http://www.articletrader.com/ Articles at ArticleTrader en-us http://www.articletrader.com/sports/golf/change-your-golf-grips-for-better-golf.html http://www.articletrader.com/sports/golf/change-your-golf-grips-for-better-golf.html Wed, 06 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0600
Most amateur golfers never change the grips on their clubs. They play for years with a set of clubs without ever changing the grips!

Whereas, some professionals have been known to re-grip their clubs at the end of every competitive round. They do this so their clubs feel exactly the same. Chances are that they don't need them re-gripping that often, but in today's tour competitions there is so much money at stake that they do not want to leave anything to chance.

How often should you re-grip your clubs?

A good general rule is:

if you play once a week, then you should change the grips on your clubs once a year. Play twice a week, change twice a year etc.

Of course, if you do a lot of practice on the range you should consider changing your grips even more frequently. You could easily hit 30 shots with your driver in a range session. In a round of golf you may not use your driver more than 10 times. So one range session a week hitting 30 drives, would equate to 3 rounds a week, implying re-gripping 3 times a year.

You will also find you have certain clubs that are used far more often than others, especially if you only play your home course the majority of the time. This is because you play the course in a certain way - same clubs for same shots, mostly governed by the length of the course. So after some months the grips on certain clubs become more worn than others.

What happens when a grip is worn?

Grips are fundamentally just pieces of rubber to enable us to hold the golf club securely. The grips have various type of a textured surface to provide more grip security and feel. As a grip is used over and over the surface rubber begins to wear. The natural oils in our hands also start to affect the grips. You will notice this as it will start to look shiny.

If you look at old used set of golf clubs that have never been re-gripped you will see that the grips are often very shiny.

Shiny grips are a problem. You have to grip the club harder when the grip is shiny so that it does not slip and turn in your hands as you take a swing. You may not even be aware you are doing it! The problem with gripping the club too hard is that it adversely affects the way you strike the ball. Your hands are simply not relaxed, and therefore, because the muscles in your hands and forearms are tense, they will slow down. In the golf swing, relaxed hands are fast hands. You need fast hands to get good distance.

It is worth checking your golf clubs at least once a month. Compare grips across the entire set. If any are beginning to wear, consider getting them renewed.

New grips feel good. They can almost feel "sticky" by comparison to the old worn grips. This can give you real sense of confidence.

Confidence builds success.



--
MARK PEARSON has been playing golf for over 25 years, and teaches and plays golf professionally in the UK. Mark is the author of "How to Master Putting and Putt like a Pro - a guide to golf's game within a game"

www.masterputting.com


Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/sports/golf/how-to-choose-the-right-putter.html http://www.articletrader.com/sports/golf/how-to-choose-the-right-putter.html Wed, 06 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0600
If you were to quickly look at what is on display you may come across any or all of the following (and possibly a few more)

Here is a (non-exhaustive) list of what you may find:

Long putters
Short putters
Heavy putters
Light putters
2-ball putters
3-ball putters
Cylinder head putters
Mallet head putters
D-shape putters
Blade putters
Face balanced putters

...and the list goes on!

With all this choice, how do you know if you have a putter that will work for you? Well, first and foremost, don't get overwhelmed by all the choice. Here are my recommendations on getting a putter:

Invest in a decent putter!

You can spend many 100's of dollars on a driver which you may only use 10 times a round. Remember that you hit almost 50% of your shots with the putter, so get something you are going to be comfortable with. As with most things you get what you pay for, so if you buy something really cheap the chances are it just won't help you in the long run.

Choose a relatively 'standard' putter

Shoulder high putters, 'belly' putters etc. are not standard and do not promote learning proper technique. Standard putters have a length in the range 33 to 35 inches (84-90cm), and research actually shows that statistically the shorter putters perform better.

Test the putter

You must actually try the putters out to see how they feel. This is just as important with putters as it is with all clubs. Choose 3 or 4 putters that you think are going to be the ones you like and test them against each other. Preferably take the putters onto a real green (or synthetic green) as opposed to putting on the shop floor carpet. Hitting real balls in to real holes on a real green will give you a real feel.

Get the putter custom fitted

Chances are that any putter you buy may still not be quite right for you. After all we are not all the same height, weight and shape, so it would be a bit much to assume that an off the shelf putting would be right for all of us. Have the professional check the length and lie-angle for you and adjust it if necessary. This should be part of the service when buying a putter at any decent golf store or pro shop.

If you bear these tips in mind when buying your next putter you will be confident you have the right putter for you. Confidence builds success.



--
MARK PEARSON has been playing golf for over 25 years, and teaches and plays golf professionally in the UK. Mark is the author of "How to Master Putting and Putt like a Pro - a guide to golf's game within a game"

www.masterputting.com


Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/sports/golf/how-to-analyse-your-golf-score-and-identify-areas-for-improvement.html http://www.articletrader.com/sports/golf/how-to-analyse-your-golf-score-and-identify-areas-for-improvement.html Wed, 06 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0600
Well before you can answer this question you need to analyse a round of golf in a specific way. An interesting and very effective method to use is "The Pareto Principle".

The Pareto Principle, otherwise known as the 80-20 law, states that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. Or more specifically, a large percentage of the output result in generated by a small percentage of the input parameters. This could be 80/20 or 90/10 or 70/5 (it doesn't add necessarily add up to 100 as it is a relationship between two different measurements).

Applying this to golf we would need to see which clubs were used in a round and how many shots were played with each club. We could then relate each club to the total score by a percentage of the score taken by that club

Here is an example: Suppose you went round in a score of 90 on a Par 72 course. Assume your set of clubs is made up of 1 Driver, fairway woods 3 and 5, Irons 3-9, Pitching Wedge, Sand Wedge, Gap Wedge, and Putter. That is 14 clubs (the legal limit).

For the purposes of this analysis let us group the clubs as follows

1 Driver
4 Long Irons/woods 3W, 5W, 3, 4
4 Mid Irons 5,6,7,8
4 Short Irons 9, Pitching Wedge, Sand Wedge, Gap Wedge
1 Putter

We can now convert those groupings of clubs into percentages of the total number in the bag, and we get 11%, 28%, 28%, 28% and 11% respectively.

Using the groupings above lets calculate the number of shots scored in each group and along with each the percentage of the total score. Suppose the breakdown is as follows

Driver, 10 shots. (11%)
Long Irons/woods, 10 shots. (11%)
Mid Irons, 10 shots. (11%)
Short Irons, 20 shots. (22%)
Putter, 40 shots. (45%)

Now the figures can be represented as percentage of total score by percentage group of clubs as follows

Driver: 11/7
Long Irons/woods 11/28
Mid Irons: 11/28
Short Irons: 22/28
Putter: 45/7

From this we can see clearly see that in this scenario the putting comprises the largest part of the score i.e. 45% of score taken by 7% of clubs. Incidentally, putting is always the biggest part of the score, but if your total score is high then it is likely you are taking a lot of putts, or another part of your game is in very bad shape!

If you were to improve just the putting part of your game to "regulation" i.e. 2 putts per green, you would save 4 shots per round i.e. break 90 and drop your handicap from 18 to 14. Not bad!

There are many other ways to analyse your score in this way. For example, instead of which club was hit on each shot, how about which type of shot? Tee shot, approach shot, chip shot, putt, sand shot etc. You may find you are spend far too much time in bunkers for instance.

Keep a log of your scores for a while and you can break down the data and easily see which part of your game is causing a problem, and therefore which part of the game you need to improve to have the greatest impact on your score.



--
MARK PEARSON has been playing golf for over 25 years, and teaches and plays golf professionally in the UK. Mark is the author of "How to Master Putting and Putt like a Pro - a guide to golf's game within a game"

www.masterputting.com


Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]>