Good Golf Without A Really Good Golf Swing

The formula for great golf can be expressed as....Great Golf = Baseline + [(SM x 100%) + (SMG x 100%)]. The maximum value for swing mechanics (SM) is 20 and the maximum value for strategic and mental golf (SMG) is 60. All aspiring golfers have a baseline value of 20.

The baseline consists of basic targeting, green reading, practice, and course management skills. Swing mechanics speaks for itself.

Strategic and mental golf includes advanced targeting, course management, strategy, mental toughness, short game mastery, visualization, and effective practice skills.

If your swing is perfect and you do not have any of the learned skills for playing strategic and mental golf, then your effectiveness a player is about 40 on a scale of 0 - 100. Consider this, if Tiger Woods effectiveness as a player was measured on his golf swing alone, without any strategic skills he would rate about a 40. The opposite is also true. If his strategic skills were in the high 50s and his swing was suspect, he would still rate about 80 on the players scale. The minimum level to play on the PGA Tour is above 75.

Tiger made three major swing changes since his arrival on the PGA tour. Even during time periods when he was making these major changes and his swing was marginally effective in competition, he was still winning golf tournaments. The reason is because he has exceptionally strong strategic and mental skills. All Tour players have strong strategic skills; without them they would not survive the intense competition.

Do not be confused by the intense stare that Tiger has in competition. That stare also seen with players like Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus, and others is not concentration. It's a bi-product of concentration; keeping your strategic and mental ducks in order. The higher you go on the strategic and mental scale the higher the level of concentration required to stay there.

Becoming a great player is a blend of physical and mental skills development. You should work on your swing like 99% of all successful tournament and low handicap players have done...find a PGA Professional to help you. A good teaching pro has a great eye and can help you match proper fundamentals to your body type and flexibility levels. Trying to improve your golf swing without the guidance of a teaching pro or video equipment and golf analysis software is like trying to write a novel with pen and paper instead of a computerized word processor. Can it be done; yes, but not vey well.

If you are serious about becoming a better player, then you should find the proper balance between your full swing practice and your strategic and mental skills development. Only after you make a commitment to allocating 70% of your practice time to the strategic and mental improvement plan will you develop into the player you want to be.

Becoming a player with exceptional strategic and mental skills is elusive to many golfers for these reasons:

Reason 1: Many golfers do not care about serious improvement. They enjoy drinking with their buddies, having an escape from the house or work, and are not concerned with tournament golf.

Reason 2: Strategic and mental golf is less understood than the more physical aspects of the golf swing. Actually 90 percent of the instruction available to golfers, whether it be online, ebooks, books, magazines, videos, articles, or lessons, is about swing technique. This is not to say that PGA Golf Professionals are not capable of teaching strategic skills.

Most golfers have an insatiable appetite for chasing the perfect swing. It is more satisfying to the ego to see your golf ball flying farther than others, and when you make that occasional but sweet strike on the dead center of the club face, it sends you to the range searching for more. Many have compared it to gambling. It is equivalent to pulling the handle of a slot machine; over and over and then you hit the jackpot. Seeing all of those quarters piling up in the well is fun and addicting for many. One jackpot and you want to experience more even if they only happen occasionally. Ben Hogan, one of golf's best ball strikers, claimed he only experienced that feeling 5 times per round.

Reason 3: Learning how to play strategic and mental golf is not easy. The techniques are not difficult to perform, however, learning the skills requires a significant level of commitment and many are not willing to make the investment. The sad thing about this is; most golfers have a higher probability of learning these skills, ultimately resulting in lower scores, than they will ever find chasing the perfect swing.

The only things you can control in golf are your conscious thoughts. Calculating yardages, picking targets, visualization, strategy development, and your pre-shot routine are things you can learn to do as well as competitive low handicap players and pros. For most of us, learning how to swing like Tour players is a fantasy, because we do not have the flexibility, physique, strength, and hand eye coordination.

Consider this the next time you are considering investing time and money into learning the perfect swing that promises 300 yard drives. Only 12 of 192 PGA Tour pros in 2009 hit the ball an average of 300 yards. That's 6% of the group. If it was that easy all of the PGA Tour Pros would be hitting the ball that far. The average for all 192 players in the group is 287 yards.

We know that learning the strategic and mental aspects of the game is critical to successful golf improvement. We also know that a strategic and mental improvement plan will require a significant the level of commitment. What are the instructional options for an aspiring golfer to learn these skills?

One option would be to hire a golf professional to teach you the strategic and mental parts of the game. This is a good option however, it would be very expensive. Typically a golf professional would charge you an hourly fee of $50 to $100. The amount of time required to adequately cover all of these instructional topics would require many hours. You would also have to take lessons from a pro that has a teaching facility connected to a golf course. The reason is that a significant part of the improvement plan will deal with "how to play the game" from a course management perspective, which is best done on the course...a playing lesson.

A second option is to research as much instructional material as possible searching for the mental and strategic knowledge modules needed for the desired level of improvement. Remember, 90% of golf instruction is related to the golf swing so you will have to spend hundreds of hours sifting thru books, magazines, and videos to find the instruction. Some of the topics will be very difficult to find any instructional lessons because the subject matter has not been well published. After finding the instruction you will need to record it for future reference. This option while available to all golfers requires more effort than any will commit to.

A third option would be to find a website or repository of knowledge dedicated to strategy and mental golf. The authors and instructors should have a proven track record and backgound of accomplishment; not just a passing interest in building a website as a hobby. The benefit of this option is; the golfer will get all of the required knowledge in a condensed space that can be referenced for months and years to come. Because the site is dedicated to strategic and mental golf, the amount of instruction, lessons, and tips is comprehensive and will continue to expand with time.

StrategicGolfer.com is a website dedicated to providing students and customers with a repository of exceptional instruction about the strategic and mental aspects of golf. While there is a small amount of instruction about swing mechanics and swing plane on the site, the vast majority of lessons and tips are about strategy and the mental game. For aspiring golfers that come to the site seeking a new start, basic instruction is available about building a simple swing that will provide the foundation for playing the game.

The primary focus of our instruction is related to these topics; how to play the game like a pro, golf strategy, course management, short game mastery, mental toughness, and how to practice. Each of these topics is covered in significant detail in several E-books, posted videos, and online posts.

We communicate with our students using a variety of tools; online instruction, newsletters, YouTube, FaceBook, Twitter, E-books, software, and videos. Our E-books and software can be found on our products page.

Play Golf Basics is a comprehensive guide to playing the game of golf. The table of contents represents an accurate outline of the instruction modules. Modules include:

Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1 - Ball Flight
Chapter 2 - Full Swing Fundamentals
Chapter 3 - Pre-Shot Routine
Chapter 4 - Full Swing (7 Iron)
Chapter 5 - Full Swing (Driver)
Chapter 6 - Full Swing Drills
Chapter 7 - Uneven Lies
Chapter 8 - Chipping
Chapter 9 - Pitching
Chapter 10 - Bunker Play
Chapter 11 - Putting
Chapter 12 - Mental Game
Chapter 13 - Par 5 Strategy
Chapter 14 - Par 4 Strategy
Chapter 15 - Par 3 Strategy
Chapter 16 - Practice
Glossary

In hind sight, a better title for this E-book would have been "How To Play Golf" because as you can see from the contents, only a small part of the book deals with full swing mechanics. The intent of the book was to provide aspiring golfers with a baseline of knowledge that was a pre-requisite for our other e-books and instruction.

Lets consider some examples from the Ball Flight chapter:

Face Angle, Club Head Path, Angle of Approach

Our golf swing instruction is designed to show you how to build a proper golf swing and a simple golf swing. Improve golf swing to us means finding a simplified swing that focuses on impact. We want you to focus on building a simple and repeatable swing that produces the desired results. Do not waste time trying to build a perfect swing. There is no such thing as the perfect swing. In fact, the best player in the world has a swing that produces errant shots and is far from perfect.

Maximize your efforts by focusing on building a swing that produces the right face angle, club head path, and angle of approach; at the moment of impact. If you can get the impact right it does not matter what your swing looks like.

Three important factors to understand as part of your growth and improvement are face angle, club face path, and angle of approach.

Our golf swing instruction is designed to show you how to build a proper golf swing and a simple golf swing. Improve golf swing to us means finding a simplified swing that focuses on impact. We want you to focus on building a simple and repeatable swing that produces the desired results. Do not waste time trying to build a perfect swing. There is no such thing as the perfect swing. In fact, the best player in the world has a swing that produces errant shots and is far from perfect.

Maximize your efforts by focusing on building a swing that produces the right face angle, club head path, and angle of approach; at the moment of impact. If you can get the impact right it does not matter what your swing looks like.

Three important factors to understand as part of your growth and improvement are face angle, club face path, and angle of approach.

At impact, an open club face produces left to right spin (ball rotation) and normally causes the ball flight to move from left to right. A closed club face at impact will produce right to left spin and will result in a right to left ball flight. A square club face produces end over end spin off of the club and generally will result in the ball flying straight.

There are generally three paths the clubface can take as it returns to the impact position during the downswing. Many golfers return the club on the (out to in) path which results in slices and blocked shots to the right of the intended target. Better players will return the club on the (in to in) path which squares the club at impact and produces powerful shots that generally fly straight. When the club gets stuck in the (in to out )position the hands must become more active in the impact zone which can cause pulls and hooks to the left. Generally the best path is (in to in).

If the club head path is (in to in) and the ball position is correct, the angle of approach will be correct resulting in powerful shots to the intended target. Over the top (out to in) club head path generally results in a steep angle of approach. The (in to out) path can get stuck under the plane of the swing resulting in a too shallow approach. Work on returning the club on a (in to in) path resulting in the best angle back to the ball.

Ninety-Five percent of all golfers playing the game today do not know how to practice. This may sound overstated to you. After all, everywhere you go, practice ranges are packed with aspiring golfers collectively hitting millions of golf balls each year. They dedicate hours upon hours of diligent effort at what they believe to be "effective practice". Many of us are programmed to believe that time and effort should result in improvement. Golf requires that time spent in practice has to be used properly or the results remain elusive. Quality of practice is very important.

Making Practice Payoff Learning Modules

Identify Critical Areas Of Needed Improvement
How To Prioritize Your Practice Sessions
How To Play Like you Practice
How To Practice Your Pre-Shot Routine
Short Game Practice Techniques
Full Swing Practice Techniques
Home Golf Training
How To Practice On The Course
and, More

Making Practice Payoff" will teach you "proper practice". This is the key to becoming a better golfer. First, we will teach you where to place your practice priorities. Second, we will teach you how to practice skill improvement. Third, we will teach you how to practice "playing the game". This is the real secret to becoming a good golfer.

This chapter outlines specific areas of practice for chip shots, often referred to as the chip and run. The chip and run has very little air time and mostly ground time rolling on the green after it lands. Your success with this shot and the majority of the practice suggestions for this shot are in hitting very specific targets. Once you learn how far a chip will fly in the air and then how far it will roll on the green with a variety of clubs, you will become very effective in getting the ball up and down when you miss the green.

Because the shot relies mostly on ground time, you should allow the loft of the club to get the ball into the air and to the target you have selected. You should also use the same green reading skills you are learning in your putting practice sessions. Because you will only make a small number of attempted chip shots, it is important to think about where you want to leave the ball once it's completed rolling towards the hole. Don't try to help the ball into the air. Make sure you hit down and thru the ball to ensure solid contact with the center of the club face. Picking very specific targets and allowing 100% of your focus to be on that target is crucial.

As is the case with well struck putts, acceleration is critical to both speed and solid contact. You want to accelerate the club thru the ball. You want to avoid trying to help the ball into the air. Left the loft of the club do all of the work for you.

You will find that a well struck chip shot will approximate these results:

6 iron = 20% air time and 80% ground time
7 iron = 30% air time and 70% ground time
8 iron = 40% air time and 60% ground time
Pitching wedge = 50% air time and 50% ground time

Good players pick targets that are just on the green surface closest to the player. It is easier to hit a target 4 feet in front than it is to hit a target 40 feet in front of you. You should avoid trying to carry the ball more than 50% of the way to the hole unless you are hitting a pitch shot which we will discuss in another section. The problem is that most golfers unless trained to do otherwise focus most of their attention on the hole location or on the flag as they prepare to hit the chip shot. 100% focus on the short range target, the landing spot on the green surface, has a tremendous impact on your success of these shots.

Targets

Picking the correct target in chipping is critical. The reason is because you will be visualizing a shot that has some amount of air time and some amount of ground time. The amount of ground time will depend upon length of the shot, grain, slope, and the quality of the lie the ball is at rest in prior to the shot. If the lie is poor and the ball is sitting in heavy rough, you may choose to take more loft and hit the ball harder to ensure that you get the ball out of the bad lie. If the lie is hard pan with no grass under the ball you will probably play the ball a little farther back in your stance which decreases the loft of the club and will cause the ball to roll farther.

You can see that assessing the shot and picking the right target is crucial. Your ability to hit the target will affect the quality of the shot because the ball will end up short or long depending upon the air time of the shot. If you hit the ball hard enough to fly 4 feet past the target you selected then the probability is high that the ball will end up at least 4 feet past the hole. If on the other hand, you mis-hit the shot and fail to get the ball into the air far enough to reach the desired target, the ball will end up short of the hole. Hitting targets will end up being a significant portion of your chipping practice. Focus on the quality of hitting your targets and let the roll of the ball take care of itself.

The "Magic" Circle

The concept of the magic circle is also very important to the quality of short game shots. It is an area defined as a circle that is 3 feet from the hole in every direction. We want the ball to come to rest inside the magic circle on our short game shots so that if we miss the shot we will be left with an easy putt. As you get more skilled you will tend to err inside the circle that leaves you the easiest putt, typically a straight putt below the hole.

Your efforts at learning the effects of "trickle distance" discussed earlier in the putting section will come into play when trying to get the ball into the magic circle. You must factor slope and grain when trying to get the ball to finish rolling inside the magic circle. You will start reading your chip shots like you read your putts.

Shot Variety and Club Selection

One of the skills that golf professionals and good players are very competent at is "reading the lie" of the ball in short game shots. Is the grain of the grass laying into the ball? Is the grain of the grass lying with the ball? What affect will the grain have on the way the club contacts the ball? The ball sits in heavy rough; will it come out fast or soft? The ball is sitting in a small depression; what effect will that cupped lie have on trajectory? Reading the lie becomes part of a good player's pre-shot routine.

Combining that knowledge or reading skill with what the expectations are after the ball hits the green are crucial to your success. One of the reasons why golfers do a better job of executing short game shots during practice than while playing is because that while practicing they tend to use the same club repeatedly and they position the ball into a good lie on each practice shot. How many of the lies you are going to find on the course will be perfect? Not very many! We want you to learn a number of different shots based upon the lie of the ball; good and bad.

Throw down a number of golf balls and hit them from the exact lie they end up. Avoid the tendency to hit the same shot over and over. It is not helping your practice efforts. Learn what to expect if you hit a shot out of heavy grass verses hard pan or a thin lie. Another benefit of this practice is that you will hit down and thru the ball. It is very difficult to help a ball into the air off of hard pan or a thin lie. Learning to let the loft of the club do the work, will prove very useful to you.
Your short game skills will improve to a greater degree if you learn to use a variety of clubs. The reason is that you are picking target that are close to you and then letting the ball roll different distances based upon the club used. It is much easier to hit a target 4 feet in front of you than one that is 40 feet in front of you. Some of golf's greatest short game wizards learned to play with one club which taught them very keen imagination kills and hand/eye coordination and then applied those skills to multiple clubs; Seve Ballesteros comes to mind. He learned to play short game and bunker shots with a 3 iron.

Using your 7 iron, hit shots to all of the practice holes on your short game practice area. Try to get the shots as close to the hole as possible at each location. Try to pick a very specific target (leaf on the green, discolored section of grass, old ball mark, etc) to land the ball on before letting it roll to the hole. The purpose of this practice is to learn how far you hit the 7 iron to different targets. How much hit is required to carry the ball to a 4 foot target, or a 10 foot target, or a 20 foot target. Ultimately we will learn that the closest target is the one we want when the pressure is on. This practice technique will prove to you that hitting closer targets using less hit on the chipping motion will produce more consistent and predictable results.

Hybrid Chip and Run

With the invention of hybrid clubs a new and exciting shot has emerged of the last 5 years. Prior to hybrid clubs, a ball lying in semi heavy grass just off the putting surface was more challenging. If you tried a putter the chances of getting a significant amount of grass between the face of the putter and the ball was a problem. In addition, the putter would hit the ball which then had to travel thru the entire section of tall grass. Many times the ball would come up short. In an effort to make sure the ball went thru the grass the player would hit the ball with sufficient force which in many cases was too hard and would travel well past the hole leading to failed up and down attempts.

Another shot conceived to work in this situation was the bellied wedge. Basically you hit the bottom sole of the wedge on the equator of the golf ball. There are some players with very good hand eye coordination that can play that shot on a consistent basis which suits low handicap players but what about the masses?

With the advent of larger headed fairway woods, players started using these clubs to play this shot. It's effective because the loft on the club helps to launch the ball so that it flies over most of the heavy grass prior to hitting the green and rolling to the flag. The only problem with fairway woods is the length. You want to play this shot using your putting stroke which makes using a club as long as your 3 or 5 wood more difficult than a hybrid. The other problem with using fairway woods is the loft. Many players only carry a driver and 3-wood. You need more loft than the typical 3-wood to play this shot more consistently. If you want to play this shot make sure you use a 5-wood.

The best way to play this shot is with either a 3 or 4 hybrid. The club is shorter than a fairway wood and has more loft. Do not try this shot with a 3 or 4 iron. You need the wide sole plate of the hybrid club to glide across the grass without digging into the grass. Grab the club like your putter and address the ball in a more vertical position. You do not want to bend too far over on this shot because the length of the club will cause the ball to be too far away from you. Hit the shot with the same

The Gate Drill is the best short game drill to help golfers practice chipping, pitching, bunker shots, and putting with a conversion mindset. The gate sets up differently depending upon distance from the hole. The gate for a 15 foot putt is only 1 ball wider than the hole. The gate for green side chips is 18 inches wide on each side of the hole and 24 inches deep. The gate for pitch shots is 24 inches wide on each side of the hole and 36 inches deep.

Cut a piece of brightly colored string that is 8' in length to be used to create a gate at the cup and a box behind the cup as shown in the illustration below. The gate should be no more than 2 feet wide on each side of the hole and 2 feet behind the hole. Find a hole location that provides a relatively straight chip shot and build the gate as shown below. Drop ten balls and try to chip the ball into the hole or into the gate and box behind the hole.

Scoring is as follows:

+5 if you make a chip

-2 if you are short, wide, or long of the gate and box

+1 if you miss the chip but stay in the gate and box

The objective is to make 10 points.

Magic Circle Practice

Cut 4 pieces of brightly colored string 12' in length to be used to create a circle at each of 4 cup locations as shown in the illustration below. The circle should be 2 feet wide on each side of the hole. Chip 5 balls to each location.

Scoring is as follows:

+5 if you make a chip

-2 if you are outside of the circle

+3 if you are inside the circle

The objective is to make 10 points at each hole location for a total of 40 points. you want to maximize the points at each location but the point total for 4 holes should be 40 or greater.

Converter Practice (Single Hole)

This practice is designed to simulate converting up and down attempts. Drop ten balls and chip all of the balls to a given hole location. Take your putter and then go thru the process of making the putts. Give maximum effort on trying to convert all of the chips with one putt.

Scoring is as follows:

+5 if you make a chip
+2 if you make the putt
-1 if you miss the putt
The objective is to make 10 points

Converter Practice (Multiple Holes)

This practice is designed to simulate converting up and down attempts to varying targets. Drop two balls and chip all of the balls to a given hole location. Then take two more balls and chip to a new location. Chip to 4 different locations with the total of 8 balls. Take your putter and then go thru the process of making the putts. Give maximum effort on trying to convert all of the chips with one putt.

Scoring is as follows:

+5 if you make a chip
+2 if you make the putt
-1 if you miss the putt

Game of 11

This practice is in the form of a game with a friend. Each player gets his/her choice of 1 club to use during the entire game (i.e. sand wedge, 7 iron, etc). Decide who goes first. Player 1 decides which hole location will be the start of the game. Player one drops the ball and then chips it to the first hole location. If a player chips the ball into the hole, he/she gets 5 points. Closest to the hole gets 1 point. Whichever player wins the hole is the first player to make the decision as to hole location and the first to play. The first player to score 11 points wins the game. Make it interesting by playing for quarters or dollars; so much per point difference.

Clip the Tee Drill

The golfer should position a tee four inches in front of the ball on the target line. After taking a proper address position to the ball the golfer should swing the club back and through brushing the ground beneath the ball and also hitting the tee in front of the ball. This drill will help the golfer insure solid and consistent contact with the ball.

Right Foot Up Drill

After addressing the ball with correct fundamentals for the chip shot the golfer should position the right foot with the heel up and the toe in contact with the ground. The golfer should hit shots with different clubs varying the length the ball rolls. This drill will help eliminate extra hand action and insure the golfer solid and consistent contact with the ball.