In Approval

Whether you run to stay in shape or to compete you are probably aware that if you stop running or jogging for a few days then you seem to go backwards in your training goals. In other words for everyday you do not run you go backwards instead of forwards.

Have you consider what you were going to do when a major category hurricane hits or when the remnants of that hurricane come into the region where you live? With Hurricanes and heavy rains it is hard to get in a jogging workout much like a severe winter storm.

If you are trying to lose weight then you know you must either cut down on what you eat or exercise more. If you cannot exercise due to a hurricane, then it may be tough for you do to your jogging and this could trigger running workout stoppages. You may even be forced to evacuate town and rendering you unable to workout at all.

Worse off if you have left town and are in a new town you may not feel comfortable with the area you are in to go jogging. But you must force yourself to go jogging anyway and you must be careful that the remnants from that hurricane do not cause heavy rains and torrential flooding in the area you have evacuated to.

Hurricanes and running workout stoppages are serious considerations to the serious athlete. If you are a runner or you know this is true and you also know there’s something that you must do to continue your workouts. Even if you cannot run you can do isometric exercises and get a good cardiovascular workout to subsidize your normal running workout. Learn about these other types of exercises you can do and please consider this in 2006.

“Lance Winslow” – Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/

Heel pain, medically termed plantar fasciitis, is a common and frustrating injury for many runners. It accounts for up to 10% of all running injuries and results from overstressing the band of tissue that connects the heel bone to the toes. If you suffer from plantar fasciitis, you probably experience sharp pain in your heel not only after running, but also with the first steps in the morning or after long periods of sitting or being on your feet.

• The most common causes of plantar fasciitis in runners include:

• Sudden increases in mileage or training intensity

• Wearing running shoes that do not provide enough support or shock absorption.

• Running on inconsistent surfaces

• Tight hamstring and calf muscles

• High or low arches

If you are an avid runner, the last thing that you want to hear from the doctor is “stop running.” However, running through heel pain often lengthens the recovery time and usually makes the condition worse. Studies show that you need to address the problem immediately, as the longer you wait to treat plantar fasciitis, the harder it is to resolve.

The good news is that you may not have to completely stop running or exercising to treat your heel pain. Many people can adopt a program that sports medicine doctors call “relative rest.” This means cross training and reducing your running mileage to the point where you do not feel pain when you run. A good idea for cross training is to try swimming or running in a pool to maintain fitness but reduce the amount of stress put on your feet. Biking is another good option. When you run, you can reduce the stress on your feet by alternating between running and walking. You can increase your mileage slowly over time, but stop running at any time if you feel pain in your heel.

In addition to “relative rest,” you need to take special care of your feet at home to treat plantar fasciitis. If you take care of yourself, the pain will usually go away. The May 2004 New England Journal of Medicine reported that plantar fasciitis symptoms will resolve in more than 80 percent of people within 12 months. It recommends that doctors treat plantar fasciitis patients with “patient-directed, low-risk, minimal-cost interventions” such as stretching and using arch supports.

“The first steps to relieving heel pain can be as simple as stretching your foot before getting out of bed in the morning, icing your foot regularly and wearing proper footwear,” says Jeffrey S. Peterson, M.A., M.D, Northern California Institute of Sports Medicine and advisor to Heeling Solutions, a company dedicated to helping people resolve heel pain. “Many people also require additional steps such as using orthotics in their shoes or wearing a supportive foot device at night called a night splint.”

How do you know if you have plantar fasciitis? Only a licensed medical professional can confirm your diagnosis. Seek out a practitioner who specializes in conditions of the foot and ankle, such as a podiatrist or orthopedist. You can also check out www.heelingsolutions.com for more information. The company sells a video that has a special section for runners and comprehensive information about the condition and recommended treatments.

Daniel Marein-Efron is a former plantar fasciitis sufferer and President of Heeling Solutions LLC http://www.heelingsolutions.com . Mr. Marein-Efron has been involved with a variety of entrepreneurial businesses through his consulting company DMEX Consulting LLC.

A new set of clubs for beginners is really not necessary; in fact the higher end clubs can be a hindrance on your game. Golf is unique in the fact that the sport requires a group of instruments, and equipment to play in full. Many sports like baseball or basketball just require a few items that are used by an entire team. Golf being an individual sport this aspect changes into a need for the right set of clubs.

Golf clubs are broken down into sets of complete or incomplete, as well as irons, woods, drivers, putters, wedges, and hybrids. Golf clubs can be purchased in any combination of the above, but typically for beginners it is good to start with the entire set. Also women’s clubs are sold as sets, but typically differ from men’s clubs in size. Golf clubs in sets typically come with a bag that has stands on it, so it can rest on itself while you are taking your shots. Also golf sets occasionally will come with tops for the heads, as well as towels, umbrellas, and even balls.

Golf club sets can be purchased at a number of places. In order of price, most expensive to least, you can buy clubs at a pro shop; this will be your most expensive option. You can also buy clubs at sporting good stores, or golf specialty stores. For those bargain shoppers you can purchase a full set of clubs at Wal Mart, or even your local thrift store. For the internet shopper’s eBay offers a great selection of new and used golf club sets.

The cost for a set of clubs can vary from less than $100 for an entire set, to over $10,000 for the high end clubs. Typically golfers can buy a decent set of clubs for $400 depending on where they are shopping. High end clubs are often bought in singles, thus making it more costly to purchase a set. One driver can cost over $1,000 at a local pro shop.

The term you get what you pay for isn’t true in the world of golf clubs. Unlike cars, or computers, typically golf clubs can be beneficial at a low cost. Further, many prefer cheaper clubs, or used clubs, because they offer a more standard weight and grip. Golf clubs are uniquely made out of several different materials, and can vary depending on a user’s preference. The cheaper clubs have a level feel to them, and don’t offer too much of any one element. If a beginner spends a large amount of money on an ultra light driver, it could be too light for them to learn the basics of their swing, this actually prohibiting them from learning the basics.

Overall it’s important to start off with a modest set of clubs until your game advances to levels that call for new clubs. Plus with all the money you save you can buy your significant other a set, and make a date at the course.

Jimmy Bonner is the author of the best-selling golf ebooks. He can walk you through every single step to cut your handcap, hit ball farther and stop slicing at Advanced Golf Skill www.advancedgolfskills.com.

There are almost as many theories about the golf swing as there are instructors. And one of the least understood aspects of the swing is the rotation of the hips to an “open” position just before impact.

Most contemporary golf instructors believe it is necessary to “clear your hips just before the point of impact” in order to get your hips out of the way of your hands. According to this theory, if you don’t “clear your hips” your hands and arms will be impeded and will not be able to attack the ball with power.

This is sometimes used as an explanation for why an overly “vertical” stance is not a good thing. According to this line of thinking, when you stand too close to the ball your hands will not be able to make a clean pass in front of your body because on the way down your hips will get in the way.

But while hip rotation is very important to the effectiveness of the golf swing, it is not because the hips are in the way of anything. In fact I can’t see that this idea of “clearing the hips” makes much sense. Your hips are not in the way of your hands. In fact, rotating your hips towards the target pushes your backside out further towards your hands and puts your hips more in the way than if you did not rotate them.

Most of us — whether we rotate a lot or not — are not in the habit of hitting our hips with our hands when we swing our golf clubs. The reason is simple: our hips do not get in the way of our swing, and to suggest this as an explanation of the importance of hip rotation is just plain misleading.

In my own research, on the course and in my basement “lab”, I have found that hip rotation does indeed put the club on a more powerful, more direct path to the ball coming into the point of impact. But as far as I can tell, this has very little to do with getting your hips out of the way of your hands.

What happens when you rotate your hips is that this allows you to get your shoulders and arms in the optimal power position. This happens because your upper body and lower body move in a synchronized way. In the golf swing, as in most other movements involving the human body, your upper body, including your shoulders and arms, moves in harmony with and in response to the movement of your lower body — your hips and legs.

Think of a power hitter in baseball. Those classic photographs of Ted Williams, Hank Aaron, Reggie Jackson or Barry Bonds making contact with the ball always tell the same story. Their arms are fully extended, hips are rotated to an open position, head is back, and they are perfectly balanced with most of their weight now centered over their front leg and hip. In fact they have used their front leg and hip as a pivot around which their upper body has rotated. Take that pivot away — swing with just your shoulders and arms — and you’re left with a much less fluid, much less coordinated, and much less powerful swing.

In the golf swing this connection of upper and lower body is less obvious because the golf swing is a combination of vertical and horizontal. But the principle is the same. The rotation of the hips pulls your upper torso around and gets your lead shoulder into the correct position (the left shoulder in the case of a right hander) at the point of impact. Ben Hogan described this hip movement as a matter of throwing your lead hip around and back against the wall — one of the most useful images in all of golf instruction.

Try it in slow motion. Place your club head along the swing path about 18″-24″ behind the ball (on the inside/out arc). Make sure your lead hand and arm are straightened as they should be in the impact position. Now rotate your hips so the club head moves towards the ball (keeping your hands and arms locked in the previous position).

Notice that when your club head reaches the ball, your hips will be “cleared”, and your lead shoulder will be rotated as well. Your lead arm will be in the correct “power position” with the arm and club shaft forming a more or less straight line down to the ball.

Now pick your club up and swing it more horizontally like a baseball bat. If you have had any baseball training at all, your hips will just naturally lead the swing and your shoulders, arms and “bat” will follow.

In fact trying to make an “all-arms” swing without hip rotation will feel awkward and unsynchronized. Your arms will not be able to follow the momentum that wants to carry them around to a natural finish. This is why golfers who do not “finish” their swing by rotating their lower body will often snap the club back to the starting position.

The basic principle here is one taught by golf teachers since teachers first started analyzing the swing: upper body follows lower body. Coming to a better appreciation of this principle can only have a positive impact on your golf swing.

Rick Hendershot publishes InternetGolfReview.com | Chess Boards, Chess Sets, Chess Pieces | World of Warcraft Gold – Buy world of warcraft gold

Just trying to copy Tiger Woods or other professional golfers won’t make you a better golfer, but here are some tips to help you improve.

Don’t you wish it were that easy?

You won’t find two people with the same move and style. Due to the fact that everyone is different, each person develops their own set of muscles, style, are different in high, different feet position, etc. If you use someone else’s golf methods who has a different build and different muscles, then their golf swing will probably not work for you. Golf is an individual game. You need to find your own way to play golf and then go for it.

It may be a waste of time to completely copy someone else, but a professional can help you learn to overcome your own faults and help to make corrections. Be sure that you hire someone who will work with your swing instead of someone that tries to teach you a completely different swing.

Make sure that your pro is a great golf player and instructor. You also don’t want a pro that just stands and watches you swing. You want someone who will show you how to get out of the hazards and some other more difficult shots. Then you will be getting more for your money.

When you play golf and you need to make a shot, decide how you are going to play the shot. Don’t change your swinging method each time you play a bad game of golf.

Actually, some of the golf techniques are basic principles and need to be carefully followed. However, it is impossible to make a shot while thinking of numerous other things like how you are standing, where the ball is, keeping your focus, etc.

Here are two tips to help your basic golf game.

Balance is the foundation of playing golf no matter what shot you are making or what club you are using. Balance is a necessity in hitting the ball.

Keeping your eye on the ball is another basic tip. Ensure that your stance lets you see the ball the whole time.

Develop your own golf game gradually that works for you. When you start playing successfully, make sure that you give the beginner who is trying to copy you the above advice!

Remember to focus and relax your muscles.

Article provided by IntelFind.com at http://www.intelfind.com

“Get Ready, Get Set, Go!”

I remember hearing these words somewhere in my youth. Have you ever heard these words? I don’t remember exactly where or why I have heard them but today they are going to apply to your golf game. It seems like a “golf” set of words to me so we are going to use them for your lesson today.

“Get ready.” There are several get ready’s. First is the get ready to develop your golf swing. Next is to learn the shots you need to play good golf any where. The next get ready is when you get to the course and warm up for the round. And of course you need to get ready for the shot you are faced with.

Get Ready #1, Develop your swing: Notice the words – develop YOUR swing. That’s exactly what you will do with the five Concept Golf swing principles. Those simple five principles give you the mental foundation so you can develop YOUR swing. Those principles make your swing development simple and quick. Once your swing is developed, you will spend only a little time practicing and little, if any, time fixing it. OK, your first get ready is done.

Get Ready #2, The shots you need: This is not just a drive and a wedge and a putt. These are straight, low, high, low fade, high fade, high draw, low draw for long shots. Learn to hit a shot that will not go left and a shot that will not go right. Learn how far you hit each club in your bag. How far do YOU hit them, not some standard measurement. The shorter clubs need the high and the low trajectory. Learn the short pitch shots with the pitching wedge and the sand wedge. That ranges from very high and soft to very low and running with the pitching wedge. Learn these shots from fluffy lies and from tight lies. Learn how to putt well from 10′ and closer, actually from 6′ and closer. Learn right-breaking and left-breaking putts of 5′ and less.

Get Ready #3, Warm up: This is getting ready for the round today. This is a time to prepare your body for the job at hand – to play 18 holes of golf. Start with a few short wedge shots, 25-30 yards. Loosen up gradually. Then a few short 7-irons of about 75 to 120 yards. Then stretch them out to your full distance. Now you are ready to hit a couple 5-irons at full distance. Now a few 3-woods off the ground and then a few tee shots with whatever club you use for that.

All this warm-up time is for is two things. First, loosing your body for the job at hand and second, finding out how your shots are going today. Each day is different and you are different each day. DON’T TRY TO BE THE SAME OR HIT SHOTS EXACTLY THE SAME WAY EVERY DAY. Use the warm-up time to find out who you are today and then adjust your game to who you are today. Do not try to make your shots fit who you think you are supposed to be every day. Be flexible in your approach to your game because you are a different person every day.

There are some – maybe more than a few – who think they must be the same every day. That means that if the shots are not going exactly right on the range during warm-up, their swing must be fixed. They are not going to play with what they have, they are going to try to play with what they think they ought to have. By the time they go to the first tee they have no clue what direction the ball could go. Now, that is a real feeling of confidence.

Rather that trying to fix your swing during your warm-up, just play with what you have. Your chances of success are quite high if you dance with what brung ‘ya rather than trying to fix your swing. If you really insist on fixing your swing, do it after the round

Get Ready #4, Your current shot: Every shot is brand new. Even though you think you have hit that exact shot many times before, it is really brand new. You are new each day and the wind or the pin, or the grass, or something makes the shot a new one. Similar in many ways to a shot you had some time but still brand new. The question then is how to prepare for a new shot.

For a tee shot on a par 4 and par 5, have your plan and a very specific target. Check the wind and anything that may affect your shot. Know how the wind or the cold or whatever you are dealing with will affect your shot. Know where you want your ball to end up and why you want it there. It should make the next shot the easiest. Your target should very small, like the edge of a tree trunk rather than the whole tree. With your shot determined, keep the picture of the target in mind and deliver the ball to your target.

An iron shot from the fairway is also affected by the lie as well as the things mentioned above for the tee shot. Is your ball sitting up or is it on bare ground? Is your lie on flat ground or are there some angles you need to deal with? How will that affect your shot? You need to know how these things will affect your shot.

You also must know the golfer. What is the golfer really capable of? Is he playing within his ability or at the ragged edge of hopefulness? Is he trying to hit shots he has never practiced or never succeeded at? Is he trying to drive the ball with 100% of his strength or staying within himself at 80%? Is this a day when you are not hitting the ball quite solidly so are conservative in your target selection? Or are you having a very good ball-striking day so you can be aggressive and play for the pins?

It seems the Get Ready is a bit involved – and it is. When you are playing, all these decisions should take only moments. Learning your swing is not too involved. Learning the shots you need to play golf will take some time, some learning, some watching the best players, some experimentation.

Get Set is simple. Make a forward press and Go, swing. It’s just like many things in life, the preparation is where most of the effort lies. Good preparation yields good results. Caution: Don’t spend all of your time in preparation. The good players shoot low numbers; they cannot be stuck on the driving range.

John Toepel is a Veteran PGA Tour Player, instructor, author, and professional speaker. He is also the discoverer of Concept Golf, the quickest way to immediate, life-long lasting improvements to anyone’s golf game. To learn more about Concept Golf, including the most comprehensive golf instruction system ever, “The Concept Golf Perfect Shot Making System”, please visit http://www.conceptgolf.com/PSMS.htm and Discover the Par Golfer in You!

As the phrase goes “nothing is created equal.” The same applies to golf schools.

With the many golf schools and academies available, it is more important than ever to do your homework in making the right choice.

First, select a desirable destination. Whether it is a high-profile location like Las Vegas or Orlando, or a place near home, it is important to be comfortable with the location.

Next, make sure there are playing lessons involved. It is important to get out on the course with your instructor to fine tune your progress.

Be sure to check out the teaching philosophy of the school you are considering. Do they teach the latest quick-fix or do they concentrate on proven fundamentals?

Many schools offer unproven strategies that may not last after you leave. Be sure you will get the type of instruction you want. Learn as much as you can about their instructors, such as age, years teaching and how long they have been with that particular school.

Finally, make sure the maximum student/teacher ratio 4 to 1.

Remember this is going to be your school, do your homework.

What to Expect at Your Golf School

You arrive with excitement. You’re anxious to get started. You may be a little nervous. This is natural. Your instructor should immediately put you at ease and fully explain the schedule of activities.

It’s also important that you, as the student, take the time to explain where you are and where you’d like to go with your game.

It’s critical that you ask questions. You have an expert golfer at your disposal. Use him and remember that all questions are welcome no matter how basic.

As you begin your school, remember to pace yourself. Quality is always better than quantity. If there is more than one student in your school, be prepared to work some on your own as the instructor works with other students. Use this time to work specifically on what you have learned.

Try to ignore what the instructor is doing with other players during one-to-one time. They may be working on something that doesn’t apply to you and it might distract from your learning experience.

Be ready to manage your expectations. You will improve immediately in some areas and other areas will take some post-school practice to perfect. Winston Churchill said, “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.”

The practice range portion or your school is where you learn the fundamentals. The playing lesson portion is where you apply what you’ve learned in real time. This is where you use your good shots to build your confidence, and learn from your mistakes in a non-competitive, non-judgmental environment.

Above all else, golf school should be fun and enjoyable. Taken in the right spirit, golf school can be a great learning experience where you spend quality time with family or old friends, or you meet new friends.

Teaching Philosophy

In choosing a golf school you might be tempted by the offer of gimmicks or quick-fix promises. If so, ask yourself mentally if these techniques are so effective, why don’t the pros use them? The answer is they don’t. Professional tour players practice the fundamentals day in and day out. Rarely will you hear of a tour player that adopts an untested playing method just to be stylish.

Remember that the tried-and-true fundamentals of golf have not changed for 70 years. Legendary golf greats like Byron Nelson and Sam Snead used equipment that is technologically inferior to today’s large drivers, composite shafts and hybrids. But they still won again and again. Why? Because they stuck to basics and ignored the fads.

Many recreational golfers never took the time to learn the fundamentals when they started out. As a result, they are stuck with bad habits that affect their entire game. A good golf instructor won’t attempt to radically change your game. He will look for one or two areas to improve that will affect five or six other areas. This is the power of leverage and it’s the key to getting the most from any golf school.

A truly good golf school will empower you to take what you’ve learned and apply it long after you leave. Remember, gimmicks and quick-fixes come and go, but fundamental improvement lasts a lifetime.

Follow-Up

Remember the last time you attended golf school? Were you able to transfer what you learned to real life when you got home? Did you have a clear picture of what you needed to work on? Did your instructor give you specific drills to practice and did you follow through?

Golf, like other areas of life, shouldn’t be a spectator sport. If you want to improve, you have to work at it. Fortunately, working at improving your golf game can be fun and enjoyable once you know what to work on.

Most good golf schools use video and special teaching software to provide post-lesson analysis that enables you to take the lesson with you and use it as the basis for improvement.

Most good golf schools encourage you to keep in contact with you instructor to let him know how you’re doing and to ask questions or get ideas.

As with any sport, learning is an ongoing process. It’s important to take follow-up lessons at least once a year to build on what you learned in the prior session. For best results, you should take your lessons from the same person each time so that you’ll get a consistent learning experience. A golf school can be more productive than taking golf lessons from your local pro because a good golf school provides a more comprehensive approach for six to seven hours a day versus an hour or half-hour at a time.

Golf school can be a very positive, rewarding, fun experience. Students come for a variety of reasons, but where else can you spend quality time with family, friends, or business associates? Golf is a game you can enjoy for a lifetime. A good golf school helps you get the most out your golfing experience.

Author’s Notes:

If you’re interested in improving your score and also your golf stroke, I recommend the following links:

http://www.gotogolfschool.com

http://www.strokeslashers.com

Ken Venturi Golf Academies

http://www.kenventuri.com

James B. Wilson, a.k.a. Jerry Wilson, is founder/Editor-in-Chief of Vegas Buzz News http://www.vegasbuzzz.com, and editor of the Golf Buzz News Channel. http://www.vegasnews.squarespace.com/golf-buzz/

Would you rather hear what you need to learn from someone who is already an accomplished golfer? Would a few hours with Jack Nicholas REALLY help your game? “Just do what I do, it’s easy!” Or would you rather learn from a beginner, who understands the struggles, the small improvements and remembers those early changes that lead to greater success?

It almost makes sense, doesn’t it? The best coaches are often mediocre players, and the worst coaches were stars, who had everything come easy to them. Natural ability is hard to teach to others! As a beginning golfer, I have noticed some dramatic improvements, though, and wanted to pass them along to other beginning golfers.

First, the drive. To many of us starting out, it seems to be all-important. I have had instructors tell me that if you can hit the ball 150 yards, that you can work your way down any length of hole in about 3 shots, chip on and putt in, and play bogie golf without ever hitting a John Daly type 300 yard plus drive. As beginners, all we see is the big drives, the pressure, people watching us tee off, and understandably we want to be able to pound the ball!

What I’ve learned is that you can cut back on the swing to almost a half swing, hockey slapshot type thing, and increase the accuracy, with a small reduction in distance, until you are more comfortable with the swing. Also, a friend helped me with the description of coming “inside-out” with the swing. While that sounds complicated, imagine holding your back hand (I’m a left handed golfer) tight to your body and swinging through the ball and outwards after contact – straightened out my ball flight and increased distance.

Lessons seemed to boil down to getting into the same position, and swinging smoothly and evenly making sure the club is flat at contact – try swinging at the driving range – not to hammer the ball, but try swinging with virtually NO effort, then 20% 40% 60% etc. Get comfortable with a straight line of whatever distance, and KNOW how far each club will take you. If you need 100 yards, say, it doesn’t matter if you get that with a pitching wedge or a 5-wood, as long as you can get it accurately there!

Pitching (from under 100 yards) and putting are the majority of the strokes, the easiest area to improve your game, and if you’ve ever played with a senior, they can be outdriven from the tee, but play so solidly from there onwards, with straight, accurate shots – you can’t beat them!

Makes you rethink the wisdom of working on that booming drive, huh? The majority of time should be spent practicing the 100 yard and shorter shots – which inadvertently improves the overall stroke and technique, and makes the drives better over time!

Practice shooting 10, 20, 30 etc yards, and have the short chip down pat. Then work on putting – NOT trying to sink the putt, just to get the ball to within a club length of the hole – from ANYWHERE on the green. When you have mastered the ability to get the ball close like that, then work on the short 2 footers – almost from the start you’ll find that you can get the majority in.

THAT’s the secret – the drive doesn’t matter, the next shot is OK, but the one that gets the ball TO the green is crucial! Then if you can putt to withing a very close area of the pin, and make THOSE easy putts – you’re a bogie golfer – TA DAAA!

Wait, there’s one more thing – the mental part of golf. If you have a certain ability, how come you see flashes fo greatness on some days, and flashes of needing to break your clubs on others? Same guy, same equipment, different results? THAT is the mental part of golf – and it becomes more and moe important as you master the basic strokes and techniques.

At the beginning stages of golf, you are thrown off by worrying about what others think – it feels like people are watching your drive, partners are evaluating your game, people are seeing if you can play golf well, etc. The answer to this is that everyone started off as a beginner, and VERY few people can play below 90s golf. Basically, we all suck! Take the pressure off of yourself for the first 20-50 games, and you will have the routine ingrained, the swing will be solid, all will work fairly well – under pressure or not.

Relaxation, and realizing that golf is a game against YOURSELF, are the keys. You can’t play a real tournament against another golfer until you shoot in the 70s – so don’t let that enter your head – try playing alone – you can – very early or very late – or with total strangers as a walk on.

Over time, you WILL get better – visibly, noticeably. Try playing a few days in a row, or a series of days either playing golf or practicing. Practice makes perfect – especially the short game that is ignored by the majority pounding shots into the darkness at driving ranges – work on the touch, the feel, the magic ability to get 25%, 50% or 75% shots, to control the distance.

Most of all, relax and enjoy the walk, the scenery, remember the things that went WELL – and move on from the ones that were duffed, hooked into the trees, or when you putted back and forth across the green like a madman – they all happen – to ALL of us – even Tiger Woods (every now and then). The trick is to concentrate on making the NEXT shot, the NEXT hole, the NEXT practice or game – be your very best. There’s no going back and reshooting that shot that went into the water! Forget about it and calmly, confidently move on.

Your best games, your best shots will occur when you have a calm, confident feeling, feeling that you are just repeating what you’ve practiced, and easily accomplished in the past. Look at the grin on Tiger’s face as he sinks a putt and pumps his fist – this game can be FUN!!

Andrew Larder, Golf Better
Golf Clubs, Golf Gifts, Golf Tips and Golf Equipment

“I want to increase my golf swing clubhead speed!” I hear this one all the time from the members of my golf-trainer.com site and golfers sending me emails. I want to be a ’straight’ shooter (pardon the pun) right now. Increasing your golf swing clubhead speed is not everything!

You heard that correctly.

You can swing at 140 mph and it won’t mean anything unless your golf swing sequence and moment of impact is solid. There are lots of 300 yards in the woods! I have to chuckle when I see the Speed Stik commercials with Vijay.

Swinging that thing harder and harder isn’t going to make your ball go straight…and if I’m correct, the goal is to get it in the fairway, right?

The point I’m trying to get at is a more powerful, controlled, sequenced swing that does produce a higher clubhead speed, yet in control swing. One that has a consistent swing path and solidness of hit on the clubface.

So how do you achieve this?

The only way is to improve your golf-specific strength and flexibility!

If you’ve read any of my 300 plus articles, you’ll know I come back to this time-and-time again. It’s your BODY that limits your golfing ability.

Now picture this!

You do some simple, ‘in-home” golf exercises and go to the course. You step up to the tee and rip one farther than you have in years and it stays in play.

Doesn’t that sound more like it?

There is a balance between a higher clubhead swing speed, control and sequence of motion that gets you back to impact hitting the ball in the center of your clubface. Swinging hard just to swing hard won’t accomplish your goals of longer/straighter drives.

I receive emails from members, customers of my golf fitness dvds and manual who tell me who much more stable their swing has become doing my simple golf exercises, and how they are hitting it 20-30 yards further…consistently.

So don’t get me wrong!

I’m all about improving your golf swing clubhead speed…but with a stable swing…not one that is out of control and balance. I’m very proud when I receive these emails and know I’ve made yet another golfer a believer in golf training.

So next time you see Vijay’s commercial for the Speed Stik, don’t run out and buy it with the intension your going to see that number go up-and-up. Buy it with the intension that your swing will be stronger, stabler and in better sequence.

Then and only then will increasing your golf swing clubhead speed be a factor.

About The Author: Mike Pedersen is the featured expert for Golf Magazine’s GolfOnline.com site, one of the top golf performance experts in the country, author and founder of several cutting-edge online golf performance sites. Take a look at his just released golf performance dvds and manual at his golf swing training site – Perform Better Golf.

As far as sports betting goes, the Superbowl takes in the largest amount of betting handle for Las Vegas and the sportsbooks. As a result, a lot of websites spring up offering absurd lines, odds, promises to get the naive gambler to join their site and gamble. These sites spring up but are fake.

Since the online sports gambling field is unregulated, anything goes. In fact, there is reason to believe that the act of gambling online is illegal in the United States. This is another key element in the unregulated nature of internet gambling. There have yet to be any cases against internet gamblers however.

Many internet gambling sites are based out of Latin America where the rules for setting up a business, accepting cash payments online are relaxed and unregulated.

So as you begin to gamble online for the NFL Football Playoffs and for the Superbowl, beware of the young websites by checking their age on alexa.com. Even call their customer service phone numbers and make sure that the website you deal with is legitimate.

An ideal thing to do would be to start betting immediately and wager a small amount. Withdraw your betting amount after some time and when you find yourself happy with the results, deposit the amount you would like to wager on the Superbowl and wager in confidence.

We give you a list of the safest online sports betting sites and review them for your convenience. We recommend you join one of these sites and begin betting today!