Is it Possible to Play Better Golf With No Practice?

I, like most golfers, am always looking to play better, beat my mates and get bragging rights. I have a lifestyle that is pretty hectic and spend a lot of time with my family. I have two boys and we are a soccer mad family. I coach one of my boys teams and my other son plays twice a week as well. So you can see I don't get any time to perfect my golf at all.

Recently I have been managing about a game every 4 weeks and absolutely no practice, so I have been in search of a way to help me enjoy my game with no practice, so I researched and investigated and came up with 2 things that I could do with out too much bother.

1. Course management
2. pitching and Chipping strategy

Course management I decided that I would concentrate on choosing the right kind of shot at the right time, then I would definitely get better scores. The golf course that I play at has loads of bunkers on every green, and I figured that if I went for the green with my approach shots that I would either be on the green or in a bunker. Now depending on how far out from the green I was also had a bearing on my shot. I decided that for any shot requiring more than a 9 iron I would actually play short/lay up and take my chances with my chipping and putting. As part of that decision process was also where to lay up to to give me the best angle to chip on to the green.

So my simple course management technique was really to avoid the bunkers at all costs and give myself a chance of an up and down from a green side chip.

Unless you can hit the ball from where you are onto the green at least 7 times out of 10 then you would be better off playing short.

pitching and Chipping Strategy

I read the following tip recently

"You can vary the distance of your chips by using different clubs - try using your 5 iron, 7 iron or 9 iron and only ONE SWING instead of using your Sand Wedge and 3 different swings."

Basically, the secret is to have the same length backswing, but use a different club to ship the ball either longer or shorter, and I adapted it to have two swings.

Well that made sense to me so before my round started, I thought I would do a little scientific research, so I went to the practice area and played chips with 2 different swings

Swing #1 Take the club back about 18 inches behind my back foot. The key is to go back the same distance every time

Swing #2 Takes the club back parallel to the ground

I spent 15 minutes testing out how far the ball went with each club using swing number 1 from my 5 iron up to my lob wedge to get a feel for the distance covered in the air and the total distance I then repeated the exercise using swing number 2 I also used a simple setup routine for chipping and putting (you can get this set up routine from my website TheGolfHelper.com

Now I didn't change any other part of my game, and just applying these simple methods improved my game without any practice (well actually about 15 minutes practice on the chipping range!)

As I said before these 2 things were the key to me winning our club A grade competition, and all done with 2 very simple techniques that anyone can do without remodeling your swing or taking a lesson, so that should give you some food for thought!

If you want to discover the simple set up routine that I used, simply go to my web site and See my review of The Simple Golf Swing Review

Pilates Yoga With Jami Gri

Hit Straight Drives

A lot of golfers really battle to hit straight drives and getting off to a good start is such a confidence booster. There is nothing better than a good drive at the start of a round of golf. You will have a great day if you can hit straight drives off every tee.

The secret to straight driving is technique and confidence. If you have ever hit a straight drive then you can do it again. Its in there somewhere and all you have to do is find it and repeat it time and time again.

Many a bad tee shot is the result of tension especially on the first tee of an important round or when there is a crowd around. The result is the player gets tense and so the whole body, starting from the grip and going right through the arms, legs and torso, is overcome with tension. The result can be embarrassing and shake a players confidence.

Remember when playing that the woods are a little bit longer than the irons and therefore a slightly flatter swing plane is required (dont adjust for this because of this article!). In many cases pulling out the driver is a habit and is sometimes not even required. If you have a 350 meter/yard hole you can probably easy take two six irons to get there. Why make it more difficult by playing a driver?

A very good way of grooving the swing and getting confidence to hit straight drives regularly is to practice with a shortened back swing. When you go to the range shorten your back swing to 75%. Make sure you accelerate evenly through the ball and make a full follow through.

As you do this more and more at practice your big muscles will groove themselves to perform the same when you go back to a full swing. Try it youll be amazed at the results. You may even find that with a shortened back swing the loss in distance (if any) is so negligible that with the extra accuracy it is not worth worrying about.

Standing on the first tee knowing that you will be in play after your tee shot is a huge confidence booster. No-one ever worries about who plays the second shot first yet we all want to smack the longest drive. Funny thing the ego (intended for the men out there ladies dont seem to worry about this too much).

Give it a try I guarantee you will hit straight drives more often than you do at the moment.

As a qualified EGTF golf professional teacher I get great pleasure in helping people improve their game. Why not head over to Better Golfing and take up my challenge to reduce your golf handicap by 25% within 6 weeks?

During Pregnancy Yoga

Video Game Industry to Undergo Serious Change

The video game industry is soon to undergo a serious change. A change that many feel is for for the better.

Currently video game manufacturers and publishers usually sign what is called an exclusive agreement. What this means is the video game hardware manufacturer, such as xbox, ps3, WII, etc. has the sole rights for that publisher`s particular game.

However this trend of exclusive deals may be coming to an end. In the November issue if Electronic gaming Monthly, Evan Van Zelfden says, "that the agreements between game publishers and hardware makers called as third-party exclusives may be ceased in the future." Van Zelfden explains further, "that more publishers and developers were willing to create computer games that can be used for different gaming platforms such as nintendo Wii, Sony Playstation, and xbox 360 than giving an exclusive license to only one platform."

Not having an exclusive license allows publishers to develop a video game for multiple platforms. Van Zelfden agrees, "their games would have a wider market if it will be available in multiplatform versions."

It may be a while before the entire industry jumps on this "bandwagon" however there are a couple of games on the way. The games that would soon launch in multiplatform versions include "Devil May cry 4" and "Grand Theft Auto IV".

Keep an eye out on this trend and the games that will be hitting the market soon. Soon you will no longer have to buy just the XBox to get a certain game and so on.

Become California Teacher Yoga