Golf - Instruction

Safe Landing!

golf punk - planes

The key to great driving is to approach the ball with a “shallow” angle of attack. Most poor drivers of the golf ball, have too steep of an attack angle which is culprit behind pop-ups, slices, toe hits and all of those nasty little scratches on the top of your club! To get an idea of what it means to be steep versus shallow, think of the flight off an airplane. A plane that is crashing into the ground is traveling on too steep of an angle of descent. A plane that is landing safely is approaching the runway on a “shallow” angle, so much so that the plane will fly for a decent period of time level to the ground before touching down smoothly. To avoid a crash landing with your driver, practice making some swings just above the height of your golf ball. This may feel like making a baseball swing at a really low pitch. Once you can consistently just miss the top of the ball, bend your posture over a touch so that the clubhead smacks the back of the ball. The angle of attack for an absolutely perfect tee shot will leave your tee standing tall!

Jeff Ritter teaches at the ASU... Full Story

Book Review - “The Stack and Tilt Golf Swing”

Written by Andy Plummer and Mike Bennett

I am not intending to critique the efficiency of the Stack & Tilt methodology, but rather give you my opinion of the book.

This methodology has received much publicity due primarily to an investment on the part of its distributors and backers than to any lasting success. A few second tier PGA TOUR players have heartily endorsed its teachings while its most prominent players, Mike Weir and Aaron Baddeley, have abandoned its teachings as their performance has caused them to plummet in the rankings.

Essentially, the Stack and Tilt swing derives its name from an initial backswing move in which the weight is stacked above and over the front leg and the spine is tilted toward the target inviting a “reverse pivot.” As with everything else in golf, there is more to it than that, but a central premise of the Stack and Tilt — and...

Instruction

Not in Mid-Season Form Yet? Try Strategizing Better
With July 4th in the rearview window, the heart of summer, and real golf season, starts today. Let’s make 2010 the year you get it right. So to help you avoid the usual pitfalls, I have compiled a list of the then biggest mistakes most golfers make. Avoid these and I guarantee you will score better. Here’s the deal: I don’t know you, and you might well be a better golfer than me, but I know more about golf than all but a handful of people in this country, and I have played with hundreds of different players of all abilities, from ...
Brian Davis: Stop Patting His Back
We have all seen it or heard about it by now. Brian Davis was battling Jim Furyk in a playoff for the Verizon Heritage Championship at Harbour Town Golf Links this Sunday. He pulled his ball into the sandy, reedy hazard to the left of the eighteenth green. From there he still had a decent chance to get up and down and send the playoff to another hole. Instead, in his backswing he clipped a twig or a reed that was loose on the ground, and in the end assessed himself a two shot penalty after consultation with a PGA ...
Think about This When You're Stroking Your Practice Putts
At the beginning of the 2000s, researchers and club designers out on the front lines began making noises about a New Putting Century. They foresaw the end of a barbaric era in which putting is neither taught nor learned. They noticed aiming skills becoming a cause celebre among knowledgeable weekend players, and green-reading emerging as a popular art form--no longer a guessing game. Their solution for the global putting malaise unites the eyes, the mind and the emotions and makes the putting stroke, itself, a natural by-product of new internal wiring. Consistent, fluid motion with the putter is certainly a goal, ...
Your Own Personal Launch Monitor
If you’ve recently gone to a pro for a lesson, been fit for clubs, or attended a demo day, chances are you’ve have your shots dissected by a launch monitor. Make a few swings, make a few clicks on the computer, and receive a screen’s worth of data on distance, flight, and dispersion—more information than most golfers’ brains can handle. A few years ago, these high-tech systems were large, bulky, and prohibitively expensive, and your pro likely needed a Ph.D. in physics before he or she could help you cure that nasty slice. But it was just a matter of time ...
Three of a Kind: Smart, Simple Practice Aids
The best golf practice devices are the simplest golf practice devices: easy to use, easy to understand, and likely to effect real—and positive—change in your game. At the PGA Show a few months back, I saw three products that should meet all these criteria. The Little One (left) is an aptly named swing trainer designed to help you hit the ball better and longer while also improving your concentration and confidence. It’s a very simple, yet brilliant, idea: A standard-length 7-iron with a head roughly half the size of what you’re used to. From chipping to full swings, practicing with the ...

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