Have you ever asked yourself how hard should I hold a golf club?

There’s something real common in this country. When we shake people’s hands, we kind of know whether you’re shaking their hand and it’s a little too light, or maybe it’s a little too firm.

But when we swing a golf club there’s no gauge. There’s no one on the other end saying, “Hey, you’re holding on too tight.”

I have a great golf grip lesson for you. Let me tell you something that will really help, because there really is something down there saying, “Hey, I think you’re holding on too tight,” or maybe, “You’re holding on too softly.”

Watch this. The tighter you hold a golf club, the slower the face is to roll over and release. The lighter that you hold a golf club, the easier it is and the quicker the toe will cross over.

So, if you’re struggling and you feel like you’re hitting the golf ball shorter than you should and you’re fading a little bit, lighten up on your grip.

If you feel that maybe you’re hitting it left with a little too much hook, and you’re really hitting it far, maybe even a little further that you might normally hit it, then maybe you hold on a little too softly.

For those of you that hook the golf ball and you want to hold onto the grip a little tighter, start with the left hand. Hold onto the club with the left hand just a little tighter than the right, but hold on firmer.

Again, if you feel like you’re fading, loosen up on it. If you feel like you’re hooking, grab onto it just a little bit tighter. Hopefully this golf grip lesson will help you.

Have a great day, and thanks.

Bobby Eldridge is the Head Instructor for the PurePoint Golf Academy where he teaches “The Simple Golf Swing” theory. You can check out PurePoint Golf instructional DVDs at http://www.golfswingguru.com/index15.htm

If you’ve just recently played a round of golf, if you really struggle with your sand game, I have a golf lesson that’s going to help you a lot here.

It’s a very difficult thing to do, but it’s so simple to get the right setup.

Now, here’s the golf lesson for setting up for a bunker shot. The ball goes across from your left foot always when the ball’s setting up. The weight goes on your left leg 70%. And from here the arms swing up and down as you turn through. Make sure you turn through.

What you’re trying to do is you’re trying to displace some sand. You’re trying to put a little sand between the club face and the golf ball, and lift it and throw it out of the bunker.

So, the setup: Weight left, ball off your left foot, full arm swing. But don’t transfer your weight over to your right side. Stay on top of that left leg. Go up and down, even if you have to put the toe up in the air to stop you from sliding backwards.

Here’s a golf lesson if the ball is buried. If it’s buried, this swing won’t work because the club won’t go steep enough. So, put the ball in the middle of your stance, weight over on your left leg. Don’t open the face, and catch a little sand behind the ball and throw it out on the green.

I hope this golf lesson works. Give it a shot.

Thanks.

Bobby Eldridge is the Head Instructor for the PurePoint Golf Academy where he teaches “The Simple Golf Swing” theory. You can check out PurePoint Golf instructional DVDs at http://www.golfswingguru.com/index15.htm

Fortunately, if there’s one really great thing that’s happened in golf instruction tips in the last, maybe ten years, people aren’t writing about it as much, people aren’t talking about it as much, but it’s still important.

It’s, “What does the head do during the golf swing?”

Now, up until ten years ago, every time someone hit a shot and topped it, the golf instruction tip everybody would give was, “You lifted your head. You need to keep your head down.”

Well, here’s the great news. That wasn’t always the case. It was sometimes, but not always the case.

But let me tell you what role the head plays because I have a golf instruction tip that is equally as important. You should not keep your head down throughout the entire swing. That would be just as wrong as if you were lifting your head up in the downswing.

So, there’s a very fine combination of what the head should do. So, here we go.

As the golf club swings back, the head hasn’t moved at all and your eyes are on the back of the golf ball. Now, in the downswing, as the arms unwind and the left hip starts to get out of the way, the golf club’s going to swing to the bottom of the hip.

At that point, the speed of the right arm is going to start to pull you around.

So, the speed of the arms and hands are what pull you up and around. So, you can keep your head down as long as you like without forcing it down, and then the speed of the arms and hands coming past the golf ball turn you and pull you through.

So, here is the golf instruction tip again, keep your eye on the back of the ball, swing your arms up and down, and let the speed of the arms turn your head as you turn through.

Thanks, and I hope that helped you.

Bobby Eldridge is the Head Instructor for the PurePoint Golf Academy where he teaches “The Simple Golf Swing” theory. You can check out PurePoint Golf instructional DVDs at http://www.golfswingguru.com/index15.htm

How many of you are convinced that you are hitting it offline because of the club face not being square at impact? Maybe you’re hooking it or maybe you’re slicing it.

I want to give you a little golf swing lesson that I think will help you a lot.

Grip the golf club like you normally would, and put it on the ground. Now raise it up in the air and make half a golf swing, or really, all the way back, and then stop.

Now, look at that club face. That club face should be perfectly square.

Now, here’s a golf swing lesson in case you grip it off to the right a little bit. Alright. Now, maybe you’re hooking the ball, but you’re not paying attention to your grip.

Now that club face is closed, and that right there would tell me that you need to change your grip. Maybe you’re slicing the ball and not paying close attention to my grip.

Okay, the club face is open. Then I would put it on the ground and turn it a little bit until it’s square.

And if it’s too far over to the right, put it on the ground and move your grip to the left.

This controls the face. Ninety percent of the time that’s the reason the face isn’t square.

So, if you’re convinced that you’re slicing and hooking and it has to do with the grip, the golf swing lesson is that all you have to do is hold the club in the air and take a little half-practice swing and see if the face comes back square.

Try that the next time out, and I promise you it will help you.

Thanks.

Bobby Eldridge is the Head Instructor for the PurePoint Golf Academy where he teaches “The Simple Golf Swing” theory. You can check out PurePoint Golf instructional DVDs at http://www.golfswingguru.com/index15.htm

I’m going to tell you the role that the knees play during the entire golf swing. The correct posture in golf, in order to improve your golf swing, is that you bend at your hips, over the bones that are on both sides of your hips.

We don’t sit in this sport. We have our knees slightly flexed, and then we bend from the hips.

In the golf swing, the knees never ever get straight in the backswing. They stay flexed the entire way.

The game of golf starts and ends right here. Good players play the sport from inside the right knee as they turn. It doesn’t go out and it doesn’t go straight. But it stays where it was at the beginning of the backswing, so as we start back the knees don’t move.

Now, the downswing: As the arms start to unwind the knees don’t move at all. The centrifugal force, the speed of the golf club swings into the ground.

As the club passes you and your left hip starts to move out of the way, then, and only then, does the right knee start to get straighter in the downswing after impact.

And the entire time, make sure that you don’t lock your left knee in the downswing. Keep it slightly flexed as you swing through. You don’t have to come all the way up and straighten it up.

I think that that might help you improve your golf swing. Think about this tip a couple of times and make sure that this is what you’re thinking of when you swing the golf club, in relation to your knees.

And thanks.

Bobby Eldridge is the Head Instructor for the PurePoint Golf Academy where he teaches “The Simple Golf Swing” theory. You can check out PurePoint Golf instructional DVDs at http://www.golfswingguru.com/index15.htm

I’m going to give you some great golf backswing advice that’s going to help you a lot with your backswing. There are two mistakes that you can make in the backswing. And then I’m going to tell you the correct way to do it.

The first mistake is, if your shoulder doesn’t move and doesn’t turn backwards, then your arms will run into it and the shoulder will tilt up in the air. And if you do that, the golf swing will look too vertical, and you’ll hit the ground and you’ll hit a lot of shots off to the right.

On the other hand, some of you think so much of turning that you turn your right shoulder and your hips together, and the golf club gets way around inside.

So, for those of you that do this, you’ll wind up hitting a lot of tops because the club won’t swing back down.

So, let me give you some golf backswing advice. This is the correct way. After you’ve addressed the golf ball, the right shoulder starts turning backwards. And that way, this enables the golf club to swing up on the correct plane.

So, if you can move your shoulder out of the way and don’t turn your bottom much, the golf club will move up on plane as you turn away from the golf ball.

Try that the next time out, and I guarantee you that will help you.

Thanks and have a great day.

Bobby Eldridge is the Head Instructor for the PurePoint Golf Academy where he teaches “The Simple Golf Swing” theory. You can check out PurePoint Golf instructional DVDs at http://www.golfswingguru.com/index15.htm

If you’re driving the golf ball poorly and not very consistent, let me give you these two golf swing instruction pearls. They go hand in hand.

And I promise you this will help you find out if your problem with your driver is in the backswing.

For you to become a really good driver of the golf ball and consistent, the shoulders have to turn. The only way they can turn in the backswing is if you have your chin up and not down.

Most mistakes that I’ve seen with amateur golfers in their difficulties of driving the golf ball is their posture.

Their head is too far down. The only thing your shoulders can do is go up in the air. You won’t have the ability to swing the golf club around you. You won’t have the chance of your shoulders turning.

So, the best golf swing instruction I can give you is, the next time out, after you’ve addressed the golf ball, gone through your routine and you’re almost ready to swing the golf club back, simply lift your chin up in the air an inch or two. And don’t forget that your shoulder should turn in the backswing.

If you have your chin up, the shoulder can turn around it. From there, you can really let it fly in the downswing.

Again, chin up, not down, promotes the shoulders turning in the backswing.

Try that the next time out and I promise you it’ll help you.

Thanks.

Bobby Eldridge is the Head Instructor for the PurePoint Golf Academy where he teaches “The Simple Golf Swing” theory. You can check out PurePoint Golf instructional DVDs at http://www.golfswingguru.com/index15.htm

Let’s spend a couple of minutes talking about one of the three most abused and misunderstood golf swing fundamentals, timing. It’s an important term but it’s misused a lot. So, let me explain to you what timing is, and then it’ll draw you a lot closer to understanding when you’re struggling.

Timing is your ability to swing your arms and hands back to the golf ball as your hip turns out of the way. And the reason it has to turn out of the way is so the arms and hands can pass your body and wrap around you. That’s the definition, no more, no less.

Now, I have gone to the golf course many days where I’ve hit the ball beautifully, solid, straight right. So, my timing was off a bit because my body was turning out in front of my golf club and that was sending it off to the right.

Now, the correction would be to slow the bottom half down and speed up the top part. There have been days where my timing has been off because the arms and hands were quicker than the bottom.

How do you correct that? Speed up the bottom and it’ll catch up with the arms and hands, and that will help that.

Now, how do you fix your timing? That’s probably the most difficult question in the game of golf. How do you get your timing back? I believe that if you can’t hit your pitching wedge, you probably aren’t hitting your 5 iron and your 5 wood and your driver.

So, I love to send people out to the practice facility to hit thousands of pitching wedges and work on their golf swing fundamentals. That, to me, is the easiest way to find your timing.

Now, let’s say that your favorite club in your golf bag is your driver and you’re driving the ball beautifully. Then go hit a thousand drivers. Or maybe it’s a 5 wood or a 5 iron. Whatever club you’re struggling with, stay way away from that one.

Go to the club that you’re doing well with. And if you’re not doing well with any of them, then go to a pitching wedge.

Now, the next question most difficult after that: How do you know when your timing’s off? I believe that your timing is off when your miss/hit pattern is not consistent. One’s fat, one’s thin, one’s top, one’s good, one’s to the left, one’s to the right. That’s a great indication that your timing’s off.

Find your favorite club and go to the practice tee and hit ten thousand of them and remember when you hit the golf ball to think of the golf swing fundamentals.

Thanks and have a great day.

Bobby Eldridge is the Head Instructor for the PurePoint Golf Academy where he teaches “The Simple Golf Swing” theory. You can check out PurePoint Golf instructional DVDs at http://www.golfswingguru.com/index15.htm

I have often been asked what I think the most important part of the setup is when you’re getting ready to drive a golf ball. I don’t know if there is one answer to that question.

The way I answer it is based on what I’ve observed over the past 30 years of teaching.

After you’ve addressed the golf ball, and this is not an easy thing to see, you might have to have someone watch. Or, I’ll tell you how to check for yourself.

After you’ve addressed the golf ball and you’re all ready to hit, I would say that 90% of the people that struggle with the driver have their shoulders aimed way off to the left.

Now, why? It’s pretty simple. Oh, I don’t know, 80% of the golfing public has a driver golf slice. So, if you slice the golf ball, you’re going to try to aim off to the side, so when it recovers and comes back around it’s in play.

Now, unfortunately, for those of you that have a driver golf slice, simply by squaring your shoulders up, that isn’t going to take away the slice. But it’s going to encourage the golf club to swing more from inside than from outside, and it will help it a lot.

You may need a grip change. But there’s no question about it, the most important part of the setup for the driver has to be the shoulders.

Make sure they’re aimed parallel to your feet, knees and hips going left of the target.

Thanks.

Bobby Eldridge is the Head Instructor for the PurePoint Golf Academy where he teaches “The Simple Golf Swing” theory. You can check out PurePoint Golf instructional DVDs at http://www.golfswingguru.com/index15.htm

I’m going to touch on posture for a minute and I’m going to explain something to you that I think will help you improve your golf game, especially if you’re trying to become more consistent driving the golf ball.

I’m 5’ 7”, maybe 5’ 8” tall. And when I address the golf ball, because I have bent my knees slightly and have bent forward, I would then say I was probably 5 feet tall, maybe 5’1” or 5’2”. But you get the idea.

After I have slightly bent my knees and I have bent from the waist forward, I’m now 5 feet off the ground.

I’m 5 feet tall, and as the club starts back, I’m still 5 feet tall. As the club starts back even further, and continues back, I’m 5 feet tall.

Now, as my right shoulder turns and I start to move some weight over to the right side, I am still 5 feet tall. At the top of the backswing I’m 5 feet tall. And now I start my arms and hands down, as my right elbow starts to straighten up, I’m still 5 feet tall.

Now I’m getting closer to impact, but I’m still 5 feet tall. And then I’m at impact and I’m 5 feet tall. The speed of my arms and hands and the golf club on the end of it is now going to start to pull me around a little bit.

And then, and only then do I start to come out of my posture a little bit and I get back to where I’m 5’ 8”.

After the address and I’m all ready to swing, I’m going to maintain my height until the golf club pulls me around.

Try that the next time out and I guarantee you this will help improve your golf game.

Bobby Eldridge is the Head Instructor for the PurePoint Golf Academy where he teaches “The Simple Golf Swing” theory. You can check out PurePoint Golf instructional DVDs at http://www.golfswingguru.com/index15.htm