The Golf Slice

Picture it. You’ve got your round going and you’re on for the best score that you’ve ever had and you don’t want to throw it away at the end of the round because of a silly mistake. Having a bogey-bogey finish or a couple of doubles can really dampen your confidence and set a lingering thought in the back of your mind for the next round. A really important one is the fact that if you’re in a competition, you don’t want to throw it away!

Developing yourself as a golfer involves learning how to deal with nerves towards the end of a round and also having your golf game perform when you need it to, is essential to keeping your score low.

So let’s take a look at what you can focus on to stop your round falling apart!

• Think of your favourite golfer and how they perform right till the last putt rolls in, it gives you inspiration and helps you strive to win.
• Take your time over every shot and make sure you stick to it, rushing right at the end can force errors that you really don’t need!
• Think positive thoughts and clear your mind before you make the swing. Having all sorts in your mind will only lead to you having doubts.
• Think about your practice sessions and how you do it every single time you play the hole yourself. You know you can do it so make the swing!

Try these tips next time you’re about to finish the round!

A lot of new golfers forget one of the basic principles of golf: you have to swing down in order to make the ball go up. This applies to every golf club you have in your golf bag except for the putter and your driver.

Beginners sometimes think they have to lift up during their swing to get lift on the ball and that’s just not true. When you hit the golf ball on a downward swing the ball gets lift based on the clubhead alone.

You don’t need to “lift” up to get the ball in the air during your swing. When you do try and force that lift you end up missing the ball completely or hitting an awfully weak shot.

As always, if you’re unsure turn on the television and watch the professionals swing to get a better idea of what you should and shouldn’t be doing.

As a new golfer a lot of emphasis is placed on your swing and making contact with the ball. That’s fine but as your game improves and your time on the golf course increases you need to begin paying more and more attention to your grip on the golf club.

Everyone has their own style and way to grip a golf club that they develop over the course of time. The really important part of the grip is that it gives you enough control over your golf club. A lot of people talk about the feel in your hands and whatnot but I’m more about the end result.

The “feel” folks want you to have one solid presence between your hands, the shaft of the club and down to the clubhead. They’re concerned with making sure you’ve got the right tension and that you aren’t gripping too tight (or not tight enough).

I say practice makes perfect and that you won’t find what feels right until you start seeing results that satisfy you. Once you start making shots you’re happy with analyze your grip and stick with it. There’s no perfect solution for everyone.

An old school golfer, who wants to rant and rave about hitting irons, will tell you that as the loft of the club increases you should have a different stance. So, in other words, as the position of the ball shifted to the right as the loft changed you would take a more open stance.

Today’s golfers, especially the professionals, use a much simpler system. In this simplified approached, the right foot moves closer to the left as the loft increases and the golf ball is positioned closer to the golfer (because the shaft on the club is going to be shorter).

So the moral here is that regardless of what club you’re playing make sure your stance is square to the line and your golf ball is always played off the heel.

By definition an artificial obstruction is anything on the golf course that is man-made in the way of your golf ball. This can be broken down nicely into two categories: movable obstructions and immovable obstructions.

A movable obstruction is a something small that you can, surprise, move out of the way. Things like empty “soda” cans, lawn rakes and trash would fall under this category. You’re allowed to move these types of obstructions out of the way or, if they’re making physical contact with your ball, you can mark where your golf ball is at before removing the object.

An immovable obstruction is then, obviously, something you can’t move out of the way of your golf ball. These types of objects are typically permanent features of the golf course like sprinklers, utility sheds or even stand for spectators. If your golf ball stops on, in or under an obstruction like this you are allowed to seek relief by moving it back into play without penalty.

When I was first starting to play golf I would lose golf balls all the time. It was terrible. It got so bad that I started playing exclusively with the range balls they sell in the clubhouse. As I eventually discovered, that only made matters much worse.

So what do you do when you lose a golf ball? You perform a drop. Here are the three steps to take:

1. Try and find a spot closest to where you lost your golf ball that gives you total relief from any hazard area. Any area that gives your feet and the ball room away from the hazard will be fine. Mark that area with a golf tee or something else visible.
2. Move out from the hazard area and away from the hole by a distance of one or two club lengths. If you lost your golf ball in a water hazard the distance is two club lengths. If it’s a cart path or similar hazard then the distance is only one club length. Mark that spot as well.
3. Now for the actual drop. Stand between your two marked spots and hold the golf ball at shoulder height and an arm’s length away from your body. Let it go without straight down without putting any kind of spin on it. Once it lands your ready to take your shot.

That’s a lot of steps and is a pretty typical example of why most people find golf intimidating because of its mysterious rules. Hopefully, in the future, you’ll know what to do the next time you sail your golf ball into a pond.

I haven’t written a beginner style post in awhile so I thought I’d talk today about an important part of the golf course: the fairway.

The fairway is your direct path to the green. Its grass is cut very, very close to the ground (at a good course, that is) and is usually anywhere from a half to a full inch in height. The area on the sides of the fairway is called the rough and its grass is much longer than the grass you find on a fairway (again, at a good course).

Another physical trait of a fairway to consider is its width. One holes above a Par 3, the narrower the fairway the more difficult the hole.

New golfers tend to have some confusion over whose turn it is or who should go first off the tee.

The general rule is the golfer with the lowest score on the previous hole is the first to tee off. If there’s a tie, then the golfer with the lowest score from two holes ago gets to hit first.

After everyone has teed off, the next player to hit is whomever’s ball landed farthest away from the hole. This rule also applies to putting when everyone has reached the green.

A lot of casual golfers, or people who are hardcore about the game but like to keep things moving along, have a “ready golf” policy. When you’re playing “ready golf” whenever someone is at their ball and ready to hit they swing away. It doesn’t matter if they’re closest to the hole, farthest away or whatever. If they’re ready, they hit and move on.

This is the way my friends and I usually play especially when we’re in a hurry because of a shortness of time or incoming bad weather.