Golf Tips We Initially Learn About But Later Might Forget
In this video, Neil Tappin is joined by PGA professional and Golf Monthly Top 50 Coach Katie Dawkins. They discuss some of those simple lessons we all get taught when we first pick up the game but that we all forget! These are the simple and effective tips that can make a huge difference to your scoring potential. Katie's advice should help you from tee-to-green!
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00 Hello everyone, Neil Tappan here from Golf Monthly and welcome to Westhill Golf Club
00:03 and this video in which we're going to take a look at the seven tips that every golfer forgets.
00:09 Now these are all things that you'll pick up as you play golf over the years, the really simple
00:13 stuff that can actually make a big difference to your scoring but that from time to time we all
00:19 forget. Now the advice in this video comes courtesy of Katie Dawkins, she's a PGA Pro,
00:24 she's one of the Golf Monthly Top 50 coaches and she's going to talk you through everything you
00:28 need to know and it should help you in all areas of the game from tea to green. Right let's get
00:33 started. Right so for our first one we're going to talk about the speed of your swing and in
00:42 particular the tempo of your golf swing. Katie what do people forget here? I think people tend
00:48 to forget that this is a golf swing, it's not a golf hit and I think that's probably the key
00:54 thought for a lot of people to kind of bank in the memory banks because actually the fact the
00:59 act of the golf swing suggests that there's a natural flow to it, there's a natural swing back
01:04 and swing through. The problem people tend to find is that they've got lots of swing thoughts going
01:09 on in their in their minds and that tends to stunt this nice natural rhythm that we're looking for in
01:15 the golf swing so you tend to find people thinking about stuff too much and therefore even if you're
01:20 a decent sports person you've got a good ability to hit a ball with a racket, a club, a bat,
01:25 whatever you happen to be using that can sometimes disappear just because you're overthinking it
01:30 and you're trying to hit it and trying to force the ball to do what you want it to do. It's such
01:34 a good point I think my specific issue on this I think is that I tend to start getting too aggressive
01:41 when I'm on the golf course under pressure start snatching at it a little bit too much so okay so
01:47 most people watching this will know tempo really important so how do people practice it how do you
01:52 make sure that you don't go too far wrong? I think it's important to have something that you can take
01:57 out on the golf course with you because like you said there's situations out there where you need
02:02 a little bit of restraining perhaps so you actually need just to calm things down a bit
02:09 so a really good drill to do that is to actually maybe do one of your practice swings or just your
02:14 sole practice swing with your feet together because what that does is it starts to create
02:18 this lovely freewheeling chilled out tempo if you go at it like a bat out of hell with your feet
02:25 together guess what you fall over so you're throwing yourself throwing yourself off balance
02:30 okay so if you are somebody like me who has a tendency to snatch at their shots a little bit
02:34 too much that feeling that you're hitting and not swinging try to incorporate that into your
02:38 pre-shot routine. Okay so we have reached the inevitable part of this video which we're going
02:47 to talk about alignment and most golfers watching this will know how important it is and yet there'll
02:52 be a lot of people watching this that don't do it correctly every time and that's because they're
02:56 forgetting something what is it that golfers tend to forget about aiming properly? I think the biggest
03:02 thing golfers tend to forget with alignment is they forget that it's not their body that's lined
03:06 up to the target they're on those old train tracks so the ball and the target are on one train track
03:12 your feet knees hips and shoulders are on the other so in theory you're running parallel to
03:16 your target but the problem is when a lot of people set up to the ball is they look down their
03:21 shoulder and they tend to kind of shuffle themselves and aim themselves out so they've
03:25 skewed themselves across the line. Yes so what's the what's the process how do you get it right
03:31 time and time again? So you need to build into your pre-shot routine so you need to stand behind
03:35 the ball use your club almost like a ruler point it at your target pull the club down and pick
03:40 yourself a mini target just in front of the ball it's so much easier to get yourself lined up on
03:45 those train tracks because you can see the tracks down there yeah when we're looking up at the
03:49 target it's much easier to have a little shuffle do a little dance and immediately you've you've
03:54 pushed yourself offline yeah so having a mini target is probably my biggest tip for this and
04:00 being able to aim yourself to that is much much easier than the longer one. Yeah and it's it's so
04:05 important so if you can just do what Katie said and get it right more often chances are you'll
04:09 also start making better swings better contacts and just generally playing golf a little bit better.
04:14 Okay so we've come down to the green here and Katie we're talking about chipping
04:23 what do people forget to do in a situation like this? I think the biggest problem people have
04:29 when it comes to shots out on the course around the green is they choose the wrong club right so
04:34 I think there's that idea that because I'm chipping I need to look good and they want that
04:38 Seve-esque sort of high floaty shot that's going to land right by the flag and zip back and stop
04:43 that's not reality. Reality would be if I was to give you a ball and throw it to the flag,
04:48 yeah right I'm not going to go up and over like that because I've got no control over it the
04:54 bounce is going to be more unpredictable everything's just a little bit more dangerous
04:58 my safest possible option would be to almost play lawn bowls basically so I'd roll it on the first
05:04 available bit of green it would run into the flag yeah so then what I'd want you to do out on the
05:10 golf course is kind of put into your hand the club that best fits that carry and roll right so for me
05:16 that went low and rolled out so it'd probably be something like an eight iron yeah the majority of
05:21 people would not be choosing an eight iron from here well I think that they possibly just
05:25 automatically grab the lob wedge or the sand wedge yeah whatever they're whatever shot they're facing
05:29 around the green I know I probably have a tendency to do that a bit from time to time just immediately
05:33 pick the club you just want to look the best you can possibly look and for a lot of people that's
05:38 the ball in the air but what's interesting about this case is that you're saying work backwards
05:41 figure out what the shot looks like the best most reliable looking shot what it looks like
05:46 and then pick your club so with this little short chip this almost tick tock action I can afford to
05:52 miss hit it a little bit and still get away with it I think that's the important thing that's the
05:57 important hit it and get away with it oh great so all I'm gonna do is just that little tick
06:03 tock bounce it on that top and let it roll around this is good you told me to miss hit it and I said
06:11 no but I think the point remains keep it simple it's the best way to do it
06:20 posture it's something that I think most golfers understand how important it is to have a nice
06:24 athletic posture yet the amount of golfers that you see out on the course who are sort of stood
06:28 over the ball not looking particularly athletic why is it so important to get right firstly Katie
06:35 it's so important to get right because posture good posture gives you good balance which in
06:40 turn gives you control in your golf swing and we want control in our golf swing right yeah we don't
06:46 want to stand there in a position where we're rocking about the place and this is what happens
06:49 when the position that you're setting up in is poor you're setting up in a state of almost sitting
06:56 down or sometimes tipped over too much but the one we see the most is the sat back kind of slightly
07:01 lazy posture almost what you've got there is you've got the weight on the heels so you're
07:07 gonna swing the club back and you're gonna be rocking around rocking all over the place
07:10 what we want to see is a more of a planted onto the balls of the feet and the ability to actually
07:17 be in balance as you come back to the ball good posture to begin with is usually going to mean
07:22 better posture as you hit the shot yeah poor posture you're just not going to introduce any
07:27 of the bigger muscles so you're not going to get that lovely rotation and that lovely weight
07:31 transfer through the ball so what's a good tip what's a good checkpoint to make sure you're in
07:34 the right posture you could stand in front of a mirror at home and actually take your posture if
07:39 the mirror is there take your posture set yourself up have a look go yeah all right that's great but
07:44 we want something we can take on to the golf course you do see people out there going tippy
07:48 over flex your knees and going through almost a little routine in their heads but that can
07:52 introduce tension okay in good posture you should be able to a bit like you're about to return to
07:58 serving tennis you should be able to give your heels a little tap that tells us we're ready to
08:02 run somewhere tells us we're athletic if you're setting up to the ball and you try and do that
08:08 and you think i'm flying me i'm rocking back already because i can tap my toes if you're a
08:12 toe tapper your posture's lacking athleticism it's a really simple tip and if you do have issues with
08:18 your posture over the ball then maybe introduce that into your pre-shot routine it could make
08:23 all the difference okay so we're going to talk about bunker play and obviously the two biggest
08:32 mistakes are either leaving it in the bunker or thinning it over the back the lesson that people
08:38 forget here is that the bunker shot the green side bunker shot is the only one in which you're
08:43 not trying to make contact with the ball first right exactly and i think this is the thing is
08:48 that we don't want to hit the ball first we want to hit the sand behind the ball so it floats out
08:52 on that lovely cushion so it's really important here that we address the part we want to hit so
08:58 we're actually addressing the sand behind the ball okay so talk us through how you did so it's
09:03 important to almost think of the ball as being sat on a fried egg so the ball is the yolk essentially
09:08 just draw a couple of little circles obviously not allowed to do this in real play for obvious
09:13 reasons but draw a couple of circles around the ball and you can even give yourself three circles
09:18 in a row almost like traffic lights practice hitting the right bit of sand so if i was to
09:23 have a little practice traffic light if you like so i'm going to set myself up swing back swing
09:29 through and take the whole thing out what i'm then going to do is set myself up to the back of the
09:34 egg where the ball is and again almost try and repeat it so i'm just letting the ball get in the
09:39 way but i'm aiming to hit the back of that egg perfect great shot and you'll notice i mean that
09:47 description there the case is so simple it's something that every golfer can do but you
09:51 do need to practice these things trust it and practice it it should help
09:56 okay so our next one is about grip pressure and this is starting to feel actually a bit like a
10:05 personal counselling session for me because i know that under pressure i have a tendency to
10:10 really squeeze the grip and strangle the grip and i know that's not good but can you explain
10:15 to everyone why it's not good so the first thing is you're not alone probably 90% of the people
10:21 that i teach are strangling the club now the effect that this has on your ability to get back
10:26 to that ball is huge the reason being if you're holding the club in an appropriate manner an
10:32 appropriate amount of pressure is being applied you're holding it almost like a tube of toothpaste
10:36 with the lid off so that would be quite a good way of remembering it what people tend to do is they
10:41 tend to go from setting themselves up holding it all right and then suddenly the squeeze comes in
10:46 so you've got a nice relaxed hold where the club's on the ground check out what my club face does when
10:51 i squeeze it that's literally down to me strengthening my grip my forearms are contracting
10:58 and therefore shortening and lo and behold you can imagine the shots that you're going to get
11:02 from that you've got an iron in hand you're likely to hit i think you're likely to hit bins yes maybe
11:07 tops absolutely yeah you are but also it's the impact that it has on your rhythm which we've
11:14 talked about before you want that free easy swing you want that lovely flow to your golf swing yeah
11:20 so as katie said a nice light grip pressure it'll help your rhythm it'll help all sorts of different
11:26 things in your golf swing okay so the number one tip on our list that golfers forget is they forget
11:37 to aim at the middle of the green in particular when the flag is cut tight to one side or another
11:43 so imagine for a second that the green behind katie and i here imagine that flag is tucked just
11:49 over the bunkers on the right hand side appreciate it's not today but imagine that it is that's a
11:53 really dangerous flag yeah especially when you consider katie you've got so much room to aim
11:59 out on this green haven't you and we've all said it we've all got up there and gone damn it i'm in
12:03 the bunker look how much room there is on the left yes and for some reason reason we tend to go
12:09 at tiger line at the flag stick something that will really help you to avoid this and remind
12:15 you that actually the middle of the green you want to be on the middle of the green because
12:19 you're never going to get a really long putt you're never going to be too far from the flag are you
12:23 no but it's just a safe place to be but a way that you can do that is actually pay attention
12:29 to what's behind the green so for example here we've got two tall fir trees um just to the right
12:34 of where our flag is but that's center of the green i'd be thinking about aiming at those and
12:39 use that as my marker as my part of my pre-shot routine just draw my attention to what's at the
12:43 back it lifts you up body language wise so you're looking up you're visualizing a decent shot because
12:50 you're going at something that's beyond the green yeah and it just takes your attention away from
12:54 any trouble that might be sneaking around in the foreground come on katie let's finish off with a
12:59 good shot shall we so that flag let's be honest is in a pretty good spot not giving you any excuses
13:04 here all right no pressure lovely shot nice high soft draw very easy and i think it goes to show
13:16 that if you're out on the golf course and you're thinking about how to compile a score maybe just
13:20 have one round of golf where you just aim at the middle of the greens forget about where the flag
13:24 is see what it does to your score it might just help okay so there you have it that's our look at
13:29 the seven tips that every golfer forgets if you've enjoyed the video please do hit the like button if
13:34 you have any questions or any comments leave them below but that's it for now from westhill thanks
13:39 for watching we'll see you next time
13:48 [BLANK_AUDIO]