One of the most important things to do is make a full shoulder turn. This is an area that most golfers (especially over 50 years of age) are deficient at. Do you struggle to make a bigger golf backswing? If so, you’re not alone. The culprit is tight muscles that get only tighter when you “attempt” to make a complete backswing, and you’re not physically capable of it.

Stretch Your Core

One of the main areas to stretch if you want longer drives, is your core. This is the midsection of your body; and I include the lower back when I discuss stretching for a bigger turn. This is purely a rotational movement, so any stretch you do for this should ONLY be rotational. Does that make sense? Do a straight on stretch will gain you no more turn in your backswing.

When you stretch your core area, you must isolate either your upper body or your lower body to gain the biggest stretch and improvement in rotation. A great example would be sitting in a chair, and reaching around the back of the chair with both hands. Notice because you’re seated, your lower body stays still, as you rotate your upper body back. This is a perfect example of golf stretching that will get you longer drives.

Dynamic Golf Stretching

Another very effective method of stretching for golf is dynamic stretching. This is movement type stretches that are similar to your golf swing, but you take them beyond your normal range of motion, with a little bit of momentum from the movement. A good example of this (see picture above left), is to get in your golf posture, grab a club on the shaft with your hands wide. Now make a backswing with this wide grip of your hands on the shaft. Bring it back down, and swing it back again, but take it farther. So you progressively go further and further back, and eventually when you play, you will be making a much bigger backswing, an increase clubhead speed, and hitting LONGER DRIVES!

Consistency

Like anything else worth achieving in life, you’ve got to stretch consistently and keep it up to see the results you want. There is no short cut. If it were easy, every golfer would be crushing their drives over 270 yards, but we know that’s not the case don’t we? Golf stretching is an excellent way to fix shoulder turn in your golf swing issues.

Stretching for even 10 minutes daily, with specific, golf stretches will result in a big improvement in your ability to make a consistently big shoulder turn, with no effort.

If you want a complete golf stretching guide, I recommend you read more about our Total Golf Stretching ebook.

Related posts:

1. Improving In Golf By Stretching Golf Swing Muscles One of the fastest ways to improving in golf is...
2. Golf Stretch For Bigger Backswing Golfers struggle to make a full backswing. The effort is...
3. Lower Back Rotational Golf Stretch In Office I’ve heard all the “excuses” to not exercise. Notice how...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Cause Of A Hook Shot In Golf

As you can see in the picture; typically a hook is caused by an in-to-out swing, coupled with a closed clubface, creating a strong topspin (right to left) rotation on the golf ball. The closed clubface is the real issue, as in inside to out swing is a good thing, not a bad one. Learning how to square your golf clubface at impact will be crucial in correcting your hook in your golf swing.

Another cause of a hook shot is the stopping of your upper body rotation before impact, and the hands take over, which closes the face prematurely. If you are hooking the golf ball, a great tip is to work your ABT’s. The ABT’s mean…“Always Be Turning”. I can promise you, if you focus on rotating your body (and hips) aggressively through impact, you will not hook the golf ball. If you are, you have a strong golf grip causing it to close to much at impact. Getting the proper left hand golf grip (slightly weaker) will help correct the rapidly closing clubface.

Getting stuck on your downswing is another cause of a hook golf shot. This is something Tiger Woods is notorious of. Getting stuck means, your lower body gets way ahead of your upper body in the downswing, and your hands, arms and club get stuck too far inside, and the ONLY way to make decent contact is to flip your hands through impact.

Learning how to slow down your golf swing is crucial to proper golf downswing sequence. Once you get this right, you will have a perfectly timed golf swing coming into impact. Your lower and upper body will be sequenced to come into the ball with a square clubface, and just a slight in-to-out swing path.

Simple Tips To Correct Hook

1. Square your clubface at impact. Start by making sure it is square at address, and not closed, or even open, which would make you compensate coming down.
2. Weaken your left hand grip. If you’re a right-handed golfer instead of seeing 3 or even 4 knuckles on your left hand, rotate it to your left to only see 2 knuckles.
3. Slow your downswing. If you learn how to slow your downswing, your body’s sequence will be much better. You will come into the golf ball with the face square, and both upper and lower body nearly matched up, and not one ahead of the other.
4. Work your ABT’s. As mentioned earlier, focus on aggressively rotating your upper body through the shot. That way your hands will never want to take over.
5. Get your right should to come out not down. This is for the more advanced player, as the fault is coming inside too much on downswing, and part of that may be an “over-dropping” of the right shoulder in the downswing. So for that player, thinking of the right shoulder coming just a bit out and not down, might be the ticket.

Hope you enjoyed this article on how to correct and/or fix your golf hook shot. If you did, you’ll want to download our FREE Golf Lessons right away!

Related posts:

1. How To Correct A Fade In Golf Swing Learning how to correct a fade in your golf swing...
2. Simple Step By Step Golf Swing Method How about this for a picture? Ever feel like this...
3. Why Is It So Hard To Square Clubface At Impact This can be so frustrating, but learning why is it...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

If you want to learn how to improve your golf swing, then studying his golf swing will do you no wrong. I personally have a lot of admiration for what he went through as a child seeing his father take his own life, to being just an average at best golfer, to the greatest of his time.

As you can imagine, there have been many books written about him, and I’ve read many of them. Ben Hogan, An American Life written by James Dodson was an excellent book, as well as Hogan by Curt Sampson.

This article is more of an introductory article about Ben Hogan, as I will have many articles breaking down his golf swing and what you can take from it to help your swing.

If you’re looking for some great golf swing pictures of Ben Hogan, then you’ll want to get your hands on The Hogan Mystique. It is a big book with pictures never seen of Hogan in action. It is quite expensive, but an awesome “coffee table” book to refer to when you want swing tips from one of the best.

Ben himself wrote two golf instruction books, one of which many golfers consider the bible of the golf swing. His first book called Power Golf (written in 1948) was a good book in and of itself, but his later book Five Lessons: The Modern Fundamentals of Golf (written in 1957) is the one that is still today read by the majority of golf instructors, players and coaches all around the world, even though it was written 5 decades ago!

Tournament Record

In the years between 1938 and 1959 Hogan won 63 tournaments, which shows you how accomplished he was as a professional golfer. He won 9 major championships, and after a near fatal car accident in 1949; he was told he may never walk again, let alone play golf; he won several more tournaments and even what they call the “Hogan Slam” which was the first three majors of the season, only missing the chance to win the other major, The PGA Championship because he was playing in the British Open at the very same time.

Ben Hogan’s Secret

There was a lot of speculation that Ben had found the secret to a repeatable, consistent golf swing, and he nearly proved it with his pure ball-striking. After many frustrating years fighting a wicked, nearly brutal snap hook, hogan having pounded over a million balls (supposedly) had found the secret.

But…did he really tell anyone the secret? Many instructors and fellow players said they knew Ben’s secret, but to this day, no one knows if the secret was ever revealed.

The first theory is that the “secret” was a special wrist movementaction known as “cupping”. This information was disclosed in a 1955 Life magazine article. But… many believed Hogan did not reveal all that he knew at the time. It has since been alleged in Golf Digest magazine, and by Jody Vasquez in his book “Afternoons With Mr Hogan”, that the second element of Hogan’s “secret” was the way in which he used his right knee to initiate the swing and that this right knee movement was critical to the correct operation of the wrist.

There have now been golf instructors who have leached off his name and created instruction books and DVDs saying they have the secret of Ben Hogan’s and they will show you. Be aware is all I have to say.

In future articles, we’ll break down Ben Hogan’s Golf Swing and show you how you can become a better ball striker.

Related posts:

1. How To Fix Shoulder Turn In Golf Swing Are you struggling with your shoulder turn in your golf...
2. How To Improve Golf Swing Driving Accuracy This is a short, sweet, but very valuable article on...
3. Right Elbow In Golf Swing No Flying Aloud I am a student of the golf swing. Through reading,...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

When you learn how to start your golf downswing sequence properly, it will change your golf forever! If I got a dollar every time I heard an amateur golfer said to me “your swing looks so effortless and yet you hit it 10 miles”.  OK so maybe they don’t say 10 miles but they are really impressed with how smooth my swing looks.

Well let me say something that might shock you.  Your swing looks smooth when you hit it well also.  I want to stop and share something with you.  The main reason amateur golfers think my swing looks so smooth is because my results are usually pretty good.  If I topped every shot I hit 20 yards in front of me, it would look so smooth. One of my little secrets is the proper golf downswing that I’ve worked on for 50 years.

Let me share with you the number one reason my swing looks smooth.  After you arrive at the top of the backswing, a whole bunch of things have to take place in order for the clubhead to arrive on time into the back of the golf ball.  If you get the sequence of the downswing in the correct order-your swing is going to look smooth more often.

Number 1-Before you even complete the backswing the left hip has already begun to move laterally, parallel to the target line.  It moves about 2-4 inches and then it will begin to turn behind you.

Number 2-As soon as you reach the end of the backswing it is time for your arms to reverse the golf swing.  The next motion is to get the arms to begin to swing back down on the path it went back on.

Number 3-When you were in the address position your right arm was long with a slight softness in the elbow.  It is time to start straightening out the right arm.  Because your left hip has moved down the line it is at this moment that it will begin to turn behind you.  As long as you keep your hip and legs moving you won’t have to worry about casting your arms.  Casting your arms only takes place if you stop the bottom half of your body from moving.

Number 4-While you are unfolding the right arm the right knee has begun to move towards the left knee. And it must move quickly to keep up with the arms.

Number 5-As the arms begin to arrive at the golf ball the chest MUST remain on top of the ball.  When you arrive at impact the right shoulder is back and it has not begun to move.

Number 6-At the moment of impact both arms are long and the right one is beginning to roll over the left one.

Number 7-As the golf club swings around you on an arc it must continue to swing up towards your left shoulder as you left hip turns behind you.

Number 8-When have completed your swing the right heel is pointing towards the sky, belt buckle on target and hands are across from your left shoulder.

Bobby Eldridge has been teaching golf for over 35 years, and has just released a fantastic ebook teaching you the proper golf swing instruction. If you’re struggling with your golf swing consistency, I would strongly recommend you head over there and take a look today!

Related posts:

1. Learn The Proper Golf Downswing Sequence If you want to have a consistent golf swing...
2. How To Grip Golf Club With Right Hand Written By Bobby Eldridge It seems like every time the...
3. Over The Top Golf Swing…Get Rid Of It! One of the most common mistakes with beginner golfers...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

You may have noticed a decline, and it is affecting your performance. If so, this is only the beginning unless you add stretching to your daily routine.  Also, if you play golf in pain, a golf stretching program will quickly eliminate aches and pain, allowing you to enjoy your golf for years to come.

A good example is making a full shoulder turn in your golf swing. It’s not about pounding more balls, or taking more lessons. All it takes is a simple golf stretch for a bigger backswing.

Golf Swing Muscles

If you don’t want to do a full blow golf stretching routine, then you’ve got to at least target a couple of critical areas (golf swing muscles) if you want to stop the rapid declining of your golf swing.

Core Muscles

The core is the engine to your golf swing. If it is weak or tight, you cannot (and will not) produce maximum clubhead speed. The result is being the shortest hitter in your foursome. The core golf muscles used in your golf swing account for 80% or more of your power. The core has one key function in your golf swing…ROTATION!.

The common scenario for the older golfer is a severe restriction in core rotation both back and through. This will greatly diminish clubhead speed, power and ultimately distance. Not being able to make a full shoulder turn on your backswing can also cause an over the top golf swing.

Do you want to quickly improve your golf swing power, and play pain-free golf?

Simple golf stretches for every aspect of your golf swing. Do you tighten up during the round? We’ve got simple stretches to get you loose and ready to shoot par. Do you have back pain? No problem! We’ve got lower back stretches to eliminate back pain. Do you want a golf specific warm up to avoid early round blow up holes. We got it right here!

If you want the most golf-specific stretches you can do before, during and after your round to not only help your golf swing consistency, but to prevent an “after round” back pain you may usually incur. We’ve even got stretches you can do right in your office…without leaving your chair!

Click on the image to the right to learn more.

Related posts:

1. Golf Stretching For Long Drives Most golfers know that stretching is a must if you...
2. Target Your Golf Muscles For More Power If you want more power in your golf swing, you’ve...
3. Golf Stretch For Bigger Backswing Golfers struggle to make a full backswing. The effort is...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Like the older golfer pictured to the left, this is a “false” shoulder turn. It may look like a should turn, but if I were a betting man, this golfer is struggling with distance. He has swayed off the ball, and picked up the club. He has not properly rotated behind the ball with a correct shoulder turn. Does this look like you? If so, we’re going to fix it, and give you another 30 yards on your drives.

One of the first issues if you’re struggling with your backswing, is tension. If you have muscle tension, it will be very difficult to make a proper, bigger golf backswing. This tension can be caused by nerves, or from stiff muscles. Most likely it is muscles that have become tight over the years, that are keeping you from making a complete backswing. All it takes is a simple golf backswing stretch to quickly improve your turn back away from the golf ball.

Another issue is like the picture. Sliding instead of rotating. Your first move away from the ball if you’re a slider is to ROTATE your right shoulder immediately behind you! This will get you turning and not sliding to the right. Once you feel the rotation in your core, you will be able to unwind with a much higher clubhead speed.

Tip:

To help avoid sliding, take a look at the picture to your left of Ben Hogan. I’m working on this myself. See the angle of his right leg? I drew a yellow line outside his right leg. If you slide and do not rotate, the angle from the ground up in your right leg will disappear.

It is nearly impossible to rotate back into a full shoulder turn, when you lose the angle in your right leg. Instead, I want you to picture you are going to turn into right hip socket, while rotating your upper body behind you.

Tip:

Do not pick up your hands when you start your golf swing takeaway! This is huge! I have been a culprit for my entire golfing career, and it has really killed my consistency. Picture that triangle between your shoulders, arms, hands and clubhead. The all move (rotate) back together. When you do it correctly, your hands will naturally (and slowly) come up, but that this is not a voluntary action. It just happens with the proper one piece takeaway.

So in closing, the name of the game in fixing your shoulder turn in your golf swing is ROTATION. And I mean start rotating earlier in your takeaway. If you are a slider, you need to rotate immediately. Hope this article helps.

Golf Resource:

If you enjoyed this article, and truly want to improve your golf swing power and consistency, then you’ll want to download our FREE Golf Lessons.

Related posts:

1. How To Make A Full Shoulder Turn In Golf Swing “You gotta make a full shoulder turn in your golf...
2. Golf Swing Takeaway Technique Face On Once you get your proper golf setup, your golf swing...
3. How To Get Power In Golf Swing Learning how to get power in your golf swing is...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

It seems like every time the proper golf grip is mentioned we always talk about the left hand. We rarely talk about the right hand. I am going to share with you some interesting things about the right hand that will be of value to you the next time you head out to the practice facility to hit some balls.

Learning how to grip a golf club correctly is something you have got to practice to get it right. Lets briefly cover the left hand and then we can move on to the role the right hand plays.

When you pick a golf club up it has to lay diagonally across the base of the left hand from the bottom of the index finger to the pad of the left hand. Listen carefully, as this is how to hold a golf club. After you wrap your hand around the club you should be able to see anywhere from no knuckles to three knuckles. The more knuckles you see the more the clubface will close in the downswing.

Now lets move on to the right hand. For starters the right hand has to sit under the left hand and both palms must face each other. Let me explain why. When you begin the backswing the right shoulder has to turn out of the way as the golf club swings back. As the golf club swings back on the arc the clubface will role open.

If you start your backswing with the right hand across from or on top of the left hand, the right shoulder will have a tendency to tilt and not turn as the club swings back. If the right shoulder tilts the clubhead will not swing back on an arc, it will swing outside the path and the clubface will not roll open.

If the right hand is not under the left it will get in the way of the backswing. If the right hand is under the club as the club begins to swing up in the backswing the club will stay on plane as the right wrist begins to fold. When the club begins to swing up if the right hand is on top of the left hand the right elbow will move away from the upper body creating the flying elbow effect.

I have a great drill you can practice at home. Address the golf ball with your right hand on your pant leg and then bring it up and under the shaft. The golf club has to swing around your body in the backswing so make sure you place the right hand is under the left at address.

Free Golf Resource

If you enjoyed this article, you’ll definitely want to get your hands on our 25 Free Golf Lessons, to download immediately to your computer.

Related posts:

1. What’s The Proper Golf Grip With Left Hand? If you’re a right-handed golfer, the proper way to grip...
2. Golf Grip Fundamentals To Improve Your Golf Swing Written By Bobby Eldridge If I had to pick one...
3. How To Grip A Golf Club – Beginner Golfers Written By Mike Pedersen For beginner golfers, learning how to...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

He averaged 293 yards off the tee on the PGA Tour last year. Not bad for a 49 year old who’s carrying an extra 30 pounds! What’s his secret to hitting 300 yard drives? I can tell you he has a very late release of the club, which is another term for lag in the golf swing. To improve driving distance, wrist lag is a very effective way to do it.

Focus On Your Right Wrist

To get lag in your golf swing, focus on retaining your right wrist angle at impact. One of the biggest “power leaks” is casting the club from the top. You come into impact with a straight right wrist, with no clubhead speed; and actually this is now what we call a flipped club at impact. There is no retention of power, because the clubhead will no “slow down” going through impact, causing a massive loss of speed and power.

Make A Full Shoulder Turn On Backswing

One important key to power and distance is learning how to make a full shoulder turn in your golf swing. This is not as hard as you think, even if you’ve lost flexibility. Remember… it’s not how high you get your hands or club at the top of your swing, it’s getting your shoulders to turn at least 90 degrees, with 45 degrees of hip turn. That’s all you need. This is not that difficult.

I’ll give you a little “secret” on how to easily make a full shoulder turn. Focus on your right shoulder rotating back and around immediately upon takeaway. This will release all the tension in the lead shoulder, which is what 99% of all golfers focus on when they try to make a big turn.

Related posts:

1. Target Your Golf Muscles For More Power If you want more power in your golf swing, you’ve...
2. How To Make A Full Shoulder Turn In Golf Swing “You gotta make a full shoulder turn in your golf...
3. How To Increase Golf Clubhead, Swing Speed Learning the secret to how to increase your golf clubhead...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Even though Ernie is swinging an iron in this picture, his driver swing is no different. Beautiful tempo and rhythm. God gave him this, but you can emulate him and definitely see improvement in the speed of your swing, both on the backswing and definitely on the downswing.

One of the biggest mistakes in swinging your driver is “trying” to swing too fast. When you do this, you lose any tempo and timing you had before. This loss of timing will result in mishits and swing flaws; and even a lack of distance. So your intention of swinging faster (harder) will most likely backfire on you, as this will also create tension in your golf swing.

Some of the below golf tips you might have heard before, but have you consistently applied them? That is the key. You’ve got to do them regularly to see results.

Speed Up Your Golf Swing Takeaway

You might be thinking I’ve lost my marbles on this one, but hear me out! I know when I personally try to take the club back “low and slow”, I innately triple my speed coming down. I defeated my purpose of a good tempo golf swing. When I work on this normal speed golf swing takeaway technique my overall golf swing speed is slower, but not so slow I lose distance. I actually gain distance, because my golf swing sequence was better, so my ball striking improved. So next time you want to slow down your golf swing for better contact, don’t take the club away too slow.

Pause At The Top Of Your Golf Swing

This is a very common tip, but every time I do it on the course, I crush the ball! In my humble opinion, as amateurs we really screw it up in the transition. We get way too quick, and jerk the club down from the top, throwing our golf downswing sequence off, making it nearly impossible to come into impact in the correct position.

If you watch Ernie, Freddie Couples or any of the touring pros, none of them come down fast, with a jerk from the top. Their golf swing transition is smooth and slow. For us mere mortals, we almost need to think of stopping at the top, before we make our move down. It doesn’t actually happen, but it almost feels like that.

Once you’ve done your pause at the top, then don’t rush it. Let your body unwind in the proper sequence. When you do this, you come into the ball powerfully. It’s amazing when you think you’re slowing down your downswing, because in reality, you are just giving your body a chance to unwind properly. We do not ever want a HIT impulse coming down. EVER!

FREE Golf Lessons

If you liked this article, you might be interested in our 25 FREE Golf Lessons that can be downloaded to your computer in a matter of seconds.

Related posts:

1. Simple Step By Step Golf Swing Method How about this for a picture? Ever feel like this...
2. How To Correct (Fix) Golf Hook Shot Learning how to correct a golf hook shot is a...
3. Over The Top Golf Swing…Get Rid Of It! One of the most common mistakes with beginner golfers...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Since we are mostly talking about indoor golf swing training, there are a couple of critical things you can (and should) do to improve your golf swing.

Swinging A Weighted Golf Club

One of the most obvious ones you can practice in the winter is swinging a weighted golf club in your “heated” garage. If you don’t have a weighted golf club, I would recommend you get a golf swing weight you can insert right on the shaft of any club you have, and it’s like a weighted donut that baseball players swing on their bats.

When you swing this club, you should create a routine, and not just swing it for the heck of it. What I mean by routine is say… 3 times per week, you’re going to swing it a total of 50 times per session. What I would recommend is 10 very slow swings to warm up. Then another 10 at 50%, building up to the third set of 10 at full speed; then here’s where you can increase golf swing speed. The next 10 swings will be at 110% effort, but under control. This is swinging at a speed you would not do on the course, but off the course you are training your fast twitch muscles to swing faster. The last 10 swings are at 50%. Treat it like a cool down.

One last tip with the weighted golf club. If at all possible, do all your golf swings in front of a mirror to monitor your golf swing technique.

Improve The Strength And Flexibility Of Your Golf Muscles

This is a “no-brainer”. You have more time since you’re not playing, and the majority of golfers are greatly inhibited by their current level of physical condition. Focusing on your golf muscles is a very wise decision during the winter golf months. You don’t need to join a gym, nor do you even have to purchase much equipment. You can do your entire golf training routine with a pair of dumbbells; exercise tubing; and an exercise ball. All you need is about 64 square feet in your bedroom, living room or garage and you’re good-to-go.

Exercises for golfers should focus on the specific movement requirements in your golf swing. The easiest way to do that is to break your golf swing down into phases, then add resistance to those phases.

Golf Swing Fundamentals

Working on your golf swing fundamentals is an easy thing to do during the winter time indoors. First off, your golf grip fundamentals. You can have a club at your office, beside the couch in your living; pretty much anywhere. All you’ve got to do is grab it, grip it, and regrip it multiple times to make sure you’ve got the proper golf grip.

You can then work on your golf posture in a mirror. When doing this, make sure you learn how far to stand from a golf ball so that you get the correct distance and space to make a good takeaway.

You can practice the entire golf swing (address, takeaway, top of backswing, downswing, impact and more) indoors, and so you should. I think I’ve covered enough for today.

If you want a head start on your next golf season, you’ll want to download Free Golf Lessons to your computer.

Related posts:

1. Use A Golf Swing Weight On Your Club For More Power One of the quickest ways to increase your power and...
2. How To Increase Golf Clubhead, Swing Speed Learning the secret to how to increase your golf clubhead...
3. How To Improve Your Golf Swing Learning how to improve your golf swing is a...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.