Golfing on a Sunday

To play the game of golf, it is essential that one has the proper golf equipment.  Golf equipment can be a costly investment, as there are so many gimmicks and gadgets being sold to improve one’s game.  However, for the weekend duffer, nothing more is needed than the essentials: golf clubs, a bag to carry the clubs in and golf balls.

According to United States Golf Association rules, a golfer should carry no more than fourteen clubs in the bag.  The essential clubs needed are a driver, fairway woods, irons, wedges and a putter.  The golfer can mix and match the number of particular clubs to suit his game as long as he does not exceed fourteen clubs.  Golf is not an inexpensive game, as the average golfer will normally spend between $500 and $1,000 to purchase a complete set of clubs.

Golf bags are an essential part of golf equipment because it would be impractical, if not impossible, to haul fourteen clubs and golf balls around a golf course.  Bags can be made of fine leather but most golfers usually use some sort of lightweight nylon bag.  It is advised that a golfer choose his bag based on how he will primarily be getting around the course.  If he will primarily be riding on a golf cart, he may want to choose a larger bag that will accommodate more accessories, balls, towels, etc.  If he plans on walking, then a light bag with a comfortable shoulder strap is recommended.  Many of the light, nylon bags are being made with retractable legs that will allow the walking golfer to prop up his bag while on the course.

Golf balls are usually sold in boxes of three, called sleeves.  Many times it is most economical to purchase packages that include five or six sleeves.  The two main balls sold are balata and two-piece balls. Balata balls are made with a hard rubber core, wound with rubber bands, and covered with balata (a soft, plastic cover).  The two-piece ball is normally a large, hard rubber core, surrounded by a surlyn cover.  Surlyn is a hard plastic that is more resistant to nicks and cuts.  The balata is softer, but most advanced golfers feel they can shape the flight of the ball easier than with a two-piece ball.

There are other pieces of golf equipment that the beginning golfer may wish to obtain.  The first is a pair of golf shoes.  Golf shoes range in variety from wingtip, to tennis shoes, to sandals.  Most shoes made today come with soft rubber spikes, to assist the golfer in setting his feet into the ground.  Another recommended piece of equipment would be a golf glove.  After a day of swinging a club around 80 times, blisters can form on the grip hand if not protected by a glove.  Other pieces of golf equipment that should be considered are golf tees, ball markers, a club brush and an umbrella, for rainy days.

Many adults have begun to plan their vacations to destinations that accommodate the serious golfer.  Many of America’s most popular golf resorts reside in the Sun Belt, where weather is accommodating for outdoor activities for most months throughout the year.  These resorts are geared toward providing a great vacation experience for everyone, from the advanced golfer to the weekend duffer to families.

Most golf resorts include hotels with great amenities such as swimming pools, day spas and fine dining.  Resorts that do not have a golf course on the premises normally provide free travel to and from the popular golf courses in the area.  At many of these resorts, special golf packages can be purchased which will include room, green fees and sometimes dining packages.

Florida is America’s most popular golf vacation destination.  In addition to more than 1,000 golf courses available for public play, Florida’s beaches and popular vacation attractions, such as Disney World, make the state a very attractive option.  Among the most popular courses available for play in Florida are Bay Hill, Championsgate, the TPC at Sawgrass and the many Disney courses.

Because of sunshine and warm weather nearly year around, Arizona has also become a popular destination for golf vacations.  Golfers are also attracted to the many desert courses in Arizona that give them a different course perspective than they can get back home.  A few of the most popular courses to play in Arizona are the TPC of Scottsdale, Sedona Golf Resort, The Legacy Golf Resort and Camelback Golf Club.

Both Northern and Southern California offer golf destinations that provide an enjoyable round of golf in some of the world’s most beautiful locales.  In Northern California, only an hour from San Francisco, the Monterey Peninsula is home to the world famous Pebble Beach Golf Links and Spyglass Hill.  In Southern California, the San Diego has many courses to choose from, including La Jolla, Palm Springs and Ranch Bernardo.

Southern Charm comes alive in South Carolina, and the state has also become a very popular destination for golfers.  The city of Charleston offers several nice courses including Wild Dunes Resort and River Towne Country Club.  Hilton Head, SC is home to Harbour Town and Ocean Sea Pines.  Myrtle Beach, SC includes Pawley’s Island, Legends, the TPC of Myrtle Beach and Tidewater.

Finally, Hawaii speaks for itself as one of America’s favorite vacation spots, with its tropical beaches and majestic volcanoes.  Hawaii is also home to some of the best and most beautiful golf courses in the world.  On the island of Oahu, you can find popular courses such as Ko’Olina, Coral Creek and the Hawaii Prince Golf Club at Ewa Beach.  On the popular and beautiful tropical paradise of Maui, you can find two of the most popular courses anywhere: the Kapalua Plantation Course and Pukalani.

Let’s face it, golf is a very difficult game, and most of us do not apply the time needed toward practice to improve ourselves.  The majority of people that play the game do just that – play the game.  We hope that through the course of a round, we can pick up some problems in our swings that we can use the next time we go out to the course.  However, to make a marked improvement, we should practice in between rounds.

The best thing we can do to improve our respective games is to head to the driving range as much as possible.  Repeatedly striking balls will help you develop the muscle memory required to develop a consistent golf swing.  When hitting balls at the range, place a golf tee into the ground three inches behind the ball and another one three inches in front of the ball.  Also place a long club, preferably a driver, at your toes, parallel with tees.

When you begin to hit balls with this alignment, you should make sure that your clubface is going straight over the tees when making contact with the ball.  Your back shoe should pivot against the club shaft laying on the ground.  It is recommended that you try to focus on a high follow-through after striking the ball, and also turning your hips toward the target.

Most driving ranges will have a practice green or mound that you can pitch onto.  You should spend a significant amount of time working around this area because most amateur golfers do not place their approach shots on the green.  There is normally a flag that you can aim towards as a target, so experiment with various shots to the target.  For these short pitches, choke down on the pitching wedge a little, don’t be afraid to swing the club (decelerate), and avoid the tendency to raise your head and follow the flight of the ball.

Finally, practice your feel for putting on the manicured practice greens that are at most driving ranges.  Use three balls and try to hit three putts from the same spot.  You should begin by putting from a distance of three feet from the hole, and increase the distance of the putts throughout the practice session.  Also, keep in mind that you should be “target putting” – that is, trying to get the ball as close to the hole as possible.

Although it seems that gripping a golf club may be the most elemental part of the golf swing, and maybe it is, it could also be the most important part of the swing.  Gripping the club too tight or too loose, gripping it the wrong way or in the wrong place, could throw off your entire swing.  Having an improper grip can greatly detract from the power and accuracy of the swing, and for the advanced golfer, it can hamper the way they try to shape a shot.

There are primarily two types of grips that a golfer should use, and neither of them is a hand-over-hand baseball, or axe handle, grip.  The interlocking is where the golfer slides his left index finger between the ring and pinkie fingers of the right hand.  The overlapping grip occurs when the golfer lays his left index finger on top of his right pinkie or on top of the notch between his pinkie and ring fingers.  These grips allow the hands to hold the club steady while cocking and rolling the wrists throughout the swing.

The grip should begin about one finger width from the end of the club, or more, for shorter controlled shots.  When the hands are together, the club should lie along the callous pad line of the hands and not in the palms.  When the hands are closed around the club, the thumbs should be aligned straight down the club grip.  Your forearms should form a “V” down toward the club.

Although there is no hard fast rule as to how firmly the golfer should grip the club, the prevailing belief is that it should be loose, yet firm enough to keep it from moving in your hands.  The swing will naturally cause the hands to strengthen the grip, so try to keep “loose grip” in your mind throughout the swing.  Because there is no rulebook on the grip, it is just one of those aspects of the game that the golfer will have to experiment with, and adjust, through repetitive practice and play.

Through practice, the grip is something that should become second nature to the golfer.  It is not something that should require as much thought as other aspects of the golf swing, but its importance should never be forgotten.  It is recommended that a golfer always keep a club nearby, and just practice applying and reapplying the grip over and over.

Golfers have had an ongoing debate for years, “Which is the most important club in the bag?”  The putter usually wins out in the discussion simply because more strokes are attempted with the putter throughout the course of an eighteen hole round than the driver.  However, those that favor the driver in the discussion do have a compelling point – if you are able to get off the tee box long and accurately, it makes it all the more possible to shoot a low score on a given hole.

When setting up to hit the driver, the feet should be slightly wider apart than normal.  They should actually be outside of the tips of your shoulders.  Also, in the setup for a normal golf swing, the back foot is set perpendicular to the swing line.  When hitting the driver, because the feet are wider, you may want to turn the back to outward slightly, to take some of the stress off the back knee.

From this point, the back swing should be similar to any other club.  Don’t be tempted to take the club back faster just because you want to hit the ball far.  Increasing the tempo of your back swing can throw of many other elements of the golf swing.  Club head speed should be generated on the downswing.

It is also important to stay “on” or “over the ball when you take back the club on your back swing.  Do not allow your hips to slide backwards with the club.   The hips should turn, not slide, and that front foot should stay on the ground during the back swing.

The club should be taken back straight and away at to cause a wide arc, but you must stay over the ball.  The weight should be shifted to the back foot without sliding the body.  It cannot be said enough, “turn the hips, don’t slide them”.

The setup and back swing are really the only elements that should be changed between using the driver and other shots.  There are slight differences that will occur throughout the swing based on a wider stance, driver length and a heavier club head – shoulders turn further, chin tucks into chin deeper, down swing is faster – but these are naturally occurring events, and the golfer should not give thought to giving assistance for any of them.  The only caveat to that statement would be to make sure that your arms and shoulders are working in conjunction, and that one is not getting ahead of the other.

Practice makes perfect, they say, and the more you practice your putting, the better you should become at it.  The other saying that rings true is, “Drive for show and putt for dough”.  You may get the ego boost of being a long hitter, but at the end of the day, it’s those eighteen greens that you putt on that will have a bigger impact on your scorecard than those ten tee boxes that you were able to launch monster drives from.

The key to becoming a better putter is developing a consistent putting stroke that you can rely on every time you reach the green.  Putting is one of the few shots in golf that should not change significantly based on distance and ball lie.  The best part about practicing your putting is that it can be done virtually anywhere, whether it be on the course, on a practice putting green, on a practice turf mat, or even on the carpet.  Though the surfaces you practice on may be different, and may cause the ball to roll differently, there is no replacement for the muscle memory that your body will gain with each practice stroke.

If you watch the pros putt, you will notice that they are perfectly still over the ball, and their heads do not move.  A good drill to help you keep still is to lean your head against a wall while you take some putting strokes.  You should be able to feel your forehead move against the wall if you are not perfectly still.  This perpendicular alignment to the wall should also show you if you are taking the putter head on a straight line back and forth.

Playing a game called “golf ball bocce” is another good practice drill, and one you can play at home.  To play the game, take out about five or six golf balls, including a colored ball.  Putt the colored ball a distance away from you, and then try to hit the colored ball with the other white balls.  This is a good drill to gauge speed and distance on flat surfaces, but it gets really fun on practice greens that have undulations that will force you to read the break of the green.

Another good drill is called “around the world, and it should be played on a practice green.  Take four golf balls and place them at equal distances around the hole (start at three feet away).  Putt around the hole from the same distance until you can sink all four balls from the various points surrounding the hole.

Every golfer that plays the game is going to find himself in tricky situations – in a bunker, behind a tree, in thick brush, in deep rough – from time to time.  It is just the nature of the game, courses are designed to be a challenge to the golfer.   Even the best golfer in the world, Tiger Woods, is not immune from mistakes, and their often-penalizing consequences.

The first and most important part of dealing with an unfortunate lie is knowing what you can and cannot do with a certain shot.  Everyone wants to be a hero, and every golfer wants to make progress toward the hole.  However, trying to move in a straight line towards the hole, regardless of the obstacles in the way, can have disastrous consequences.  Often times, realizing that a certain shot is beyond your abilities is prudent, and that the smart play is to simply chip back out to the fairway.

Below are a few shots that may help you out of some of those tight situations.  Again, you have to know your own game, which means you need to put in the time practicing these shots on the driving range and practice facilities.

If you find yourself off the fairway, and behind a tree, you may want to hit a low hook or a cut around the obstruction.  To do this, use your normal golf setup, with a slightly wider stance.  Align your body to the side of the obstacle, but slightly turn the club in your hand to cause the clubface to make contact with the ball in the direction that you want it to move.  Taking a normal, straight swing, with a slightly twisted club, should produce the action on the ball that you desire.

Another difficult position to be in is in a greenside bunker, at the furthest point away from the hole.  You know these – the one’s where you have more sand to hit over than green to land on.  This shot should be played slightly differently than a normal sand shot, with the clubface not as opened, the body in a more natural golf swing stance, and the shot itself should be taken with a forceful swing.  Remember to finish with a high follow-through.

The buried sand shot – or “fried egg” – is not really as hard to play as it looks.  To make the shot work, you must get under the ball, which usually means choosing an area to for the clubface to enter the sand may be about two inches behind the ball.  You should take a forceful forceful, downward swing, with a lot of power in right (push) hand.  Because of the angle and force of this swing, there will not be much follow through on your swing, there will likely be less sand flying out with the ball, and the ball will have virtually no spin on it.

Although golf is a non-contact sport, injuries can occur.  The most common cause of injury is straining a muscle because the golfer did not properly limber his body before swinging the clubs.  General physical fitness and good health can prepare a golfer’s body for the unusual body motion of the golf swing, but a good stretching routine can help also.  There are three main parts of the body that you will want to warm up before swinging at golf balls: the back/torso, the arms/shoulders, and the legs.

Back/Torso

The most common injury that arises in golf is some sort of muscles pull to the back or torso.  Before grabbing a club, you should bend at the waist and try to touch your toes, and hold that position for 20 seconds.  Repeat this as many times as you feel necessary to loosen the lower back.

After loosening the lower back, grab a golf club and lock it behind your back with your arms.  Begin to twist your back from side to side.  Begin with small twists, and make the twists larger as you limber-up.  You may also bend forward it the hips gradually while twisting.

Finally, grab each end of the club, place it behind your neck, and begin making shoulder turns.  This twisting is similar to the previous exercise, but should to begin to loosen the shoulders and arms.  You may also choose to stop the twist at its furthest point on each side, to really stretch those back muscles.

Arms/Shoulders

To loosen the shoulders, take your left hand and lift it over and behind your left shoulder.  Take your right hand, place it behind your back, and interlock your hands together.  Hold this stretch for approximately twenty seconds, and switch hands.  Again, do this as many times as you feel necessary until you gain the desired flexibility in the shoulders.

To loosen the hands and wrists, take two clubs in your hands, and waggle the cubs from side to side.  Then start moving the clubs up and down, and then all around.  Also, just shaking out your hands is a good way to loosen the fingers.

Legs

The hips are very important in the golf swing, so you should make sure they are loose before you swing.  Lie on the ground, lock your hands behind one of your knees, and pull that knee toward your chest.  Hold this stretch for twenty seconds, release it, and switch legs.

While you are on the ground, sit up, spread your legs apart, and reach out in front of you with your hands.  This should be stretching your hamstrings.  Again, hold this stretch for 20 seconds, and repeat as necessary.

The game of golf is a game of skill and endurance, but there is also a mental component to the game that can separate a successful round of golf from a nightmare.  The ability to clearly think through each and every shot, without becoming distracted or frustrated, is critical throughout the course of a five-hour round of golf.  Most important, you have to perform self-therapy several times per round to keep your mind clear and focused.

The first, and perhaps most important thing to remember is that each shot must stand on its own.  There is nothing you can do about the last bad shot that you hit, so do not dwell on it.  Conversely, you can’t think too many shots, or holes, ahead.  You must play with the mindset that the most important shot of your entire round is the one you are preparing to hit.

It is important not to dwell on bad shots, but you should take ownership of your mistakes.  Bad breaks can arise that are outside of your control, but you shouldn’t be upset that a ball took a bad carom off of a tree, you should accept that a good shot on your part would not have hit the tree in the first place.  You need not go through the five phases of death – anger, denial, bargaining, regret and acceptance – you should just go straight to “acceptance”, and prepare to hit your next shot.

If you do hit a bad shot, you should spend the time walking or riding to your next shot thinking about what it was that you did to hit the shot poorly.  Once you have analyzed your mistake, make a mental note of it, so you won’t make the same mistake again in the future.  Throughout the course of a round of golf, a golfer should also make mental notes of mistakes and aspects that he can work on at the practice range in between rounds of play.

Finally, remember to have fun.  A day at the golf course is a long one, there is plenty that can go wrong from the very first tee box, but stay focused on why you are there – to enjoy the day and play a game.  It is a fun game to play, and even more fun when you are playing the game well, so remember to put in the hours of practice required to improve your game.  If you have not taken the appropriate measures to prepare yourself for success, then you should lower your expectations of your performance, and play just to enjoy the day with good company.

One of the most difficult shots in all of golf is a shot from a sand bunker just off the green.  These greenside bunker shots cause the golfer to ask him a lot of questions, and more often than not, the answers are usually wrong. We all seem to know that we need to hit slightly behind the ball and take some sand; but that is only a fraction of the complexity that goes into making a successful sand save.  Follow these golf tips and you should find yourself getting out in one shot, and placing the ball where you want, every time.

First, open your stance and dig your feet into the sand a little.  The ball should also be placed forward in your golf stance to cause a higher trajectory once the ball is struck.  Ensuring that your setup is correct in the sand is critical.

Next, open the clubface to flatten it out a little – this will make sure the clubface slices through the sand.  At this point, you should focus on your hands.  The grip should be a little looser than the normal golf swing, but still firm enough that the club does not turn upon impact with the sand.  A weaker grip should ensure that you do not turn the clubface inward on your swing and close it when you make contact.

When making the golf swing, you should primarily try to keep the body still, and focus on just using your arms, and especially your wrists.  A powerful shot is not needed to get the ball out of the sand, but a full wrist cock at the top of the back swing should be employed to make sure you bring the club fully through on the downswing.

For the right-handed golfer, your left hand should just be used to steady the club in your hand and the right hand is really going to be the hand used to apply force to the swing.  This should naturally occur by using the full wrist cock discussed earlier.  After making contact with the sand, the right hand should continue to push through, and a nice, high follow-through should be focused upon.

At this point, the ball should be coming out with a fair amount of sand.  One of the mistakes the average golfer makes on the sand shot is chopping down on the ball.  When you chop onto the ball, the angle of the club strikes the sand as such to where enough sand is not lifted from the bunker to help propel the ball forward.