7 Secrets to Consistent Golf

1. Take Professional Lessons

PGA professionals know the game better than an other group of golfers in the industry, hands down. If you truly want to get better:

• Stop listening to your amateur buddies that can't break 90 or 100 

AND

• Find a highly experienced golf coach

2. Practice with a Purpose

The only thing worse than not practicing is practicing all the wrong things without knowing it (and you probably practice this way!). Please, please, please read this post if you haven't already.

3. Develop a Routine

Your routine is what gives comfort mentally when put under pressure. Watch the men and women on tour - they just do the same thing over and over again before every shot.

Should you be lucky enough to be able to attend a tour event, follow around a slightly less popular professional for 9 holes. Take note on how they physically move through their routine from shot to shot. (It will be the exact same every time)

4. Work on your Short Game

Simply put the fastest way to lower and more consistent scores is a better short game. Practice short chips, long chips, short pitches and long pitches. Practice bunker shots, flop shots, uneven lies and 50 yard wedges.

If you only have 10 minutes a week to practice, putt for five minutes (more on this in a minute) and pitch for five minutes. 

5. Work on your Putting

Did you know that amateurs shooting between 85-95 use 40% of the total strokes per round on the putting green?

If you shot between 85-95 and want to shoot between 75-85 work on your 2-5 foot putts, and putts from 30-50 feet. This combination makes up 80% of putts taken. 

6. Play a lot of Golf

A round a week at a minimum if you want to play your best is the requirement I place on my full time students. You should do the same. 

7. Become Unconsciously Competent

Avoid thinking about your golf swing on the course, and instead play golf (not golf swing!). If you arrive on the first tee thinking about hinging your wrists, turning your shoulders and lagging the club into impact, you are in for a long round of golf.

Bonus point - have fun! If it isn't fun, why are you doing it?!

How to Hit Hybrid Golf Clubs

In this post, we will discuss the hybrid itself, the set up with a hybrid, and ideal contact with the ball.

The hybrid golf club itself is one of the newest clubs to come about in the golf industry. Hybrids by nature are designed to replace long irons (2, 3, 4, & 5 irons; although now there are entire iron sets that are hybrids - those are great for low club head speed players or beginners). Here are a few images of a hybrid and how it sets up to the ball.

In general, the ball is played in your stance similar to that of a long iron (not centered, but also not off of your left heel like driver would be - it is played under your left ear or under the logo on your shirt).

One of the biggest keys you want to see with the hybrid is that there is some degree of forward press with the handle. Forward press is the angle of the shaft at set up. If the shaft with the hybrid points to your belt buckle, you have negative forward press and if it points outside of your left hip, you have too much forward press. Ideally, the handle points at your left belt loop.

Ideal contact comes ball first, and a small divot second in most golf shots. The hybrid is no exception.

To start to gain a feel for this, set up a tee just after the ball low in the ground.

Make the ball and the tee fly with your club in a golf swing. This will give you more solid contact. If the tee stays in the ground, you either hit behind the ball and the club skipped up into the ball, or you never got enough ground.

Focus UNTIL you get to the point of clipping the tee and compressing the ball off of the face solidly.

If you cannot get the good contact we are looking for with this drill, watch this video clip. For more on Gibbs Golf visit our website.

The Golf Course

Let's start with the whole property and then work down to the individual areas.

First, there is the course itself, the practice facility and the club house. All courses will have some form of all three major areas. However, some clubs have very limited practice areas and club houses while others put literally tens of millions of dollars into the club house or practice areas.

Let's start with the golf course.

The golf course itself is made up of holes. Each hole contains a tee box and a green, at a minimum. Most courses have a series of 9, 18, 27 or 36 holes.

Each hole has a general rating for what a professional should score on it. That general rating is called, "Par." Par is 3, 4 or 5 (there are a few, very few courses that have a Par 2 or 6, but that is very rare). As a beginner, a good goal to start for is 3 strokes over Par on every hole (once you can hit the ball 100 yards)

Every hole has at least a tee box, a green and a hole.

The tee box is where the hole begins. All players start the hole by placing a tee in the ground (optional, but highly advised!) and placing the ball on it. The ball is struck successively until it comes to rest on the green. Once the green is reached, the ball is then putt into the hole. Once the ball has be holed, the player takes the ball onto the next tee box and the process is repeated.

Other areas on any given hole may include -

The Fairway - this is the short grass between the tee box and the green.

A Bunker/Sand Trap - imagine a small pit filled with sand that ranges in size from a refrigerator to football field (don't put your ball in that one! :) )

Out of Bounds - this is area is marked by white posts. Balls that enter this area are deemed to be out of play and the player must replay the shot from the original position where the ball last came to rest (don't do this either!)

Hazards - an area in which red or yellow posts signify that the ball can be played from (most of the time, some local rules do not permit it) but the club cannot touch the ground before executing the stroke. It is possible that the hazard could be a cliff edge, a lake, largely overgrown grass areas or river/ditch.

Rough - this traditionally surrounds the fairway. It varies in length (grass length that is) from one half inch to 5 inches.


And, while there are many other areas that exist, this is a basic introductory list and let's move onto the practice facility. 

At the practice facility of the golf course, most will have the following:

Putting green - the area in which practicing putting is permitted

Chipping/Pitching area - the area in which practicing chipping/pitching is permitted

Driving range - the area in which practicing long shots is permitted

The general idea in these areas is to be curious to other golfers and practice your game.  Click here to learn about practice.


The Clubhouse is where most of the action exists for purchases, dinning, locker-rooms, events and other activities the golf course holds. It is typically very easy to find because it tends to be the only major structure on the golf course. Some clubhouses are a half of a trailer. Some clubhouses are more than double that in square footage of the white house! (Congressional Country Club has a Clubhouse that is 140,000 SQ FT! Posted below)



This is the area in which you would be likely to find a food and beverage service operation, the golf shop, a club repair area, staff offices, bathrooms and other departments the club deems necessary.

Test your knowledge!

The Golf Club

This is one post in a series of posts on golf basics.

For more golf basics, click here.


The golf club itself is composed of three basic parts.

Head - this is the part of the club that will actually strike the golf ball

Shaft - this connects the grip and the head together and helps to create club head speed

Grip - this is the only spot on the club that the hands will remain during the golf swing

Basics of the head of the club - let's start with the overall appearance and uses
Heads come in two basic forms, irons and woods.

Irons are the club heads that generally hit the ball onto the the green. Irons will appear smaller in size in comparison with woods.

 



This is an image of an iron








                                                          Woods hit the ball longer that irons and are larger than irons.




 

      This is an image of a wood







Use irons when you are closer to the green, and use woods when starting the hole (assuming you cannot reach the hole in one shot - read the post on "The Golf Course" if you haven't already).

Let's discuss the shaft. Shaft come in two basic forms - graphite and steel.

Graphite shafts are always found in woods (at least the woods that are new within 10 years) and steel shafts are found in irons; irons can also have graphite shafts.

Graphite shafts are traditionally slightly longer (one half inch) than a normal steel shaft. Graphite shafts are designed for irons to hit the ball higher, slightly longer because of the extra shaft length, and to feel better when the club head hits the ball off center.

Graphite shafts in irons are traditionally recommended for players just starting out, players with lower club head speed or for someone that prefers the feeling of a lighter shaft (graphite shafts in irons are typically 50-80 grams in total weight, while steel shafts are 80-140 grams).

Steel shafts in irons are good for someone with average or higher club head speed (average club head speed for a man would produce 135 yards of carry with a 7 iron and a lady would produce 90 yards of carry with a 7 iron), or for someone that is looking for more control.

The two biggest fitting variables in shafts are length and flex. A standard steel 6 iron (depending on the manufacturer) is about 37 inches in length. Standard flex is called "regular" and fits most male golfers well. Ladies use a "A-flex" or a "Ladies-flex." Both the "A" and "Ladies" flex are typical flex fits for women.

Grip Basics

The only key to know with grips for, "Golf 101" is to understand sizing.

Grips come in three basic sizes -

Standard

Midsize

Oversize

Without getting into exact measurements, standard sized grips will fit about 75% of the golf population.

Midsized grips are normally used for players with larger hands or longer fingers.

Oversized grips are used for players with very large hands or fingers.

A BONUS POINT ON GRIPS - Golfers with arthritis of the hands, fingers or wrists tend to find that oversized grips are much more comfortable and allow greater enjoyment physically when gripping and swinging the golf club - however - larger than standard grips will tend to produce a ball flight for a right handed golfer that flies to the right. Therefore, before switching to a non-standard grip, consult your PGA Professional and have them fit you for grip size.

This is one post in a series of posts on, "Golf 101." Please click here for the entire thread of posts.

How to Use Bounce Correctly in the Bunker

When hitting a sand shot, one major key needs to be determined (there is a quiz, take notes! http://gibbsgolf.com/?page_id=8)

The lie of the ball in the sand.

Therefore, assess whether or not there is no sand, little sand or a lot of sand under the ball. 

To determine how much sand is around the ball, use the feel that you have in your feet.

If your feet sink into the sand deeply (Florida courses typically have lots of soft sand or high end private clubs), odds are there is a lot of sand under the ball.

If your feet only sink a little bit into the sand (this is the most common condition you will find), there probably is only a small amount of sand.

If your feet make "crunching" sounds or don't sink at all into the sand (common in Arizona, New Mexico and desert types of courses) you are hitting off of fill dirt, good luck, there is basically no sand at all in that bunker!

Now that you know how to identify how much sand is under the ball, learning about bounce will make more sense.

Bounce is the angle of depth the sole of the club contains. The angle of depth is measured by manufacturers. Each company produces wedges that have different amounts of bounce classified by a number. This number ranges anywhere from 4-14, traditionally.

Wedges with 4-6 degrees of bounce would be considered to have low/little bounce, wedges from 6-10 degrees have mid/average bounce, and wedges with more than 10 degrees have high/large bounce.

The wedges in your bag should reflect the courses that you play the most. If you carry three wedges and live in Florida, TWO of the three should be high bounce. If you carry three wedges and live in Arizona, TWO of those three wedges should be low bounce.

Use bounce correctly in the bunker by the way that the club addresses the ball at the set up.

EXAMPLE 1 - If the lie is tight (little/no sand) the face of the club should be square to slightly closed.

EXAMPLE 2 - If the lie is average (some sand) the face of the club should be square to slightly open.

EXAMPLE 3 - If the lie is fluffy (lots of sand) the face of the club should be open to very open.

When the face of the club is square to slightly closed like in example one, this makes the trailing edge of the sole of the club negative to standard (negative in this situation means that some of the bounce of the club is being taken away). This will help the club dig into the ground making the shot easier.

When the face of the club is very open like in example three, the trailing edge of the sole of the club is positive to standard (positive in this situation means that the effective bounce is larger). This will help the club slide across the ground instead of dig into the ground, making the shot easier.

Test your Knowledge! Click the link below - then click Start Quiz

http://gibbsgolf.com/?page_id=8

For more, visit http://www.gibbsgolf.com