First, let me say that Tiger Woods is my favorite golfer, perhaps not of all time but my current favorite golfer. I only watch golf on TV when Tiger is playing at least until this week at the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitations golf tournament on the South Course of the Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio. Until this week I couldn’t understand why anyone would watch a PGA event in which he wasn’t a competitor. This week was Tiger’s first, and maybe not last, example of mediocrity.

Of all the records Tiger has set, I can’t think of another that reflects his domination of the sport; going into this week’s tournament Tiger had won it 7 of the last 10 times he played. Sure I can. He has been the world’s number 1 golfer for 270 consecutive weeks, that’s nearly 6 years. During his 15 year professional career he has been the number 1 golfer for 611 weeks, that’s nearly 12 years! He is challenging Jack Nicklaus record of 18 major wins (Tiger 14), Sam Snead’s 82 career PGA wins (Tiger 71) and his Tiger Woods/Nike brand is renowned world wide. Only a year ago no one thought his career was in jeopardy, but after watching this past weekend I’m not so sure it isn’t the end of at least his dominance and maybe his career.

Because I love the game so much, watching Tiger on Thursday and Friday was grueling for me as it must have been for all of his supporters. I couldn’t watch on the week-end; it would have only ruined my taste for golf even more. I did open the PGAtour.com leaderboard occasionally hoping to see at least a glimpse of the old Tiger. It never happened. He finished in a tie for 78th place; only one player finished below him.

The game of golf is so much bigger than Tiger but at this time he is what has been making our game great. Others before him, Jones, Hagen, Hogen, Snead, Palmer and Nicklaus were the greats of their times. They were to golf what Tiger is now, not more but not less either. I had the privilege to watch Arnold Palmer up close and personal during his heyday in the early 60′s. Not only was Arnold a great golfer but he was one of us. He was personal, outgoing, kind, gentle and humble. I never heard anyone say anything negative about “The King”.

On my blog I have a survey which asks “TIGER HAS 14 MAJOR WINS. WILL TIGER: 1. Break Jack’s Record of 18 Majors, 2. Equal Jack’s Record of 18 Majors, 3. Win 3 More Majors, 4. Win 2 More Majors, 5. Win 1 More Major or 6. Become Just Another PGA Pro. After watching this week I could have asked the question 7. quit? I doubt it but I don’t believe Tiger will accept mediocrity if that is his future in golf. I believe and hope that he again takes some time off, maybe even a year or more and come back when he is really ready to be the old Tiger if that’s possible.

Loren…

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I’m not a fan of the fat shot. The fat shot is one of the most common bad shots in golf and leads to disastrous results which destroy your golf confidence. Many golfers from beginners to tour pros have hit them and some golfers continually hit them encouraging a lack of confidence in their golf swing and higher golf scores.

Imagine how many times a fat shot led to losing a golf tournament by one shot and you can understand why this outcome is feared by many golfers novice to professional. Fortunately fat shots can be virtually eliminated from your game by following some simple steps that lead to more consistent and solid ball striking.

To know how to eliminate the fat shot from your game you need to first isolate the reasons why you hit them. Fat golf shots occur mostly when the speeding club-head in the down swing strikes the ground before it strikes your golf ball.

Put simply, its ground before ball rather than ground after ball.

A golf iron has been designed to strike the ball and then enter the ground just in front of the golf ball. The design of the sole (bottom of the club-head) enables it to travel into the ground and then out of it much like the way the floats on a water plane enable it to enter into the water and then plane along the surface.

When a golf club enters the ground before the ball, the golf ball will be struck with an ascending blow, that is, the ball is struck as the club-head is traveling upwards resulting in semi-topped or even topped golf shots. Semi topped golf shots travel a lot shorter distance than solidly hit golf shots and this explains why many amateur golfers hit their iron shots short of the green consistently.

The main reason golfers hit fat shots is through over-acceleration of the club-head in the down swing. This means that the golf club head is traveling too quickly too soon so that the peak of the club-heads acceleration occurs well before the golf ball is struck.

Think of it this way, at the top of your back-swing you have established an angle between your left forearm and the golf shaft of somewhere between 75 and 100 degrees. Commonly referred to as your wrist cock angle, this angle stores most of the potential energy of your back swing before you commence your down swing.

Now, the key is to release this acute angle gradually so that the golf club-head builds up its speed to a point where maximum club-head speed occurs just before the golf ball is struck. However, when this angle is released too early, the club-head accelerates too quickly outwards increasing the width or radius of the down swing arc much too soon leading to a collision with the ground before the golf ball.

So two things occur; you get too much speed in the club-head too soon, and consequently, you hit the ground before you hit the golf ball. When the golf club-head is traveling downwards towards the ball we can describe the arc of its path as too steep, too shallow or correct. Too steep has the club-head striking the ball traveling downwards too much creating deep divots mostly in front of the ball. Too shallow means that the arc of the club-head is traveling level to slightly upwards as it strikes the ball.

The correct angle as you now know has the club-head striking the ball and then the turf at the correct time in the down swing.

Developing a more ‘on-plane’ down-swing gives you your best chance of your golf club striking the ball at the correct time. An ‘on-plane’ down-swing has the end of the grip tracing a path along the plane line which is an imaginary line that extends from either side of the golf ball to the horizon that is parallel to your target line.

From the top of your back-swing gently pull the grip end of your golf-club with your last three fingers of your left hand until the golf shaft points towards the target. From this position with your hands more or less in front of your body the golf club ‘free-wheels’ itself outwards through the golf ball on the correct angle of attack, striking the golf ball before it strikes the ground.

The key is to apply a light pulling pressure on the end of the grip which gradually accelerates the club-head to peak velocity through the golf ball. By keeping the right hands impulse to apply ‘hit pressure’ at bay you will start your golf swing on a correct path that leads to consistent golf shots that fly crisply off the club-face with maximum distance and accuracy leading to more golf confidence.

Would you like to develop loads more confidence, consistency and competence in your short and long game leading to lower golf scores when you play? With my program I’ll teach you exactly how to spend less time practicing and more time improving. Head over to http://www.golfconfidence.org right now to sign up for access to the free coaching videos.

Lawrence Montague is an expert Australian PGA golf instructor who has worked with thousands of golfers from novice to tour level over the past twenty five years, teaching them how to reduce their golf scores faster, and develop more accuracy and distance.

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Many recreational golfers want only to hit the green from the fairway. They don’t know that with a little knowledge, it’s not any harder to hit the ball right up to the pin.

First, you have to know just how far you hit each iron, to the yard. Go to a vacant field with a friend and hit a few shots with your 9-iron, your friend down-range noting where each ball lands. Then step off the distance to resulting cluster, and now you truly know how far you hit your 9-iron. You can repeat that with each iron, or hit every other iron and interpolate.

What you’ll determine isn’t the average distance you hit each club, but the maximum distance. That’s a critical distinction. Suppose you hit your 8-iron 132 yards and your 7-iron 141 yards, and you’re in the fairway 136 yards from the pin. Your 8-iron won’t get there. Take out your 7-iron instead, grip down a bit, and make a full swing. You should get a pin-high shot out of it.

Knowing how far you hit each club gives you flexibility in your club selection, because we play golf in Nature and conditions change. Being 145 yards from the green doesn’t always mean you’ll use your 145-yard club.

If there’s wind, you can take more club (5-iron instead of 6-iron, for example) and hit a shot with a lower trajectory that will still cover the distance you want and be less affected by the wind.

Another example is on the tee of a par 3. You should automatically add seven yards to the listed yardage to make sure the ball gets on the green in case you hit a shot that is less than your best. From there, you can adjust, depending on the pin placement from front to back.

Here’s a more complicated example of what knowing your distances can do for you. My 6-iron goes 151 yards, the 5-iron 160, and the 4-hybrid 174. One day I was 156 yards from the center of the green, according to the sprinkler head. That meant an easy 5-iron. But the pin was in the front of the green, not the center, so I could get there with the 6.

It had been raining lately and the ground was wet, which means you can’t trap the ball against the ground at impact very well, and the ball won’t fly as far. Back to the 5-iron. But there was a wind in my face. Two holes earlier I hit into the same wind and the ball landed short. I ended up hitting my 4-hybrid for a 148-yard shot, which landed eight feet to the right, pin high. I sank the birdie putt.

One reason the pros hit their irons so close to the hole is they hit them straight. The other is that they know how far they hit each iron. While you may never have a professional swing, you can have professional knowledge. It will only help.

Bob Jones is dedicated to showing recreational golfers the little things that anyone can install in their swing and game, that make a big difference in how well they play. For more FREE golf tips, and Bob’s complete guide to playing good recreational golf, go to http://www.therecreationalgolfer.com/books.html

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Learning how to drive a golf ball straight down the fairway is probably the toughest challenge for the novice golfer as well as a veteran. Golf is a game of patience and skill and I would like to share with you some of the tips that helped improve my game.

When a person decides they are going to take up the game of golf they usually just head out to the course with a couple of buddies and just wing it from there. This is probably one of the biggest mistakes a beginner can make. The hardest place to learn how to play golf is on the golf course. Most beginners have watched golf being played on TV and they assume the game is not that difficult because the pros make it look so easy.

The best place for a first time golfer to go would be the practice range. When someone tries to golf for the first time on the actual golf course it does not take long for them to see that they do not know how to drive a golf ball straight. When you start out at the practice range you don’t feel all the pressure that goes along with being on the course with a foursome standing right behind you.

Any golfer, a novice or a veteran that needs to learn how to drive a golf ball straight really has to start with the basics. Sometimes this is hard for a veteran golfer to do mostly due to their ego. When someone has been playing golf for many years the chances are good that they have picked up some bad habits and the only way they will ever be able to improve their game is if they go right back to the basics. The first thing that should be looked at is the golfers stance. If the stance is not proper and consistent they will never know how to drive a golf ball straight down the fairway. You really need to find your comfortable stance that allows you to take a complete and proper swing. There are some basic principles to follow for getting into the right stance but beyond that a golfers stance is unique to the actual golfer.

Players have a hard time making changes to how they stand or their back swing or how hard they come down through the ball because they have built up all these techniques throughout the years. The facts are the facts and if you are not consistently and yes that would be “consistently” driving the ball straight down the fairway then you need to first correct your stance. I have seen it time and time again where a veteran golfer refuses to make any changes to his golfing stance. However, having worked at a driving range for a few seasons I have witnessed more veteran golfers learn how to drive a golf ball straight down the fairway just by correcting their stance and nothing else.

Think about how many times you have taken a shot while on the course and you hear your buddy standing behind you say “you came up out of your stance” or “you didn’t keep your head down or you failed to turn your hips,” everyone of those actions involves your stance. I am telling you if you want to know how to drive a golf ball straight every time then the first thing you should do is get to the practice range and hit the ball over and over completely focusing on your body’s stance 100% of the time. This is the biggest problem for any golfer who doesn’t know how to drive a golf ball straight down the fairway every time.

I know you were probably expecting a whole bunch of other tips but the truth is when it comes to playing golf sometimes too much help will do more harm then good. Just give this article some thought the next time you are on the course and you find yourself having a difficult time hitting the golf ball straight. I know if you perfect your stance you will know how to drive a golf ball straight down the fairway with every hit.

About the Author, Howard Platt:

If you are looking for more great advice that can really help improve your game visit our Squidoo lens at http://tinyurl.com/ccxn9r if you are interested in reading some top reviews of the ultimate golf training resources please visit http://www.golf-training-4u.com make sure you sign-up for our FREE Newsletter.

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Learning how to correctly read greens is a skill that can be learned easily and can be one of the single most important factors to shooting lower scores. Want to break 90, 80, or 70 for the first time? Then these 3 secrets to reading greens are vitally important.

Secret to Reading Greens #1: What is the Lay of the Land?

Whenever you go to a new course, the first thing you should be asking a caddy, an employee (assistant or head pro) is, where do most of the putts break on the course? Is there a secret to these greens? Is there a certain landmark that all putts will tend to roll to?

Locals love to give their knowledge of the course, and it’s invaluable to us, especially on the greens!

I work on a course that has land that actually breaks towards the mountains. THAT is something no one expects when they show up to the course, and I’m shocked at how few people care to hear that knowledge.

A straight looking putt will most likely break towards the mountains. A putt that is uphill and towards the mountains will be especially slow. A putt that looks downhill and happens to be going towards the mountains- Look out! It’s going to be FAST.

Secret to Reading Greens #2:Look from BOTH Sides of the Hole

This is such a basic move that can dramatically increase your chances of making a putt. Some people don’t want to do this because they feel self-conscious about the time it takes to do it. But there is an art to doing it fast. If you are walking onto the green, take a look from the opposite side of the hole before you even mark your ball. Or maybe take a look if you have to wait for someone else to putt. If you are first to putt, who cares? Take that extra few seconds to glance from the other side of the hole.

Secret to Reading Greens #3: Watch the Roll Out Of Your Approach Shot

Often times we’ll be so caught up in our disgust that we hit chipped the ball too far past the hole that we won’t even watch the break as it is coming to rest. Being observant at all times is extremely important to getting all the necessary information.

Take these 3 secrets to reading greens to heart and you’ll make more putts, leave yourself tap ins for saves, and drop your score by sometimes more than 5 to 10 shots per round.

Greg Hanson is a professional golfer and a content creator for an internet marketing firm. You can check out his latest project about all types of small coffee tables like slate and square coffee tables at http://CheapCoffeeTables.org

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Playing bad golf isn’t always a bad thing. Many people are or know someone that’s a bad golfer. Just because you don’t hit the ball straight or on target each time doesn’t mean you can’t learn to play good golf. Learning to play golf your way is one of the best ways to go from bad golf to good golf. Bad golfers need to practice on making their game better but in the meantime can play their game well.

One of the most common problems that bad golfers have is they don’t set up to the ball properly. Grip, alignment and posture are the three most important things you need to remember when you approach the ball. This is where bad shots are made. As a bad golfer, you need to work on making these three things the priority for your golf game.

Until you learn to fix these problems however you can take your bad game and use it to play good golf. This only works however if you’re consistent with hitting bad shots. If you hit the ball to the right every time then you aim left of your target. You’ll want to avoid aiming so far left that you’ll end up in the trees, water or sand. Aim the ball well enough that if you do hit a straight shot, you can still play it.

Knowing the course and how far you hit each club is a great way to play good golf. You might not be able to beat good golfers that hit solid shots but you can keep yourself from scoring in the 100′s. If you consistently bogey every hole that’s a good thing even if it’s considered bad by most golfers. Consistency in golf is a good thing even if it’s consistently bad. Bad golfers can play golf just as well as others if they have consistency.

Another thing to avoid when you’re actually playing is to not try to correct your golf swing or anything else when you’re playing a round. Many bad golfers and even good golfers try to correct their game in the middle of a round. This is one of the biggest mistakes you can make. If you’re a professional golfer with years of training under your belt then you can fix your game on the fly. Everyone else needs to work on their game on the driving range and practice greens.

Remember that consistency will keep you playing better golf even if it’s bad. Remember that planning ahead and keeping a positive attitude will also help you perform better. Play golf your way and learn to play it well. Just because you think someone has a good golf game doesn’t mean that trying to copy it will make you a better golfer.

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Have you ever had the experience that you putted before you were ready? You were in the middle of thinking about playing it and then all of a sudden, oops, there it goes. What you thought was going to be a carefully thought out putt just turned into a bit of a howler. You get the feeling it wasn’t you who just played the shot but some mischievous outside force that had taken over your actions.

Let’s take this away from the course for a moment and look at the same phenomena in a different situation; getting out of bed. In his book, Principles of Psychology (1890), William James wrote

“We know what it is to get out of bed on a freezing morning in a room without a fire, and how the very vital principle within us protests against the idea… We think how late we shall be, how the duties of the day will suffer; we say, “I must get up, this is ignominious,” and so on. But still the warm couch feels too delicious, and the cold outside too cruel, and resolution faints away and postpones itself again and again just as it seemed on the verge of the decisive act.

Now how do we ever get up under such circumstances? If I may generalize from my own experience, we more often than not get up without any struggle or decision at all. We suddenly find that we have got up. A fortunate lapse of consciousness occurs, we forget both the warmth and the cold; we fall into some reverie connected with the day’s life, in the course of which the idea flashes across us, “Hello! I must lie here no longer” – an idea which at that lucky instant awakes no contradictory or paralyzing suggestions, and consequently produces immediately its appropriate motor effects. It was our acute consciousness of both the warmth and the cold during the period of struggle which paralyzed our activity. This case seems to me to contain in miniature form the data for an entire psychology of volition.”

This experience is put down to what scientists call ideomotor movement, an unconscious or involuntary bodily movement made in response to a thought or an idea rather than to a sensory stimulus.
It’s also often referred to as “mischief-making” and has a role in dowsing, playing with an Ouija board and, I believe, in those crucial moments before a putt.

The feeling that the process has just run away from us and taken control out of our hands is because we’re thinking too far ahead. By focusing on how we’re going to do the activity before we actually need to perform that activity sets everything in place long before the muscles are needed – a bit like revving your engine at the lights.

The actions that will carry out the movement are ready, waiting and gaining momentum as you think of taking your putt. A threshold is reached and suddenly the activity happens. Unfortunately, you weren’t able to consciously decide when you were going to do it for yourself. So how can you prevent this mischief-making activity at the very moment you really don’t need it? You have to be in the moment and focused on the here and now. In this state of mind you’re not racing ahead of yourself and queuing up those movements that will kick in unexpectedly.

When you’re over the ball, be aware of your breathing, the movement of your ribs and the toes in your socks. If you’ve measured up your shot you no longer need to think about it; it’s taken care of. This way you can stay in the moment and focus only on the task in immediate hand and consciously decide when you’re ready to putt.

You can practice this before you even get out of bed in the morning! When you wake up tomorrow see if you can consciously choose the moment you get out of bed. Note how you can achieve this and apply the same technique on the green. See if it doesn’t help.

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The most aggravating mistake in golf is for your 8-foot birdie putt to be tracking right at the hole — and stop six inches short. Now doing that once, well, that’s golf. But if you do that all the time, if you leave strokes on the course like that every time you play, here’s how to get those seven inches that you need.

Fear. You’re afraid you’ll hit the ball too far past the hole so you hold back. If you hit the ball past the hole, in your mind there’s nothing to stop the ball from going ten feet before it stops rolling. It won’t, you’re a better putter than that, but you see no obstacle beyond the hole that would prevent the ball from just rolling and rolling, and that makes you nervous.

So you settle for leaving it short. This becomes your psychological comfort zone. Let’s change your mind. Hit practice putts that will deliberately miss the hole and end up about two feet beyond. Practice like this in the 6 to 15-foot range.

Use just one ball. Watch the ball go past the hole. Get accustomed to seeing the ball go by and not being bothered by it. Next, walk up and hit the ball in the hole. Convince yourself that you can make the comebacker.

Do this over and over to convince you that you have the skill to hit the ball past the hole and leave yourself with a slam dunk coming back.

The second reason you leave putts short is that you’re concentrating too much on line, trying so hard hit the ball on the line you’ve chosen that you hit the putt too delicately and it doesn’t get to the hole.

To combat this mistake, do two things. First, practice hitting putts that go by the hole, as you just read. Then, find a spot on the green about six inches from your ball, along the chosen line, and putt the ball across that spot. If you do, I guarantee the ball will go where you intended, and get to the hole.

One more thought. You might try playing a round of golf with only one objective in mind — to hit every putt hard enough to either go in the hole or past it if it misses. Don’t be concerned about how far past the hole it goes, don’t worry about your score. Just get the ball past if it misses.

You might hit a few home runs early in the round, but if you keep at it, you will adjust quickly and start making a few. That will get you playing offense on the green, and that is how to make putts and lower your score.

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Possibly you have read the advice in golf instruction books about finishing your golf swing with your belt buckle facing the target? Good advice for sure, but rarely do you see it because it’s far more common to see amateur golfers with an in-completed three quarter finish.

Why is it more common for amateur golfers to achieve a three quarter finish as opposed to a complete rotation at the end of their golf swing?

One of the most common flaws in many amateur golfers’ techniques is their inability to maintain rotational speed and stability in their lower body-particularly their hips when their hitting golf shots.

Two main factors contribute to instability in this region.

1. Excessive back-swing hip rotation through a straightening of the right leg leading to premature acceleration of the hips
2. Too much lateral motion (sway) in the hips and the upper torso

Excessive hip rotation in the back-swing is a very common occurrence in amateur golfers and results from the right leg straightening too much, which moves the centre of pressure of your right foot too much into your heal. The effect of this is that your right hip must travel too much outwards towards the ball before it travels towards the target.

This early and indirect acceleration of the right hip towards the ball leads to a rapid slowing down of the hips pre-maturely in the follow-through, which triggers early acceleration of the shoulders and arms in the down swing leading to a dramatic decrease in club-head speed, and a reduction in distance.

The key to improving this situation is to control the amount and direction of your hip rotation as you complete your back-swing. Here are the three steps that you should implement if you’re finding it difficult to finish your golf stroke completely.

1. Make sure that your foot pressure at address is positioned over the balls of your feet with just enough knee bend to cover your shoe laces.
2. Maintain the same amount of knee bend in your right knee during the back-swing that you established in your address position.
3. Ensure that your belt buckle rotates just to the right of the golf ball by the time you reach the top of the back-swing. If the golf ball is at 12 o’clock, then your belt buckle should rotate to no more than 1:30.

Another helpful way to practice this back-swing process is to place a chair against your buttocks so that both legs are against it. As you swing your golf club back, you will feel your right hip gently push into the chair which will indicate to you that you have created enough hip rotation.

Then, rotate your hips in the opposite direction rapidly until the side of your left hip comes into contact with the chair and your belt buckle is pointing just to the left of your intended target.

If you tend to sway too much during the back-swing then still follow the same three steps above, and use the same chair drill but simply move it from behind you to the right side of your leg so that it rests against your right hip. Make sure that you have plenty of clearance as you swing your golf club backwards and forwards and simply let your right hip rotate along the back of the chair without moving the chair from its position.

Also consider that a big part of a dysfunctional hip rotation for many golfers is related to inflexibility in their lower back and hips. If you believe that the reason you find it difficult to complete your hip rotation in the finish of your golf swing is because of a tight lower back and hips then visit  www.vitalperformance.com.au for some advice on how to improve this with some lower back exercises.

Controlling the amount of hip rotation you produce is important if you want to increase your distance from the tee because it has a significant influence on the sequencing of your down-swing. By rotating your hips a smaller amount going back, it means that your hips don’t have as far to travel when you’re coming through.

What this means is that your hips can release a fraction earlier than your shoulders as you initiate your down-swing, which creates a trailing or lagging condition of your arms, hands and golf club, leading to an increase in swing speed and overall more distance.

If you want more distance with your irons and woods then you need more control of the direction and speed of your hips when you swing. So give these suggestions a try and you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how easily you can add additional speed to your club-head leading to longer shots, more golf confidence and consistency.

Would you like to develop loads more confidence, consistency and competence in your short and long game leading to lower golf scores when you play? My brand new online golf instruction program “The Golf Confidence Solution” is chock full of the highest quality golf instruction content designed specifically for amateur golfers who are sick and tired of playing inconsistently and want to lower their golf scores. With my new program I WILL teach you exactly how to spend less time practicing and more time improving. Head over to http://www.golfconfidence.org right now to sign up for your free golf coaching videos.

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