Conscious Friends Forum

[andrew]

While it's still cold and most of us are off the golf course take a few moments and find a video or two that deal with such subjects as sand shots, chip shots around the green, short iron shots into the green and oh yes, putting, short distances and longer distances.

If you are in a location where the weather is not too bad one thing you can do is just practice hitting short wedge shots, maybe 20 to 50 yards on a high school practice field or a municipal field. This will help keep your golfing muscles, primarily shoulder, wrist and arms somewhat flexible until the spring. Once the golfing season begins with respect to chipping and pitching tips, golfers should do the following:

Set goals for yourself on the different parts of your game, particularly those you had trouble with during the previous golfing season. Follow our outline on chipping and pitching tips. Get up early enough to spend some time on the practice range hitting wedges to specific targets, chipping on the practice green and putting on the practice green with cheap golf clubs. You should allocate at least an hour to this if your personal schedule permits.

Have a friend, family member or playing partner look at all the aspects of your short game when you are playing your round and again while on the range. For example, during the round, you should have someone watch to see if your feet are in proper alignment with the flagstick, how far back you bring the club when hitting short iron or chip shots, what your eyes and head are doing when hitting chips and short irons and again, when putting whether long putts or short putts.

While playing the round you should have someone make observations about your short game and these observations should be written down on a pad. For example, on putts, you may break your wrists, thereby pulling or pushing putts with cheap golf clubs. A playing partner can easily see this kind of mistake and help you change your putting style, if not during the round, then on the practice green.

If it is possible when you are practicing or during an actual round have one of your playing partners or a friend take cell phone pictures of your stance on chips, putts, short irons shots so you can actually see what you look like as opposed to what you think you look like. For example, you may think you are bending your knees at address on short chips and iron shots but in actuality you are stiff legged. Another example is on putts, if a photo can be taken during the actual putting stroke, you may find out that you are lifting your head or moving your eyes and not really keeping still until some time after the putt has been hit.

On your short irons shots, when divots are taken, see the direction of the divot and the depth of the divot. Studying these results will help you correct possible swing errors with cheap golf clubs before they become ingrained.

Maintain a good mental attitude even if shots are struck poorly or off line or do not achieve the intended result.