Golf Annika's Way

Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: Great book - very easy to understand and apply principals right away. I'll be saving this one as a reference to keep my game on track.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting and Informative.
Review: I liked some of the information on golf technique. It has worked for Annika for hitting shots straighter and further. However, Annika does admit that she could not hit the ball no where nearly as far as she does now compared when she first joined the tour. This is partially do to her weightlifting program.
I found the following to be a great golf instruction book that cut my handicap in half. This book is " The Ultimate Golf Instruction Guide: Key Techniques for Becoming a Zero Handicap Golfer or Better" (isbn---1933023090).
This last book showed me the essetials of the zero handicap or better golf swing. This book shows you how to become a zero handicap golfer. Also, it has proven tips that work for the short game which helped me to get up and down much more often. As for Annika's book it is a good book to learn the basics on golf.

Rating:
Summary: great instruction, even if a bit self-congratulatory
Review: this book follows the tradition of nicklaus's "golf my way" and tiger's "how i play golf," mixing information about the player's personal background and competitive experiences along with instruction. whereas jack's was more tilted to instruction and tiger's towards personal background, annika's strikes a nice balance between the two, mixing background and instruction seamlessly.

the instructional aspect is well organized (something tiger's lacked) and complete. it's a great representation of the "modern golf" swing that relies more on free swinging arms coordinated with the body and less on (back breaking) leverage. even though a lot of the drills will be familiar to golfers already the good thing is that annika picks the best ones out of the thousands out there, and they really reinforce the modern swing profile. i firmly believe that if someone were just to follow annika's program, they would become as good a player as they're capable of becoming -- the mental drills and on-course approach/attitude tips are very well selected and powerful too. i am finding that since i purchased the book a few weeks ago it has become my "go to" reference manual for the full swing. to my eye, annika has the best swing on any tour and this book goes a long way to revealing her secrets.

on the personal side, i find the book marginally self-congratulatory. for example, she seems to think her men's pga experience at colonial was a great success on par with billie jean king beating bobby riggs in tennis, but the reality is she missed the cut by several shots -- a worse performance than michelle wie in a men's pga tournament when she missed the cut by just one stroke. and some would say her number of major wins is lacking given her skill level and dominance in non-majors.

overall, this is an excellent offering that's better than most golf autobiographies and it's as good as it gets in terms of a comprehensive instruction manual (i'd recommend buying this in conjunction with manual del torre's "understanding the golf swing" to gain an understanding of the physics behind the modern golf swing -- annika's book has better drills and del torre's book does a better job explaining the true fundamentals.)