Instructions

People talk about my driver a lot. It’s fun to hit it far, and my driver does put me in a lot of good positions on the course, as it did at the 2020 Northern Trust, where I won by 11 shots after shooting 30-under over four rounds. But golf isn’t just about how far

It’s an awesome feeling when you drive it great, stripe your irons, hole a bunch of putts and post a score in the low 70s. But if you want to do that regularly, you’re going to have to rely on more than just solid ball-striking and a hot putter. All good players have a variety

Countless times during his career, a Tiger Woods shot has summoned a familiar reaction among everyday golfers: Man, I’d love to be able to hit a shot like that. Granted, there are elements of Woods’ greatness that elude even his closest competitors, never mind those of us who pay to play. But what’s still apparent

If you’ve watched any golf on TV in the past 20 years, you probably have a picture in your mind of some ridiculous shot that Tiger Woods pulled off. Maybe it’s a shot he hits all the time, like his 3-iron stinger off the tee, or a singular feat, like the chip-in on 16 at

We’re accustomed to watching golfers navigating thick rough at major championships, but the grass seems to be especially thick this week at TPC Harding Park. We’ve seen every top player struggle with unpredictable lies at the PGA Championship, making it difficult for them to control their approach shots. Though the courses most of us play

Though golfers in most of the country are still playing in sweltering conditions, cooler rounds are right around the corner. Give yourself an advantage when those temperatures do drop by making these adjustments to combat cold temps. Stop leaving your clubs in the car Even though you probably think it’s saving you time, leaving your

There has never been a better time to learn golf, and if you’ve come this far, it’s probably because you’ve figured that out on your own. By its nature, golf is uniquely suited for a social-distancing world—it’s a game played over a vast outdoor space, a worthwhile source of exercise, a diversion for the mind.

“There’s guys that are a shot, maybe a two-shot penalty when you see their name on that sheet,” Watson said. “You know, yeah, I look forward to seeing who the pairings are and sometimes I start praying early trying to get a good one.” For years, Golf Digest has discussed the traits that make for

Playing something from the sand 40 yards from the target is tricky because it’s in the “dead zone.” First off, it’s hard to commit to a technique. Do you blast it out, or do you play it like a pitch shot? Second, it’s a shot few players practice very often. Even tour players experience a

Handicaps are a funny thing. Your expectations about where you might shoot are guided mostly by your index. So as a 15-handicapper, you already know you’re most likely to shoot in the 90s before you even hit a practice shot. What every golfer craves is stealth info, a secret of sorts to break through to

Part of the reason professional athletes generate so much power and speed in their golf swing is because they figured out how to apply their own athletic skills to the golf swing. Develop a more athletic swing with help from Top 50 Fitness Instructor, Milo Bryant. Bryant mentions the phases of throwing and how they

“That’s what I think it is, personally…the yips,” says Golf Digest 50 Best Teacher and tour short game guru Kevin Weeks. “He’s doing something he has to do to get control again over the face. He’s done the claw or the saw before, so he’s had some issues, and this is another step toward finding

I developed this low-flying tee shot in the late ’90s to make sure I could compete in any condition. The stinger would give me an advantage on windy Open Championship days, when you really can’t control anything that flies too high. It wasn’t an easy shot to master. I had to get stronger, particularly in

By now you might have seen the question circulating around social media about which distance putt you would choose for a certain amount of money. There are a bunch of variations, but it goes something like this: Put aside the first question about who exactly would be sponsoring this fictitious endeavor, and focus instead on

At 48 years old and retired from the PGA Tour, Justin Leonard isn’t the first name you think of when it comes to golf fitness. Make no mistake, the Aspen, Colo. transplant whose lifestyle includes mountain biking, hiking, skiing and working on his new digital golf fitness program and mobile app with pain specialist Jeremy

Sure, anybody can dial up a stock image of Cypress Point and terrify you about a shot you have to hit with 240 yards of miracle carry in a 30-mph wind. But what about the scariest shots you’re going to face the very next time you play, at your regular course? We enlisted the help

Member-guest season is upon us. At many clubs, events have been delayed until a little later in the year, but you might be asked to sign up for yours soon. Member-guests are something we look forward to for months, one we want to fully enjoy, even in these unusual times. My partner, Mike Stachura, is

I‘m hitting my sand shots closer now than in years past. Before the break, I was leaving them inside seven feet on average—and I was converting more, too. I think the improvement comes from the way I work on these shots, and my approach to club selection and technique. I’ve found it super useful to

Typically, early rounds of the season come with a few high numbers on the scorecard. While a lot of these “blow up” holes are due to a lack of practice, the good news is that minimizing the damage is pretty easy. We spoke with Golf Digest Best Young Teachers Greg DuCharme and Anders Mattson, who

You wouldn’t confuse the space in Golf Digest 50 Best Teacher Bernie Najar’s basement or back yard with the positively majestic location he usually occupies in his teaching center at Caves Valley Golf Club outside Baltimore. But it’s a credit to Najar that the race is far closer than you might think. When the start

Golf Digest published its first article on how to play this magnificent and infuriating game in the spring of 1950. Fittingly, it was titled “How to putt.” Can’t get that right, the editors must have figured, and there’s no sense in learning the rest. But since that time, the rest has been covered in this

Let’s take a step back and consider what it means to slice a putt. It’s no different than slicing a drive: The club cuts across the ball from out to in with the clubface open. And just like with the driver, the result is a weak shot that veers off line. The difference in putting

A few weeks ago, we asked fans to take the ultimate leap of faith by submitting a video of their swing to be critiqued by none other than Tiger Woods himself. Quite a few took the plunge, and Woods didn’t hold back with his analysis. Case in point: the first swing Woods is shown is

One simple way to keep your swing on track is to review the fundamentals in step-by-step order. That allows you to check your technique in small pieces and identify where you might be getting out of position. In many ways, each part of the swing is only as good as the parts that come before

It has literally never been easier to either start learning how to play golf or improve the skills you already have. Golf Digest has been the leading authority on finding the best instructors nationwide for more than 20 years, through our 50 Best Teachers and Best Teachers in Your State programs, but a traditional face-to-face,

Tony Caine was watching his golf swing in a mirror, as he often did. Yet this day he saw something different. “I suddenly noticed I could turn more without stressing my shoulders and back,” recalls the 63-year-old who previously endured back problems so severe they required surgery. “With that improved range of motion, my clubhead

It would be no exaggeration to say Gary Player has seen it all. The 84-year-old Hall of Fame champion has played golf on six of the seven continents, won nine regular and nine senior majors and flown more than 15 million miles since the start of his professional career in 1953. He’s also played with

Golftec, the golf instruction franchise business that has produced more than nine million lessons at nearly 200 worldwide locations since it was founded in 1995, knows you’re jacked up to play now that golf courses are finally opening up everywhere. But they also know the “stay home” provisions brought on by the coronavirus pandemic probably

A substantial subsection of the golf canon is devoted to romanticizing Ben Hogan and his technique. And that includes his grip, which is shown in the photograph shown above for Life Magazine in 1947—before he weakened it to stop hooking and went on to dominate golf through the mid-1950s. Even with all of the changes

If you struggle to hit a good tee ball, you’re not alone. I’ve found that many times the easiest way to get a player to learn a skill or correct a mistake is to have them overemphasize the movement needed to execute the task—or even do the opposite of what they’re doing, so they can