Improving Your Golf Swing

Are you seeing the same decrease in your handicap that reflects your hard work and efforts? Do you consistently fall short on your drives or feel exhausted at the end of 18 holes? Do you carry the disappointment of a missed putt over into the next hole? If you are plagued with problems like these then it is time to give your golf game a boost. Change your golf game for the better by focusing on the following five areas: flexibility, strength, endurance, nutrition, and mental toughness.

Flexibility:

Have you ever rushed to the golf course, quickly stepped up to the tee and felt stiff when you swung your golf club? Warming up your muscles can help relieve stiffness, but it is better to be more proactive in your approach. Therefore, it is essential to stretch on a regular basis. This allows you to increase and maintain your flexibility. You only need a small investment of your time in order to see significant gains in your range of motion.

Strength:

Have you incorporated strength training into your exercise routine? Many golfers are tempted to swing as hard as possible when hitting the golf ball. There are several adverse side effects of doing this. Your muscles may not be physically prepared for the intense strain and you may become injured. Increasing strength will enable your body to tackle the demands of the golf swing and prepare it for the action ahead.

Endurance:

Do you lose your intensity or feel tired after a few holes? If so, then focus on your endurance. At first glance, golf may not appear to be a game in which aerobic fitness is necessary. However, golfers that walk the course can walk nearly five miles over the course of 18 holes. Try to work in 20-45 minutes, 3-5 days per week of cardiovascular activity.

Nutrition:

Your body needs the proper fuel to work efficiently. Common sense dictates that loading up on junk food is a bad idea. So what exactly should you eat? An optimal sports nutrition menu plan will include high quality carbohydrates, lean protein, fruits, vegetables, and plenty of water.

Mental Toughness:

Are you still thinking about the drive you sliced on the first hole as you set up to tee off at the second hole? This negative thought pattern will adversely affect your game. How you perceive the situation affects each shot. One way to increase your mental toughness is not to relive missed shots. Visualize a good shot to help erase the missed shot from your mind.

Take these five facts into account and you’ll likely see better results with your game. It will take some time to make these activities a habit, but will be well worth the effort.

The Callaway Golf club is headed by Ely Callaway. He bought half of Hickory Stick USA and renamed it Callaway Hickory Stick USA. After purchasing it, he decided to hire the best people that would be an instrument in supporting his dream of Callaway golf club. He hired Richard C. Helmstetter to be the Chief Club Designer and this as others would say is the point of no return. The designs for Callaway golf club are truly revolutionary and innovative which is why the Callaway golf club is dubbed as the type of golf club that is unique and also high-performance kind golf equipment. After that, Ely Callaway renamed his company into Callaway Golf and then relocated from Cathedral City, California to a sleepy seaside town called Carlsbad, which is just north of San Diego.

One of the most innovative designs that the firm came up with was to create a stainless steel driver that had a larger and more forgiving head than any previous design. The CEO, Callaway dubbed it as Big Bertha which was derived from a German cannon back in WWI which was famous for its capability of shooting long distance range. This type of design was the one that made Callaway golf club a house hold name in the states because it experienced millions of sales and the Big Bertha type of Callaway golf club was the reason why Callaway became the number one manufacturer of golf clubs not only in the US but in the whole world which shows how popular golf is to the whole world.

At present, there are six classifications of the Callaway Golf club. The first classification is the drivers which are comprised of two models which are the Big Bertha Fusion FT4 and Big Bertha Titanium 454. The next classification of Callaway golf club is called the Fairway Woods. Fairway Woods have three types of clubs which are Big Bertha Fusion Fairway Woods, Big Bertha Titanium Fairway Woods, and Big Bertha Fairway Woods. The next classification of the Callaway golf club is a hybrid which is designed for long and distant shots. The model for this type of Callaway golf club is called Big Bertha Heavenwood Hybrids. The next classification is called irons which are divided into five types of models and these are Big Bertha, Big Bertha Fusion, X-Tour, X-18, and X-18 Pro. Another classification of the Callaway golf club would be the wedges and the model here is called Forged+ Wedges. The last classification for Callaway golf club is called the Putters. The Putters have two models in its classification which are Callaway golf I-Trax Putter and tour Blue.

The classification and models of Callaway Gold Club mentioned above are the ones that the firm manufactures. All of these models were made in the lieu with science, research, and practice. All of these models are worth a try and who knows? You might be the next Tiger Woods in the world of golf.

Val Castro was a long time UCLA Intramural Department employee who
exemplified the important values of hard work, friendship, kindness and
positive life outlook. His sudden passing from cancer in 2007 united the
alumni whose lives he touched to organize the Val Castro Memorial Golf
Tournament, scheduled for Friday, May 29 at Coyote Hills Golf Course in
Fullerton California. Heralded as one of the premier golf courses in Southern
California, Coyote Hills will provide the backdrop for this fun-filled day of
golf. Following the round, golfers will be treated to a complimentary lunch
banquet and silent auction, with proceeds from the auction benefiting the
Castro Family and UCLA Recreation Intramural Sports Student Development.

If you plan to register or want to sponsor a UCLA student to golf, please click here and you will be forwarded to the Collegiate Golf Alliance where you can sign up:

Or, to simply make a donation, please make checks payable to “UCLA Golf Club” & mail to:

UCLA Recreation, Attn: Julian Mintz
2131 John Wooden Center
Los Angeles, CA 90095

Still there are very few people who can claim to have had their games improved by a golf instruction video. So here are three tips to help you ensure that you reap maximum fruits from every golf instruction video that you ever get to watch.

1) Watch the golf instruction video several times

Some people watch golf instruction videos to try and get a single Magic formula that will revolutionize their game. They do not realize that the valuable nuggets in these videos are hidden in the many small things you need to do which add up to a great improvement in your game. This is why it is very important to watch the video several times. At least twice.

2) Get webcam shots of yourself playing and compare your posture and positioning to what you see in the golf instruction video

It may not be very easy to tell what is wrong with your golf swing for example or how to correct it without taking a very close look at your game.

The best way to do this is to get somebody else to take webcam shots of you on the course as you play. When you watch these alongside the golf instruction videos, it will be very easy for you to tell where your problem areas are and what you need to do to correct them.

3) Do golf-specific exercises to condition your body and muscles

Thirdly you will need your body and the relevant muscles to co-operate with our mind as you try to implement what you have seen on the golf instruction video.

One of the most effective ways of doing this is by getting involved in a golf-specific exercise program to tone and strengthen all the ‘golf muscles’ in your body. This way, they’ll be nothing to stop you from reaping maximum benefits from every golf instruction video you watch.

In our last article we got to the minus two months point of your schedule. You have researched and found the ideal location, picked out the perfect house, sent out the word to your pals, and settled on the dates. By this time, you should have a confirmed group, any of which would just as soon lose their right arm as miss the event.

Let’s lock in the rental house. You DO need to get this done as early as you can. If you are setting up your vacation during the off-season like I do, you are in the driver’s seat. Talk directly to the property manager and negotiate a better rate. Here is a summary of my discussion a few weeks ago. “Hey, Tiffany. Randall here. It’s that time again but our group is smaller. We really like the house at ….. but it is more than we need. We will be staying a full week. I figured the owner would rather have a bird in the hand and rent the house for a full week instead of taking the chance of renting it for just a couple days or not at all. We can afford $xxxx. I can pay you today.”

The result of this little conversation was that she immediately lopped twenty percent off the advertised rate! You will never know until you ask. Shoot for about a thirty percent reduction and go from there. I slapped the deposit on my credit card and emailed the group. (Yes, I was looking for praise.) You can dust off the smaller details like arranging linens (if not provided in the rate) and final payment later.

Time to grab tee times. What I recommend is setting up early morning tee times for each day. You will have to get up earlier than you may like, but scheduling tee times around 8:00 to 8:30AM will accomplish several things, including:
- Being close to first off the box on rain or frost delays (allowing a second 18).
- Finishing your round early enough to grab a second 18 with lunch in between 18’s.
- Allowing easier to change to later tee times if desired rather than to move them earlier.

Over the Internet and by talking with local pros on the phone, you have come up the courses you want to play. As with the house, you DO need to get this done as early as you can so that you can get the tee times you want. When scheduling tee times, I prefer talking directly to the head pro. In general, you will find more flexibility on prices. Other bonuses like getting a second set of tee times while only paying for a replay fee are easier. The head honcho is also more likely to bend the rules to allow advanced tee times if you are beyond the time window normally allowed.

Granted, this may be your first time in the location you picked, but you can use about the same language as I do. I have just locked in our tee times for February. I associate myself with a golf course to let them know I am a “player” and the pros seem to be more deferential in talking with a “player”. Here is a summary of a standard call:

“Hey Bucky, Randall from Snee Farm here. It’s getting to be that time of the year again for our annual golf vacation. You have always treated us so well and given us such a great rate in the past. The guys love the challenge of your outstanding spread. I was just wondering if you fit us in again on February 23rd. We are looking to play 36 and would appreciate anything you could do for us.”

With that or something similar as an opener, I forecast that you WILL get a great rate from most of the courses. Don’t make a second set of tee times at this point unless you get them for just the replay fee. If you are playing during the on-season and want to play 36, you may have to make and pay for a guaranteed set of afternoon tee times. Some of the courses may have events already scheduled when you want to play that particular course. You may have to juggle this slightly and change already made tee times, so complete your tee time set up within a couple days.

Now you have your group, your house and your tee times. It is time to get down to real business. Now is the time to get the financial commitment. Send an email spelling out the accommodations and the tee times. Ask for your troops to send you at least half of what the final cost per man will be. Our total per man is normally around $900 for all the lodging, transportation, golf, food and beverages for the week.

Dining. In general we fix whatever breakfast we personally want, make sandwiches to eat between rounds, and fix our own gourmet supper (with loads of snacks to wreck our appetites during the entire day and night).  To support all this, you will need to know what the group wants and prepare a shopping list. This year, I used a free survey website and built a fill-in-the-blank survey for the troops.

You can use a site like that or ask the same questions in an email. With your shopping list built, you will either grab the goodies before the flights of the group arrive if you live locally, or have the troops assist on the way to your house.

You are now at the minus one month point of building the perfect golf vacation

In my last article, I gave an overview of how you can put together a terrific group golf vacation. In this article, I will go into much more detail concerning the organization and preparation. I have been setting up the ideal gathering for our group for 18 years. There are refinements every year and we think we have arrived at the optimum outing.

You will be driving this bus, so get the ball rolling. Do a little research and pick a location. This location should have plenty of vacation rental homes and a good selection of golf courses. You do not want to play the same course every day. You should be able to do most or all of your research online to find out about rental house and golf course specifics, including costs.

Get the word out to the troops. I like to send out a humorous email to introduce the event and then follow up with more emails and phone calls. I recommend you send out an email to everyone you think might be remotely interested about five months in advance. Some will not be able to make it due to family, work, interest, etc. You should hope to wind up with a group size around eight. Anywhere from six to twelve is great. Five people is the worst group size due to tee times. More than twelve is too hard to organize or find lodging in the same house.

Pick out a window of time. We usually grab the last week in February to get the northern gents out of the snow and still stay in the low rate season for the southern golf courses. As an example of an introductory email, you could send something like this:

"It has come to my attention via the minions who surround me and perform my every whim that there may be those among you desiring driving sleet, incomprehensible wind chill, unplayable lies, unreachable par 3′s, impossible odds, foot-wedging opponents, gross bending of the USGA rules, hairy greens, thick frost, lightening fast down-hillers, moguls, knee deep rough, more sand and water than water front property, Velcro removal during back swings, exploding coughs during precision chips, un-winnable stroke spreads complete with unyielding stroke givers and takers, 179-degree dog legs, and brutal rangers in leather and chains.

If this is the type of outing you’ve been dreaming about, keep dreaming. I can’t make it happen. But picture this:

• A luxurious house with a separate bed for everyone.
• 18 to 36 holes of golf per day on pristine courses.
• A gourmet meal every night.
• All the comforts, food and drink of home.
• Evening entertainment.
• Sensational camaraderie.

I am looking at an arrival date of (date) and departure date of (date). We will be gathering in (city, state). For a group of eight of us, and assuming we average 27 holes per day, your cost should be around $XXX for the housing, food, drink, golf and rental cars. (Note: Our cost per man for food and drink for seven days was $160 in 2005.) Please reply before (date) by answering:

What is the percentage chance you can come for these dates? What is the percentage chance you could make other dates? What dates would you prefer? Other recommendations:"

You have now set the stage. For those you don’t hear back from, get on the phone and hash it out. Through all of your responses, you will come up with the consensus of length of vacation and dates through give and take.

Over the next four months you will be:

• Getting firm commitments from your group members
• Arriving at a firmer consensus on golf venue
• Receiving food and drink orders to allow you to make the shopping list
• Reserving the vacation house and rental cars
• Getting tee times

I like to periodically whet everyone’s appetite and keep the excitement level up. Setting up a website especially for your group is a great way to do this. An easy way for you to do this would be to get a free Blog set up for this purpose. I recommend blogger dot com or wordpress dot com.

Over the years, we have realized two key things about lodging. The first is that it makes a huge difference in camaraderie when the whole group stays under the same roof. The second is the value in everyone having a separate bed (you know how guys are). The only way to achieve this is to pick a location where there are a bunch of rental homes in order for you to pick one that allows this.

It may not seem to you like time is of the essence, but work schedules, vacation allotments, spousal plans, ticket costs, and your preparation needs demand that you DO get this ball rolling. Once you have sent your introductory email and done your phone calling, several of your planned guests will have trouble pulling the trigger. Work with them as you can, but I have found that you will need your firm group established two months ahead of time (give or take one guy or so.) A fine point for you: Ask for a nominal deposit from each of the troops.

Over time, I know that the cost of our vacation, outside of airfare, will be around $900. In one of my follow up emails, I simply ask the players to send around half of that to me. It emphasizes commitment.

In selecting the location of your rental home, consider the driving time to the golf courses you will be playing. We have found that twenty minutes travel time is great, thirty minutes is OK, but forty minutes is too long. The longer drives are certainly bearable, but if you are planning a winter vacation, you will have to have a fairly early tee time in the morning to allow lunch and another 18 in the afternoon. After telling tales late into the evening, beating the sun to the course, heading home and preparing the feast, it gets to be a long day.

This takes us to the minus-two-months time frame.

The result is that many of them ended up making purchases without first focusing on the specific weaknesses in their game that they want to correct. Others purchased golf swing training aids without the benefit of expert advice.

Many times the approach has been to get hold of the very latest golf swing training aids in the market, rather than trying to improve on personal physical limitations and finding the best training aids in the market to help one do that.
Whatever the image golf swing training aids have in the eyes of most golfers, the truth of the matter is that they work and can have a major impact on your golf game when approached correctly.

The right approach to golf swing training aids starts by not looking for any magical overnight remedies that will wipe out your weaknesses overnight. Instead you should focus on particular exercises and golf-conditioning programs that will improve on your physical limitations hampering your golf game.

If you then look for the particular golf swing training aids that will best help you achieve your current goal and objective, your chances of success with golf swing training aids that you purchase, dramatically improves.

Even if somebody suggests a certain golf swing training aid and assures you that it will eliminate a specific weakness evident in your game of golf, before purchasing it focus on the particular muscles in your body that need to be conditioned to eliminate or reduce on the problem. You can then see if the golf swing training aid recommended will help you achieve your goal.

Do not be afraid to ask for expert advice on golf swing training aids before you make your final decision. It quite often pays to do so.

Glimpse into these greens hailed as the world’s five top golf courses, as compiled by Golf Magazine. Golfer or not, you will be enthralled and intrigued how these ultra expansive natural settings that seemingly stretch out to the sky in interesting meandering patterns and heights can be so ultra secluded from the public eye.

Pine Valley Golf Club

Located in Pine Valley, New Jersey USA, the Pine Valley Golf Club hits the number one spot. The golf course is reported to take up vast acres of greeneries, so vast that each golfer would feel a sense of isolation, not knowing that other golfers playing in other sections of the fairways feel the same.

Interestingly, Pine Valley is not new in receiving prestige and recognition in the sports world of golf. Records indicate this gold course was already at the number three spot in 1939 in a ranking by Golf Club atlas. In Golf Magazine’s biennial rankings, it has remained at the top since 1991.

But Pine Valley does not only boast of quantity in acres but the quality of the course as well. In fact, it is also considered to be one of the toughest courses. If you crave for challenge, privacy, and ultimate golfing experience, go Pine Valley.

Cypress Point Club

Cypress Point, the number two choice, is the most beautiful course. Located in Pebble Beach, California USA, it is positioned in a piece of land that meets the blue waters of the beach.

This 18-hole golf course has bunkers that have been strategically and fascinatingly built such that there is a seamless connection between what’s natural and man-made. Hole No. 16, specifically, continues to captivate golf lovers, having been acclaimed as the ultimate one-shotter in existence.

St. Andrews Golf Club

The world’s number three golf course located in St. Andrews Fife, Scotland is the number in Europe, and the oldest in the world. Europe’s quaint setting, which gives off a more relaxed and laidback ambiance so compatible with the nature of this sport, makes this region truly a golfer’s paradise.

The world first experienced golf in Scotland, right here in St. Andrews, as early as the 12th century. It received a royal patronage in 1854. Now, it is considered as the world’s oldest surviving “royal” golf club.

St. Andrews is not really that striking in appearance to new golfers. Its appeal grows as you familiarize yourself with its landscapes, reinforcing the fact that knowledge of course management is a key in golf strategy games.

Augusta National Golf Club

The number four is located in Augusta, Georgia USA. Each of Augusta’s 18 holes has been named after a flower that has come to be associated with it. During grand tournaments, these flowers are in full bloom thereby creating a colorful and festive natural backdrop as you begin those back swings.

But more importantly, Augusta has been characterized with broad fairways, exciting elevation changes, and slick greens that will pose real challenge to skilled golfers.

Shinnecock Hills Golf Club

Golf course number five is located in Southhampton, New York USA. It was originally a 12-hole course remodeled into 18-hole layout in 1895. Its impressive layout features undulating greens and bunkers backdropped with tree canopies, shrubs as well as ponds.

This peek into the world’s best five can be overwhelming. A walk into their greens, a swing into their air, and a golf game follow-through through their fairways, bunkers, and other intriguing nooks and spots will definitely sum up into a par that, in terms of experience, is victory itself.

What could be the reason? Is it that the coaching golf tips are not explained in enough detail? Or is it that most golfers fail to grasp them? All these possible reasons are highly unlikely because most coaching golf tips are given and explained in a very practical manner.
If we have any hope of solving this mystery then we must start looking for the answer in the area of implementation. The mind understands but the body is unable to execute. Weak flabby and therefore tense muscles have a problem keeping up with stress and pressure exerted.

Golf still has many players who have stuck to the good old days when exercises were unheard of amongst golfers. When nobody could hear of strength exercises for golf to strengthen muscles and help the golfer dramatically improve on their golf swing. Those are the days when stretch exercises were very minimal and almost non-existent.

These kinds of golfers would obviously have a serious problem implementing most coaching golf tips and adopting them to their game.

There is yet another reason why many golfers do not benefit from coaching golf tips. It emerges from the fact that not every coaching golf tip will work for every golfer. Some tips will suit the styles of certain golfers more than that of others. The problem here is that many golfers quickly get discouraged when they find that they cannot use the first few coaching golf tips and abandon all the rest.

This is really sad because in all probability the coaching golf tip that best suits them is somewhere in the long list just waiting to be discovered.

During the collision between the driver and the ball (which lasts for less than half a millisecond, 200 times faster than you can blink your eye), there’s an average force of 1,500 pounds being applied to the ball. This violent collision compresses the ball to about two-thirds of its diameter. The cover thickness is less than 3 percent of the size of the ball but doesn’t much influence the outcome of this collision.
Two-piece balls, which have been on the market for many years, will spin less and go a little farther off the driver than the soft, wound balata balls that were used on tour until five years ago. The hard-core two-piece ball will spin about the same as the wound ball off the wedge only if it has an extremely soft and relatively thick cover. But such a cover reduces the ball’s distance off the driver. The trick is to get a ball to spin less than a wound ball off the driver but the same as a wound ball off the wedge. A multi layer ball will do this because it has a soft core (for speed off the driver face) surrounded by a hard mantle and a thin soft cover. The mantle reduces spin off the driver, and the cover, too thin to influence driver launch conditions, is soft enough to significantly influence the spin off the wedge. The collision between the wedge and the soft cover, less violent and more oblique than with a driver, generates more spin. Thus, designers combined new materials with a better understanding of the synergy between ball and club to create a more efficient multi layer ball.

Could you please shed some light on how to determine the proper driver length and what the average driver length is on tour? Chuck Mooney, Davenport, Iowa.

The average length driver on the PGA Tour is 44 1/2 inches. For most golfers, I recommend no longer than 44 inches. This will give you more control than the longer driver. You will develop more confidence and make a better swing. On average this will give you more accurate and longer drives. You might not win bragging rights with an occasional testosterone-inspired long drive, but you will lose fewer balls and enjoy your game a lot more. Shaft length is important, but don’t forget to make sure you’re comfortable with the flex of the shaft. Remember: If you think the 44-inch driver is too short, how on earth are you going to use a 3-wood or your hybrids, which are a lot shorter?

Is there a published report that gives a true count of equipment used by PGA Tour pros? B.C., New Orleans

An organization called the Darrell Survey goes through every competitor’s bag on Thursday of every tournament to verify the pros are using the equipment they claim to be using or the manufacturers claim they’re using. It has conducted these surveys for about 60 years. The information is sold to the manufacturers, who use the counts for advertising purposes. The information is considered reliable–at least for the first day of the tournament. Players may change equipment after the tournament begins, potentially draining the winning putt with a club not reported on the survey.