How to Improve Your Golf Swing: Essential Tips and Tricks

Having trouble getting your golf ball where it needs to go? Finding yourself coming up a bit short when it comes to your approach? Then the problem may indeed be your swing.

Despite seeming like one of the most basic things for a golfer to have down, there are a lot of golfers who do not know how to swing their club properly. These golfers also often find themselves on the losing end on quite a few golf matches.

The way you swing your golf club has a major effect on the outcome of your game, so poor form can seriously harm you on the course. To help you to improve in the area of your golf swing, try taking a look at these following tips and tricks and apply them to yourself.

Tips for your Golf Swing

Hold your Ground: Before you take your swing, make sure that you have a good foothold on the turf under your feet. Try to keep your feet pointed forward and stand in a “Triangle” formation to your golf ball. Once you have your stance set, keep yourself in position and don’t move, as this can cause your swing to become erratic.
Get a Grip: Try to keep your grip on the club firm but not overly tight. This will help you to control your club while still allowing enough movement for crisp and fluid swings.
Should you choke up on the club or hold the grip too tight, it will cause the motion of your swing to suffer by becoming too stiff. This will cause your shots to become erratic, with the ball flying in a way that is undesirable or cause you to fail to strike the ball altogether.
Move your Body: As you move your arms up for the swing, try to keep them in tune with your body. Moving your club and your upper torso in unison can help you to keep the rhythm of your swing, making them more accurate.
At the same time, move your hips in a way that points away from your ball during the backswing, then towards it during follow through. This helps in the same way as above for you to maintain rhythm and to follow through cleanly with your shot.
Club Placement: As you come up with your backswing your club’s shaft and head should point upwards away from your target at an arc. As you come down, the opposite should be true with head and shaft being directed towards your target, before finally coming up and around your shoulders (depending on the type of shot being taken).
This movement and club placement helps to promote power and accuracy when striking the ball. It does this by keeping everything lined up and in rhythm, helping you to get the ball to its intended target.
Targeting: As you swing, make sure that your club head is moving along an invisible “Target Line”. This line should be lined up so that the ball makes contact with the center of the club face. This will give your shots the power that they need while maintaining accuracy.
The invisible line that you should be following can be best described as an open circle. Where your head and shoulders stand should be the open area of the circle, slightly behind both shoulders will be the upper points of the circle (where your backswing and follow-through will end), and finally, the ball will be on the bottom and dead center of the circle.
As long as you follow this invisible line and keep it in your head when you start your swing, you should find that your shots will come off much more natural and accurate.
Follow Through: As you follow through with the shot, extend your arms to point towards the intended target. Straight and extended arms will give your shot a little extra power, giving it that much needed “oomph”.
Should you fail to do this, or bend too much at the elbows or turn your wrist, you risk your golf ball getting too much air underneath it and not flying as far. In worst case scenarios (as I, myself, can attest to), the ball may end up flying high in the sky and landing only a few feet away. This not only has a negative effect on your game, but is quite embarrassing as well.

Conclusion

The only thing left for you to do now is to try out the above methods and see how well they work for you. For myself, following these tips has led me to become a much better golfer and one that has had consistent and accurate swings.

Let us know how these tips worked for you, and thanks for reading. We’ll see you on the golf course soon!