Ernie Els Quotes

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

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

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

We've been trying to get my body and head moving toward the target on the downswing. I have a tendency to hang back and not release the club.

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.

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.

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.

I would say that my downswing mirrors the path of my backswing pretty closely.

I almost never hit a shot all out, and I make a conscious effort to swing my long clubs just as I do my wedges. Keep this in mind when hitting your fairway woods.

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.

A question I get asked a lot in pro-ams is how I'm able to swing the club as hard as I do. Honestly, I'm not swinging that hard. I'm using about 75 percent of my maximum effort.

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

We look at the poor shots and ask why. Then we work on stability and balance. We're always trying to get the club in the little bit better position so we hit fewer poor shots.

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'm not someone who looks to swing the ball away majorly.

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.

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.

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 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.

The golf swing is very, very rhythmic. There's a certain tempo to it, just like in music.

I'm probably the only bottom-heavy golfer in the country.

I very rarely watch anybody swing. All I do is follow where the ball goes.

The beauty is, while you're working on chipping, you're also working on driving. This is because the bottoms of both swings - the area around impact - are identical.

I know most players do, but I always keep both eyes opened. I still do it. I see two shafts, the real one and the transparent one. I look for what's on the inside edge of the transparent one.

When I was getting overly 'droppy,' that's when I was hitting shots left and right. That's what we were doing, so maybe if my swing was a touch flatter, I wouldn't drop the club as much.