We’ve all the seen the long accurate drives of Tiger Woods. The ball flies through the air and lands in the middle of the fairway, 300 yards away.

The green-eyed monster of envy consumes us as we wonder if we could ever hope to drive like that. Fortunately, long drives are not the be-all-end-all game of golf.

Enter the short game. Without good short game skills, all the long drives are for naught.

The short game is those shots that get us onto the green from about one hundred feet out, be it from the fairway, a bunker, the rough or a drop zone and includes chips, sand shots and pitches.

This is where your higher numbered clubs would be used, as well as your pitching iron, sand wedge or lob wedge.

Most golf courses have practice areas as well as a driving range. Spend some time working on hitting your ball onto the green from different distances. Aim for a ten-foot circle in the center of the green at first. Experiment using your wedges; what works for someone else, might not work for you and your particular swing.

After you get accustomed to doing this drill consistently, it’s time to spend some time in a sand trap. Knowing how to get the ball out of a trap will cut your score.

Plant your feet firmly into the sand, with your left foot turned toward the hole. Imagine a 4-inch circle around the ball and try to hit the edge of the circle that is away from the ball.

Take lots of sand with your ball and swing completely. Don’t decelerate at all when or after you hit the ball. It should pop up onto the green and stop. This doesn’t work unless the sand is very soft and powdery. On hard surfaces, you might need to avoid actually hitting the sand.

As in all aspects of the game, only practice will help you to improve.

Pirates-Of-The-Green

The long game refers to your drives (shots off the tee) and fairway shots; everything short of the shots
you make to get onto the green.

Each hole has a different difficulty level, different par and distinctive hazards, so instructing you to use
your Driver on every tee would be blatantly wrong.

This is something you will learn over time as you learn the various shots you make according to the club, the placement of the ball and your personal swing.

Generally speaking, the lower the club number, the longer and lower your ball will go. A 4-iron shot will
travel long and low and will most likely roll, whereas a 9-iron shot will have much more loft and go less
distance both in the air and on the ground.

The professionals on television make it look so easy, they consistently hit the ball long and straight and never miss-hit the ball making it dribble ten feet, or completely miss the ball.

Driving is very important to the game, and many hours spent at the driving range will help improve your
distance. Experiment with the same club to see what works for you if you move the ball forward or backward in your stance. Take a lesson, if possible, and learn
the proper swing from the beginning.

Mastering the long game helps you get to the green in fewer strokes, keeping your score and frustration
level down. Remember that it takes a long time to learn consistency and remember to have fun!

Pirates Of The Green

Proper stance and posture in golf is extremely important, not only in the mechanics of the game but to protect you from injury. Posture is defined in the Golf Biodynamics Manual, (Check 1999) as “the position from which movement begins and ends”. Correct posture also reduces golfing injuries, promotes the ability to actually strike the ball, and enhances your power and stability. Anyone can work on achieving a correct posture; you don’t need to be a top athlete, or even a top golfer, but your golfing game will improve a great deal if you start with the correct posture and stance.

Good posture is where your shoulders are directly above your feet, and your head and spine are aligned. Your arms should be rotated outwards to keep shoulders and head back. You should not be standing with your back hunched over because this is what allows your head and shoulders to come too far forward. You can check that your spine is correctly straight by touching your golf club to it. Both butt and upper back should be touching the club.

The correct stance is one in which your heels are about the same width apart as your shoulders. Keeping your back straight, bend from the hips and let your hands hang down. Keep the ball in the bottom half of your vision to stop your chin from tucking in too far. Your knees should be slightly bent. Try and keep your body free from tension. If your muscles are tense, you could well suffer an injury that may take weeks to recover from. Many back and shoulder injuries come from poor posture and stance.

If you are right-handed, your right side should tilt slightly further down than your left, but your weight should be evenly distributed on, and more to the front of your feet. Your left foot should be flared about 20 degrees if you are a right-handed player. If you have good flexibility, you may also want to flare your right foot. You should practice all this in front of the mirror until it becomes automatic. Once you have achieved the correct posture and stance, the accuracy of your actual golf swing will be greatly enhanced.

When using a driver your feet should be slightly wider, with the inside of them in line with the outside of your shoulders. A good rule to remember is that the shorter the club you use, the less width there should be in your stance.

Pirates Of The Green

Playing golf should be an enjoyable experience, so if you find yourself losing your temper when you make a bad shot, what can you do about it? One thing that might help is to practice acceptance.

The first thing you need to accept is your own limitations. All players vary in their playing ability and this is not always due to experience. Physical ability has a lot to do with it. If you suffer from arthritis it will affect your game, no matter if you have the best teachers. If your body is simply not flexible enough for a good swing, it will affect your game. Find out what you can do about this – if anything - and do it. For instance, if you are simply not very limber, take off-course lessons in exercises and stretches to make you more fit. Your golf game will improve and your temper will have less reason to spark up.

Accept the game. A perfect game of golf is rarely if ever played by anyone. Even the pros have bad golf days. Why should yours be any different? Accept that bad shot as a challenge and concentrate on what you will do about recovering instead of wasting energy jumping up and down and shouting. It’s much smarter to get that ball back into play as quickly as possible. Once you’ve done that congratulate yourself on meeting the challenge.

Work out a game plan before you arrive at the course and stick to it. Decide you will choose a safer shot and use an easier club to manage it. This may take a bit of discipline, but you’ll thank yourself in the long run. Remember high blood pressure is a killer!

Accept the bad, but focus on the good. When you make a bad shot, immediately tell yourself what you liked about that good shot you played just before it. Say it out loud to trick your subconscious mind into feeling pleased. In your mind’s eye, see your ball rolling straight down the center of the green and into the hole. If it doesn’t happen, shrug and tell yourself it will next time.

Forget about being embarrassed at bad play. Heck, who’s perfect? Not you and certainly not your golfing friends. Remember that negative emotions make you tense and tension is likely to spoil your game and could even cause injury, so do yourself a favour and lighten up.

Breathe deeply and enjoy the day apart from the golf. Feel the wind in your hair, the sun on your face, listen to the birdsong, and breathe in the aroma of the green. It’s all great - enjoy it.

When you go for a game of golf you are expecting to enjoy yourself, right? But you know that since you are in reality ‘playing the course’ and hitting a still object (okay, trying to!) rather than one lobbed at you by an opponent, the blame for any mistakes you make sit squarely on your own shoulders. But don’t attach blame - to yourself or anyone else. Blaming is a pointless pursuit, and not only in golf. It simply happened, so deal with it and get on with the game.

So what happens when you end up in the rough or that water hazard? Sure it’s frustrating when every ball you hit goes bad, but don’t spit the dummy and pump up your blood pressure! For a start, if you become tense and angry you are more likely to suffer some kind of injury like a muscle strain or tear. Hey, you use up lots less energy when you remain calm. This means you’ll have more energy to use on improving your golf. Everyone suffers from frustration during a bad golf day, but it’s how you control it that is the key to winning out in the end.

Practice acceptance – you’ll probably have lots of chances to practice. One good way to remain positive when you hit a shot into that bunker is to immediately think of something great about the last shot you played. You have to speak this positive comment out loud. Listening to positive self–talk will cheer you up more than you thought possible.

If your ball is in an unfavorable lie, accept it as a challenge, not a threat. Don’t worry about past mistakes or future problems. The game you are playing is in the immediate present. That is all that matters.

Only count up the number of strokes for each hole. Leave the total calculation until you’ve finished the course. This saves a lot of stress. Remember that life wasn’t meant to be easy and the game of golf has no perfect players. Breathe deep and slowly. Be kind to yourself.

If you truly and totally suck at the game, go take professional lessons for a while. You’ll be amazed at the difference it makes. It will be worth every dime.

So you’ve thrown all your balls into the water and jumped on your golf clubs until they are bent. What should you do? Either give up golf or go take an anger management course. You choose.

Talk about eagles, birdies pars may make beginners scratch their heads, but keeping score in golf is really quite simple. It’s a matter of counting your whacks – whether they actually connect with the ball or not. Every time you strike at the ball it’s called a stroke, so you have to count the number of strokes it takes you to sink that little ball into the hole. You do this for each section (hole) and at the end you add up the number of strokes. Unlike many other games, you are aiming to get around the course with the fewest strokes possible.

Each hole is given a number called ‘par’ that represents the number of strokes you should need to get the ball into it. If the par is 4 and you have to hit the ball 5 times to get it in, then your score is one-over par. If by some miracle you only took 3 strokes to get it there your score is called 1-under.

Just to make things interesting, there are differing circumstances where things called penalty strokes apply. For instance, if you hit a ball out of the grounds or into an area like a water hazard where you cannot get at it, then that is considered a penalty shot and you must play a new ball from a specified location - with the first stroke for it being classed as your 2nd stroke for the hole.

If you actually sink your ball with just one stroke, it’s called an ace, while a birdie is when you score one stroke under par for a hole. That illusive eagle is two strokes under par and a bogey is the score a fairly good golfer would be expected to make on a hole, allowing two putts.

Another complication is the handicap. But this is not really hard to figure out. It is simply a number of strokes a player receives to adjust his score to a common level. The better the player, the smaller his handicap, while the best players have a handicap of zero. They are called ‘scratch’ players. A handicap allows a fair game of golf to be enjoyed by players of varying skill levels. Of course if you break the rules of play, you are likely to be hit with a penalty of two strokes.

It’s important to know the difference between ‘stroke play’ and match play, because different penalties apply, depending on which you are playing. Stroke play is when you are competing against the course; match play is when you compete against one or more people. For instance, in stroke play, if you tee off from outside the teeing ground you’ll incur a 2-stroke penalty. On the other hand, in ‘match’ play there will be no stroke penalty, but your opponent can cancel your shot and then you must replay it.