ARCHIVED GOLFHUMOUR

Once you're on the golf course, you're supposed to leave everything up to muscle memory so that you don't think about three things on the backswing, four on the downswing, and your most common fault which, had you remembered it before completing your follow through, would have allowed contact between club and ball.

Desperate for help that costs less than $50 per half-hour, you read a book of golf tips. Number one is: 'The only place to analyse your swing is on the practise fairway. Once you're on the golf course, your swing should be automatic.'

For your typical golfer, who starts chanting 'Don't come up off the ball; pivot, don't sway; keep your right knee flexed' two days before they're due to play, this is the most difficult rule to master.

Or was, until I wrote the Golfhumour.com Word Association Technique for Better Golf book.

Send me US$99.00 and I will post you my 250-page book on word association golf with a guarantee that, if you follow it absolutely to the letter, you'll cut at least 10 shots off your game.

However, because we live in a world of shams, scams and con-tricks, to show you that my methods really work, I'll give you a couple of examples here. Try them the next time you're playing golf and I'm sure you'll be rushing to your computers to purchase the rest of my e-book.

One of the most important, and most difficult, aspects to master is a smooth rhythm. This applies for every shot—full shots, chips, putting, everything! The word association to instil this vital habit is: BEAT.

BEAT is perfect for word association golf because of its many connotations which will improve your game. There's beat as in 'regular/smooth beat' plus 'beat my demons' and 'beat that ignorant twit to my favourite place in the locker room'.

And then of course there's 'heart beat', which you need to control during times of stress (trying to sink your fourth putt, which is still two feet from the hole).

The most important thing with word association golf is that you have to start practising the word association as soon as you enter the car park. You must park your car to a regular beat, put your golf gear together to a regular beat and, most importantly, tie your shoe laces to a regular beat.

And if that jerk has beaten you to your favourite place in the locker room, you have to beat him up smoothly.

(Just kidding—violence is impossible to do to a regular beat. Go and let the air out of his car tyres instead. Smoothly.)

Rhyming word association is one of the best ways to remember the trigger to improve your technique. For instance, the word associated with the final part of your game—the putt—is butt.

Once again, there are several connotations with this word which will make you a well-rounded putter, but the most important one is 'bum' (or 'ass' if you're American, which is 'arse' if you're Kiwi/English as 'ass' to us is a donkey).

And that illustrates why you need to buy my book and not make up your own word associations because, once you start, unless you're an expert like me, you'll never be able to stop and you'll end up in a straitjacket. Which is a great tool to stop swaying, but that'll be in my next book.

Okay, back to the tip. 'Putt butt', as in big butt; so big that you can't move, because the most common fault in poor putting is moving.

Picture your butt hanging on the ground, anchoring you securely to the spot. Nothing can move except your shoulders—NOTHING—until you've completed your stroke.

That includes your head, butt-head, as turning it to follow your ball is the next most common fault and sends more putts off-line than anything else.