Most golfers will admit to experiencing a lull in their performance on the course at some point or another, and many of us will empathise with the feeling of sheer horror that you might never re-find your form.
This can happen to golfers at any level, whether a high-handicap amateur golfer or a former Major Champion. However, with the right expert tips and the necessary practise, it's possible to once again surge back to your best.
Former US Open Champion Lucas Glover is a great example of that. After becoming a Major winner and picking up two further PGA Tour titles, Glover went more than 10 years without winning on tour before capturing three trophies in just over 25 months.
In this article, Lucas Glover shares five expert tee-to-green tips in order to help you play your best golf...
1. Driver
Alignment is critical with the driver. You need to make sure that your shoulders and your feet are pointed properly towards the target that you have picked out. Ball position is key as well. You don’t want to be cramping yourself and have the ball too far back in your stance. You want it to be off your front foot so you can hit up on your drives.
Rhythm is also a big key. You want to feel like your swing is fast but not rushed. Swing within yourself. Those are the three things with driving that I focus on. Once you have checkpoints for those three things on each drive, it will give you a lot of confidence for your execution.
Start with the basics as those never change. Don’t let yourself get bored by the simple stuff. The simple stuff is very important on every swing with your driver.
2. Iron Play
Start on the ground with your iron play as you check off your list. Ball position is very important. It varies for me with each iron by a small fraction. I just really try to make sure on all of my iron shots that I’m hitting down on it. I really want to compress the ball on every shot. That’s a good way to think about it as you go through impact.
I think a lot of people try to get it in the air instead of letting the club do the work. It really comes down to the simple stuff, the loft is there to get the ball in the air comfortably, and to do that you actually have to hit down on it.
Higher-handicappers try to lift it and it doesn’t change for us pros either. But you’ve got to compress and hit down on it to create spin and height.
3. Chipping
It depends on the type of shot you’re playing, but often you want to compress your chip shots as well. So many amateurs try to lift it and end up hitting it thin and way too far, or they chunk it.
You need to learn how to hit chip shots solidly first and then practise it. Then you can work on the height of your shots and play around with it a little bit. But for the most part, it’s all about solid contact. You want to have that as your swing thought and then hit down on the ball.
Yes, you can get a little more wristy and floppier on high, lob shots, but for the most part in chipping you want to be hitting down on it.
4. Green Reading
Green reading is the most important ‘shot’ that nobody ever talks about. It’s the most important shot that you actually never really hit. You could hit a lot of great putts during your round but if you’re not reading them well then it doesn’t even matter. When I struggle with green reading it makes the game so frustrating. I feel like I can roll it well, but if my reads get off it’s an uphill battle.
It’s important to remember that good green reading can come and go, just like anything else. You can get on a run of reading your greens well but then you also hope you’re hitting your lines. And if you’re hitting your lines, you hope you’re reading the greens well, especially at this level. You see a lot of different techniques these days for green reading but I still try to play with my eyes and just see where I want to start each putt.
5. Putting
Ball position and alignment are very important for me with putting as I set up over the ball. Eye position is a big key as well. Depending on your stroke you will want your eye position to be just inside the ball or on top of the ball. For me, it’s pretty much right on top of the ball.
Then, with putting, you want to use your bigger muscles in the stroke. I just try to use my shoulders in the putting stroke as much as I can, especially with this long broomstick putter I’m using.
