Hello golfer,

Welcome to the latest edition of our weekly newsletter. In this week's email we have a tutorial video from Andy Sullivan, and we also look at the most underused club in your golf bag. Enjoy the read.

Going live!

We have always been fond of technology at Noah’s Ark and have been working on setting up an online system to allow you to book both lesson and custom fitting appointments online.

We have gone live this week and you can now make use of this great facility, meaning that you can book your appointment from the comfort of home, whilst being able to see our live diaries.

To book your appointment, simply head on over to our website www.noahsarkgolf.com and click on the ‘Bookings Online’ tab. From here you can choose between private lessons and fittings or group classes. You can also select with which of our PGA professionals that you would like your golf lesson.

We hope that you are going to like this new facility and please give us any feedback you may have, as we know that there will be several teething issues to sort out.

Also on the tech front, we are in the process of loading all of our ‘Pre-Owned’ clubs onto our website, so that you can have the opportunity to check out what we have and buy from the comfort of home. We now have a good stock of pre-owned drivers, fairways, hybrids and iron sets. These can all be tried out on our driving range.

Click here to view our range of pre-owned clubs.

Play Better Golf – with Niall McGill

Get through it

I see so many players both on the range and on the golf course fail to complete their follow throughs. They get stuck on the back foot at impact, resulting in both directional and ball striking issues.

This problem, often arises from a lateral sway off the ball on the backswing which presents the players with problems getting back to the ball. Today I’ll show you a great drill that will help prevent your sway and encourage you to better rotate your body through impact to a complete finish.

Firstly, address the ball and then lift your right heel a little off the ground whilst keeping your weight evenly distributed between your feet. As you swing to the top of your backswing you should keep your right heel raised and this positioning will prevent you from swaying to the right and will encourage a more central pivot on the backswing.

You should now find it much easier to shift your weight forward and to clear your body into impact and through to a full and complete finish.

This drill will help you generate power, make better contact with the ball and will ensure that your shots stay on the short grass.

This is worth repeating each time you go to the range and is also a great warm up exercise before you play.

If you are interested in taking some coaching to help improve your game, then don’t hesitate, give us a call today on 01738 440678 or email info@noahsarkgolf.com or book online www.noahsarkgolf.com/book-online

Friendship Trophy competition

It’s your last chance to enter the Friendship Trophy which is being held this Sunday at North Inch. This year’s event is being played as a 3 person Texas Scramble and is being held this Sunday, 24 September with tee times from 12.30pm. Entry is open to all golfers who regularly play at North Inch and there is no requirement to be a season ticket holder. There is no entry fee to pay and if you would like to enter, please just give us a call on 01738 636481 or email northinchgolf@pkc.gov.uk

The draw will be made on Friday afternoon.

Golf course maintenance update

The greens have now all been top dressed and over-seeded and are beginning to roll better already. We hope that by the end of the month everything should be pretty much back to normal. Our strategy over the past 3 years of bringing the autumn maintenance works forward to mid-September, has really paid dividends. It has meant that we have nice playing surfaces all through the winter and that we also start the year with a much truer surface than previously when works were left until mid-October.

Evidence of all the good work that Glenn Campbell and his team have done is visible below in the two cores. The core on the left is from the 5th green where we have regularly aerated and top dressed over the past 3 years and you can see that the soil profile now has a good sand/soil mix and that the grass roots are managing to grow down through the core. The core on the right is from the 5th fore green, where due to budgetary constraints we have not yet been able to work on. This core is much more compact, with no visible roots growing through. The fore green does not allow the water to easily penetrate and causes it to sit on top and effectively smother the grass leaf.

We plan to start working on the green approaches next season and will hopefully in a few short years have them looking like the greens.