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Archive for the ‘ irons ’ Category

Progression of fixes

You come off a round and look at your scorecard and
don’t like what you see. You replay the holes in
your mind to try to figure out what went wrong.

We then do the “woulda, shoulda, coulda” thing…

“If only I woulda hit my drive in the fairway on the 8th,
(that went ob), and just bogeyed the hole at worst,
then I would have…blah blah blah”

Right? Sound familiar?

I do it after every round.

But then, I do something most golfers don’t.

I go through a progression of checks to find out what
really was the problem so I can fix it.

I start out by asking myself some questions to find out if there was a pattern that will lead me to the fixing most important thing that will give me the biggest stroke savings for the effort.  (The 80/20 rule – work on the 20% most important thing and you will be 80% effective)

For example, last week, after the round, I went over it in my mind and replayed my poor holes and came to the conclusion that I had far too many chunk shots. Hitting the ball too fat and the ball comes up short….sometimes WAY short.  I had other strokes lost on other things but this was the biggest problem and it stood out.chunking your golf irons

So, I ask myself, what was the difference between the shots I chunked and the ones I didn’t?  It turns out, the shots I didn’t chunk were always a much smoother downstroke.  The shots I chunked, I was swinging harder down on the ball.  “Why were you swinging harder down on the ball, Craig?” I asked myself.   The answer was, because I was at the upper end of the distance that I could hit that club and felt I needed to give it a “full swing.”

On my practice swings with the club, I would swing at about 70% speed and my swing would be smooth as silk. But when I went up to 90%, I would get this hard downward motion and sometimes pinch the ball perfectly, and other times, chunk it.

So, here’s the progression, in a nutshell… I keep asking the question of myself:  “Why do you do that?” until I get to the end.

THEN, I can fix the real problem.

My fix for this problem that crept into my game is that when I’m at the upper end for distance for a club, go with a longer club and swing smoothly and at 70%.  I did this during this week’s round and I didn’t have one chunk all day!!!

Now, here comes the kicker….

I asked myself the question again: “Why do you do that, Craig?”  about swinging harder on the downswing for a shot at the upper end of distance for that club.   Just to make sure I’ve covered my bases and got to the end.

Guess what I came up with…I’m so embarrassed…

I made a real honest assessment of myself when I answered my own question with: “Because I don’t want to admit that I am losing distance with my clubs.”

You see, I’ve been hitting my 8-iron 150 yards as long as I can remember.  But, now my aging body, and possibly my clubs losing some pop, have slowed me down some. I was having to force it to stay at that 150 yards.

So get this…I started out asking myself why I lost strokes today.  And I answered with: “Because I had a lot of chunks”

What would most golfers do to fix that problem? Go down to the range or practice facility and WORK on that….or take lessons. And they may improve on it that way, for sure.

But I want to encourage you to KEEP ASKING THE QUESTION:  “Why do I do that?”

and you might find a more efficient and effective way to solve your golf problems.

That’s the “No Practice” way.  🙂

Greens and Fairways,

Craig

Steve Wozeniak – Fix Your Swing At Home

Steve Wozeniak is one of 8 instructors in the Great Golf Without Practice Bootcamp where you can find 100 tips, tactics and techniques to work on your game anywhere, without practice.  Just $19.

Steve is a PGA Director of Instruction in Bellevue, Washington and has 25 years experience teaching 75 Tour players and more than 300 PGA and LPGA golf professionals.  He has direct lineage to the teachings of Sam Byrd, Ben Hogan’s coach for over 20 years.  While at the prestigious Ocean Reef Club in Florida, Steve has taught some of the game’s very best including Scott Piercy, Rocco Mediate, Jim Colbert, Jim Dent, Marco Dawson, Emily Klein, Leonard Thompson, Jim Mclean and Jimmy Ballard.  With his easy to understand, “rid yourself of the nonsense” approach to the golf swing, he is one of the top instructors in the country.

Steve is the only instructor in the Pacific Northwest that has taught winners on all four major tours, the PGA, LPGA, Champions and Web.com. For more on Steve and to take lessons from him in person,  contact him 425-533-4711

How To Make Solid Contact On Golf Shots

It’s so frustrating when you top or chunk a shot. It happens to everyone, even the pros at times.

Now, you can spend your life trying to fix every little piece of your swing in order to find that perfect, consistent movement OR, you can focus on ONE simple directive to your unconscious mind that will tell it to hit the ball on the sweet spot of the club face.

In this video, I give you that directive.  Do this and watch how much more often you hit solid contact on your golf shots.

 

Transcript

Golfers get themselves so tied up in swing mechanics whenever they have a bad shot from poor contact. They look for swing problems that just aren’t there and all that happens is they end up creating even more problems looking for the cure.

One of the most effective ways to ensure solid contact on your full swings is simply this: Watch the clubface make contact with the back of the ball.

You know, sometimes I have to pinch myself after I go back to my own tips like this one because they just seem too simple…that’s the biggest problem in golf…we always seem to want to overcomplicate things but we don’t need to!

This simple tip, if focused on, will eliminate most of your poor contact shots and you’ll want to make it a permanent habit. Need a little proof that this works? Look at these pros and notice how far their swing has gone past hitting the ball and they are still looking down at the spot where they hit it. DO NOT twist this into “Keep your head down.” This is different.
Just let the momentum of your swing naturally pull your head up out of it’s contact position.

You don’t have to try, just think “watch the club hit the ball” during your practice swing and then swing away…

Emblazon this on your brain cells and focus on it now and during your range warmup and just watch your ball go farther and straighter. It’s such a simple game if you want it to be.

Hit More Straight Golf Shots

I’m going to be somewhat of a heretic today by saying that you don’t need to know one darn thing about a swing plane in order to hit a golf ball straight to a target that you choose….and if I’m mistaken, I thought that was how we get lower scores – make the ball go to a target.

Yep, it’s true. Ever watch Lee Trevino’s or Allen Doyle’s or Jim Furyk’s swing? Proof.

Now, I don’t want you to believe me or trust me. I want you to use your own common sense, logic and rational thinking while watching this video below. The concept that I’m giving you in this Shortcut Secret is going to do more to freeing you up for your best game than any swing fix you will ever get.

Once again…watch and trust yourself….

 

Transcript

I’m Craig Sigl author of the book: “Break 80! 52 ways to lower your golf score without practice”

You wanna know the secret of hitting golf balls as straight as you can point? Here it is…I actually call this “square and point”. Look in order to send a golf ball to a target, there’s only 2 things that need to happen.

You square the clubhead up to the ball at the moment of impact
You point the shaft down the target line a short distance after striking the ball.

That’s it! That’s the 80/20 to hitting the ball straight. It doesn’t matter WHAT you do in your backswing as long as you do these 2 things and it works with every club in your bag. All fundamental instruction out there is designed to increase the odds of this happening for you so you send the ball to your target. Now, I’m not talking about shaping a ball here…please, leave that to the pros you’re wasting precious time and energy trying to work a ball left and right. Just hit the damn thing straight more often and your scores will go down.

Well, “Easier said than done Craig” you might be saying right about now. I need all that instruction to actually make square and point happen.

NO YOU DON’T!

For now, just start thinking about what I’ve told you here. Square…and point. In fact, don’t TRY to square and point when you swing….just THINK about it as you drift off to sleep at night and then during your preshot routine out on the course. This works like magic! Trust yourself….

How To Find A Perfect Golf Swing

I’ve got to get this off my chest. I’m so tired of seeing endless ads everywhere telling golfers that they have a “death move” or scaring golfers into thinking their swing is somehow all screwed up.

Don’t believe it! Your swing is good enough to go low. Period.

If you do buy into the belief that you have to have a certain type of swing in order to improve your game, you’re just going to be spinning your wheels in this game for a long time. Not fun.

How do I know? Well, I for one, did exactly that. Yep, I bought into all of that for 2 decades until I freed myself from it and only then did I break 80, my long-standing goal in golf.

Since then, I’ve broken par, turned myself into a single-digit-handicap golfer and now teach golfers all over the world how to do it for themselves. That’s why you’re here.

Watch this video to find out the truth about “the perfect golf swing.” When you’re done with the video, GO HERE to find out how you can go low with the swing you already have.

 

Transcript

Hi Craig Sigl here, author of the book: “Break 80! 52 ways to lower your golf score without practice”

Here’s the 80/20 shortcut secret to a perfect golf swing. Are you ready? drumroll please…You already have it. It’s already there and you’ve used it. It’s just a matter of internal communication for you to be able to call upon it. If you’ve ever hit a great shot with your clubs, then you have the DNA and memory to do it again…and again…

But, you will never find it if you are on this quest to “perfect” your swing. For most amateurs and weekend players, you will be wasting tons of time and energy constantly trying to tweak your swing. If you have the basic fundamentals…and most golfers do, then your swing is good enough right now to shoot in the 70’s.

Let go of the idea that there is such a perfect swing or that you should chase it. It doesn’t exist…
So many golfers are totally brainwashed by the golf industry! They think that to improve their score they have to fix their swing. FALSE! It’s pictures and analysis like this that actually holds you back. You see things like this and then you stop trusting your swing TRUST is much more important than perfect. Get off that hamster wheel of swing perfection and know that you’ve got the shots in your bag, in your body, right now to shoot your best lifetime score.

instead, focus your entire energy on having a repeatable swing. Look at these golfers who have vastly different swings…and they all work at the top levels of golf. Yours can too. You can develop a repeatable swing by hitting thousands of balls in practice…OR, you can stick with me here and I’ll teach you how to do it.

Stay tuned…
Greens and fairways