I think of all my iron shots as punches - not punch shots, but how much pressure I'm applying to the hit.
Swinging harder with a longer club almost always leads to bad shots.
The best quick tip in golf is to focus on your rhythm and balance.
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 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.
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.
I have one idiosyncrasy that helps my driving accuracy. I grip down on the club. This makes it easier to control the clubface.
I'd definitely use a 48-inch driver if I could control it.
At the heart of every slice is an open clubface. And it usually goes with a steep swing that cuts across the ball from out to in.
Then I thought, with the same clubhead speed, the ball's going to go at least six times as far. There's absolutely no drag, so if you do happen to spin it, it won't slice or hook 'cause there's no atmosphere to make it turn.
I preach about getting the ball in the air.
I think, obviously, there's a bunch of technology with TrackMan, and all of the different launch monitors, that help tell you what is best. But, for me, it's a lot about what is going to come out from that initial window of hitting that ball.
Early in my career, my 3-, 5- and 9-irons performed differently than my other irons. But I adapted and made them work.
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.
I very rarely watch anybody swing. All I do is follow where the ball goes.
Baseball and golf have a lot of things in common, including the fact that players in both games love hitting for power. However, in both sports, trying to do so strictly with muscle strength doesn't work very well. In fact, I see a lot of guys in both baseball and golf struggle when they try to swing with tight arms.
I could always hit the ball really far, but you don't need to be strong to do that.
My job is just to be more consistent and if I can keep being more repeatable, have my dispersion be a little less as I'm hitting it farther, there's a lot of strokes to be gained there.
