Tips from the pros

Justin Rose: good in the sand and on camera

This month's Golf World contains a cracking little freebie so long as you can navigate the flagrant advertising and wooden performances. You see Taylormade Adidas have created a little DVD with tips from the pros to help make us better golfers. Obviously TM are keen to use this opportunity to get us excited about their products be it the R11 driver of Ghost putters. I have to say though that the Sesame Street themed opening for the white R11 driver did make me chuckle. They might have fared better to have Big Bird and co on hand to put the pros at ease as some of them seemed more than a little nervous. Watching poor Peter Hanson getting tongue tied on one film you do feel sorry for him. Maybe they should all have done it in their mother tongue with some subtitles, I'd quite fancy knowing some golf jargon in Swedish.

Anyway, cutting back to the purpose of this post and that was to share some nuggets that I found useful. There were other tips that I was already aware of but the two that stuck out for me were on sand shots. First up Justin Rose's bunker tip. He says take a wider stance as this encourages a shallower path through the sand, whilst a more narrow stance can encourage you to hit down on the ball. The sand shot almost went in the hole but given how it was cut and the sheepish expression on his face I get the impression he didn't do that first time!

Next great tip was from Retief Goosen, who among other pointers suggested that you need to imagine you are hitting the shot twice as hard as you would hit a chip the same distance. I am definitely giving that one a try as I often struggle with knowing how hard to swing. Between Rose and Goosen I could have found the final two pieces of my bunker play jigsaw.

Buy the Penta...or else!

Natalie Gulbis and Paula Creamer offer some advice on adjusting your shots based on sloping lies and I am sure many readers will be reviewing those two clips repeatedly, obviously to engrain the learning! Edoardo Molinari's bit on the TM Penta ball however is shocking product promotion. That said I loved his mafia style delivery at the end, which by his tone inferred that I should buy a dozen or enjoy swimming with the fishes. What he doesn't realise is that if I played a ball that expensive it would the Penta that would end up in the drink!

There are some great articles in this month's edition so if you fancy splashing some cash this month on a golf mag you won't go far wrong with GW.