Posts tagged "Good Posture"

Pre-Swing Fundamentals Reduce Golf Handicaps

Vijay Singh works harder than anyone on the Tour. He spends hours and hours every day working on his game, practicing every facet of it—from putting to chipping to driving—so that he can be the best he can be. In fact, his practice sessions are legendary among the world’s best players. Needless to say, his determination has paid off. He’s earned millions and millions of dollars in prize money.

While you’d probably like to spend more time practicing and playing golf, you can’t always do it. You have too many responsibilities. But hitting balls at the range or taking golf lessons from a pro isn’t the only way to cut strokes from your golf handicap. You can also do it by working on key pre-swing fundamentals—fundamentals that many a weekend player overlooks. By ingraining them, you’ll trim strokes from your golf handicap without ever picking up a club.

Below are six pre-swing fundamentals that help you cut strokes from your scores without going to the driving range:

1. Acquire The Right Mind Set

Having the right mind-set before swinging the club is crucial. It’s even more crucial when driving. Hitting a good opening shot gets you started on the right foot. So work on having a positive attitude before hitting the ball. Don’t think, “Don’t hit it in the water.” Think, “I’m going to hit it right down the middle.” That way, you’ll create positive images of successful shots in your mind. That develops self-confidence.

2. Perfect Your Grip

Many golfers—especially beginners—overlook the importance of having the right grip. These players don’t fully understand how the grip affects your swing. Since your hands are the only part of your body touching the club, how you grip it is critical. It determines clubface position. If your grip is incorrect, your clubface will mirror it and be either open or shut. The perfect grip has both hands rotated 45 degrees to the right for right-handed golfers.

3. Develop Good Posture

Posture is another pre-swing fundamental weekend golfers overlook. Golf is an athletic activity. You must be in the optimum starting position to be able to “explode” when you need to. If you’re slouched over or too straight at address, you can’t generate the kind of swing discussed in golf lessons and golf tips. In short, good posture lets you make a good pivot. Use a full-length mirror to examine your posture. Make sure you’re in the right position at address.

4. Apply Proper Grip Pressure

Work on holding the club with the right grip pressure. If you grip the club too hard, you’ll “strangle it,” preventing you from swinging fluidly. If you hold the club too loosely, you’ll lose it during your swing. You must apply the right grip pressure to strike the ball well. Good swings come from good, free-flowing pressure, not death grips. More importantly, applying the right grip pressure produces the right tempo during your swing.

5. Align Your Body Properly

If you’ve ever shot a gun, you know there’s no point in pulling the trigger if you don’t aim the gun properly. The same thing is true in golf. If you don’t aim yourself properly, you won’t hit your target. When your bodylines cross, your chances of making a free flowing swing greatly diminish. That means anything can happen. Work on aligning your body to the target line and let your swing flow. Good alignment produces a good swing path.

6. Find The Right Ball Position

All good swings start with the club descending into the ball—even when you hit driver off the tee. But playing the ball too far back or too far forward in your stance when driving throws your swing off. You’ll pop the ball up, dribble it off the tee, or hit some other type of ugly, embarrassing shot. Good ball position results in good contact. Lay a club down so the toe is against the heel of your front foot. The shaft will stick out two inches from your heel. That’s where your want to position the ball on a drive.

These six pre-swing fundamentals are as critical as any swing fundamentals you work on in golf instruction sessions or read about in technical articles offering golf tips. They are timeless. Work on them in your home or at the office as often as you can and make then an integral part of your pre-shot routine. Ingraining them will impact your golf handicap more than your think.

Jack Moorehouse
http://www.articlesbase.com/golf-articles/preswing-fundamentals-reduce-golf-handicaps-1018719.html

The Study Of A Bad Golf Swing To Acquiring A Proper Golf Swing

The most important thing that a golfer should acquire is a proper golf swing that is near perfect. It should be the endless effort of both veterans of the game and the novice to get a better swing at the next eighteen holes. The number of books on golf and the instructional videos available could confuse a beginner and no matter how many times or how many books you read or the DVDs you watch, they will be of no avail if the basics of the game, that remain the same for every golfer, is not properly understood and assimilated thoroughly.

The Set-Up

One of the things that makes a golf swing go off tangent is not the swing in itself but the set-up of the golfer. When we say set-up, we could refer to the golfer’s club, his accessories and clothes etc. It is the opinion of some golfers that a good set-up can offset a bad swing, which, of course, is patently incorrect. It does not matter if you have designer clubs, accessories and swank clothes or just off-the-rack clubs. It is the proper golf swing that is ultimately going to win you the game.

Spending too much time on set-up than on a game is a common mistake beginners tend to commit. Some golfers think that if they know all the technical names and terms of the game, they can just go about hitting the ball however they want. It may work for a film star in a film but it will not work for the average golfer and his bad swing.

But it is essential for you to keep in mind that when we talk about set-up we should mean the game and not the clubs, the accessories and the clothes of the golfer. It should pertain to the set-up of the golfer’s position, stance, balance etc. prior to the proper golf swing.

Bad Posture Can Destroy The Proper Golf Swing

If you are the kind of golfer that is not paying attention to the posture you adopt during a swing, then you should seriously think of chucking the game and taking up another. Golf is just not the game for you. You should know a good posture from a bad one and avoid the bad one. The key factor of a proper golf swing is the proper alignment of your head and your neck. This is the factor that is going to dictate the development of the force that will drive the ball and its flight. If you hunch over the ball, you will either hit it to the side or it will far short of the green than it should. It does not matter how hard you hit it.

Next comes balance. Not that it is in anyway inferior to posture. A good balance is required to deliver the required thrust to your swing. If you are unbalanced, you cannot hit the ball with the force that it should be struck with. If you have not perfected your stance, you will feel uneasy during play and the uneasiness will be obvious in your shot. Keep your footing on solid ground and keep it firm but not tensed up and heavy. Proper balance and posture can be cultivated by constant practice. It should become so ingrained into yourself that you should be taking up the correct position the moment you step up to tee off.

Chicken Wings

When we say chicken wings we do not mean the kind that we eat and relish. This variety can best be left at home or reserved for a victory dinner. It is the act of letting your arm and your wrist go limp when putting a ball that is known as a chicken wing. It is a bad habit and should be overcome by strict discipline and practice. If this limp action is allowed then your arm will fly up and all the power developed will get dissipated.

Golfers who do not pay the necessary attention to their swing tend to commit this so called chicken wings. Chopping or slicing will be the result of losing power and executing a chicken wing.

Learn the good aspects of the game and practice them to perfection. Learn the bad things about golf and strive to avoid them.

Ian Bell
http://www.articlesbase.com/golf-articles/the-study-of-a-bad-golf-swing-to-acquiring-a-proper-golf-swing-999720.html

golf advice and tips for first timers ??

Me and my friend are juniors in high school and we are going to try out for the golf team. The downside of it is we are the first girls to ever join or even tryout for the golf team. We have never played a full game of golf either. This week was vacation and we have putted and swung a lot. I hope we are ready. The only thing we really need to do know is play a 9 – hole game, we have played on the wii though. Does anybody have any golf advice, tips, or even words of wisdom which we can think about for when we tryout??

This is what I have learned after 12 years of golf.

1. line up the ball with your front heel for driver, gradually move ball back towards to the center of your stance for each club until the pitching wedge, which is directly in the center.

2. Bend knees slightly.

3. Keep good posture in your back (like how you are supposed to sit in a chair), dont "hunch" over the ball.

4. take a smooth, slow backswing while keeping your arms extended and focus on making a full shoulder turn (your back should almost be faceing the target at the top of the swing). Also, try not to let your hips rotate back at all until the top half of your backswing, then let them turn about half as far as your shoulders. The torque increases as the hip turn is minimized and the shoulder turn is maximized (the resistance is like stretching a rubber band.)

5. During the backswing, dont allow your hips to shift laterally. Imagine that someone is pushing on your hip and wont let you slide it backwards during the backswing. But still shift your weight to the back foot.

6. Initiate the down swing by pushing the weight off your back foot to your front, twisting your hips and whipping your shoulders thru. All while maintaining the connection of your arms and shoulders (keeping the club infront of your chest and not letting your arms fold across your chest.)

7. let your wrist natural un hinge and release through the ball.

8. golf is a mental game. it is sometimes better to not focus too much on where the shot will go and trying to control it, all you can do is to swing with good form and hope that you hit it good.