Ernie Els Quotes

The biggest mistake is trying to pinch down on the ball and ripping out a big divot, often hitting the ground before the ball. You'll dig up some turf, but you won't create much backspin.

For the most part, when you play a full shot from the primary rough at your course, you're gauging how close to a standard shot you can hit based on your lie in the grass.

Most tall golfers don't have a lot of success. You have trouble getting steep on the ball too much. Stance, posture, all those things can be bad.

I player my lower-lofted irons slightly higher-up in my stance. Not as much as variable-length, but a little further up can help golfers adapt to the lower-lofted irons.

I love to play three-quarter iron shots. They take a lot of extra movement out of the swing, which increases my chance of hitting it solid with the face square to the target.

I like using a 75-percent swing for wedge shots instead of full force.

The good kind of spin - backspin - comes from hitting the ball cleanly, then making a divot after impact.

When you're hitting a fairway wood, you've got a lot of real estate to cover to get to your target. Your first instinct is probably to give it a little more power because you're worried about coming up short.

Swinging harder with a longer club almost always leads to bad shots.

When I want a long ball, I spin my hips faster.

The ultimate judge of your swing is the flight of the ball.

I love watching Anthony Kim play, but I'm not a fan of the way he grips down a good two inches on his full-swing shots. Choking down lightens the club's swing weight and effectively makes the shaft stiffer. It also makes it difficult to hit the ball high enough for all situations.

I think of all my iron shots as punches - not punch shots, but how much pressure I'm applying to the hit.

If you make the effort to address the moves that cause a slice, you can straighten out all your shots. It won't happen overnight, but if you're systematic about it, the process will work.

I have one idiosyncrasy that helps my driving accuracy. I grip down on the club. This makes it easier to control the clubface.

So as long as my shoulders are level and I pull through with my hips, the ball should go where it's supposed to go.

You'll find that one-length irons are far more versatile around the greens. You can vary the trajectory more, your distance control will improve because you can choke down more if you want.

Spin is a tricky thing. When you're trying to avoid it - say, on a tee shot, where sidespin puts you in the trees - it's easy to make it happen.

I don't hit it as far as a lot of guys do, so I have to be in the right spot in the fairway to score, and that means driving it well. The two biggest keys for me are to make a good transition and to keep my hands ahead of the clubhead through impact. I want to feel as if my swing is two swings: one going back and another coming down.

If you are going to throw a club, it is important to throw it ahead of you, down the fairway, so you don't have to waste energy going back to pick it up.

I used to turn my shoulders pretty level, which a lot of golfers think is correct. But that made my swing too shallow coming into impact, so my contact was picky, especially off the turf.

Sometimes my backswing gets long, and I get in bad positions. The club also can get behind me coming down, so I have to flip my hands to catch up to my body.

In greenside bunkers, the big thing is to adapt your stance to the shot. It's rare that you get a flat lie in the sand, so I make sure to align my body to the slope. Then I blast the ball out by splashing the sand underneath it.

It's very difficult to consistently hit good iron shots if you get off to a bad start. That's why I'm always paying attention to my setup and takeaway.

The reason the pro tells you to keep your head down is so you can't see him laughing.