Last week I held a junior clinic at Lakelands Golf Club, the facility that I base my teaching business out of. The kids hit balls and did various skills activities in the mornings as well as we got their swings on video to show them what they are doing in their swings. In the afternoons they got to play the Jack Nicklaus designed 18 hole golf course. I think that even at a very young age that juniors should be given some pretty specific things to work on in their swings and they should have some knowledge of the fundamentals such as grip, alignment and set up. Of course they shouldn’t be overloaded with information but one of the benefits of teaching kids over a given period of time is that you can gradually add more and more information. I have been teaching some of these kids over the last couple of years so very often when they see their own swings on video they can see what they are doing wrong or what they need to improve.

Over the period over 4 days we saw some kids improve with their swings and scores on the golf course and one where his scores went higher over the four days after a first round nett 63. However the focus for the week was on having fun and giving some direction for their future improvement. The kids were even keen to play golf the next few days after the camp and one entered a junior event the next day and won.

A few weeks ago I played in a pro am tournament which was the first event I had entered in about three and a half years. The tournament was at a club where I used to be a member many years ago and I also did some of my PGA traineeship there as well. So it was a matter of catching up with some friends and people I haven’t seen in a while and playing some golf as well. I had expected to play well and be competitive as my most recent round only a week before I had hit the ball OK. However in the intervening period I had suffered an injury to my back and found it a little difficult to bend over even to tee up the ball. But with some beers already on board before lunch and tee off and some pain killers for the back we headed out to the tee for a shotgun start. On a long dogleg left par four I managed to hit straight through the fairway off the tee and six shots later was 3 over after the first hole. It took me about 5 holes to hit a fairway and green in regulation but then I managed a couple of good holes and finished even par in spite of a poor finish. I think I finished in about 14^th position only nine shots behind the winner Rod Pampling who only a couple of weeks earlier had won the Australian Masters title. On the Queensland Tour  Order of Merit that means that I received one point as I had finished nine shots behind the leader, if I had finished one shot behind I would get 9 points. The winner of the Queensland Order of Merit for 2008 was Jason Ashcroft who accumulated 410 points last year and earned $33,000. I think last year Andrew Bonhomme made something like $98,000. The winner of the 2008 Order of Merit in NSW was Ed Stedman and he earned $55,000. It sounds like reasonable money for playing golf on the lesser tours but you also have to take into account how much it takes to earn that money with things like accommodation, car expenses and flights in some cases. Also the other tours that guys make money on in Australia are the Von Nida Tour and the Australasian PGA Tour. If you don’t make money in the six Von Nida events then you need to do some good on the five or six main tour events held throughout the year. I believe that this year they are going to combine the Von Nida and the main tour so the money counts towards one money list which is a good idea. It is very difficult to make a living out of playing golf in Australia and I think to have a career a player really has to look at getting on a major tour overseas. All of the main tours have already had their qualifying schools with the exception of the Asian Tour so for all of the Australian pro am players entered in that tournament next week I hope they all get their cards.

Video Clip – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7p-kr-RleM

If you are hitting shots with a curve to the right with the ball actually starting to the left that is a true slice. The swingpath is going from outside on the downswing to inside on the followthrough and the clubface is open at impact in relation to the path. You can hit curves to the right which may not necessarily be slices, the clubface may be just open to the path at impact with a correct swingpath or it could be open at impact with an inside out swingpath – usually this is known as a push fade. One thing that I would suggest you ensure before trying anything is that the clubface is actually square at address – perpendicular to the target line. If you still curve the ball to the right you could  as a quick fix set the clubface slightly closed at address. This should mean that it comes back slightly closed or square at impact. You may have to do some experimentation with varying amounts of a closed clubface at address. But what should start happening fairly quickly is that the ball will stop curving to the right. The ball may still be starting to the left and you will probably start hitting some pulls and some pull draws but if you persist then you will soon realize that you don’t have to get the swingpath to go left on the followthrough and you will start swinging more along the target line. It is the combination of poor swingpath and an open clubface that is making the ball curve left to right so you need to actually change two things. I would also suggest that you ensure that you can see the leading edge of the clubface when the clubhead is placed behind the ball which will make it easier to see if the clubface is square. If you get the leading edge of the clubface up underneath or too close to the ball you are relying on being able to align the face by looking at the scoring lines or grooves. Also you are at a greater risk of touching and moving the ball at address which would incur a penalty – one stroke if the ball is replaced to its original position or two if not.

The Australian Open Golf Championship begins tomorrow at Royal Sydney Golf Club with Geoff Ogilvy installed as the bookmaker and crowd favourite. Adam Scott unfortunately was forced to withdraw after not recovering from a knee injury he sustained on the Sunshine Coast prior to last week’s Australian PGA Championship. Defending champion Craig Parry is playing down his chances saying that the course is more suited to the longer hitters. Ogilvy finished second to John Senden two years ago at this venue and is understandably pretty confident with his game. It seems like the player to win this event will probably be someone who is on one of the main tours of Europe or the US as they are tour hardened and used to playing for good money. The last two tournaments have gone this way with Pampling and Ogilvy winning the two other major golf tournaments in Australia. From the European Tour Darren Clarke could be considered a chance as he won twice on that tour this year. James Nitties has just returned from the US after successfully gaining his US Tour card but it would be a huge effort to play well after such a grueling week of 6 rounds and the flight home. However he could feel no pressure and will probably go out with a good deal of confidence. He is rated at $101.00 to win the championship while Allenby and Appleby are rated at $9.00 and $15.00 respectively. Manuel Villegas, brother of US Tour star Camillo is ranked by Sportsbet at $501.00. It will be interesting to see if Channel Seven continue to broadcast any more golf tournaments after this Australian Open or if Channel Ten take up the rights to the rest of the tournaments on the Australian PGA Tour this season and beyond. Also interesting is the absence of Jack Newton from the Seven commentary team, could he be going to Ten next year?

Video – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQGV6TJ_lQw

When you are playing golf and you are in the middle of a round and you have hit several hook shots to the left you can make a small adjustment at address to give you a quick fix. The reason why the ball is curving to the left is that the clubface is closed at impact in relation to the direction of the swing. It may be closed because of a fault in the backswing or downswing or because of too much release or because it is closed at address. Whatever the reason you could make an adjustment  that will stop the ball from hooking by simply having the clubface a little open or aligned to the right at address. The opposite would apply for a left handed player. Hopefully when the clubface returns to the ball at impact it is no longer closed so the ball won’t curve to the left. The clubhead should be set at address a couple of millimeters behind the ball so that you can see the leading edge which will make it easier to align. If you get the clubface up underneath the ball you won’t be able to see the leading edge and you are also at a greater risk of touching and moving the ball which would result in a penalty. The leading edge needs to be at right angles to the target at address and impact but if you have been hooking try opening up the face a little.

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There are a number of different schools of thought on the best way to improve your golf.

Some people will say that you can improve by doing intensive training at a 3 day school or the like or by taking a bunch of lessons or working on a new swing theory. Ben Hogan famously said that the answer was in the dirt, meaning that you had to hit a lot of balls to discover what works for the individual. Other experts will say that the answer to improving your game is in getting your body in peak condition by training in the gym and doing golf specific exercises. Or that golf is 90% mental. I would have thought that it might be 90% mental if you had already acquired all the physical skills that the game demands. So far I haven’t heard of any physicists or chess masters making the switch to golf and getting on the PGA Tour. Or you could improve your golf by buying the latest golf training aid that you’ve seen advertised on Pay TV or in a golf magazine. To me you have to do a little bit of all of the above and probably a lot of some of them. For sure you have to hit a lot of balls but at what time does the law of diminishing returns have an effect. I know about hitting a lot of balls because I used to hit around 600 full shots a day for more than 20 years. That’s what I thought you had to do because that’s what Hogan did and that’s what so many great players in the past supposedly did. I think that at whatever level to improve you need to keep working on the same sort of things over a period of time. There are plenty of different ways of hitting a golf ball so it’s not necessarily in the technique but being consistent at whatever style or swing you’re using. You need to have some idea of where the ball is going or at least think you do. If you are working on a perfect swing and you are capable of hitting a full range of shots from superb to slices, hooks, tops, duffs and shanks then the mental side of your game is going to be a little fragile. That’s where sometimes a small mistake in the swing can help to create some shape in your shots which means you can have an idea of where the ball is going. There are plenty of examples of top players who have had some swing flaws but that helps give them a small fade or draw which they then play as their stock or natural shot.  I am constantly having conversations with people that I teach about what they are trying to do when they are hitting the ball. Very often they will say I am just trying to hit the ball straight. The only trouble is that’s the hardest shot to hit and if you keep trying to hit every shot straight then you are going to drive yourself mental because it’s not realistic. The real way of learning to hit the ball basically straight is by learning to curve the ball slightly one way or the other. The question then becomes how are you going to learn to hit these small draws and fades because there a number of ways of doing this. This may come from doing some experimentation or taking some lessons from a knowledgeable pro or talking with or watching good players. So I think the first step in improving your golf is to get some advice from someone who has both played the game at a high level and who has also taught some players that have improved. Preferably if you can find a PGA member who has helped players to a high level of competency that would be good. The last thing you want is to take lessons from someone who is going to teach you what they are working on in their swing at the moment. Someone like this will likely try any new theory that comes along or try to copy the swing feel of a current top player. Not that you are going to know straight away but you will probably find out over a period of time to your own detriment. The problem is that they are using their students as guinea pigs to try out these theories. In my opinion a good teacher will closely observe the ball flight laws and teach to a basic swing model and method but be able to make small adjustments to the model. This type of teacher will probably have been teaching this style or method for some time and there will be some evidence that it works. I think the best teachers are also the ones that you can see personally and you can ask them questions and get direct answers. You can also get them to demonstrate what they are talking about. If you are trying to improve your golf by downloading from the internet ‘golf secrets’ that pro’s won’t tell you about and they include a 30 day guarantee then I think you are looking for shortcuts that you really can’t take. There are no secrets to golf and learning this game. But if you go to a Google search and type in ‘golf secret’ you will get about 847,000 results. Most of these will be in an e-book form and this is not the best way to improve your golf.  To improve your golf you are going to have to invest some time, effort and probably some money. Get some professional advice on where your golf game and swing is at currently and discuss a strategy for improvement. This may mean taking some lessons, purchasing some suitable golf training aids that are going to help you gain consistent and correct patterns in your swing or putting stroke. To change bad habits or ingrained faults you are going to need to do a lot of repetitive drills and exercises and swings to get used to a new pattern that you can do without too much conscious effort. Or if you are building a swing from scratch the same thing applies.  If you want to really improve your golf you need to look at all areas of your game and if you can improve your short game this is where you are really going to notice differences in the scores you shoot. I would also recommend that if you are going to get professional advice with your full swing that you seek out help in all the other areas including putting, chipping, pitching, and bunker and recovery shots. This doesn’t always mean that you have to do paid lessons in all of these areas. You may be able to just ask people that you play with who are good at certain shots to explain what they do or go to some golf tournaments and watch what professional and top line amateur players do. I think that with the mental side of golf a player will get confident when they can competently hit shots first in practice then in competition. After you have performed a task successfully a number of times you are going to believe that you can do it again even if there is some kind of pressure attached. If you go through the same steps and processes when you are playing that you do when you are practicing then performance will improve.

So in my opinion the best way to improve your golf is to seek professional advice and start doing some golf training based on improving the things in your golf swing that relate to the ball flight laws. In other words the swing path, clubface control, balance, posture and swing speed.

The LPGA Qualifying School has just finished in the US with Stacey Lewis finishing medalist at 18 under par for the 5 rounds. Former Robina High School student Amy Yang finished second 3 strokes behind after a final round 70 to finish at 15 under. Another former Robina student Haeji Kang finished at 2 under par missing the play off for the last two spots by two shots. I have been the golf coach at Robina High over the last two years and I have seen close up how good these girls are. Amy Yang won twice on the European Tour this year with three career victories in total and she is ready to and probably will win on the LPGA Tour next year. She plays with very good control and has adequate length with the only question mark over her hot and cold putting. She hits so many greens in regulation though that I think she gets a little used to two putting and very often doesn’t make the most of her opportunities. Haeji Kang is also a very good ballstriker which she used to demonstrate every day practicing at Robina High and Lakelands Golf Club where I work. The other students at the school weren’t too much in awe of these two players because of their friendly personalties but probably should have been by their golfing abilities because talent like this doesn’t come along every day or even year. Hopefully Haeji will still get starts in a few main tour events but she will also be able to play on the Futures Tour where she won earlier this year.

On the mens tour at the Q School Harrison Frazer has a five stroke lead over Australian James Nitties with one round to go. Frazer shot a 59 in yesterdays round and followed up with a 69 in today’s round. Andrew Bonhomme is still a chance after a great round of 65 today to get into a tie for 50^th at 11 under. Australian Open runner up Won Joon Lee and Jason Day are tied at the same score and with a good round tomorrow could secure themselves quite a few starts on the PGA Tour next year. The top 25 players and ties earn a card on the tour for next year.

Video Clip – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dX2SBLnwtA

The reason why a player hits a hook is because the clubface is closed in relation the path at impact. This may be happening because the hands are too active in the hitting area and at impact. If the wrists are recocking too quickly in the followthrough or the left wrist is cupping and the right wrist is bowing it can get the clubface too closed. What you might need to feel is that your hands are quiet in the hitting area and that the clubhead is staying low in the early part of the followthrough. This will mean that there is not very much angle being created between the right arm and the shaft and at right arm horizontal in the followthrough you may need to feel like right arm and shaft are in a straight line. This is a feel that many top players have to hit a small fade shot and this feel can also be used to help prevent hitting a hook. With the hands’ being active in the followthrough the arms will also tend to rotate which is going to get the clubface to release – hence a draw or hook shot. If you planning a draw that is fine but if you also have the clubface closed throughout the backswing and downswing and then you also release the clubface the ball will curve too far to the left. In the long term you probably need to improve the clubface control in the backswing and downswing but as a quick fix feel like you are keeping your hands quiet in the followthrough and it should help to prevent a hook.

Victorian Geoff Ogilvy today won the 2008 Australian PGA Championship at Hyatt Coolum on the Sunshine Coast shooting a final round three under 69 for a 4 day total 14 under total. It seemed like Mathew Goggin was in control of the tournament and his own game when he opened up a three shot lead after the eighth hole of the final round playing with Geoff Ogilvy. However bogeys at nine and ten and a further bogey at 15 where he found water with his second shot allowed Ogilvy to move ahead.  With Goggin needing a birdie to put pressure on Ogilvy at the last he three putted from long range to give him the title and finish in second two back.

Peter Senior had another good tournament however a bogey at the last had him finish equal third with Rod Pampling and Scott Strange. There were a number of players who looked to have a chance including Peter O”Malley and Tim Wilkinson but Ogilvy seemed to do all the right things including making a couple of great up and downs.

Ogilvy’s swing is an action that is pretty much copybook and any young player would do well to copy it. He has improved his temperament over the last few years and seems to be able to play within himself without trying to overpower a golf course although he is one of the longer players going around. He has a variety of shots that he can play and his pitching and chipping is exceptionally good. I would say that now he has won once on the Australian Tour it will probably become a common occurrence and I would say he is the favourite for next week’s Australian Open at Royal Sydney. 

Video of Tiltable Putting Green : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_e55EPMz4I

The Perfectstroke Golf Academy now has a fully motorized tiltable putting platform that can simulate most putts that a golfer may face on the golf course. The 5 metre long indoor putting surface runs at about 11 ½ on a stimp meter and is used by students of Perfectstroke to analyse and practice putting including use of the SAM Puttlab. You can putt in two different directions to two holes and putt from any length up to 5 metres. The amount of break is also variable and can be set be very subtle or to break over 2 feet in a fifteen foot putt. This putting system has been about 6 months in the planning and making and I believe it is part of the best putting practice and training facility in the world. If someone has come up with a better putting practice environment I would like to see it.  We can analyse a golfers putting stroke using the SAM system in the normal way on a straight putt as well as on breaking left to right and right to left putts. We can also make the breaking putts uphill or downhill. With the ability to make these changes to a putt in a controlled manner we can see what happens to the putting stroke in different situations. We also use video cameras with high speed shutters that can capture in very slow motion what is happenning in the putting stroke including the roll of the ball in the impact area. The set up that we use has the camera positioned almost directly over the ball to give a players view of the putting stroke. Usually further analysis is then done using the V1 computer analysis system where we can compare putts with those used on various training aids and against other players. Even the best putters have trouble with certain putts and now we can measure and analyse and correct techniques where required. For me I have a tendency to get the putterface a little closed in the backswing so I can have problems missing right to left putts to the left. Once a couple have missed left then the stroke path can tend to get a little inside out to compensate. If I was a touring professional and attempting to make a living out of playing the game I would be practicing on this platform as much as I could. It is and always has been very difficult to find good practice environments when you consider that you need to find a practice green that is in good condition and is similar to the greens you would come across in tournament conditions. With golf courses doing up to four coring and scarifying renovations in a year, extreme heat, cold, rain and wind to deal with it is difficult to find a quality facility to practice at year round. This is why we have developed this putting practice and training mechanism so that our students can train in a controlled and comfortable environment that is challenging and interesting. If you can make your golf practice both challenging and interesting then there s a fair chance it will also be fun and then you will probably want to do it a lot. Unless you are extremely talented one thing that you need to do to improve your golf is put in a fair amount of time on the various parts of your game. Improving putting and the short game is where you are most going to see improvements in scores and at the end of the day that is how we measure how good we are at this game.