In this video, Neil Tappin is joined by Tour Coach Liam James to look at the biggest driving mistakes and how to avoid them!
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00:00 Hello everyone, Neil Tappan here from Golf Monthly and welcome to the London Club and this video on
00:04 the biggest mistakes the players make off the tee. We've teamed up with Ping and with tour coach Liam
00:09 James to offer you the best advice that we can about how to stop hooking it, how to stop slicing
00:14 it and also about how to find a little bit more distance off the tee as well. This is all about
00:19 trying to make the game as easy as possible so if you do struggle off the tee this video should
00:24 really help. If you're new to the Golf Monthly channel please do hit the subscribe button to
00:27 make sure you don't miss any of our videos. Hit the like button if you're liking the video. But
00:31 let's head out now onto the golf course here at the London Club and look at the biggest driving
00:35 mistakes the players make. Okay Liam, let's start with a lack of distance off the tee, a lack of
00:45 speed. If there's a fault that you see more often than not with amateurs that costs them yardage,
00:50 what would it be do you think? I'd say the biggest fault is them trying to generate more speed in the
00:55 manner that they do. So the biggest thing that we start to see more than anything is that in a bid
01:00 to try and hit the golf ball harder they're moving from side to side more often and then moving
01:05 towards the target too much is causing them actually to hit down on the golf ball even more
01:10 and essentially slice the golf ball. So in a bid to try and hit the golf ball harder and further
01:15 they're actually hitting it shorter. So there are things that you can do in the setup that will just
01:20 make sure that you generate a little bit more speed without losing the control of where the
01:24 ball strikes on the face. Yeah and don't forget you're looking for that kind of high launch,
01:28 low spin, those perfect optimised launch conditions to get the most out of your driver.
01:33 Absolutely and that's the thing, even if players are swinging at slow speeds or slower speeds than
01:39 we see on the television, we can still optimise those speeds by making sure the impact factors
01:44 are as good as they possibly can be and 90% of the time that's just how they set up to the golf
01:49 ball, that's got nothing to do with what's happening in the swing. Okay so give us some
01:52 ideas about what people should be looking out for. So the biggest thing first of all is I think we
01:57 need to maximise everything we can in the setup in order to actually wind up behind the golf ball
02:03 and give ourselves the biggest range of movement we possibly can and a very simple tip for that
02:07 would be obviously the first thing to just keep an eye on is the ball position, we want to make
02:11 sure that's inside my left heel but I've got a nice wide base here now but as you have a look
02:17 you can see my toes are fractionally turned out now what that's actually enabling me to do now
02:22 is turn my hips okay if we see players which we see a lot of almost turned in with their toes
02:28 it really restricts their range of movement and it's impossible for them to make a full turn up
02:32 to the top of the basket. Yeah so that little bit more range movement in your hips gives you more
02:36 range movement in your shoulder which is what you're looking for and then it's a bigger rotation
02:41 it's not necessarily more effort it's not them doing it any faster all you're doing simply here
02:47 is turning your toes out freeing your knees and your hips up to complete a full turn and as a
02:52 result of that you're going to generate more speed. Okay go on then let's show them, I'll show you.
02:56 Hit one for us. So again ball up off that left heel I've got a nice wide base with my toes turned
03:03 out I'm going to have a little rehearsal up to the top full rotation then I'm just going to go ahead
03:08 and give it a hit. Yeah hopefully and what you should see through the cameras there is just how
03:15 well centered Liam stays over the shot he's not making a big sway off the ball and then back onto
03:21 it because if you are it's quite dangerous that isn't it? Absolutely and it may feel like feel
03:26 quicker it might feel like more effort but essentially all that's going to do is increase
03:31 your off-center hits whereas if you're doing as we're mentioning here turning your toes out big
03:35 wide base nice rotation up to the top you're then going to stay behind it and not only swing it
03:41 faster just due to that but hit the middle of the face more often. Yeah more speed and more control.
03:45 Okay so we're going to move on to slices and hooks I think most golfers their bad shot will
03:50 likely be one or other of these two so Liam let's talk about I know that you're going to speak about
03:54 them in connection with each other because the fault I guess is the kind of opposite of each
03:58 other right? Absolutely I mean you know you tend to see very similar characteristics of a player
04:04 who's slicing the golf ball and then counter to that you see the opposite when when you've seen
04:08 a player hook it and generally most of those things are coming from the way they're setting
04:12 up to the golf ball and actually the way they're placing their hands on the grip so
04:16 we start with a slicer. Yeah. The biggest thing that we'll start to see with with excessive
04:21 slices of the golf ball is quite simply where the golf club is running through your left hand so
04:27 players who get it too much into the palm okay it's going to do two things for you if you're
04:32 too much in the palm it's going to lean you too much towards the target in your second and that's
04:36 a setup position you see a lot isn't it? Absolutely right so their head's closer to the target than
04:41 their belt buckle is and that's going to cause them to hit out and down on the golf ball and the
04:46 second thing that grip is going to do is that's going to make this club face open up too much on
04:50 the way back so now we've got the golf club coming from the outside with the face wide open you're
04:54 just going to hit slices. Hook then is the opposite issue is it? Absolutely right so if we see a player
05:00 with an excessively strong grip now to define strong grip I don't mean strong in strength I
05:06 mean strong in if I was to look down at my left hand now I can see all four of my knuckles so
05:11 that would define as a strong grip now as a result of that what we're going to tend to see is
05:17 not much loft on the golf club at the top so we would call this a closed position with the club
05:22 face not much loft and now the compensations that the players are having to make in order to try and
05:28 get the ball up in the air now we're going to start to see a lot of leaning back and that's
05:32 going to obviously cause the hook so just by two poor grip positions in the setup all these things
05:38 you know the slices are coming over it the hooks they're leaning back so you know you've got to be
05:43 careful with how you set them up. So that begs the question what's the checkpoint that people need to
05:47 get the right grip on the club to be stood correctly at the ball at address? So it's all
05:52 keep it really constant with the routine so the biggest thing I would say about this is when you
05:57 see golfers on on the golf course it's where they actually place their hands on the golf club in
06:01 their routine so you'll see some players have it down here some players it's up in the air
06:06 keep it really consistent we want to hold the golf club up out in front of us shafts parallel
06:11 with the ground here and I'm just going to run this golf club just through the fingers of my left hand
06:15 and if I place a little look now I just have a look at my left hand I've got a two knuckle left
06:21 hand grip now so that's what we would define as a neutral grip that's going to feel much weaker to
06:26 a guy who grips it strong and it's going to feel much stronger to the slices but just by fixing the
06:31 left hand grip it's going to offer us the chance to get set up factually in behind the golf ball
06:37 with my shirt buttons but now I've got a neutral left hand in order to make sure that club face
06:42 is square throughout my swing. Okay go on then Liam hit one for us let's see what it looks like.
06:46 So I'll show you my routine shaft up in front of me clubbing the fingers two knuckle left hand grip
06:53 and then I give it a hit
06:57 lovely so there you have it if you are struggling with your driving I think that the advice that
07:02 Liam has given us there shows that it doesn't have to be a big technical fix to do with any of the
07:07 complicated movements in your golf swing it can be something simple and a lot of the time
07:12 these things can be done at address and there's no reason why any golfer can't get them right.
07:16 Thanks for watching we'll see you next time.
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