Grip: You will never see a good golfer with a bad grip. Every good golfer places the golf club under the fleshy part of their top hand. If your golf glove is wearing out at the butt of your left hand, you are not doing this correctly. Every good golfer turns their top hand over the club at address. This allows you to see two or three knuckles of you top hand at address. For a right-handed golfer, the left hand is on top. Since the golf club averages only 13 ounces an effective swing does not need a tight grip.

Posture: All good golfers have strong athletic postures when they stand next to the ball. The feet are wide apart for better balance. The knees are slightly bent. The spine is straight and tilted forward from the hips. Hold your head up high, with your eyes peering down at the ball. Put all these together and the golfer will always appear balanced.

Big Muscles: Good golfers have learned to allow the big muscles of the body to move the small muscles. If your hands and arms are allowed to do too much of the work, it is hard to achieve a consistent swing. The hands and arms can move in many different speeds and directions. The shoulders and hips are the bigger and slower muscles. These muscles can only move in a few directions. They cannot move quickly. Big muscles will be more consistent then smaller muscles. The big muscles create a "sling" motion to move the smaller muscles back and through the ball.

Spine: The best golfers allow a straight spine to act as the center of their swing. As the shoulders turn back and the hips turn through the spine centers the swing. If the spine moves too much left, right, up, or down, consistency becomes impossible. If the spine moves a slightly, that is acceptable. If your spine moves more than that, you will need to work on your flexibility. Try to relax as you turn your big muscles around your spine.

Torque: A good golfers needs to create torque or wind up on the backswing. You need to be able to turn your shoulders without moving your hips at the start of the swing. This move tightens the muscles that run down your side and are attached to the hips. Eventually this tightening helps your hips to turn to start the downswing. This creates the whipping effect that gives us clubhead speed. Jim McLean, the well-known teaching professional at Doral Country Club, calls this torquing, the "X-Factor". Tiger Woods turns his shoulders about 100 degrees on the backswing. He has one of the largest shoulder turns you will ever see. However, his hips turn only about 10 percent on the backswing. This is one of the smallest turns possible. According to Jim McLean, Tiger's "X-Factor" is 90, which is tremendous, and gives Tiger that enormous torque and clubhead speed.

Legs: For generations, it was a common belief that golfers needed to use their legs to generate power. Unfortunately, this led to lots of shots being hit to the right and many back injuries. Today the legs are quiet in the golf swing. They are important in supporting the turning of the big muscles and important to maintain strong balance throughout the swing.

Golf Course Management: Occasionally a good golfer will hit a bad shot, but never a dumb shot. Why? . Each one has a plan that evaluates the entire hole and their own strengths. . Actually, they plan the hole backwards, starting with where the golf ball should end up on the green to allow for the best putt. Next, where should the ball be in the fairway to make putting the ball their easier. Finally, which club do you need from the tee to put your ball in that fairway spot?

Short Game: We have recently seen great examples of tour players hitting the ball poorly and still winning the golf tournament. Recently Robert Allenby won a long playoff against veteran Craig Stadler in Houston even though he missed many fairways and greens in the final round, but he was still able to get the ball up and down and win. The ability to get the ball up and down successfully takes practice, patience, imagination, and confidence. It means you have put your pitch, chip, or greenside bunker shot close enough to the hole to one putt. Good golfers acquire the ability to turn three shots into two.

Putting: You use your putter more then any other club in your bag. Shouldn't your putter be your best club? Dave Pelz did research that showed putting is 43 percent of golf. Putting is the most individual part of golf. We see tall golfers use short putters and short golfers use long putters. The golf swing is like a science, either the golf club is on the proper swing plane or it isn't. Putting, on the other hand, is form of art. If the ball goes into the hole, no one can argue with the technique. Good golfers make the long and short putts when they count most.