Golf Courses in Leeds

Even though golf is quite a simple game, there is no shortage of variations on the concept and different ways to play.

The basic golf game is generally referred to as stroke play – tournaments work using the stroke system, and it is the most widely-played version of the game. In this game, for every shot you make under or over the par of each hole, you have one point either subtracted from or added to your score. For example, if hole 1 is a par 4 and you take five shots, then your score is +1. If you then move on to hole 2, a par 5, and take 3 shots, scoring an eagle, your new score is –1 – that’s one minus two. This means that you’re aiming to end up with a score far into the minus numbers, with the lowest score winning.

Stroke play is heavy on maths and low on excitement, however, because it was designed for a large number of golfers playing at the same time. If you are just playing head-to-head against a few friends, it is far more interesting to play for skins. With skins, the person with the lowest score on each hole wins the hole, and the person who wins the most holes wins the match. Skins is often played for money, with players paying a certain amount to enter the game and a share of the prize money being awarded to the winner of each hole.

For children, there are two alternative rule sets: pitch and putt and crazy golf. Pitch and putt is the more serious of the two, resembling a much smaller version of a normal golf course where the player only needs to take one shot onto the green and then putt the ball into the hole. In crazy golf, however, the green is the whole course, and each hole is littered with strange obstacles, often based around a theme. While the game is fun for a family on holiday, it’s not going to turn your kids into pro golfers any time soon – although it might inspire them to take up real golf.

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There are many types of effective golf swing exercises. Golf swing exercise is very important because the golf swing is at the very heart of the golf game. It is actually impossible to play a good game of golf without being able to execute an effective golf swing.

The other reason why golf swing exercise is so important is in the fact that a golf swing by its’ very nature is a very unnatural and awkward movement of the body and muscles. It therefore stands to reason that the body will usually resist the golf swing action and this is why it appears to be so difficult to master.

However when you use golf swing exercises to strengthen and condition the relevant muscles, the golf swing becomes less awkward to the body.

Let us now take a closer look at the movements involved in a golf swing so that we come up with the most effective golf swing exercise that will impact most dramatically on the quality of your game.

The golf swing is actually a turn back and turn through. Most of the movement is pure rotation. This means doing golf swing exercises like a seated twist holding a dumbbell straight out in front of you is a very effective exercise in strengthening and conditioning the muscles used in the golf swing.

Be careful not to use very heavy weights in this golf swing exercise. 3-5 pound dumb bells are ideal. Remember that a golf club is not heavy; in fact it weights less than a pound.

Repeat this golf swing exercise as many times as you can within a 30-minute session without straining yourself. Do remember to warm up before you begin the session and also to warm down when you are through.

Warming up ensures that you do not start with your muscles cold. Stretches involving the muscles that you are going to use can also be extremely useful before you go into this golf swing exercise.

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Golf is supposed to be an enjoyable game. We golf over and over again, because we love the game. So why do we beat ourselves up, just before we get off the first tee box? Have you ever heard yourself with a bunch of negative emotions before the golf round?

“Another day out on the golf course and my back is killing me.” Why would you even consider golfing, if it were painful? Why did those even consider golfing with a bad back? I’ll tell you why. All for the love of golf!

“I have to get through this eighteen with the least amount of pain.” Why not play nine holes instead of eighteen? I’ll tell you why. All for the love of golf!

“I am not too sure if the mental part of my game can take any more. It’s tough mentally when things just aren’t going right.” If your confused mentally, why even bother picking up a golf club? I’ll tell you why. All for the love of golf!

“I hope this is not going to be another brutal round, like the other day?” When things are not going right, why not take a day off from golf and meditate instead? I’ll tell you why. All for the love of golf!

“If I do not hit the fairway on the first tee box, I think I’ll quit playing golf after eighteen.” Why quit after eighteen when the first shot may be the reason to quit? I’ll tell you why. All for the love of golf!

“If I do not make par on the first hole, I am not going to keep score for the rest of the round.” If your temper is that bad, why carry a scorecard at all? I’ll tell you why. All for the love of golf!

“The first water hazard my ball ends up in, my golf clubs are going in with it.” Do yourself a favor and play with rentals. Why? All for the love of golf!

“I better not three putt any greens today. I’ll break my putter on the first three putt green, if I do.” Do yourself a favor and pick up for two. Why? All for the love of golf!

“Frosty will never see winter, if I get a snowman today.” Do not play golf with anybody by the nickname Frosty. Why? All for the love of golf!

To help avoid some of these negative emotions, booking a tee time in advance will help keep your mind on a positive level. Why? All for the love of golf!

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Sunny laid back Sunday morning, extended weekends or a vacation, discussion on none of these is complete without a mention of golf. What exactly is Golf? Well it is an outdoor ball game wherein the aim is to hit the ball into a series of holes in the minimum possible strokes. A round of golf consists of 18 holes. Now the number of strokes you need to hit one hole is your Par. Each hole has a teeing area around it, which includes a fairway, a rough sideway and a green well-mown area around the hole. Then there are the “not so wanted” barriers like sand traps, water etc that are called the bunkers.

It is believed to have originated from an ancient game called chole, supposedly meaning, “ball”. Most of the people believe that Scotland is where Golf was born, probably out of a banned 15th century game called ‘gowf’. However many folklore relate it as an acronym for Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden. The modern Golf came into being again in Scotland in the later half of the 19th century. Later on over the 20th century golf saw a facelift with a variety of golf equipments and techniques being invented.

Golf has woven itself in the social fabric as the game of the elite and high-end businessmen. Would you believe if we tell you that many US business school add golf to their management curriculum? It is a game of social status. After all one has to shell out huge sums on latest equipment, the right clothing and the green fees of the golf course. This has still kept golf away from the reach of common man. Nevertheless, the massive popularity of the game can be judged by the very fact that there are over 32,000 golf courses in the world!

Players move around the golf course with their caddies who manage the equipments of the players. The player whose ball is farthest from the hole gets a chance to play first when each individual player has had his chance of playing the ball once. The game is won by the person or the team that scores the maximum holes. It can be played by teams in foursome or by individuals. A very interesting term taking rounds in the golfing community is “Golf handicap.” This is the score of proficiency of different players, which affect their net score, thus allowing players of different capacities to play against each other.

People say golf is not played by rules but by etiquettes. However, there are a few laid down rules. The most basic are “play the ball as it lies”, “play the course as you find it”, and “if you cannot do either, do what is fair”. A Golfer can play several types of shots such as tee shot, fairway shot, bunker shot, puts, pitch, flop, chip and a golf swing. A golf swing is the most complex shot that involves perfect coordination of the complete anatomy of the player.

Over the years golf equipment has grown in term of sophistication and technique. From golf balls, tees and clubs to golf carts, bags shoes, etc; it is a whole big market out there. The British officers first started professional golf. Now there are several Golf tournaments like PGA tour, Ryder Cup, U.S. Open etc. In this time and age when pollution is a big problem, the vast golf courses prove to be the breathing lungs of cities and towns where they are located. They nurture the local flora and fauna and provide a welcome respite from the concrete jungle.

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When I watch inexperienced golfers players hit the ball I find that they are usually mis-alinged to their target. Typically, they aim way too far out to the right.  The reason they aim to the right is because the inexperienced player has the tendency to hit the ball with their arms which causes the ball to pull to the left.  This means that they are compensating for a flaw in their swing by just aiming their body out to the right instead of fixing the actual flaw.

What this boils down to, is that the inexperienced players’ bad swings make the ball go on target and their perfect swings make the ball end up in the trees, or bunker on the right of the target.  So, they are seeing their good shots as bad shots and bad shots as good shots.  If this is the case, the inexperienced player will never want to fix their swing flaws.  If they don’t fix their flaws they will never reach their golfing potential.  This is why I call alignment the most important lesson in golf.

Check Your Alignment

In order to find out if you are a player that has swing flaws, you must check your alignment.  To do this, all you have to do is pick out a target and do your normal set up.  Once you feel like you are ready, lay a club down at your heels or toes.  Then, step back about 10 paces behind the ball to see where you are actually aimed.  If the club you placed at your toes or heels is parallel left of your actual target, you have properly aligned yourself.  If the club on the ground points to the right of your target you are mis-aligned.

If you find that you are mis-aligned, you must learn to square up your stance.  To do this, simply find a target in the distance that you want to hit the ball to.   Take out 2 golf clubs that you rarely hit (ie. 3 iron and 4 iron).  Take the first club and lay it down directly at the target (you will have to step back a few paces to check this).  Place the second club parallel to the first club on the ground.  Now, take away the first club that is pointing at the target.  You should have one club on the ground that is parallel to the left of your target.

Once you have the club on the ground parallel to your target line you have a guide to help you align your feet, knees, hips and shoulders squarely.  If you aim your body squarely to the club on the ground and you hit the ball to the left of your target you have just found out that you are pulling the golf ball which means you are trying to hit the ball too hard with only your arms.  If you hit the ball to the right of the target from this square alignment you are sliding your body too much laterally through impact which is causing the ball to fly to the right.

Learning that you are mis-aligned can be quite shocking at first but don’t think of it as a bad thing, think of it as a good thing.  It’s a good thing because you now know that you have a swing flaw and you can get on the road to fixing it so that you can play even better golf in the future.

Until next time,

Paul Wilson

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There are many different types of golf swing faults and golf training aids can go a long way in helping any golfer deal with their specific problem area.

The golf swing is the essence of the golf game and therefore it would not be a bad idea to get even two golf training aids that are specific to your swing fault.

The golf training aid that I have found to be very effective is the weighted club. This is a very golf-specific golf training aid as you go through the exact same motions you do with an ordinary club but with more weight. This greatly helps in strengthening and conditioning all the relevant muscles.

The inside approach is another great golf training aid to help improve any golf swing. This particular device is extremely useful for slicers and helps deal with this problem fairly quickly.

Another golf training aid is exercise tubing, which is very affordable and yet very effective. The strength of this device is in its’ ability to break down the golf swing into as many different phases as you would like to focus on for the sake of improvements. It offers specific resistance training for each phase.

A stability ball is a golf training aid than any golfer with a bad back should have. There are almost countless different stretch exercises that you can with it. And what makes this golf training aid even more attractive is the fact that you can do your exercises in the office or at home when you have a moment.

A simple pair of dumbbells can be a golf training aid that is very useful to any golfer. They are usually very portable and there are many exercises that can be done with hand weights.

Use of a golf training aids all boils down to the golfer knowing exactly what they are doing when using it.

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I like to think we all seemed to have our heroes and greats in our early years. Growing up in front of a television had us dashing around with a sword or packing a six-shooter at our side. Depending on what we were watching at the time, whether it was in front of a television or out on some field watching a football game. We all seemed to mimic someone at one time or another. In our early years finding someone we admired as a Mentor kind of kept the spirit alive in direction and where we are today.

I often wondered back how I caught on to what some people call golf fever. Thinking back I often admired good golfers where I caddied. How I remembered getting excited when I watched a good golfer walk towards the first tee box. Standing there in anticipation of a huge drive to follow as the golfer teed up his ball, remembering how they maneuvered the golf ball off the tee box, watching the shot rise with a steady climb as it went out into the distance. I had to figure out then and there on how they did that by grabbing a stick or a nearby branch of any length and mimicking their swing. I use to take buckets of golf balls out to the practice range to try and accomplish that remarkable hitting distance. It just made me a better golfer trying.

Names like Kendal and Nadler sparked my excitement that took me where I am today in golf. To this day, because of my admiration of their golf game back then, it fired up the enthusiasm for years of golf that followed. The names may not have recognition to anybody else, but to me they were like a Palmer and Nicklaus as their names are to anybody today in the golf industry.

Kendal I admired because of his ability to take trees and woods out of play. His shots started out low with a steady climb upwards at about 200 yards out. His drives were so huge. I think then and there is where I caught the fever. His 5 wood took all the trees out of play. With today’s technology, I would like to view those same shots again.

Nadler was a different type of golfer. She liked to play a low draw shot or fade shot. Her ability to move a ball in any direction was uncanny. Going up and over trees was not her game. Nadler steered her golf shots around them, like she was navigating a vehicle on an obstacle course. Her golf game was kind of like, hit the ball just before the green and watch it bounce past a sand trap and roll in towards the flagstick. Nadler could steer the ball around sand traps, trees, and whatever obstacles that were in her way. I often thought her golf ball had eyes, because of how her golf shots would start out straight and come back in towards the flagstick. It was amazing to watch. I learned from her that a straight shot was not the only golf shot you needed to master to play good golf. Also playing the old bump and run approach is an alternative game to play, that she was a master at.

It was because of them, my enthusiasm for golf took me to a better game. I didn’t even think about watching it on television at the time. Sure I enjoy watching it on television today. You tend to slow down and take a more relaxed approach, or what you may call a golf couch approach at the game, as you get older. I guess the golf fever for me then, was being able to play golf like my Mentors, and there was nothing more enjoyable than actually trying to create a golf swing like theirs out on the course. I liked to think of them as Mentors, because it was them that taught me the potential thrill of playing good golf.

No matter what game of sports you play or want to learn. It could work for all walks of life. Go out and watch someone that is much better than you, and see if you can catch the excitement, to be as good, if not better. It could bring you to the top. If you’re persistent!

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The perfect golf swing drill is a joy to behold. And yet it is not too hard to achieve.

The perfect golf swing drill starts with a proper back swing with the golf club swung right back to the limit of your body. At this segment of the perfect golf swing drill your mind should be preparing for the rotation of your body and the arm extension.

Next, the movements of the perfect golf swing drill moves to the down swing, which starts with the lower part of the body, including the legs and hips. A transfer of weight will take place from back to front with the knees, thighs and hips all moving forward.

The perfect golf swing drill ends with the body weight on the outside of the front heel and the inside of the rear foot.

The perfect golf swing drill is easy when your body is prepared and conditioned to achieve it. However the perfect golf swing drill can be very difficult for a golfer not involved in any golf specific exercise designed to condition and prepare their muscles and body in general for the strain and pressure that golf usually brings.

Most professionals take their golf-specific exercises very seriously, but some amateurs are reluctant to let go of the so-called good old days when exercise had no role in the leisure sport of golf. Still they are finding the going increasingly difficult as more and more golfers embrace golf exercise programs.

There is no doubt that the perfect golf swing drill happens only with those whose muscles and bodies have been prepared.

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Golfers struggling to improve their performance on the course must typically focus on the fundamentals to get to a more consistent level of play.  Often one of the most overlooked areas of play is the postural address or setup position of the swing.  Most people are aware of the importance of their setup routine; however, many overlook the less addressed area of posture.

Proper posture and foot placement allows you to maintain your balance throughout the swing. Balance throughout the swing allows you to hit the ball squarely in the center of the clubface.  Also proper body alignment can help to create a setup that leads to control.  Postural alignment is an integral part of the quality of your golf swing.

Good postural alignment helps you create power and control the direction of the shot. Key pre-swing elements such as ball position and body alignment create the conditions that lead to control. The body angles that you create at address directly influence the path and angle on which you swing the club. They influence the body positions and movements; thus your setup directly affects all elements of the swing.

A physical fitness assessment can give you much information on achieving good posture throughout your swing.  Don’t overlook the advantages of muscular strength and flexibility when considering the golf swing.  These advantages can make the difference between playing great golf and constantly struggling to maintain your current level of play.

By identifying areas of weakness, you are able to direct your fitness regimen to retrain old muscle habits, improve muscle memory, coordinate spinal movement and thus improve your posture.  Concentrating on the muscles that control the spine angle, your center of gravity and balance, you will improve the muscles necessary to correct current swing faults.  This will obviously lead to better golf performance.

Retraining posture through correct technique, proper exercises and stretch routines can be perhaps the best thing you can do to improve your game.

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Golf Carts — An Amazingly Diversified Niche Industry

Golfers out for a Sunday afternoon game just take them for granted on the golf course, and never think about their origin. I am talking about golf carts, those miniature vehicles dotting each golf course. Even so, golf cart production is a multi-million dollar industry and different systems abound. Golf carts are manufactured as miniature cars, and golf-cart corporations provide leasing and financing choices just as the huge car corporations do.

Golf originates from a medieval game played on the coast of Scotland in the 15th century. Golfers would hit a pebble instead of a manufactured ball around the sand dunes employing a stick or wide club. As time passed, stones were exchanged for man-made balls, the earliest of which were thin leather bags stuffed with feathers. The gutta-percha ball wasn’t invented until 1848 and might be hit the maximum distance of 225 yards. In 1899 rubber balls were invented that may reach distances of 430 yards if hit by a professional. Golf sticks evolved into carefully weighted golf clubs, and in the 1880’s the use of golf club bags became fashionable. The caddie, a servant who carted all the player’s gear aound the golf course, had his burden lessened in the early 1950’s by the introduction of the golf cart.

The 1st golf cart manufacturers were E-Z-Go, Pargo, Harley Davidson and Cushman. The cost was astoundingly high for this era, $1200, however as even more manufacturers entered the field it dropped to $600, still a steep price for this era in inflationary terms. Fifty years later, E-Z-Go is still producing golf carts today. There are 100s of golf cart manufacturers listed online, and virtually all of these corporations specialize solely in these vehicles, and don’t produce any larger cars.

The 1st golf carts were gas-powered, however recently the market has shifted to even more battery-powered systems. Golf carts can be customized just like cars, and lift kits and ATV wheels are sold to golfers who wish to express their individuality out on the course. There are corporations which specialize in creating entire custom golf cars, or even miniaturized versions of full sized cars, like the Humdinger (Humvee), mini Jeep, Rolls-Royce, Cadillac or even Mercedes-Benz.

Golf carts come in three forms: manual push/pull carts, electric motorized carts, and electric or even gas golf cars that hold passengers as well as gear. Push/pull carts have two to three wheels and a vertical support to hold a golf bag. They are basically just a manual dollies with clips and holders especially adapted for golf gear, and sell for $50 to $100. Moving higher in sophistication, motorized golf caddies cost about $500 all the way to $1000. Golf carts, which resemble dune buggies in size, begin at about $1800 for a small basic model.

Ebay has a massive choice of both new and utilized golf carts at low prices however service can be a problem with the smaller vendors. Check if the vendor has a physical store as well and is not just a reseller of a larger firm. Warranty service can be affected by this.

Manufacturers are also expanding their sales by renaming carts “Electric Utility Vehicles” and suggesting alternate utilizes for them, like hauling lawn equipment and travelling around rural properties.

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