that contact is made in the center of the clubface -- on the "sweetspot." Even if you have the clubhead speed of Tiger Woods, missing the sweetspot by less than an inch will drastically reduce distance. To build a more precise swing, practice the "Gateway Drill". Stick two tees in the ground just outside the heel and the toe of your driver. Tee up a ball directly between the tees, then swing the clubhead through this gate. If the clubhead isn't clipping the tees, you should be making contact in the center of the clubface.

TRAJECTORY.
For the ball to go up, the club must be going down at impact. But many golfers try to help the ball up, and the more they do, the more likely they'll make poor contact. If the clubhead is descending, the lowest point of the swing arc will occur after impact; that's why a good divot is on the target side of the ball. If you're trying to lift the ball, you'll contact the ground first and the shot will be hit fat or thin. To learn how to hit down on the ball, set up in a fairway bunker and draw a three-foot-long line in the sand. Stand with this line just inside your left heel (to represent your ball position) and take several swings. The club should hit the sand starting either on the line or just ahead of it on the target side. I promise you, most golfers hit on the wrong side of the line.

DIRECTION.
Most golfers assume an errant shot is caused by a swing-path mistake when it's usually the clubface that's to blame. They forget about the sidespin created by an open (slicespin) or closed (hookspin) clubface at impact. So the slicer either aims or swings farther left, because his instincts say the last thing he wants to do is swing to the right. In fact, aiming or swinging right is the correct thing to do. This will create a more in-to-out swing, which, along with closing the clubface (rotating it to the left) through impact, produces a right-to-left draw. Conversely, if you fight a hook, swing more to the left while keeping the clubface open (aimed to the right).



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(158).."THE ADDRESS"

A sound address position is critical for solid golf shots. In fact, if you were to look for a common thread among the world's best players, one of the more obvious would be a solidity in their stance and posture at address.

I can not emphasize enough, the importance of the address position; in particular, Address of Golfer You must align your body square to the target line. A fundamentally sound address position has the shoulders, hips, knees and feet aligned parallel, but left, of the line that runs from the ball to the target. Any discussion of the setup must begin with the correct alignment of the body to the target.

Next up: the distance between you and the ball. Standing too far away from the ball will move your weight out onto your toes and ruin your balance. Standing too far from the ball can also cause the knees to stiffen and increase the chance of hitting the shot thin. See my golf tip A-side (9) Adress..."To Close To The Ball" for the correct way to establish the correct distance away from the ball.

A third element of a solid address position is width of stance. Take the time to measure the distance between your feet at address. I suggest they be shoulder-width apart for all full swings. Flex your knees comfortably with a slight bend at the waist. As you do so, keep your weight on your heels. This will help you maintain your knee flex from takeaway to impact and establish a stable, balanced platform.



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(159).."JUST SOME INFO"

Drive Characteristics
The fade is the safest drive. It rolls the least allowing more shots to remain in the fairway. The draw is longer - 17 extra yards with a 100 mph clubhead speed, but much of that is uncontrolled roll making it a lower percentage drive. The pull is the longest drive - that's a straight shot without any energy-sapping side-spin left or right. It is difficult to predict of control. Basically, it is longer because contact with the ball is made later in the swing . More time has elapsed allowing for greater clubhead acceleration.

Power Fade
A power fade is the most desirable of all drives, but is the hardest to master completely. It combines the length of the pull with the controlled roll of the fade. Mistakes made trying to execute a power fade can be lethal - severe pulls generally. A power fade is basically a hard pull with an open clubface that imparts left to right spin to the ball. Ideally, it starts out well outside of the left sidelines and fades back to the center of the fairway.

Can't Cut It?
Having trouble learning how to cut the ball? Try opening your stance a bit and weakening your grip. You do this by rotating your hands counter-clockwise. To cut the ball, you need to give the grip - and consequently the clubhead - a slight rotation under the ball at impact. A strong grip impedes wrist motion down and under at impact (clockwise). A strong grip is, in essence, a pre-rotated grip. You can't very well rotate what's already been rotated. A flop shot is all but impossible with an overly strong grip. For a flop shot you have to actually slide the clubface under the ball - impossible with a locked wrist.

Knock-Downs?
Try reversing the above instructions. With a knockdown you want to actually "hood" the clubface over the ball a bit at impact. It's the reverse of a cut shot. A lower shot results. This is a necessary option for anyone who wants to play well into the wind.

Hit Them High, Not Low
It is a very common misconception that overly high shots are not as desirable as low screamers. The great golfers hit HIGH shots not low. There was a saying on tour in the sixties, High, Higher, Highest. That says it all. Great shots launch high and long. Low shots are preferred only into the wind or in bump and run conditions. Anyone can figure out that ground and grass create more friction and resistance to slow a ball down than does air. The monster drives are high.

Lose The High Tee
If you are not a consistent driver lose the high tees. Never tee the ball up so that the equator of the ball is above the top of the driver's head. This way you will rule out an entire segment of disastrous mishits. You won't embarrass yourself with anymore silly pop-ups. If the ground is soft, tee it even lower to avoid submarining the ball.

Want Backspin?
If you are not using an expensive wound ball or a specially designed, extra spin ball forget it. Backspin happens when the club comes down on a descending path and pinches the ball between the clubface and the ground causing the ball to compress against the face and release off of it with a spinning motion. It won't work with a two-piece ball. They don't compress enough. The other thing that matters most is ball position. Pros play it farther back in their stances than do amateurs. This creates an exaggerated pinching motion.

Offset Clubs and Left-side Mistakes
If your mistake patterns are consistently to the left and you are using offset club, especially woods, then you are fighting a losing battle. Switch to clubs with little or no offset in the hosel. An offset hosel on a wood generally turns a draw into a hook.



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(160).."THE SHANK"

This shot seems to brings shades of panic into the game of even the best golfers. Even to the point of not allowing the mention of the dreaded "S" word, but do not worry. This shot is simple to correct.

The first thing to understand is that the shank is caused when the ball strikes the "Hosel" of the club head and "not" the toe at impact. shank pic
There are two major reasons that cause this problem.

The first is a over flexing of the knees at address. This shifts your weight to your heels in the address position, instead of in the middle of your feet were it belongs.
Starting with too much weight on the heels at address causes the body to seek out a balanced position during the swing. At impact your weight is transferred from your heels to your toes. The hosel is moved closer to the ball; resulting in a shank.

See my golf tip under (9) ADDRESS..."Posture and Balance" to see how to achieve a balanced posture at address.

The second cause is when you actually set up to close to the ball. This happens to the best of golfers and is very easy to fix. Simply read my golf tip under (9)ADDRESS "To Close to the Ball" to see how to know when you are the correct distance away from the ball.
So, don't panic if you hit the dreaded "S*#*(#^@#%", just follow the above and watch it disappear,



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(161).."CLUB FACTS 1"

The Bigger the Clubhead, the Straighter the Shot
This statement is right on. As a head is designed oversize, a higher percentage of its weight is moved toward the outside of the head. Ever heard of the term "perimeter weighted" ? This is exactly what it means. A head that has more weight on its perimeters will tend to twist less on off-center hits. The scientific label for this is "higher moment of inertia". Clubs with larger heads, be they woods, irons or putters, will not twist as much when you don't hit them perfect, resulting in straighter - and longer - shots. Bigger may indeed be better when it comes to clubhead size!

The Bend Point of a Shaft Makes a Big Difference in Ball Flight
The bend point of a shaft is defined as its point of maximum bending. Shafts are labeled as either high, mid or low bend point shafts. Logic would dictate that a high bend point shaft bends most somewhere near the grip, a low bend point shaft bends most near the tip and a mid bend point shafts bends most somewhere toward the middle of the shaft. Further it may follow that a low bend point shaft will launch the ball higher and a high bend point shaft will hit it lower. While logic may say these things, nothing could be further from the truth.

Of all shafts in existence today, including graphite, steel and titanium, the difference from the highest of the high bend points to the lowest of the low bend points is about 1 1/2". Bend points are located at a position approximately 45% of the distance from the tip of the shaft. Being this close together, bend points really have little effect on how high a ball goes. A low bend point shaft may feel a bit more "head heavy" and a high bend point shaft may yield less head feel, but there will be little other effects of this parameter except that. So if you are buying a shaft to help you hit the ball higher, you will be hard pressed to do so; on the other hand, if you are looking to a certain shaft to create a specific feel, you will have no problem.

Bend point:
A major effect on feel; a minor effect on trajectory.

Better Golfers Should Use Forged Clubs, High Handicappers Need Cast Clubs.
The fact is, the difference between forged and cast clubs is imperceptible to even the best players in the game. Test done with tour pros using the same head designs, some cast and some forged, showed that even they could not differentiate one club from another. The difference between the two types of clubs is in their manufacture. Forgings are made from a soft type of steel known as 1030 or 8620 carbon steel. Forged clubs are stamped by incredibly large dies into their basic shapes and then are hand ground to exact size, shape and weight by skilled craftsmen. They are then chrome plated as a final step.

Cast clubs are made by pouring molten metal (typically either 17-4 or 431 stainless steel) into a mold. When the metal cools, the club is an exact copy of the mold. There is little hand work done on castings. A series of polishing belts or tumbling machine puts the finish on the cast club. If there is an advantage to casting, it is in the cost of the finished product. As there is not so much hand work, castings are less expensive than forgings.They may also be a bit more consistent from club to club as each head comes from the same mold.

Can a golfer feel the difference?
Even though cast clubs are made from a harder type of metal, a human cannot feel the difference. Is there any pliability difference? Not at all So, when shopping for clubs, do not be overly concerned with whether the club is cast or forged, but more with how it performs in your hands.



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