1. Because the driver golf club is longer than all the other clubs in the bag, you are forced to stand further away from the ball at the address position. The beginner at golf can find this quite daunting, and until you get used to standing further away with this golf club you will struggle to hit your drives consistently well.

The problem I believe is that from the golfer’s perspective, as he or she stands to the ball, we tend to think we have to put lots of effort into the swing to get the ball to travel long distances. This is a misconception, as the golfer needs to learn to rely solely on the ability of the steep face of the driver golf club combined with a smooth golf swing to deliver the drive we want.

2. The driver golf swing is meant to be to be made in a wide and smooth arc. My advice is to watch one of the top players and study how they swing the driver. Then try and copy the movement in your own swing. That would mean being conscious of keeping the arms straight as you begin the backswing.

Keep them extended as you take the club back and bend the wrists naturally until they are fully cocked at the top of the backswing, all the time remembering this movement does not have to be hurried. The aim is to have a smooth and wide arc.

3. When playing the driver you will be aware that the weight bias of your body is to your right side, and this gives the golfer an unnatural perspective on the set-up until you get used to it. It takes practice but when you start hitting golf drives consistently down the fairway you will be convinced that it is what you must do to play the driver to the best of your ability. Keep the weight inclined to the right side all the way through the golf swing with the driver.

The length of the shaft together with the steep and unforgiving face of the driver golf club make it a difficult club to play consistently well. By concentrating on the principles laid out above you will be on your way to hitting some decent drives and keeping out of the rough.

Of course, the other option is to take lessons and follow the advice of a good teaching professional. But golf lessons can be expensive. As the saying goes, “you pay your money and take your choice.”

So what exactly is golf swing analysis software? It is software, which you buy from a vendor, on a CD and run the program on your PC at home. You then use the data and feedback the software gives you to improve your golf game. You record your swing on a camera and the software for its part analyses your swing for you, by precisely measuring the key metrics of the golf swing.

These metrics are typically, the angle of the club face, the swing path, and the information it has found is displayed on the computer screen. This is obviously valuable and useful feedback for the golfer to use to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of their golf swing. The information is usually available in text or graphic form. Audio feedback is also an option.

When you compare the possibilities of golf swing analysis software with golf instruction from a teaching professional you can see there are distinct advantages for some golfers who choose to use this software. An instructor cannot give you precise measurements, distances, angle of the golf club, etc. But, a good golf teacher can soon analyse golf faults and have them ironed out.

Whether you decide to buy golf swing analysis software or not, the objective is the same, and that is to help you improve your golf game.

I am equally sure many will fall both sides of a yes or no answer. Some golfers might not believe in golf swing training aids, dismissing them out of hand. They could be seen as gimmicky. It depends on your outlook.

However, I am of the opinion that anything which will help me to become a better golfer has to be worth a closer look. Secondly I want to know what the golf swing training aid claims to be able to do for my game, and then I would want to know how effective it is in achieving that objective. In other words, does it work, and what do the product reviewers have to say about it.

In reality some of the most effective golf swing training aids are simple exercises golfers can do for themselves in no more than a few minutes. Stretching exercises to warm up before your round of golf, for example. These train the muscles to get the golf swing into gear straight away.

Anything which helps strengthen those muscles which golfers use. This could be the lower leg muscles, or the hands, wrists and arms. Golfers have a variety of weight training aids available to use in improving muscle gain in these parts of the body.

One of the best golf swing training aids I learned many years ago, and which still works well today, is to practice swinging two golf clubs together instead of one. This takes effort and concentration and helps to strengthen the right muscles as well.

The message of this article? I would question what golf swing training aids can really do for your golf game that you could not do for yourself by following a simple home exercise routine. I might be wrong.

It is true that many golfers, me included, take our body for granted and neglect to prepare for the many rounds of golf to come.

I like to get my clubs out and check they are all in good condition, after having stored them during the harsh winter we have had here. Hopefully, you will have looked after your clubs carefully before putting them away for the winter months. That means cleaning the club face and checking the grips for signs of wear.

Regular Exercise Is The Key

As I get older, and we all do each year that passes, I am aware that every golfer needs to be in shape to withstand the physical and mental stresses and strains of the golf course. After all, we can expect to be on our feet for a good few hours each round. So I have been been doing plenty of walking in the closed season, off the golf course, to build up my physical stamina. I know there is always the golf buggy, and there are golfers who need to use them, but I play golf for the exercise, and I do not want to get flabby. Just my personal choice.

Golf Workouts

Walking is a good all round exercise for fitness anyway, so I do it not just for the benefit of my golf, but for good health in general. After a few months away from the golf course, it is important to pick up a golf club and tune up the golf swing. You can do this anytime and for as long or short a time as you choose. I take practice swings from a few minutes out in the back yard.

I experiment by swinging the club at different speeds, to find the one that feels most comfortable. Swing speed is a difficult thing to replicate, from one round of golf to the next. I then swing two golf clubs together, just to test the muscles that bit more. The theory behind this is that if I can swing both together in a controlled way, it will be a lot easier swinging one golf club only. And it does wonders for my golf swing.

Don’t forget the hands. They are your link to the club. Do you remember the saying, “good hands means good golf?” Well, its true. There are a number of exercise you can do at home to work those fingers. I use a squash ball, but you can just as easily squeeze a towel hard with both hands.

I hope you finds these golf workouts useful and good luck in the coming golf season.

The trouble with golf swing drills, as far as the average club golfer is concerned, is the lack of motivation to actually begin them in the first place, and then to actually take them seriously enough to see them through to the end.

So you could say, whether you do these drills or not before playing your game of golf is a sign of how seriously you take the golf game. More importantly, how dedicated you are to becoming a better than average golfer?

We can all hold our hand up and say to ourselves, “I wish I had taken the time to warm up before today’s round”. Usually this confession comes too late, by which time the round of golf is well under way and things are not going too well. Quite frankly, if this is you at this point, there is very little you can do about it other than concentrate and try to play better. But that does not always work, and can lead to yet more frustration.

The moral of this article is clear. Take the time to do those golf swing drills, because you know in your subconscious that they make sense. The top golfers do them so that ought to be motivation enough to go through with them in your own game. Once you have that settled, there comes the decision of which golf swing drills are right for you.

As a guide, I would say that starting with a warm up routine works best for most golfers. A few stretching exercises, done sensibly, can work wonders. The point is to get those muscles warmed up and ready for action on the golf course. Follow this by hitting a few shots. I like to start with my favourite club which is a mid iron. I stop when I am satisfied everything is OK, or after hitting about ten shots, then I move on to hitting some drives. That gets all the muscles moving and as far as I am concerned, it is a necessary golf swing drill for the real thing which is soon to happen.

To finish, like many other club golfers up and down the land, I take to the practice green and work on my putting technique. Here I am looking for confidence. That is fine, as long as you bear in mind the greens you are soon to be putting on need to be in the same condition as the one you are practising on. It is not always the case.

And that’s it! If I return a disappointing score after going through these golf swing drills then at least I cannot blame myself for neglecting to go through them before beginning my round.

I am not a golf teacher and this method of hitting a 6 iron is my own, but is written here in the hope it might help someone’s golf game.

Grip.

The grip is one of those fundamentals I mentioned above. I use my normal overlapping grip to play this club.

Stance.

There is lots of advice about how to stand to the ball, but for the 6 iron I like to have my weight mostly on my heels with my feet a shoulder width apart. I think this is a good rule of thumb for considering how far apart to have the feet at the address position, especially given that we are all physically different from one another, and of differing heights.

In normal weather conditions, I position the ball midway from my right heel at the mid point between my feet. I do this to give myself the best chance of hitting the ball before the turf. Every golfer dreads hitting the ground before the ball.

The Back Swing

Before beginning the backswing, I check that I am lining up the shot to the intended line of flight, with my feet square to the ball. This is the setup for a straight golf shot. When you get good at playing this club you can experiment playing an intentional draw or fade with a six iron. But first, you have to master the basics. I happen to believe that beginners at golf should first get used to playing at least one golf club well, before trying to play them all well at the same time.

I take the club back on the inside swing path and stop when my hands are at shoulder height. By then, my body weight will have shifted, to an extent, to the right leg, and while my left shoulder will be pointing to the ground, the hips will have rotated ninety degrees to the right.

Downswing

The down-swing is initiated by a leftward movement of the hips, and with the wrists still fully cocked until they are at the height of my hips, I then deliberately whip the club through the ball, and then follow through, keeping my head down. This uncoiling of the hips is the power base of the golf shot, and is where the power and accuracy of the shot originates. If you get this right, you will play good golf and you are on the way to a lower golf handicap.

Buy Now On Amazon UK

I have been a great admirer of Tom Watson all through his playing career and I have a copy of his best selling book Getting Up And Down so I didn’t take much persuading to have a look at the Golf Lessons Of A Lifetime DVD. I read about this DVD on Amazon UK where, at the time this is written, there are an overwhelming 35 star ratings out of a total of 35 customer reviews. That tells me that that this instructional golf DVD must be good.

A bit of background research showed that this DVD is beneficial to beginners at golf especially, and to more experienced golfers as well. But, it’s one thing to watch and learn about improving your golf game, the other part of the equation to make it work, is to apply what you have learned to the practice ground and put it into action. You can do that with this DVD.

Contents

As the title implies, the content of Golf Lessons Of A Lifetime is just what it says. The package consists of 2 DVDs and a 16 page booklet. You can see a full content listing by clicking this link.

Suffice to say, the subject matter covers a great deal about golf instruction. No doubt, some golf teachers are better than others in putting their message across, and because this is a DVD, it’s like having Tom Watson talk to you personally, and explaining how to do what he is showing you.

The 100% positive customer reviews on Amazon UK (to date), tell their own story about customer satisfaction with this DVD, and it can be purchased from the Amazon UK website.

The most helpful positive customer review reads as follows:

This is a worthwhile value for money purchase on several grounds. 1) its a good tutorial on the fundamentals and the swing with quality demonstrations.. the right mixture of talk and action; and this guy can really do the demonstrations… 2) it’s a brilliant tutorial on the ‘short game’ and it would be well worth the money alone to watch him around the green and in the bunker.. Absolutely wonderful chipping and bunker work. 3) He comes over as…….click here to read this review in full.

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Not everyone can afford the services of a caddy, but there is another choice. The Golf Buddy Tour GPS Range Finder is the next best thing. This little gadget really is your golf buddy. All you do is switch it on and it knows without you having to do anything which course you are playing.

Why not take the guesswork out of your golf game. No more trying to figure out in your head by using landmarks how far it is to the green. Let the Golf Buddy Tour work it out for you. It comes with pre loaded course information from around the world, and it helps you gain confidence on the golf course by giving you the exact distance of your next golf shot.

There is a large, easy to read screen that displays the exact distances to the green, bunkers, water hazards, and lay ups. The view of the green it shows you changes, depending on your angle of approach. By taking all the guesswork of distances out of the equation, the Golf Buddy Tour gives you the confidence to know which club to play for the correct distance of the shot required.

There’s no need to aim the Golf Buddy either, all you do is switch it on and it automatically recognizes your surroundings.

This is perhaps the best feature of the Golf Buddy Tour GPS. The fact that you don’t have to search through thousands of courses to find the one you want. The Golf Buddy finds that information automatically for you, leaving you free to concentrate on your golf game.

In summary ,the features of the DSC-GB300 Golf Buddy are:

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Any Cons With This Product?

Not that I can find.

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Let’s face it, it is no fun playing your second shot first every time, with your golfing buddies consistently hitting their drives past your ball. No one likes to be second or third best.

So what is stopping you from hitting the ball long off the tee?

Is it a mental problem? Having the right attitude I am sure does help when playing different golf shots, including the driver. But it cannot be down to that alone. There is a certain truth in the idea of visualising yourself hitting a long straight drive, as you stand over the ball on the tee. It must help. But it doesn’t depend on mind alone.

How about achieving a full shoulder turn at the top of the backswing? Every golfer knows how important a full shoulder turn is in the build up of power in the back swing. That together with restricting how far the hips turn, are both key elements in hitting longer golf drives.

A lot depends on what happens during the downswing. Get this wrong and you hit a poor golf shot. There is so much to think about and get right during the complete golf swing, you must wonder, like I do sometimes, how on earth I ever manage to hit a decent drive off the tee.

Hitting longer golf drives is surely within every golfers capability.

This also helps me to visualize the golf shot before I play it. It is like taking a mental photograph. Once you have looked back to where you are about to play the shot from, then forward to where you are aiming, the problem then is picking out a landmark that you can aim for so that you know you are aiming on target. I typically look for a tall tree in the background as a marker, aiming straight at it, or to the left or right of the marker. If there are no obvious landmarks, then that calls for more ingenuity on the part of the golfer.

Since researching the GPS for golf, in particular the Garmin Golflogix GPS 8, I realize there is another dimension to these golf shots. The lay up. The golf course gps allows me to lay up to say, fifty yards from the green, depending if there are any hazards in my path. Call this strategic thinking, or safety play, if you like, but I see it as a strategy to save me wasting golf shots and keep my ball in play.

Some golfers might see lay ups as a defensive style of play, but I think this is a sensible option. Going back to the playing over the ridge example above, one way of playing the hole would be to play to the top of the ridge, where you can still see your ball, then play the next shot to the green, from where you now will be able to see the green in front of you. Do you sacrifice a shot by doing this? Perhaps. But at least you are less likely to lose your ball, or hit it out in a hazard, or worse, play it out of bounds.

It makes a difference of course, when faced with these shots, on how well you know the hole you are playing. If you have played it before, that makes a difference. This type of strategy might make more sense if you are playing a course that you do not know. As always in golf, it calls for judgment on your part, with a view to returning the best golf score you can.