Stockwood Park Golf Club

To improve your golf game, it's vital that you take golf lessons. Golf is a sport that is almost impossible to learn without some sort of guidance. Luckily, there are golf experts around the country whose job it is to teach golf. By taking golf lessons, you can drastically improve your game in a relatively short amount of time.

Taking golf lessons can be an expensive, time-consuming effort. And like any good or service that will cost money and require time, you should be careful before you buy. Golf can be a really costly game to play and it is reasonable to assume that you have invested a fair amount of money in your equipment - golf clubs, golf bag, golf balls, golf clothing, golf cart etc; - therefore doesn’t it make common sense for you to learn how to use them to their advantage and improve your skills and capabilities?

A well laid out municipal parkland course with established trees and several challenging holes. We have 18 holes, 5973 yards. S.S.S. 69, a driving range, mini golf course and pitch and putt

Establish Your Practice Framework 267 line." The putter Face-line is a circle centered on the Dot-Spot and perpendicular to the Balance-line which means it will appear parallel to your putterface when the face is aimed squarely down your Aimline (assuming the Balance-line is aimed properly). The relationship of the putterface and the Face-line is shown in Figure 11.7.6; it may make proper alignment of your putter a bit easier to see.

When the putterface is parallel to the Face-line (which is perpendicular to the Balance-line) it should be lined up exactly square to the Aimline.

The Dot-Spot In section 9.10 I explained the advantages of striking the spherical surface of the ball rather than the edges of the dimples. You can help assure this kind of solid contact by finding the "Dot-Spot" (the largest area of nondimpled surface) on the Balance-line. The "Dot-Spot" is usually one of the two places on every ball where the Balance-line crosses the seam: Every ball has a seam in its cover where the two halves are joined and there's usually a little more surface area along that line than on the rest of the dimple-covered ball.

After identifying a Dot-Spot mark the Face-line on your ball centered on the Dot-Spot which will make it exactly perpendicular to the Balance-line. This can get a little confusing so we use a hall mask (as shown in Figure 11.7.7) in the following procedure for marking balls:

Supplying the power which determines how fast and how far your putts will roll from the muscles of your wrists hands and fingers (Figure 4.5.1) is bad. Wrist motion (hinging) causes putterface angle variations and hand and wrist muscles lend to tighten up and not work well under even slight pressure. But powering your putts with these muscles also brings an added complication: It's not had all the time.

You can practice putting this way for years and as long as you putt on the course exactly the way you do in practice - relaxed and calm - things will be reasonably okay. But wait until you get really excited. When your heart begins to beat faster because a putt really matters your body naturally produces adrenaline which makes all of your muscles stronger. Then all your practice goes out the window because the muscles that control your putting power are now stronger than they ever were on the putting green. Even if your stroke feels the way it did in practice the adrenaline-induced extra power will cause it to provide the wrong amount of energy to your putts and produce bad results on the course.

You Can't Avoid Adrenaline Everybody gets to experience excitement and adrenaline in golf. It's part of why we love the game and if you want to become a better player you must learn to deal with it. You must learn to play well when adrenaline is in your system. This is easy in the power game when you want to hit the ball as far you can with whatever club is in your hands. Adrenaline in your system helps you to do this. But putting is altogether different. You can't take one less club on the green when you're pumped up. And you certainly don 't want to putt the ball as far as you can.

The Seven Building Blocks of Stroke Mechanics 69 in such a way that the adrenaline-affected muscles of your fingers hands and wrists don't control how far or fast your putts roll. You'll learn about that in section 13.5.

Just about every shot in golf except putting requires rotation of the forearms through the impact zone. But apply that same rotation to your putting stroke and you'll produce double trouble. First your putterface will rotate from open to closed so the likelihood that it is square at the moment of impact becomes very small. Second forearm rotation supplies unwanted and unnecessary power and usually a lot of it.

Golf Swing Tips

Now, you should be standing up straight, with your chest out, and your shoulders back. Your arms should be out in front of you, your elbows locked, and your wrists level with the height of your waist, while holding the club parallel to the ground. Next, bend over AT THE HIPS until the club touches the ground. Move towards or away from the ball according to where the club touches the ground. After some practice, you will be able to judge the distance well enough so that you don't have to move around to get into position. Keep your chest out and straight while bending over at the hips. It is impossible to overstate the importance of this. You should not be bending with the back at all to reach down to the ball; you should be bending AT THE HIPS. This is one of the most common mistakes made by amateur golfers. If you look at any professional golfer on television, they will ALWAYS have a straight back, and they will ALWAYS bend at the waist to get to the ball. You will feel like your “seat” is protruding backwards more than usual. That is what we want here. Also, it’s okay if the toe of your club is not flush with the ground. It’s should be that way, especially for the long irons.

Golf Lessons

Golf Lessons at Stockwood Park Golf Club

Stockwood Park Golf Club

Dave Pelz's Putting Bible - golf's least understood skill.

The Long Drive Bible: How You Can Hit the Ball Longer, Straighter, and More Consistently

Golf Swing Tips

The "Simple Golf" Swing: "Golf for the Rest of Us"