Golf54 offers courses that helps golfers make their practice much more effective. Golfers need to know how to practice and what to practice. Lynn Marriott refers to the way Americans practice as an entirely separate culture from the game of golf. When does a player ever hit consecutive 7-irons on the golf course, she asks? Hopefully, never.

“Here’s the rule,” Marriott tells her students. “If you want to play better on the golf course, then you have to practice like you’re playing on the golf course.”

It is recommended that players spend at least half of their time on the practice area simulating “real golf.” This means putting with one ball on the practice green rather than three. This means staging a short-game contest that involves hitting a chip shot and then putting out. The key is to practice golf; don’t practice practice.

“I never hit one ball after another to the same target without my routine,” said LPGA player Giulia Sergas. “I’m less in my swing and more in the game.”

Another tour player, Alena Sharp, cools down from a session on the range by mentally playing nine holes with her caddie.

Much of what goes on at a Golf54 school centers around practice. Drills like the Tai Chi swing, where players swing the club in super-slow motion, sometimes take as long as two minutes without hitting a ball.

“If you can’t do it slow,” Marriott said, “how do you expect to swing fast?”

Sergas learned this technique in March during one of their seminars and now incorporates it into her warm-up routine. Each afternoon at the “Every Purpose” school, Marriott and Nilsson show players a variety of drills they can use to improve their practice sessions.

A one-day seminar named, “The Game Before the Game,” goes even further into detail about how to properly warm up, maintain your swing and take good results from the range to the course.

Tiger Woods has won twice as many professional events and nearly five times as many majors as the next closest active player on Tour. While he doesn’t dominate in every area of the game, he consistently plays above his peers in five key on-course situations, which was identified after comparing Tiger against the field in every performance category monitored by the PGA Tour’s ShotLink from the start of the 2002 season to Tiger’s final round at the 2008 U.S. Open. Four of Tiger’s five key strengths — the areas in which he’s statistically light years ahead of the field — have nothing to do with power, proving you don’t need to swing at 125 mph or drop 4-iron shots like they’re landing on a pile of laundry to score like the No. 1 player in the world. All you need is his strategy and smarts — the stuff anyone can work on — and a few new options in your short game. Here’s how to get them.

Tiger Key 1: He hits the green even when his tee shots miss
Tiger Key 2: He knocks it extra-stiff from short range
Tiger Key 3: He controls the damage when he misses greens
Tiger Key 4: He has a wider “make range” when he putts
Tiger Key 5: He dominates the easy holes

To read more go to : http://www.golf.com/golf/instruction/article/0,28136,1887166,00.html#ixzz0YFGVFVTR

You have to practice like you’re going to play, so under pressure you can play the way you’ve been practicing. That’s why NBA players, for example, practice free throws with the same pre-shot ritual they use in real games. You’ll find this in all sports—even dart throwers establish a “1-2-3-Go” ritual in practice, then use it in competition.

Pressure is what you put on yourself, based on how badly you want to perform well and accomplish your goals. To create match-like pressure on the range, imagine very specific targets like the 17th at TPC Sawgrass, where you’re trying to hit the island green with the hole surrounded by water and a huge Sunday crowd. Practice your pre-shot ritual (for example - Ready, Set, Release) before every swing — even your short pitches, half-wedges, chips and putts. The next time you’re under pressure — like when you need to chip it close to save par or hit the fairway on a tight driving hole — remember to use the exact same pre- shot ritual you’ve been practicing to lead you into and through the shot. Try it — it works.

What you need to do is focus and turn things around. Say something to yourself like the following:

“Yes I am a little nervous, but that’s okay it’s just normal. Any golfer facing the same shot on the golf course would feel the same way. It’s perfectly fine and I have a very good reason to feel this way.

This simple tip helps you understand the position you are in and helps you deal with the feelings of anxiety and nervousness so that you can prepare for the next golf shot. Just by knowing you have to play a certain golf shot and you must do it with nervous energy, is very important to helping your mind relax and boosts your golf mental game.

After you examine the situation on the golf course, and hopefully start to embrace it, you can better deal with the anxiety and have total control over it. This is where the tools from Thought Free Golf can be used to eliminate all distractions. Treat each situation on the golf course as you would when you recognize any familiar sound of a common occurrence such as that long patch of grass that catches your eye, or the wind gusting. Simply recognize and remove the distractions the same as you would any other insignificant event.

It is no secret that most of the male and female tour players who want to play their best golf, do golf weight-training exercises. There is a HUGE misconception of what and how this type of program should be done. It does not take going into a gym and lifting heavy weights; nor does it take a 2-3 hour daily routine. Golf is a dynamic movement done on your feet. Just sitting in a machine in a “controlled” environment will not improve your swing. The golf swing incorporates most of the muscles of the body in a sequential motion. What works is doing a lot of exercise ‘on your feet’ and in your golf posture. The more you can get in your posture and strength train, the quicker the benefit to your game.

Golf also involves balance and stabilization. To improve this takes a concentrated effort on core work and exercises involving balance (such as one-legged exercises). 
The more popular golf-exercises are done on a stability ball; using exercise tubing; hand weights; and even weighted medicine balls. This allows you to do many dynamic movements similar to your golf swing, directly relating to more power, distance and accuracy. These pieces of equipment are very inexpensive and portable. You can have a complete golf weight training gym in your home for under $100 easily. This is as golf-specific as you can get. Doing your actual movement with resistance will dramatically increase your power output. 

There are dozens of simple, golf weight training exercises you can do with the above equipment (and in your home). When you do these types of golf weight training exercises you will be encouraged that it will be focused on the muscles that will improve your game.

Identify Strict Expectations That Impede Success. Expectations, especially strict ones such as to hit perfect shots, do more harm than good. Expectations, good or bad, high or low are harmful to performance because they keep you stuck. Placing high expectations on yourself puts you in a win-lose or success-failure situation. If you don’t reach your high expectations, it’s easy to judge your effort as a failure. Setting simple goals is a better option. Set simple manageable goals like hitting a certain number of fairways per round or to play one shot at a time.

Focus on Having Fun in the Present. The anxiety you experience partially results from an overemphasis on results or shooting a certain number. Everybody is trying to shoot a good score and you can’t control the outcome of a round. Your competitive goal should be to play for fun and the enjoyment of the game. This is easier said than done for golfers who constantly tie themselves up in knots because they try too hard to play well. Start by recalling why you first started playing golf. Did you enjoy the feeling of a well-hit shot? Did you like being outdoors? Try to approach goal like a kid again.

Don’t Beat Yourself up for Mistakes. If you are a perfectionist, you spend too much time dwelling on your mistakes, bad shots, and weaknesses. This is unhealthy for your self-confidence and doesn’t let you enjoy golf. Dwelling on your weaknesses and errors sends a message to yourself that you are never good enough. You are not a failure, you just choose to think more about your faults. You have to make the choice to think about the small successes and remember the good shots instead of repeatedly replaying the bad shots. When you finish a round of golf, ask yourself first what two things you did well today instead of beating yourself up for the missed shots.

Give Yourself Permission to Make Mistakes. Perfectionists think that anything less than a flawless performance is a failure – the first bad shot or bad score on a hole ruins the entire round. You have to accept that you are human and you will make mistakes just like everyone else—it’s part of golf.

A study was conducted on 30 basketball players. 10 were asked to practice one hour daily for a month on specific shots. Another 10 were asked to practice mentally making  the same shots for an hour each day for a month.  The last 10 were asked not to practice and to do nothing for a month.

The results:

·      The group that didn’t practice showed no improvement. 
 

·      The group that practiced the shots daily saw an improvement of  24%
.

·      The group that practiced mentally improved equally 24%!
 

They were given one Simple instruction, “Practice mentally making  baskets”. 

They had all made baskets before so they all had a “common frame of reference for success”.

Visualization is controlled by our subconscious
 inner thoughts. The simple key: Feed your subconscious with
 the right thoughts.

Among those sticking around to play are Davis Love III, David Duval and Jose Maria Olazabal. Sixty-one pros are in the 121-man field, with 16 earning spots in the Open. Should Davis Love III win the Memorial – he goes into the final round two shots back of the co-leaders – he could cancel the extra night of his hotel. With a victory he would grab one of the final berths in the Open. 
 

Golf.com: How To Fix A Faulty Putting Stroke

Think back for a moment; when was the last time you hit an amazing tee shot where your next follow up shot was going to be from the green?  It’s very common to get all “juiced up” after an amazing shot; however, too much “juice” can easily lead to a three putt performance that will damper the stunning shot that was made prior.  Is it normal to get all hyped up with adrenaline following a great shot and then have a disastrous putting experience? In some cases, yes; however, it could be a sign that your putting game is a little rusty and might require a tune-up.

The “putting” game is a completely different style and routine than the much over-practiced iron and wood golf swings are.  The putting green area requires the most use for one’s mental aspect of the game because putts have to be pre-thought out before actually hitting the ball.  The slightest miscalculation during a putt can throw off the accuracy of the shot and turn a one putt situation into a two or three-putt dilemma.

When we find helpful golfing tips, we try to provide them for our readers.  If you found one that works for you, and you think that something needs to get mentioned; feel free to comment and let us know.

If you’re still not sold on the severity of Mexico’s swine flu epidemic and still insist on traveling across the border to test out your newly tweaked golf swing, take a look at who is avoiding the troubled nation: The Nationwide Tour.  Scheduled for May 21 - 24, The Nationwide Tour’s Mexico Open golf tournament has been postponed for the safety purposes.  On a related note, The Canadian Tour has also decided to postpone their upcoming tour dates scheduled for the Mexican countryside.  To sum things up a little better, most events taking place in Mexico are either being postponed or outright canceled.

If you happen to have a golfing vacation scheduled for the next couple of weeks, you might want to call your travel agent and see if you can delay your departure.  Take the extra time at home researching some additional golfing tips so that when the time to vacation in Mexico actually does come, you’ll be more prepared to show off your better golf swing to your golfing partners and most likely have a better final score than them also.