Hard to believe, but summer is almost gone, and Labor Day weekend marks one of the busiest golf weekends of the year for amateurs. Whether you’re playing in a tournament, have a couple rounds lined up or an ambitious three-day holiday buddies trip, you need some solid advice to set you up to play your
Instructions
The old swing tip, “down means up,” suggests that you should try to hit down on the ball for more height. That might work if you have speed, but for most golfers, down means down. In other words, line drives that don’t hold the green. To boost trajectory, you need a higher launch and more
No doubt you have a few holes on your course where another 10 or 15 yards off the tee would make all the difference. It could mean getting to the green in two or setting up a wedge approach to a tough hole location. Now imagine if a few simple adjustments could give you that
We all want to hit the ball with extra oomph, but the way some golfers try to generate more power leads to mis-hits—with the ball usually being weakly struck off the toe of the club. So what’s going on? In golfspeak, you’re getting ahead of the ball. When you start the downswing, you lunge toward
In 1919, reigning PGA champion Jim Barnes put out the first “modern” golf-instruction book. It was called Picture Analysis of Golf Strokes, and it gave the average golfer a chance to see how the best players swung the club. In the hundred years since, almost everything about the game has changed—including how we learn from
Students often ask me how to play particular shots, but golf isn’t cookie cutter. I give guidance, but I want them to own the process. They should experiment and determine what works best for their game. A prime example is chipping. To be a great chipper, you must first commit to a system. Do you
It’s hard to imagine a more varied collection of swing styles than the ones we saw win tournaments in 2019. From the perpetually-reinventing-himself Tiger Woods at the Masters to Cameron Champ, Matthew Wolff, Shane Lowry and even Justin Thomas last week at the BMW Championship, players are showing that we’re entering an era where there’s
It’s one of the best moments in golf—hitting a green after winding up in a fairway bunker. If you want to do it more often, you’ve got to make some adjustments. The first is a reality check. There are times when it’s just not going to happen. A ball close to the lip or in
WATCH THE FIRST EPISODE FREE HERE Every golfer has felt the stress of trying to find their swing on the range before a big round. The round with your boss, the member-guest, a stroke-play qualifier. It can be daunting, and pounding more balls—the obvious solution—sometimes only makes matters worse. Tiger Woods has made a point
WATCH THE FIRST EPISODE FREE HERE ‘‘Hello, world!” is how Tiger Woods opened his first press conference as a professional golfer, at the 1996 Greater Milwaukee Open. Eight months later, at age 21, he won the Masters by a record 12 shots, launching a competitive run that many saw coming but few could actually believe.
I try to keep putting as simple as possible, so if I’m working on anything, I make sure it’s only one thing at a time. One of those things is probably something you don’t give much thought to, but it’s an important part of making a good stroke—the follow-through. To put a good roll on
Those stingers you see the pros hit on television look cool, and they’re valuable shots on a windy day, but the last thing most amateurs need is a low-trajectory tee shot. You need more hang time. Studies have proved that the slower you swing, the more you’ll benefit from a trajectory that keeps the ball
When most golfers climb into a greenside bunker, it’s like an out-of-body experience. They lose all sense of what they need to do, fear takes over, and a few hacks later . . . triple bogey. The good news is, most of the mistakes I see come at address, and those are the easy ones
Most golfers, amateur and pro, have a stock shot—a ball flight and trajectory they’re used to producing. It’s the one they rely on most. For example, I like a baby draw, seeing the ball start right of the target and curve back toward it. Without that shot, I’m nothing. That being said, you can’t get
For some, golf is stress relief—a pastoral stroll interspersed by 70 or 80 golf swings and maybe a stop for a hot dog at the turn. For others, it’s a fist-clenching, nerve-racking, nearly out-of-body experience where success is often defined by getting through 18 holes without feeling like you need to see a therapist afterward.
If you’re trying to get ready for the biggest tournament on your playing calendar, mindlessly pounding balls at the range or trying to tear down your swing won’t work. You need to be efficient with your time, and if you’re like most of us, you don’t have a lot of it. We commissioned Golf Digest
It’s here. The end of summer is tournament season for many weekend players—whether it’s a club championship, member-guest or match-play event at your local muny. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been playing three times a week, or you’re trying to ramp up your activity ahead of the big event: You’re probably tempted to grind on
Amongst your group, you’ve probably determined an acceptable distance at which putts are gimmes at least most of the time—you don’t even wait for someone to say, That’s good. Even when you’re playing alone, you probably give yourself any putts within four feet of the cup. That’s great—many of us do. It’s helpful for pace
The old idea of hitting a low draw to get the ball running down the fairway is, well, an old idea. Launch monitors have proven that carry distance is the key to overall distance. Here are some tips for maximizing carry. — with Peter Morrice First, check your driver specs. A little more loft—for most
Usually the area around a green is level with or lower than the putting surface. But sometimes you’ll find your ball on a mound near the green. Sure, it was a lucky break that the hill kept your ball within chipping distance. But now what? This atypical lie presents a challenge for a lot of
ABOUT Learning can take place in many ways. In golf, we typically learn by doing. Occasionally, though, simply watching someone else can provide the insight you’re looking for. Ever eavesdropped on someone else’s lesson at the range? Sure you have. (If not, you’re missing out.) That’s because golfers are an inquisitive bunch, always on the
Member-guest season is upon us. It’s an event many golfers look forward to for months, and one you want to fully enjoy. I know this because mine just concluded and my partner, Golf Digest senior equipment editor Mike Stachura, spent hours losing balls around the chipping green while trying to find a short game. He
I’ll concede that nothing panics a golfer like hitting two or three shanks in a row. But coming in at No. 2 on the pop charts is a case of the tops. Hitting multiple shots that fail to clear the limbo stick is pretty unnerving. Even worse, the reason it’s happening is clear to the
Control is an interesting objective for golfers because it has multiple meanings. One is to control your emotions and stay in the moment. I did that at the U.S. Open, and it’s a big reason I won the tournament. I never got ahead of myself. I tried to execute each shot without thinking beyond it.
If you’re doing Fourth of July weekend right, you’ve got a lot of golf lined up in between all of the obligatory BBQs. Having plenty of golf on your schedule is awesome, but there’s a good chance your body isn’t used to playing multiple days in a row in the heat. Are there ways to
I’m going to assume you don’t need my advice to hit a putt solidly. That’s pretty easy to do. But what about the rest of your game? If you’re honestly assessing it, are you making great contact most of the time on your drives, irons, pitches, chips and bunker shots? Yep, you can hit bunker
It usually doesn’t take more than a hole or two during a pro-am for one of my amateur partners to ask me about the way I chip. You don’t see it very much on the PGA Tour. I play the ball back in my stance, hinge my wrists up quickly, and hit down on it
Here’s your greenside sand lesson in two words: speed and bounce. Splashing a ball out of a bunker takes more power than you might think—that’s the speed part. And to use that speed effectively, the club has to slide through the sand without getting stuck—that’s the bounce. Focus on a few keys. First, grip the
On the way to my most successful season in professional golf, including a win at the PGA Tour’s RSM Classic, I avoided bogey 62 percent of the time when I missed a green in regulation. Without those saves, the 2017-’18 season might have been my first and last on tour. So if I can give
ABOUT For the first time ever, Golf Digest presents Tiger Woods in his own voice explaining how he does it. Authentic, candid, clear-cut, Tiger reveals the way he approaches the game. Just him, looking you in the eyes, and opening up about his thinking, his strategy, his motivation and his legendary golf swing. • “My