Golf Practice Blog

By RODNEY PAGE, Times Staff Writer
Published October 11, 2007
TampaBay.com

Alyssa Serino is eight-years-old, but she already has a room full of medals and trophies from various junior golf tournaments. She quickly figured out that the first place trophies are much bigger than the others, so she is going to try to win more of those.

Don’t feel bad, Tony. Alyssa, who lives in Oldsmar, has been beating plenty of kids since she discovered golf as a six-year-old. She plays on the U.S. Kids Golf tour during the summer and plays on the Greater Tampa Bay Junior Golf Association tour in the winter.

Read the rest of this article by Rodney Page about one of Tampa’s youngest golfers at TampaBay.com.

Browse our full line of Junior Golf Products at PracticeRange.com!

I am a 7 handicap, and never shanked my chip shots for 35 years until I moved to Arizona.  Now once or more a round I will be chipping, usually with a little length or where I have to swing a little harder than normal, sometimes from very tight lies, often with a 60 degree wedge and the ball squirts low and right, usually resulting in a lost shot or two.  I have tried chipping from my heals, using a lighter grip pressure, trying to stay dead still, but nothing seems to work for very long.  Do you have any advice?

It’s never fun to have shanks pop up in your round and they really do hurt the score.  This is a hard one to diagnose without watching you do it.  However a couple of things come to mind:

You may want to try a different wedge.  Your 60 degree wedge might have too much bounce for the tight Arizona lies.  It’s possible that the heel is digging in and the face is coming open, causing the shank. Take a look at the Momentus Short Game Wizard.  They offer several different lofted wedges, the club itself uses similar technology to the training clubs and they are USGA approved.

Another thought I have is maybe you are bringing the club inside too much on your backswing, causing you to come too far from the inside and hitting the hosel at impact.  A very good training aid for chipping is the Chip-N-Pitch chipping trainer.

I hope this helps a little.  If not, I would suggest a short game lessong from a PGA/LPGA professional.  You can locate one in your area at www.findalesson.com.

Elaine Crosby is a 19-year veteran of the LPGA Tour and a member of the Women’s Senior Golf Tour.  If you have a question for Elaine, please email us at mailto:info@practicerange.com?subject=Ask the Pro.

I am a male about 5′7″ to 5′8″ in height, and I want to know if it is ok for me to use a ladies golf set, or a set of clubs cut for women’s length, because I feel that the men’s length golf sets are a bit longer and more uncomfortable for my height.

I am a 5-8″ LPGA golfer and I use men’s length clubs. I use a regular shaft in my irons, but a softer or sometimes called “senior” shaft in my driver. The problem you may encounter with women’s clubs is the shaft. It will be very flexible and may be hard to control if you have any power. Most high-level women use men’s clubs for that reason. Alternately you may consider using a men’s club, with a softer shaft, then cut it down a bit. Women’s clubs sometime have higher lofts which may create a loss of distance for you.

My final suggestion is to stay with men’s-length clubs but choke down if they feel a little long.

Hope this helps, and thanks for visiting PracticeRange.com!

Elaine Crosby is a 19-year veteran of the LPGA Tour and a member of the Women’s Senior Golf Tour.