Sweep Away your Slice

Swing a broom for five minutes a day to ingrain the feeling of an on-plane swing that finds the "slot" every time.

Swinging a broom can show you how.

By Darrell Kestner
GOLF Magazine Top 100 Teacher
Published: July 01, 2007

The problem
You're a chronic slicer.

Why you do it
You take the clubhead inside and behind you too quickly in your backswing. This shallow path doesn't give you much room to get the club back down past your right leg and into impact. So instead, you cast the club up over your right shoulder and down to the ball on a slicecausing outside-to-in swing path.

The solution
Swing back and through with the thin edge of a broom. Do it correctly and you'll encounter no air resistance as you swing the broom back and through on plane, but as soon as you try to take the broom back on a too-shallow plane, however, or swing it over the top on the way back down, the flat side of the broom will encounter air resistance and will immediately indicate that you're off-plane.

'Putt' your chips

Take the nerves out of your short shots with Paul Runyan's method

Use your putting grip, and play the ball just inside your left heel. Set the club on its toe so the shaft is vertical, like a putter's.

By Jim Flick
Photo By Dom Furore June 2007

Paul Runyan, my friend and colleague for more than 30 years, was a master of the short game. In the 36-hole final round of the 1938 PGA Championship, he beat Sam Snead convincingly. Sam was outdriving Paul by 50 yards, but Little Poison won, 8 and 7.

Paul's mind was analytical, but he was also creative. One of the concepts he pioneered was to chip like you putt.

Paul didn't mean to just use a putting grip, which helps minimize wristiness for more reliable contact, especially under pressure. He also showed me how to set the club on its toe so the shaft is more vertical, similar to a putter's shaft. Setting the club with the heel off the ground:

•Helps replicate your putting stance, so the ball is more directly under your eyes, and your motion is simpler.

•Encourages the clubhead to slide through the grass, guarding against mis-hits.

•Promotes contacting the ball toward the toe of the club, which gives the shot a softer feel and allows you to make a more aggressive swing.

Take your normal putting grip (I use a reverse-overlap). This helps keep the back of the left hand stable. Play the ball just inside your left heel. If the ball is sitting down,tilt your upper body a bit to your left. This encouragesa slight angle of descent through impact.

Keeping your body still and with a pendulum motion, swing the clubhead up with your arms going back, then let it swing down into the ball.

Lateral Move

Step forward for power

This drill will help you feel the lateral move seen in top players.

RANGE DRILL: 1. Take a narrow stance with the ball forward. 2. Swing to the top with a full turn. 3. Step forward, and swing through the ball.

By Rick Smith
Photo By Stephen Szurlej May 2007

A split second before completing the back-swing, the best players make a slight lateral move with their hips and trunk toward the target. This move not only allows the arms to swing down on plane, it helps increase swing speed by providing improved leverage between the body and club. It's a real power move. If you want to copy it, first train with my step drill to get the proper feeling.

On the range, grab a 7-iron, tee up a ball, and address it with a narrow stance. Your front foot should be in line with the ball. Take the club to the top, but before you start down, step toward the target with your front foot. This action will help you feel that lateral move the best players make. Hit balls this way to get a feel for this shift to your front side.

Ranked No. 5 by his peers among Golf Digest's 50 Greatest Teachers, Rick Smith is based at the Treetops Resort near Gaylord, Mich., and Tiburon in Naples, Fla.

Tiger's Extension For Power and Accuracy

Tiger Tips: Extend for power and accuracy

Turn your head to the target

New look: My head doesn't stay down well past impact.

By Tiger Woods
Edited By Pete McDaniel and Mark Soltau
Photos By Dom Furore August 2007

One of my main keys to hitting the ball farther and straighter is full extension down the target line. Reminding myself to "shake hands with the target" gets me in the right position. Examples from other sports--baseball batters, hockey players and bowlers, to name a few--also help me visualize extension.

Some players flip the right hand through impact to try to get more clubhead speed. That kind of flash speed would have negative consequences for me, mainly inconsistent distance control and accuracy. Instead of extending down the line, these players flip the handle, the left wrist breaking down and the right hand crossing over the left.

I want the club to release naturally. I've even amended my "shake hands" visual: I'm learning to look at the target as I'm shaking hands. I tend to hook the ball when my head hangs back, so to keep everything moving together I try to get my head and eyes turning through with the club. My friend Annika Sorenstam does this, and it seems to work for me.

Distance And Power

Golf Instruction:
Create Power To Maximize Distance

By Kelly Kleckner,
Staff Writer,
Golf Publisher Syndications

A primary concern for most women I teach is that they would like to gain extra yards with each of their clubs. To do this you must use the small muscles in your hands, wrists, and arms together with the larger muscles of your upper and lower body. All of these must work together to produce the maximum effect on the ball-sending it farther and straighter.

To efficiently achieve this effect, you must pay attention to your wrist hinge, arm swing, and the coil of your body. I will give you some key pointers that will help you increase power and distance, without spending extra hours in the gym! These pointers will be helpful getting you started on the right track as we enter the new golf season.

If we start with the basic set-up, correct hand placement on the club should allow you to feel the pressure in your fingers-not your palms with the V's between your index finger and thumbs of each hand pointing in the general direction of your right shoulder. Then I have my students grip the club using "normal" grip pressure for them.

To test their grip pressure, I have them hold their club out in front of them while I pull from the shaft. Most of the time I can't pull the club from their hands-they're too tight! Keep a pressure on a scale of 1-5(1 being light) at a 3 during you your entire swing; this enables the wrists and arms to move freely through the swing maximizing power.

After we set the hands and achieve the proper grip pressure, we are now ready to start the motion of the swing by hinging the wrists and swinging the arms. Where should your wrists hinge? There's no rule, but hinging before your wrists are even with your hips can result in an up-and-down swing that loses distance.

To maximize power you must use wrists, arms and coil (pivot) to achieve more distance.

On the other hand, cocking too late can result in "casting" the club and losing distance as well. Cock your wrists as you turn maintaining a "3" grip pressure, and extend your arms so that your chin meets your left shoulder. Let your arms swing down from the top of your swing by pulling the end of the club down through the ball-we want to swing through not hit the ball!

This is all wonderful news, but if we forget to coil or pivot we cannot shift our weight from right to left as we swing and we become "upper body swingers" losing the incredible power we can generate from our lower torso.

To generate the hip and leg action we need to make sure our take-away is as a unit. Make sure you are in an athletic set-up with your arms hanging comfortably from your shoulders, bend from the hips, knees slightly bent, make sure your rear is out, and weight is on the balls of your feet.

The left side of your body then pushes the arms with the club back so that at the top of your swing your left shoulder is over your flexed right knee and your back is facing your target. Your left heel can come off the ground, but careful to not push up and off swing center with it. I like to think of my collarbone as my swing center-everything must coil around it-not move laterally away from it. The weight at the top of your swing should feel 70-80% on your right side with the majority felt on the inside of your right heel.

This is the easy part-we just undo what we just did by pulling the arms, hips and legs down and through the ball so we end up with a full turn-hips facing the target, arms high and the weight is now 90% on the left foot with the right toe and knee falling into the left leg to maximize power!

To maximize power you must use wrists, arms and coil (pivot) to achieve more distance. The following drill will help you develop the upper body turn and wrist action: Set-up in the athletic position stated above. Then use a mid-iron and set-up with your feet together and a tee in the middle of your stance.

Swing the arms just below the waist(one quarter swing) making sure you hinge the wrists, and clip the tee out of the ground. Gradually swing higher and as you do so make sure your hips are turning and at a full swing your back faces the target. Keep clipping tees until you are consistent, then go ahead with your feet together and clip three tees and then "clip" three balls. This drill encourages hip and shoulder turn along with cocking the wrists and sending the arms in the correct position!

Keeping the Point Between You and the Hole

Q. What Does "Keeping the Point Between You and the Hole" Mean?

A. When a golfer dunks his ball into a water hazard (as differentiated from a lateral water hazard), one of his options is to drop behind the water hazard.

The rules, specifically Rule 26-1b, describes the procedure for the drop:

"Drop a ball behind the water hazard, keeping the point at which the original ball last crossed the margin of the water hazard directly between the hole and the spot on which the ball is dropped, with no limit to how far behind the water hazard the ball may be dropped."

Many golfers fail to understand exactly what this means, specifically "keeping the point at which the original ball last crossed the margin of the water hazard directly between the hole and the spot on which the ball is dropped."

What does that mean - keeping the point between you and hole? What direction are you supposed to be going? On what line, exactly, are you allowed to drop?

It's really very easy to understand once it's visualized correctly.

But before we visualize that line, let's make clear what this rule does not mean.

"Keeping the point at which the original ball last crossed the margin of the water hazard directly between the hole and the spot on which the ball is dropped" has nothing to do with the direction your ball was traveling when it entered the hazard.

Let's repeat: the line of flight of your original ball does not matter. You might have sliced or hooked it, pushed or pulled it, or hit it dead straight. It does not matter.

OK, with that out of the way, here's how to visualize the line on which you're allowed to drop behind a water hazard.

Take a look at the flagstick. Now look at the point at which your ball crossed the margin of the hazard. Now imagine drawing a line extending straight back from the flagstick to that point. Now imagine that line continuing to travel straight back, from the flagstick to the point where your ball crossed the margin, and continuing straight back hundreds of yards.

That is the line on which you must drop.