Improve Your Golf - Tips on Correct Swing and Correct Grip Techniques

Improve Your Golf - Tips on Correct Swing and Correct Grip Techniques

If you want to improve your golf, some advice on correct swing and correct grip techniques will certainly help since your golf swing is the most important part of your golf game to perfect. There are many aspects to improving your golf game on which you might want to focus, but your swing is the most important of them.

If we target correct grip techniques first, it is important that you understand the effect of your grip on the direction of the ball. We are assuming here that you are not a beginner, and that you have a basic understanding of the effect of spin on the direction a golf ball will take after the strike, and that you are also aware of the basic components of a good swing.

Adjustments to your grip can be used to correct problems such as the dreaded slice or hook, but by using the correct grip you can also control these faults to use a fade or a draw to drive round obstacles such as trees, or bring your ball into the green on a much better trajectory. In fact that is one of the major ways in which you can improve your golf game.

As an example, by strengthening your grip - that is moving your hands more clockwise round the shaft than your normal grip - you can impart clockwise spin on the ball that will bend it from left to right. Do that inadvertently and you will slice the ball, but if you use that golf grip in a controlled way, and move your stance so that your feet are aiming left of target, then you can spin and bend the ball from left to right into the flag rather than straight at it. You could use that grip to avoid a greenside bunker, or to allow the ball to run to a flag placed in an otherwise awkward position to reach.

Switch your grip the other way - counter-clockwise - and place your feet to right of target, then you can draw the ball into the green from right to left. Another grip technique you can use to improve your golf involves using a lower grip down the shaft on chip shots where you want to use less of a backswing, but it's important with all of these that you also get your feet placed right and use the correct swing technique to go with the shot.

You can also improve your golf by using various training aids to correct swing problems, examples being the swing plane trainer and the weighted club. The swing plane trainer helps you to correct problems with your swing plane: the circle that your club head makes between the upswing and follow through. These should occur in one plane for maximum control, and there are various types of golf training devices to help you achieve that, ranging from the large circular devices you see at driving ranges to lasers attached to your club head.

A very important aspect of your swing is flexibility, and golf flexibility exercises can help considerably in enabling you to improve your golf swing. A correct swing technique is a twisting and rotational movement that is not natural to the human body, and the more flexible your joints and muscles then the more capable you will be of executing this movement correctly and effectively.

You also need strength to hit the ball and follow through at speed, let alone the stamina required for you to play at maximum ability throughout 18 holes. Strength and flexibility exercises to improve your golf fitness cannot be done in a gym, and traditional weight-lifting training is not involved. A weighted club can be used to swing in order to build up those muscles used during the rotational movement needed in a correct swing, and a medicine ball or other weight can be used at arms length to help you twist your body from side to side while sitting in a chair.

There is more to training your golf swing than just playing golf, and many of the exercises that can be used improve your suppleness, flexibility and golf strength can be carried out at home or in the office. Here's an example:

1. Sit upright in a chair with a medicine ball, heavy book or any other weight in your hands.
2. Hold your arms straight out in front of you, and twist as far as you can to the right - hold for five seconds.
3. Twist round to the left as far as you can and hold for five seconds.
4. Carry out ten repetitions.

You can do that in three minutes in your office two or three times a day, and within a week you will see a difference in your game. You will be able to drive faster and add yards onto your length. Add to that some more indoor training, such as going through your swing at normal speed using a weight, such as a barbell or even a heavy iron rod in your hands, and you will build up your rotational muscles.

There are many ways for you to improve your golf and if you work on correct swing and correct grip techniques, and also on your fitness for golf, it won't be long before your length rockets, your scores start to tumble down and your handicap drop with them.