New Year Golf Goals

Have you made any New Years Resolutions?
What ones have you made for your golf game?

Here are 3 tips to help you set your golfing goals:

1. Identify which part of your game you should work on.

You and to practice with purpose. If you are not sure which part
of your game you should be working on to improve, go check out
this game analysis article at
http://hubpages.com/hub/Which-Part-of-Your-Golf-Game-Should-You-Practice

2. Commit to a date by which you want to achieve the goal
This is very important - without a target date, the mind will keep
putting it off and you will not achieve your goal.
So, set a (realistic) date, and commit to it!

3. Take action!
This is biggest secret of all!
If you don't get started to will never get any closer to your goal.


If you want to get some great Fr*e Golf video
instruction guaranteed to shave strokes off your score,
then I recommend you go and have a look at
Ben Throckmorton's Golf Swing Secret.
Just click the link below to be taken straight to Ben's web site
http://www.hotbizpro.com/go/GolfSwingSecret

If you want to work on the specifics of improving putting go to
http://www.masterputting.com

Which Part of Your Golf Game Needs the Most Practice?

I go down to the driving range and watch a whole line of avid golfers working hard at their game. But what do I really see? 20 golfers in a row ALL hitting drivers. Now it is true that some of the ladies and gentlemen practicing do need to work on their drives, but is it the shot that they should be spending most time practicing? Is it time well spent with regards to making the best improvement to their games?

If you want to improve your golf scores quickly, what is the first part of the game you should work on?

Well, before you can answer this question you need to analyse a round of golf in a specific way. An interesting and very effective method to use is "The Pareto Principle".

The Pareto Principle, sometimes known as the 80-20 law, states that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. Or more specifically, a large percentage of the output result is generated by a small percentage of the input parameters. This could be 80/20 or 90/10 or 70/5 (it doesn't necessarily add up to 100 as it is a relationship between two different measurements).

Pareto Golf Analysis

Applying this to golf we would need to see which clubs were used in a round and how many shots were played with each club. We could then relate each club to the total score by a percentage of the score taken by that club.

If you want to see an example of how you can use The Pareto Principle to analyse your golf scores effectively, then have a look at this article

If you analyse your scores with respect to the type of shots you made, then you can easily see which part of your game is causing a problem, and therefore which part of the game you need to improve to have the greatest impact on your score.

Golf Lies!

Wouldn’t be nice if all our golf ball lies were as level as they are on the driving range? Unfortunately they are not...and golf would not be as interesting if they were!

We often find ourselves in situations where the ball is above of below our feet, or we are hitting from an up or down hill lie. All of these lies affect the way the shot is played and how the ball will fly. So how should you play these shots?

Uphill Lies
When you are hitting from an uphill lie, the ball will fly higher than normal. The slope you are hitting up effectively adds loft to the club. So take an extra club to compensate. Always try and align yourself perpendicular to the slope. This will stop you coming in too steep on the shot.

Downhill Lies
When you are hitting from a downhill lie, the ball will fly lower than normal. The slope you are hitting up effectively removes loft from the club. So take less club to compensate. Again, always try and align yourself perpendicular to the slope. Play the ball slightly back in your stance to reduce the chance of hitting the ground first.

Ball above feet
When the ball is above your feet, you are standing more upright and therefore the swing becomes flatter. A flat swing will encourage a draw or hook, and the ball will tend to have a lower trajectory, flying further. To play this shot take less club and align yourself slightly right of target to allow for the draw/hook effect.

Ball below feet
This could be the hardest shot in golf! The ball is easily caught thin as you are “reaching” for it. The ball will also have a tendency to fly to the right of the target because of the fade/slice spin applied by coming in to the ball from a slightly steeper angle. To play this shot well you need to make sure you “sit” in your stance a bit more and align a touch left of target.


One Final Tip

Most important in all these shots is to maintain balance.

Next time you are practicing, try and find an area to play from that is not level so you can learn to play uneven lies.