The Best Golf Bags

We compiled these tips for your next golf session. Not only will you have a new golf bag, but you'll have some good tips to try out!

Golf might be the calmest sport, but that doesn't mean it's any less popular than its more action-packed counterparts. In fact, more than 20 million Americans love to play golf. Unlike high-impact sports, golf relies on precision accuracy most of all. You need to understand the physics involved in your golf swing to maximize your results. Still, that's not the only thing you need to work on. To sharpen your game, take a look at these tips for improving your golf swing!

1. Know Your Neutral Hand Position

Anyone can pick up a club and strike a ball with brute force. Improving your swing means paying attention to how you hold your club.

Find Your Neutral Position

To find your neutral position, stand up, and let your arms dangle at your sides. Now look at your hands and look at the way they're angled. You can clearly see your index finger's knuckle, and behind that is the knuckle of your middle finger. This is what you should see when you're gripping your golf club.Duplicating this grip allows you to naturally square the clubface more consistently. This makes it more likely that you'll hit the ball at the center of the clubhead.

Gripping the Club

Put your dominant hand on the club and lightly hold it so that your thumb points down. You should still see your middle and index knuckles from this position. Many beginner golfers point the V-shaped gap between their index finger and thumb towards their chin. You should actually point this toward your rear shoulder. Now put your other hand below the dominant hand, maintaining a neutral position.

Improving Grip

There are three basic grips to strengthen your hands:

• Vardon: This is the most common grip. You lift your non-dominant pinky finger and fit it between your dominant middle and index fingers.
• Interlocking: Another common grip, the interlock works for people with less strength in their hands, wrists, or forearms. You literally lock the fingers together by wrapping the non-dominant pinky around the dominant index finger.
• Ten-finger: Absolute beginners and players with joint pain find this grip best. Simply put your non-dominant pinky adjacent to the dominant index finger.

Finding the right grip for you is the best way to improve your golf swing. It gives you the most control over your swing, helping you impact the ball solidly on the face of the club. It also gives your wrists hinge, which gives your swing more power overall. Don't worry about feeling like a beginner because you prefer the ten-finger baseball grip, either; different professional athletes use all three of these grips in real tournaments! Choose whatever gives you the most control over the club.

2. Perfect Your Stance

Turn on any golf tournament, and you can see how effortless the pros make a great golf swing look. On the other hand, beginners can often find themselves entirely missing the ball because they're not standing correctly.

Relax Your Stance

To avoid a comedy of errors that leaves you on the ground next to your tee, take some time to correct your stance:

• Align yourself: Imagine there are railroad tracks connecting your tee and the green. The ball is on the outer rail, and your body is on the inner rail.
• Spread your feet: Maintain a shoulder-width stance, balancing your weight on the balls of your feet.
• Correct your posture: Keep your spine straight, bend at the hips, and slightly flex your knees.
• Relax your body: Don't grip the club too hard. Remember the neutral position. Don't tense your body, either.

Coupled with the right grip, the proper stance will set you up for intense swings. You'll stay in balance, strike the ball accurately, and won't struggle to follow through with the motion.

Practicing Your Stance with Drills

A simple three-step drill can help you practice getting into a consistent stance.Stand at a shoulder-width stance and keep your body perfectly straight. Don't bend your knees yet. Extend your arms and hold your golf club in front of you.Now you can slightly bend your knees, lowering your arms until they're against your chest. At this point, the club should remain parallel to the ground. Imagine how you'd look if you tried to sit on a high bar stool. You only need to bend a couple of inches before you reach the seat. Finally, you can slowly bend forward at the waist. Stop when the club head touches the floor. This will be your perfect setup. If you perform the above steps correctly, you will feel the weight of your body shifting to your feet. Your hands will align themselves right under your chin. Your spine will tilt forward but remain relaxed.

3. Getting More Power

Most golfers love those moments when they shatter the ball right off the tee. There's something sensational about the sound of a ball popping off the dead center of a well-aimed club head. You can almost feel the energy vibrate back into your teeth. Unfortunately, most players find these magnificent moments arrive seemingly at random. If you're desperate to add some distance to your golf swing, it's essential to be blunt about your weaknesses. Only then can you address them and figure out how to efficiently draw more power into every swing.

Signs You Need More Power

Let's take a look at some common reasons you might not have the power in your swing you'd like:

• Do you always release early?
• Do you move your lower body before the upper half?
• Do you struggle to grip your club correctly?

Like we mentioned before, you won't get the power you need without the correct grip. Once you're sure you have that figured out, examine how you rotate your body when swinging the club. Remember, your lower body should only rotate after the upper body rotates.

Finding Rhythm and Balance

After focusing on the basics, you can focus on the rhythm and balance required for a good swing. Here's a drill that can help you work on both:

• Two Balls: Put two golf balls on the ground, so they're right next to each other but not touching. Slip your club between the two and swing without hitting both balls. If you tap the back ball when you swing, you're hurrying too much!
• Counting Game: Start repeating "one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand" at a slow, steady pace. Once you hit a consistent beat, swing your club back on the "one" and bring it down on the "two." Keep practicing this drill, and you'll find your rhythm improve!

4. Improving Your Chipping Game

Honestly, chipping is not the most exciting part of a golf game. So far, we've talked about hitting a ball powerfully off the tee. You could also apply the same techniques for a long drive from any green terrain, or even an accurate putt on the green. Chipping usually means that best-case scenario, you're hurrying to save par. It's not often the swing that drives home how well you're paying. Because of this, golfers too regularly ignore their chipping game or otherwise fail to periodically practice it.

Learning to Chip Lowers Your Scores

This may come as a surprise, but improving your chipping swings is one of the fastest ways to lower your game scores. Think about it: If you don't get on the green and don't chip well, you're almost guaranteed to get a bogey. On the other hand, if you get a useful chip, you stand a much higher chance to keep your par and stay in the tournament.

How to Improve Your Chips

Choose just one club to master your chipping swings with. With practiced technique, you can hit all kinds of shots using this one club, which improves confidence in all of your rhythms over time. We'd recommend the sand wedge for this task, but use whatever gives you consistent results. Before chipping, walk to the hole and think about where you want to make your final putt from. Unless you manage to hit the hole in one go, you'll have to putt from somewhere. Narrowing down this area will make it easier to get out of the sand. If flat terrain surrounds the hole, the read isn't as essential; you just need to reach as close to the hole as you can from the chip. If the hole rests on a slope, then make sure you aim so the putt is uphill. Putting five feet uphill is almost always easier than putting downhill at three feet. Keep that in mind when you point your chip shot.

5. Practice Like It's Your Job

If there's one common theme you should notice from the other tips, it's that you need to practice regularly. Serious golfers perform drills to sharpen their accuracy, rhythm, and swing power. They address specific flaws in your movements and can even help you strategize on the course more thoughtfully.

Reducing Tension and Lengthening Your Swing

Tensing your body can make your swing too fast, and the lousy tempo kills your speed and accuracy. On the driving range, put a ball on the ground. Stand so the club is two feet away from the tee, and take a big practice swing. Then move forward so the club is only one foot away and practice that same, tension-free swing. Finally, put the club behind the ball and swing without hesitation, striking the ball.

Increase Club Head Speed

Less experienced golfers struggle with shifting their weight from their dominant to their non-dominant leg on the downswing. As a result, the speed of the clubhead suffers. On the driving range, take an iron and practice a three-quarter swing. As you finish the follow-through, lift your dominant foot all the way off the ground. If you can't do this, you're keeping too much weight on it for too long. Practice this drill until you can comfortably raise your dominant foot while balancing on the other.

Rotating, Not Sliding, Your Hips

If your hips slide too quickly, the upper and lower halves of your body get out of sync. This will hook your shots, and that will devastate your straight shot to the green. Picture a wall just outside of your front foot. When you swing, finish so your belt buckle presses against this invisible wall. The goal is to keep your non-dominant leg firm as your upper torso rotates on the downswing. If you struggle to keep the image of the wall in your mind, you can stick an umbrella in the ground a few inches outside your dominant foot. If you bump the umbrella when you swing, you're sliding too far to the side than you should.

Imaginary Golf at Home

This isn't daydreaming from childhood: This is a mental focus drill. Take your driver and imagine the first hole of the course you regularly play in. In particular, keep in mind how vast the fairway is. Hit the drive and see if your shot lands in this zone. Estimate the distance and imagine how far you'd have to hit on your next shot. Then get the right club, pick your target, and swing the club again. Next, imagine the second hole and repeat the steps. Keep it going for either nine or 18 holes. This drill can do wonders for your confidence and accuracy when you return to the real course.

Never Stop Learning!

With these tips in mind, you're well on your way to improving your golf swing and lowering your score. Keep on practicing and keep yourself educated, and you'll find your scores improving along the way.