Posts Tagged ‘Golf Lessons Kent’

40 Yard Bunker Shots

The 40 yard bunker shot is one of the hardest in golf to play. You need to be able to treat the shot more like a greenside bunker shot, not a fairway bunker shot.

I have a great way for you to do this and it does not involve your wedges at all !!

Take a 9 iron and open the face of the club a little to engage the bounce of the club and to also add some loft onto the club. Take your normal regular splash shot stance, ball forward, weight forward, wide stance with the centre of gravity set low. From there just make a fairly full splash shot swing and you will be amazed at the results !!

This is how the pro’s play them.

Go ahead and make someone’s day share this tip with a friend!

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

Important Golf Health Advisory

Very Import You Read to the End As It Could Seriously Effect Your Health

In 1923…

* Charles Schwab, was president of the world’s largest steel company,

He died a pauper.

* Edward Hopson, was president of the largest gas company

He went insane.

* Arthur Cooger, was the greatest wheat speculator,

He died abroad, penniless.

* Cosabee Livermore, was president of one of the largest banks

He shot himself

* Richard Whitney, was president of NY Stock Excahange

He was released from prison to die at home

In that same year, 1923, Gene Sarazen won most of the important golf championships, including both the US Open and PGA Championship. He played golf until he was 92 and died in 1999 at the age of 95… and was financially solvent at his death. He also scored the first ever hole in one on TV during the Open at Royal Troon in 1973 aged 71!

Conclusion: Stop worrying about business and start playing more golf!

www.markwoodgolfacademy.co.uk

Mark Wood

PGA Advanced Professional
UK’s No1 Golf Coach

The Best Golf Lessons in Sussex and Kent

Best Golf Quotes Ever

Golf’s a very quotable game with lots of colorful characters, here’s a few of our favorites!

1. “The More you practice the luckier you get” – Gary Player

2. “99% of all putt you leave short don’t go in” – Hubert Green

3. “Golf is a game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into an even smaller hole, with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose.” Winston Churchill

4. “Golf is a good walk spoiled” Mark Twain

5. “Competitive golf is played mainly on a five-and-a-half-inch course, the space between your ears.”-Booby Jones.

6. “Relax? How can anybody relax and play golf? You have to grip the club don’t you?” – Ben Hogan

7. “If a lot of people gripped a knife and fork the way they do a golf club, they’d starve to death.” – Sam Snead

8. “You don’t know what pressure is until you’ve played for $5 a hole with only $2 in your pocket.” – Lee Trevino

9. Golf is a game in which you yell “fore,” shoot six, and write down five.  –Paul Harvey

10. Eighteen holes of match or medal play will teach you more about your foe than will 18 years of dealing with him across a desk.  – Grantland Rice

www.markwoodgolfacademy.co.uk

Mark Wood

PGA Advanced Professional
UK’s No1 Golf Coach

The Best Golf Lessons in Sussex and Kent

A huge well done to client Rosie Hockey on winning the Dale Hill Club Championship once again. It was played in not the best of weather conditions so it tested every department of her game.

www.markwoodgolfacademy.co.uk

Mark Wood

PGA Advanced Professional
UK’s No1 Golf Coach

The Best Golf Lessons in Sussex and Kent

Well done to Client Maria Tulley on winning the Sussex Pro’s Championship, Maria made history by being is the 1st lady champion in 101 years.

Read the full report here

Maria also shot a new ladies course record at Willingdon with a -8 (63) its been a great month.

www.markwoodgolfacademy.co.uk

Mark Wood

PGA Advanced Professional
UK’s No1 Golf Coach

The Best Golf Lessons in Sussex and Kent

Well done to client Willie Clapperton on winning the Mens Club Championship at Eastbourne Golfing Park.

Read the full report here 

www.markwoodgolfacademy.co.uk

Mark Wood

PGA Advanced Professional
UK’s No1 Golf Coach

The Best Golf Lessons in Sussex and Kent

The Best Ever Arnie Story!

September 10^th is The King’s birthday so I thought we’d celebrate in style by sharing with you, the best ever Arnie story!

Before the 1993 Senior British Open, which was scheduled to be contested over the links of Royal Lytham & St. Annes, Arnold Palmer received a letter from a Mr. Hans Bolton of Lancashire, England. The letter containing, as it did, the language of someone who knew nothing about the game, might have offended a superstar too full of his own importance. In Palmer’s case, the handwritten letter caught his attention.

The letter, which came into the possession of a friend several years later, contains this remark in the opening paragraph, “I must admit I am not a golf fan. I realize that you must be extremely busy, being one of the “big names” in the golfing fraternity.” Bolton then talks about the importance of the upcoming Senior Open but adds, “An even more important event is taking place (at least to me anyway). You see, I am getting married to my fiancée Sally Anne Murphy, a truly gorgeous and wonderful girl.” The problem, as Bolton unfolds, is simple, neither of the honeymoon suites at the Clifton Arms Hotel is available because, as it was explained to him, “Mr. Arnold Palmer is staying in one and Mr. Gary Player is staying in the other, and they have been booked for ages!”

He then proceeds to paint an emotional portrait. “My fiancée was, of course, distraught at this news, convinced that our big day is doomed to failure. Something I suppose, like a triple bogey on the 1^st hole.” Then Bolton makes a daring suggestion. “I was just wondering if perhaps, there would be any chance at all of you swapping rooms with us, just for one night. This is a shot in the dark, I really don’t expect that you will, but one can only try. You see I work for the Sunblest Bread Company and Sally works as a children’s nanny so this is probably the only chance we will ever have of staying anywhere as grand as the Clifton Arms.”

He signs the letter “Yours hopefully,” and then adds two postscripts. P.S. You are more than welcome to join us for a drink at the reception. P.P.S. I didn’t write to Gary Player because we were told you were a much nicer chap!

Palmer, of course, not only surrendered the suite but took them up on the offer of the beer where he drank a toast to the happy couple and even posed for a photograph.

Go ahead and make someone’s day share this story with a friend!

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

Poor body alignment

A common problem amongst golfers in general!

The amount of golfers who align themselves completely wrong at the address position will have a major influence on how they swing the golf club. You will compensate for this during the golf swing. I have helped golfers tremendously to stop shanking with this just one fault alone. Most golfers from my experience align their bodies too far to the right of their intended target, in a closed position. At some point during the golf swing you are going to compensate for this and it usually happens in the downswing. You are fully aware of where the target is but due to the closed off stance you are going to swing over plane in the downswing to get the club back to the ball. This moves the club much further out in front of you in the downswing leading to the hosel contacting the ball first. Some golfers even lose their balance: falling forwards in the through swing.

Great ways to improve your sense of alignment is to pick a point just in front of the ball (2ft approx.) which is directly on line to your intended target and align the club face square to that point. From here build in your stance keeping as square as possible to that point.

Practise your alignment on the range by picking random targets and working through your pre shot routine of the above.

Another great way is to place down 3 alignment canes on the range, one aligning to a target on the left side of the range, another aligning to a target in the middle of the range and the last one aligning to a target on the right side of the range.

Practising in this manner will most certainly make you more self-aware of how you are lining up correctly. You will instantly be aware if you have aligned correctly or not.

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

Take lessons, read books, attend clinics

Self-monitoring is just fine if you can do it, but most of us need some outside help in order to achieve faster and more lasting results with our games. The first and most obvious road to golfing success is to find the best teaching pro in town and book a series of personal lessons. Whatever it costs, pay it! All those years of teaching experience and first hand knowledge are available to help you unleash your own potential ability.

If time or money does not permit this form of personal enlightenment, try group lessons or a few days at a golf school, where you can get a comprehensive amount of instruction in a short time.

The most convenient way to improve your game is by reading. Although this method does not provide the real life feedback you enjoy when you actually perform, the information you find in books can often make a big difference in your game. After reading several hundred golf books, I still pick up new tips, ideas, drills and even refresh fundamental ideas each and every time I bury my nose in  a good instructional volume. How many of today’s golfers picked up Golf My Way by Jack Nicklaus, and were inspired and affected as they read it? I know I was. It is said that Nick Faldo took up golf after watching the Masters on television and picking up a copy of Jack’s book. How many senior golfers grew up within easy reach of Tommy Armour’s How to play your best golf all the time or Ben Hogan’s The Five Modern Fundamentals of Golf.

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

Class is a key trait that goes much deeper than developing image, or the superficial trappings of fine clothes or a catchy nickname. This intangible quality is, without doubt, absolutely essential if you are ever going to be universally recognized as a champion by friends, peers and enemies alike. All champions have class.

Robert Tyre Jones was the epitome of the true Southern gentleman. He was known the world over as the complete sportsman, and this resulted in large part because he never had anything but praise for his opponents. In 1930, Jones won the Gram Slam by winning both the British and US Amateur championships, as well as the British and US Open titles, a feat that has never been, and almost certainly never will be equaled.

The first of his four historic victories, in the British Amateur, occurred on the windswept links of St. Andrews in Scotland, the birthplace of golf. In an early round, Jones found himself engaged in a tense and strenuous duel with British Walker Cup player, Cyril Tolley — a match that Jones likened to a sword fight to the death.

At the famous 17th, the “road hole,” the match was even. You’ve probably seen the road hole on TV. It’s named for a road running parallel to the 17th green that has spelled disaster for many a would-be champion. Following a good drive and playing first, Jones took a 4-iron and hit the ball long and a little left of the green. In this way he avoided both the road on the right and the cavernous road bunker on the left. Tolley, seeing Jones in position for an easy chip and a putt to make four, went for the green. It is entirely possible that feelings of doubt may have crept into his mind, for he rolled his hands on the shot and pulled it short and left. Jones chipped up to eight feet. Now Tolley was faced with a devilish short pitch, downwind to a raised green, with the menacing road bunker between him and the putting surface and the road directly beyond the green. Bobby Jones himself describes Tolley’s shot.

“It cannot be stated as fact, but it is nevertheless my conviction that Tolley’s third shot on this hole has never been surpassed for exquisitely beautiful execution. I shall carry to my grave the impression of the lovely little stroke with which he dropped the ball so softly in exactly the right spot, so that in the only possible way it finished dead to the hole.”

Jones made his putt and eventually defeated Tolley at the 19th hole. He went on to win the Championship and the Grand Slam, hitting many superb shots along the way. 30 years later, however, Jones still maintained that the finest golf shot he ever saw was made by Tolley on the 17th at St. Andrews.

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