"I Play Heaps But Never Improve!" 3 Most Important Tips for Beating the Plateau

If you're like many golfers, you hit a time in your progression when you plateau. A typical movement from beginner to pro involves a steep learning curve and rapid improvement when you start getting lessons; a more gradual improvement thereafter which usually evens off after a while. For some people, no matter how much they play, they never quite seem to get past this point. Often they assume it is just their natural best, and never try to get past it. It is after this time that many people give up the game … out of boredom. There is almost always more you can do to improve, though -- today we go through the most critical tips for getting over the hump in your game while on a golf vacation.

Look over the stats

If you just muddle along, you'll never get an accurate picture of exactly where your game is falling down. Make your next golf trip more worthwhile by incorporating a little more math -- play the same course every second day, and take notes about the shots you constantly play less well than you'd like to. This way you can go to a coach with an accurate idea of where you need help.

Get a coach!

The last point makes this obvious -- you need a coach to get past whatever mental or scoring block you have. The human brain is amazing, and can figure out many things by itself … but we are not omniscient! Use your upcoming golf vacation as an excuse to book in some tuition -- the change in scenery often helps encourage solid learning.

Grip, stance and tempo

80% of problems begin with either the grip, your stance or the tempo with which you swing. The internet offers plenty of advice on these issues - use it as a starting point. However, professional instruction really is the gold standard -- they can look at your individual body and see exactly what it is doing … and then correct it to help you play your best game on your next golf vacation.

Top Five Ways to Protect Yourself From Injury on Your Next Golf Vacation

If you're planning a nice golf vacation in the near future, I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts that you aren’t planning to sustain an injury in the near future! The sad reality is that many golfing injuries are sustained while on vacation, for the simple fact that people are doing things that they're bodies haven’t been conditioned for by their daily life. If you’re planning a golf trip, here are some tips for getting into shape for it, and preventing injury while you’re away.

1. Do medium intensity cardio three times a week, high intensity twice a week

Aside from the encyclopedia of information that is available on how cardiovascular exercise improves our health, it also helps you make sure that you won’t keel over from exhaustion after your first 18 holes! A mix of moderate intensity (where you work at 60-70% of your maximum heart rate) and high intensity (where you work at 80% of your maximum heart rate) cardio programs is best.

2. Do core strengthening exercises

Few games depend as much on having strong core muscles as golf does. Get in the gym and do some lateral pull downs or other back strengthening exercises, and blend these with stomach strengtheners. Pay attention to perfect form in these exercises to ensure that you don’t do yourself injury. Both women and men should focus on keeping a tight pelvic floor through these exercises, also. Maintain the form on yourgolf vacation.

3. Eat plenty of oily fish or take an omega-3 supplement

Omega 3 is essential to the health of many parts of our body, and our joints are one of those. Especially for those of us getting on in years, golf can be hard on the joints -- support them nutritionally

4. Pick up your balls by bending your knees

This is one to watch out for while you are on your golf vacation. If you constantly bend at your spine to pick up your balls, you'll end up sore quickly and with an injury soon after. Bend at the knees when you’re getting your balls out of the hole and tees out of the ground.

5. Have a professional trainer put together a stretching program

That professional could be a golf instructor, or it could be a physical trainer. Either way, have someone create a stretching program tailored to your body (this can be done relatively inexpensively at your local gym), and use it every morning of your golf vacation, after a brisk walk.

Golf Vacations with Kids - How to Get Them Involved

Just because you've had children doesn’t mean you have to wait until your 60 and they've moved out of home to start improving your swing again. Once your kids are past a certain age, they are ready to come with you on your golf vacations, and start learning the ropes. They'll appreciate having so much time with you, and you'll appreciate getting to work on your game and share something you love with the next generation! Here are some tips to help your kids get their game on for your next golf trip.

Gauging appropriate age

While kids can start learning to play golf from around 3 or 4, you probably won’t want to be taking them on vacations at this age. They can’t even really handle a full afternoon at your local club at this stage of life. They need to eat too frequently, will have to be going to the toilet (awkwardly!) behind bushes, and if the weather's over 85, you can expect sunstroke after a few hours. If you’re taking a specific golf vacation, don’t think about bringing your kids along until they're around nine or ten. At this age they have the strength and concentration to golf with you -- or the presence of mind to hang around the club and find some other kids to play with.

Start out with mini golf

In fact, many clubhouses also have a mini golf course attached to them, for this specific purpose. This can be a good way to start the day on your golf vacation -- have a mini golf round, and then move onto the real thing. Your 10-year-old will have been frustrated by not being able to hit the ball hard -- this is their opportunity!

Give them a helping hand with the scoring

It is an informal method for handicapping yourself -- if you are playing alongside your kids on your golf vacation, let them have two shots to your one. You can effectively just divide their score in half to compare to yours. If they've had little practice or are on the young side, why not give them three? It's a way to level the playing field, let them get ahead a bit and give them a taste for competition.

Combine kids' golf camp with your own golf vacation

The whole family can go away to the same place -- your kids can mingle with other kids at golf camp, while the parents happily play their golf trip rounds in peace during the day! Age appropriate activities for all.

The Best of Desert Golf - Five Courses for Golf Vacations

Tropical paradises can sure be overrated sometimes! In the warmer months your golf often gets rained out, and you have to cover yourself in insect repellant every day or be eaten alive on the golf course. If you have always been the steadier, hardier sort, then a golf vacation to the desert can hold some surprising gems. From the beautiful courses of Cabo San Jose in Mexico, to Nevada and Arizona's championship offerings, we are looking five of the best golf courses that call the American desert home.

Cabo Del Sol - Desert

This course is designed by the prolific Tom Weiskopf, and is nestled among the six other championship courses in Cabo San Lucas. There are five sets of tees which mean the course varies in length from 5,300 to 7,100 yards, and the design takes advantage of desert landscape features like natural river washes, rolling dunes and startling red sandy bunkers. It is in the desert, but you can see the ocean wherever you look from most holes.

Palmilla

Another of Cabo San Lucas' gorgeous offerings, Palmilla is a Jack-Nicklaus-designed course that was handpicked for its gorgeous scenery by the golf master. For a free and easy golf vacation with just a little bite in your course, Palmilla is a must play. It has a slope of 139.

Omni Tucson - Catalina

Formerly known as the Orange/Gold course, the Omni Tuscon was designed by Robert Bruce Harris and has gorgeous desert mountain views of the middle of Arizona. There are ten sparkling lakes to give the desert setting a bit of refreshment. Why not make your next golf vacation at the standard PGA tour stop in Arizona?

TPC at the Canyons

Vegas is known for slot holes ... but not ordinarily round holes with golf balls in them! The TPC at the Canyons course is a notable exception, designed by Bobby Weed and Raymond Floyd and host to the Senior PGA Touras well as the Invensys Classic. The course flows through canyons and arroyos, and there is nothing but clear blue sky and a comfy dry warmth for most of the year.

The Chase at PGA Golf Club Coyote Springs

Jack Nicklaus has a series of golf courses planned to flow throughout the Coyote Springs community. This course is the first one in the series, and is located between Mesquite and Vegas. It is a par 72, and the forward tees take off around 2,000 yards from the back tees, which set the course at 7,471 yards. There are 11 lakes on the course, so hone your water-avoidance skills on your next golf vacation!

Golf Vacations -- Five Challenging Courses

Being challenged doesn't always feel nice at the time. We're human … we want to win, we want to be the best, and we don’t want to know how far we still have to go before we're perfect! Yet being challenged is how we learn … so today for golf vacationers, we are looking at some of the golf courses worldwide that offer you the best opportunities for learning. From the Dominican Republic to Dunbar and back, here are the best of the hardest.

1. Cocotal -- Dominican Republic

This course for golf vacationers follows the lay of the land, using naturally placed trees and mounds in the midst of rolling terrain. An unceasing wind is what makes the course so challenging -- if you want to learn how to compensate for wind, from every angle, at every speed and on all different terrains, Cocotal is the place to do it!

2. Daytona Beach Golf Course

Aside from having a designer with an awesome name (Slim Deathridge), the Daytona Beach Golf Club also presents several challenges, even for experienced golfers. Dense stands of Florida pines and oaks punctuate the course as well as providing beautiful scenery, and the redesign of the course in 1997 added extra water and more undulations in the territory.

3. St George Golf Club, Utah

This is quite a long golf course, and needs a fair bit of walking mixed with your hits. All that aerobic exercise can be a challenge in itself! Golf-wise, though, there are some par 3's over water, and a peninsula on a par 5 hole to worry about. The peninsula holds both the 9th and 18th hole greens, and where many people on golf vacations will instinctively choose a short-iron here, you really need a club that will give you best accuracy and distance control.

4. Dunbar East Links

If you've come all the way to Scotland on a golf vacation, you may as well see what it can throw at you! The terrain here is coastal, so wind is an enormous factor in play. Different days require completely different tactics.

5. Desert Dunes, California

A day at Desert Dunes certainly isn’t a walk in the park … it is golfing equivalent of boot camp, with grumpy instructors throwing push-ups, mud traps and high walls at you new recruits! A great way to improve your game on a golf vacation is to master the tight fairways, sloped greens and water hazards of this southern California course.

San Antonio -- Texas's Best Golf Courses

A state that is associated more with sand and oil than lush greens and quiet, relaxing fairways, Texas is a big surprise when it comes to quality of golf courses. The layouts here are consistently recognized as among the best in the country -- here we look at some of the Texas courses for golf vacations and golf trips.

Pecan Valley

Pecan Valley is known all over the country as one of the best course for golf vacations -- a huge percentage of players aren’t actually San Antonio residents. This makes the feel at the club very welcoming for out-of-towners. It is fairly standard in terms of length, challenge and playability, with a par of 71 over a course length of 7,010 yards. The slope rating is 131, and the player ratings note aspects like yardage management and bunker negotiation as areas where the course develops your skills. The many trees and water are designed to test your navigation skills, and patience!

The Republic

This golf club is highly rated by members, but yet to be recognized in any major golf holiday magazines. The course has been called beautiful, and is consistently said to be in great shape, despite being in one of the driest states in the U.S.! There are some difficult holes, and some confidence boosters, and staff at the club are said to have excellent service standards. It has quite a standard length and par, 71 over 7,070 yards.

La Cantera

One of Tom Weiskopf's additions to the Texan landscape is La Cantera, which opened in 1995 to such fanfare that the historic Texas Open came to play at the young upstart club! Golf Magazine and Golf Digest have both recognized La Cantera as among their favorites, listing it as either a top public access course, or a best 'new' course. For golf holiday planners, it also has spectacular views and good proximity to other San Antonio attractions.

Canyon Springs Golf Course

Andrew Peterson is the golf professional at Canyon Springs, one of Golf Magazine's top 100 courses for 2000. It is said to be challenging, beautiful and fast, with huge rough and moderately fast greens some of the stand out features. The Texan scenery can let the club down at times … but the course itself is a dream for people looking for a good golf trip.

Phoenix and Scottsdale -- Arizona's Best Golf Courses

Despite the fact that Arizona has quite a reputation as a state of stunning but sandy scenery and grass that is more long and tufty, than pristinely manicured, it is actually home to some of the finest golf courses in the country. Arizona golf is an absolute pleasure when you play at one of these courses -- we look at the top five in the state.

The Silverleaf Club

The Silverleaf Club and Arizona golf course was named Golf Digest's top rated Arizona golf course in the 2005-06 awards, and was among the top 100 residential courses in Golfweek in 2005. It was designed by Tom Weiskopf, and took only three years after opening to gain such great recognition in the golf magazines. Par for the course is 72 at this Arizona golf facility, which is 7,267 yards long

Stonecreek

Named for what is memorable about the Arizona landscape, Stonecreek golf course is slightly shorter than Silverleaf, but only 1 point lower on the par, for a total of 71. Reviews of the course are mixed, with some players building it up to be a Troon status course (more on that in a second!), and some being utterly disappointed by all the hype. It was designed by Arthur Hills and has a longer history than many clubs in the area, hosting Arizona golf players since 1979.

Grayhawk

Grayhawk Arizona golf course may be one if the priciest in the state, but it is consistently one of the highest rated. The earlier tee times are quite inexpensive, but the price rises steeply even a few minutes past the earliest tee times. It ranked in Golfweek's top 100 residential courses in both 2000 and 2002, and among the best public access courses in Arizona for 2005. Players note the challenging Fazio layout, the reasied green complexes and wide fairways as well as the fall off on most sides.

Troon North

The Arizona golf course here was also designed by Tom Weiskopf, like Silverleaf, and is quite challenging, with a par of 72 for a total length of 7070 yards. A swag of awards from 2000 ranging up to 2006 has been won by Troon, and member reviews are glowing.