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Lets look at the second hardest uneven lie to hit.  If you have a tendency to struggle with this shot, you usually top the golf ball.

Follow the steps below and you will see a positive change in your down hill shots.

1. Because the ball will fly lower, you can take a more lofted club to help the ball go a little higher.
2. The ball will have a tendency to curve to the right.  You will need to aim a little to the left.
3. To avoid topping the ball, check your shoulder alignment and make sure they are parallel to the ground you are standing on.  Your front shoulder should be a little lower than your back shoulder.  This will encourage the club to swing DOWN into the ball (correct) and not up in the down swing.
4. Play the ball in your stance according to the club you are using (a little forward for a longer club and a little back for shorter clubs).
5. You want to make sure you follow through LOW to the ground after impact.

Give this tip a try.  I know that it will work for you! Leave a comment below with all of your golf successes.

The uphill lie is the easiest uneven lie shot in golf.  If you struggle with this shot, you probably swing the golf club to vertical into the ground and hit a fat shot. There are a few things you should focus on and know before hitting your shot on an uphill lie.

1. Make sure you take a less lofted club. This will make the ball go HIGHER and SHORTER.
2. The ball will have a tendency to hook to the left, so you should aim a little to the right.
3. To avoid hitting the shot fat, check your shoulder alignment.  Your shoulders should be parallel to the ground you are standing on. For the uphill lie, your back shoulder should be a little lower that your leading shoulder.
4. The ball should be positioned according to what club you are using, as though you were on a level lie. (A bit forward for longer clubs and a bit back for shorter clubs.)
5. You want to make sure you have a HIGH follow through after impact.

I KNOW THIS TIP WILL HELP! Leave a comment below with all of your golf successes.

Most players use one club to for all their chip shots of varying distances. What I want to see is you use different clubs for different distances but with the same swing technique.

If you are very close to the green and the flag is close to you, you should use your pitching wedge. With this club their will be more air on the ball and less roll.  As the flag gets further away, you should use a less lofted club such as a 7 or 6-iron.

The basic chipping technique - hands down on the grip, feet close together, and the ball in between your feet.  Keep your swing small and controlled, make a smooth stroke at the ball.

Now as you need to chip to a flag that is farther away we will do the same swing as before but this time with a less lofted club. Your 6-iron, 7 or even 8 can be used depending on your preference.  So take your stance with feet close together, ball between your feet, and hands low on the grip. This time the ball be in the air less and will roll more to the longer flag. When you have more green to work with this is a method that makes it easier to chip it close.

Hope this tip helps you out.  Leave a comment below to let me know how this works for you.

By Cameron Morfit
Senior Writer, GOLF Magazine
Published: September 21, 2008

Will Paul Azinger be the U.S. Captain for 2010?

That Azinger’s underdog U.S. team won, 16 1/2 to 11 1/2, at Valhalla on Sunday does many things, first and foremost renewing a rivalry that had gone stale from two consecutive 9-point drubbings by Europe. But it also answers definitively the question of whether or not the captain really matters in these things.

Um, yes, it does.

European captain Nick Faldo is being marinated for the biggest barbecue of his life. Even before the 37th Ryder Cup matches began, the ruthless British press dubbed him “Captain Cock-up” for inadvertently revealing his Friday pairings. They appeared to be scrawled on a slip of paper in his hand, and came to light when the Euro captain seemed to forget that the Ryder Cup might attract photographers with expensive lenses.

Faldo nearly came to tears when he was asked about meeting Muhammad Ali on Thursday, an all-too-human reaction from a man not known for his warmth, but his strangest move was to leave both Darren Clarke and Colin Montgomerie off his team. Even for American fans, the absence of both players from a Ryder Cup was palpable, like a phantom limb.

But as much as the European press will eviscerate Nick the Not so Quick, Azinger’s moves had a far greater impact. He began to put his stamp on the 2008 Ryder Cup the moment he was introduced as captain on November 6, 2006. He said the points system would now emphasize performance in the year of the actual Cup, not the year previous. He wanted the hot players.

He said he would be taking four captain’s picks, not two.

He said he wanted “guys on the team that say ‘dude.’”

“Experience,” he said, “is way overrated.”

And so he got at a team with six rookies, including the breakout star of the Cup, 23-year-old Anthony Kim, who throttled Sergio Garcia 5 and 4 Sunday and finished the week with two and a half points (2-1-1).

Paul Azinger got a team with lots of guys who say “dude,” a guy who lets his driver speak for him in J.B. Holmes, and even a player who speaks a language all his own in Boo Weekley.

Every team needs a jester, a guy who can be relied on to keep things light, but you get the feeling Azinger knows that. (Clarke has filled that role for Europe.) Woody Austin kept the 2007 Presidents Cup team laughing, and with Azinger encouraging Boo to be Boo, Weekley kept everyone but Lee Westwood in stitches in Louisville. On Sunday, while thrashing Oliver Wilson 4 and 2, the U.S. team’s southern comfort threw a leg over his driver and actually began to ride the thing, up and down, like it was Trigger. Can you imagine Davis Love III doing that?

Azinger not only changed the selection process, he altered the order of play, starting the competition with alternate-shot (foursomes) instead of best-ball (four ball). For whatever reason, the American team had enjoyed more success at foursomes, and so he let them play that game first. It panned out in a big way, as the Americans got off to a quick 3-1 lead and never trailed.

When you think about the Cup as much as Azinger has, you understand these things. Seve Ballesteros breathed the Ryder Cup in the same way; as the captain of Europe’s 1997 team, he was the one who changed the order of play to best-ball in the morning, for the same reason that Azinger changed it back. It gave his team the best possible chance.

If Azinger was Ballesteros, and Weekley was Austin, then Kim was Garcia, the irrepressible, incandescent talent running and jumping all over the course while piling up points and reminding even veterans like Phil Mickelson that this is supposed to be fun.

A team needs that, just as it needs a jester. But odds are Azinger did not consciously sit down and try to fill all of these holes. He intuited it.

When you think about the Cup as much as Azinger has, you appreciate the significance of having local talent on your team. And you get the importance of attitude. So when you notice Bluegrass State native Holmes strutting off the tee at the FBR Open while taking out Mickelson in sudden-death, and almost beating Tiger Woods eye-to-eye after that, you recognize things may be breaking your way. And when Kentuckian Kenny Perry wins three times to free up a captain’s pick, you know things are breaking your way.

But you never say these things. You say to anyone with a microphone that your team is simply lucky to be in the same zip code as these Europeans, a team so stocked full of talent it gives you nightmares. You say this is their Ryder Cup to lose, no question.

His assertion that experience is overrated proved true with his selections of rookies Holmes (2.5 points) and Hunter Mahan (3.5 points), who won and halved their singles matches on Sunday to remain undefeated for the week. Chad Campbell, who unexpectedly beat Padraig Harrington, 2 and 1, finished with 2 points. Among the four U.S. captain’s picks, only Steve Stricker never really found his groove, but even he didn’t get skunked, earning a half point.

Maybe Azinger intuited that the 9th and 10th men to qualify for the U.S. team on merit have historically earned fewer points than the two captain’s picks. Or maybe he actually did the math.

In the end, who knows why he did anything? Why did he call Faldo a word that rhymes with “trick” with a U.K. writer’s tape recorder running? Why did he make such an effort to have goofy T-shirts printed up for a “13th man” rally in Louisville on Thursday night, and why did his entire team join him on stage?

Why did he have Lou Holtz talk to his team, when his team’s youthful “dude” demographic probably doesn’t know him from any other TV talking head?

Paul Azinger has a feeling for this event like Ben Crenshaw had a feeling that something special was going to happen on the last day of the 1999 Ryder Cup. The PGA of America has settled into a one-and-done mentality for its captains, but after Valhalla, the Ryder Cup that got turned on its head, that’s one more custom worth abandoning immediately.

US Celebrates First Ryder Cup Win Since 1999

By

Gary Van Sickle
Senior Writer, Sports IllustratedGary Van Sickle
Senior Writer, Sports Illustrated

Published: September 21, 2008

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — This 37th Ryder Cup won’t be remembered for its great golf shots, although they were plentiful and spectacular.

We won’t recall any last-hole heroics — they were numerous, too, just not on Sunday.

We’ll probably even forget just how excruciating the tension was on the last day, and just how much the final outcome was in doubt. The Americans’ five-point margin of victory (16 1/2-11 1/2) wasn’t remotely indicative of how close this Ryder Cup was. The end came oh-so-suddenly when J.B. Holmes birdied three of four holes, turned his match around and set up Jim Furyk to two-putt his way to the clinching point with four matches still on the course.

What we will remember about the Americans’ first Ryder Cup victory since 1999, and only their second since 1995, are these scenes:

Kentucky’s Kenny Perry getting tearful hugs from his whole family, including his father, after winning his singles match against Henrik Stenson in a page that surely came straight out of Destiny’s playbook. Perry, 48, from little Franklin, Ky., had said this event would define his career and that, after narrowly losing the ‘96 PGA Championship here, Valhalla Golf Club owed him. That debt is paid in full.

American captain Paul Azinger, his voice cracking with emotion as he tried to do an interview with NBC’s Jimmy Roberts in the chaotic moments after Furyk clinched the Cup. “In the end, it comes down to putting and heart,” said Azinger. “Our guys have a lot of heart.” Azinger’s passion was evident when he drove his golf cart down empty fairways Sunday afternoon, waving to fans like he was waving to friends he recognized, jumping out to give them fist-pumps or a pump-up-the-volume gesture.

Furyk wiping some errant moisture from his eyes as he recalled what it felt like to be on the losing end of the decisive Ryder Cup match, and how blessed he felt to have this moment, not for himself but for his teammates and his captain.

Anthony Kim pounding home a clutch par putt with authority and striding toward the next tee because he couldn’t wait to win another hole, only to be told that the match was over, he’d just beaten a helpless Sergio Garcia, 5 and 4. We’ll remember the smiles on the faces of Garcia and European assistant captain Jose Maria Olazabal, who couldn’t help but be amused by the kid’s enthusiasm. They showed true sportsmanship as they shook hands and offered sincere congratulations. Mostly, we’ll remember the infectious smile of Kim and the unbridled joy of the 23-year-old.

Azinger, again, bursting onto the stage of an old-fashioned pep rally Thursday night, followed by the rest of his players and their wives (all wearing 13th man T-shirts), throwing souvenirs into the crowd during a rollicking assembly that felt like the night before a big homecoming football game. It was cheesy, maybe, but it was real.

Boo Weekley, the countrified golfer who became a certified legend at Valhalla. Sure, he holed a bunker shot for eagle at the par-5 seventh hole in Sunday’s singles matches and acted like he expected to do it, but the truly indelible image came at the first tee. After hitting his drive, he went charging off with his driver between his legs, galloping Happy Gilmore style as if he were riding a pony. He smiled his way through the week, an infectious skill that cannot be underestimated. “That was an amazing moment that will never be duplicated,” Azinger said of Boo’s pseudo-ride. “Everyone cracked up.”

There were many other memorable scenes, too, from the boisterous fans — no American Ryder Cup crowd has been louder or better for three straight days than these folks — to the ones dressed as leprechauns and matadors and the Weekley supporters with their signs of “Boooooo” and “You’re my boy, Boo.”

The message of this Ryder Cup wasn’t one of redemption, like the Olympic Dream Team basketball squad. This American team didn’t look back. They were all about forming a new team. It seemed real when Azinger, speaking at the closing ceremonies, thanked the Valhalla superintendent and his crew and promised “the whole team is going to come down and hang out with you.” Quite a change when previous American Ryder Cuppers were often thought of as aloof guns for hire.

The book is closed on European Ryder Cup dominance. This week felt like the start of something big, or at least something new. Thanks to Azinger and the Americans, the event has been re-energized and restored to its rightful place as the most exciting thing in golf. And the Americans did all this without Tiger Woods, the world’s best player. Instead, they relied on a core of young players that included J.B. Holmes, Hunter Mahan and Kim, guys who are going to be around for a while.

The matches could’ve gone either way. European captain Nick Faldo said it many times after it was over. So did Azinger. They were right. That’s big news because it means that the Americans, if nothing else, got themselves back on equal footing with the Euros.

There was vindication enough to go around, and satisfaction. “I’m pretty damn happy right now,” Jim Furyk said Sunday night.

Earlier, he and the rest of the American team had created the one scene that may outlive the others. It was the traditional celebration as Azinger and his players shook bottles of champagne and sprayed them in every direction from behind an American flag draped over the second floor balcony of the clubhouse. They waved flags, they sang songs, they laughed, they threw arms around each other’s shoulders, they savored the moment.

They never looked more like a team. It was beautiful.