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When a friend of mine feels the pressure of people watching or the foursome behind breathing on his neck he gets tense and starts topping the ball. The best thing behind fighting the tension and trying to relax is to concentrate on your lower body. Don’t try to hit the ball, feel the golf club heavy, look at the target with your eyes at an angle, delay the reaction to you watching the ball, make your right knee touch your left knee (for right hand players and the left knee touch the right knee for lefties). Take a look at this video that shows you how it is done.

If you have a lot of wind or have branches blocking your normal ball flight, you need to hit the ball low. The keys to this shot are: de-loft the club by placing the ball back in stance, placing 60% of your weight on your left leg (for a right handed player) and have an abbreviated finish. Take a look at these two videos that show you two ways to do it: video 1 and video 2.

The second video is from Justin Rose, the 2013 US Open Champion. Congratulations to Justin on his great win !

Golf lovers like I are thrilled every time we have the opportunity to play. I have a family and a job so it is challenging for me to have an 18 hole round. I do it just a couple of times a year. I play 9 holes very early Sat or Sun so when I get back home I can have breakfast with my kids. I just moved to Texas from Connecticut so for several weeks I had not played. I finally found a nice course and had a chance to play. Here is what you need to do to have a decent round when you have not played for a while:

Stick to the fundamentals:

1- Concentrate on the swing, think of swinging at the ball, don’t try to hit it. Thing of the ball not as the end but just as an object on the path of your swing. Your mind is where you picture it to land.

2- Check your grip and set up, two fundamental components of a good golf swing

3- Use the pre-shot routine you’ve always used

4- Relax and do a one piece take away

5- Swing with your body, not with your arms. Make sure your legs clear the path for the swing (think of the right knee touching the left knee). Swing smoothly with 80% of the power.

6- Finish the swing balanced

7- Have fun

Here is a snapshot of a sign at the course, it is inside a residential complex so if you are not careful you can break windows or hit people. I was able to cut the dog leg because it was a left one and I tend to have a natural draw in my current swing.

On Sunday I played a round of golf. It was raining and I was playing against a good golfer. I was tense. Trying to hit long drives either I topped the ball or I hit it a short distance. I was trying to hit the ball hard as opposed to loosely swing the club with full back swing and full transfer of weight. The harder I hit the ball the worse the shot became. Lesson learned: if you want to hit long, straight driver shots, you need to loosen up and power the swing with speed generated by the lower body. Take look at this video that shows two great drills to get lose and augment the speed of your swing. I will apply this in my next round this coming weekend.

The swing is the most important part of the game. No equipment or technology can correct a flawed swing. The mechanics are very special and un-natural that it takes 2 years for someone that starts to play later in life to get to a decent swing. As in any thing kids pick up things much more quickly. Because they are still developing numerous neuron connections and have no bias or preconceive way to do things, their learning process is quicker and better. They do not learn logically or mechanically, they learn by feeling. And that is how the golf swing has to be, based on feeling. There is no time for eye-ball coordination or to think of the dozens of things that compose the mechanics of the swing. In a fraction of a second, all what you can do is to feel the swing, imagine where you want the ball to land and complete the swing with a photo finish position. I am obviously talking about the regular swing. Other specialty shots have a short finish, a steeper hit, a shallower impact, etc. With the time you are able to fabricate these shots. The basic shot however is the one you have to improve (not master, as anything in golf, you never master anything, but you get better at it). Main message of this post is that you need patience. If you are just starting to pick up the game or if you have not played for while, don’t stress. Feel the swing, bring the power with the lower body and let the lag in the arms give it a longer club rotation and a faster speed. More to follow.

Gene McKenna, a friend of mine, who is a very good player contributed to my blog with this important pointer:

“Considering that the vast majority of  amateurs hit the ball with an outside to inside swing path, then it goes without  saying that the “typical” slice is hit with an outside to inside swing  path.  The slice is by far the most common shot among amateurs.  By  far.  OK, some amateurs hit their shots straight, and some hook the ball,  and some pull it and some push it, but it is an extremely common shot for  amateurs to hit a slice.  (And if we are talking about fades as  well, well, a fade is more or less just a “baby” slice that typically is well  controlled and is also often quite intentional.) What percentage of all golfers  are pros?  Maybe around one-percent or less would be my guess.  In any case, it is a very small percentage.  There is no way  that the percentage could be more than the low single digits, 3% or 4%  absolute maximum.  Therefore the vast majority of golfers are amateur  golfers, and, as this article makes clear, the “vast majority of amateurs” have  out to in swing paths. It also kind of goes without  saying that they “typical” pro golfer does not use an outside to inside swing  path, but rather uses an “inside to outside” (AKA “in to out”) swing path.   This typically gives more power, and it is also typcially used for most draw  shots if / when a pro wants to hit a draw”

Read the article (click on the word article). It has a drill to force an in to out swing path.