Tips From Television Flashcards
Wedge shots. How to stop chunking and pitch straight.
- Use bounce of club on all wedge shots. No forward press, club perpendicular to ground.
- Hit the ground 4 to 5 inches behind ball like a sand shot. MN: this only works with super fluffy lie!
- Shot action is more sliding under the ball than hitting down on the ball if it is a fluffy lie. A hardpan type lie requires you to make execellent groove contact.
- Concentrate on impact point and hold club solid so it doesn’t twist or hit on shank or toe of club. Make certain to keep arms extended with triangle for complete shot. Also you must accelerate through impact to make the shot travel in your desired direction.
- Use only 3/4 follow through. A full FF will pull your short iron way left.
- Try to make FF straight to intended path.
- On small pitches, bend both knees toward target.
- On full wedge, you will lose about 20% distance using bounce.
Sand bunker shots. How to get them out.
- You want to slide under the ball, not hit down on the sand!
- Make an uphill stance. Right foot will be much lower than left foot. This gives you an artificial uphill lie which builds a great advantage to clearing the bunker lip.
- If hole is distant, use 9, 8 or 7 iron for longer flight.
- If you are in fairway bunker, try to flick it out with hybrid club. Hybrid clubs will not dig in the sand like a regular iron. Try to top the ball and lift it out.
- Fairway bunker: play the ball one ball forward of your left foot so you really have to reach for it.
Great club distance is dependent on building momentum and not dropping the momentum.
- Drives and any shot:
- Must really start DS with lower legs moving to target, then build with…
- Unwinding the full shoulder turn, then build with …
- Bowed left wrist, leading with the left then with …
- Right elbow rushing into rib cage or watch pocket. The Right elbow is the bull whip action to snap and pop into the ball, also have thumbs up action in your right hand.
- With all this built up momentum, Left bow snap, Right elbow snap, full shoulder snap, and most powerful is your start of DS with strong leg action. [not fast leg action but strong leg action timed with all the other factors.
- If you do all this you get about 40 more yards on your drive and about 30% more distance and height on your irons and fairway woods. Even an eight iron looks most impressive.
- The key is smoothness and a coordinated swing triangle as your body performs the golf swing.
What makes your iron go straight?
Note: Refer to range Hueristics 11/21/16 for best methods I recently discovered.
- 30 degree impact at positon 7 to 1 o’clock.
- Lead Bowed wrist snap with left arm but Right arm is supporting character for your speed. It is the Right elbow that makes your left bowed wrist snap like a whip. Tip: Use bookshelf form on right wrist to support your gloved impact hand. This adds great distance and make the ball go straight.
- On your bowed snap, snap it to your target. Your FT will take the club to its natural finish position. DO NOT SNAP UP! THIS IS CASTING.
- IMPORTANT: Keep your left arm tricep glued to your chest on DS.
- Balance, balance, balance. Learn to swing slowly with the mini pause at the top, but the smoothness of the moving triangle will give you all the distance.
- Do not forget to move your legs to target to start your swing. This is the largest factor on getting distance and making your ball go straight to target.
Putting. How to stop leaving it short on a 3” backswing.
It is hard to hit the ball hard enough on a 3” BS. I have better results on hitting an easy 4” BS and getting the ball all the way to the hole. Trying to force a 3” BS hard often makes you greatly overhit. Hitting an easy 4” BS and collecting the ball in the center of the putter blade works better almost every time.
Using the driver. What should my practice swing be like?
- Do a few baseball swings, concentrating on the Left bow snap assisted with your Bookshelf right arm, then repeat the swing like your regular golf swing plane concentrating on the same feeling and gaining the feeling on bump movement and Right hand DS thumbs up and supporting the bowed Left wrist. Note: Your gloved hand has to really turn on impact so the gloved hand is on the bottom.
- Use toothpaste light pressure on your grip with all clubs. A tight grip will not allow your Left bowed snap action. STAY OILY! Tight grips ruin your circular swing and turn it into jerky straight line swings.
- On your practice golf swings [not Baseball] practice the swing up to hit the teed ball with your shoulder snap.
Half pitches. Where do you hit the ball?
On fairway or hardpan, make certain you mate wedge grooves with the ball.
On a fluffy lie, you gently hit the bottom of the ball to make it carry onto the green. This is dangerous as well. Anytime you get grass between the ball and the CF, you can shank or lose all direction control.
Hitting out of the rough.
In thick rough like owcc, The ball just pops up high in the air with very little distance. If you cannot get a clean shot in the rough, you are better off to pitch it into the fairway at the greatest distance you can. Job #1 is to get back in the fairway.
Hitting your ball down the rough next to the fairway is a stroke losing solution. You are better off pitching to fairway and making a good recovery shot. Remember it is the same as a missed putt in strokes.
Tom Watson DVD General tips 1:
Hook the ball Nicklaus style:
Close CF, regrip (CF now facing left ) Now aim to right of target about 3/4 of a green.
So CF faces left, aim 3/4 green to the right.
[MN: For any of these shots to work, make certain my Takeaway is straight and correctly done, starting with hips, then shoulder turn. Guard aganist TA too much behind my back. This causes hard pulls to the left, even with a wide open CF]
Hook around a tree:
- CF closed
- Change grip to Left hand see 3 knuckles. Right hinad strong grip.
- release faster.
- aim 2 green to the right.
Fade Nicklas style:
- open CF
- Aim left of target
- Normal swing.
Tom Watson DVD General tips 2:
If your lie is above your feet, Keep your hands low.
Uphill Lie Ruth Park:
- Stance to match uphill angle
- Right knee braced inward.
- Move right knee a little toward ball with downswing.
General tip. The harder you swing, the lighter the grip pressure. Otherwise you won’t release in time and you push the ball to the right.
Phil Mickelson: HT keep the leading edge under the ball. (Think flop shot)
“Only one way to chip. The leading edge has to stay down and get under the golf ball, or else you will blade it.
The only way to keep the edge down is to keep your hands ahead. Soon as you let the shaft catch up with your hands, you are going to blade it.
So you want to have a little wrist break early so you can stay ahead of the club.”
Warning: Do not bail out on your acceleration on this! Maintain acceleration on shot until complete shot is finished!
5 Things that cause outside to inside swing:
- Poor shoulder turn.
- Swinging from the top.
- Too close to ball, arms have to adjust to outside in because body is in the way.
- No big hip turn, arms have to adjust to hit ball because body in in the way. (run into myself).
- Powering swing with right arm! Lead with left and make triangle. [overpowering with right arm also makes you hit fat and hit off toe or shank of club. Remember to always lead with the left.]
Swing checklist:
- Good setup and balance.
- Head still, don’t swing too hard, use hips and weight transfer for power.
- Keep lag start to finish.
- Back Swing shoulder turn over post then skip rock with hips, weight transfer and grip leading! [Be careful not to over do this around the post on back swing or you will pull shot way to left]
Downswing:
Your DS is like skipping a rock. Hips turn faster than arms!
- Downswing: No hurry here. Make your transition and weight shift.
- Right hand is tilted bookshelf position.
- Think “hit ball with pelvis turn into ball” Do not exaggerate pelvis turn.
- Get balanced while you are in transition
- Allow the club to gravity drop while you get balanced and start your weight transfer.
- Grip leads to inside of ball, just a dimple from exact rear on ball. Pelvis turn will make the ball go left. Again, do not exaggerate pelvis turn, just make it part of rhythm. Think skipping a rock motion.
- Coming into ball, trace the target line and lead TRIANGLE with the left arm! Left hand under and bowed!
- Hold your lag through impact.
- Gloved hand will be on bottom. Left hand will be bowed like a backhand slap on the ball.
- Right arm will be passive.
- Remember, hips turn faster than arms!
- Remember, hold shoulders back! Most amatuers release shoulders way too early. Let the golf shot pull your shoulders through.
Wedges:
- Hold stiff arm triangle.
- Accelerate into ball. Do not bail out acceleration!
- Use three brush practice strokes.
- Use 8 iron if clear path to green. Flight is 30 yards at 0800.
- I found 7 iron useful for long running chip up fairway and deep into the green.
- 7 iron is also useful for low trajectory under the tree shot. Can go 70 to perhaps 100 yards. Useful for running ball close for shooting to green over a creek.
From watching tournament on tv.
Ball way above my feet means ball is going to pull left. So play ball back in stance to offset the pull. [This works on creeks, bunkers and hill sides]
