Improve your golf swing. Adopt a good body posture.

If you want to improve your golf swing, it is imperative that you look at the way that you set-up to the golf ball. Many amateur golfers do not even think about this aspect in their efforts to improve their golf swing. Not thinking about this aspect when you set-up to the ball will lead to despair and a long day in the rough.

To improve your golf swing you need to be in control of all the aspects of the set-up to the golf ball. One of the most important factors governing the set-up position and a factor that can significantly improve your golf swing is your body posture.

In order to adopt a good posture when addressing the golf ball, you should stand with your back straight and your weight evenly distributed between your feet. While doing this, you can bend over just enough from the waist to give your arms clearance to swing freely. This should set you of on your way to improve your swing.

Your arms should hang from your shoulders. The next step to improve your golf swing is to flex your knees slightly and to place your palms together. Slide your right hand below your left as it should be positioned on the golf club.

The above efforts to improve your golf swing and adopt a correct body posture will cause that you feel more weight on your right hand side, since it will be lower than your left hand side. Your weight will also be more towards the balls of your feet.

After this, the stance becomes most important in your efforts to improve your golf swing and body posture. For short and medium golf clubs, you should stand with your feet shoulder width apart. As the irons get shorter, you can narrow the stance. A too wide stance can inhibit your shoulder turn and a too narrow stance can cause instability. Experiment with your options. Remember though that the rule is that if you do err, let it be on the narrow side.

If you want to improve your golf swing, you should never crouch over the golf ball. You must also avoid setting your weight on the left hand side. This will encourage “tilting” rather than turning of the shoulders.
The person who invented the saying “To have spring in ones step” must have been a golfer. You should always be “springy” in your set-up. Light and relaxed muscles will always propel the golf ball further than will heavy and tense muscles. I am sure that if you follow the above advice, you will be firmly on your way to improve your golf swing.

You can also receive a free e-course that will help you to improve your golf swing and also touch on other aspects of the game like golf equipment and much more

The Construction of a golf ball

The modern golf ball consists of hundreds of dimples. The golf ball has evolved through time to its current aerodynamic shape.

The earliest golf balls can be traced back to Scotland and were made out of wood. It did not matter to these ancient golfers how the ball performed as the game were played in a disorganized and informal way. As the competitive nature of the game started to evolve, so did the search for a better golf ball.

The next golf ball invented was called the “Featherie” and consisted of goose feathers pressed into a horse or cowhide sphere when still wet. As everything dried the leather shrank and the feathers expanded to form a hard golf ball. It was very expensive.

The Guttie ball was less expensive and was made out of the sap of the Gutta tree. The rubber substance could easily be shaped into a sphere when hot and could be reheated and reshaped. Coburn Haskell introduced the one-piece rubber cored ball encased in a gutta percha sphere.

William Taylor then took the Haskell ball in 1905 and applied the dimple pattern. After that, dimpled balls were used in golf tournaments. In 1921, the golf balls took its current form with standard size and weight.

Today the USGA and R&A rules a golf ball must be spherical, no smaller than 4.26cm in diameter and no heavier than 45.93 grams. A golf ball must not generate a speed of more than 76.2m per second at a temperature of 23 grades Celsius. Rules are imposed to prevent professionals from designing balls that can travel significantly farther than other golf balls. This levels the playing field.

There are three types of golf balls. The golf ball is usually made in either two or 3 piece designs or there can also be a combination of the two. Surlyn is a hard, synthetic, rubber like substance and is used to cover less expensive balls. The main characteristics of these types of balls are that they spin less, travel further and last longer. Synthetic balata is a much softer substance than surlyn and is more commonly used to cover golf balls these days.

A two-piece ball consists of a hard synthetic rubber or plastic inner core and at thin, durable cover made of surlyn or synthetic balata. The core of this ball produces fantastic rebounding energy while the cover provides the golf ball with its low spin and durability. It is therefore the perfect choice for the beginner.

The three-piece ball has either a small, synthetic rubber or liquid core surrounded by a layer of rubber windings. A Surlyn or balata cover caps it off. Most Pros use three piece golf balls, because they have a softer feel and are more workable than most two-piece golf balls.

The modern golf ball has hundreds of dimples. The dimples on the ball help generate the spin to get the golf ball up in the air. Golf balls come with a number indicating the compression of the ball. The compression of a golf ball can vary from 80 to a hard 110. Compression plays a role on how the ball feels on the club face. An 80 compression ball will feel much softer than a 100 compression ball.

The construction of the golf ball is one of two factors, the other being the velocity of the club head that is most important to create enough energy that can be converted into velocity and lift. It is therefore important for any golfer to choose the right golf ball that suits the level of his game at any stage.

Golf – A Good Walk Spoiled

When one looks at the history and public awareness of golf, it is easy to see how this supposedly most relaxing of games has received attention from wits through the ages. The trend for humorous golf quotations was arguably lead by writer and traveller Mark Twain, who when asked to define the sport quipped it was: “a good walk spoiled”. The phrase has since become synonymous with golf itself, even leading to a Mark Twain Golf Course being opened.

However, Twain is not the only historical or cultural figure to make a lasting comment about golf. Some of the mutterings from notable – and occasionally not-so-notable – individuals have gone down in golfing folklore, providing plenty of opportunity for both fans of the game and fans of clever wit to enjoy.

A favourite for those who subscribe to the popular notion of golf as a game for gentlemen are often found to quote American journalist Art Spander. Spander himself must agree with this idea, as he once said: “golf is a game not just of manners, but of morals.” Lovers of the sport will also find great resonance with the following words, said by American – now retired – golfer Arnold Palmer: “Golf is deceptively simple and endlessly complicated; it satisfies the soul and frustrates the intellect. It is at the same time rewarding and maddening and it is without doubt the greatest game mankind has ever invented.” Both quotes, from Spander and Palmer, are often repeated by modern golfing enthusiasts.

However, those in possession of drier wit – and arguably a less worshipful opinion of the game – have turned their attentions to golf also. American writer and humorist Dave Barry once famously said: “for me, the worst part of playing golf, by far, has always been hitting the ball. Barry is not alone in lamenting the difficulties of the game; another famous quote is “many a golfer prefers a golf cart to a caddy because the car cannot count, criticize or laugh.”

However, the true stars of golfing quotations of the unknowns, whose words have passed through generations purely due to their dryness and intelligent. Perhaps the best known is: “when I die, I want to be buried on a golf course because at least my husband might visit then.” An equally dark and equally amusing quote is as follows: “Golf can be described as an endless series of tragedies obscured by the occasional miracle.”

We shall conclude, as we began, with writer Mark Twain. As well as the most famous golfing quote of all time, he also spoke of the sport with the following: “It’s good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling.”

Woods and Federer: A Friendship of Champions

When people daydream about becoming the best of the best, the top of their chosen field, few pause to consider the potential drawbacks that such elevation may bring. Yet, for those who are truly remarkable within their own discipline, being so vastly superior to all the other competition can be surprisingly difficult to comprehend. Being the best has its perks, but one must also concede that it can be worryingly lonely.

It is therefore little surprise that two champions, who have dominated their respective sports for much of recent memory, have forged a friendship based on understanding how lonely being the best can be.

In golf, Tiger Woods has been there and done it all. The king of the greens, he is so vastly superior to most other players on the golfing circuit that few bother to even imagine success against him.

In tennis, Roger Federer has very nearly – with the exception of the French Open, which proves elusive – been there and done it all. The king of grass, he plays with the grace of a ballet dancer and many opponents know they have lost before the first ball has even been served.

Woods and Federer have become close friends, these two giants of their own sports. The two were brought together by Nike, who saw the potential of these two living sporting legends and united them for an ad campaign. They have since starred, together with footballer Thierry Henry, in advertisements for razor brand Gillette alongside their Nike commitments. Before the 2007 Wimbledon final – in which Federer played his tennis arch-rival Rafael Nadal – Woods recorded a video message for Federer, via Nike, encouraging his friends to win his fifth title. Both men confess to a friendly rivalry as to who can win the most majors in their respective sports; currently, Woods holds the record at 14, with Federer on 13.

Their friendship has extended beyond the advertising suite. In 2006, Woods was photographed supporting Federer from Federer’s own players’ box as he bid for the US Open title. Both have also openly talked of their friendship in interviews and how it has helped them; citing that only each other, out of everyone on the planet, can really understand the position they are in.

A History of Balls And Holes: Golf Through The Ages

In terms of the sports modern society is used to, golf has one of the longest and most interesting histories. This is a sport that has been dominating the public conscious for nearly 500 years, and as with anything with roots in Medieval times, has been forced to adapt and change as the world around it does so too.

The first game of recorded golf was in 1456 in Edinburgh, Scotland. This, however, does not mean the Edinburgh game was the first time the sport was played, merely that it was the first time a person took the time to write down the events. In a period of low literacy levels, it is little wonder that some golfing historians say the game has social origins up to 200 years before the first recorded date.

The game itself was recorded in the archives of the Edinburgh Burgess Golfing Society, and can still be seen today. This confirms golf as a primarily Scottish game, which soon became popular throughout Europe and eventually the world. Much of the spread from Scotland is attributed to King James, who in 1603 became the first monarch of both Scotland and England, creating what we now know as the United Kingdom. Having grown up in Scotland, when King James became King of England following the death of his kinswoman Elizabeth I, the game came south with him. Golf obviously now has a worldwide appeal, yet the Scottish roots remain, with many famous courses still being played by world famous players in the northern country.

The foundation of golf is widely accepted to be the act, usually done by shepherds, of knocking stones into rabbit holes in Scotland during tedious watchings of sheep flocks. From these humble beginnings, the worldwide popular game we now know and love is believed to have stemmed.

All of the traits we associate with modern golf originated and were developed in Scotland. This includes the first 18-hole golf course, the first set of written rules of play and the first membership of golf clubs. The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of Saint Andrews is a popular destination for the golfing fan, due to their vast collection of documentation about the foundation of the game.

While some argue that golf has changed and developed from a basic game of hitting stones into rabbit holes to the cultural phenomenon it is today, others say simply: it’s still just about hitting stuff into holes. While this opinion may be crude, it is nevertheless truthful!

Interpreting Golf Terminology – A Thankless Task

If someone came back from the golf course and told you that they had “chunked an approach that left them having to take a Mulligan, and then ended up on the apron, before lipping out and relying on a come-backer to save par”, you would be entirely within your rights to assume that they had spent too long at the 19th Hole. But the actual fact is that they would be describing something that happens every so often to most golfers. They would be couching it in dense terminology and making it almost impossible to understand for anyone but other golfers, but they would not be lying or, necessarily, drunk.

To “chunk” a shot is to drive your club into the ground before, or in (accidental) lieu of hitting the ball. Coming from the sound that such an impact makes, it is something horribly familiar to a great many golfers. And it could lead to a Mulligan, which is a replay of the shot without any stroke being counted. This is not allowed in competition golf, but is allowed to pass in most casual rounds. From your Mulligan, could you end up on an apron? You certainly could. Assuming you were aiming for the green, if you ended up on the slightly rougher patch of grass around it, that’s exactly where you would have ended up.

From such a position there would be two options. Firstly your sober friend could try to chip the ball from the “apron” towards the hole, or secondly they could attempt a putt. If the ball rolled around the outside of the hole and stayed out, this is described as “lipping out” – from where the ball can go anywhere, sometimes heart breakingly a few feet past. When the ball rolls past the hole, you must rely on a putt coming back the other way – or, as the terminology has it, a “comebacker”.

There are a great many other golf terms which may be considered impenetrable and arcane to the uninitiated. The best advice that one could possibly pass on to a novice trying to get a handle on the terminology for the sake of a relationship is to watch with a notepad and learn as you go along with some help from the Internet.

Watch The Birdie? No, Wait, Was That An Eagle?

Watching golf can be a very confusing way to spend time if you are a novice to the sport. Like any sport, it has its own scoring system, but that is a little idiosyncratic in itself. Then there is the way the players dress, which in some cases is enough to confuse anyone in possession of a working pair of eyes. But perhaps the most confusing element of watching a game of golf is the seemingly arcane terminology used to refer to different elements of the game. This can make the whole sport seem like some sort of prank being played on an unsuspecting novice. So maybe some of the terms need to be explained better.

Firstly, what is with those terms used in the scoring system? Well, “par” had been used for anything that was considered an acceptable standard for years before its application in golf. So in this respect, it was a new application of existing terminology. But why “Bogey” for a bad score? Well, the story goes that a song of the late 19th Century had the lyric “I’m the Bogey Man, catch me if you can”. This led to people seeing the “bogey” on the golf course as something to be aimed for – and among amateurs, who still tend to play off a handicap, it still is. But the term was used interchangeably with “par” for many years, only adopting its current meaning in the early 20th Century.

As for “birdie”, this comes from further back than “bogey”. Early in the 19th Century, the word “bird” was used in much the same way as people nowadays would say “cool” – something that really stands out and impresses. Playing a hole in one shot fewer than is expected – now that is cool, surely? Hence the term “birdie” came to be used in reference to people doing just that. So why an “eagle” for someone playing a hole in two shots less than the par? Well, it’s obvious, is it not? It’s a kind of birdie, but it is bigger. And as you may have guessed, the use of the term “albatross” to describe playing a Par 5 hole in two shots is simply a continuation on that theme.

Golf Clubs – No, The Other Kind

When you take up golf, one thing that you will almost always seek to do is get membership of a club. The fact that a club is both something you use to hit a golf ball and something you join in order to get the chance to hit a golf ball has led to no small amount of confusion in the past. But simply put, if your friend tells you he is going to join a golf club, he probably does not mean that he is going to attach himself to a reinforced titanium stick while, unless your friend is very wealthy, should he tell you he is going to buy a golf club on his lunch break, he probably doesn’t mean he is off to put a down payment on several acres of real estate.

Joining a golf club is actually surprisingly difficult in many cases. There has been no small amount of controversy in the past over people seeking to join one and being refused on what seemed like either very arbitrary, or possibly heavily discriminatory, grounds. One of the world’s most famous clubs, the Augusta National (home to major golf competition the US Masters), first had a black member in 1990. As of yet, it has never had a female member, although it does allow women to play the course as guests of its members. The Augusta National is far from the only club not to have female members, but it is – as the current permanent home of the Masters – the highest-profile club with single-sex membership. Its chairman, Hootie Johnson, says that the club may well have female members in the future, but that he will not be threatened into making a change.

In general, though, most golf clubs have a far more relaxed membership policy than the Augusta National or Scotland’s Muirfield, although in many cases membership policy is dictated by the club’s current members whose own opinions and motivations are theirs and theirs alone. The best way to ensure you can get membership of a club is to be friends with someone who is already a member. A little light lobbying on their part, and if you are lucky, you’ll be given the call.

So, Having Minus Points … That’s Good?

If you have never followed golf before, or if you are explaining it to someone who never has, the weird and wonderful world of golf scoring makes for an interesting way to spend a bit of time. In so much of life, we look to have positive numbers. Minus ten degrees is really cold, while plus sixty is nice and mild. On your bank statement, you never want to see a minus and if you do, the number next to it had better be pretty small. We even assign the words “positive” and “negative” where numbers are concerned, and nothing can be more prejudicial than that, right?

So to have a sport where you actively set out to record as low a score as possible will always be confusing for some. It makes perfect sense to the golfer and the golf enthusiast, though. Indeed, it helps to think of golf as a race of sorts – a race between men in ill-designed knitwear and slacks rather than lycra, but a race nonetheless. When you’re watching athletics, you know it’s been a good race if the numbers next to the winner’s name are low. Although if, as in golf, those numbers are in the negative then maybe it’s time for drugs tests all around.

The thing to keep in mind with golf is that you have a set number of shots which is judged as a fair limit in which to get around the course, called a par. On an eighteen-hole course this will almost always be between seventy and seventy two. The ideal is to get a score that is less than this – to get around the course in, for example, sixty eight shots. If you hit 68 on a course with a par of 72, then you have recorded a score of four under par, which is recorded on your score card as –4. In a professional tournament, there may be as many – indeed there usually will be as many – as four rounds. So for a competition around a par 72 course, the competition par will be 288, and the winner will always be the person with the lowest score.

Clubbed To Death? Your Wallet May Think So.

Anyone who takes up golf will have one immediate and expensive concern to take care of – the equipment. And we are not talking about offensively garish knitwear and those hats with sun visors on them although, if you are interested, those will cost a pretty penny too. No, think more along the lines of the equipment you will need in order to actually play the game. If you are going to play golf with any kind of regularity, and any kind of seriousness, then let’s just say that golf clubs – in both senses of the word “clubs” – will take up quite a bit of your disposable income.

This piece, though, will concentrate on the clubs that you carry around with you, the ones you use to hit the ball. A casual glance may have you believing that these are very simple items, made from metal, wood or some combination thereof, with a rubber grip. But if you are to fit in down at the country club, you will need state-of-the-art clubs to play with. The latest clubs are all the result of a lot of research and some extremely technical design work, built to optimizeBuying the distance you can get on your drives, the spin on your approach shots, and the accuracy in your putting game. These are the kinds of club that Woods, Mickelson and Els use and, although they won’t make you play like the professionals, they will give you some of the advantages those guys have.

The fact is, for a decent beginner’s set of golf clubs you will be looking at potentially getting no change from an outlay of $300. This will be a set that contains three woods (unfortunately, not Tiger – he would help anyone’s game), five irons, a driver, a putter and two recovery clubs (usually a pitching wedge and a sand wedge). There are more clubs available, and the average professional will have a few more in their bag so that every situation is covered. But those guys can afford to pay a caddy to carry their bag, and pay them handsomely to carry more weight. Unless you have that kind of money to spend, it is worth taking into account that the average beginners’ sets will suit your needs admirably, and individual clubs can always be added as and when you feel the need (and as your caddy’s upper-body strength improves).

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