How to perfect your golf swing

• Grip: How you hold the club, whether driver, wedge or putter, is all important. All other things being equal, a club that is not gripped properly will not strike the ball squarely. There are two basic grips, the overlapping and the baseball grip. Which you chose is a matter of personal preference and comfort. While the overlapping grip is steadier; with the little finger of the trailing hand (right hand if you’re right-handed) between the index and second finger of the lead (left) hand, and the thumb of the lead hand under the fleshy part of the thumb of the trailing hand; it is difficult for some people. The baseball grip, where the hands abut, but do not overlap, is not as firm a grip, but is nonetheless serviceable.
• Stance and Posture: Second to grip is your stance or posture. If you are not balanced, you will have a distorted swing plane, and the club face will be off line. The best balance is achieved by standing with feet about shoulder width apart, toes pointing slightly outward, and bent slightly at the knees. For greater distance, spread the feet a bit more than shoulder width; for shorter shots, a little less.
• Backswing: Begin the backswing by bringing the club back on a straight line, along the desired swing plane, by pivoting at the waist, and keeping the arms straight. At the top of the backswing, the trailing arm should be slightly bent, and the elbows at about the level of your chin. You will hear many people say that you should keep your eyes on the ball. You will find that if you execute the backswing properly, the ball will appear to shift slightly to the left, not totally out of view, but at the edge of your vision.
• Downswing: The downswing begins with a shifting of your weight from the rear leg to the forward leg, and a pivoting movement of the hips. Allow the club to drop from its topmost position, along the same plane of the backswing. Resist the urge to ‘drag’ the club down with your arms, allowing the arms to simply rotate back to the address position instead.
• Follow through: Continue swinging the club, rotating hips and shoulders until the movement of your following shoulder lifts your head up and you have rotated your upper torso until it is facing along the target line. Most of your weight at this point should be on the lead foot.

It helps if you try to visualize your own perfect golf swing slow motion action. Better yet, ask a buddy to film your swing so you can study it later. Once you know what’s wrong you can begin your own series of perfect golf swing drills.

Working to get the perfect golf swing will help you get more out of the game, and will lower your score in the process. Get in the swing and enjoy the game!

Many golf camps take place in the summer months for your kids to enjoy. They are well supervised, structured, and full of activities that will keep your child actively engaged learning all the ins and outs of golfing. Naturally you want to be sure to choose a golf camp whose instructors are recognized or accredited by the PGA/LPGA.

Golf camps will expose your child to proper techniques, etiquette, and training on computer-based digital instructional systems. It’s your choice whether to send them to a camp that provides for overnight stays or a simple day camp. Camps that offer overnight stays should give you a schedule of the events your child will engage in right to the time that they are required to go to bed. Some camps, such as US Golf Camps, will even allow you to view your child’s progress through the internet while they are in sessions.

Some of the more popular golf camps that you may want to consider are US Golf Camp in Saltsburg, PA, Maine Tennis and Golf Academy in Belgrade, ME, and Joel Ross Golf and Sports Camp in Kent, CT. Each of these facilities come highly recommended, with Maine Tennis and Golf Academy is the number one Sports Illustrated Kids Pick. Some golf camps offer a highly concentrated round of mostly golf activities, but the Maine Tennis and Golf Academy also has a lite version of it’s golf camp where golf is the main activity only two days a week.

The reputations of these camps are such that parents send their children back again and again, knowing their children are safe and well looked after. These camps are more than instructional institutions, they are fun get a way’s for your children to grow and make new friends.

Like many specialty sports camps, residential golf camps are not cheap. However, you may find that your local golf course or city recreation department offers golf day camps or at least golf lessons.

Be sure that the level of training at the camp you choose matches the needs and interests of your son or daughter. You want to encourage them to continue to play golf not make them sick of it. Talk to the camp staff to see if golf is the only or main activity or if there is a mix of gold instruction and play as well as other typical summer camps activities. Golf camp should be fun and set your child on the path to enjoy playing golf for a lifetime.

If you are interested in other sports camps or summer camp options, please visit the Best Summer Camps blog.

Just before Christmas I was directed to a couple of golf training sites in the UK I was so impressed by the quality and content of these sites that I asked the fellow who runs them to send me a write-up for the Think Golf blog.

Here’s what Laurie sent about the Dizzy Heights and Save A Million Shots websites:

Two years ago I didn’t get the CEO job at a big publisher I’d been at 9 years, so I decided to leave my nicely paid comfortable corporate job and do something more interesting instead!

I had some time free and I decided it was time to try and improve my golf; I’d never played much and consequently was playing off 24.

I decided to approach the best golf instructors on the European tour to see if they could help me, and to find out why, despite the advances in technology, that overall handicaps were not dropping and golfers were not improving.

The result was they said golfers weren’t practising the right things in the right way, and that it would be easy to save almost every golfer in the world at least one shot a round with the right approach and the right advice.

We then decided to publish some products together (see Dizzy Heights – for golf instruction dvds and golf books) and after some time we all agreed that it would actually be feasible (and fun!) to try and actually save 1 million golfers (at least) 1 shot each off their handicap.
So we decided to publish much of the content we have for free so everyone could improve…..it’s grown from the original dozen elite coaches and more than 50 other coaches have now joined giving up their time for free to help be part of this initiative.

You can see profiles of the coaches involved here http://www.saveamillionshots.com/golf_coaches. We produce most of the material ourselves but also allow coaches to self-publish articles that will help people improve.

We’ve still got lots of unpublished content but there are only 2 of us working on the site and so many hours in the day (as we still like to play golf occasionally too!).

• We’ve also got some cool fun tools to encourage you to play more; e.g. a map showing you and your friends and the location of all the nearest courses so you can find new ones in the vicinity that you may not have tried before.
• We’ll be adding US course data (with photos and reviews) in Qtr1 09.
• A new golf training programme is planned for Q1 09 too – featuring a performance coach who’s worked with Michael Campbell.
• Featured Bloggers – aggregated 1,000 golf blogs and feature a feed from one on the home page every week.

That’s the end of the message, but I bet you are as impressed by what Laurie is working on as I am. SaveAMilionShots is a membership site with a distinctly British style, but it has a lot to offer golfers wherever they may be.

Hinged Driver
If you are wanting to improve on your long game, there are some specific types of golf training equipment that would really benefit you. Many people use a hinged driver, sometimes referred to as a Medicus driver. This is simply a golf club that is hinged on the shaft and if you don’t swing with perfect form, the hinge will come loose. It’s an instant way for you to be able to tell whether you are swinging properly and you can even do so without swinging at a ball. You may also enjoy using a golf swing plane trainer. You stand inside this contraption and it guides your club all the way from the backswing to the follow through. Although these can be somewhat expensive, many golf courses often have them available for training purposes.

Putting Mats and Portable Greens
You may also want to improve your short game, especially considering that is where many games are won and lost. Chipping onto the green seems like it should be an easy thing but many times, this is where we add strokes to the game. The same is also true of putting. A putting mat is a simple piece of astro-turf that you can use to improve your putting skills. Most mats come with a storage case, so you can just roll them up and put them in a closet when you aren’t using them. If you want something more elaborate, you can get indoor greens in just about any price range. Mats and greens don’t take up that much space and they are great for keeping your skills up during long winters. Having some golf training equipment that will help you with your short game is an excellent way to help you shave some points off of your score as well.

Should you buy cheap golf training aids
Whenever you are looking at golf training equipment and trying to decide which one will work the best for you, make sure that you don’t fall into a common pitfall. Many people try to cut corners as far as their equipment is concerned and this can really cost you strokes on your game. Make sure that you invest your money in quality golf training equipment and it will pay off in the long run. The next time you’re out on the course and you hit that perfect drive down the fairway, you will understand exactly why you’re able to do it.