Game Tips

Fundamentals of Golf Instruction: Approach shots

by Blair MacGregor

After mastering the concept of the tee shot, the next step as a golf instruction beginner is to move on to the short game and what are known as approach shots.
For most people, these shots will be increasingly more difficult because they require more skill & patience than a simple tee shot.

There are a variety of approach shots, all of which are used in different situations depending on where your initial shot lands on the course. However, your intention with these shots is always to land on the green.

The pitch shot is an approach shot that is played from farther away than the other shots. Using a wedge, the ideal pitch shot is the perfect combination of enough swing momentum to carry your shot through, but not enough to send it sailing over the green. Trajectory will be low to average depending on how far you are from the cup and you want to make sure the ball doesn't roll too far.

You must start off with a slightly open stance, positioning your right foot directly across from the ball. When following through on a pitch shot, always make sure to keep your backswing as short as you possibly can. Failure to keep your backswing in check will usually cause you to instinctively put the brakes on your shot while accelerating, which is a definite no-no. You want to have enough confidence in your wedge to let the club do the work for you: don't think you have to assist the ball through the air.

Another approach shot is known as the chip shot. You'll need to use a chip shot once you're within about 30 yards from the green, usually after a fairway drive or tee shot. The idea is for this shot to have a much shorter trajectory, so you will need to use a less lofted club. Proper weight distribution is paramount to getting off a decent chip shot. If you're a right handed golfer, you want to put the majority of your weight on the left side and hold this position through the duration of your shot.

There are generally two kinds of chip shots that we want to concern ourselves with. The first one is what's known as the bump-and-run shot, and the second is a flop shot. The Bump And Run is usually taken with an 8, 7 or 6 iron club and with the clubface hooded. That way your shot will have have less loft. You also want to have just enough power in your backswing to follow through. The flop shot is used when you want to get over an obstacle like a rough patch or a sand trap, so you're going to want to have a much higher trajectory in order to push the ball over. Open up your stance and follow through as far under the ball as possible to try and pop it up, and you'll keep your ball away from the danger zones with a good position for a subsequent shot.

Blair MacGregor is the webmaster & publisher of the best Golf Instuction Product Review site on the web, with comprehensive reviews of the latest golf aids & tutorials on the web. You can visit this independent review page at http://www.golfreviewsource.com
Article Source: Recreation and Sports

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Golf Tips Involving Golf Equipment

Blaming your moves, shots and swings for your golf mishits and mishaps? Well, no matter how much time and effort you have been spending over practicing your moves to perfect your game, you still won't achieve your goal if you use unsuitable or defective types of golf equipment, will you?

Now is high time for you to consider the following golf tips that involve checking on your equipment's quality.

If you plan to choose used golfclubs as beginner's tools, scrutinizing before purchasing is a must. The clubheads, the shafts, and the grips are golfclub parts that should pass inspection first before landing a decent spot in your golf equipment cabinet. Another excellent golf tip that will get you through the game is making sure that the set of used golfclubs you're eyeing have set consistency. It will also help a lot if you check first the price of new clubs vs. used.

A golf tip for a golfer that plans to regrip his clubs: Be cautious. This is because the grips are the only contact points one can access to affect the shot. Before carrying out the regripping, know the core grip of the club and your hands grip size. To determine your core size grip, measure the diameter of the butt of the shaft you're going to re-grip. The shaft's diameter should match the grip's core diameter. In determining your hands grip, the available size grips are regular, mid-size, oversize and jumbo. Use only the best re-gripping materials that will provide optimum performance for your golf clubs.

Another golf tip or advice is that using ill-fitted clubs will be an obstacle to your golf playing success. A golfer must consider his or her body type in choosing the best-fitting equipment to support and deliver his backswings efficiently. Too steep angles in carrying out backswings may be avoided if one selects the perfect fitting equipment available.

Custom golfclub fitting makes a better option than just buying new golf clubs. Getting custom fitting golfclubs is a golf tip that translates to a very worthy investment. The uniqueness of each person is attributed to the need of this way of buying new golf clubs. A custom fitting produces golfclubs that specifically suit the height, strength, swing characteristics and clubhead speed of the golfer.

The type of club shaft also helps in predicting whether you'll do good in a game or you won't. There's a choice between a steel club shaft and a graphite-made club shaft. This golf tip aims to make you realize which type of golfclub shaft will benefit your game. Observations tell that the steel club shafts are more preferred by professional golfers while graphite shafts become more popular with women, senior players and beginners. Steel shafts are less expensive than graphite shafts though.

One more golf tip that could help you is that the golf clubs that must be the main content of your bag must suit your skill level. Since various skill levels need various golf clubs, it won't be wise to just use or bring a golf club that is just lying around. And, don't ever forget about the maximum golfclub load your bag is allowed to hold. You can only bring 14 golf clubs in your bag. No more. No less. Aside from your skill level contemplation, your mastery of a certain golfclub and your being comfortable with using it must also be put into consideration in deciding which golfclub to hit.

A good combination of the right moves and good choice of equipment will better arm you to become the best golfer you could ever be.

Somthing on three of the greats; Callaway,Ping and Taylormade.

The Callaway Golf Club

The Callaway golf club is one of the most popular and also reliable types of golf club in the market today. There are so many people (particularly retired men) that are fascinated with golf today and it is no wonder why the Callaway golf club is now in the peak of success in the world of golf clubs.

The Callaway Golf club is headed by Ely Callaway. He bought half of Hickory Stick USA and renamed it Callaway Hickory Stick USA. After purchasing it, he decided to hire the best people that would be an instrument in supporting his dream of Callaway golf club. He hired Richard C. Helmstetter to be the Chief Club Designer and this as others would say is the point of no return. The designs for Callaway golf club are truly revolutionary and innovative which is why the Callaway golf club is dubbed as the type of golf club that is unique and also high-performance kind golf equipment. After that, Ely Callaway renamed his company into Callaway Golf and then relocated from Cathedral City, California to a sleepy seaside town called Carlsbad, which is just north of San Diego.

One of the most innovative designs that the firm came up with was to create a stainless steel driver that had a larger and more forgiving head than any previous design. The CEO, Callaway dubbed it as “Big Bertha” which was derived from a German cannon back in WWI which was famous for its capability of shooting long distance range. This type of design was the one that made Callaway golf club a house hold name in the states because it experienced millions of sales and the Big Bertha type of Callaway golf club was the reason why Callaway became the number one manufacturer of golf clubs not only in the US but in the whole world which shows how popular golf is to the whole world.

At present, there are six classifications of the Callaway Golf club. The first classification is the drivers which are comprised of two models which are the Big Bertha Fusion FT4 and Big Bertha Titanium 454. The next classification of Callaway golf club is called the Fairway Woods. Fairway Woods have three types of clubs which are Big Bertha Fusion Fairway Woods, Big Bertha Titanium Fairway Woods, and Big Bertha Fairway Woods. The next classification of the Callaway golf club is a hybrid which is designed for long and distant shots. The model for this type of Callaway golf club is called Big Bertha Heavenwood Hybrids. The next classification is called irons which are divided into five types of models and these are Big Bertha, Big Bertha Fusion, X-Tour, X-18, and X-18 Pro. Another classification of the Callaway golf club would be the wedges and the model here is called Forged+ Wedges. The last classification for Callaway golf club is called the Putters. The Putters have two models in its classification which are Callaway golf I-Trax Putter and tour Blue.

The classification and models of Callaway Gold Club mentioned above are the ones that the firm manufactures. All of these models were made in the lieu with science, research, and practice. All of these models are worth a try and who knows? You might be the next Tiger Woods in the world of golf.


The Ping Golf Club: An Overview

For a golfer, one of the most important things that he should examine is his golf club because according to experts, it is one of the main reasons why they do not hit the ball. This is the exact reason why the Ping golf club was born.

Karsten Solheim was the one who invented the ping golf club with different intentions. The story has it that Karsten was practicing golf but he could not hit the ball so he started to practice up to the time that he began to design and experiment his very own putter so that he could play better through it. He thought of designing his own putter without a figment of a though that it would be known worldwide. By the year 1959, his putter experiments had evolved into 1A design. While deciding for the name, he heard the sound of his putter and declared proudly to his wife that he would name the putter from its sound, hence the name “ping”. At that same year, Sports Illustrated published an article in their August issue regarding the ping golf club dubbing it as a musical putter.

This was the beginning of success for the ping golf club. At present, the Ping golf club is manufactured in Phoenix, Arizona by Karsten Manufacturing Corporation. There are more than 400 patents registered for the ping golf club and each of these designs are all innovative and very original designs that are suited for each and every golfer. Here are some of their key patents and products:

In the year 1962, the Heel-toe weighting type of ping golf club was granted patent. This design was the one that revolutionalized other modern designs and golf clubs that are manufactured in the market today. In the year 1969, another type of ping golf club was introduced which was the perimeter-weighted, investment-cast iron. The reason for this type of ping golf club is that the perimeter weighting is able to increase the moment of inertia thus when a ball is not struck squarely on the face it makes the club more forgiving. Another innovative movement for the ping golf club was the application of investment casting in the manufacture of the K Series Irons. This is not really a new technology in fact; the old name for it is the lost-wax process. The purpose of this type of method is to ensure precise detail and consistency to all of the parts of the ping golf club. Another type of patent for the Ping golf club is the Cushin Selective Filtering Insert. This is a patented invention which screens out and disperses the unwanted frequencies that can harmfully affect muscle, bone, and connective tissue. Through this invention, the golfer receives less vibration with greater feel on each shot.

The reason why the ping golf club is popular and widely used is because of its innovative, ever-changing yet reliable design. These designs are what people, particularly golfers, recognize about ping golf club. lost one of your ping golf clubs? Do not worry because serial numbers are here to save you! In every ping golf club, there are serial numbers which are etched on every PING iron. If ever there is a need to replace one club, the company has the exact specs at the time of manufacturing on file and could actually build a new club to match your set.


Taylor Made Golf Club: The Metalwoods Phenomenon

Taylor Made golf clubs are into leading the combined driver, iron counts and fairway wood at PGA tournaments. The advancement of the metal wood technology employed by Taylor Made golf clubs make it possible to each player to have a his own club. This metalwood technology created famous clubs in the form of Pittsburgh Persimmon, Tour Preferred, Burner, and Burner Bubble, each is considered a high performance piece of device. With titanium clubheads, Taylor Made clubs are very strong but extremely light to use.

Taylor Made’s metalwood golf clubs boast of the following models with features that surely makes each golf club a hit to golfers:

R7 Fairway Woods is the Taylor Made golf club, which is with Taylor Made Launch Control (TLC) Port. TLC cartridges can be installed and removed to permit users in changing the CG location to vary the degrees of draws and fades that will consequently promote more accuracy and distance.

R5 Titanium Fairway is another Taylor Made golf club that has a titanium clubhead that is very easy to hit. It has permanent TLC cartridges that facilitate the launching of the ball high, long and straight for the players who would rather not change cartridges.

V Steel Fairway Woods claims its having the ultimate combination of power, accuracy and versatility. It is the Taylor Made golf club that attributes its excellence to its V-shaped sole that improves the force of how the sole interacts with the turf at impact.

Rescue Dual is a Taylor Made club that has double TLC ports that are widely spaced for increased forgiveness on incurring mis-hits. It has a new T-shaped sole that is responsible for the increased clubhead stability and decreased drag at impact that in turn promotes better accuracy and distance. With its low center of gravity (CG), it’s a lot easier to launch than a long-iron and this makes shots higher and longer.

Rescue Dual TP, with dual TLC port and Taylor Made’s movable weight technology,is best known to promote the variation of degrees of draw and fade. Further off, it makes for greater forgiveness. The difference between Rescue Dual and Rescue Dual TP is that TP has a higher center of gravity (CG) position that allows a lower, piercing ball flight that many experienced golf players find easier to manipulate.

Rescue Mid is said to be Taylor Made’s breakthrough utility club that is engineered to be easier to use than a long-iron while displaying prowess in providing better distance. This golf club’s excellent performance is from its way of uniting a high flash of inertia with a lower, deeper center of gravity. This creates maximum forgiveness on mishits, high launch angle and high spin for high, long shots that quickly stops.

Rescue Fairway is the Taylor Made golf club that indulges in its having a low profile that is responsible for its low and deep center of gravity (CG). It is made to smooth the progress of hitting the ball high, long and straight. This golf club is crafted with double sole that improves playability from a variety of lies. Taylor Made engineered it to launch a high angle with high spin for long-carrying shots that surely impress each player.