Swing Tips

The grip is your only connection to the club. Get it right and everything downstream gets easier. Start here before anything else.

A balanced, athletic stance is the platform your swing rotates around. Width and ball position change with the club, but the feel stays the same.

Good posture creates room to turn and a consistent low point, which means consistent contact. It's the difference between an athletic swing and a stiff one.

The swing is powered by your body turning, not your arms lifting. Keeping your lead arm extended creates a wide, repeatable arc.

You can make a perfect swing and still miss if you're aimed wrong. Think of standing on railroad tracks: the ball runs on the outer rail to the target, your feet on the inner rail.

A repeatable routine makes your setup consistent and calms your nerves. The same steps every time turn good fundamentals into automatic habits.

The tee shot sets up the hole. With a driver, the goal is to sweep the ball off the tee with an upward strike — and above all, find the short grass.

From a good lie, your job is clean, ball-first contact. With irons you hit down and through; the loft of the club lifts the ball, so you don't have to.

Thick grass grabs the clubhead and kills distance. The smart play is usually to take your medicine: get the ball back in play rather than attempt a hero shot.

Close to the green with no obstacle in the way, the simplest and most reliable shot is the bump-and-run: a low chip that gets the ball rolling like a putt as soon as possible.

On long putts, distance control matters far more than line. Your goal isn't to make it — it's to leave yourself a tap-in. Three-putts come from poor speed, not poor aim.

Putts inside six feet are the ones you must hole to save par and bogey. The technique is simple; the discipline is keeping your head dead still.

The greenside bunker shot scares beginners, but the secret is counterintuitive: you don't hit the ball at all. You splash the sand behind it, and the ball rides out on the explosion.

A fairway bunker is the opposite of a greenside one: here you want clean, ball-first contact. The first decision is whether your club has enough loft to clear the lip.

Water is as much a thinking challenge as a swing one. Know your options before you swing — and when the smart play is to lay up short rather than take on the carry.

Courses aren't flat. On slopes, the rule of thumb is to match your body to the ground and let the slope shape the shot rather than fight it.

The old saying is 'when it's breezy, swing easy.' Lower, controlled shots hold their line in wind far better than high ones — and swinging harder only makes it worse.