How The Golf Channel Can Help Your Game

Article by Jack Moorehouse

If you’re tired of golf instruction magazines, check out the Golf Channel (TGC) cable station and its popular Web site (www.thegolfchannel.com). Available through cable, satellite, and wireless companies, the TGC offers enough instructional material to more than satisfy both the beginner and the scratch player.

The Golf Channel
The Golf Channel is the brainchild of Joseph Gibbs and Arnold Palmer, who co-founded it in 1991. It offers a unique blend of golf information, news, features, and instruction.

The Golf Channel offers TV specials, documentaries, celebrity interviews, movies, video tours, lifestyle segments, and original programming, including Golf Central, a nightly golf news show and What’s in My Bag. They also have a series focusing on golf equipment, accessories, and manufacturers.

It also offers live tour coverage. Its first live televised tournament was the Dubai Dessert Classic in 1991. Back then, it offered limited tournament coverage. Today, it features extensive coverage of the Nationwide, European, Canadian, and Champions tours, as well as the PGA Tour, LPGA tour, PGA of America, and USGA.

In addition, the Golf Channel offers golf instruction and golf tips designed to lower golf handicaps. Academy Live is a weekly call-in show that gives viewers an opportunity to improve their game by consulting with top teaching pros. Playing Lessons from the Pros provides golf lessons and golf tips from professional players on their off-day practice rounds. Golf Channel Academy offers golf instruction designed to help improve every aspect of your game.

The Golf Channel Web Site
More interactive than the cable channel, the TGC Web site offers its own share of golf instruction including In Their Bag, which looks at what clubs the winner of the latest tour event carried during the win. One such look included a review of what Phil Mickelson carried when he won the Master’s a couple of weeks ago.

The Web site also provides online instruction in the form of articles written by teaching pros throughout the country. The articles cover a wide variety of topics, from the set-up and sand game to the mental game and the basics of golf fitness. They even cover swing theory.

But the Web Site’s most unique feature is Game Tracker Pro. An innovative online instruction tool, it provides in-depth game analysis and pinpoints major playing problems. In addition, it provides a USGA Handicap Index based on your state golf association’s regulations, a calendar, and an e-mail center, called My Inbox, where you can send and receive e-mails.

The analysis tool is user-friendly. It’s based on details you provide each time you play a round of golf. First, you select the course you played at. If the site’s databank has information on the course, a score card with all pertinent information, like the course’s rating, slope, and type of tee, appears on screen. If the course is not in the databank, you can provide the information yourself.

Next you input the round’s key details, such as the score on a hole, number of fairways hit, and distance of your drives, onto the scorecard. There’s room for information on the total number of putts you made, any penalty strokes you received and the number of up and downs you completed.

After the information is saved, Game Tracker Pro analyzes your rounds to see where your problems lie, providing you with a sense of which instructional articles you should read and what you need to work on to improve.

Game Tracker Pro basic is free of charge. You just sign up to take advantage of its features. The site also offers a chance to become a premium member for about annually. The benefits of a premium membership include all the tools of TGC Basic, plus access to other instructional content, such as the site’s Video Vault, which contains more than 2500 golf videos.

Conclusion
Improving your game just got a little easier thanks to the Golf Channel’s help. Offering features like Game Tracker Pro, a practical tool to help pinpoint and correct weaknesses, the cable channel and Web site provide enough top notch golf instruction, golf tips, and/or golf lessons to satisfy all levels of play, from beginners to experienced players.

About the Author

Jack Moorehouse is the author of the best-selling book “How To Break 80 And Shoot Like The Pros.” He is NOT a golf pro, rather a working man that has helped thousands of golfers from all seven continents lower their handicap immediately.

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Got Golf Information Overload?

Article by golfdiscountsale@gmail.com

You go straight to the table of contents to see what is the most interesting article and there it is, swing advice from the winner of the last major tournament. “This is just what I need,” you say to yourself as you flip to the correct page knowing that your club tournament is 2 months away.

The article has one of those swing-sequence photo frames. It has some quotes from other pros. It has a sidebar from the “Top instructor of all time” with his ideas of the perfect swing. The second page of the article is dwarfed by an advertisement for the greatest swing gadget ever created by a human and endorsed by sixteen instruction schools in five countries. The author talks about how he “remade” his swing prior to winning that major but that his best buddy on tour is struggling using the same method and swing guru.
The captions on each of the swing-sequence photos point out the minute details of where parts of the body of the pro are at 10 different positions during the swing and which of those are “technically not correct”.

You don’t want to give up on the article, since you really do need the swing advice, so you go to your dressing room mirror and check a couple of your body parts with some of the pictures in the article while attempting to freeze your swing at the same points as the stop-action photos. “I got it!” you tell yourself when you match a couple of these positions and then practice them outside with your real club= http://www.golfdiscountsale.com. You congratulate yourself and then sit back down in your easy chair to get back to the business of relaxing.

A little later in the evening, you flip to the Golf Channel and instead of the usual tournament from 1994 there is a lesson program from a pro instructor. Lo and behold, he teaches that the move you worked so hard on an hour ago was the prevailing instruction of the 1980′s and has since been proven to be “unreliable in competition”.

You jump out of your chair to go check your favorite golf sites= http://www.golfdiscountsale.com/Callaway-Golf-Clubs-20 about this guy on the show and it seems that he is everywhere when you do a search for him. A couple of articles you land on say he has the best golf instruction this side of the border and a couple more take pride in picking him apart. The instructor’s own website is loaded with testimonials from his students on how well his program worked for them so you keep surfing for further info.

This leads you to golf discussion boards, blogs, ezines, and untold numbers of websites that say that they have the secret to how to swing correctly. 3 hours later, you wake up from your golf web-surfing trance, realize you missed your bedtime an hour ago, and are now more confused than you were when before you opened that magazine in the mail.
You found more advice than your mind can process on a weekend day let alone a day that you had 3 meetings, your best employee quit, and your boss said something like: “…if you can’t (blah blah blah)…. we’ll find someone who will”.

Ok, that story was a bit exaggerated for most people (truth for me), but the point still stands:
There’s just too much instruction and tips on golf out there and we just don’t know what to do with it all!
And worse, you can find a lot of it that is exactly the opposite from one instructor (or pro) to the other. Many of you are well aware of this fact but still get caught up in something seemingly new that gets printed or posted that could potentially be hazardous to your game. And it’s not just us amateurs that get lost in this maze. Sports psychologists make a pretty penny on their touring professionals teaching them how to “Simplify” their swings and thought processes and “Focus” on what works for them.

So, what should we do about this problem? It’s very simple: just realize that more is not better for golf instruction and to continue to read and listen to golf tips with a very discriminating eye. Over the years, I have now come to the realization that most published golf instruction is designed for the better player and that a tip that works for the 5-handicapper could be a waste of time for a 20-handicapper. Not that it isn’t good advice, but the 20-hdcp should stop looking for more advice and start to work on something that will give him the greatest reduction in score for the time spent.

I know, I know, an article in a major magazine about “practicing good alignment” isn’t going to sell many copies even if it is 90% of all amateur golfer’s biggest problem. But the inescapable fact is, if you really wanted to get better at golf, you should read a basic instruction book like Ben Hogan’s “5 lessons The Modern Fundamentals of Golf.” And, only read one section at a time and work on what was taught in that section until it becomes a regular part of your game. And don’t read any further until you don’t have to think about it to do it correctly.

The other way to go is to pick an instructor or trainer and stick with them with a full set of lessons. You will need to actively ignore any other golf instruction that has the slightest hint of conflict with your lessons. If you run into something your instructor hasn’t taught you about, check with him/her. That is why golf lessons are spaced at least a week apart. Spaced repetition has long been known to be how we humans best learn things. It’s also why you can’t remember a darn thing about a subject 2 weeks after cramming for test on it.

Do the same thing with any other golf instruction that you find also. Don’t be tempted to jump ahead to Chapter 10 and see how to play a draw from a downhill slope because that ain’t gonna help you. O.k., I’m sorry to ruin your fun with your favorite golf magazine. So go ahead and give yourself permission to read and enjoy it again so long as you promise to yourself that you will stick to your plan of really trying to improve by working what you’ve learned one item at a time. Now get back to that couch and finish up that unwinding session you started. And since I’m alre

About the Author

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Finding Free Golf Information

Article by Luis Perpingan

Are you interested in golf but you don’t know where to start? Or maybe you’re a golfer looking to improve you game but don’t want to shell out a lot of money on a personal instructor. One of the ways to get the information you need for little or no cost and with very little effort is by using the internet as a resource.

The internet has many sites that are dedicated to golf and you’ll be able to find firsthand tips on ways to improve your game. They will provide advice for golfers just starting out as well as tips for experienced golfers who have hit a plateau. Not only are there tips but many times there are full golf lessons available for free or for very little cost. The reason for this is that websites want you to use their site to purchase golf equipment. Whether or not you do is up to you but you can still reap the valuable advice.

Many websites offers forums for golfers to swap stories ask advice and recommend equipment and golf courses. This is sometimes the most valuable information since there are people asking and replying that are just like you. They aren’t trying to sell a product but just genuinely trying to help each other out. People who like to offer up free advice often start up a blog which is an online diary. They usually offer tips and summarize their golf experiences. If you’re thinking about a certain piece of equipment or trying out a certain golf course then you can post a message on these forums and fellow golfers will be happy to offer advice.

With golf growing in popularity there shouldn’t be any problem finding sites for what you want. One site will lead you to the next. For example, there is usually a “links” tab to click on. It will recommend other sites that will give you tips or forums for golfers. Then those will give you more links and so on.

The internet is also a great place to check out other information regarding golf course fees, weather, and driving directions. If you want to get started in golf but you’re on a budget then the internet should be your first choice in looking for second hand equipment and other deals.

Golf information and tips do not need to cost you anything. By using the internet all of the information is free (or very cheap) and right at your finger tips.

About the Author

The free-lance writer Luis Perpingan is specifically passionate about areas corresponding to algarve. From his documents on algarve and algarve golf hotel he expressed his experience in the field.