Latest Golf Tips Blog

I hope you already know how important it is to have a sound, properly formed grip when holding the club. If your not sure what constitutes a good grip then visit this golf grip tip web page.

However, knowing what makes a good golf grip and playing with one are two different things. Even good players can over time let their hands change position on the club, and over time could be playing with a lot stronger or weaker grip than they intended.

Here is an excellent tip that you really should take the time to do. It is extremely simple but will help you keep a check on your grip while on the course:

Wearing your glove, take the perfect grip with your left hand - you should be able to see two knuckles. Now take a black marker pen and mark a small dot on the edge of the second knuckle. Place it in such a spot that if you should accidentally weaken your grip while on the course then the black dot would disappear from view.

Now take a coloured marker and place a small dot on the third knuckle in such a place that should you accidentally strengthen your grip the coloured spot would come into view.

Is this a silly, or worthwhile tip?

Well, lets see - on the course you will have visual feed back that your hands are in the correct position, plus an instant visual warning if your grip has strengthened or weakened. Not bad, I say!

Tiger Woods proved in The Open Championship at Hoylake that he is a master tactician when it comes to getting round a tight golf course. Here are some tips to smart play.

If you had to play 18 holes on an open field, golf would be a very boring game. The golf course architects’ objective is to offer players a challenge and to meet that challenge you must decide the type of shot you want to play on each hole and where you want the ball to finish. The first thing you must do is to be realistic regarding what you hope to achieve with every shot, both in terms of distance and accuracy. Then select the targets you hope to reach accordingly. You should regard these targets almost like the squares on chess board and plan your rout to the hole by playing from square to square rather than simply trying to hit the ball as far and as hard as possible on every shot.

Every golfer is guilty of occasionally playing without thinking and paying a heavy price for that brief lapse. This often happens on a long and difficult par four hole where your natural instinct to reach for the driver, even when you know that even from your best drive you still can’t reach the green in two. The smart play on potentially dangerous holes is to increase your margin for error, so be prepared to sacrifice distance for accuracy and hit a 3-wood from the tee. Keep up the smart play by not attempting to reach the green in two with the next shot, but instead look to leave yourself the easiest third shot. It may not be exciting golf, but it will inevitably prove less damaging to your score card.

Many weekend golfers lack consistency when it comes to the distance they hit their iron shots. Many tend to err on the short side and fail to reach the green. If you find you fall into that category, then try a different approach. Focus on the distance to the back of the green, rather than the flagstick. If you hit the perfect shot your ball will just about reach the back of the green. However, a slightly less than perfect strike will still leave your ball pin high. Even a relatively poor shot will find the front edge of the putting surface rather than the trouble.

What a fantastic climax to the US Open with Geoff Ogilvy triumphing more as the "last man standing" as Montgomerie and Mickleson threw away victory.

Here we look at 2 aspects of golf that affected Phil Mickleson in his final round - namely shaping shots from the tee (he consistently struggled to fade the ball when he needed to) and plugged lies in the sand, which he was unlucky to get twice in the closing holes (and played as well as anyone could).

If you find it difficult to shape your tee shots, try this simple drill. At address, imagine there is a three-inch nail sticking out the back of the ball. When you want to hit a right-to-left draw shot, imagine the nail is going into the back of the ball on a line travelling from slightly inside the ball-to-target line. If you want to fade your tee shot, imagine the nail is protruding from the back of the ball, on a line that runs from a fraction outside the ball-to-target line. Then to hit a straight shot, picture the nail running parallel to the ball-to-target line.

Playing from a plugged lie isn’t as tough a shot as you might think, provided the bunker lip isn’t too high and the pin is not too close. The key is being able to get the club down into the sand. Instead of using a sand iron, try playing a 9-iron. This club has enough loft to send the ball up and over the lip of the bunker, as well a sharp leading edge to enable you to get the clubface down through the sand under the ball and force it out of that plugged lie. Position the ball in the middle of your stance, keep you weight mainly on you left side, break your wrists quickly in your backswing, and drive the clubhead down into the sand behind the ball.

It’s one thing to have a smooth unhurried swing on the practice ground, but another to take that same swing onto the golf course. Part of the problem stems from the fact that on the practice tee there is always another ball to hit if you duff a shot. On the first tee in a competition you only get one chance to get it right. There can be a tendency to think too much about swing mechanics, but to improve your chances of making a good swing it is important to banish these mechanical thoughts and concentrate on the hole. Pick a target you feel you can reach without hitting too hard, then think about reproducing that smooth rhythm that worked so well in practice.

When searching for accuracy from the tee the safe option is to choose a 3-wood instead of a driver. But, whatever club you select, you must always aim to hit a target which is comfortably within reach of that club. Be it driver, 3-wood or long iron, you should never attempt to ‘steer’ the ball down the fairway. When this happens, the golfer invariable fails to square the clubface at impact and the decision to opt for accuracy backfires. To gain the maximum benefit from playing safe, you must still make a swing which, as well as being balanced and smooth, is also committed to a free and accelerating release of the clubhead through impact.

What a great last round by Phil Mickleson to win the Masters. One other performance that caught the eye was that of previous two-time winner Jose Maria Olazabal with the best round of the tournament 66. During that round he played an absolutely fantastic greenside bunker shot on hole 17 to save his par.

A common reason why many amateur golfers drop shots in greenside bunkers is because they lack the confidence that is needed to drive the clubhead down through the sand and under the golf ball. Instead they try to ‘help’ the ball up and out of the sand, and either thin the shot, or their swing is so restricted that it lacks the power required to get the ball out. If you lack confidence with greenside sand shots try this easy mental drill.

As you address the golf ball imagine it is an egg in its shell sitting in the sand, and your objective is to get the egg out of the bunker without breaking the shell. Now the only way that this would be posible would be to make sure that the club passes through the sand under the egg. Try this mental image the next time you are on the practice ground and your short bunker play will soon improve.

The quickest way to knock shots off your scores is to improve your chipping. Here’s one tip which might help. Concentrate on where you want the ball to land rather than focusing your attention on the hole. Remember, you can’t control the ball after it lands on the green. Making sure it lands in the right place will help ensure you give yourself the best chance of getting up and down more often in two shots.

When faced with a lengthy chip to a green where the pin is cut close on the front edge, the key is to play the type of shot that offers the greatest margin for error. The high lob shot used to such great effect by Phil Mickelson (above) certainly looks spectacular but can easily be duffed, while the low chip and run with a 7-iron is much easier to play. From a fairly square set-up, with the ball positioned towards your left heel, take up a strong, three knuckle showing, left hand grip. This helps encourage a flatter swing plane that in turn allows you to produce the low, sweeping type of strike required to get the ball running low towards the green. The swing is hands and arms only, with the hands allowed to roll over through impact.

Take a look at our golf chipping tips at the Free Golf Swing Tips website

A lot of weekend golfers miss putts because they’ve failed to aim the face of the putter squarely towards the intended target and not because they’ve read the line incorrectly or badly pushed or pulled the ball.

Aligning a three-foot putt is the same as setting up to hit a 200 yard plus drive – if the face isn’t pointing in the right direction, the ball won’t end up where you want it to finish. When you line up a full shot, the set-up routine is to first place the clubhead behind the ball using only your right hand.

The next step is to align the clubface square to your intended target, then complete your grip and finally take up your stance. Adopt this same routine when you putt and you’ll be surprised at how often you start the ball running on line, as opposed to wide of the hole.

A simple way to check if you are striking the ball with a square putter face is to try this drill using three golf balls.

One should be in the centre of the clubface, with the other two positioned on either side and just a fraction ahead. The key to this drill is to concentrate on striking the two outside balls and forget the one in the centre of the putter face.

Make a good stroke with the putter face square at impact and all three balls should run in a straight line. However, if the putter face isn’t square at impact, the ball in the centre will collide with the two outer balls.