Category Archives: Golf Training

Final Note About Golf 101 Tips

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This is a final note about the previous post – Golf 101 Tips

So now you have the best of advice on golf techniques, equipment and mental strategies. Do you feel you have it in you now to play more consistently and put forward your best performance every time you are on the course? Do you think that you will be able to put in the efforts required to work on your bad strokes and improve on the better ones? Do you think you have the passion to go alone on a course and practice for hours to improve one stroke?

After reading these articles and going through the various tips, you may be easily tempted to say ‘yes’. You may actually be feeling very motivated and inspired to start taking immediate steps to improve your game. In fact, you may even manage to keep up a fairly good pace of learning and playing in the first few days of reading this book. However, gradually, you will start to take your defeats more to heart. You will be easily disheartened at how you could not achieve putting into a very easy hole. It is natural and no more different than someone trying to lose weight or quit smoking. You may start taking steps to improve your game but soon slip into old habits of not exercising regularly, or practicing regularly or not thinking about mental strategies. And not before long, you are back to your old handicap.

Sure, most of us are playing for the sheer enjoyment of the game and for the chance it gives us to relax on the greens. However, persistence in improving your game will only enhance this enjoyment and will create a healthy cycle. The more efforts you put into improving your game, the more success you will realize. The more successful you are, the more you will want to work on your game. What we should aim to do, day in and day out when we are playing golf is to get the most out of the golf round. You will never be able to hit the perfect shot every time you play but you should aim towards having more good strokes on any given day than bad strokes. If you do not, you need to practice some more. We should try and improve our game not just for the sake of winning a game but more importantly to realize our fullest potential.

One proven way of doing this is to keep a record of each hole – from the time you tee off to where it lands. This is not to measure the accuracy of the shot but to help you improve on the accuracy. It does not matter how often you play on that course – what is important is that you have a point of reference for every hole on every course. At times, you may get so caught up with reactions after the shot that you do not devote enough time in understanding what went wrong or right with the shot. While deep analysis at that point may not be helpful, you may want to just note down essentials. This will help you stay calm and focused and use even bad shots as learning experiences.

Usually on the golf course, every stroke is accompanied by conflicting emotions and it is difficult to chart out a course of action on the course itself. This is where your notes come in handy. You can note down what position you were in, the club you had used, how you stroked the ball, whether you could generate any spin or not, whether the weather affected your game and any other point you can think of. This along with a description of where the ball landed should give you enough information to plan your strategy the next time you play on that course. You can analyze what you think you did right, what you did wrong and what will always be out of your hand. This allows you to stay focused during your actual games and allows you to take good decisions irrespective of how your shots turn out. If you are serious about your game, learn to start taking control of every aspect of it and control your performance.

On a final note, playing golf certainly helps us to relax and spend enjoyable weekends with friends or family. It also helps us to enjoy it as a sport and challenges us mentally and physically. However, most of all golf teaches us to value some virtues that are important even in life. Not just honesty and respect but qualities like temperament, persistence, patience and self-control. Golf thus helps us to lift ourselves not just in the game but in life as well. And that is probably the most important tip of all!

Playing Better Golf 101 Tips – 3

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Playing Better Golf 101 Tips – 3

21. The very first lesson you should learn when starting golf is to get really comfortable swinging the club.

22. Any good player learns to identify the characteristics of another good player and will emulate him/her on some aspects.

23. Before you start thinking about your individual game, make sure you understand important details of the game like ball spin or shot patterns.

24. You can analyze your game but that would be useless unless you know how to improve on it and more importantly, start doing it naturally.

25. Do not worry about how many strokes you take at the beginning, concentrate on the quality of them. As the quality of the swing improves, the number of strokes will start coming down.

26. You should never try to completely eliminate your bad shot. It may not be possible to do so or at least in a finite amount of time. Aim to keep improving on it till it gets reasonable.

27. Stop trying for a great shot but aim for shooting your best shot. If it ends up landing close to the hole, it was your best shot. If it ends up winning you a championship, it will be a great shot!

28. If you are a beginner, set the level you want for yourself. If it is too low, you may achieve it very easily and will not have anything to spur you on. Keep it little high just so you have to work hard to get there. Higher goals will bring you greater results.

29. Do not aim for sudden improvements like wanting to turn your handicap of 10 into one of 7 – you may end up going up to 12.

30. While taking a swing at the ball, do not view the ball as your object of conflict. Instead relax, hold the club comfortably in position and with perfect hand-eye co-ordination, let the club take natural swing with the ball just being in the way.

… continue from Playing Better Golf 101 Tips – Part 2

Golf Fitness and Form

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For those you are under the impression that golf is a game that is played at a leisurely pace and hence does not really require a great degree of fitness are sadly mistaken. Golf Fitness and Form is definitely an important factor to consider for a good golf game. Any sport requires proper warm-up and so does golf. Just as you see professional athletes and sportspeople warming up before any event, you will also see professional golfers going through their pre-game warm-up routines. So you can be sure that by the time the professionals step up on the course, they are ready to swing their best shots.

You may consider ‘warm-up’ as running from your car to the club and then to the course, but it is best to actually have warm-up exercises planned before you go onto course, or else you are going to be doomed to some really unsteady first few holes that are going to end in a disappointing round for you.

More importantly, you may never get a chance to improve your game if you start every game with this kind of half-preparedness on the physical front. Get into a good fitness and warm-up routine and you will be surprised at the results.
• Arrive early at the course. You need time to not only run through your warm-up routines but before that you need to change and get your act together. There is no point in feeling rushed and hurrying out to the golf course in the same mood. Give yourself enough time to not just physically warm up but also for mental preparation. Complete your warm-up routine at a leisurely pace and think about your strategy and whether you would like to try something different in your game from last time. Keep it slow and easy and learn to relax.

• Warm-up begins on the green. Contrary to what many may think, putting is one of the hardest jobs of a golf game and requires immense concentration. Your putting has to be smooth and slow to get it right every time. Spend as much time as you can warming up on the green first. This will put you at an advantage, as you are now very much aware of the speed of the greens. Further, you are starting your game not a frenetic pace trying to drive hard but at a fairly smooth pace which will not only help in your driving but throughout the game. It does not help if you start warming up at the start, because that leaves you all fired up and then once you are on the putting green, you need to suddenly calm down and focus.

To warm up on the greens, spend some time entirely focused on putting the ball, either to a tee or a coin. The best way would be to place the coin in various positions at different angles or maybe at different distances and try to connect the ball to it. This will give you an idea of how the ball is rolling and what speed you need to maintain in what position. Since putting is all about speed control rather than achieving great speed, it is worthwhile to spend some time trying to gauge the pace of the greens. If you only spend time warming up at the start, you will work just on your brute driving force which may be easier to learn but will only take you so far. Master the art of putting and speed control and you will be master of the game.

Spend another few minutes from very close to the coin or tee; say ten feet to three feet. You are usually not recommended to aim for the hole since if you see your ball miss the hole, that mental image may be enough to sow seeds of doubt in your mind about your putting ability and may at times throw you completely off your game. On the other hand, if you just practice with a coin, chances are you will make more hits than miss. The next time you are confronted with a hole, you will actually feel it is fairly big and your confidence level will be sky-high.

• Spend some time hitting the ball around the green. As you play you will realize that there are many factors that will decide where your ball heads to after landing. This means you have to know how exactly your ball will roll on landing on the green. This would require you to be familiar with the firmness of the greens. If the greens are hard, then the ball will tend to roll more on the side of the soft greens. Different types of rough greens make the ball roll in different ways. To get used to the various ways your ball may actually roll on landing, may need a bit of testing, which is why it is best if you spend some time understanding and estimating how the ball may roll and what distance it may cover of landing on the greens. Not only that you get a chance to practice shots on the greens and learn how best you can land the ball on the putting surface, so that you are as close as possible to the hole.

• Begin your full swing warm up by stretching. Before you start on any sports, you will be to told to go through some stretching exercises. Stretching will loosen your muscles thereby helping you avoid injury and over the long term can help relieve serious joint pain.
• Give enough time for your warm up. You should time your warm up routine so that at the completion of it, you have just enough time to head to your first tee for your assigned time. You do not want to hang around for a long time after warm up nor do you want to keep others waiting. If there is an inevitable delay, best use the time to practice your swings and make sure you stay warmed up.

It is important to remember that warming up is not just important for avoiding physical breakdowns but mental ones as well. As every professional is bound to tell you, being fit and warming up ensures your form to a certain degree and contributes immensely to your performance.