Improving your Game

source: Thomas Golf Newsletter “Toe Up” for Straighter Golf Shots Although fairly simplistic, the “Toe Up” practice swing is one of the best swing tips in golf. We'll show you how it's done, and how to take it to the next level for shot accuracy. Classic “Toe Up” Drill: 1. Using your standard setup, initiate your back-swing but stop about half way back when the shaft is parallel to the ground. At this point in the swing, the toe of the club should be pointing up to the sky. If it's not, this indicates your body, arms and hands are not turning away from the ball correctly. 2. Next, instead of continuing the back-swing, start your down-swing and continue through until the shaft is again parallel to the ground. Check the toe of the club; it should again be pointing up to the sky. 3. Repeat this mini-swing between the two check points until muscle memory is achieved. Once you're able to reliably produce these mini-swings with correct positions at both check points, you can progress the training drill to hitting golf balls. This will demonstrate the drill's effectiveness in producing a straighter ball flight. Improved “Toe Up” Drill: For a much more accurate and productive drill, a golfer should take advantage of the shot alignment feature designed into the top plane of Thomas Golf brand equipment (pictured at right). This will produce better results from this classic fundamentals drill used by the top teachers of the game, including Tiger's coach, Hank Haney. Follow the same three steps listed above, but instead of looking at the toe of the club, look at the shot alignment indicator. At each check point of the drill, the shaft and the indicator should be parallel to the ground; this assures you the club is in the correct position. This provides very accurate feedback and works much better than looking at the toe, because its rounded shape can be off by many degrees. This improved version of the drill, which utilizes the indicator instead of the toe, has another big advantage. You can now add an additional check point to a very important part of the swing; the impact zone. When the club head is at the point of impact with the ball, check to be sure the indicator is pointing directly down your target line. This ensures your club face is pointing exactly at your target. Grab any Iron, Wood, Hybrid or Driver designed by Thomas Golf and try it yourself; you'll be impressed by the resulting straighter golf shots.