I get emails a lot asking if it is really necessary to spend hundred of pounds on expensive pieces of equipment. The response to this is unfortunately not very clear.

Well that is not true, in short the answer is no, it is not strictly necessary to spend two hundred and fifty quid on a driver, four hundred pounds on a set of irons, eighty quid on a wedge and and god knows what on a putter.

You could go down to your local cheap sport’s gear seller, I live near one called Sports Soccer which sells Dunlop and Donnay clubs dirt cheap. Then there is also JJB, which sell some reasonably priced clubs. These or similar are both good bets for a solid set of clubs that will not cost the earth.

But how do these compare to more expensive clubs? Well, again the answer is not clear cut. It all really depends on how the club feels to the individual.

In general however, these clubs do tend to perform better in scientific tests. This is not what makes individuals perform better.

In general, people tend to feel more confident when pulling a big name brand out of the bag. It all comes down to game mentality again. The confidence inspired by hitting with the same driver Tiger Woods uses can make a noticeable difference in a player’s game.

So, the main advantage of the more expensive clubs is that they inspire confidence in a player. Of course, as the equipment modernises there are a couple more perks. Some expensive clubs can cure a draw or fade.

By using interchangeable weights the user can set the club up to compliment their swing. This is becoming more and more commonplace, but is at the moment still only available on the more expensive of the bigger brands.

So in conclusions, if you have the resources to go and get some of the bigger brand clubs, I would say go for it. You do however still need to find the right clubs for you. This can only really be done through trial and error.

Your next step should be to go to your local club shop and ask to try some of the clubs. Please do not take advantage of this if you are not even considering buying.

If you can show a genuine interest, they will likely put a piece of duck tape over the face and let you hit some balls. If you can show that you will pay by cash they will likely give you a fair amount of attention and time and may even let you hit with no face protection.

With the credit crunch, big brand shops and ever decreasing number of players, your local shop will bend over backwards and you will appreciate that extra service you get.

Here are 3 things of note for the superstitius golfer;

1.Always step onto the tee box from the back.  Do not step on to it from the front, this is bad luck and will almost certainly set of a chain of events that starts with your ball going in the rough, and ends with you spendng the night in a cell.  Just dont do it.

2.When you put you ball on the tee, make sure the symbol on the ball is the right way.  It should be on top and positioned so that when you look at the ball when about to swing, the logo should look right.  If this rule is not obeyed the ball gremlins will come and steal your ball from the woodland you just hit it into, which of course only happened because you didnt have the logo the right way.

3.Never utter the phrase, “it never rains on a golf course.”  It almost certainly will provoke the heavens into opening up and dumping the equivalent of a force 5 hurricane on you.  You will almost certainly drown on something you thought was only a puddle, and if the puddle doesnt get you, you will get hypothermia.  Failing this, mother nature will say “this isnt doing the trick” and will start firing acid rain at you.

If you accidentally do all 3 of these together, well, the consequences are very severe.  You have been warned…

Part 1

Stance

You stance when swinging is very important.  It is the solid base that you are going to rotate from.  The stance is really the core of your swing, the solid fondations upon which your swing is constructed.

A good stance will help you to retain balance when swinging.  An stance that is not quiete right will lead to you , obviously being unbalanced, but this makes your swing very irregular and uneven.  Your swing should be like a massive pendulum, a perfect circular motion.  Being unbalanced will mean your swing shape will be all out of shape, and this will make it very difficult to hit good long straight shots.

So how should you stance look.

Your feet should be shoulder width apart.  You can have them slightly closer or wider apart, it is up to you.  Remember, despite what anyone tells you, the most important thing, within reason, is that you feel comfortable.

So feet roughly shoulder width apart, and have the ball in line with the middle of your feet.  Now place your club behind the ball.  This is the basic structure of the stance.

Now just position yourself so you feel comfortable.

I will take pictures soon to put up.  Hopefully these will be a help.

Alot of people dont understand the game of golf, not the rules or anything, infact nobody understands the god damn rules to golf.  But they dont understand the point of the game.

Yes I am not going to lie, the demographics for golf make scary reading, the average age is actually 138.  And I can admit sometimes it is a little stuck in the past, dusty is the word I would use to describe it.

Unlike many sports, you can actually see your skills progess very clearly.  This is where the challenge lies, this is the fun.  But what are the actually benefits to the game?

A weekend spent golfing ensures that you get excercise, you can meet up with people you may not see during the week and you get outside to enjoy the weather.

Gaining exercise while golfing

By far the greatest benefit of playing golf is that you get to exercise. With such busy weeks, with pressures of work and the general White noise of a week, a relaxing walk round the course is a great release.  Strolling around the golf course between one hole and another, and sometimes from one patch of trees to another,can cover 5-6 miles. In addition you are swinging your golf clubs, carrying a golf bag. It all adds up.

What can be better than trimming your beer belly while you are playing golf? Yes, it has been studied that a golf player burns approximately 370 calories each hour. So imagine, a round takes 3 to 4 hours, that is easily over 1000 calories.  So you dont have to feel guilty when you go home and eat an entire pizza, a chocloate fudge cakes which apparently was supposed to serve 3, then go down to the pub and sink more calories.

A Reason for Gathering

Secondly, golfing acts as a good reason for gathering with old friends, or even interacting with new golfers in the course and getting acquainted.

Competitions give you a chance to meet new people of all kinds. This is an outstanding chance to network and if you are in business you need to get yourself on a golf course.  But you could easily meet lifelong friends at your local course.

This sort of interaction with others is a refreshment after a hectic week.  You would not believe how nice it is to talk to people other than those from your work or your family.  It can really be a stress relief.

Enjoy the Superb Weather

Another excellent benefit of golfing is the opportunity you gain to enjoy the superb weather. As you stroll on the magnificent golf course, you can truly experience the natural weather like never before. Being surrounded by a beautiful golf course, you can really breathe in a fresh air. This also gives the chance to forget all daily life hassles as you stroll over the course, refreshing yourself.  Unfortunaltely none of that is true for me, because I live in Scotland and we get one third of a sunny day every year…but i digress.

But really, golf is a great sport for leaving everything behind.

You get the excerise, which for me is brilliant, not to exerting but actually burns quiete a lot of calories.

You get the people, which when you find people your own age with the same interest as you, is just amazing.

You get out of a stuffy house/office/car and get fresh clean brilliant air.  When lookng down a green fairway, and a blue sky, a deep inhale or freshness is just, well it is just perfection.

I get the occasional email asking for lessons form people asking how to swing.  Well this tutorial series hopefully should be your answer.  I think I might also put this into an ebook which will be a free download so you can take it to the course with you when you are pracitsing.

If you think this is a good idea post a comment and give me some feedback.  I know the majority of people that visit this site are just beginners so this is for all you out there, because swinging is the first thing you should learn to do.

So, the golf swing.  What about it?

Well it obviously is the most central part of your game.  Games have been won,  names and fortunes have been made, tournaments have been dominated all off the back of a great golf swing.

Every single professional golfer today has put in hours of work into their swing.  When you get to their level there is just something that feels natural about swinging, so whenever they swing a milimeter out of line it feels unnatural and wrong to them.

So what are we aiming for?

We are aiming for something similar to this.  The most important things is that you must feel natural when swinging.  Ideally within a few weeks you will be able to pick up a club, get into your stance, feel comfortable, swing back, follow through and hold as you watch the ball fly for miles in a straight line down the fairway.  Well, that is maybe a bit ambitious but hey, ambition is what drives success.

I will basically split it onto 4 parts:

Stance

Grip

Backswing

Follow through

Each of these are the four corner stones of a good swing technique.  It might be of value to you to subscrive to the rss feed of this blog, which you can get here http://weekendgolfer.co.uk/feed so you can get this series automatically delivered to you.

I know you can barely wait for the next exciting installment of this series so tune in (or type in, whatever it is) next time.

So what does it mean to mentally prepare?  Well lets start right at the beginning.

I am a firm believer that golf is atleast 60 percent mental. I would say 60 percent mental, 5% raw talent, 25% hard work and 10% luck.(Yes they do add up to 100%, I triple checked)  What do I mean 10% luck?  I guess IL explain that another day.

So 60 percent of your game is inside your head.  A phrase I like is, “Whether you think you can or you cant, you are probably right.”  Think about any failure you have had, 9 times out of ten you will have failed before you have even tried.

Mental preperation is balancing the mind to lean in the favour of the positive.  If you can convince yourself that you can achieve something, you can believe that you can, you will be right and you will play better golf.

Imagine Tiget stepping up to the tee box.  Do you think the even for a second he thinks “I might stick this in the trees by accident here”  Not a chance.  He is completely positive and focussed, and normally produces the results.

So yeah yeah, this is all very good, but Stuart, how do we actually do this.  Well, seeing apparently is believing, so you need to see this shot.  You can see the shot in your head.

Try this next time you are about to hit an approach shot over water onto a green the size of a kitchen.  Run through a couple of times in your head, just what it would look like to land that shot on the green next to the pin.  Imagine how it would look, imagine how great it will feel.  Doing this enough you can easily convince yourself it is reality.  Do this consistently and I am willing to bet you are going to start hitting better shots and pulling shots off your round.

My other tip for mental preperation is never let any thoughts other than positive visualisations into your mind.  we constantly have a whole backlog of thoughts on our mind, washing, bills, ironing, children…  These must be put out your mind completely.

This can be difficult, but not impossible.  When you are out on the course, take a few deap breathes.  Smell the fresh grass, and the clean cool air.  When I do this I am taken away by nature. Admire the trees and feel yourself slip away from the stresses and toils of yesterday and today.

So now this backlog is away, we need to eliminate al thoughts of failure.  Again it is difficult not to think about something, because concentrating on not thinking of it, naturally makes you think of it.

The way round this is to go on the offensive, not defensive.  Actively think of other things, like how you are going to make this shot.  This is what we call focus.

By actively thinking how to play this shot as oppsoed to how not to play this shot you will surprise yourself how “in the zone” you become.  This ultimately leads to you playing better golf.

This stuff really is easy to start mastering, you can do it next time you are at the course, and believe me you will notice a difference.

I am interested to know, how much of the game do you think is mental?  What are your tips for mental mastery?

1.  Tiger’s real name is not Tiger.  I know right!  It is actually Eldrick Tont Woods.  Shocker.

2.  Tiger has won an estimated $110 million just from competition wins.  This does not include any sponsorship money.

3.  Tiger is a charitable man that has his own foundation that does great work with children.  Starting as a golf clinic it has now expanded to several activities.

4. Tiger is a member of the California hall of fame.  He was inducted on the 5th of December 2007.

5. Due to his sponsorship deal with Buick, Tiger gave a Ford Gt he won in a competition to his caddy.  It is universally agreed this is the coolest gift ever.

The way around this is to put back spin on the ball. Be aware though this is very challenging and should only really be attempted by players with a handicap under 20.

The basis of the shot is actually very simple, but pulling it off in rhythm and gaining the desired outcome is very difficult.

Start of with your stance. Have your feet slightly closer together than usual. Also position the ball around your back foot.

Next your grip. You may want to choke the club a little, that is to position your hands further down the grip than normal. Your grip should just be normal, but should be solid, as keeping the club steady is extremely important.

For this shot, you need to use a club with enough loft to obtain the desired result. A flop wedge, lob wedge, a high degree(60 and over) are all acceptable. Sand wedges and pitch wedges can be used but require more skill to put the spin on the ball.

Now for your swing. When swinging the club, you should keep it closer to your body than usual. One good way of thinking about this is swinging on a steeper plain. Swing back to normal height then consider your follow through.

Aim to hit the ball just before it is in contact with ground. You need to focus on getting it up in the air by getting the club underneath the ball. Then follow through by taking a long but shallow divot. It is like you are scooping up the ground. Now continue through as normal.

Some other important points are that you need to keep the grooves on your club face clean. These are essentially what provide the contact with the ball and will give it spin so clean contact is needed here.

Clean contact is needed all throughout the shot. If you make even the slightest of errors when striking the ball shot shot will not go where you want it. This shot requires a lot of delicacy and poise, which is why it is so hard and impossible for beginners.

The type of ball used will help here as well. A soft ball, often with spin written on the side of them, will be much easier to apply spin to, than a hard ball, which is design for distance. Ask your pro for help when choosing a suitable ball. As a side note, spin is easier to play on higher trajectory shots, such as approach or pitch shots, but it can be played on your longer shots.

Finally this shot does require practise. Spend some of you time on the driving range applying spin to your shots. Start with your high irons and eventually, you may be able to hit lower irons with back spin as well.

There are two approaches to short putts

Somepeople try to drop the ball into the hole, ie putt the ball so it just makes it into the hole and no more. In doing this they need to take into account even the smallest of changes in the level or lay of the green.

The other approach is to hit the ball with some force, straight towards the hole. This takes any element of lay out of the equation, as the ball has enough velocity to cancel out any effect the ground has on its path. However, if the line is out than any more than half an inch, the ball could roll well past the hole and even off the green. You need to decide which method is for you.

The first method requires more skill in reading the greens. This is probably for more advanced player. Do not let this put you off if you are only a beginner, the only way to become better at it is through practise.

The second method requires more accuracy in your line. This also requires practise. We will talk about practise method later.

The technical side off things

As usual, visualise your shot and know which method you want to use. There is nothing worse than indecision when putting. Take your stance and focus on you target.

For short putts, I like to have my feet slightly closer together, and hold the club slighty further down the shaft. This is just really personal preference. It makes me feel like a more solid, smaller unit, and I feel I have more controll over the ball. When you are ready, swing the club back slowly untill the putter head is about in line wth your ankle. There really should not be much of a backswing. Pause at the top, then swing down and push thorugh the ball.

It is important to keep you head down, well after the ball has gone. Make a concious effort not to look where the ball has gone.

Both of these methods require immense accuracy. To improve, there is a simple game that can be used.

When practising your putting, instead of putting at the hole, take an ordinary tee, and dig it into the grass just at the back of the hole. Now instead of putting at the hole, putt at the tee. Keep doing this and your accuracy will improve. Then once you go back to putting at a normal sized hole, the hole will feel much bigger and you will have no problems slotting the ball home.

A great book on this subject that I would recommend reading is “Putting out of your mind” by Dr. Bob Rotella. He is the sports psychologist of choice among the world’s top golfers, and a established author. If you can read any of his books, it will really assist your game.

This is where your Game Mentality comes in. For more information on this go to our Game Mentality section.

There are a couple other things you can do to hit better shots in these situations. As with every procedure listed on this site, the first step is always visualizing the shot. You know you can hit good shots, so why should this time be any different.

Perhaps imagine a successful drive you have hit there before. Remember what it was like, and where it ended up.

Now this is the important point number one. BEFORE you step up to your ball, you have got to blank out any people standing nearby, any fears you might have, any feelings of embarrassment. You need to remember, these thoughts will cause you to mess up your shot, and they will cause you fear, embarrassment.

At this stage they are only thoughts, so you can still deal with them. I must emphasis how important it is to clear your mind before you stand over your ball. I know, I have been stood there staring at my ball, thinking negative thoughts. You need to focus. If you can do this, you will hit a brilliant shot.

Next take your normal stance, normal grip and everything. This is the important point number two. If you do not fell good about your shot, stance, anything, PULL AWAY. Take a step back and start from the beginning. This is your body’s natural way of telling you, something is out of place. Even take a few deep breathes in you want.

When you are ready just whip the ball away with your normal swing. When you do hit a good shot, take the opportunity to pose by holding your swing for a couple of seconds and watching your ball fly away into the distance.

There is no better confidence boost than nailing your first drive in front of the clubhouse. So to recap on the important points, clear your head before you enter your routine, and if it don’t feel right, it ain’t, so pull away.

Follow these steps, and with a bit of positive thinking, you will impress yourself and others.

For more information on game mentality, visit our Game Mentality section.