The Top 10 Worst Golf Tips
Golf is full of tips and advice, some are good and some are bad and here are the ten worst, don't give them to anyone!
- · Keep your head down
The golf swing is a movement, keeping the head down hinders the movement, if you were to throw an object while in a golf posture you would never keep the head down, don’t when swinging either.
- · You’re swinging too fast
The only time you swing too fast is when the ball goes too far, slowing down your swing and changing nothing else after a bad shot will lead to a shot that was just as crooked as the last one but shorter; short and crooked is a bad combination. Rarely has speed led to bad shots, poor sequence or poor contact is much more likely.
- · Hit down on the ball
The club is above the ball on the back swing and no matter what you do in the downswing you are hitting down, there is no need to focus more on hitting down on the ball. Learning low point control would be a much better way to improve fat or thin shots rather than hitting down on the ball. Also, hitting down on the ball doesn’t make it go up.
- · Golf is 90% mental
Golf is a primarily a physical game, when you can move the ball with your mind it will become predominantly mental game until then improving your physical skills is the key to the biggest improvements.
- · Keep your left arm straight
This tip leads to an overly rigid swing restricting movement and adding tension to the left/trail arm. A similar tip in the short game would be take your wrists out of pitching/chipping.
- · All putts break towards road/river/structure
In some clubs you’ll hear that all putts break towards a certain road or certain river, in Palm Springs you hear that all putts break towards Indio. Putts break downhill, they don’t break towards an object or area that aren’t near the putting green.
- · Keep your head still
The head moves in the golf swing, notice with Jack Nicklaus it tilts to the right in his backswing, with Jim Furyk, Annika Sorenstam and Henrik Stenson it moves even more coming into impact. Allowing the head to move is no problem.
- · Take the putter straight back
With putting we are standing to the side of the ball; the putter will naturally swing on an arc as a result. Trying to swing straight back and through leads to a lot of manipulation of the club face, the most important factor in putting is face alignment at impact, better to focus on that rather than on the path of the putter.
- · Grip the club like you’re holding a bird
You must hold the club with a reasonable amount of strength in full shots, for many golfers with a lot of grip strength it feels like they are not holding the club tightly, but they would be in comparison to many golfers with little grip strength.
- · Giving advice after every bad shot
This just leads to more and more clutter and paralysis by analysis. Your best bet is to say nothing and follow the flight of the ball, making it easier to find it.
What else would you add to the list?
