short game and long game tips

Clipping from one of the e-newletters I receive that would help many. The 1st is on short game/putting, 2nd is on woods, especialy the driver:

QUICK REMINDER ON PUTTING BASICS by Keith Cain

The short game is often overlooked during practice. You
should always practice your short game twice as long as the
long game because it correlates to more than 65% of the game.

In putting, make sure that you know the basics before you
try the advanced techniques. Remember posture is vital to a
good setup. Alignment to the line you are aiming for. To
aim properly, one should use an intermediate target a couple
feet in front of you. If you practice rolling the ball over
the spot you have chosen, with consistency, it will help you
with one of the two most important aspects of putting. The
two most important factors are DISTANCE and SPEED.


Wood Game tip from pgaprofessional.com

Many people complain about not being able to hit the ball
well with their woods, and in particular their driver. From
what I've seen poor quality contact is a major problem for
many players.

Put a tee in the ground (without a ball) sticking up approx-
imately 1 inch. You should be able to strike the tee consis-
tently without hitting, or even brushing, the ground at all.
If you miss the tee, or touch the ground in any way, don't
wonder any longer why you can't hit your driver. Remember--the
longer the club, the more precision required. Practice this
exercise until you can consistently clip the tee without
touching the ground (or even the grass).

Once you get quality contact handled the feedback you get
from your shots becomes meaningful. Then you can work on
directional control.

__________________
Gord

Quote of the month:
"It's easy to see golf not as a game at all but as some whey-faced, nineteenth-century Presbyterian minister's fever dream of exorcism achieved through ritual and self-mortification." ~Bruce McCall

In reading this again, I suggest that the last piece of the putting article should read DIRECTION and SPEED, not DISTANCE and SPEED. I say this because distance and speed are relatively the same thing in putting - the distance is controlled by speed. They are one piece. DIRECTION has no correlation to speed or distance, therefore would make much more sense in this article being the second most important part of putting.

That's just my two cents....