Augusta National and the Masters is less than 2 weeks away. If I had to guess most every player in the field is working on their game, fine-tuning it for those four magical days at the Bobby Jones designed course in Augusta. I also imagine many of you are getting your games in shape for the upcoming golf season. A principle that I think could help you get ready for this season is called the SAID principle. Probably the question that first comes to your mind is the title. What in the $%@%@# does SAID mean and what is it relevance ...

Hard to believe the first Major on the PGA Tour is just around the corner. That’s right! Augusta National and the famed Green Jacket await the winner. Who will be the wearer of the jacket come Sunday? Will it be Tiger Woods for a second year in a row or maybe a first time winner like Davis Love III? We will just have to wait and see. I have been receiving a lot of e-mails about weight training and golf as of late. The questions I get frequently get asked boil down to the one idea. Is weight training good ...

The Player’s Championship is a week away and the drive down Magnolia Lane at Augusta National is not far behind. Many of you I imagine are getting all “revved up” for the first Major of the year and the golf season in general. For some of us the winter months have kept us away from the courses and we are just itching to get for our first round. Others of us live in a climate that permits us to play year around, a luxury in my mind. Regardless if you have been playing golf the last couple of months or ...

The Florida swing of the PGA Tour is in full swing. Tiger Woods won at Doral, and now the Tour shifts up the road to the Honda Classic at the Country Club of Mirasol in Palm Beach Gardens. It is interesting on the PGA Tour how different courses provide different challenges to the Tour players. For example the shift from the West Coast Swing to Doral result in a change in putting surfaces. The Bermuda greens at Doral are very different than those found on the West Coast. The course for Honda Classic will require a different strategy, shot selection, ...

Match Play this week at La Costa Resort in Carlsbad, CA. Quite a different tournament than your norm on the PGA Tour. This tournament matches the 64th player in the world against the number one player, Tiger Woods. The 2nd ranked player in the world, Vijay Singh, against the 63rd ranked player in the world, so on and so forth. This tournament is not necessarily about making birdies, eagles, or pars, but rather about beating your opponent in a head-to-head round of golf. The winner advances to the next round (similar to “March Madness” which is just around the corner). ...

Match Play this week at La Costa Resort in Carlsbad, CA. Quite a different tournament than your norm on the PGA Tour. This tournament matches the 64th player in the world against the number one player, Tiger Woods. The 2nd ranked player in the world, Vijay Singh, against the 63rd ranked player in the world, so on and so forth. This tournament is not necessarily about making birdies, eagles, or pars, but rather about beating your opponent in a head-to-head round of golf. The winner advances to the next round (similar to “March Madness” which is just around the corner). ...

The Nissan Open at Riviera this week in LA marks the return of Ernie Els to the PGA Tour. Els suffered a year ending knee injury last year just before the U.S. Open at Pinehurst. Many articles on Els have provided detail on the rehabilitation of his knee and the return to the European and PGA Tours. Some of those articles discussed the physical therapy performed to get his knee back in shape. One part of his knee rehabilitation and any training program for golf includes balance training. Before we go any further let us define balance in relation to ...

What a weekend at the FBR Open! I am not quite sure if the FBR Open is a party with a golf tournament or a golf tournament with a party? All I know is my buddies who came out to the tournament have booked their hotel rooms for next year. Off to Pebble Beach and the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. Movie stars, titans of business, and professional athletes tee it with the pros from the PGA Tour. I will say this week allows you to see just a little difference between the swings of the pros and the amateurs (maybe ...

Play has begun at the FBR Open this week in Phoenix, and let me tell you this is quite an event. I still pose the question; “would you rather be in Detroit (30 degrees and watching football on astro-turf) or in sunny Phoenix?” It’s a no-brainer for me. I think the crowds at this tournament will be in excess of 500,000, quite a lot of people to pack the course at the TPC of Scottsdale. The atmosphere of this tournament is different than any other on the PGA Tour. The fans are loud, boisterous, and at times a little out of ...

We are in Phoenix at the TPC of Scottsdale for the FBR Open. A crazy stop on the PGA Tour every year, nicknamed “the greatest show on grass.” The largest crowds of any event are here in Phoenix this week. It is quite a scene to say the least. I know the Super Bowl in Detroit is Sunday, but wouldn’t you rather be in Phoenix where it is sunny and 70 degrees? Vijay, Phil, and DiMarco are all in the field this week. Some long hitters to say the least, and you will definitely see some “bombs” hit off the tee ...

The Buick Invitational at Torrey Pines has arrived. It is Tiger Woods first tournament of the year, and don’t forget Torrey Pines will be the venue of the U.S. Open in 2008. The local media has been building this tournament up as a match-up between Tiger and Phil. When I look at both of those guys and their swing, one word pops into my mind, feel. Both Tiger and Phil have great feel in their golf swing. The professional level player has an incredible feels with the clubhead through every stage of the swing. How about you? Are you able to ...

The Palmer designed Classic Course has been dubbed the “most difficult” course on the rotation this year at the Bob Hope Classic. Wind in the Palm Springs area can have a definite effect on the play at this PGA Tour event. Thursday was a prime example of such a case. The wind picked up and the scores were not as low. The location of the Classic Course in the Coachella Valley makes it more vulnerable to the wind, and should make for a interesting finish on the course come Sunday. Additionally, water is in play on almost all the holes making ...

The PGA Tour has returned to the mainland and the beautiful Palm Springs area. Many call this area of a golfer’s paradise, and in my mind, I agree wholeheartedly. Tough duty for me this week. The number of golf courses in the area is unbelievable and great courses from course designers such as Palmer, Dye, Nicklaus, and Norman. The Bob Hope is a unique event with five days of golf spread over four different courses. La Quinta, Bermuda Dunes, PGA West, and the new course on the rotation, the Classic Course. The Classic Course is a Palmer designed course located off Cook ...

I was watching the Golf Channel the other night. The show was an instructor breaking down the swing of an amateur golfer on video. As the instructor viewed this guy’s swing he was speaking about the inability of the golfer to release the hips correctly in the swing. The instructor pointed out that the reason for the hips not releasing was a lack of flexibility in the golfer’s hips! For me it is another example of the connection between your swing and the body. The golfer in the above example, regardless of how hard he works at the range, will not ...

The dreaded slice: an out-to-in swing path in which the clubface is open at impact causing a tremendous amount of side-spin on the ball sending it off course. A swing fault many of us have had to deal with at some time or another in our golfing careers. Well, improving your golf game is fundamentally a process of improving both the body and the swing. I was reading some results of research conducted by a professor from UNC. Professor Bob Christina is also the head teaching pro from Pinehurst (venue for the 2005 US Open). A group of golfers prone ...

During my golf practice this morning, I was working on getting a complete and full shoulder turn. This is important because a full shoulder turn with level hips sets up a proper downswing and gives me the ability to hit the ball with more power. I see many amateurs who are unable to make a full shoulder turn, robbing them of distance and power. If you can’t turn, you can’t swing a club very well. In our training programs I talk about the “four pillars of the body” in relationship to the golf swing. One of those pillars is flexibility, and ...