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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 ...

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, ...

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 ...

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 ...

They’ve got no shortage of trees in Portland, Oregon, which makes Ryan Davis of Portland’s Columbia Edgewater C.C. a good source for tips on how to escape from them. For starters, consider taking an unplayable lie if you’re deep into the treeline and liable to ricochet your next shot unpredictably. If you’re only a few yards deep and various escape routes present themselves, Davis advises high-percentage routes over high-risk ones. “Eight times out of 10 you can only play back to the fairway, not play for the green,” says Davis. Once you’ve accepted that, check out the yardage remaining. If a ...

Intelligence in this game is either a saving grace or causes death by over-thinking.  Where you stand and what it means may surprise you. It’s a warm, sunny Sunday afternoon and you’re enjoying your usual Nassau with your best golf buddy/nemesis.  He’s one up with two to play. No worries, though; you’ve been in this spot before and you’re confident that the match is far from over. Seventeen is a narrow, tricky par five that’s reachable with two perfect shots.  When your opponent grabs his driver, you think Bingo! I’m gonna win again. And the reason? Because, you say to yourself: I ...

Like any intrepid adventure traveler, today’s golfer should consider local conditions before and during his 18-hole journey.  In the same way that you’d think twice about picking up a rock in the desert (scorpions), or stowing that extra chocolate bar under your sleeping bag in the mountains (grizzlies), golfers also need to adjust to the specific dangers of their surroundings—and plan for those hazards before packing their clubs.  For example, you probably won’t want the seven-wood in a place where the wind howls, or the flop wedge in Scotland (or even at Bandon Dunes, in Oregon), where the blade is ...

Train like a champion. Are you ready? Gary Gilchrist has been doing it for more than 25 years – first as a top-ranked amateur and professional golfer in South Africa, then as a leading instructor for many of the world’s best junior golfers over a storied 16-year career that began at IMG’s David Leadbetter Junior Golf Academy. Now, Gilchrist is taking his proven, “Train Like a Champion,” techniques to even higher levels at the newly formed Gary Gilchrist Golf Academy. Based at the award-winning Mission Inn Golf and Tennis Resort just outside of Orlando in Howey-in-the-Hills, Fla., the Gilchrist Golf Academy actually ...

Ready to take the guesswork out of your golf game? Total Performance Golf (TPG) at the Biltmore in Coral Gables, Fla. was specifically designed to provide players with the ultimate golf learning experience. “Most golfers today are over taught and under trained,” says TPG founder Justin Bruton. “Fifteen years ago, the average American male golfer’s handicap was 16.2, and the average female golfer’s handicap was 29.” Golf equipment has improved dramatically since the mid-1990s, he notes,  but average handicaps in the U.S. have remained the same.  Moreover, the overall fitness and physical abilities of most players has declined. “No amount of training or ...

This is what the shanks are like: you are a healthy, fit, athletic fifty-year-old man who still plays many sports competitively.  One morning you wake up and go down to the kitchen for breakfast, and on your way back up to the bathroom you realize that you just cannot remember how to correctly climb the stairs.  There’s nothing wrong with you—no cognitive meltdown, no physical infirmity.  Your legs work fine, you feel good.  You know you’ve been up the stairs maybe a million times before in your life, but each time you try to ascend something happens.  You fall down.  ...

After seriously taking up golf a few years ago, Southern California resident Lynn Silberstein has become quite passionate about the game. So, when Lynne’s husband, Michael, gave her the choice to go somewhere special last October for her birthday, Lynne, 61, jumped at the opportunity to, well, go play golf. When the Silbersteins signed up for Miraval Resort’s Miraval Golf Experience in Tucson, Ariz., they expected the usual upscale golf environment – first-class golf course amenities and equipment, state-of-the-art video coaching and the latest in swing tips and techniques. What they didn’t expect was a mind-altering experience that not only helped ...

Quick, what country has produced the men’s individual winner or runner-up in three of the last five NCAA Championships? If you guessed the United States, you’re wrong. If you guessed America’s hockey-loving neighbor to the north, you certainly know your college golf.  Yes, led by defending NCAA national champion Matt Hill of North Carolina State University and ’08 NCAA runner-up Nick Taylor of the University of Washington (former Washington player James Lepp won the NCAA title in ’05), Canada, of all places, can now claim the crown as golf’s collegiate kings.  Meanwhile, as Taylor and Hill continue to put Canada on the ...

Not that you would ever watch golf on television, but if you did you’d likely see Tour players executing the occasional shot that might cause you to reflect: ‘I’d be as likely to grow antlers as make a shot like that.’  And I’m not just talking about 300-yard drives or high, perfect five-iron shots that plunge to the green and jump into the hole.  I’m talking about shots that seem to defy physics and appear as if they’ve been created by the special effects department. Here’s an ironic fact: the players who can successfully pull off these shots are also the ...

The Gary Gilchrist Golf Academy announced PGA Tour veteran Scott Gump officially joined the Academy’s flagship facility at Mission Inn Golf and Tennis Resort near Orlando. Gump, who’s been a full-time member of the PGA Tour since 1991, has been hired as a full-time coach and certainly adds further respect to the elite junior golf academy based in Howey-in-the-Hills. Gump, who grew up in Merritt Island, Fla., has actually been working with the Academy for a couple weeks and is excited about his latest career move into junior golf. “Getting a chance to still be surrounded by competitive golfers with that burning ...

Many balding, slightly paunchy 40-somethings like me, fueled by a few beers, a few dropped putts, or a combination of the two, will entertain the notion that come fifty, their game will suddenly come together and they may give it a go on the Senior Tour. I have not entertained such notions in the past, mostly because I am terrible…though not so terrible that I don't occasionally break 100.  Thanks to a greatly abbreviated swing, I tend to hit the ball straight, though my distances tend to average those of a man twice my age.  My level of lower mediocrity is ...

Gary Gilchrist welcomed a familiar face back at his Orlando, Fla.-area golf academy when Oklahoma State University star Morgan Hoffmann recently showed up for a training tune up with his longtime instructor. Hoffmann, last year’ NCAA Freshman Player of the Year, has actually trained with Gilchrist for the past three years. A native of Wyckoff, N.J., Hoffmann originally met Gilchrist as a high-school junior at the International Junior Golf Academy, which Gilchrist ran at the time as director of instruction. On Hoffman’s late December trip to Mission Inn Golf and Tennis Resort, home base for the Gilchrist Academy, the top-ranked amateur golfer ...

Your ball is in fairway or light rough, about 30 yards away from the hole, and you’re playing a shot that you would like to see land in the neighborhood of the flag, skip once or twice, then bite and hold. For the average player, this is as close as we get to the show-off shot in which our ball lands with backspin “juice” and actually sucks back toward the point it was played from. In reality, say the teaching pros, it’s just as valuable as that moonwalker shot you see on TV. Mike Bender, founder and director of instruction at The ...

When a skier has occasion to curse the placement of a certain tree, it’s likely he has a splint or a cast in his future. When a golfer has one single tree bedeviling him, the only professional help needed is from someone like Brian Bryson, who teaches at Hartefeld National in Avondale, Pa. In Bryson’s arsenal of escape shots, the big rainbow shot over a mature tree is listed as a true hero shot that is rewarding to pull off and often fun just to try. That said, he begins his mini-lesson on this shot by requiring students to evaluate whether ...

Howey-in-the-Hills, Fla. - Two-time LPGA tour winner Yani Tseng, the No. 6-ranked player in the world in the current Rolex Rankings, recently spent several hours at the Gary Gilchrist Golf Academy getting a complete golf tune-up with Gary Gilchrist. As part of her trip to GGGA’s headquarters at Mission Inn Golf & Tennis Resort, Tseng, the LPGA Tour’s 2008 Louise Suggs Rolex Rookie of the Year, was also paying Gilchrist a personal visit to explore coaching compatibility on a longer term basis for the 2010 season. Tseng, a native of Taiwan, first met Gilchrist in 2004 when Gilchrist was training Michelle Wie at ...

With a coaching career that spans nearly 25 years, Gary Gilchrist is considered the leading instructor for junior golf. After running two of the top junior golf academies in the world – IMG’s David Leadbetter Junior Golf Academy and International Junior Golf Academy in Hilton Head, S.C. – the former South African touring professional now has his own namesake academy near Orlando at Mission Inn Resort. Gilchrist also has a new book credit to his name as the co-author of “Going for the Green – Prepare Your Body, Mind, and Swing for Winning Golf.” The recently published book, also written by ...

A complete and flowing  follow-through virtually guarantees golf success. We all know it, but with so much else to think about we too often fail to finish our swings. Davis Love, Jr., father of the tour star Davis Love III, was a brilliant teaching professional who died tragically in the crash of a small plane. His renowned teaching skills included many an impromptu, mid-round cue or memory key that could get a struggling golfer back in form. During this writer’s own slice-plagued round with Davis, Jr., in the mid-1980s, Love took a tee from his pocket and performed a bit of magic ...

Canadian Nick Starchuk, a well-known golf coach in Ontario golf circles, formerly worked at prestigious Glen Abbey Golf Club.  In the past year, Starchuk has brought his game south to Florida where he is learning a new system of golf instruction at the elite GaryGilchrist Golf Academy, which is based at Mission Inn Resort near Orlando. Besides learning a new style of coaching, Starchuk hopes to become a certified Gilchrist Coach - adding to a variety of  certifications he already features in coaching, fitness (TPI and Canfit) and sports psychology (Golf Psych). On a recent day at the Gilchrist Academy, Starchuk discussed one of the most important elements to having ...

I never thought it would come to this. The word ‘resort’ has become the noun that cannot be uttered in the corporate hospitality industry. Ever since AIG executives got tarred and feathered by the media for entertaining clients at the St. Regis Monarch Beach Resort & Spa in Dana Point, Calif. last year, resorts—especially golf resorts—have been scrambling to boost their numbers as the corporate market has faded. Perception being nearly as important as reality these days, many resort operators have taken the only logical step open to them. They’ve exiled the ‘resort’ moniker from their titles, distancing themselves from the ...

It’s what the world is coming to: instant access to information and rapid confirmation for everything, including golf lessons. Despite the fact that it moves at a regal pace commensurate with its storied past, The Breakers, the landmark Italian Renaissance-style palace in Palm Beach, Fla., is changing with the times. Earlier this year, the fabled oceanfront resort flipped the switch on an online lesson booking system called Smarter Lessons. Guests can now access instructors’ schedules online at both the Ocean Course and The Breakers Rees Jones Course. The grand entryway to The Breakers The resort’s John Webster Golf Academy has eight instructors schooled ...

Among the thousands of stories about Moe Norman, the late eccentric genius of golf, is a nugget that exemplifies just how precisely he could hit a golf ball. Moe was playing with the late Ken Venning one morning in Florida. Unable to hit balls before they teed off, they hit three balls each off the first tee. As they made their way down the fairway, Venning said it looked like he was walking toward a mushroom in the middle of the fairway. As he walked on, he was shocked to see Moe’s three balls—touching. So how did Moe become arguably the best ball-striker ...

this is an instructional post

My favorite part about coaching is instituting a sense of creativity into every lesson I give! As it relates to chipping, the key to effortless contact is delivering a shaft that has a bit of forward lean into the hit. This relationship will help facilitate ball then turf contact, while producing a shot that is low and running to the pin. To help you Jockey into the proper impact position, I want you to imagine that your chipping swing is a horserace, where the handle of your club is the #1 horse and the club head is the #2 horse. Make a few ...

Howey-in-the-Hills, Fla. – Two weeks after winning the LPGA Tour’s first major of the year at the Nabisco Championship, Taiwanese golfer Yani Tseng was back working with the golf coach who helped get her there: Gary Gilchrist. Tseng, the LPGA Tour’s top money winner this season ($460,932), practiced twice this week on her entire game with Gilchrist in preparation for an event this weekend in Japan. She spent several hours April 20 at the Gary Gilchrist Golf Academy, Gilchrist’s full-time junior golf academy located at Mission Inn Resort about 45 minutes north of Orlando. The following morning Gilchrist gave Tseng one ...

If you are first learning to play golf, it absolutely pays to take lessons. It also does not really matter who you take them from, as any certified PGA instructor will be able to get you started on the basics. The big problem is the rest of us: those that already play golf, meaning those of us that already have bad habits. For us it is tool late to start from scratch. For us, the choice of instructor is very, very important. That is where Charlie King comes in. Ever since Ben Hogan wrote the seminal “Fundamentals of Golf,” instructors across the ...

Imagine having the opportunity to play golf every day of your life. For some, that might sound like a dream setting. For a group of Montverde Academy students who live in Howey-in-the-Hills, it’s reality at the Gary Gilchrist Golf Academy. This reality, however, is by no means some veritable vacation for these talented teens, many of whom made huge sacrifices in leaving their families from all over the world to come here to train and play golf full-time on a daily basis while concurrently getting a world-class college prep education at nearby Montverde. The Gilchrist Academy, now in its third year based ...

Howey-in-the-Hills, Fla. – Gary Gilchrist Golf Academy players continued their dominance of the International Junior Golf Tour this weekend with an impressive 1-2 finish at IJGT’s Golf World Junior Open at Falcons Fire Golf Club near Orlando.  “Jack” Guanjie Wang, an 11th-grader from Shenzhen, China, led GGGA’s latest victory march after shooting 73-69 for a 2-under 142 in the highly competitive 16-19 age-group field played at the 6,808-yard Falcon’s Fire layout. It was Wang’s first victory as an academy golfer after moving from China two years ago.  Meanwhile, GGGA teammate Carlos Madrigal of Venezuela shot 74-71 in another stellar performance to finish ...

Howey-in-the-Hills, Fla. – Here at the Gary Gilchrist Golf Academy,  junior golf coach John Scott Rattan is known for being one of the best ball strikers and having one of the prettiest swings. Last Friday, the former University of Tennessee golfer lived up to his reputation as he posted an impressive 3-under 69 at Walt Disney World Resort’s Magnolia Course to advance to the next round of U.S. Open qualifying. Rattan was one of 9,086 golfers that played in 111 local qualifiers held across the country May 7-20, second-most entries in U.S. Golf Association history. Of course, the near-record number of ...

I`m cured… a new man. I`ll never shake over another vomit zone putt again, or let thoughts of my last shank intrude as I settle over a wedge. At least those are the kind of delusions that I`ve had swirling around my head after I`ve devoured most every golf psychology book that I`ve ever read. Like most self-help books, golf psyche books haven`t made a lick of difference in my paralysis-by-analysis, nervous Nellie, choking dog tendencies. However, some advice that I heard has finally managed to get through my thick skull. On the recommendation of PGA Tour coach Sean Foley, I checked out ...

When Rafael Prestamo was managing transportation and logistics for W.R. Grace in Puerto Rico, like so many business people he was successful, but not happy. So he ditched his career with W.R. Grace and decided to follow his passion. He became a golf professional. After a few stints on mini tours, Rafael decided that teaching golf was his real passion. So he worked with the instructors at both the Leadbetter and Faldo schools in Florida and learned the most advanced golf instruction techniques available. Rafael returned to Puerto Rico to assume the mantle of Head Professional at the Wyndham Rio Mar in ...

Probably half of all first-tee jitters ever experienced by golfers can be blamed on one dreaded shot—the cold-topped tee ball. Just thinking of it brings winces, especially to players who periodically suffer this fate. This is the time of year when company outings and other command-performance golf events drag an infrequent player onto the tee and into the limelight. The good news for those who fear the cold-top is that a pre-swing fine-tune can go a long way toward preventing the problem. Steve Cramer, pro at Crofton C.C. in Crofton, Md., traces topping troubles to incorrect posture. The original pose of ...

HOW TO GET A HOLE-IN-ONE The elusive ace……when you’ve never had one it seems as though the whole world has. In 1993, I had been playing tournament golf for almost 30 years and still, no hole-in-one.  Two of my brothers, Chris and Patrick Parrott, and my Dad, Buck, had eight between them, though Pops waited forty years for his first of a mere quad of aces.  What was I doing wrong?  Dad's fondest wish was that all of his kids would compete together along with him at an annual event that was a 70-year plus Detroit tradition:  the Detroit News Hole-In-One contest.  This ...

Ever get in a “bunker slump?” It’s a devilish bit of golf torture that can strike experienced players and get them feeling paranoid about landing in any “cat box” on the course, even the shallow ones that offer plenty of landing space between bunker edge and green. For help with this basic golf stroke, we turn to Ed Hoard of Athens Country Club in Athens, Ga. This former PGA Professional of the Year begins by reminding the bunker-slumping player of a simple, sane reality: You’re not hitting a golf ball to escape the bunker, “you’re just moving sand.” It’s against the ...

Spirit of the Game Story from Jeff Ritter's Bestselling Book Your Kid Ate a Divot! Eighteen Life Lessons From the Links To me the notion of losing connection with art, music and athletics in our world is disappointing. Everyday programs are being cut or dropped from our education system. Schools are only concerned with learning as it relates to testing standards, versus actual comprehension. There are no classes on wealth management, communication or conflict resolution. The things which would be of real help. The focus has been taken away from what makes our hearts soar, the things that make the experience of being ...

Making a swing change is all about creating more awareness, for the movement of your club and body. To more effectively groove your new action, practice making full sized swings at different speeds. Begin by hitting shots at what you would perceive to be 25 mph on a car's speedometer. If your contact has improved, move up to 50 mph. Continue, jumping up to 75 and then full throttle at 100 mph. Not only will this drill make you more aware of your movements, it will also help build a better connection of what it means to swing in good ...

When helping golfers, I always remind my students they are engaging in a sport which is designed to be played with a circular movement. A baseball swing, side-arm throw, a forehand in tennis and your golf swing, must move in a pure circular motion. Oftentimes we hear advice such as, swing down the target line, when in fact an online or straight line movement is the worst thing you could do when playing a sport built on an arc! If you only know one thing about good golf, it should be that, straight swings hit curved shots and curved swings hit ...

Jeff Ritter shares his unique perspective on the game with ESPN 1280 Los Angeles. Click Here to Listen! Jeff is a respected coach, author and speaker. For more, visit jeffrittergolf.com

True champions know how and when to rise to the occasion. Monifa Sealy, last year’s Gary Gilchrist Golf Academy Player of the Year, lived up to that billing perfectly at this weekend’s 2010 Bridgestone Golf Tournament of Champions at Grand Cypress Resort in Orlando. With 26 victories in her illustrious junior golf career, Sealy, a 17-year-old junior from Glencoe, Trinidad/Tobago, is certainly no stranger to winning. But Sealy’s latest victory was one of her more memorable ones as she overcame a 5-stroke deficit with a fearless final-round 69 to win the prestigious season-ending International Junior Golf Tournament event. Sealy’s 3-under 69 gave ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a04ohmFagiM Jeff Ritter demonstrates how a simple drill can easily fix the dreaded slice!

When it comes to mastering the art of green reading, using your imagination is the key. I like to find in my mind the flow where water would go rushing across the slope towards the downhill direction of the hole. Just like waves carrying surfers to the shore, your ball will ride the line of least resistance chasing the fall line to the cup. Be sure to view the putt from a variety of different perspectives letting your imagination lead the way. In the end always remember that putting is an art, not a science. Jeff Ritter is an accomplished coach, ...

Listen to Jeff Ritter’s 40 minute interview with Fred Greene on the Golf Smarter Podcast. Jeff discusses his new bestselling book, Your Kid Ate a Divot! Eighteen Life Lessons From the Links. All things golf and more! Click here to play interview! Jeff Ritter is an accomplished coach, author and speaker specializing in peak performance and life inspiration. He teaches at the ASU Karsten Golf Course, PING Learning Center in Tempe, AZ. For more information, visit JeffRitterGolf.com

If you are one of the millions of slicers out there, then chances are that you are not swinging the club on a proper arc. To cure a slice, it's important to feel a rounded swing with the clubface 'closing' through impact. A great mental image to help you feel this movement is to imagine spreading some playing cards in an arc around a poker table. Imagine a deck of cards in your right hand. Make a backswing so that your hand is over your right shoulder and the cards are face up to the sky. Swing your right arm in ...

I’ve been in the golf business long enough to remember when Odyssey Golf was an upstart little company with some clever ideas, such as inserting plastic in putter faces. It became part of Callaway Golf in 1997, and since then, with might, money, marketing, and mastery behind it, Odyssey has become a leading innovator in putters. Its new line—called White Ice—keeps the ball rolling. For the past four years, Odyssey’s mainstay brand was the XG, which was so successful that on its own it nearly would have been the largest putter company in the world, according to Paul English, Callaway’s Senior ...

Paul Dewland has taken on the auspicious challenge of coaching me on the mental side of the game, and I'll be sharing my neurosises, scars and traumas as we go along. Content Rating: Everyone.    I can be rolling along quite nicely on the golf course, like a sweet old lady on her way to tea with a friend. Then, with the suddenness of a purse-snatcher darting out of an alleyway to grab my handbag, I am instantly a victim. The unmentionable--that which cannot be named--has invoked its wrath. To name it might give it more power over me. The hosel rocket is the closest I’ll ...

Picking up where I left off yesterday, I am going to shave strokes off your score this summer by showing you the ten biggest mistakes in golf. All you have to do is stop making them. 7. Laying Up Too Close to Hazards. This is the most demoralizing shot in golf: you finally get smart and decide that instead of the miracle shot you can’t pull off, you will play it safe and lay up, and then you go and hit it in the creek and lose your ball anyway. Or another common example is you hit it in the right hand trees, ...

This medicine ball exercise helps you build and free tension in your hips and torso. Once tension is created, transfer its power through your torso and out from your hands, just as you do in your golf swing. Start with your body (hips and shoulders) perpendicular to a wall as if you are going to drive the golf ball through it. Stand in your normal address position. Make sure your hips are back, your back is flat and that your feet are parallel to one another. Wrap your knees with an elastic band and resist it by pulling your knees out and ...

To get right to the point, there are no shotmakers in golf today.  None! Ok, I hear that Bubba Watson likes to work his shots and Jack Nicklaus shared with me that Tiger has all the shots and is not afraid to use them, but they are the exceptions.  Effectively, golf shotmaking has disappeared in all the men's and women's circuits.  It's not the skills that have improved - no way.  It's the equipment! The longer and straighter flying golf ball has robbed today’s great players of revealing and displaying their talents.  As the last of the notable shotmakers, Corey Pavin, is ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqFxPG_C2n4 Jeff Ritter demonstrates just how easy bunker play can be, even one handed! Jeff Ritter is a world renowned coach, author and speaker. He teaches at the PING Learning Center in Tempe, AZ and is available for private and corporate coaching worldwide! For more from Jeff Ritter, visit Jeffrittergolf.com

Picking up where I left off yesterday, I am going to shave strokes off your score this summer by showing you two of  the biggest mistakes in golf. All you have to do is stop making them. Playing the Wrong Tees This is such an endemic problem in golf it almost sounds trite to say. But there are still plenty of amateurs out there who are under the delusion that they are “not getting their money’s worth” if they don’t play “the whole course.” Far more people play form tees that are too long for them than tees that are too short. In the ...

My number one goal with every golfer I work with is to build a swing that is both powerful and athletic! As it relates to posture, we have been taught that it's imperative to maintain our address forward tilt throughout the swing. The reality is, the truly skilled player is one who is attacking the ball into the hit! Imagine trying to throw a punch while keeping your spine angle constant or passive. It would be impossible to deliver any kind of real force. The same idea applies to your golf swing. As you transition from back swing to downswing, feel ...

Performance Coach Paul Dewland is coaching me on the mental side of the game, and I'm sharing my little victories and agonies with you through the magic of blogging. Content Rating: Contains violence. I had lopped off its head. Any golfer who has battled the hosel rockets has had the feeling that he could really lose it, but to have it come to this… even I was stunned. I was playing with my parents, Margaret and Dennis, and my brother Pat at Sunningdale in London, Ontario. As for all my games at Sunningdale, I’m always a little keyed up because I have memories of ...

Concluding this three-part post on the stroke-and-distance penalty for lost balls and balls hit out of bounds, one other vital point should be made. It concerns the distance element of the rule. In golf, distance is a sacred concept. We whack every range ball in the jumbo practice bucket striving to achieve it. We spend the children's college fund on exotic drivers in the name of distance. We don't like having it taken away from us. In being penalized for stroke-and-distance on O.B. or lost balls, it's true we are compelled to go back to the spot we played from, but that ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_OLhExtslE Jeff Ritter shares a clever little drill for honing your speed on the greens! For more information on coaching with Jeff Ritter in Arizona or Worldwide, visit Jeffrittergolf.com

What do you get when you combine an engaging rites of passage story together with interesting golf history (Pinehurst, North Carolina area) as relayed by a skilled storyteller?  The answer would be “A Son of the Game” by James Dodson.  In this piece, Dodson follows up his previous bestseller “Final Rounds” in which he focused upon the relationship with his father, to that with his son.  In each piece, golf and its many friendships, lessons, and values play a large part in the legacy that is passed from one generation to the next.  Would Dodson’s son embrace the legacy? This is ...

Paul Dewland is coaching me on the mental game, and I’m blogging about it. How 2010! My hope is that golfers will find it a good read, fun and educational. Today’s blog is intended to be more of the latter so that you can learn to keep your head up more often. Ain’t golf weird? A behaviour that I’ve been looking to change on the course, and elsewhere, is my tendency to over-think. I’m a ruminator. Not a bad thing for a writer, but not great for a golfer. If I miss, say two short putts in consecutive holes. I’m apt to start beating ...

Stockton sport psychologist, Dr. Glen Albaugh is one of Northern California’s golf treasures.  He has positively affected the lives and golf games of hundreds, including many top players such as Kirk Triplett and Scott McCarran.  You should appreciate that the territory between your ears is the most important space in golf, and Albaugh is a master of this domain. Short of directly working with Dr. Albaugh, studying “Winning the Battle Within,” is an exceptional way to improve your golf score and experience. There are many reasons to recommend this book.  I found the sections on imagination, simplification, post-shot routine, the “Circle ...

You’re struggling through a round, spraying the ball everywhere but straight and consistently missing shots fat, thin, heel and toe. Nothing is working. Now you find yourself in the trees, and with no way to advance the ball toward the green you decide to pitch out. You choke down, play the ball back in your stance, and punch it back out to the fairway. Sweetness. The ball shoots out low, bending around the trees and hustling into play again. It’s the most solid contact you’ve had all the day. Why is it that some days, in the midst of mad swing disease, ...

Allow me to switch sporting venues so I can tell a quick story. It was the first track meet of my sophomore year in high school. Out of nowhere, the coach told me I would be competing as a filler in a field event I had never trained for. In scholastic dual meets, this was actually quite common, especially in the less popular events. With just two teams competing, each might have brought only one javelin thrower, for example--so there would be nothing to lose in letting a quarter-miler try to fling the jav the minimum opening distance. He might ...