Ball Striking Tips

Mar
01
2010

Reading Lies on the Golf Course, Part I

A few weeks back, I was contacted by a reader who is interested in learning how to read lies and suggested the topic to me.  I thought it was a great idea, so here we are.  He pointed to a recent golf telecast where Nick Faldo, in discussing the new groove regulations for 2010, pointed out that players are going to have to do a better job of reading lies now.

As most of you probably know by now, grooves in [...]

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posted in Ball Striking Tips, Course Management 1 Comment

Apr
04
2009

Dreaded Shots: Delicate Downhill Pitches to Close Pins

The poll in the sidebar asking for your most dreaded shots has been running for a while and as time goes on, I’m getting a much clearer picture of what kinds of golf shots you collectively don’t want to face.

Previously, I covered the tee shot on a tight driving hole, and the long carry over water.  Since then, the tight tee shot was overtaken by the delicate downhill pitch/chip over a bunker with the pin cut close, moving it to [...]

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posted in Course Management, Short Game Tips 2 Comments

Jan
26
2009

Dreaded Shots: Long Carry Over Water

I’m still eagerly following the sidebar poll where I asked you to tell me about your most dreaded shots in golf.  Previously we covered tee shots on tight driving holes.  Currently in second place with 15% of the vote, we’ll turn our attention toward the universally hated long carry over water.

I’m a little surprised that this type of shot is the subject of such dread because the solution has nothing to do with swing fundamentals.  Conquering these shots has everything [...]

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posted in Course Management, Mental Game 6 Comments

Dec
28
2008

Dreaded Shots: Tee Shots on Tight Driving Holes

I’ve been eagerly watching the poll that I currently have going in the sidebar asking you what your most dreaded golf shots are.  It’s early, but as results have been trickling in, many of you have voted that your most dreaded are tee shots on tight driving holes.

We’ve all been there.  You stand on the tee and the hole you’re faced with looks about ten yards wide.  There is trouble on both sides.  Maybe it’s water, woods, out of bounds, [...]

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posted in Driving Tips, Mental Game 10 Comments

Dec
22
2008

Your Most Dreaded Shot

I got to thinking the other day that golf presents a lot of challenges that can cause some anxiety, fear, nervousness, dread, and any other negative emotion that might apply.

Certainly, a good mental approach is to train our minds to not be results-oriented and to play one shot at a time and to stay in the moment and all that.  Let’s be realistic, though.  If we amateurs were good at that, we’d play a lot better than we do.

Every player [...]

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posted in Mental Game 5 Comments

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  • Chipping: Simple Yet Tricky
  • Think about it:  chipping is such a simple action.  The only stroke that you can make that is more simple at its core is a putting stroke, and chipping can certainly be done in a nearly identical fashion to putting.

    At the same time, so many players have trouble chipping effectively.  Put some players just off the green with a perfect lie in the short grass and the results will be somewhere between inconsistent and disastrous.

    It almost goes without saying at [...]

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