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Check Your Basics:

• Posture
• Grip
• Alignment

This is very important to be able to make a correct swing. Also just as important is BALANCE you need to have good balance to complete a good swing.

You don't need to be on the practice range to work on balance. There are many different ways to improve your balance at home.

NO MATTER YOUR SCORING GOALS:

You can attain them faster by improving your putting. Here are five key thoughts as you get ready to putt.

• Hold your breath just prior to initaiating the stroke to keep your head and body still
• Start the putterhead straight back from the ball smoothly, slowly and naturally
• Keep the putterhead low to the ground
• Swing firmly but smoothly
• Keep the putterface moving along the putt's initial line three to six inches after impact

GET ONE UP ON DOWNHILL AND UPHILL LIES:

For all shots hit from uneven lies, hilly lies, the same bascics apply. Do this first, find your balance by leaning on your toes, then shifting your weight on to your heels, YOU DON'T WANT TO BE IN EITHER PLACE. Find a point in between where your balance feels as if it is under your shoestrings. Once you have found your balance make several practice swings to get your body to adjust to the feeling of the shot you are trying to attempt.

BALL ABOVE YOUR FEET:

Grip down on the club in order to maintain your basic posture. You may lose some distance, so consider taking one more club. Remember the ball flight will tend to go in the direction of your body, so if your are a right hander you will probably hit the ball left. Your swing should feel flatter, but trust it and make a confident swing.

BALL BELOW YOUR FEET:

In this case you want to take one more club for the distance your are trying to achieve. Your have to make sure that you do not let your weight shift to your toes. Your swing plane will be steeper making it easy to lose your balance. If you are right handed you will want to aim to the left of the target because the ball will go to the right.

FORWARD FOOT HIGHER THAN BACK FOOT:

Your backswing will feel easy because your club and body are moving downhill. You want to make sure that your downswing and follow-through is exaggerated to help you transfer your weight to the front foot. Take some practice swings getting to your finish with normal tempo and rhythm. This shot will fly higher and shorter than normal, so make sure to take one more club.

FORWARD FOOT LOWER THAN BACK FOOT:

This shot will go farther than you imagine. The key thing here is to practice your backswing so that your get your normal weight to transfer to your back foot. After impact, your weight will transfer toward the down hill, you might lose your balance but that is ok. Allow your siwng to finish like Gary Player by taking a step forward.

WANT SOME BITE ON THOSE FAIRWAY WOODS

If your a short hitter off the tee, you're accustomed to using your fairway woods for many approach shots. Unfortuanately, fairway woods can be a problem if you have a 170-yard shot with water, sand or a hazard behind the green, because even a well-hit shot can be hot enough to roll into the trouble after landing.

The solution is to hit your fairway woods with a higher trajectory so they land with some bite, like an iron. Here is what you can do to promote that trajectory. Move the ball an inch back in your stance and step closer to the ball. This will encourage you to have more of an upright swing plane and promotes contact with the ball at the bottom of your swing arc, this will allow you to hit the ball with a decending blow. You may even take a small diviot so dont' worry if you do.

Your result will be a shot with higher trajectory more backspin and a softer landing.

BALL POSITION IS CRITICAL

Once you begin the swing, instinct takes over. Your whole being is absorbed in the task of striking the ball, and your body will do whatever is necessary to make it happen. BALL POSITION---- where you place the ball on the ground in relation to your feet has an enormous influence on how your body reacts in your attempt to "find" the ball with the clubhead. If the ball is positioned correctly, you can swing the club freely and soundly without having to make outlandish compensations with your body. On the other hand, if the ball is stationed poorly, it will demand compensations to ensure an acceptable ball flight.

The proper ball position is forward in the stance. For the driver, the ball is placed directly off the instep of the left foot. As the clubs move from driver to 9-iron, the ball moves back in the stance. The ball position for the 9-iron is slightly less than 3 inches back from the driver position.

As you can see the movement of the ball position from driver to 9-iron is a very samll amount. Tradition has always taught that the short irons are played in the center of the stance. As you will find out, the best players have a good reason not to follow tradition.

The proper distance away fron the ball (toe-to-ball distance) is dictated mostly by the length of the typical club. The lenght of the driver produces a distance of about (32 inches), while the shorter 9-iorn requires only about (20 inches). The distance can also be affected by numerous body characteristics, including height (taller = closer), shouler and hip width (narrow = closer), arm length (shorter = closer), and even foot size (larger = closer).

Regardless of its final location, there is little doubt that the position of the ball affects the swing more than any other alignment factor.

CHECK YOUR CENTERS

Did you know the golf swing has two cneters, an upper and a lower?

The approximate location of your upper center is the top button on your golf shirt (if you have it buttoned). The approximate location of your lower center is your belt buckle.

I use two good drills to check the proper positions of these two points before and during my student's swing.

Prior to hitting a ball, your two centers will be vertically in-line with themselves. To experience this alignment grab a club and a golf ball, and put yourslef in your normal setup position. In this position, you should notice that your two centers are in a straight verical line. If they are not, then your set-up position is out of balance, and you should make a correction to this position to insure the two centers form a straight line. A good drill to practice is setting up in front of a mirror, visually checking to see if your two centers are in line. Drawing a line down the middle of the mirror will assist you in achieving the correct position.

When you are in an impact position in your swing, your centers are no longer in line. Your lower center must be ahead of the ball, on its way to facing your intended target. Your upper center should be in line and/or behind the ball. If they are not in these positions, chances are you making a reverse weight shift. A good drill to achieve this desirable position is to again use a mirror. This time try to insure that as you swing the club down, your lower center passes the line you have drawn on the mirror, while your upper center remains behind the line.

WIND TESTED

When the wind blows, golf requires patience, concentration and and added attention to detail in order to be sucessful.

PLAYING AGANIST THE WIND

The key to playing into the wind is to resist the temptation to hit the ball hard, for this will only increase the effect of backspin, causing the ball to balloon into the air and come up well short of your intended target.

The best advice when hitting a shot into a strong wind is to knock the ball down by hitting a low-trajectory shot. (by putting the ball back in your stance and choking down on the grip and trap the ball between the clubface and the ground and finish with your swing low not a high finish) Another option is to simply take more club than the shot requires and make an easy swing, focusing on making solid contact.(It's also worth experimenting with choking down on the grip, since every inch you grip down on the club equates to one less club in distance)

When playing a driver, there are two schools of thought. The first calls for teeing the ball lower than normal and with it slightly back in your stance, since this will allow you to strike the ball with less loft on the clubface. The second method counters that you should keep the tee at a normal level and playing a hook spin shot. When teeing the ball lower, you tend to hit it with a descending blow, causing it to balloon up into the wind. The best advice is to see which one works for you.

There is some good news about playing the shots into the wind , and that it can be a tremendous advantage on approach shots and shots around the green. The same effect that reduces distance off the tee--an increase in backspin--helps stop the ball on the green.

PLAYING DOWNWIND

When you play and the wind is at your back, it can be a good news, bad news situation. The good news is that the wind will help you gain distance off the tee--but good news only if you hit it straight.

Otherwise, the windy conditions will only help get you further into trouble. In addition, the wind will make it difficult to stop the ball on the green, as the weather conditions reduce backspin.

CROSSING WINDS

There are two approaches to dealing with a side or crossing wind. First you could curve the ball into the wind. (Example: If the wind is blowing from left-to-right, hit a draw, and hold it aganist the wind.) The problem with this apporach is that if the wind has a lull after you have struck the ball it will turn your gentle fade into a hook.

The safer approach is to favor the side of the hole that the wind is blowing from and simply let the wind carry the ball back to your target. This approach takes the spin off the ball, and it will run in the direction the wind carried it.

Golf Tips provided by: Bruce Sims Schoold of Golf