5 Best Ball Striking Drills
In this video, Neil Tappin is joined by Top 50 Golf Coach Ged Walters to provide his 5 best ball striking drills. He'll help you with your angle of attack and weight transfer to improve the quality of your striking. If you are heading to the range to work on your game, this video is a must watch!
Transcript
00:00 If you're looking to shoot lower scores this year,
00:02 then one thing you'll undoubtedly need to do
00:04 is strike the ball consistently well.
00:06 And that's exactly what this video is all about.
00:09 We've got five of the best ball striking drills for you.
00:12 Now, the advice in this video comes courtesy of Jed Walters.
00:14 Jed is one of Golf Monthly's top 50 coaches.
00:17 He's got some really simple and effective advice
00:20 on ensuring that you'd strike the ball before the ground.
00:24 Now, it's also important to say
00:24 this video is coming to you in partnership with KBS Shafts.
00:28 They have a whole shaft range from driver
00:30 all the way through the bag,
00:31 all designed to help you get the most from your equipment.
00:35 Right, we're here at the London Club.
00:36 Let's get started.
00:37 (upbeat music)
00:39 This drill is all about ensuring
00:50 that you catch the ball before the ground.
00:52 It doesn't matter whether you're hitting a wedge
00:54 or hitting a long iron,
00:55 that's the same principle all the way through.
00:57 So it's something we all need to work on.
00:59 Jed, what's the drill and how does it work?
01:01 - Okay, instant feedback is what it really is all about.
01:04 So if I take a tee and I just scratch a line
01:07 in the ground here.
01:08 So from that point of view there,
01:12 I've now got a focal point from which I can work around.
01:17 So here with a long iron,
01:18 that ball position is gonna be a little bit further
01:22 towards my lead side.
01:24 And from there, it's about making swings
01:27 and trying to get the club to hit the ball on the turf.
01:31 So I wanna be really brushing the line
01:33 and left of it for me away.
01:36 - Yes, and crucially,
01:37 you're not hitting the ground behind the line.
01:39 That's the number one thing that you're trying to avoid.
01:41 And the great thing about this drill, Jed,
01:43 is that you're taking practice swing after practice swing
01:45 after practice swing,
01:46 and you get that instant feedback.
01:48 Is your body working in the right way
01:49 to deliver the club in the right angle of attack?
01:51 - Definitely.
01:52 Now, obviously that will change.
01:53 I took wedge in there.
01:54 Ball position then is gonna go more central.
01:57 So that can be even more, can be deeper this side here.
02:01 But the one thing I'm gonna find
02:02 is if I was to make a practice swing here
02:03 and hit the wrong side of this line,
02:05 then I know that our body's back here, right?
02:08 Okay, well, I've hit the ground there.
02:09 Well, there's the line.
02:10 Hit the ground back there.
02:11 So what I'm looking for
02:12 is to keep the pressure moving forwards
02:14 so that I can hit the ground more to the left.
02:16 You can see there, I've hit the ground
02:17 sort of way in front of the line there
02:19 by just keeping the body moving in the right direction.
02:21 - Okay, so then you make a series of practice swings
02:23 and then eventually you get to a point
02:25 where you put the ball on the line, hit a shot,
02:27 and then you get the feedback
02:28 of what you're doing actually in the swing itself.
02:30 - Exactly.
02:30 - Go on then.
02:31 - Yeah, okay.
02:32 So, in the setup, got a 50 degree wedge here.
02:38 So centered ball position,
02:41 and then just making sure
02:42 that I get my body working in the right order.
02:45 - Perfect.
02:49 Hopefully you could hear through the mics
02:50 the quality of the strike there.
02:52 Absolutely perfect.
02:53 And you can see this divot is starting,
02:55 I'd say, not quite almost an inch--
02:58 - After the line, yeah.
02:59 - After the line,
03:00 which is exactly what you're looking for.
03:01 So use this really simple drill.
03:03 It will really help your ball striking.
03:05 Okay, so this drill is all about controlling
03:12 the low point in the arc of your swing,
03:14 something that's so important
03:16 for good quality ball striking.
03:17 James, you've got a ball on the tee here.
03:18 - Yes.
03:19 - What are we doing?
03:20 - So we're going to go through with this one
03:21 just the difference in the line that we can get.
03:24 We practice most of our golf on a mat,
03:26 on driving range, it's flat,
03:27 it's the same level as your feet.
03:29 You get on a golf course,
03:30 and it's above your feet, below your feet,
03:31 it's different slopes.
03:32 So the first thing we need to do
03:33 is just make sure that we're adaptable
03:35 and we can adjust.
03:36 So we've got this one teed up here,
03:38 and I'm literally just going to clip it off the tee.
03:41 - Yeah, it's probably a tee height, isn't it?
03:42 - As plain and simple as that, yeah.
03:43 So my ball position and everything's going to be the same,
03:45 but now you can see,
03:46 this is what, you know,
03:47 good three and a half inches above my feet,
03:50 so I just want to get used to being able
03:52 to be slightly more adaptable.
03:54 So if this was a ball above my feet situation,
03:57 where I've got my normal ball position,
03:59 but I'm now just adapting to the lie,
04:02 I just want to clip it away.
04:03 - Beautiful, good strike.
04:08 So what's next?
04:10 - So what's next now is we now need to look at it
04:12 from a point of view of improving the ball strike itself.
04:16 So the ball goes back on the same tee,
04:20 and now what you're going to do
04:21 is about four inches behind it,
04:23 and so, you know,
04:24 it's not a million miles away from the length
04:25 of your club head,
04:26 is I'm going to put another tee.
04:27 Okay.
04:30 - Same height?
04:31 - Same height.
04:32 Now, the key with this is anybody who struggles,
04:35 sort of, so fat shots, thin shots, top shots,
04:38 all those kinds of things,
04:40 generally it happens because the weight of the body
04:42 is too far back,
04:44 so we start to scoot, we start to flip.
04:46 Well, first thing you're going to do then
04:48 is you're going to hit that tee.
04:48 - Hit that tee.
04:49 - You don't want to miss it.
04:50 - So the simple drill here is hit the ball,
04:52 don't hit the tee.
04:53 - Yeah.
04:54 So that's going to now encourage
04:55 a little bit more of a downward angle,
04:57 and to have that,
04:58 I've got to make sure that I'm moving my body
04:59 in the right direction.
05:00 - Okay.
05:01 Simple task here then, Jeff.
05:02 Don't hit the tee.
05:03 - Dead simple.
05:04 So just don't hit the tee.
05:05 - Very good.
05:11 - Okay, and there it is.
05:12 - Good contact.
05:13 Right, but there's a third part to this drill.
05:15 - There's a third element to this drill.
05:17 So if I take a third tee,
05:20 and I now put it here,
05:21 so it's on the opposite side,
05:23 around the same distance from the one that's at the back.
05:28 Okay.
05:29 So now what we're looking at doing
05:31 is not just missing this tee,
05:35 but now I want to hit this one.
05:36 - Yes.
05:37 - Because that now is giving me the feeling
05:39 of that downward angle of attack,
05:41 controlling the low point,
05:42 more target side.
05:43 Again, we're back to being ball turf,
05:45 which is everything that good ball striking is.
05:46 - Okay.
05:47 - Okay.
05:48 - Go on then.
05:49 - So now I just want to miss the back tee,
05:52 hit the shot,
05:52 and try and clip this tee that's in front here.
05:56 - Yeah, it's a really solid contact,
06:02 and it's a really simple drill, that one,
06:04 to just help you establish that right angle of attack,
06:07 so the club bottoms out in exactly the right place,
06:09 'cause that is where really good quality contacts come from.
06:13 (dramatic music)
06:15 Here's a great ball striking drill for those golfers
06:19 that don't want to get caught thinking too technically
06:22 about the golf swing.
06:24 It can really help.
06:25 Jed, what is it?
06:26 - So it's about trying to make a comfortable speed swing
06:29 and stop as fast as you can beyond impact.
06:31 - Okay.
06:32 - What it does is it gets the body to organize itself
06:34 a little bit more naturally.
06:36 We play our best golf when we're in the subconscious,
06:38 when you're not thinking about anything.
06:39 So that's what we want to try and encourage.
06:42 So from this drill here, it's simply just taking,
06:46 you know, a lofted club, I've got nine-nine here,
06:47 and we're just gonna make some swings,
06:49 which only go maybe halfway back.
06:51 But the key to it is feeling like the downswing,
06:55 the focus is just stop.
06:57 What you'll find is when you look at it from face on,
07:00 at this point here,
07:01 I'm not really doing anything other than stopping,
07:03 yet you can see how my weight's moving forward,
07:07 my pelvis is tucking underneath the torso,
07:10 so I'm extending, extending through the legs,
07:12 through the pelvis, through the spine,
07:14 and I've got a little rotation in there as well.
07:16 - And you're nicely connected between your arms
07:18 and your body as well.
07:20 What I'm looking at when I see this,
07:21 is just how good the impact position is,
07:24 just by doing such a small and simple golf swing,
07:26 the impact position is that.
07:27 - It trains everything to just happen in the order
07:29 that it really wants to happen.
07:31 It's almost the brain which confuses it
07:33 and makes it happen in different ways.
07:34 - Yeah.
07:35 - So you can start off at slower speeds
07:37 and then just build up your speed,
07:38 and you can go flat out speed if you wanted to there.
07:41 So when you're accustomed to the drill,
07:42 you could be a little bit more,
07:44 and get some real crispness to what's happening there.
07:48 You can see where those divots are always--
07:50 - I can see that.
07:51 - Left of where I'm taking the set up.
07:52 - Where the golf ball would be.
07:53 - Yeah.
07:53 It's just, it's developing that speed into it,
07:55 but just focusing on the stop as quickly as you can.
07:58 - Yeah.
07:59 - So from a set up point of view,
08:00 you're only thinking about putting a little bit more pressure
08:02 into your lead foot,
08:04 just almost like that there,
08:06 just pushing down into the ground a little bit more,
08:08 keeping that pressure there,
08:10 and then just making a nice controlled swing,
08:12 stopping as quickly as you can beyond impact.
08:15 - Yeah, and you can see that divot, it's perfect.
08:19 It's just after where the ball would have been.
08:21 - Definitely.
08:22 - You can--
08:23 - In the body position, yeah.
08:24 - Just this shot of Jed here just shows you
08:25 so many good things about the golf swing.
08:27 If you can focus on finding that position,
08:29 the chances are the quality of your ball striking
08:31 will greatly improve.
08:33 (upbeat music)
08:35 This drill is all about swing direction.
08:39 It's something that's gonna really help you
08:41 with your iron ball striking.
08:42 Jed, what's the thinking here?
08:43 What's the drill all about?
08:45 - So all great ball strikers
08:47 have a fairly neutral swing direction.
08:50 So that's not to say that it is always,
08:53 say, a bit to the right.
08:54 Some are a little bit to the left,
08:56 but it's minute.
08:57 We're talking a couple of degrees left of target,
08:59 couple of degrees right of target.
09:01 Not excessive, which you would see from people
09:04 who would slice and hook it.
09:05 They would maybe be 10 degrees to the right,
09:07 10 degrees to the left.
09:08 So getting your swing direction more neutral
09:10 will help you control your centeredness of strike
09:13 and also help you control how your body
09:16 then wants to move towards the target
09:18 so you can control the ground contact
09:20 to get those lovely, crisp ball turf strikes.
09:22 - Yeah, and it sounds complicated,
09:23 but it doesn't have to be.
09:24 If you have a really good drill
09:26 that can help you sort of visualize
09:27 what you're trying to achieve,
09:28 and that's what we're doing here.
09:29 So talk us through it.
09:31 - Okay, so we're looking from sort of both perspectives.
09:34 Obviously, I've got this little station set up here.
09:36 This is just as a quick visual, really,
09:39 to what would represent a fairly neutral swing plane
09:43 of being sort of up and down.
09:46 But the swing direction is literally
09:47 what the club is sort of doing
09:49 as it comes here through the impact.
09:51 So if I was like sort of this there,
09:54 that would be a swing direction quite a lot to the right.
09:56 That would be quite a lot to the left.
09:59 So this is tailored relative to you as the individual.
10:01 If you were somebody who slices the golf ball.
10:06 - Pulls it or slices it.
10:07 - Yeah. - You're coming across the ball.
10:08 - Yeah, so you'd have a swing direction,
10:11 which would be, if I put it into sort of a 2D visual
10:14 on the floor, would be a bit like that.
10:16 So right, okay, well, what you need to do
10:17 is practice the opposite.
10:19 So we would turn the sticks
10:22 out to the right.
10:26 I mean, that's probably somewhere
10:28 in the regions of 40 degrees, maybe to the right.
10:31 So right, okay, your visual then,
10:32 if you were somebody who's coming here,
10:34 your visual is to swing the club
10:36 in the downswing between the sticks.
10:38 - Yeah, and then suddenly your angle of attack improves,
10:42 the amount of the face you're getting on the ball improves,
10:44 the quality of the strike goes up.
10:46 It can do so many good things for you, can't it?
10:49 - Yeah, and then vice versa.
10:50 If you hook the golf ball,
10:51 then you would just turn them the opposite way
10:53 and feel like you were coming across a little bit more.
10:55 Now, bear in mind, these are feels.
10:57 What you're feeling and what really happens
10:59 are completely different.
11:00 You know, a slicer would feel like they're swinging
11:03 way off to the right,
11:04 and when you look at their swing direction,
11:05 it's probably still a little bit left.
11:07 It's just that, you know,
11:08 what feels hugely one way might move at eight degrees,
11:12 but if you were already 10 left,
11:14 then you're still a little bit left.
11:15 But the important point is it's more neutral.
11:18 So you're gonna make your striking better,
11:20 you're gonna make your start lines better,
11:22 you're gonna make your overall ball striking better.
11:24 - Yeah, so this is one for those players
11:26 who have big shapes in their game.
11:27 So either big draws or big fades.
11:29 If you want to just rein those in slightly,
11:32 you'll improve the quality of your ball striking,
11:34 and this is a great way to do it.
11:36 Okay, so this is a ball striking drill
11:42 aimed specifically at those golfers
11:44 who have a tendency to hang back through impact,
11:47 hit the fat shots and the thin shots
11:48 that we all hate so much.
11:50 And it's a great one for the range.
11:53 Talk us through it, Jez.
11:54 - Okay, so on the driving range,
11:55 you could use the basket of the balls coming.
11:58 It's simply just propping your trail side up.
12:02 So all your pressure, all the weight goes to the lead side.
12:05 You're probably gonna be talking 90 to 95%.
12:08 Your pressure is gonna be lead side.
12:10 So that's gonna mean, well, I can't go back
12:13 'cause I'm up on an angle.
12:14 That's gonna keep me there.
12:16 So I'm gonna get used to feeling what it's like
12:18 to have the pressure forward through impact.
12:20 And it's gonna give you the ability then
12:22 to have a nice downward angle attack
12:23 and give you those lovely ball turf crisp strikes.
12:25 - Yeah, and that feeling of what the correct contact
12:28 should feel like.
12:29 So Jez, go for it then.
12:30 Talk us through this drill.
12:31 - So obviously, I've just put my bag on the ground there.
12:34 And all this is gonna do is this is gonna help me
12:36 elevate my trail foot.
12:39 So from here, and bear in mind,
12:41 you only need to sort of hit lofted clubs out.
12:43 We're not talking about doing this with driver.
12:45 It's just getting used to doing it
12:46 with like a wedge or a nine iron or something.
12:49 So just taking, if that was my normal setup there,
12:52 then what I'm gonna do now
12:53 is I'm just gonna take my trail foot,
12:55 I'm just gonna lift it,
12:55 and I'm just gonna rest it on the back of my bag.
12:57 So now all my pressure is into my lead side.
13:01 So from here, I'm gonna keep the pressure into my lead leg.
13:05 I'm gonna flex it a little bit more than normal
13:07 just because it's taking all the weight pretty much.
13:10 You'll notice then on my right leg,
13:12 I'll sort of really straighten out a little bit.
13:13 As you see from this angle here,
13:14 there's very little flex left in there.
13:16 Keeping the pressure then pushing down into the left leg.
13:19 I'm just gonna make little swings now.
13:20 This is gonna be a little half swing back
13:22 and then just down.
13:24 So you see the angle of attack's gonna come down.
13:26 It's gonna help me find a low point more to the left.
13:29 So I just need to keep my arms nice and extended.
13:32 You know, I'm only gonna swing to there.
13:33 I'm not making a full follow through.
13:35 I'm just making a nice back and through swing.
13:38 So if I was to click this one now,
13:40 I'm set, I'm ready,
13:43 and I'm just gonna make a nice smooth swing.
13:45 - Yeah, and you've got that little ball turf strike.
13:50 You will really, really struggle
13:52 to hit the ground before the ball if you try this drill.
13:54 And I say it's a great one for getting your body
13:56 in the right position,
13:57 get the weight moving towards the target
13:59 so the club hits the ball before it hits the ground.
14:02 Give it a go.
14:03 So there you have it.
14:04 That's Jed's five best ball striking drills.
14:06 If you are having issues
14:08 with the quality of your iron strikes,
14:09 then give some of those drills a go.
14:11 If you can find a feel
14:13 that helps you hit the ball before the turf,
14:15 then you should start hitting your irons much better.
14:18 But that's it for now from the London Club.
14:20 Thanks very much for watching.
14:21 We'll see you next time.
14:22 (upbeat music)
14:25 (upbeat music)