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    The RuthlessGolf.com Short Game Pack
    The RuthlessGolf.com Short Game Pack
    The RuthlessGolf.com Short Game Pack
    Ebook156 pages1 hour

    The RuthlessGolf.com Short Game Pack

    By Mike Southern

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    About this ebook

    When Mike Southern first developed the RuthlessGolf.com Quick Guides, his goal was to provide short, complete lessons on a single subject that anyone could afford. And his readers responded, usually buying more than one of the titles with each purchase.

    Now, based on his readers' feedback, he has created "packs" that combine two complementary Quick Guides, based on some of the most frequently purchased combos, at an even greater savings over the individual book prices.

    The Short Game Pack begins with "Accurate Iron Play," which will teach you the basics of hitting approach shots with every iron in your bag. You'll also learn the basics of hitting your wedges close, as well as how to control the distance and trajectory of your shots.

    Paired with it is with "The Putt Whisperer." While Mike recommends his original book Ruthless Putting for most players, The Putt Whisperer was written for players changing over from anchored putters. Its technical explanation of putting mechanics is for players building a stroke from scratch.

    The Short Game Pack will teach you the mechanics of shotmaking, so you can hit every club in your bag... and how to build a brand new putting stroke from scratch, so you can capitalize on those new birdie opportunities.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDefiant Publishing LLC
    Release dateJun 19, 2017
    ISBN9781370731428
    The RuthlessGolf.com Short Game Pack
    Author

    Mike Southern

    Mike Southern learned the basics of golf from Carl Rabito, the PGA Professional who coached LPGA major winner Jeong Jang to her 2005 Women's British Open win. He's played in a few local professional tournaments and written numerous instructional articles for Golfsmith.com. He currently writes the long-running "Ruthless Golf" blog, which is aimed at helping weekend players improve their game without overtaxing the rest of their lives.

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      Book preview

      The RuthlessGolf.com Short Game Pack - Mike Southern

      THE RUTHLESSGOLF.COM

      SHORT GAME PACK

      containing the following Quick Guides:

      Accurate Iron Play

      The Putt Whisperer

      by Mike Southern

      Defiant Publishing LLC

      Smashwords Edition

      THE RUTHLESSGOLF.COM SHORT GAME PACK

      This collection ©2017 Mike Southern

      Contains the following previously published books:

      Accurate Iron Play: a RuthlessGolf.com Quick Guide

      ©2012 Mike Southern

      The Putt Whisperer: a RuthlessGolf.com Quick Guide

      ©2014 Mike Southern

      Cover design by Mike Southern

      Book design by Mike Southern

      All rights reserved.

      Some of the material in these Quick Guides originally appeared in slightly different forms in the RuthlessGolf.com blog.

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Published by Smashwords for

      Defiant Publishing LLC

      Table of Contents

      Cover

      Title Page

      Copyright

      Ruthless Golf links

      Table of Contents

      ACCURATE IRON PLAY

      Introduction

      The Basics of Hitting an Iron Solidly

      How Club Choice Affects Backspin

      Factors That Affect Club Choice

      Making a Choice

      And Now, the Techniques

      The Deadhanded Approach Shot

      Step 1: Deadhand It with a Putting Grip

      Step 2: Deadhand It with Your Normal Grip

      Step 3: Deadhand It with an Iron

      Swinging with Your Chest

      Judging the Length of Your Shots

      Hitting It High and Low

      Hitting It Low

      Hitting It High

      Summary

      THE PUTT WHISPERER

      Introduction

      Do Belly Putters Really Help?

      Thou Shalt Focus on the First Principle

      So How Do You Keep the Club Face Square?

      Fundamental #1: Connection

      Fundamental #2: Shoulder Tilt

      Fundamental #3: Grip

      Fundamental #3a: How to Finetune the Pressure in Your Grip

      Fundamental #4: Vertical Spine Tilt

      Fundamental #5: Knee Flex

      Fundamental #6: Stance Width

      Fundamental #7: Shoulder Plane/Stroke Path

      Fundamental #8: Ball Position

      Fundamental #9: RELAX!

      And Don’t Forget to Adjust Your Equipment

      A Practice Drill to Help Ingrain Some of the Fundamentals

      A Procedure for Creating a Consistent Putting Stroke

      A Final Thought on Having a Consistent Routine

      Ruthless Golf Links

      The Ruthless Golf blog

      Follow me on Twitter

      Ruthless Golf on Facebook

      And if you enjoy these books, don’t forget to check out Ruthless Putting, the original book on turning your existing putting stroke into a scoring machine!

      Available in paperback and various ebook formats.

      Introduction

      While everybody enjoys hitting the long ball, and while a long drive can set you up to score, it's usually the accuracy of your iron play that delivers a birdie on the hole.

      The techniques that give you distance with a driver are the same ones that give you distance with a fairway wood, a hybrid, or an iron. Of course, you don't use a tee from a lie in the fairway, so you don't catch the ball on the upswing as you do when you hit driver from the tee. But the other mechanics of your swing—the way you use your arms and legs—are the same.

      However, these mechanics are meant to give you maximum distance. The whole idea is to hit the ball as far as you can, right? You aren't trying to control the distance of a drive. You want every inch you can get!

      That all changes with your approach shot. You have a specific distance in mind as well as a specific direction. All things being equal, a 30-foot putt from past the hole is no more desirable than a 30-footer from short of the hole… or from 30 feet to the left or right of the hole.

      Needless to say, the techniques for getting distance will never give you consistently accurate approach shots to the green. We need to make a change in both our mindset and our technique—not a big change, but a change nonetheless—if we want shorter putts for birdie.

      In this Quick Guide I'm going to teach you how to make those adjustments. For our purposes I'm going to define an approach shot as any unobstructed full or partial shot made to the green, but not from a hazard. That includes both pitch shots and full shots from the fairway or reasonable lies in the rough, and tee shots on par-3s.

      Not included? Chip shots, trouble shots from rough or bunkers, and shots that involve trees or other obstructions. Those require techniques beyond the scope of this guide. And although you'll be able to use these techniques with the long hybrids, fairway woods, and even drivers hit 'off the deck,' we won't specifically cover those since we don't generally expect those shots to hit and stop quickly.

      In other words, we're going to focus on iron shots to the green, the shots over which you can expect a reasonable amount of control.

      Accurate iron play isn't that complicated. Here's the big secret:

      If you want accurate shots to the green, you need to create consistent clubhead speed and apply it to the ball solidly with a square clubface.

      That may sound a bit convoluted but trust me, you'll understand it clearly by the time you finish this booklet.

      Soon your friends will wonder what you know that they don't… and why you keep winning so many holes.

      * * * * *

      And since I know many of you are left-handed, I'll use the terms 'lead' and 'trailing' in this discussion so everybody gets it. Remember, your lead side is closest to the target and your trailing side is not. ;-)

      Pay special attention when you get to the diagrams in the technique section. While there were a couple I thought were clear enough that a single diagram would suffice, most are presented in both right- and left-handed versions. Sometimes both versions fit in a single diagram, but many required 2 separate diagrams to show everything. Each of those diagrams is labeled 'right' or 'left,' even if it's just a circled R or L.

      The Basics of Hitting an Iron Solidly

      I know you want to start hitting shots, but what kind of shot are you going to hit? Unless you understand what you can and can't do with an iron, how can you expect to get good results?

      So let's take a few minutes and learn how to make a good approach shot. I promise to make this as quick and painless as possible. (That means lots of diagrams.) I also promise that this knowledge will improve your performance dramatically with very little effort on your part. Isn't that worth a few moments of your time?

      Excellent! Then let's start with the most basic principle of iron play:

      You must hit down on the ball to make it go up.

      Understanding how this simple principle affects ball behavior is important when making accurate iron shots. At the simplest level, you have to hit down to create backspin. Here's a diagram:

      Basic Concept

      I think that's pretty clear. Backspin is created when the ball is forced to roll up the clubface (that's why irons have grooves—for added traction) by the downward motion of the clubhead. It squeezes the ball against the ground and the only place for the ball to go is up the clubface. But there are some variables involved in this simple action and you have to take them into consideration if you want to make a good shot.

      For example, consider the friction between the ground and the ball. (That's labeled 'b' in the diagram.) Dry solid ground lets you create

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