How to Lower Your Handicap - 4 Essential Golf Tips

The most potent tool in a golfer's arsenal is his mind. His ability to master it is what separates the best golfers in the world from all the amateurs. Even the average golfer must believe in his game and think of himself as a great player.

When you are in a competitive situation, if you can believe that you are good enough to beat anyone out there, you hold the key to beating your opponent in matchplay or strokeplay. To develop a winning mental attitude like this is especially important for tournament players of all levels and becomes more important the higher up you go in your golfing career.

Just before you are about to hit the ball, learn to develop a quiet mind sharply focused on the target only. Do not allow other thoughts to enter your head as you are about to strike the ball; instead you need to trust that you have trained your swing and that the ball will go where you want it to regardless of what happened with the previous shot.

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Make the centre of the green your friend. In the last few holes of a major championship, Jack Nicklaus once revealed that he never aims at the flag, only at the middle of the green. He felt it was the smart play. It minimised his chances of missing the green and virtually guaranteed him a birdie putt - under pressure, that counts for a lot.

The fact is, ignoring the pin and aiming all of your approach shots at the middle of the green is a very smart strategy. I mean every single shot, whether it's a 9-iron or a 4-iron. This builds in a better margin for error so that you have more green either side of the perfect golf shot. So if you stray slightly off line you'll still find the putting surface. If you try this next time you play, you may be surprised how many more birdie putts rather than chips and bunker shots you'll face.

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Playing the percentage game means you need to leave your ego at home. Don't go for the big hit every time you tee up. You do not need to make an aggressive swing at a conservative target. In other words, don't always go flag hunting on every hole. If you are not a regular player you are not going to hit every shot where you are looking. You will increase your chances of playing better and of being able to lower your handicap over time by playing within yourself.

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Many amateur golfers constantly swing their clubs too fast. In attempting to emulate the great players it is easy to lose sight of the fact that it is swing tempo not swing speed that matters. And golf swing speed and golf swing tempo are fundamentally different.

Often a golfer's swing can appear extremely fast because he doesn't have the correct swing tempo. He would usually have a very deliberate take away and back swing, where he is attempting to place the club head in the correct position. There may even be a deliberate pause at the top which would then be followed by a rush, down towards the ball, trying to gain the momentum that was lost during the back swing phase.

It is most likely that all the tour players swing faster than you and I. What separates them from us is that they do it with a swing tempo that is fluid not disjointed. They also swing to an exact tempo ratio. This tempo ratio is key to a solid swing because it is the glue that binds together all of the disparate parts of the swing - swing plane, take away, alignment, ball position etc. These fundamental but separate parts of the swing must be learnt. When all are combined you have the perfect swing at the right tempo.

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