Archive for the ‘Hit it Further’ Category

Golf Lesson Sussex – Find More Yards

Golf Lesson Sussex – Find More Yards

Hitting the ball longer and straighter is high on the list of every golfer and here I am going to give you some very simple things that you can do to help you achieve those extra yards.

Golf Lesson Sussex

Firstly we need a nice solid base to swing from so I would like you to widen your stance just a little bit.You are going to do this by dropping right foot back another six inches away from the target. This will set you more behind the ball and promote an aggressive move into impact.

Golf Lesson Sussex

Secondly I would like you to make a real nice deliberate backswing. Make that first six inches of the take away from the ball nice and smooth, this will ensure that you fully turn your shoulders in the backswing, a feeling of turning your left shoulder behind the ball is our main focus here.

Alicante 2006 2002

Lastly I would like you to have the feeling of swinging through the ball and not at the ball. Get to a full finish with tour weight finished nicely on your left side.

www.markwoodgolfacademy.co.uk

Mark Wood

PGA Advanced Professional
UK’s No1 Golf Coach

The Best Golf Lessons in Sussex and Kent

 

Watch the Ball

Watch the Ball

Keeping your head down can cost you distance

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THE POWER MOVE: Let your eyes follow the ball. You’ll turn through better and generate more swing speed.

It astonishes me on how many times I hear golfers say “I know what happened there I lifted my head on that shot” after they have hit a bad shot……….

I ask them to have a look at the video of that particular swing and their eyes are glued down at the ground, where the ball was, long after it has gone. I then say to them “so you lifted your head on that shot”…. Their response is “well that is what my playing partners say when we are out playing”

I am always encouraging my students who fall into to this category to keep watching the ball, let your eyes follow the ball, do not keep looking down at the ground as this will restrict you from turning your body through impact and to the full finish, costing you POWER and YARDS!!!

A free flowing motion will create speed and therefore POWER, so keeping your head down for too long will lose you power and distance. Bad shots are caused by things that have gone wrong in either the backswing or downswing, not because you lifted your head…..

Next time your practising or playing remember to let your eyes follow the ball and enjoy the extra YARDS!!!

From Your Friends at Mark Wood Golf Academy

PS. Come down and tee it up to make some magic moments of your own. Check our website at 

www.markwoodgolfacademy.co.uk

Mark Wood

PGA Advanced Professional
UK’s No1 Golf Coach

The Best Golf Lessons in Sussex and Kent

How to BOMB your Driver

Bomb the Driver

How to BOMB your Driver

WIDEN YOUR STANCE TO SET YOUR SPINE ANGLE
For a normal set up to the ball we have our feet shoulder width apart, this gives you mobility and balance for the full swing. But when you really want to notch it up a gear to hit the long BOMB from the tee, I want you to widen your stance a few inches. Keep the ball opposite the left heel and widen out the stance with the right foot. This will tilt your spine more behind the ball and will naturally drop your head more behind the ball as well. More weight will be felt down your right leg and into your foot; this is absolutely fine – just go with the feel of it.

TURN YOUR SHOULDERS FULLY
A typical fault that most golfers do when they are trying to generate more distance is to generally make the swing quicker- quicker in the backswing!!
If this happens you rush to the top of the backswing, arms and body out of sync and a real poor short body rotation. This is a big power lose in a golf swing.
Just concentrate on making a smooth backswing turning your shoulders fully, a good thought to have is to get your left shoulder behind the ball at the completion of the backswing.

LET’S RIP IT
Now you are fully coiled in the backswing now is the time to let rip……
You need to shift your weight into your left side with a slight lateral movement before you start your rotation, this will drop your club on the perfect plane on the downswing, just slightly on the inside. Keep the body turn speed up and focus on keeping the clubhead accelerating into the back of the ball and all the way through to the finish of the swing.

Enjoy the extra distance and enjoy bombing it past you’re playing partners.

From Your Friends at Mark Wood Golf Academy

PS. Come down and tee it up to make some magic moments of your own. Check our website at 

www.markwoodgolfacademy.co.uk

Mark Wood

PGA Advanced Professional
UK’s No1 Golf Coach

The Best Golf Lessons in Sussex and Kent

Hit the Ball Longer

How to Gain More Distance from the Tee

The way you set up to the golf ball is vital when you have the driver in your hands. It is so important to establish the correct spine angle so that you can create a full body turn which leads to more distance.

Many amateurs set up with the in correct spine angle which also gives them poor body alignment, this could be the main reason behind your SLICE!!

In the video below I give you a great drill to help you set up to the ball correctly for more explosive drives.

Check out the video below and try it next time your at the range.

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From Your Friends at Mark Wood Golf Academy

PS. Come down and tee it up to make some magic moments of your own. Check our website at 

www.markwoodgolfacademy.co.uk

Mark Wood

PGA Advanced Professional
UK’s No1 Golf Coach

The Best Golf Lessons in Sussex and Kent

How to Generate Power in the Golf Swing

Power Charge the Golf Swing

One way to generate power in the golf swing is by generating momentum. A good example here is a baseball pitcher, to throw a ball with power he winds back before he releases.

The same principles apply in the golf swing.

You need to turn around your right side in the backswing with no sway.

One of the common misconceptions of amateurs is that they have to swing really hard and fast to create a lot of power, this results in an off plane and off balance golf swing. Resulting in a lack of power and distance.

The only way to create power is to build up momentum in your swing with a good body turn.

Watch the video here and see how to create the correct body turn for the golf swing.

From Your Friends at Mark Wood Golf Academy

PS. Come down and tee it up to make some magic moments of your own. Check our website at 

www.markwoodgolfacademy.co.uk

Mark Wood

PGA Advanced Professional
UK’s No1 Golf Coach

The Best Golf Lessons in Sussex and Kent

Tee Peg Drill – Improve Your Ball Striking

The “Tee Peg” Drill

This drill is a very popular amongst the top professionals to improve the path and ball striking purity. You can do this drill using any club, but start with a 6 iron.

  1. Place a row of four tee pegs just outside the toe end of the club about an inch apart. Then place one tee peg just outside the heel of the club and running up parallel to the shaft.
  2. Tee a ball up in between the front two tee pegs, see below picture. 

Hit some shots with a full swing but half the pace of your normal swing so you can get a feel of the club going through the gap, not hitting the outside tee pegs. Once your confidence and swing path improves you can then get your swing back up to the normal tempo and rhythm.

Keep your arms and hands as relaxed as possible as tension is a big “feel” killer in a golf swing.

I hope you enjoyed the article, any comments or Questions then please leave a comment below..

Until next time I wish you all the golfing success

Mark

Mark Wood Golf Academy
Dale Hill hotel & golf club
East Sussex

Hit it Further

Lose the Tension for more Distance

Tension is a huge energy sapper in a golf swing, so when you set up to the ball make sure that your grip pressure is relaxed. The best way of doing this is to think about your forearms, if you keep these relaxed it is impossible to have tight tense wrists and a tight grip. Keep your chin held up and your neck muscles relaxed as this will also contribute in making a good athletic body turn which in turn leads to power. Remember your arms are the levers in a golf swing so keeping these relaxed adds to increased speed and power.

I hope you enjoyed the article, any comments or Questions then please leave a comment below..

Until next time I wish you all the golfing success

Mark

Mark Wood Golf Academy
Dale Hill hotel & golf club
East Sussex

Cupped Wrist, Across the Line, Flying Elbow

Cupped Wrist, Across the Line, Flying Elbow, Open Clubface

Hooks, Blocks, Push Cuts, Duffs etc….

A lot of golfers are searching for a great top of the backswing position and really struggle to find it and here is why.

The Picture above is a classic example of a flying elbow, cupped wrist and across the line position that I see amongst many golfers at my facility. These lead to poor shaped shots (blocks, hooks, push cuts etc…) and most certainly miss – hit shots from all over the clubface with a mixture of heavy and thinned golf shots. Sometimes there is a physical element that causes this position at the top, in which we do a quick flexibility test to see how mobile the arms and shoulders are, as the range of motion can be limited through injury or lack of flexibility. Some golfers can just have too much flexibility and just be completely unaware of where they are swinging up to in the backswing.  Once we have established the clients ROM we can then proceed in the below exercise on making them aware of the  feelings the correct position for them at the top of the backswing should feel like.

Grip the golf club with the Left Hand below the right for right handed golfers and the opposite for left handed golfers (right below left). Picture above.

Good position at the Top

Swinging up to the top of the backswing will feel very different, it will feel more restricted, the left wrist (for right handed golfers) will be much flatter the right elbow will be much more down and in more in front of the body. This will lead to the shaft being much more “in the slot” and the clubface will be square (leading edge matched up to the left arm). Your body will be much more in balance and engaged with the movements you are making. To start with, you will feel that you are doing less as there are fewer moving parts. Try to use a mirror when doing this exercise to link up the feel with the visual.

Your shot shape and distance will improve dramatically and so will the ball striking with the centred strikes off the clubface.

I hope you enjoyed the article, any comments or Questions then please leave a comment below..

Until next time I wish you all the golfing success

Mark

Mark Wood Golf Academy
Dale Hill hotel & golf club
East Sussex

Creating Good Impact

Future Superstar

I was working with a young junior today on creating a much more solid impact, delivering everything at the right time and on time. This leads to much more consistency in many ways – angle of attack, swing path, shape of shot, power, distance control and much much more.

    GREAT IMPACT CONDITIONS HERE              

  TO AGGRESSIVE WITH THE RIGHT SIDE

As we progressed with the lesson as we always do, after a good solid warm up we filmed his swing from a few different angles and then we could analyse what needed to be changed and improved in this young Sussex County player.

To start with he was getting to much action with his right side and therefore all the power was spent by the time he reached impact, this had an effect on distance, accuracy and constancy amongst other things. We needed to really get to the root cause of this and start to get more control in delivering the right side on time, every time.

The swing was on a great path in the backswing with great plane being achieved at the midway stage in the backswing. At the top of the swing, the club was in a great position with the body maintaining the angles, it looked very dynamic and strong. The clubface however was a tiny bit closed at the top of the backswing and this was leading to that very early and aggressive body rotation through impact. He basically needed to try to “hold” the clubface off through impact, not letting it close down too much as this was resulting in a ball flight with too much right to left shape. The tiny change that we needed to make was in the left hand grip, it was a bit to strong and this was the root cause of the impact conditions. Once we had put the left hand into a great neural position at the set up, the clubface instantly sat in a good square position at the top of his backswing. He could then start to control his body motion much stronger through impact resulting in a much more powerful, penetrating 2 yard drawing ball flight which had instant control.

I hope you enjoyed the article, any comments or Questions then please leave a comment below..

Until next time I wish you all the golfing success

Mark

Mark Wood Golf Academy
Dale Hill hotel & golf club
East Sussex

The Duffed Shot

THE DUFFED SHOT

A duff is when the club strikes the ground before the ball. It’s one of golf’s most infuriating shots, as you can follow a screaming drive 280 yards with a 20-yard fluff.

THE PROBLEM

The reason for a case of the duffs lies in not getting your weight forward during the downswing. It leaves the majority of your weight on the back foot at impact. Instead of moving subtly towards the target, your head moves away from it. Often, your front heel lifts up off the ground leaving the hands to get very active and trying to scoop the ball up into the air. It creates a horrible turf-first, ball second contact.

 THE CURE

What you need here is a more positive move through the ball. You want to feel a slight lateral movement towards the target as you unwind on the downswing. With this move your right heel should be lifted up off the ground at impact, with the majority of the body weight on the front foot.

Here’s a great drill to make this happen. Hit shots with your back heel lifted up off the floor during the entire swing. If you don’t fancy simply lifting the heel off the ground, place a ball underneath it. This sets your spine angle more forward at address, with the majority of the body weight forward. It makes for a much more positive move through the ball, with your weight moving forwards. Don’t worry too much about where the ball goes – just get used to feeling of moving forward through the ball, and note how this drill promotes a ball-turf-contact.

I hope you enjoyed the article, any comments or Questions then please leave a comment below..

Until next time I wish you all the golfing success

Mark

Mark Wood Golf Academy
Dale Hill hotel & golf club
East Sussex