I went to the range today and couldn’t help hitting these knockdown shots.

Basically, setup with the ball in about the middle of your stance.

Swing about half-way.

Really try to swing about 50-75% of your total effort.  You need to swing easy for the knockdowns and hit it super-crisp.

Make sure your follow-through is longer than your backswing.  A lot of teachers will teach you to stop at waist-level.  That is not a good way since there’s a chance you might de-ccelerate.  The best way is to swing nice and easy but make sure you follow-through.  There is no need to abruptly stop the club.  (If you watch Tiger hit knockdowns, he makes a nice follow through.)

You also want to try to see if you can get your right arm straight like the red line.  (Obviously, I didn’t do that, still working on it…)

backswing, crisp, knockdown, red line, right arm, tiger, waist level backswing, crisp, knockdown, red line, right arm, tiger, waist level If you like this post, please subscribe to the ProGolferDigest via RSS or via E-Mail to receive updates.

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Well, while analyzing swings of the great pro golfers, I got the desire today to go out to the range for the first time in weeks.

I hit the ball great and here’s why.

As you can see in the address, the shoulders  are parallel to my target line and my clubface is about 8 degrees open to hit a power fade. (My video camera is a little off…)

My stance is closed, which is a natural habit I get into but I should really open up more.

At 1/2 way point, My club is in perfect plane from the ball through the middle of my right shoulder socket. This is the the plane Tiger Woods follow and me three.

At top of my swing, the butt end of my club shows that I am still in plane. I also have a very good triangle going, which is good. The only bad part about this backswing is that I just finished working out before hitting balls so my muscles are too tight. Tightness is not good for golf but oh well…

On the downswing, I dip my head a little, which is my bad habit and I am also slightly inside of the plane. (probably because of my slightly closed stance)

At impact, I hit the 3 wood perfect. It makes thing really big “ping” sound.

My shoulders are about parallel to my target line.

My clubface is actually open and I am trying to hit a power fade here.

My followthrough is slightly flat. Meaning I came over the ball a little. This is partly due to my slightly closed stance.

I might block the ball 1 out of 10 balls or pull it because of the closed stance.

If I opened my stance, most of my problems would probably be solved.

Oh well, next time I get to go hit balls, I will probably have “other” problems but yes alignment is probably the most important. You have wrong alignment at the beginning of your swing and you can have all kinds of problems.

Overall, I hit the ball great today. I feel like I can try out for the PGA Tour the way I hit the balls today.

Well, even with the closed stance and my bad swing habits, I hit a lot of good shots at my target. Well, good scores are about good short game mostly anyways.

What is my long term goal?

Well, it has always been to play pro golf. Now, I make money online to feed my family and make a living. Once I can get that going faster, I might have more time to practice and eventually start playing in some mini-tour events again.

Will it happen?

Of course, my dreams never die. That’s probably why I made this blog. Once I can build up my blogging business to about $20K per month, I should be able to spend more time golfing and of course, blogging more often on here too.

Here’s a video of the 3 wood power fade I hit just perfectly about 270 yards:

Click Here to View in Full Screen Mode

Don’t blame me if my swing sucks right now, I go to the range about once a month.

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One of the most important aspects of playing scratch or pro golf is to maintain your inner rhythm during a round of golf.

Now, to do this, you need to really control your emotions.

Whether you are happy or sad, you need to really keep that under your feet, meaning you should never get too excited nor feel angry. Of course, you can celebrate that eagle putt you just made, but do try to keep things under control as your heart will beat faster and your swing will be affected on your next tee shot.

Another really great way to maintain your inner rhythm during the round is to walk at the same pace during the whole round. Don’t ever run, walk too fast, or walk too lazy, simply walk at your natural pace. Now this might sound too simple but it works.

This will help you maintain your inner rhythm and that will carry onto your perfectly balanced rhythmic swing.

I share this knowledge with you as I experienced this while shooting a 10 under par, 62. Although my swing was way off that day, I had a really relaxed feeling and my rhythm was great throughout the whole day.

If this tip helped you save couple strokes next time you go out on the course, make sure to come back and subscribe as I will show you more ways to scrape off additional strokes off your golf game, all with great thinking without changing your swing.

course psychology, emotions, golf game, heart beat, inner rhythm, natural pace, pro golf, rhythmic swing, scratch, strokes, swing course course psychology, emotions, golf game, heart beat, inner rhythm, natural pace, pro golf, rhythmic swing, scratch, strokes, swing course

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If you are trying to be a scratch golfer or a pro golfer, often people will ask themselves how many balls to hit per day.

Now, having experience watching other aspiring junior golfers when I was a junior golfer, the number of balls you hit actually does not mean anything once you get to a certain point. (Let’s say you can consistently shoot around 75 or lower)

I do however, have experince of hitting 10 buckets per day, that’s about 1,000 balls. I did that for about 3 months during summer and school breaks.

My mom would drop me off at the practice range at 8am, she’d pick me up around 8pm when I was done hitting 1,000 golf balls.

After I grew up and around college I was shooting consistently 3 under par. Those days, I didn’t practice with focus on quantity. However, I did focus on hitting each shot on the range as if it were a real tournament shot.

Now, that is called, quality practice. I still do that same type of practice and even do couple practice swings before I even hit the ball.

What does this do for you? Well, it let’s you hit the best possible shot you can on every practice shot.

Now, I average only 100 balls and practice maybe once a month. But I can still go out to the course any day and shoot around par.

So today’s lesson?

Next time you practice, do the following before hitting each shot:

1. Visualize your golf ball flight and your swing.

2. Make 2 or 3 practice swings matching your visualization and “see” the ball hit perfectly to your target.

3. After doing 1 and 2, go up there and hit that ball without thinking too much. Rely on your muscle-memory to hit it, just like in tournament golf or under pressure situations where you’d have to make a birdie to win all those skins.

Explanation

Golf is a game of visualization. If you hit 100 balls in a row at the range without clear thinking (visualization) of what you want to do, you are basically instilling that into your brain.

The next time you go out and “play” on the golf course, your practice habits will be present whenever you encounter any kind of pressure.

More Tips on the Range

1. Do not hit the same type of shot more than 10 shots in a row. You need to keep hitting a 5-iron, sand wedge, driver, etc…etc… and keep it rotating.

2. Practice your weaknesses.

Golf is all about lowering your percentage of failure. The more you practice your weaknesses, the less chance you will make bad shots on the course.

3. Practice your strengths.

Golf is also about having your strengths. For example, if I am at 125 yards from the hole, I can promise you that the ball “will” end up within 10 feet 10 out of 10 times. You need to find out what shot you are good and also practice that a lot.

Pros call this, “bread and butter” shot. Every pro has one including Tiger Woods. It’s a shot you can rely on the most toughest situations. Make sure you have couple in your bag.

4. Practice lots of wedge shots from 100 yards in.

I actually do about 50-60% of my practice shots for wedge shots from 30 yard, 50 yard, 75 yard, and 100 yard targets.  These are the shots that can save you “lots” of strokes.  Tiger practices these about 80% of his practice balls.  I did see Tiger practicing couple years ago, where he’d “hit” every target with his wedges.

Now, try these tips and I am sure it will help your score next time on the course especially if you have been banging those poor balls mindlessly and carrying that to the course before.

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There has been a lot of discussions on the internet about how to play the knockdown shot. I did go over it in brief detail couple months ago but here it is again.

A knockdown shot is nothing but a mini version of your full swing.

There are variety of knockdown shots too. Depending on what kind of lie you have and what kind of results you are trying to achieve, there’s about a hundred ways to play the shot.

But for 99% of golfers and 99% of situations, you play the knockdown shot for the following reasons:

1. You are between clubs. Let’s say you hit your 5-iron 185 yards and you hit your 6-iron 150 yards. You got a 160 yard shot, you can hit a knockdown shot here.

2. It’s windy. Whether that wind is against/with you or a cross-wind, by hitting a knockdown shot, you can keep the flight of the golf ball 20-40% lower than your normal shots and not get affected by the wind. That means you don’t have to worry about how the wind will affect the shot as much.

3. You need to hit it lower than usual to avoid high hanging trees and also put lots of backspin. If you hit a knockdown shot, usually you will get a lower ball flight and get a nice hop and stop action on the ball.

Again, here’s the simplest and the most effective way to hit the knockdown shot that I personally learned from Butch Harmon:

1. Put the ball near center or slightly forward of center of your stance.

2. Swing easy, anywhere between 1/2 to 3/4 swing.

3. On the downswing, feel like you are “trapping” the ball with your body. Now, this “feeling” might take a lot of practice to achieve.

4. Try to contact the ball first, not the turf. Better yet, don’t hit the turf at all. Hitting the turf only makes the ball lose backspin. If you look at Tiger in practice (not in competition), you will see him take zero turf on every one of his ‘good’ knockdowns. If you are awed by tour pros hitting really low sand wedges and they ‘hop and drop’, this is how they do it.

This may be the most important in knockdowns since the less you hit the ground (or take a divot), the more ‘hop and drop’ backspin you will get PLUS your ball will fly a lot lower since you are not hitting down on the ball. The only way to achieve this is to really hit the ball from 0 degree angle, meaning you don’t want to hit down or up on the ball.

Now this method is great since you will be able to use your knockdowns “everywhere” once you get good.

I tend to favor it even if it’s not windy and I don’t need to hit it under a tree since you don’t have to do a full swing and stay in control of your ball flight.

Look at Tiger and he’s doing that.

Next time, I will take a video to show you exactly what I mean. These days, I don’t have much time for golf practice. I hope that changes soon and maybe I will have to try out for PGA again soon.

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