Golf Practice Blog

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Often times it is hard to bring yourself to purchase a golf training aid when you’d really like to spend the money on a new short iron. Medicus announces the Maximus Weighted Lob-Wedge…a hittable swing trainer that doubles as a USGA-approved regulation Lob-Wedge!

It is a Hittable, Weighted Swing Trainer that drops you automatically into the correct swing plane to build muscle memory and develop accuracy with your swing! Also, because it’s weighted, it dramatically improves your club-head speed for more power and distance. It’s equally effective to use as your go-to wedge out on the course as it cuts through the grass and is excellent for regulation play.

Use the Maximus Weighted Lob-Wedge effectively as a swing trainer; as a regulation wedge, or to groove your swing in-between holes during a round.

Below are a list of some of the most quoteable golf quotes. For more stories, tips, hints, quotes and humor, pick up a copy of Who’s Your Caddy? from PracticeRange.com.

• “Hockey is a sport for white men. Basketball is a sport for black men. Golf is a sport for white men dressed like black pimps” -Tiger Woods
• “Green and black go well together, don’t they?” - Tiger Woods
• “Golf is a good walk spoiled.” - Mark Twain
• “In golf, the customs and etiquette and decorum are as important as the rules of play.” - Bobby Jones
• “I never learned anything from a match that I won.” - Bobby Jones
• “Nobody ever remembers who finished second at anything.” - Jack Nicklaus
• “The most important shot in golf is the next one.” - Ben Hogan
• “Nobody asked how you looked, just what you shot.” - Sam Snead
• “Golf is the hardest game in the world to play, and the easiest to cheat at.” - Dave Hill
• “There is no such thing as a natural touch. Touch is something you create by hitting millions of golf balls.” - Lee Trevino
• “Don’t play too much golf. Two rounds a day are plenty.” - Harry Vardon
• “Hit the shot you know you can hit, not the one you think you should.” - Dr. Bob Rotella
• “Why am I using a new putter? Because the last one didn’t float too well.” - Craig Stadler
• “You know what they say about big hitters…the woods are full of them.” - Jimmy Demaret
• “Golf is a compromise between what your ego wants you to do, what experience tells you to do, and what your nerves let you do.” - Bruce Crampton
• “I’ll always remember the day I broke ninety. I had a few beers in the clubhouse and was so excited I forgot to play the back nine.” - Bruce Lansky
• “Missing a short putt does not mean you have to hit your next drive out of bounds.” - Henry Cotton
• “No matter how good you get you can always get better and that’s the exciting part” - Tiger Woods
• “I don’t think I’ve ever stepped into a gym - they won’t let me smoke there. I just thank God Miller Lite isn’t as fattening as most beers. If I cut back on beer, though, I’d look anorexic.” - John Daly
• “All my exes wear Rolexes.” - John Daly
• “I believe nicotine plus caffeine equals protein.” - John Daly
• “My Sunday best is a Wednesday afternoon compared to him.” - Nick Faldo, talking about John Daly
• “The only way to enjoy golf is to be a masochist. Go out and beat yourself to death.” - Howard Keel
• “Golf and sex are the only things you can enjoy without being good at it” - Jimmy Demaret
• “When it’s breezy, hit it easy.” - Davis Love, Jr.
• “Is my friend in the bunker or is the bastard on the green?” - Anonymous
• “Golf is a game in which you yell “fore,” shoot six, and write down five.” - Paul Harvey
• “One thing about golf is you don’t know why you play bad and why you play good.” - George Archer
• “It is good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling.” - Mark Twain 
• “The difference in golf and government is that in golf you can’t improve your lie.” - George Deukmejian 
• “Golf is a fascinating game.It has taken me nearly forty years to discover that I can’t play it.” - Ted Ray
• “Golf is so popular simply because it is the best game in the world at which to be bad.” - A.A. Milne

PracticeRange.com offers a comprehensive collection of golf practice aids from Medicus Golf — from the simple to the sophisticated. Take the Armmaster and Coilmaster golf practice aids as an example. The Armmaster training aid is inexpensive, lightweight, and perfectly portable. This ingenious device uses simple straps (including the vital center tension strap) to improve your swing.

The Armmaster golf practice aid straps on just above your left and right elbows, encouraging you to keep your upper body in a perfect position throughout your swing. If you suffer from “flying elbows,” a tendency to over swing, or a less-than-stellar down swing, the Armmaster is for you. Take technique, form, and precision out of the theoretical and into the practical with our Armmaster golf practice aid.

The Coilmaster is another golf practice aid that gets technique out of your head and into your body. If you wish you had greater power or better accuracy, the  Coilmaster is for you. Using simple but ingenious straps, the Coilmaster creates (and maintains!) the right distance between your right knee and left foot. The straps allow your right hip to rotate while keeping a tight reign on your knee, encouraging you to achieve a stable, powerful stance without hip/knee sliding. By improving your stance, you’ll enjoy a golf swing that is more powerful, more accurate, and best of all, more consistent. Order online now for your Coilmaster , Armmaster , or Medicus golf swing trainer.

Visit PracticeRange.com for the best in golf training aids and accessories.

If you’re a big fan of The Golf Channel’s Fore Inventor’s Only, then chances are you’ve been introduced to the SKILZ line of products. If you’re unfamiliar with this product, the Gyro Swing Training Club is going to help you ingrain a truly repeatable golf swing.

SAN DIEGO, CA — SKLZ, the industry leader in sports skill development products and equipment, today announced that its Gyro Swing Training Club has been tested and approved by the PGA TOUR Partners Club Members. The final result was an Excellent approval rating of 85% and an overall member rating of 8.6. In this program, products are submitted by manufacturers and tested by PGA TOUR Partners Club testing members all over the country. Members use the product and rank it in several categories including value, ease of use, design, durability, quality, and whether or not they would recommend the product to others. The overall member rating is an average of all specific ratings as scored by each tester.

“We’re very pleased to receive such a high rating from PGA TOUR Partners Club testers,” said says Greg Shoman, vice president of marketing, SKLZ. “This is the Gyro Swing Training Club that allows golfers to actually ‘feel’ the perfect wing instead of worrying about positions and mechanics. Now we have unbiased testing results to back up our claims.”Comments from PGA TOUR Partners Club members include:
“One of the best training aids I have ever had in my hands. It lets you know when you are off plane and when to break your wrist and how to finish the swing. The Gyro Swing Training Club has given me 30 more yards off the tee and down the middle of the fairway almost every time.”“It quickly showed me where my swing was out of control, and it allowed me to adapt a better feel and grasp of what changes I needed to make. My distance and control have improved and I expect my scores will continue to improve as well.”

“WOW! Outstanding Training Aid! Helps muscle memory and also helps proper motion in legs and trunk. The drills provided with the DVD are truly outstanding, especially min-swing and good right and left arm feel. You know immediately if swings are not on plane.”
 
The Gyro Swing Training Club has a 20,000 rpm gyroscope in its clubhead that uses the principle of conservation of angular momentum to create a distinct and forceful pathway for the club. It literally fights against off-plane swings to put your hands and clubhead exactly where they’re supposed to be, back and through. It’s the only product that lets golfers feel what it’s like to have a technically correct swing.With the Gyro Swing Training Club powered by six AAA batteries, the gyroscope rotates at very high RPMs to keep the swing on plane with a perfect clubface orientation to the plane. This, coupled with the fact that it encourages proper weight shift for an ideally timed release, means the clubface is squared at impact, which yields long, straight shots with the “effortless power” sought by golfers.

In his interview May 24 with Doug Milne following his record-setting 19-under-par Byron Nelson win, Rory Sabbatini came right out of the gate citing his putting as a big reason for the Byron Nelson win:

DOUG MILNE: We’d like to welcome the 2009 HP Byron Nelson Championship winner Rory Sabbatini to the interview room. Wonderful final round, 6-under 64, clearly got the job done. With the win you move inside the Top 10 in FedExCup points, to No. 7 specifically, and your 64 today was the second lowest score by any winner, so you’ve got to feel obviously good for a lot of reasons. Just a few comments on where we are now.

RORY SABBATINI: Yeah, you know, obviously I knew I just needed to get off to a good start today, just hit a couple good shots, give myself a couple good looks at birdies and try and just let the round develop. You know, I managed to get off to a good start, putting the ball in the fairway, putting it on the greens and giving myself some looks at it, and then obviously things developed pretty well. It was evident again today that my putter was still on form and my short game was still performing well.

You know, I was absolutely ecstatic to get things rolling. Obviously I saw some low scores out there, and I knew I was going to have to go out there and play well in order to maintain my position.

You can read the rest of Sabbatini’s interview at PGATour.com, but what you really should be doing is figuring out what Rory does to build his putting game.

Fellow South-African Ernie Els has lent his name to the Rockroller developed by Jim Flood. The Rockroller literally helps you develop a rock-solid feel in your putting by physically extending your putter into your upper arms. After a hour practicing with the Rockroller , you will actually feel like your upper body is connected to your putter, giving you a solid and repeatable putting stroke. 

Watch the Rockroller in action here!

If you’ve been keeping up with the PGA Tour, or if you’re just one of those funny-picture junkies that surfs sports blooper photos, then you should have seen this scene last Saturday:

But just what do you do in this situation? Before you jump to conclusions…no, the answer is not to choke up on the grip and shorten your backswing to hit just behind the ball.

According to SportingNews.com:

By the time Jason Dufner reached the scene, all the fans had shuffled out of the immediate area except Miranda Cooper, who was still sitting in her folding chair, ball in her lap and her hands covering her face in embarrassment.

“You’ve got to play it where it lays,” PGA Tour rules official Tony Wallin jokingly told Dufner.

Wallin then put a marker under Cooper’s chair. She got up and Dufner got to drop the ball in that spot without penalty.

He reached the green, and then three putted for bogey. Dufner recovered to shoot 71 and was at 7-under.

Fortunately most of us don’t have to worry about a gallery watching our every move. Honestly, there are many times that a few people will start to watch me play, then promptly head for the hills so they don’t catch my case of the shanks, yips, chili dips, and whatever other golf affliction I seemed to have brought to the course with me.

But in the instance that you do play a tournament where official rules of golf are strictly adhered to, you’re going to want to know what to do in these tricky situations. Visit PracticeRange.com today for your copy of the 2008-2009 Decisions on the Rules of Golf.

PracticeRange.com also offers a full assortment of handy pocket guides to keep in your golf bag.

The month of May is PGA Free Lesson Month. Free. Lessons. Free golf lessons!

According to PlayGolfAmerica.com, in May 2008, nearly 6,340 PGA and LPGA Professionals nationwide gave more than 106,600 FREE 10-MINUTE LESSONS. You may be asking yourself, what could I possibly learn in a 10-minute lesson?

On the same website listed above, Golf Digest put together a short list that answers exactly that question:

1. How to get your backswing in synch
2. How to improve your tempo to add distance 
3. How to know if your swing is one- or two-plane
4. How to use distance control to avoid three-putts
5. How to read breaking putts for grain and slope
6. How to align your ball to be a more accurate putter
7. How to switch your focus from line to speed before you putt
8. How to “bounce” your wedge through the sand
9. How to hit high, soft sand shots to tight pins
10. How to hit the tricky long bunker shot

As you can see, there are a lot of options for you to ask the pro about when you schedule your free lesson. Obviously you won’t see in the list above “How to Play Golf”, but you can get a quick introduction into a specific part of the game that has you baffled.

This 10-minute opportunity will give you the chance to ask your pro about a specific portion of your game.  If you haven’t visited a pro in a long time, or had a bad lesson experience in the past, visit PlayGolfAmerica.com, enter your zip code, and find someone new to visit. You may just find yourself going back again some other time for a longer lesson!

Once you’ve met with your pro, you’re going to want to work on the areas of the game you worked on. Here is a short list of golf training aids from PracticeRange.com that will help you develop in the ten areas listed above:

1. Swing Tempo: allows you to calibrate the duration of your backswing, topswing, and downswing. with 1/10th of a second digital accuracy. You can set and retain your own ideal tempo to improve consistency with every club in the bag.

2. Ernie Els Tempotimer: Small enough to fit in the side pocket of your golf bag, use the Tempotimer in pre-round warm-up, before tee off at each hole, or even at home when training your swing tempo.

3. The Plane Stick: A telescoping aluminum rod enables the golfer to instantly feel a correct swing plane. The foam covered top of the rod allows contact without risk of injury or damage to equipment. Multiple setups, drills and applications covered on instructional video.

4. Eyeline Perfect Entry System: Perfect Entry System allows you to see the perfect putt. Perfect Speed, Perfect Read, Perfect Line and Perfect Entry. The System uses the combination of the Green Reading Level, Bullseye Cup and the Putting Clock

5. Breakmaster Putting Green Reader: precision electronic devices designed to train your eye to read breaking putts and get to know the breaks on the putting greens you play.

6. Eyline Putting Plane Alignment System: Use the mirrored surface to check if eyes are over the ball, shoulders are lined up, and putter face is square. Adjustable rails enable you to practice a perfect back and through stroke that is on plane. Angled rail allows putter to come slightly inside.

7. Hank Haney’s Essentials - 4 Pack DVD: These groundbreaking DVDs will help you become a complete player by teaching you to think, act, and play like a champion. Every aspect of the game is encompassed in this set that includes the bonus DVD Strategy.

8, 9 & 10. Ken Venturi’s Stroke Savers - Sand Play and Fundamentals: In this Volume 1 of the Strokesavers Series, longtime CBS Golf Analyst Ken Venturi, who educated golfers for over 30 years with a variety of golf tips, shares the secrets to execute a variety of sand shots.

Visit PracticeRange.com for the best in golf training aids, books & videos all designed to improve every facet of your golf game.

Yesterday I posted a brief article about pitching versus chipping. Today I’ll share with you a tip my dad taught me when I was first learning the game.

It isn’t his original idea - though my dad is pretty sharp. His pro always advocated “keep it in the tub”. In case that’s just a silly thing to say that no one has ever heard of, the “tub” is roughly a 3-foot circle around the hole. If you are on the green and far from the hole, or getting ready to pitch or chip on, just try to hit the ball hard enough to get into the “tub” and not roll out. This will alleviate the stress of focusing on the right amount of roll to get into the cup.

With the reduced stress, you can focus on your line and the breaks on the green. It is a lot easier to gauge how hard to hit the ball when you have a 3-foot diameter circle to hit to rather than a 3-inch diameter circle. Still aim for the cup (obviously), but know that if you are at least in the tub, you’ll have a lot easier time getting off the green in two. As I said yesterday, it’s really hard to get rid of those clever three-putt nicknames your oh-so-smart golfing buddies can come up with.

PracticeRange.com offers the perfect package for golf beginners. The Beginners Golf Training Package includes everything you need to get started on your practice routine for every shot on the course. Included in the package (now on sale!) are:

1. Ernie Els Rockroller – Click here to see it in action!
2. Swing Assist
3. Izzo Foot Wedge
4. Impact Ball
5. From Beginner To Winner on DVD by David Leadbetter

If you’re new to the game of golf, you’ll hear that phrase a lot…”fairways and greens”. Yes the drive is important, but if you can’t get some control in your approach and put the golf ball in the hole, you’ll go from golf-beginner to golf club-seller-on-ebay before June.

In his post “Stroke Savers” at www.FindaLesson.com, Daniel Drier explains the difference between chipping and pitching:
Most golfers do not use the chip shot very often around the greens. The harder shot is the pitch shot, which is used more often. What is the difference between the two shots?The pitch shot, simply explained, is a shot used around the green when you must get the ball up in the air over a bunker or up to an elevated green. The ball must get high in the air, so when it lands on the green, it will not have much roll. The pitch shot = a lot of height, a little roll.The chip shot, however, is just the opposite and should be used whenever possible. The chip shot has very little height, lands on the edge of the green and rolls to the hole. The chip shot = a little height, a lot of roll. Why use the chip shot? It is easier to roll a golf ball to the hole rather than try to fly the ball near to the hole and stop it.Again for those who missed it, pitch = lots of height, little roll; chip = little height, lot of roll. You can read the rest of his advice here, but once you get onto the green, you’re going to want to get in the hole quickly to avoid your new nickname of “trifecta”, “triple threat”, “three-peat”, or any other clever puns your foursome can think up.

PracticeRange.com offers the perfect package for golf beginners. The Beginners Golf Training Package includes everything you need to get started on your practice routine for every shot on the course. Included in the package (now on sale!) are:

1. Ernie Els Rockroller
2. Swing Assist
3. Izzo Foot Wedge
4. Impact Ball
5. From Beginner To Winner on DVD by David Leadbetter