Knowing what your clubs can do will help lower your scores

Saturday, November 30, 2013

By Karl Fischer
Contributor

If you have not "calibrated your bag," you'll need to do it one day soon.

Get your swing smooth and consistent (remember the three Cs). Take your clubs to the driving range. Warm up properly. Hit five balls to a specific measured target with each club, starting with your wedge, working through the irons to the woods. Record the results.

Next, do it in reverse: woods down through your irons. Record the results. Now, average the yardages. You will then know how far your clubs go using range balls.

 

Generally, quality tournament balls will fly approximately 10 yards farther. If you calculate on-course yardages, you will soon need to make real-world adjustments.

Now that you have your bag calibrated, use it well. Do not force your shots. If your 7 iron goes 150 yards, you can squeeze it five yards or back off five yards. If you need to reach 158 yards, use a smooth 6 iron.

Better clubs hit better shots. When your clubs are consistent (what we call "bracketed"), your swing does the rest.

Let your custom-fitted clubs do the work. That's why you bought them!

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Changing your 'swing thought' will help your game

By Karl Fischer
Contributor

Remembering your "trigger word sequence," the words that help you make your smooth swinging-the-clubhead moves right to the target:

3 o'clock ... sweep ... and ... see it ... pin.

Well, the slicing rotation that we put on the golf ball generally comes from a clubhead path that travels from outside the target line behind the ball to inside this line after impact. In other words, the clubface cuts the ball and spins it clockwise, making it work off line to the right (for right handers). The ball curves to the right ... sometimes the "banana" right?

Try this simple alteration. lnstead of saying 3 o 'clock, looking and hitting the ball right on the butt, say "4 o'clock" so that you look inside and under the ball -- more at its hip.

With your eye on this point, your hand-eye coordination will work the clubhead inside and through. You will have less tendency slicing or fading from here.

Hope this helps and makes your game more fun.

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A swing thought will help your focus on the golf course

By Karl Fischer
Contributor

All great golfers have some swing thoughts or thought that they use to start and influence their motion. We all should. Choose the words carefully, and make them simple and clear.

IRGO Golf Academy uses successfully: "3 o'clock ... sweep ... and ... see it ... pin."

What does this mean?

 

At address. Standing tall with longish arms hanging comfortably from your armpits, breathing rhythmically and looking at the backside of the ball (where you strike it), say the "trigger words."

Sweep back swinging the clubhead to your top of swing where you say the tiny word.

And then, drop the hands down to under the armpits when you say the "see it," which help with a smooth, powerful impact through the ball.

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Golfers, are we swingers or hitters?

By Karl Fischer
Contributor

It's a good question and there is a difference in these two golf moves.

However, one should always swing the clubhead up and down through the golf ball along the target line to the pin.

In reality, I think all good ball strikers are swinging hitters.

For right-handers, comfortably using a golf club, the sensation should be swinging the clubhead from the left target shoulder (the pivot point) which will contribute to traveling down the line. So the longish left arm swings the club while, approaching the bottom of the swing arc, the right hand put on the hit.

Each hands job is different. The target left hand controls the clubface. The brace-side right hand takes the lag out of the club shaft or clubhead. It makes the bottom hit.

We hear about body parts in golf. Which does what and when? What leads and what follows? What rests and what works? I think golf is a cooperative balance of everything from the toe-nails to the finger-nails. It is a progressive muscular action from the brace foot or ground up through the body and club shaft to the ball resulting in holing it!

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Golf exercise will improve hands and swing

By Karl Fischer
Contributor

We've talked about the "hands being in control of the golf-head and swing," and with that in mind, I would like to add another thought for you to consider and possibly even feel and adopt.

When you make your great smooth and flowing swing through the ball to the pin, the hips slightly lead the forward swing (they are slower moving than the hands and start first). But the fast-moving hands catch the hips right at impact or back at square (the address start point). At this instant, the dominant hands pass the hip and clearly lead to the relaxed high finish.

If you can imagine with me that your hands are passing throuqh water, their speed and power will make a wake or void behind them. Now, once the ball has been struck and has gone away, let your whole body flow in behind the hands and fill the wake. Remember to relax and breathe out.

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Doing the 'four ball' exercise can improve your balance, golf swing

By Karl Fischer
Contributor

We call this exercise "doing the four ball," which is bullet-proof because you cannot do it wrongly. Think "swing in balance."

Place four balls (three is okay) about three inches apart in a straight line with your sternum (center of your chest). Set up in address ready position.

Now with a "tick tock" back and forth swinging motion, strike the closest ball first down the line to the pin, and, without stopping, hit the next three balls, one at a time, stepping forward slightly with each shot. Be rhythmic and let this exercise flow with a little hit at the bottom of the swing arc, through the ball to the pin.

 

Breathe in on the backswing and out during your hit. Relax during this exercise. Only squeeze the muscles when you make the hit, toward the bottom of each swing, just during actual impact.

Swing the clubhead through the ball to the pin.

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Use a garden rake to improve your wedge play around the greens

 

By Karl Fischer,
Contributor

One golfer from the Chilliwack area of British Columbia, Canada, had a great golf tip of his own. Bob Stewart said he has used it for years, and it works.

We at the academy have tested its application. We think it has merit, and, so, here it is:

It's for the short game -- from the long-cut fringe to the pin: the pitch and run.

 

This is where we so often see the thin hits (skulling), the fat hits and even the dreaded "chili dip." Hit it too soft, too hard. You know the routine!

Take a garden rake and rake some thick grass. Remember the feel! The hands are slightly forward pressed from sternum (center chest) and the left hand (target hand) leads the rake through the grass. There is very little wrist action in either hand. Your weight is more on the front or target foot (left side) than on the brace side.

Using your 8-iron, make this specific swinging motion through the ball along the target line to the pin. Do it gently over a short distance. Don't force it, swing the clubhead.

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