The main key to hitting this shot well is to pick the ball clean from the bunker… you need to hit the ball, not the sand.

When choosing your club, make sure that you have enough loft to clear the lip of the trap… don’t bite off more than you can chew and leave yourself ‘another’ shot from the hazard.

If your lie is good and clearing the lip is not an issue, take one more club than you need to cover the distance and choke down a little.  This will allow you to take a ‘three quarter’ swing and keep your focus on staying stable and balanced.

The quieter you can keep your lower body during the swing the better.

Position the ball a little farther back in your stance than you would for a normal fairway shot to help you hit the ball first (not the sand).

In taking your stance you will want to dig your feet in only enough to feel planted.

Remember that a good miss on this shot is to hit it a little ‘thin’… if you hit the sand first, you will probably get to try this shot again much sooner than you had planned.

Lastly, take advantage of the wonderful practice facility that we have here at RedTail Landing and ‘go practice this shot’ before you will need to play it on the course.

It has come to my attention that many of my new students are still unaware of, or have yet to try using one of the most valuable tools around to help you sink more putts… those little plastic doodads (the LINE M UP for instance) that you can snap on to your golf ball and use to draw a perfect straight line along the equator of the ball and in turn use this line as a guide for squaring up the face of your putter to your intended target line.  It is still very common even for golfers with solid putting strokes to simply make the mistake of poor face alignment at the ball, and even miss those little three footers having the face pointed in the wrong direction.  Using the line helps take the direction component out of the equation and lets you focus on the most important aspect of never having another three putt… distance control.  Our very own Head Professional Joshua Davison has been using ‘the line’ for many years, as do most of the pros in your Golf Shop, not to mention the guys and gals on ‘Tour’.  I have been encouraging my students to use ‘the line’ for as long as I can remember, and ‘the line’ has made me a much better putter over the years.  Many of the current ball manufacturers incorporate alignment aids in the form of logos or ‘subtle’ lines on the balls right from the factory, but I still prefer to make the line distinct and easy to see from five feet above the ball.  Putting your own line on the ball using different colors of markers also satisfies the ‘identifying’ of your ball from a provisional or a competitor’s ball.  My final words on the matter will be quite simple…
Use the line… IT WORKS!

Dave Lengyel

High on the list of the defining features of RedTail Landing Golf Club are the beautiful and bountiful bunkers that help shape the fairways and protect the greens.  If you are going to come out here to play, you need to know how to hit it out of the sand.  Without going too deep into the proper techniques for the various shots you will need to play form the ‘beach’, let me just say this… “If you want to be good at hitting balls out of the bunkers, you need to be good at hitting the ‘sand’ out of the bunkers!”  Next time you are at the practice bunker, forget about the balls and simply practice removing consistent patches of sand out of the bunker.  Draw a couple of parallel lines in the sand about 6 to 8 inches apart, take a stance so that the lines are roughly pointed at your ankles and take swings focusing on removing just the sand from in between the lines.  You will find that the steadier you keep your head, the more accurate you will become at having the club enter near the back line and exit near the front (no dipping or getting tall here please).   Start off by taking smaller swings and always remember to ‘finish’ (don’t leave the club head stuck in the trap).  Rake up your area, draw the lines again, and put a ball in between the lines.  Don’t worry about the ball; just keep your focus on removing the sand from in between the lines under the ball, and the ball will take care of itself.  We will talk more about sand shots in future tips, but for now if you are still having trouble with these shots, practice good course management by focusing on hitting more fairways and greens and stay tuned for more help on getting out of the sand …

See you soon,

Dave Lengyel

The snow is almost gone, the temperatures are rising and the season is just about here.  If it has been months since you’ve looked at your golf bag, you may notice that there is still dirt from the last game of last season stuck in the grooves; it is that time to check your gear.  Dust off your golf bag, pull out your clubs and ‘clean’ them.  Check the grips for wear and tear… remember that they are like the oil in your car and need to be ‘changed’ from time to time.  While you are at it, check to make sure that the shafts are not cracked, dented or bent and that all the heads are still securely epoxied on.  Get some warm soapy water and a brush and see if you can find the faces of your clubs again.  Now that your clubs are clean and inspected, take one outside and SWING it.  You don’t have to hit anything with it… just take some slow easy swings to remind your body what it feels like to swing a club again.  Now if you can swing that club again just a few times every day until the range opens, you will be far less likely to hurt yourself by overdoing it on opening day.

See you in a week or so…Dave

I’m sure most of you are aware of just how important the ‘release’ is in the golf swing for maximizing club head speed and in turn distance.  Your ability to hang on to the ‘magic’ 90 degree angle created between your target side forearm and the shaft of the club until the very last millisecond before impact is crucial for hitting the ball far.   Just before impact you will unleash a ‘fury’ of club head speed at the helpless golf ball by unhinging your wrists with authority as your forearms rotate to square up the club face and continue rotating to get the toe of the club pointed up to the heavens post impact.   Ahhhh… the release.
You can prepare your ‘speed hinge’ for the upcoming season by working on your wrist and forearm strength.  Get yourself a ‘stress ball’ for your office desk drawer, and use it often whether you are stressed or not.  You can use the old ‘wring out a wet towel’ exercise or any of the other wonderful wrist and forearm strengthening gadgets on the market.  But here is my personal favorite…
Take a hammer or a plumbers’ pipe wrench and hold it right at the end of the handle.  Rest your forearm on the top of a table allowing your hand to hang out over the edge.  Now holding the hammer or wrench pointed straight up, rotate it ‘slowly’ to the left and right stopping when the handle gets to parallel to the table top (no need to go past parallel, and don’t overdo it).  Now to focus on the wrists, simply hinge the hammer or wrench up and down with your wrists as if you were trying to hammer in nails with just your wrists in slow motion.  Remember to work both arms and if you make this a regular routine, don’t be surprised when you hit the ball farther this spring.

It won’t be much longer now,

Dave Lengyel

Even though ‘utility’ or ‘hybrid’ golf clubs are now common and most golfers have at least one or two in their golf bags, there still seems to be a difference in opinion amongst instructors as to the proper ball position for these clubs.  Should you play it like an iron, or like a fairway wood?  In my opinion you have to take into account a number of variables before you can answer that question.  Swing tendencies (are you a ‘sweeper’ or a ‘digger’), club head design (how much face progression/offset is present), specific loft of the club (there are numerous loft options available), and shaft length (similarly lofted clubs can vary an inch or more in length from one manufacturer to another) all need to be taken into consideration when determining optimum ball position.

Try this process next time you are on the range to help you find ‘your’ optimum hybrid ball position.  Start off hitting shots using your ‘fairway wood’ ball position (about the width of a ball or more closer to the target than the center of your stance). This ball position will maximize trajectory while still taking advantage of the built in forgiveness of these clubs when hitting the ball lower on the club face (thin).  This forward ball position also helps minimize interaction with the turf (maximizing club head speed through impact).  If you are hitting the ball ‘too thin’ or topping it in this position, try a ball position about ½ an inch farther back in your stance until you find one that delivers consistent center faced contact without taking big divots.  This is now your hybrid ball position off of a fairway lie.  To hit this club out of the rough, try putting the ball just a little farther back in your stance to get a slightly more descending blow.  Now that you have figured out your ball position, don’t forget to practice some ‘chip shots’ with these clubs as well.

Dave Lengyel

A wise old golf sage once said that “your short game touch is one of the first things to go, and one of the last to come back”.  I’m sure he was referring to the ‘off season’ and not about the visit to the half-way-house in between nines.  There is much truth to this statement and although for most it can be difficult to continue to keep your chipping and pitching skills sharp during the winter months, we can all find a way to keep a putter in our hands.

Staying in touch with your putting stroke over the off-season will give you a huge head start to better scores come spring… especially working on those short putts!  Go dig out your putter and a few balls (hopefully you still know where they are) and start by storing  them somewhere where you might almost have to trip over them on a day to day basis (preferably not on top of the TV remote).  This simple act will help battle the ‘out of sight… out of mind’ problem.  Any chunk of carpet or one of those ‘putting mats’ would be perfect.  You don’t even need a hole to putt to; just putt at another ball.  Make a game of it, count how many in a row you can sink, or force yourself to sink 20 short putts before you get to make your evening cocktail.

Any chance you get to put a golf club in your hands over the winter months will serve your golf game well come spring, but just think how nice it would be to sink all those short putts during those first few rounds of the season…

See you in the short grass,

Dave Lengyel

Let’s talk about some common (and some not so common) sense ideas for the cooler fall golf weather …

Of course it’s a good idea to pack the toque and cart mitts and begin to layer on the sweaters and vests, but here are a few other interesting notions when playing in the cooler weather…
*If you don’t already play a softer compression golf ball, it’s time to start.  Just like anything else when it freezes, a golf ball gets harder when it gets colder and it becomes harder to compress (you would have to generate more club head speed to create the same ‘potential energy’).  If you don’t want to switch balls, do everything you can to keep your golf ball warm in between holes (keeping your ball in a cart mitt along with a disposable hand warmer works very well, or leave an extra ball in there and switch to the ‘warm’ ball on every other hole).
*Just as a cold golf ball is harder to compress, a cold golf club shaft is harder to bend or ‘load’.  The condition is more noticeable with steel shafts, but as the temperature drops, you’re ‘regular flex’ shafts will feel more like ‘stiff’.  Next time you are out playing in single digit temperatures, put the shaft of one of your irons against your cheek and feel how cold your clubs can really get.  Now pull out your handy dandy golf towel (preferably a dry one) and with the shaft wrapped in the towel give the shaft a ‘brisk polish’ to warm it up and allow it to properly load during your swing.  That same towel also doubles nicely as an extra hand warmer if you have forgotten your cart mitts.
*Remember that the extra layers of tops, vests and/or sweaters that you are wearing to stay warm may also be limiting (or making you ‘feel’ limited in) your range of motion and ability to properly swing your arms.  I know that playing in long sleeves or a jacket is not one of my favorite things to do.  It is important to make sure to complete your shoulder turn in the back swing to give you more time and room to swing your arms.  If you forgot to stretch in a rotary fashion to allow for a full and complete turn of the shoulders against the hips, now would be the time to do that too.  Take advantage of frost delays by taking the time to get a full stretch and warm up.

See you in the short grass…

Dave Lengyl

Even the best swings can have bad results with poor alignment…

The first time I read Jack’s book ‘Golf My Way’ (almost thirty years ago!) I noted how he used a leaf (or some other form of ‘intermediary target’) to help him create an imaginary target line on the ground extending from his ball through a ‘closer target’ and out to the ball’s final destination (the fairway or green).  For me it made all the difference in the world to find proper alignment by looking down where my ball was instead of trying to square up the shot by looking over my left shoulder.  I haven’t hit a single shot in golf since reading that book without using a closer target on the ground as a reference for alignment.  Find a leaf, a distinct blade of grass, a broken tee, an old divot or anything else that is on or very near your intended target line within a couple of feet in front of (or behind) the ball and use it to align the face of your club and your stance without having to look up again until you want to see how close you just hit it to the hole.

Enjoy hitting it where you wanted to more often…

Dave

The expression is… ‘the dog wags it’s tail’ not… ‘the dog flings it’s tail violently’.  The arms need to work in harmony with the body turn to hit great golf shots…

To hit solid square faced golf shots, we need to recreate the triangle formed by the hands and shoulders that we created at address back at the golf ball.  I have seen far too many swings where the shoulders turn back through the ball far too quickly for the hands and arms to get caught back up in the race back to the ball.  The result is the thin or topped shot as the target shoulder is too high at impact, or the pull/ slice that the ‘open’ shoulders create.  The shoulders pulling the arms back toward the ball needs  to be accompanied by the trail arm ‘pushing’ the hands back in front of the chest towards the  moment of truth.  As the hands arrive back in front of the chest, the forearms naturally square the clubface and we create the extension through the ball that delivers maximum club head speed.  In short, we need to wait for the hands and arms to get back to the ball before the shoulders have gone well past.
An excellent drill to keep the arms and body turn working together is to take ½ to ¾ swings with a PW or 9 iron with head covers or golf gloves tucked under the armpits.  The secret is to not drop them as you swing back and through.  This drill synchronizes the arms and body turn and keeps the arms extended with the hands out in front of the chest.  We need to ‘swing’ the arms, not ‘fling’ them.

See you on the range, Dave