The key to playing from a divot is to hit the ball before you hit the ground. If you that properly, you’ll create a new divot on the target side of the original. To ensure ball-first contact, set up with the ball towards the center of your stance, with slightly more weight on your left side. Take more club than usual and grip down on it slightly for better control. Expect a lower than usual ball trajectory.
Make a three-quarter backswing and an abbreviated follow-through maintaining the triangle formed by the arms and chest throughout the swing. Most high handicappers break the triangle at the elbows either on the backswing in an attempt to scoop the ball. Often the result is a thin or a fat shot. To ensure solid contact, you’ve to hit the ball-first.
To get the feel and rhythm right for putting strokes, think of how you would want to make nice, smooth brush strokes, back and forth. You wouldn’t make your make strokes with your arm entirely stiff from the shoulder on down as shown by the Golf Launch Monitor .
Nor would you want to flick the brush too much with your wrist or else the paint would sputter all over the place. In putting as in painting, it’s a case of brush it back, brush it through. You’re sensing your fingers, hands and body. It all adds up to feel – with everything working in sync to produce a smooth flowing putting stroke.
The magic number in golf is 150 as in 150 meters (164 yards). It is a yardage that tests both distance and accuracy for the average player and it is common challenge for players of all levels. It is also the distance that separates good players and bad.
In doing extensive studies of golfers, it is easy to see that 20 handicappers take an average of 3.75 shots from 150 meters. Tour players average 2.5 shots from the same distance. The difference can add up to 23 shots a round.
Most of those shots are around the greens, in the form of chips, pitches and putts. But it all starts with the 150 meter shot. Get that one right and you can simplify those short game adventures thanks to the Golf Launch Monitor .
Pros hit greens because they make the right decisions, and then make good swings. Should they miss the green, the smart shot leaves them fairly easy options for getting the ball up and down and saving par – a rarity among amateurs.
No Comments