I’ve put together a couple of great golf tips to cure your slice and hook and help you get more distance and more fairways. Being able to drive a golf ball straight is a result of practice, but fixing small issues with your swing can help you improve quickly. Let’s assume you have at least developed a good consistent golf swing. Regardless, after impact your golf ball is flying right or left.

There are a lot of ways to try to correct this problem. Don’t be too concerned, millions of golfers have corrected a slice or hook, so you can too. In fact, I’d only briefly hesitate to say that the majority of golfers have a consistent slice. Also, there are usually corresponding problems, like pop-ups and over correction.

Do you usually hook it right after cracking a horrible slice? That’s how I used to play. So you’re not alone. It’s possible the reason you have problems with your slice or hook is an off-plane backswing. This is one of the major things you need to overcome to learn how to drive a golf ball straight.

Let me give you a great tip. Try holding your golf club parallel above the ground across your shoulders. If you are right handed your clubhead should be on your right. Address the bass and take a backswing. Now, just a caution. This drill of often done incorrectly. See, your shaft shouldn’t point at the ball. If it does then your angle is too steep – which is what may be causing your slice. On the other hand, a flat golf swing that results in your handle aiming beyond the ball leads to a hook. To drive a golf ball straight your handle, over your left shoulder if you are a right-hander, should be aiming about a foot past the ball. If it is you have got it right. Now practice integrating this shoulder motion into a smooth swing and you’re almost there.

Let me give you another example of a drill that can be effective. If you are a right-hander, put your watch on your left wrist (if it isn’t already). Now sneak a pen under the watch face pointing into the back of your left hand. Take a swing. Did the pen dig into your hand? If it did, then you’re cupping your wrist at the top of the backswing. This will cause a wide rotation of the clubface and you’ll have to compensate in your downswing. Doing anything that causes you to have to compensate is a mistake. You need to have your left wrist flatter at the top of your take-back. That will help open your clubface at impact. Don’t overdo it though. Bowing your wrist will have the opposite effect, causing you to exaggerate your hook.

Practice is the only way to eliminate all of these small problems and overcome a slice or a hook. Finally, take note of your head position. This can have a big impact on whether you are able to get a clean inside-out swing. Usually, this will only cause a subtle slice. But if you can eliminate this you should. I find taking my focus off the golf ball and onto the swing path helps here. Otherwise my swing tends to follow down the target line instead of coming from the inside. You could try rotating your head to the right for a right-hander so that your eyes go ‘inside-out’ and off the line.

These golf tips should help you to hit the golf ball straight and stop the cutting motion at impact that is one of the biggest problems for most golfers. If you can get control of this then you are also in a good position to start developing a well executed and controlled draw. Learning how to drive a golf ball straight can be very hard. You need to practice these golf tips to succeed. Don’t give up. If I can do it and millions of other golfers can then so can you.

The topic for our article today is golf iron shots. You have hit a good drive and now it`s time to hit a quality iron shot. There are many factors that come into play but, for today, we are going to review four (4) tips that will help us to hit quality shots and, in turn, lower our golf scores.

These golf tips will help you to go through the thought process that will produce quality golf shots. You will be amazed how quickly your golf scores will come down. Just using some common sense can dramatically effect how we play and our golf scores, plus, did I mention, your enjoyment of the game!

Four (4) Golf Iron Shot Tips

1. Stay within yourself.

Don`t try to hit your seven (7) iron one hundred and seventy (170) yards when your best seven iron shot only goes one hundred and fifty (150) yards. Hit the club that will get to the target with a comfortable swing, no overswinging! Also, when you are determining the yardage for your shot, be sure to take into account the position of the pin on the green. By this I mean, even though you are standing at the one fifty (150) marker, you might be one hundred and sixty five (165) yards to the pin if the pin is at the back of a large green, or one hundred and thirty five (135) yards if the pin is in the front. You don`t want to back off of your golf swing but you also don`t want to be grunting!

2. Know how far you hit each iron.

I know you have seen this and it really slows down play. What I am talking about is watching someone pacing of their yardage to the pin and you know, full well, that they have no clue how far they hit each iron shot. So, my point is, that we need to spend some time at the driving/practice range, to find out how far we hit each iron shot. Now, we probably are not going to know how far each iron shot goes, to the yard, like the tour pros do but we can find out within a five (5) yard range. There is nothing more frustrating than hitting a good drive and following that up with a well hit shot and the golf ball ends up ten yards short or long. If we expect to hit the correct shot, we need to know how far we hit each iron.

3. Play the shot that your lie will allow.

We need to survey our lie and determine how the lie is going to effect our shot. By this I mean, if we a playing summer rules, no preferred lies, the lie will dictate what kind of shot we have to play. If the lie is less than perfect, we need to adjust where we play the golf ball in our stance. With a poor lie, we need to move the ball back in our stance so that we will be able to make solid contact. You also need to adjust for downhill, uphill and sidehill lies.

In general, we need to adjust our stance to follow the contour of the fairway for uneven lies, keeping in mind that uphill lies will add loft to your shots (hit more club) and downhill will take loft off of our shots (hit less club).

4. Play the percentages.

Here’s a question. If the best players in the world aim away from some pins then should not we do the same? If the pin is on the side of the green near a bunker, water hazard or out of bounds, it may make sense not to try to hit directly at the pin but hit your iron shot to the safer part of the green. We have to measure, the percentages, our chances of pulling off a shot. The best in the world do it! So, next time you are getting ready to hit your iron shot, stop to think of what is your best percentage play. This alone will shave numerous strokes of your golf score.

Also, remember there is a right and wrong side of the green to miss on. You would prefer to miss the green on the side away from where the pin is placed on the green. This gives you the best chance to get up and down for your par, if you miss the green.

Those are four (4) iron shot tips. There are many more, that we will discuss in future articles. But for now, if you follow these golf tips, you will dramatically increase your pars and decrease those bogeys and dreaded others!