Tag: Pitch

How to Prepare For a Golf Tournament

How to Prepare For a Golf Tournament

Article by Maxx Johnson









Your club’s Match Play or Club Championship is coming up, so how do you get your game in shape? Your tournament will not have grand stands and TV cameras but do not think you will not feel the pressure. With a little thought and preparation, you can give yourself the needed confidence to beat your archrival, win the Club Championship or Match Play tournament.

Granted with your tournament nerves, you are probably not going to be swinging as smooth as Ernie Els when the big day arrives. Now is NOT the time to start messing with your golf swing. I repeat. It is NOT the time to make any major golf swing changes. First of all this is supposed to be fun. You know, better than anyone, your own tendencies. Depending on how much time you have before your golf tournament, chances are you are going to have to find a way to play with what you got. This is fine.

Most of these types of tournaments are flighted. This means players with similar handicaps are pitted against each other. What you can do is check your basics. Review your posture, grip, alignment, and ball position and insure they are in the best shape they can be for your game. Hitting balls is fine but do not go overboard on making changes. The most effective thing you can work on is your swing tempo and insuring that your golf swing is in balance. You can do this by simply counting to three once you finish your golf swing.

Since the average of greens hit in regulation on the PGA Tour is only twelve, you will miss some greens during your round. Set up a practice schedule for your short game up until the golf tournament. You can go out in the evenings when the course is quiet. Go from green to green hitting multiple pitch and chip shots from all around the green. In addition, choose a couple of “nasty” lies just in case you hit a good shot that ends up in a bad place. Although the ultimate goal is to hole the ball, sometime you may need to play away from the hole to be able to make the next shot easier.

Spend most of your time on the practice putting green working on short putts,very short putts. Hit as many two to three foot putts as you can. This does a couple of things for you. First it gives you confidence to see the ball go in the hole over and over again. Second, you will be able to see if you are starting the golf ball on the correct line.

Do not forget to take a look at your golf equipment. Are your grips in good shape? Do they need replaced? If your grips do not need to be replaced, scrub them vigorously with a stiff brush. Use a solution of warm water and dishwashing soap with a degreaser to clean your grips. The degreaser will help remove the oil and dirt buildup that accumulates from your hands over a period of time. Rinse your grips well and pat dry with a towel.

Tournament day is here! Go through your normal warm up. Hit a few pitches, and make sure before you leave the practice green you make about five or ten two footers in a row. Seeing and hearing the ball go in the hole will give you great confidence as you head to the golf course.



About the Author

Max Johnson of VGS Golf & Country Club Supplies Click for more on the Prepare for a golf tournament. Click for more on Golf Swing Tips.










How to Put Some Backspin on a Golf Shot

How to Put Some Backspin on a Golf Shot

Article by Joe Webs









Placing some ” spin ” on your golf ball with the golf irons is really a easy issue of utilizing ball-to-iron contact and clubhead speed. When you can hit the ball and there is no mud-dirt or grass before the ball, subsequently you’ll place some form of spin when you hit it. Striking it a bit downward, you can increase back spin. Assuming you have hit a shot which unfortunately went high in the air, then you definately have put some sort of ” spin ” on the golf ball. The catch is a lot of golfers choose to enhance the spin. Several types of golf irons, like wedges, experience various results. Reading golf iron reviews will advise you on the features of these clubs.

Trying to get the golf ball to stop as quickly following the spin can be a shot saver, especially when you’re putting the golf ball on to firm greens or if the flag is situated directly behind the sand bunker or pond. Adhere to some simple tips to make sure you figure out how to put backspin on a golf ball.

1. Position your feet close with each other as compared with the regular golf swing foot position.

2. Put yourself in position to ensure the golf ball is near your back foot.

3. Try a pitch wedge, otherwise known as a 60 degree pitching wedge. Your sand wedge can also be used.

4. Swing the golf club while up-right.

5. Hit the golf ball right under the area ahead of the divot spot. You ought to produce a divot that’s long and short in depth.

6. Be sure you follow-through normally.

Ensure that the grooves on the golf club faces are free from debris and soil. Striking the golf ball clean is important. A small mistake within your golf swing or strike can result in a considerable miss hit or erroneous flight of the ball. It’s much easier to backspin a much softer golf ball; typically 2 or 3 component golf balls tend to be proclaimed as “Extra Backspin” balls. If you’d like assistance while in the golf shop, request assistance while searching for a golf club or golf ball that will improve backspin. But the shot will be best when the golf ball has a high rate of trajectory throughout the flight. This sort of shot is probably the most difficult in golf and ought to be used on the driving range prior to the attempt within the course.

Golf iron shafts that are weaker, graphite iron clubs possess more mobility and speed, which might help promote spin and achieve higher flight, which is what a lot of people don’t have in their their hits. The bottom line is you need to hit the ball higher to be able to get this kind of action you are looking for. Certain, there are times the pros hit low backspinning balls, but that’s another method. Whenever you are going through difficulties getting a normal level of spin forget about that moment. Try to hit it higher, cleanly with improved club speed and you’ll begin to see the spin your looking for.

Realize that the professionals are usually using softer specially made golf balls, given by sponsors, straight into fast and steep greens, so that they have lots of action. In addition they use golf balls with much more golf club velocity in comparison to typical players. They do most anything under the rules to improve their short golf game. When you might knock the ball about 250 yards or further with your driver, you ought to discover some backspin in every club shot you hit. It’s natural for a few hits to be transgressionally compared to other types of shots with the power and stance you use. The greater you hit, the better advancements you should notice.



About the Author

Mr Webs reviews products with consumer reviews. Find more ratings, products and recommendations at GolfIronsReview.com










Tips For Throwing A Great Curveball

Tips For Throwing A Great Curveball

Article by Hollis Ware







The curveball grip is fairly simple and, unlike other pitches, allows a pitcher to maintain a good grip on the ball, and therefore, control, and throwing an effective curveball involves more than just your arm. There is no specific moment when a coach or parent will say it is time now to throw curving ball. However, the proper age for the player to be able to throw curving ball is 14 or 15 years old. If young players throw curveballs on a consistent basis at younger ages they can cause damage to their elbows and thus hinder the growth process.

The mechanics of throwing a curveball are completely different from a fastball. The path of the ball on a fastball is generally far from your head. In the case of a curveball, the path will be much closer to your head.

There are several key elements to the curveball that must be followed in order to throw the pitch properly:First of all, start out by hiding your baseball in the palm of your glove. There is no need to advertise what type of pitch you are about to make. The same applies to your windup. Do not use it to advertise what you are about to do. Keep the batter guessing for as long as you can.

Grip the ball with your middle and index fingers together, with the fingers across the seams of the ball at the widest part (the widest distance between the seams). Keep a tight grip on the ball, especially with the middle finger. Don’t let the ball touch the palm of your hand, or you won’t generate enough topspin, which is what allows the ball to drop when it gets close to home plate.

Practice developing your speed as you master your form and stance. Speed is a very important factor in your delivery. Curveballs with little speed are easily hit by the batter as any batter that is any good will seek to determine the particulars of the pitch and respond accordingly. The more time the batter has to gauge the speed and angle of the throw, the easier it will be to successfully launch your curveball into the outfield

When releasing a curveball, your wrist will be hooked and your hand will pull down in front of your body. It is important that you release the ball close to your body (Short Arm). The further you release from your body, the less resistance your middle finger will have on the seam and therefore your rotation will be looser.



About the Author

To learn about corgi dogs and tulip facts, visit the Knowledge Bin website.

Reading Putting Distance – An Essential Golf Technique

Reading Putting Distance – An Essential Golf Technique

Article by BQ Browning







How often have you been so close to winning a game of golf – there’s just the final putt. You take your time and breathe deeply, you concentrate and contemplate your stroke – and then you come up short! Worse still, you just miss the hole and have to watch your ball go rolling past the hole, leaving you with a return putt that is further than the original to which you gave so much thought and effort. Putting is one of the basic golf techniques that is sadly neglected by beginners and experienced players alike.

A huge number of games are lost on the putting green and in most cases it is down to the wrong distance, rather than to the direction of your ball. One of the great truisms of golf is that ‘You drive for show and putt for dough’. The weight of your putt is just as important as direction. Many new golfers rapidly get a ‘feel’ for the direction their ball will travel and how it will roll, even on the most unpredictable of greens. No doubt you have seen it yourself when a relative newcomer to the game leaves the ball within inches of the hole even on a sloping green time after time, getting more and more frustrated as the game goes on. What you don’t see quite so regularly is a miss with the ball coming to rest a few inches beyond the hole.

Learning to read the distnace on the green is one of the most basic golf techniques there is. So many factors come into play when making up your mind about the distance your ball will travel on the green. You need to factor in the slope, the quality of the green, is it wet and slow or dry and fast. Even the number of players that have been through the green ahead of you has an effect depending on how well they repair their pitch marks. Fortunately with the increase in the use of soft spikes we don’t generally have so many spike marks to contend with these days. Not least among the factors you must consider is the time of day – greens inevitably speed up as they dry off from the morning dew and the difference by afternoon on a warm day can be quite astonishing.

The main factors you have to concentrate on after taking the conditions into account are reading the line and the distance. Reading the line comes with experience of the game and the course. There are a couple of greens on my course that have deceptive swings which always give the local player the advantage as they are very difficult to spot when you’ve not played the course before. Reading the distance should be a great deal easier but it requires one thing that many new golfers don’t like to do – putting practice. Going to the range and bashing balls a huge distance with your driver is great for the ego but it won’t win you a game, and there is nothing more frustrating than leaving those putts on the edge of the cup, even if it’s a friendly round with your regular partners.

Time spent on the practice green is never wasted, especially if you are playing in a tournament. You should always practice on the day, in the conditions that you will be playing and on the type of grass that is on the greens of that course. You will never see a Pro go out on the course without spending time on the putting green and those guys don’t waste their time practicing golf techniques they don’t need to. Even ten minutes on the practice green will give you a feel for distance in the current conditions.

One of my playing partners learned the hard way never to leave the ball short. As a small boy, who didn’t get a great deal of pocket money he occasionally played with some members of his father’s regular fourball. They had a simple but effective system. If your ball didn’t reach the hole, you paid a ‘fine’, not much to them but a lot to a small boy. The winner took the ‘pot’. These days he never leaves a putt short! Quite simply if the ball doesn’t reach the hole – it won’t drop. I was always taught that you should aim about two or three inches beyond the hole and that way it should just roll gently in.



About the Author

BQ Browning grew up in a Golfing family and has been involved with the game for many years. News views and information are willing shared with fellow addicts at Golf Techniques and Tournament Tips. You will find a treasure trove of golf information written with wit, humour and wisdom.