The last thing most of us think of when squaring up for our tee shot is balance. Without a doubt, this should be the very first thing on our minds. Without proper balance, all the swing fundamentals in the world will never allow you to hit a straight shot consistently.

The next time your standing on the driving range, try this exercise. Square up to the ball just like you always do. Pay close attention to the distance you are from the ball. Now, how do you feel. Do you feel like your reaching for the ball or maybe you feel like your a little to close. If you notice either of these things your probably not going to be able to make a true balanced swing. Too far from the ball and your gonna try to reach to hit the ball. This is going to set you up for a nasty little outside-in path and an ugly slice. Too close to it and you’ll be too inside-out and tend to hook it.

Step away from the ball, pick a blade of grass on the ground and set up to it. Don’t focus too much on hitting the blade of grass. Instead, focus on making your swing on plane and keeping perfect balance through your entire swing. Make sure your not leaning into or away from the blade of grass during your swing. Now, take note of the distance your body is from the path the club actually swept across the grass. You might be surprised how far this path is from the grass blade you set up to. If your swing was balanced, this should be the actual distance you should stand from the ball when you tee up. With a lot of practice, this set up position will become ingrained and you will soon have a balanced, consistent swing that will allow you to drive for show.

Source - www.bettergolfswing.org

Learn to make solid contact with your hybrids by mastering ball position.

If your golf shot landed in the bunker, the next shot depends on the lie that you have in that bunker. If the lie is bad or rather, the ball is buried, then you will need a higher lofted club such as the 7-iron to the sand wedge to get the ball out. In such cases, it is advisable to get the ball back into play and approach from there.

However, if you have a good lie in the bunker, there are choices for you. If you are not comfortable, you can opt to play safe and just take a lofted club to get the ball back onto the fairway and play from there. The other choice is to go for the green from the bunker. This is possible since you have a good lie.

Longer irons, just as the 3, 4 or 5 irons can be used for situation where you have a good lie in the fairway bunkers. A lofted wood can also be used in place of the longer irons. A 5 or 7 wood is also playable. There are a couple of things to note when playing this shot. It may be slightly different from

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All golfers know that the golf wedge is an important club in the golf bag. Majority of the golfers carry 2 wedges; namely, the pitching wedge and the sand wedge. More and more golfers carry additional wedges in their bags to help them in different situations. A popular club is the lob wedge.

The wedges can help us in our short games. If fitted properly and executed correctly, it can help lower golf scores tremendously.

Before you head out to the nearest golf shop to get your wedges, first you need to know how you want to organise your wedges in your bag. Some prefer to have one 52 deg, one 56 deg and another 60 deg with 4 degrees apart for various distances. Choosing the right loft is one factor which is quite obvious. The other is the choosing the right bounce angle for your wedges.

If you notice when you are choosing your wedges, there are various combinations of degree and bounce angles. For example, you may see a wedge the has a loft of 56 degrees and a bounce angle of 14%, and another wedge with the same loft but with an 18 degrees bounce angle.

So what does this bounce angle mean ? Simply put, the “bounce angle” determine how the clubs will react to the surface of play; or how much the club “bounce” from the surface of play, be it turf, rough or sand. If you put the club on the ground, the bounce angle is the angle formed by the leading edge of the golf club and the surface of play.

Players normally maximise the right combination of loft and bounce angle to optimise their play.

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After reading a magazine about these 25 top tips, I tried a couple of them during the weekend on the golf course and one of them worked, So I was thinking if it does improve some of my game I may aswell try and spread the news to everyone to see if it helps anyone else with there game, So here they are Enjoy !!!!

1 - Body Turn - To develop a good weight shift and full body turn take your address position and make sure that your right elbow is softened
and tucked slightly in, pointing towards the front of your hip. Keeping your left shoulder at a constant level, turn until it
is above your right thigh. You should feel the majority of your weight on your right foot. you will have moved a little,
perhaps a golf balls width to the right, and if you want to, you can easily look behind you over your shoulder.

2 - club Selection - You are facing an iron shot to the green, you know the yardage but can’t decide which club to hit. Walk 10 yards closer
and chose from there. You’ll avoid the biggest dangers, usually situated at the front of the green.

3 - Bunker play - Whenever the bunkers are wet you’ll notice that the sand is hard and it’s difficult to wiggle your feet in. This also has
an effect on your sand wedge as the bounce will not work in your favour as usual. To overcome this this employ your usual technique but
use a pitching wedge. As your wedge does not have any bounce the leading edge of the face will drive through the sand delivering a successful escape.

4 - Chip Challenge - When you head to the chipping green, firstly work on your basics - Posture, ball position and Alignment. Do this for 100 shots to refine
the mechanics of your technique. Now pick up the 100 balls and scatter them around as you might throw a bucket of water. Play each individual shot,
irrespective of the lie, to a specific target to increase your creativity. This simple routine will reap rewards when you are faced with the variety of
lies that you find on the course. If i had to choose between “technique” or “Feel” I would opt for “feel” everytime. Technique without feel is useless,
whereas a great sense of feel can make up for any flaws in technique.

5 - Perfecting your Splash - When playing from a greenside bunker imagine that you are sitting on the back of a chair at address. Focus on swinging the club
back while remaining sitting on the chair this will instantly give you the feeling of keeping the lower half of your body planted, leaving the hands and
arms in control of the club. The body will remain steady through to the finish. This will help you take the right amount of sand.

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The majority of shots on a golf course are won or lost within 50 yards of the hole.

The pitch shot is distinguished from a chip in that it is played with a nearly full swing, usually from around 30 to 70 yards from the hole.

It is a harder approach shot to master than the chip but because the ball flies so high and stops almost immediately, it can be a great tool for creating birdie chances.

Step one - Take a narrow stance with the ball in the centre of your feet.

Your front foot maybe slightly open to allow a freer swing - but take care to adjust the clubface so it is still aimed at the target.

Some players open their stance a bit and compensate by opening the club face in order to get extra loft.

Practice hitting the ball crisply square on at first.

Step two - The trick to mastering the pitch shot is to remember it does not require a different type of swing, just a shortened version of your full swing.

However, shortening the backswing makes retaining a smooth rhythm harder.

Practice swinging to a clock’s ticking.

Alter the distance you hit the ball by changing the length of your backswing, not the power of your hit.

Make a full turn of your shoulders but your hands should only reach shoulder height (about three-quarters of your normal backswing).

This will allow you to attack the ball, but still retain the control essential to accurate pitching.

Step three - As with any shot, your aim should be to present the clubface perfectly square to the target.

But this is even more important with the pitch, as any minor deviations will be magnified by such an intense shot.

Aim for a ball then turf contact.

If you are regularly thinning the ball when attempting this shot, you are probably not accelerating into it.

Source - www.bbc.co.uk