Tiger Woods Antics, Animated!

I don't normally comment much on the happenings in the world of professional golf.  Don't get me wrong I love to play golf and I love to watch a professional golfing event when I get the chance.  I especially enjoyed watching Darren Clarke win the British Open (I refuse to call it "The Open") recently.  Its just that the way I play the game and what they do on television are two totally different things to me.  I came across this animated video depicting Tiger Woods' recent struggles and I thought I would share it since it made me laugh.  I believe it is narrated in Japanese but it does have english subtitles.

Drive it farther or Hit long irons better

For hack golfers like myself, it is a lot harder to put a 3 iron shot onto the green than it is to put a 7 iron up there.  Unfortunately, my drives usually leave me in a position where I am much longer than a 7 iron out on my approach shot.  I figure there are two solutions to this problem.  The first one is to drive the ball farther.  For me, it seems the harder I swing with my driver the less desirable the result is.  The second solution to the problem is to hit my long irons better.  I told a 2-handicap friend of mine that I could not hit my long irons and I was getting to the point that I was afraid to pull them out of the bag.  He simply said “choke up”.  This advice helped me get over my fear of the 3 iron but that doesn’t mean that I can put it where I want.  Here are a few videos which may help you do one or the other better:
Drive it Farther:

Hit Long Irons Better: Watch video and read this article.

Try this to cure your slice....

If you like to slice your drives off of the tee than one of the potential culprits is an open club face at impact.  This video shows a couple of drills to try to cure your slice. 

Pop Flies

Hitting a nice drive is always a great way to start off a hole.  It gives you confidence to complete the rest of the hole, which is a big part of it.  Don’t get me wrong I have started out plenty of holes with great drives (for me) and still ended up scoring miserably.  Often times I get what feels like a decent swing with the driver, but ends up as more of a “pop fly”.  Which leads smart-ass comments from my equally-hack buddies which inevitably elude to baseball.  “…and he pops out to shallow left field.”, "Nice hit, Magglio", etc.  On the next tee box-or, cough, if I tee up a mulligan- my natural reaction is to try to tee the ball lower.  I always thought that pop files came from having the ball teed up too high.  PGA instructor Frank O’Connell shows in this video that is not necessarily true. He suggests the next time you fly out to right field, go against your natural instincts and try teeing up the ball a little higher.