Golf, The Effortless Way

I'm going to show you that playing golf the effortless way, is not only the way to get the most fun out of golf, but also the best way of getting results. None of you reading this article is a pro, much less one of the top pros, you're probably not even a low handicapper, so lets get things into perspective first.

If you are like the other 80% of golfers and play once a week or less during the season and aspire to get your handicap into single figures or maybe even just break 100, then you are going to have to stop trying to emulate the tournament pros. They play a different game from the rest of us, they practice daily and have coaches for every facet of their game, so leave them alone and stop analyzing their swing and every other part of their game.

It is more important to have a straight shot and know where the ball is going to land than to be able to hit the ball the maximum distance for each club you use, it's also important to conserve energy so that you can finish the round comfortably without any strain or undue tiredness. Playing golf the effortless way, or put the other way, playing golf with too much effort is the most overlooked fault that most golfers have.

If you are always trying to hit the golf ball as if it was fired from a canon, then you are using far too much energy, your accuracy will be off and possibly produce a slice or a hook, your distance will be off as sometimes you will get it just right and hit it long and, more often than not you wont hit it right and get much less distance from your shot, or worse, just flunk the shot entirely.

The pros have spent a long time, and put a lot of effort, into optimizing their swing. The point is that they had a solid swing to build on, they had all the basics working and ingrained in their muscle memory before they built it up to the swing they have today. It's those basic principles that we have to concentrate on first and the most important of them is to get rid of all the variable bits of the swing that can cause problems.

The first thing you have to do is play a short back swing, the longer the back swing the more room there is for your swing to be on the wrong plane and the easier it is for you to go out of balance. There is no need for a full back swing, that would come under the heading of optimizing, at this stage a full follow through would be more beneficial than a full back swing.

Secondly, speed. There is a great tendency for high handicappers to swing too quickly, both the back swing and the forward swing. Again, there is no need for any great speed and the faster you swing the more your timing will be out and your balance will be affected.

Finally, power. Hitting the golf ball hard is never a good golf shot, golf just does not work that way. Power is produced by the speed of the club head as it passes through the impact zone and not by how hard you hit the ball, and speed is something that can best be worked on once the basics are mastered.

To sum up, concentrate on two things, balance and taking an easy effortless swing. You'll be surprised just how straight, far and consistently you hit the ball by paying attention to just these two elements of your game. With this new found consistency comes a confidence and real enjoyment, once you can predict where the ball will land, you can bring course management into your play and make a real difference to your score.

So, go on, give it a try, play golf the effortless way.