Mar 18

Here’s what I suggest to practice next time your out of the range. Start with the proper address, feet slightly more than shoulder width apart, knees bent, weight distributed evenly accross your feet (not on your toes, not on your heels). Take the club with your off hand and drop it down into your address position with the entire club head touching the ground. The end of the club shaft should point right at your belt buckle. Now take the club with your strong hand and take your normal grip. Now start your backswing.

Don’t sway back, you should turn your hips to a 45 degree angle, which means your back side should also turn 45 degrees. If your backside is pointing directly at the target you’ve probably over rotated your hips. Unless you are super flexible, this will not only cause you to over swing, but it can also cause back problems over time because of the torque you are putting on your back. Fourty-five degrees is plenty of a turn.

Once you get to about 45 degrees you begin the downswing by dropping your arms and unwinding your hips. Once you get the arms and hips in proper sink, you are on your way to creating a very strong golf swing. Like I mentioned before a large portion of the power in a proper golf swing comes from unwinding the hips through the downswing, but don’t overdo it or you’ll end up hitting a major hook because your arms won’t be able to catch up with your hips. Just remember 45 degrees is the key, the speed of the hip turn is just something you’ll have to work out through practice at the driving range.

Mar 18

There are so many different styles and makes of clubs nowadays that it can be hard to know where to begin. The most important factor is not if these are the best golf irons on the market, but if they are the best golf irons for you.

You see you need to choose the club to suit your skill level and your particular preferences, if you have elbow trouble you may want to get a club with a graphite shaft and a polymer or rubber insert in the head to reduce the transmission of the impact with the ball, but other people may be horrified by that selection.

There are three main factors you should take into account in your club selection, the club head design, the shaft type and the shaft flex. Combined together these will form the ‘personality’ of your club and directly affect the quality of your game. Let’s look at each in turn:

Club head design

The club head is the most important part of the club, after all that is what makes contact with the ball! There are three distinct styles of head, the oversized head, the midsize head and the traditional blade style head. You can think of these pretty much as beginner, intermediate and advanced heads.

When you are just starting off then you may want to try an oversized head, these are purposely built with deep cavity-back designs to give a bit of forgiveness if you don’t hit the ball right. They also have a lower centre of gravity which enables you to get the ball into the air easier.

Midsize heads are a compromise, they still have a slightly over accentuated cavity-back design which gives forgiveness and a wider sweetspot, but are not as deep or wide as the oversized head.

The blade head is the true golf club with a shallow cavity which enables you to work the ball more and get it to do what you want, but it is also the least forgiving if you hit the ball wrong.

Shaft type

The two main types of shaft are steel or graphite. Steel shafts make for a club with a heavier feel, and they don’t have as many options for shaft flex, but are the most durable. Graphite shafts are a lot easier to get the flex you want with, but are not as durable and don’t give that heavy feel some people like.

The best way to choose is to go and try out variations of both and see which you like so you can find the one with the best ‘feel’ to it for your playing style.

Shaft flex

The shaft flex affects the balls trajectory and is linked to how fast you swing your club. As you swing your club you will get a certain amount of bend, so choosing the right stiffness of shaft ensures that the club is at the optimal shape when it connects with the ball.

Typically if you swing at 105mph + you need extra stiff, 90 - 105 then you need a stiff, 80 - 95 would be regular, 70 - 85 would be senior rating and less than 70 would be ladies rating.

You can either go out with a golf instructor and get them to suggest what type of shaft flex you need, or borrow some different clubs from the golf shop at the course and see which one suits your swing style better.