In this article, we’ll talk about 10 tips for improving your golf swing. As a golf coach, this is the best advice I can give you to make your shots straighter the next time you play and to become a great golfer over time.
10 Best Tips to Improve your Golf Swing:
1. Improve your Golf Grip for Straighter Shots
Your golf grip is the only part of your golf swing that connects the golf club to the rest of your swing. How your golf club is positioned at impact is the biggest factor in how straight your shots go. Working backward, your golf grip has the biggest effect on how well you can play the game.
Here is a simple step-by-step guide that will help you check and improve your golf grip. Check out this article for a complete guide on how to hold a golf club. If you’re serious about getting better at golf, you should definitely read it.
2. Use your Left hand to Control Direction
As a follow-up to golf tip number one, once you’ve mastered your grip, you can use the back of your left hand to control the face of your club and the direction of your shot.
Try pointing the back of your left hand to the left of where you want to hit the ball when you swing through your golf shot. This will help you draw the ball by closing the face of your club. When you hit the ball, your club face will open up if you point the back of your left hand to the right of your target. This will help you fade the ball.
Many good golfers try to keep the back of their left hand pointed at the target for as long as possible after impact. This keeps the club face pointing in the direction of their target, which can really help them hit their target.
3. Refine your Golf Stance for a Better Strike
Many golfers find it hard to consistently hit the middle of the golf club. This is usually because they haven’t set up their clubs properly. A good golf stance puts your body in a position that is athletic and balanced. From this spot, you can turn freely and keep your balance during the whole golf swing.
Set up with a balanced, athletic stance and the ball in the middle of the face of the club. From here, all you have to do to hit the middle of the club face more often is keep your balance until the end of your golf swing.
4. Hit Down on your Iron Shots to get the Ball up
Most new golfers mess up because they think they need to “help the ball get up into the air.” Great golfers hit the ball down with their irons and let the club’s loft do the work. Golf irons are made to be used this way: hit down and let the loft of the club help lift the ball into the air.
You can try to pick the ball up cleanly off the ground, but it takes good timing. Take a look at Tiger’s downswing below. He drives down into his iron shots, which is the opposite of what most beginners do.
There are a few details that help explain how to do this, but if you want to learn more, check out this article on “why do I fatten and thin my iron shots?” It has some great tips and drills to help you hit the ball better. You might also want to check out this article about the best irons for improving your game.
5. Master your Golf Swing
Golfers love to give each other tips, and sometimes they give too many tips. The goal of golf is to make a simple swing that you can do over and over again to hit the ball where you want. Try not to get stuck in the trap of trying to perfect how your golf swing looks.
Focus on what really matters and make your own golf swing that works for you.
Many of your playing partners may point out parts of your golf swing that “don’t look right,” but just because your backswing isn’t textbook doesn’t mean it’s causing your 45-yard slice.
Finding the one thing that is causing poor performance and explaining how to fix it is what makes a good coach. Check out this link to learn more about how to fix a slice.
6. The Golf Ball only Cares about Impact
This golf tip is nerdy, but it’s very important: the golf ball only cares about hitting the ground.
I know that we like to talk about the mechanics of the golf swing, but in reality, you can dance at the top of your backswing. What really matters is the effect. Each golf shot is caused by a different mix of the five things below at the moment of impact:
- Where you hit the ball on the face is called “centredness of strike.”
- Club faces angle at impact is how your club face is facing when it hits the ball.
- Swing path through impact – the direction your club head is going
- The angle of attack at impact: how steeply the club is going down or up when it hits the ball.
- Club head speed at impact – how fast the club head is moving when it hits the ball
All of the golf shots you can hit are made up of these factors. For example, a sliced drive is caused by a swing path that goes from outside to inside and an open clubface. A fat wedge shot is made when the ball doesn’t hit the middle of the clubface and the angle of attack is wrong.
Beginners usually make bad shots because they don’t hit the middle of the clubface. When you hit the middle of the clubface, you’ll be surprised at how few bad shots you make.
7. Count to Improve your Tempo
On the golf course, many golfers struggle with swinging the club too quickly. To fix this, try counting “1” when you start your swing, “2” when you reach the top of your backswing, “3” when you hit the ball, and “4” when you finish in a balanced way.
This simple idea can work wonders and keep you from overthinking.
8. Take an Extra Club and Swing Smooth
Trackman found that more than 65% of amateur golfers’ shots from 160 yards fall short of the target. The amateurs will hit 8–10% more greens if they add 10 yards to every shot.
Take an extra club and make a smooth golf swing to help you do this. This will help you hit your iron shots the right distance, and if you swing slower, you’ll probably also be more accurate.
A good golf swing is one that is easy to do.
9. Allow for your Miss
Beginners often aim straight down the fairways and at the flagstick wherever it is on the green.
Pros, on the other hand, will favor one side of the fairway and give themselves more room for a bad shot (a hook or a slice). In the same way, pros usually aim for the middle of the green because it is too dangerous to aim directly at flagsticks that are hidden behind bunkers or are on the edge of the green.
To get better scores, plan each shot, think about where you can miss and where you can’t, and choose a target that gives you the best chance of success.
10. Pick a Clear Target
Beginners love to think a lot about their golf swing and not much about where they want to hit the ball. This makes your brain focus much more on making a good golf swing and much less on where the ball will go.
Choose the top of a tree or a small target in the distance to aim for when you hit the ball off the tee. When hitting into the green, pick a small target near the middle of the green and focus on making a great swing toward that point.
If you just change how you think, your golf shots will be more accurate and you’ll be much less stressed out when you play.
