Welcome to 2024

Author

Mark Tessier
January 05, 2024

As we drive, chip and putt our way into 2024, I’d like to wish each and every one of you the best for a year of happiness, abundance and joy. And I hope your happiness follows an abundance of birdies, along with the indescribable joy of making a hole in one! To that end, this edition of Finding the Tips includes a video that promises the best golf training aid that you can make yourself at home. (I’m building it later today!) You’ll also see a video featuring the Short Game Chef, aka Parker McLachlin. This former tour winner will walk you through his thought process when hitting wedges from various distances. Thank you to loyal reader Lorne St. Louis for his heads up! And finally, one of my favourite YouTube golf creators offers his best wishes for 2024 in a poem that only he could pen and deliver!

Also, if you’re tired of seeing advertising during the YouTube videos you watch, you can eliminate them by signing up for a YouTube premium account. It’s $11.99 a month (Cdn) and you not only get ad-free content, but also free movies and YouTube original tv shows, the ability to download titles and stream offline, and YouTube Premium Music is included. I’m not trying to sell the service, and I’m not a YouTube affiliate. But I’ve got YouTube Premium and I love it. You might too.

In this issue:

  • The best golf training aid

  • Dialing in your wedges

  • Hit pure iron shots in minutes!

  • Be classy in 2024

Golf Sensei strikes again!

Ed Schwent, the Golf Sensei, is an old school, let’s-get-it-done kind of guy. And if he can save a few bucks, or help you save your hard-earned cash, he will show you how.

He’s been using this training aid since the mid 1990s with his students. It will help you swing correctly every time.

Ed explains: “You can only make two mistakes in golf — you either make a club path mistake or a club face mistake. Club path is determined by the angle (or plane) that the shaft swings on during your golf swing. (This training aid) shows you exactly how to swing a golf club correctly. If the face is square at address, and you keep the club on the correct path or the correct plane, you'll also keep the club face square automatically.”

So what is this magic training aid? You just need a 30-inch piece of PVC pipe, two flashlights that turn on and off near the bulb-end and a roll of electrical tape,

I kid you not. Take a look!

Hit it tight from 50-120 yards

When you have a wedge in your hands, you should be salivating at the prospect of hitting it close and giving yourself a chance at a one-putt. But if you’re like me, the seconds following these approach shots often feature profanity.

Parker McLachlin is a former tour pro who is revered as a short game wizard. He cooks up easy recipes to improve anyone’s short game. That’s why his YouTube channel is called the Short Game Chef.

In this video — that he did with the good folks at Golf magazine — he walks you through his thinking and technique when hitting wedges from distances ranging from 50 to 120 yards. Follow his lead and you’ll be serving heaping helpings of up-and-downs!

One drill to pure irons

Andy Proudman, of MeandMyGolf YouTube fame, had a student who was hitting shanks, fat shots and missing the sweet spot when hitting irons. A relatively new golfer, this student was getting steep on the downswing, resulting in weak contact and problems with balance.

Andy concentrated on improving the student’s posture first. He asked the student to feel like his hips were over his ankles at address.

Then he helped him find the right way to start the downswing so that he would deliver the club to the ball on an inside-out path while turning through the shot with great footwork.,

To help improve hit footwork on the downswing, Andy gives the student a great drill that we can all use. The result was solid ball-turf contact and a square(ish) clubface at impact.

The moon is in Virgo

Manolo Teaches Golf is a YouTube golf channel that brings great instruction along with belly laughs.

Enjoy!