Golf swing instruction starts with an understanding of the different segments of the golf swing. Understanding the golf swing segments will give anybody a firm foundation to learn all the tricks of the trade from others and thus be able to understand any golf swing instruction aimed at helping them improve their game.

There are actually three segments to the golf swing. The segments are the backswing, the downswing and finally the impact and follow through.

Dividing the swing into these 3 segments helps to apply every individual golf swing instruction or tip to the particular segments where they apply. It also helps the golfer focus on one segment at a time in their golf swing instruction making it easier for them to remember what they learn and also to be able to work on improving their game systematically.

There is another bigger advantage to this approach. And that is the ability to be able to draw ones attention to the many different parts of the body and the many muscles involved in a proper golf swing.

This is important in helping a golfer involved in a golf exercise program to be able to appreciate the different exercises they do in the program and what particular muscles the exercises focus on.

All this makes it a lot easier for any golfer to link their exercises to golf swing instructions they receive as they seek to improve on their game.

Actually it is not possible to divorce the basics of golf swing instruction from golf specific exercises. The two go together and chances of improving your game improve dramatically when you combine the two. On the other hand progress is bound to be much slower when you work on golf swing instruction only.

Understanding and establishing a proper grip is your first step. The grip sets the tone for all else to come. A good grip allows you to swing your club with control during full swings with maximum speed. It allows for you to bring the clubface squarely through the impact zone, and determines how much you club face rotation you get.

You&’ll want to find a grip pressure that allows you to deliver enough force to the ball without the club twisting at impact; yet you don&’t want your hands and forearms overly tight and stiff.

Grip pressure was once described by Sam Snead as though you are holding a bird in your hands and you want to hold tight enough that the bird can&’t fly away yet not so tight as to hurt the bird.

For our purposes here and especially you are just learning how to grip the golf club, we&’ll discuss gripping the club with a neutral type grip (neither favoring a draw or a fade).

In this position the &’V&’s&’ created with the thumb and forefinger as you address the golf ball will point just to the right of your chin (right handed golfer). In fact, with this grip, someone standing directly across from you would see only the first two knuckles of your left hand. So, two knuckles of the left hand showing and your &’V&’s&’ pointing to just right of your chin and you have a neutral – traditional type golf grip.

With your forefinger and little finger that meet underneath the club grip; you can either choose to overlap these to fingers or you can interlock them; whichever is more comfortable to you and gives you the most confidence.

Hold the club more toward your fingers than back in the palm of the hand. We want to be able to get a good natural wrist cock.

When you are first just introducing a golf club to your hands, don&’t worry about whacking golf balls right away. Rather, get used to the grip first. As you next begin to learn about address and set up, spend time just swinging the club back and forth and get used to how the club and the grip feel. Don&’t worry too much hitting a ball at this early juncture.

Down the road of your learning curve just bit, you&’ll no doubt become curious about &’drawing&’ and or &’fading&’ the golf ball. Drawing or fading the golf ball begins with your grip. Although drawing or fading your golf shot goes beyond the scope of this article, I want to touch on this as it relates to our discussion on the grip.

Remembering your initial neutral grip that we discussed; if you want to grip to draw the ball you&’ll rotate your hands/grip slightly clockwise. In other words, this will produce a three knuckle grip… up from your two knuckle grip we talked about earlier. To grip to fade the ball, you&’ll go a knuckle the other way. So, you will reduce your neutral two knuckle grip down one to a one knuckle grip.

I mention this, not to imply that you will want to immediately want to begin working your golf shots from right to left and left to right; rather I want to give you a basic understanding how the golf grip works first from the neutral hand position.

Start building your golf swing with your teaching professional by laying a good foundation that starts with – - – the grip.

Part of the equation of power and distance you generate in your stroke is created by the distance you stand from your ball as determined by the length of the club.

On a putt you stand close to the ball and on a drive with a longer shaft you stand farther away.

Essentially then, how far you stand from the ball is controlled by the length of the club and the angle the shaft comes out of the head.

The driver is the longest club in the bag and the putter is usually the shortest, because you stand closer with the putter and further away with the driver.

There are a few things that are musts regarding the addressing of the golf ball or your setup:

*You should stand comfortably over the ball with your knees slightly bent, this also avoids stiffness and allows you to stay with the shot longer.

*To maintain your balance during the stroke, you should work to maintain a flat and consisten spine angle throughout your golf swing. It puts your eyes and head in the right position over the ball and keeps your swing on a consistent swing plane.

*Begin your setup by balancing your weight evenly on your feet. This aids in a good initial setup and alignment to the ball. Even though there is a transfer of weight from back to front during the golf swing, you’ll want to establish a good balanced ‘feel’ during your address and setup to the golf shot.

*Forming a stable base is accomplished by separating your feet the correct distance.

This is usually about shoulder length for most people. If your feet are too far apart this may cause you to choke down or bend your elbows to hit the ball.

Even if having the feet further apart is more comfortable, these are situations you want to avoid.

*Your arms should be straight and relaxed, not stiff, and your hands should be under your shoulders. This posistion is created by that flat spine that is slightly angled over your body.

If you are in the correct position, your hands should be a few inches from your lower body, just above the knees.

If you are in a proper stance you should be able to hold it for a without feeling and discomfort.

If when you achieve the proper setup it may feel a bit awkward and uncomfortable initially if you’ve never been instructed on this before. The key it to develop this habit and get your body and your muscles used to creating this solid foundation from which to work.

Don’t slip back into your old bad posture setup. Stay with this type of address at the golf shot and you’ll very soon get comfortable with it.

And the great thing is – it is people of all age groups, genders, race and social strata. I have really been enjoying working with every type of golfer.

The first aspect of the game of golf that I talk with about a person or group of people that are just beginning to take up the game is that learning to play golf is going to take some time and much patience. In fact, the patience part never goes away in this great game!

The second aspect (or at least real close to it) that I speak with beginning golfers about is practice; and the amount you spend with quality practice time will get you to the point in your game you want to be.

Everyone has different ambitions and expectations as to how far they want to take their game. Whether it’s just a spouse who wants to learn enough of the game and the golf swing to enjoy an afternoon with their significant other, or someone who one day wishes to play competitively, the game of golf can accommodate. But, it’s fundamentals and practice that will get you to your goal.

At its core of the game of golf is the golf swing. Your golf swing. How you start out learning the mechanics of the golf swing is crucial.

Don’t skip the basics! Learn some fundamentals before you even begin to tackle the swing.

The grip, the stance, the setup to the ball, and your posture, is the foundation from which you must learn the golf swing. If you don’t spend the time early on ingraining these aspects into your physical psyche, you’ll not (if ever) consistently strike the golf ball. So, make sure when you are working with your instructor, you don’t just start whacking at balls. Make sure you build the proper foundation with the aforementioned elements.

When you do progress to actually swinging the club, I like to have people start with middle iron (usually a 6 or 7 iron). In my opinion, the middle iron is the best club to begin learning the golf swing. With a six iron, for example, the ball placement is in the middle of your stance. This means that as you progress to higher and lower irons you will have a benchmark to work from. Also down the road, if you swing begins to trouble you, I usually suggest that you get back to your basic neutral position club of the six iron and get your rhythm and timing back.

If you are just beginning, you must understand that the longer the shaft on the club, the longer it is going to take you to consistently and accurately hit the golf ball. It’s just the physics. I see way too many beginners want to rush to justice and hit the driver and they never learn the proper swing. Always learn, tune, and groove your swing with a middle iron. Then work to keep that mindset as you climb the ladder of your clubs.

From you middle iron placement your longer shafted clubs will find your ball placement more toward your front foot’s instep; while your shorter irons will have the ball work more toward the back foot’s instep.

But before you do any of this, make sure you start with your foundation. Make sure that when you speak with your teaching professional you let them know that you want to spend time with and make sure you understand the concepts of the grip, stance, alignment, and posture. This will ensure that you don&’t build a house of cards with your golf swing that will always be tumbling apart.

Once you get past your first couple of lessons of working on the foundations, don&’t forget them.
Always, always, always, be cognizant of your grip, stance, alignment, and posture even as you begin developing your golf swing. Be sure to incorporate a quick check of these before you engage your swing.

And finally, we come full circle. Be patient with yourself and spend time practicing. If you do, you&’ll realize the wonderful rewards that the game of golf returns in a much sooner fashion.

Unquestionably the biggest mistake I see in people&’s golf swing isn&’t in their golf swing itself.

Nope. Not at all.

More often than not the mistakes happen before the swing even begins. The first mistake is made in how the golfer holds the golf club. After that the next mistake usually comes in with how they stand up to the ball. Poor posture. Then after having two strikes against them, they then finish the job of making it almost impossible to hit a good golf shot by improperly lining up to their intended target.

Of course, after hitting several (possibly several hundred) balls with only a minute few being what they think is acceptable the tired frustrated golfer asks&’ what am I doing wrong with my swing?

For the purposes of this article I want to discuss the very first part of the proper golf swing &’ the golf grip.

In fact, let&’s be even more precise here; the left hand grip on the golf club. Oh sure&’ there&’s much more than just the grip including the aforementioned posture and alignment. But there&’s only so much typing I can do at one time so let&’s stay with the grip for this communication.

The position of your club face is greatly influenced by your grip. And this is especially true as your club face enters the impact zone and contacts the ball. Certainly there is an abundance of golf swing peccadillo&’s that can occur that can cause those woeful golf shots. You know the ones I&’m talking about: the banana ball, the smothered hook, skied, skulled, and chili dipped. Ok, I&’ll stop&’ If you&’ll stop trying to correct your golf swing by in incessantly hitting ball after ball trying to make every physical adjustment known to man (and some that aren&’t) within your golf swing itself and begin by using a fundamentally sound grip.

So you&’re going to continue on with me&’ great!

Let&’s talk about the left hand (right handed golfers) first and foremost.

The left had should come in contact with the grip of the club in such a manner that the grip cuts a diagonal across the palm of the left hand from the crook in the index finger down and across to the bottom right pad of the left hand.

When you close your left hand, your club should be held in the first to fingers and your palm.

The key that you look for out of your left had grip is quite simple. As you address your ball and look down, you should only see two knuckles of your left hand. As an instructor standing directly across from you, I too should only see the same. If I don&’t see EXACTLY two knuckles of your left hand then we take a step back and re-grip until we get it right. And don&’t try to cheat and re-grip club just as you begin to take the golf club away and into your back swing. FOUL I say. And I will stop you.

Ok. I certainly haven&’t given you that much to remember here. But seriously golfers, resign yourself to go through a quick, short checklist before you begin the journey we call the golf swing. Start with your grip. Get used to it. A proper grip will feel awkward to you particularly if your grip has been way off. Stay with it. Know that it&’s the right way to grip the golf club. Piece by piece let&’s lay the foundation for a good swing.

There are actually three segments to the golf swing. The segments are the backswing, the downswing and finally the impact and follow through.

Dividing the swing into these 3 segments helps to apply every individual golf swing instruction or tip to the particular segments where they apply. It also helps the golfer focus on one segment at a time in their golf swing instruction making it easier for them to remember what they learn and also to be able to work on improving their game systematically.

There is another bigger advantage to this approach. And that is the ability to be able to draw ones attention to the many different parts of the body and the many muscles involved in a proper golf swing.

This is important in helping a golfer involved in a golf exercise program to be able to appreciate the different exercises they do in the program and what particular muscles the exercises focus on.

All this makes it a lot easier for any golfer to link their exercises to golf swing instructions they receive as they seek to improve on their game.

Actually it is not possible to divorce the basics of golf swing instruction from golf specific exercises. The two go together and chances of improving your game improve dramatically when you combine the two. On the other hand progress is bound to be much slower when you work on golf swing instruction only.

One very simple drill you can perform to reinforce and to illustrate this concept is to place a golf ball (or any similar object that you can focus on) on the floor in front of you.

Stand over the ball as you would normally properly address the ball. With a slight bend in the waist and knees, and with a flat back. Take your left hand and place it on your right shoulder and do the same with your right hand on your left shoulder. In other words, fold your arms across your chest.

From this position emulate your take-away from the ball. It is important to keep your posture in tact and your chin slightly up. This allows your left shoulder (assuming a right handed golf swing) to pass slightly under your chin. The key while doing this is to keep your head still and your eyes focused on the ball on the floor in front of you. Ultimately, you&’ll want to make a full shoulder rotation that completes with your upper back approaching a point where it is actually pointing toward the target. Your hips (bellybutton) should achieve an angle of about half as much.

As you reach your full turn, again be mindful that your head stays still and you are still comfortably seeing the golf ball. At the height of your turn we want to feel our weight braced against the instep of our right foot. Not rolled over the outside edge of the right foot. Not rolled over the top of the right foot allowing the right hip to get outside of the line of our right leg. The weight distribution at your fullest part should be about 85% on the inside of the right foot. Do not allow yourself to &’reverse pivot&’ when you turn. By that I mean, as you turn you don&’t want to dip your left shoulder and head and accomplish your turn by dipping and ending up with the majority of your weight on your left foot at full turn instead of your right. Hence reversing the intended weight distribution.

As you begin to release your turn you should do so with your hips and shoulders. Again keeping your aforementioned posture in tact. As your hip and shoulder initiate the return sequence, your weight will move in the same fashion proportionally from your right to your left side. Allow your hips and shoulders to pass through the original address position with your right should now passing slightly under your chin much as your left shoulder did on the takeaway. All the while keeping your focus on the golf ball you placed on the floor at address. Upon finish your weight will now have moved from the right to the left side. Your hips and bellybutton should finish facing your intended target with your head and eyes not leaving their focus on the ball until they are naturally pulled up and toward your target by the finish.

These two parts of your golf club can either make or break your golf game. After all, how can one possibly play a good game of golf without having a properly and well-made shaft and grip? So, let’s take a closer look at these elements of a golf club.

The Golf Club Shaft:
Think about it: all cars and trucks have engines. So, in the same way, a golf club also has an engine. This engine is called the shaft. The golf club shaft is basically a tube that is made of materials such as metal, steel, or graphite. The shaft is the main part of your golf club that you hold on to when you are playing.

And then there is the flex. The flex in your golf shaft describes the ability that your shaft has to bend when you swing it. There are several kinds of shafts that you golf club can have, depending on your preferences when you bought it. A golf club shaft can be extra stiff (X), stiff (S), regular (R), senior (A), and ladies (L).

No matter what type of flex your shaft has, it will automatically impact your trajectory, distance, and accuracy. To get the most of what you can get from you shaft, you must hit the ball square, with the face of the club. This needs to be done while focusing your aim in a completely straight line. This way, you will be able to make contact with the ball, and make it in the best way possible.

The Golf Club Grip:
You can find the golf club grip at the opposite end as the golf club head. The golf club grip is typically covered with rubber, leather, or synthetic leather covering for you to hold on to. Most modern clubs have extravagantly comfortable grips for layers to hold one to. When it comes to the golf cub grip, it is all about comfort.

The Grip:
The end of the shaft opposite the head is covered either with a rubber, synthetic leather, or colloquially, a leather grip for the player to hold. The modern grip has also undergone a number of changes and the vast variety of models makes it far easier for a discriminating golfer to find a model that is comfortable to him or her.

With a great golf shaft as well as a super golf grip, you will certainly be set to play your best golf ever. Remember to stay on top of your game by replacing or keeping up on your shaft and grips. You will be glad you did when you step out onto the green!

Golf being an outdoor activity you play on a living portion of land, and as in everything else out of doors, Mother Nature loves to play this game.

Grasses are different; you might encounter a plush putting green or a weed patch with little growth at all. The putt can be altered by the texture, length and texture of the grass, and how much grass is actually there.

A true golfer doesnt play only on sunny days with no breeze, it is quite common to see a golfer with an umbrella (to protect the clubs) playing in the rain.

Like any other outdoor activity, the rain changes how you putt a golf ball.

You will also come across a condition that is created by man, that is recognized by few golfers, this is called the &’lumpy donut&’ however this is not a real threat.

In the United States you will most likely be playing on one of two types of grass:

Bent is a cool weather grass found in the northern states, it is soft with fine blades growing close together, and this creates a carpet like texture. It cant take prolonged heat or humidity.

Bermuda is used in the warmer climates; it is a strong weedy grass that handles warmer climates and humidity found in the southern states.

The blades are long, broad, shaggy and sparser; golfers describe it as a wild shag rug which causes the ball to rise and fall in and out of the blades. Bermuda also has a grain, the direction in which the grass grows.

Their differences create very different playing surfaces for golf.

Balls will roll truer on bent grasses and the break will be caused by the slope of the land. With Bermuda your shot can be affected by uneven growth patterns in the grass.

The place to identify how your shots will react to the different types of grass is the practice green.

*The kind your best friend, who happens to be a great putter… unless of course you have had a chance to actually putt with it and you truly do like it.

*The one that looks nice or is the latest fad putter.

*The one the tour pro endorses

This is one of the most important considerations when choosing a putter; avoid all three of the above methods of choosing!

Putters have specifications and characteristics that can effect your putting in good or bad ways. Here are the qualities you need to look for:

*Shaft length and lie angel (the angle the shaft comes out of the head of the club) must fit you in three ways

*It must allow you to address the ball with your eyes directly over the target line while your hands are under your shoulders.

*If must be long enough so you are completely comfortable in your shoulders, legs or back when practicing for long periods of time and don&’t experience unusual fatigue.

*You should choose a design that will help eliminate your most common mistakes.

To find out what these are put a piece of impact tape on the putter you now use and stroke 30 putts, if your marks are mostly near the heel you want a heel-shaft putter (the shaft enters the heel of the putter).

If you tend to strike towards the head, you want a center shafted putter.

*If you want alignment aids on your clubs, get them, they are legal and anything that helps your stroke is encouraged.

*Find a putter with a light club head, try a few strokes with it, then tape a couple of dimes to the back of the head, does it feel better or worse to put with the added weight.

*Grip size and shape are important factors; the grip needs to be small enough for you to be able to control easily, but big enough so your fingers don&’t overlap uncomfortably.

In fact, the putter is the only club allowed to have a flat top on the grip. This allows for more consistent grip each time you use it.

Putting is such a &’feel&’ part of the game, so the putter you eventually choose will be the putter that best fits your eye and works best for you. So, take your time and try out several makes and models before you make your final decision.