Professional golfers are incredibly talented. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be on the Tour. But they also spend a lot more time practicing their games and honing their skills. Week-end golfers often don’t get the kind of practice or playing time they really need to put a big dent in their golf handicaps. So the learning process is slow.
Weekend golfers speed up the learning process by watching the pros. That’s why we encourage students who take our golf lessons to observe the pros carefully, whether watching them on television, online, or in person. It’s amazing what you can learn by simply watching the best golfers in the world. And what you learn isn’t always about shot mechanics. Here are some things we observed the last time we watched a pro tournament:
Power And Control
Tour players exhibit power and control with their shots. Key to doing this is the release of the club through impact, as we’ve mentioned in our golf tips newsletter. Some players, like K.J. Choi, like to hit lower piercing shots with a strong left to right ball flight. The key: his arms and club go immediately left aft impact. Other players like Luke McDonald approach things differently. His arms and clubs go out and away from his body after im-pact. This allows his club to transfer the stored energy into the ball. It also increases the shot’s trajectory.
Releasing The Putter
In golf lessons on putting, teachers often talk about how important it is to release the putter. Releasing the putter is actually a simple concept. It basically entails keeping the butt end of the putter pointed at a fixed throughout the stroke. This is a key putting fun-damental and something professional golfers are work on religiously. It allows the put-terhead to swing on plane while the putter ace travels naturally through the stroke.
If you want to get a feel for this, try practicing with a belly putter, as we have some of our students do during golf lessons. The belly putter is attached to the your navel during the stroke—just the way it should be. It’s a great putting tool for golfers who struggle with releasing the putter, even if you want to continue putting conventionally.
Power And Consistency
If you watch the pros you’ll see that they exhibit power and consistency. One without the other doesn’t really help your golf handicap. But watch closely and you’ll see that both qualities actually start at the feet, not with the hands. The body needs to lead the hands on the downswing and that motion begins with the feet. Tour players move aggressively toward their front foot without spinning to begin the downswing. This maintains the club on the proper angle, shifts the player’s weight into the ball, and let’s her snap the club-head into the ball through the use of the body pivot.
Practice Shots You Use
One key thing that separates pro golfers and weekend warriors—and something we strive to emphasize in our golf instruction sessions— is practice. When the pros practice, they not only practice shot mechanics, they practice shots that they will actually need to hit during a round. Many weekend golfers don’t take this approach. They go to the range instead and bang out a bucket of balls—with very little thought to hitting shots they might need during a round. That’s a hard way to shave strokes off your golf handicap.
Weekend golfers don’t usually have the skills that the pros do. They also usually don’t have the time needed to hone their skills at the range. But they can shortcut the learning process is by closely watching the pros play with a goal of picking up golf tips that can help them shave strokes off their golf handicaps.