Pitching Consistency Tip

There’s almost nothing worse than “flubbing” a pitch shot. And often when we practice our pitching we are trying to hit one good shot after another.

We’re searching for consistency in other words.

But so much of golf improvement is counter-intuitive, and this new tip today definitely is… However, ironically, if you do it you will become a better and more consistent pitcher.
So here goes…

The next time you go and practice your pitching I don’t want you to try to hit one good shot after another with the same trajectory. Instead, every shot I want you to alter something to get a different trajectory on the shot.

So let’s say you’re practicing a 50 yard pitch shot. I want you to play the shot with 4 different trajectories.

The first one is super low.

The low pro spinner.

When you play this shot right the ball flies low, bounces a couple of times and spins to a stop. To play that shot play the ball back in your stance, have your hands forward at address and then keep the follow-through short so you hit a punch pitch.

After you’ve played that shot then play another ball and hit your “normal” pitch shot trajectory. So move the ball forward so it’s in the middle of your stance. Have the clubshaft more straight
up and down at address. Then make a similar swing back and through.

Next up, get another ball and play a high pitch shot. To play this shot position the ball further up in your stance, have the clubshaft at address leaning back a fraction. Once setup then swing a bit
longer and smoother to get the ball up in the air more than normal.

Finally, I want you to play a super high pitch shot. To do this position the ball a long way up in your stance. Open the clubface up. Have your clubshaft leaning back away from the target and then
make a big, fast swing.

So there you go. That’s 4 shots to practice that will improve your pitching consistency.

You may think that this is too difficult because you can’t even master one basic pitch shot.

That’s where the counter-intuitive part of golf improvement comes in.

Because golf is all about golf club control. The better you control the golf club to get the ball to do what you want, the lower you’ll score. And a great way to learn how to control the club better is
to do random things with it.

If you try and do the same swing over and over again you’ll often won’t get any better and often will get worse.

So the next time you practice your pitching go out there and mix up your shots. Try and do a different trajectory for each shot and watch your control of the club improve and your scores will go down the more you do this.

Anyway, that’s my new, fresh tip for you today. Enjoy trying that out and let me know how you get on.

Do This To Hole More Putts

There’s little things you can do that over the long term will drop shots from your scores. Today I’m going to share one of those little things with you and I bet you’ve never done it before.

You see, it’s well known for golfers to stand behind their ball on the putting green and visualize their ball rolling into the hole.

But I have a unique twist on doing this that will help you to hole more putts. HOWEVER, you will need to practice this on the putting green to get used to it, because you would have never done it before.

To do this, here’s what I want you to do.

On the practice putting green putt a ball in the hole or place the ball in the hole. Doesn’t matter what you do. Just the ball needs to be in the hole.

Once the ball is in a hole then study it. Take a real good mental image of that ball in the hole. Next I want you to pick the ball out of the hole and place it 3 feet from the hole.

Then go through the same putting routine you’d use on the golf course for this length of putt. But on the last look at the hole I want you to imagine the ball already at the bottom of the hole. Then I want you to visualize the ball coming out of the hole and rolling perfectly along the line to your putterface. Right where the ball is. As soon as your eyes come back to the ball then putt and send the ball on the line you’ve just seen.

This might seem odd at first, but give it a try and I’m sure you’ll find you hole more putts incorporating this little mental change into your putting routine.

Your Golf Scores Are Determined By This

I want you to think back to your last 10 games of golf. Were they mainly in the 90’s?  Were they in the 80’s or 70’s?

Whatever the average was, I’m sure you’d like to score lower.

But there’s one thing that if you don’t understand can stop that, no matter what you try to do technically to improve your golf game.

You see…

Your brain loves to keep things the same.

That’s why golfers have one good nine followed by one bad nine… TO KEEP THEM AT THEIR LEVEL!

That’s also why golfers have one bad nine followed by a great one.

That’s why golfers will often have a great round going and blow up the last 4 or 5 holes.

See, your mind loves familiarity.

If you see yourself as a 90’s shooter then that’s what you’ll always be… UNLESS you do something different.

Everyone knows that.

That’s why golfers buy new golf clubs. That’s why golfers try to improve their swings. That’s why golfers practice more.

While a lot of those things can certainly help golfers to lower their scores… they won’t make a big difference until the golfer starts to see themselves as an improved golfer.

I’m talking about long term improvement progress here. Any golfer can have a hot day and burn the course up. But over 10 games you’ll see an average and that will determine your level of play.

So how can you change it?

How can you move into a different scoring bracket?

Well, obviously this is a mental issue.

It’s a mental issue that’s causing you to play great one nineand crap the next.

Now what I’m about to give you is a long term solution. It’s things that you need to do day after day to program your mind for your new “normal”.

I’ll break this up into 3 tips for you…

Tip 1 – Spend 5 minutes relaxing and with your eyes closed imagining yourself playing a game of golf and playing very well. After each hole, see yourself writing down a good score.
Your good round should put you into a new scoring bracket by about 5 shots. So if you normally score low 90’s then visualize scoring high 80’s. You’ll need to do this daily. It will take time for you to change your scoring belief.

Tip 2 – Get a scorecard from your course and every day, write down a good score for you on each hole, then total it up. Do this with pencil so you can rub it out and do it every day.
After you write down your score get excited about the good score.  Really feel happy about your great score.

Tip 3 – Write down what sort of level of golfer you want to be.So again, if you’re a 90’s shooter then write down...

“I am a golfer that generally shoots in the high 80’s”

Write this down every day 20-30 times.

There you go, that’s 3 tips to help you start to break your mind familiarity trait. You will need to do this consistently for agood month or two. Don’t do this once, play a game, notice nodifference and give up.

What I’m talking about is your average score.

Everyone has a bad game. Everyone has a good game.

Your average score determines your handicap and level of play.

And to change that you need to change your perception of yourself as a golfer.

Brooks Koepka Golf Swing Analysis

Wasn’t that an awesome final round of the 2018 PGA Championship?

Best major of the year in my opinion. Of course, it helped with Tiger Woods surging up the leaderboard on the final day. But how rock solid was Brooks Koepka under the pressure?!

Hitting long and straight drives, sticking his irons and holing pressure putts.  Let’s take a look at how Brooks did that…

Brooks Koepka – Golf Swing Analysis

First we’ll start by looking at how Brooks sets up to the golf ball.

What an athlete!

Just by his setup it looks like he’s going to crush it. Brooks has a very athletic, ready to explode setup. There’s a few things I just want to point out.

1. He has quite a lot of knee flex at setup.

2. He has quite a strong grip, and I’ll show you how that affects his swing later in this analysis.

3. Brooks is a long hitter and one thing long hitters do is tee up the ball very high and have the ball positioned a long way forward in their stance. Plus, they have wide stances to give a solid platform to explode. Brooks does all of these things, as you can see.

One thing I want you to notice at this point in the analysis is the distance between his knees at setup. There’s a lot of space between his knees.

Ok, let’s look and see how Brooks takes the club away. I’ll draw a few important lines on the swing images so we can track his head movement, swing plane and tush line…

Brooks has a nice wide take away as you can see above left. He takes the club away on plane with his hands but the club head is outside. I have heard him talk about how he does that on purpose to help him hit a power fade.

Notice how closed the clubface is and how much outside the clubhead is from the hands. Again, he is doing this on purpose to hit a power fade. It seems counterintuitive to have a closed clubface in the backswing to hit a power fade but a lot of the golf swing is counterintuitive. Now let’s look at the half way point in his swing to see how his shaft plane is.

The clubshaft is quite vertical at this point in the backswing but if you err on one side or the other in the backswing, you should have the club shaft more vertical in the backswing. This is the opposite of what most amateur golfers do.

Most amateurs take the club back too flat and then come down too steep.

At the top of the backswing Brooks has a very closed clubface. It’s a great top of the backswing position though and one thing to note is the distance between his knees has largely stayed the same from setup to the top of the backswing. His knees have moved very little. You need to be very flexible to be able to do that and still make a full turn. Speaking of that… his turn with his shoulders is not massive. If he let his knees go a bit more he could turn further, but there’s no point in doing that with his length.

Remember I mentioned how his backswing plane was quite steep?

Well, unless he shallows the plane a lot in the downswing he would be a terrible ball striker. Of course he’s not, so check this shallowing out….

That’s some serious shallowing of the club shaft. Check out the blue line compared to the yellow line. If he came down on the same plane as he went back you would have never heard of Brooks Koepka.

When the club is parallel with the ground (left pic above) you can see that he is back on plane with his hands and club. The clubface is closed which it should be to hit a power fade. He wants the ball to start to the left. You can see in the pre-impact picture that he is leading with the hands and his head is slightly behind where it was at address.

Look at the image above of impact. You can tell the ball is starting left. He has maintained his tush line. Then in the picture of post impact you can see there is very little forearm rotation. The clubface is not flipping over, which will lead to consistent power fades.

Look at how he is still maintaining his tush line and how he is keeping down with his head. This is allowing him to swing more down the line rather than around.

Even at this stage in his swing he has his head down and he’s still maintaining his tush line. You have to be very athletic and flexible to do that!

What a great finish. He has maintained his tush line right the way through the swing until the end. Simply awesome.

I really like Brooks’ swing. He has proved it holds up well to major pressure. I believe he will win more majors. He seems to get himself up a notch for them. Not a bad trait to have!

So what’s the big take-aways for you when looking at Brooks Koepka’s swing?

Well, there’s a couple of important things.

1st. Work on maintaining your tush line throughout the swing and you’ll hit more consistent golf shots.

2nd. If your swing plane is too flat on the backswing and then too steep on the downswing like this….

…then you need to change it so it’s at the very least similar on the way back as it is on the way down, like Tiger Woods…

If you don’t do that then you’ll always struggle with your ball striking.

To help you do this, I have 3 Easy Steps you can complete to get a Professional Swing Plane.  So if you suffer from any of these shots often:

• Hooks and/or Slices
  
• Fat Shots
  
• Thin Shots
  
• Shanks
  
• Tops
  
• Duffs
  
• Whiffs
  You name it…

Then your poor swing plane is probably the major reason why. But you can fix it. And when you do you’ll hit the ball so much more consistently than ever. If you don’t fix it you’ll always struggle with your ball striking. Don’t let that happen. Go here and get the 3 Easy Steps To A Pro Swing plane program.

Are You Guilty Of This Golfing Sin?

With distance measuring devices being common place now you’d think golfers would not be short of the pin as much as they are.

Think back to your last game of golf and add up how often you were short of the pin.

Imagine how many shots you could save if you got the ball to the hole more often.

Some people will tell you that you’re under clubbing and that’s why you’re hitting it short. If you don’t know your distances very well there could be some truth to that, but I think there’s a bigger reason why most golfers end up short of the pin.

I think for most golfers, they have a fear of hitting the ball past the pin. Like there’s some sort of monster past the pin. 🙂 Which is odd because most golf course architects put most of the trouble in front of the green.

Generally, I DON’T think the solution to this “coming up short” problem is selecting one more club. Because often when I see golfers do that they are still often short of the pin with the longer club.

Instead, I think there should be a mind game you play to help you hit shots up to the pin more often.

To help you do this, the next time you play golf I want you to stand behind your iron shots and imagine your ball flying over the flag by 20 – 30 feet. Make a conscious effort to do this on every shot where you have a good chance of getting to the pin. Be very detailed with your visualization and see the ball flying further than the pin. Then when you’re over the ball and looking at your target look beyond the target by 20-30 feet, like you did when you were standing behind the ball.

Then make an aggressive swing.

Try this out the next time you play golf and I’m sure you’ll be shocked at how many more times you’re pin high. This will help you score no end because, like I said in the beginning of this email, most trouble is short of the hole.

How To Make Every Putt

This golf tip is going to help you hole more putts, but if you apply what I’m saying you’ll make every putt you attempt.

Let me explain the subtle difference of what I’m talking with a famous story about Jack Nicklaus.

Jack Nicklaus was a great putter. There’s no doubt about that. But he missed putts like everyone does. However, in his mind he believed he was a great putter and didn’t miss putts… especially in the heat of  battle.

For example, there’s a famous story of him telling an audience that he’s never three putted the last hole of a tournament or missed from inside of three feet. After saying that, Jack opens the floor to take questions and a man puts up his hand and says to Jack…

“Jack you say you’ve never missed from inside of three feet on the last hole of a tournament, but I was watching you last month in a major tournament and that’s exactly what you did.”

Jack looked at the man and repeated that he had never missed from inside of three feet on the last hole of a tournament.

“But Mr Nicklaus”, the man insisted, “I saw it, I have it on film, I can send it to you if you like”.

“No need”, Jack replied, “I have never missed from inside of three feet on the last hole of a tournament. Are there any more questions?”

So what’s going on here?

Is Jack Nicklaus a liar?

Well, we all lie but what I think Jack was referring to was that he made the putt, it just didn’t go in.

And that happens all the time when we putt.

We can hit a putt exactly as we want but the ball doesn’t go in.

That’s golf.

But to hole more putts you actually need to use that “I did everything I could” mentality… and here’s how.

You need a “to do” list for every putt that you run through, and if you do it then you made the putt irrelevant of whether the ball goes in the hole or not, because…

… if you judge your putting success on whether the ball goes in the hole or not you will become too results orientated, and that will affect your results long term.

It’s counter-intuitive but true.

As far as what you need to focus on to make every putt you need to look at the basics of putting. Which are….

Starting the ball on the line you’ve chosen and with the pace you’ve chosen.  Then of course there’s green reading. So there’s 3 main parts to putting.

1. Starting line
2. Pace
3. Green Reading

Let’s put this into action on an 8 foot putt.

First you’re going to look at the green and try to judge the way the putt is going to break. Let’s say in this case it’s a right to left putt.

How much it breaks is going to be determined by the pace you hit the putt with.

For this example, let’s say you choose to hit the putt so that if it misses the ball will go about a foot past the hole. And to do that you need to aim at the right lip. That’s your thinking anyway.

So to make the putt you need to start the ball on a line that’s going directly at the right lip of the hole with the pace you want.

When you putt like this there’s going to be a couple of things that will happen.

1. You will start the ball on the line you want, or you won’t.
2. You will hit the putt with the pace you want, or you won’t.

For this example, imagine starting the ball on the right lip line and hitting the putt with the correct pace and as the ball is rolling towards the hole it hits an old pitch mark that you didn’t notice and knocks it just to the right so that the ball lips out on the right hand side.

You hit the putt just how you wanted but it missed.

Not your fault, greens aren’t perfect.

According to the criteria of making a putt, e.g. starting the ball on the line you wanted with the pace you wanted, then you made the putt.

That’s the philosophy you need when you’re putting to hole more putts.

Again, it’s counterintuitive but it works.

Every putt you face I want you to focus on doing everything you can control and let the outcome take care of itself. Forget about the hole, just let it get in the way of your ball.

If you’re lucky enough to play golf this weekend, try that.

Focus on making every putt NOT on holing every putt.

You will never hole every putt, BUT you can make every putt.

I know that will help you hole more putts without trying to. So have fun doing that!

Callaway Epic Driver Review

Over this past year I’ve purchased and tested over 20 drivers from different companies.

I haven’t sent out any reviews on any of them for a couple of reasons…

One of the main reasons is that nowadays you can go on Youtube and see reviews of any driver quickly and easily. However, I would question the “unbiased nature” of many of those reviews, because most of the reviews are by people who have been given the club for free. Even if there is no intention to talk up a product, there is by default a hidden code not to trash a product you’ve been given for free.

I could have gone to the golf companies and got free drivers to do reviews, but I didn’t want to do that because that’s what everyone does. There’s nothing different in doing a review on a driver you’re given for free.

If you’re given something you have no investment in it.

But that’s not the main reason I didn’t do reviews on all of those drivers individually. The main reason is because…

Drivers
Are At Their Legal Limits

So if that’s the case, why did I buy 20 drivers?

I did that for you!

Because there is so much marketing crap in the golf equipment market, I wanted to do this experiment to let you know the truth about drivers so you know how to buy a driver that will help you lower your scores. So let’s start looking at this truth (some still won’t want to hear this, but here goes)…

From my experiment of hitting different driver after different driver I quickly found that if you hit a good shot with ANY driver it will go as far as any other driver. So if that’s the case (and it is!) how do you choose a driver that is going to help lower your scores.

Well, from my experiment I quickly found some important things, which are…

1. Look. You must like the way a driver looks when you pick it up. If a golfer doesn’t like the look of a driver from the get go, I think most golfers will struggle with that driver. There’s always exceptions to any rule however. There will be golfers somewhere that will have a driver they don’t like the look of that they enjoy hitting. But with drivers at their legal limits I don’t see a point in having a driver like that.

2. Sound. I think sound has a big part to play in whether you like a driver or not. I don’t particularly like the sound of Ping drivers so I don’t gravitate to them. A lot of players like that high pitch ping sound but I’m not one of them.

3. Feel. This can encompass a lot of different things. It can be the feel when you’re holding the driver. It can be the feel of the ball being struck. It can be the feel of the driver as you’re swinging it.

4. There’s no perfect driver! From my experiment of hitting many different drivers I quickly found that there is no perfect driver. Even if you have a driver that you like the look of, sounds great and feels good, you will still hit bad golf shots. So don’t write a driver off after a couple of bad shots if it fills the 3 previous criteria.

With all that being said, you hear stories of golfers picking up 20 yards with a new driver. So if drivers are at their legal limits how can that happen?

Simple.

When a particular golfer picks up a new driver that gains them 20 yards they are changing three things as they are hitting the ball that is giving them extra yards. Those three things are…

1. Improved contact location.

2. Improved launch angle.

3. Improved angle of attack.

It’s been very well documented that if you hit a modern driver more above the center of the clubface and slightly on the toe then a ball will go a lot further than if it’s hit lower on the face.

It’s also been well documented that if a golfer has a low launch angle and they get that up then (can often be done by an increased loft on the clubface. And what a loft says on the club is often not true) they will hit the ball further.

And it’s been well documented that if a golfer goes from hitting down with a driver to hitting up on a driver then they will gain a lot of distance.

So if a golfer is hitting a driver low on the face with a low launch angle and hitting down on the ball, and then they do the opposite with a new driver they will gain heaps of distance.

The question then is… can hitting a different driver actually help a golfer to do that?

The answer, from my experiment is… YES!

From the 20 drivers I hit I narrowed the drivers I liked down to 5.

All the drivers were the same in terms of legal limits but the 5 drivers I liked helped me to get better numbers on the launch monitor.

How did that happen?

Because I liked the way they looked, I liked the way they felt, I like the way they sounded. Those things all combined to help me get better numbers.

I have no idea why “scientifically” (apart from a club loft being different on different drivers even though they are all supposedly the same loft!) but that’s what happened.

Now this is a review of the Callaway Epic driver and you may have noticed I haven’t talked about that yet. 🙂

The reason I gave you that big long introduction is because I don’t want you to ever get sucked into the marketing that these companies bring out. Drivers are at their legal limits! If you hear of golfers gaining yards with a “new” driver it’s because of those golfers changing their impact conditions with a new driver.

With that being said, Callaway came out with the Epic driver that had jail break technology, which was supposed to help golfers hit longer drives. Let’s see if that was true or not…

There were two Callaway Epic driver models. The first was the Callaway Epic and the second was the Callaway Epic sub-zero.

I purchased both of these drivers and they do actually look quite different. I thought the Epic driver was much rounder than the Epic sub-zero. I just didn’t like the look of the Epic diver at all from the get go. Then I hit it and it just seemed to have a hook bias for me. I quickly gave it up because of that. And that raises another interesting point about driver testing.

Generally speaking, a good golfer can hit a driver 3 – 5 times and tell whether they like it or not.

That’s probably a good bench mark for your driver testing as well. Hit 5 shots with a driver and see if you like it. If not, move on. You don’t need to buy 20 drivers. Just go test different drivers to see if you can find one that beats your current gamer in terms of looks, feel, sound, forgiveness and of course, distance!

Ok, so I quickly ruled out the Epic driver because I didn’t like the look of it, the way it sat and it felt like it was going to turn the ball over.

So the rest of this review is going to be on the Epic sub-zero driver.

As far as looks is concerned, I loved the way it looks. It looks fantastic.

The sound is rather a dull sound. It’s quite muted. I wasn’t a huge fan of that. It wasn’t a bad sound, it’s just not loud enough in my opinion. Maybe that has something to do with the Jailbreak technology. And on that note…

There’s heaps of stuff on Jailbreak technology on the net. But in short, it’s simply a couple of titanium rods just behind the clubface to stop the club from expanding when it’s hit, and that apparently will help transfer more energy to the ball so a golfer gets more ball speed from the face.

So all this Jailbreak technology is meant to do is increase ball speed when you hit the driver.

Now onto the performance…

When you play golf you do so on the golf course, you don’t play on a launch monitor. So I took this driver out to the golf course and tested it against my current gamer driver. And in my on-course testing I found this driver to be comparable to my gamer driver in terms of distance. It wasn’t any longer, but it was more inaccurate and not as forgiving.

All in all, it was an “ok” driver for me but nothing special.

The looks were awesome but it didn’t go any longer or straighter than my current driver so I sold it.

I guess the moral of this story is… don’t get sucked into marketing B.S.

I have heard some golf pros say that this Jailbreak technology is possibly adding a mile or two ball speed for some golfers. Come on, give me a break (pun intended)!

If a golfer hits this driver a lot further than their current driver (as long as it’s fairly new) it’s because of improved impact conditions. Nothing more – because drivers are at the legal limits.

I found it very interesting buying and testing the 20 drivers over the past year. I understand that not many golfers can do this… and they don’t need to. Remember, when I said that most good golfers can tell within 3 – 5 shots if they like a driver. That’s all you need to do. Go test lots of drivers if you want.

Hit a driver for 3 – 5 shots and you’ll know within that time frame whether to explore getting that driver some more. If you don’t like it then move on.

Naturally I could have done that, but I wanted to invest something more into this process and spend a long time testing these drivers. I won’t do this ever again but I’m glad I did it, because hopefully it will help some golfers somewhere not to get sucked into marketing hype that some new driver is going to add yards to their drives.

As I write this there is going to be a new Callaway driver that will apparently supersede the 2017 Epic driver.

I’m not knocking Callaway here either. It’s their business to sell golf equipment. And if you buy a new driver every year that’s fine. But remember, the only way a driver is going to help someone increase distance (as long as they’re using a pretty recent driver) is by improved impact conditions.

Golf Backswing Secret

How To Take Your Range Game To The Golf Course

One common question I get about the mental game is…

“I hit it great on the range but can’t take that to the golf course. Got any tips to help with this?”

This is such a common problem and the reason why this happens is so simple…

On the range there’s no consequence for a bad shot. So on the range you’re not worried about slicing it because there’s no O.B. to the right for example. You’re not worried about hitting the ball well to carry water because there is none… You get the idea.

On the golf course you only get 1 shot and each shot matters. And when you’re standing on a tee with O.B. on the right and water to the left it can cause panic. But there is one very simple thing you can do to help you in these situations, and that’s this…

When you’re on the golf course, imagine you’re hitting a shot on the driving range. Pick a target you want to hit your shot to but don’t look at all the trouble. Instead, get over your ball and imagine you’re on the range.

Now that advice raises an important point.

I said to pick a target you want to hit your shot to. But if you don’t do that on the driving range then you’re wasting your time following this advice. Because you can imagine yourself on the range as much as you want, but if you’re not in the habit of picking out targets to hit your shots to when you practice then naturally this is not going to transfer over to the golf course.

On the golf course you also need to trust your swing and commit to the process of hitting the shot. A good thing to help you do that is to imagine you’re a robot hitting a shot. Because imagine a robot hitting a shot with out of bounds down one side, a robot is not going to be nervous about that. Instead, they just aim at a target and hit to the target, without emotion.

Emotion is a big reason why golfers can’t take their range game to the golf course. Hit a bad shot on the range and it’s no big deal. You just whack another ball. But hit a bad shot on the golf course and the world is about to end. When playing golf you need to try to take negative emotions out of shots.

This is why professional golfers often seem so emotionless. It’s because they have learned to play shots without the fear of consequence hanging over them.

They just select a target and swing…. like a robot.

So try these tips the next time you’re on the golf course, and I’m sure you’ll find that you swing more freely yet hit the ball straighter. I hope that helps you.

The Golf Swing Speed Challenge Video

Below is a video about The Golf Swing Speed Challenge.

Watch the video and learn how the golf swing speed challenge is going to help you hit much longer drives in record time.

The Golf Swing Speed Challenge has helped many golfers from all around the world to hit the golf ball longer, straighter and more consistently.

Have more fun hitting longer drives and start by watching this video…

 

Thanks for watching and click the link just above to start your own Golf Swing Speed Challenge