Greenside Bunker Tips

  1. Improve your greenside bunker play with some great practice tips!

    By Kevin Cotter, PGA

    By far, the most important aspect to successful greenside bunker play is striking the sand an inch or two behind the ball.  As another PGA Professional recommends as a sort of visual is to “Imagine the golf ball lying on top of a dollar bill and you’re scooping the entire bill and ball up together.”The video below from Alan Wronowski PGA Director of Golf demonstrates a great practice technique by drawing a line in the sand to practice striking a specific spot.

  2. Below “Your Best Bunker Tips” from PGA.com offers some interesting comments from Facebook fans on greenside bunker play including some great tips as well, starting out with my favorite of course “Don’t hit it in the bunker to begin with.”

    Enjoy!

Practicing Your Golf Swing in Slow Motion

  1. Slow down when working on your swing for amazing results!

    Practicing your golf swing in slow motion is a concept I’ve always believed in and have religiously articulated throughout my teaching career, “If you can’t do it in slow motion, how could you ever do it in fast motion.”

    Now some have argued they are not one in the same in the sense that with a full speed swing the dynamics are different when considering the impetus generated through centripetal force.  I believe this is true but only to a certain degree as they are overall missing the point that the player first needs to understand the exact positions they need to achieve within the swing and repeat those motions slowly over and over again and habituate them then slowly transgress over to full speed swing.

    Check out the Slow Mo Drill video below:

  2. Amazing, here is a video of Ben Hogan actually practicing in slow motion as referenced above by Brad Brewer.
  3. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5vTfi0gtZ8?feature=oembed&w=400&h=225]
  4. Just for the sake of analysis here is a great slow motion swing video with Professional Golf Coach Mitchell Spearman examining the swing of the 2010 US Open Champion Graeme McDowell.

Executing the Perfect Pitch Shot

  1. This is a great tip to improve your pitching game.  The primary key to the shot is keeping the arms, shoulders and body moving somewhat in sync as described in this article by Krista Dunton PGA, by allowing the right elbow to fold against the right side during the back swing and left elbow to fold against the left side during the through swing.  Check out the article and video below for some great short game pointers.
  2. Todd Anderson on the Pitch Shot
  3. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGA9HofE1Ek?feature=oembed&w=400&h=225]

Hitting the Ball Farther

  1. This is a great tip by Martin Hall PGA.  I provided an excerpt below from my recently posted article referencing the one-piece-takeaway and how it also helps establish the coiling affect described in this video. Combining the two thoughts will certainly go along way in “Hitting the Ball Farther.”

    “The “one piece takeaway” sets the timing of the swing into immediate sync. The desired sequence of movement is; clubhead, hands, shoulders, hips and lower body in that order. This backswing sequencing establishes proper coiling of the upper body against the lower body, providing a power generating spring like action to be unleashed during the downswing.”

    Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7488903

Of course better physical condition can also help you hit the ball farther, check out these drills from PGA.com to help build the muscles you need to hit the ball farther! 

Spirit of Golf

spirit of golf thought of the day

March 24, 2013

There is often a mindset of, “I’ll work hard now so that I can reap the rewards and relax and enjoy later on.”  From the standpoint of Law of Attraction, it doesn’t quite work that way.  For starters, nothing can come into our “now” experience that doesn’t require lots of hard work (and usually the accompanying toil, burnout, and grind).  Then, just about the time we get ready to reap the rewards, life continues to be challenging and hard, not because it really is, but because we never learned we could have anything we wanted the easy and effortless way.

St. Lucie West, FL – March, 2013 

Irish Links

Upcoming events

Join us in the following cities for upcoming Spirit of Golf workshops and clinics. For a full listing of our upcoming events, including our webinars and player/instructor certification programs, click here.  To discuss private coaching opportunities with Tim, click here.

Spirit of Golf

spirit of golf thought of the day

March 22, 2013

Most of us overlook the importance of the inner game because we’ve conditioned ourselves to fixate on the physical stuff.  Yet what science is telling us time and again is that the physical stuff is pretty much insignificant – and almost non-existent – when compared to the consciousness (imagination, thoughts, emotions, beliefs) which “molds the clay” of every-thing. We can stay stuck in the grinding and trying mode or we can begin to include into the action stage the effort-less power of the mind.  In either case, mind over matter (thought over action) as an energy for peak performance is a concept that is here to stay.

Dunedin, FL – March, 2013

 

Irish Links

Upcoming events

Join us in the following cities for upcoming Spirit of Golf workshops and clinics. For a full listing of our upcoming events, including our webinars and player/instructor certification programs, click here.  To discuss private coaching opportunities with Tim, click here.

Spirit of Golf

spirit of golf thought of the day

March 17, 2013

What’s important to keep in mind is that all emotions –when repeated often enough – become highly addictive to the cells of the body. Anger, anxiety, struggle, or worry all begin to feel normal and desirable, at which time the body finds any way it can to get its chemical rush. We’ll do whatever it takes – have a meltdown, toss a club, get sloppy with a shot – just to stimulate the addiction and keep the juices flowing and alive.

Phoenix, AZ – March, 2012 

Player Certification Programs

Upcoming events

Join us in the following cities for upcoming Spirit of Golf workshops and clinics. For a full listing of our upcoming events, including our webinars and player/instructor certification programs, click here.  To discuss private coaching opportunities with Tim, click here.

Spirit of Golf

spirit of golf thought of the day

March 15, 2013

As long as we keep thinking and feeling equal to what we already know, all that we see will be more of what we already know. In other words, something’s gotta give on the inside – we’ve got to picture and imagine ourselves differently – before the physical proof can come our way. Once we do make the necessary internal shift with our thoughts and emotions, however, change happens very quickly. It’s the habitual patterns we stubbornly hold onto that drags things out and get us into trouble every time.

Orlando, FL – January, 2013

Player Certification Programs

Upcoming events

Join us in the following cities for upcoming Spirit of Golf workshops and clinics. For a full listing of our upcoming events, including our webinars and player/instructor certification programs, click here.  To discuss private coaching opportunities with Tim, click here.

Spirit of Golf

spirit of golf thought of the day

March 15, 2013

As long as we keep thinking and feeling equal to what we already know, all that we see will be more of what we already know. In other words, something’s gotta give on the inside – we’ve got to picture and imagine ourselves differently – before the physical proof can come our way. Once we do make the necessary internal shift with our thoughts and emotions, however, change happens very quickly. It’s the habitual patterns we stubbornly hold onto that drags things out and get us into trouble every time.

Orlando, FL – January, 2013

Player Certification Programs

Upcoming events

Join us in the following cities for upcoming Spirit of Golf workshops and clinics. For a full listing of our upcoming events, including our webinars and player/instructor certification programs, click here.  To discuss private coaching opportunities with Tim, click here.

Spirit of Golf

spirit of golf thought of the day

March 10, 2013

Peak performance ultimately comes down to going inside and learning to feel good.  Not good because our golf games have improved or scores are lower or shots are going closer to the hole. Those are actually the byproducts of the feel good instructions we are sending to the body via the mind.  The goal instead is to retrain ourselves into feeling good for no good reason at all, since a body/mind that is tension and resistance free is going to take any subject and find a way to prosper and thrive.

Cleveland, OH – December, 2012 

Player Certification Programs

Upcoming events

Join us in the following cities for upcoming Spirit of Golf workshops and clinics. For a full listing of our upcoming events, click here.  To discuss private coaching opportunities with Tim, click here.