How to hit the fairway

I spent a lot of years fighting the dreaded slice. I fixed this with one simple swing thought that has helped me to hit the ball straight more often than not. On my back swing, I simply think about not letting my hip turn to the right as I go back. on the downswing, I just let it go and the result is that I hit more fairways than I used to do. If I start hooking the ball a little bit, I stop thinking about the hip turn and just hit the ball.

Over 40 Golf

As we grow/age in the sport of golf, we should and need to set one goal each year to push improvement in the game. I found that my swing seemed to get shorter as I age and flexibility became an issue. If you look at the younger players (my two 20 something son's) they had the flexibility and this gave them 50 plus yards off the tee on me and this distance was getting longer every year. I was feeling good to get around 200 yards out of my drives. During one of the early 2007 PGA events on TV, I saw Kenny Perry hinging his wrists at takeaway and hitting the ball as far as the "young guns". The commentators mentioned how his distance had improved and they then isolated the TV camera to his wrists and showed that he effectively lengthened his swing by hinging his wrists at the moment of takeaway. I put that mental thought in my mind and went to the driving range the next day to try this little lesson for myself. I found that it did in fact lengthen my swing and I also started noticing the club head peripherally out of my left eye at the top of the back swing. I had never seen this vision before out of my left eye and found to my delight that the drives were going farther than I had ever hit them in my life. On the course, I block out the thoughts of noticing the club from my left eye and focus on my one "key" swing thought at address. I now incorporate the mental swing thought at takeaway to push down with my left hand to create this hinge effect on every shot. I am still not out-distancing my kids all the time, but I am within 10 yards either side of them these days. They don't know my little trick and think that I have a new driver. It drives them crazy, especially because now I have the distance and I almost always hit the ball straighter than them. I will explain in my next article the two simple tricks I use to hit the ball straighter and into more fairways than they do.