6 Golf Tips To Improve Your Game

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Transcript
00:00Hello everyone, Neil Tappan here from Golf Monthly and welcome to this video
00:03in which we are going to take a look at six golf tips you should ignore. These
00:08tend to be the things that amateurs say to other amateurs and they can actually
00:12do you more harm than good. Right let's head out onto the golf course here at
00:16Fox Hills and take a look at the six golf tips you should ignore.
00:22Okay so we're joined by Alex again and Alex the first one on the list is about
00:30the position of your left elbow in the golf swing. Explain to me what it is
00:34that people get told here. There's a lot of talk where we've got to keep this
00:37left elbow straight and left arm straight and now okay there may be
00:41reasons why we actually bend the left elbow due to grip but if we just look at
00:45it just as a whole and saying I don't think there should be so much pressure
00:49on keeping the left arm straight. Okay so can I just play devil's advocate here
00:54for a second. You don't want to be in a position where you're in that position
00:58then. No, no. So there is some truth to this that you shouldn't be in that
01:02position there. Why is that not a good position to be in? Ultimately it's going
01:06to create a very inconsistent bottom of the arc. Now anytime I see a motion like
01:10this I tend to kind of classify people that may be a little bit scoopy into
01:15the golf ball but the thing with this, look at Jordan Spieth. He was a world
01:20number one, Masters winner. He is what we kind of classify as slightly bent at the
01:25top. Okay so what's an okay position to be in at the top? What I would say is we
01:29don't want to feel like we're locked out because that's really going to limit our
01:33rotation. Anytime that we feel like we concentrate on trying to keep that
01:37straight we start to create a lot of tension through the whole body.
01:40Anytime we create tension it's hard to create rhythm, it's hard to create a good
01:43consistent swing. So even when I swing is, and as I come to the top, I would
01:47never be locked out, I would never be at 90 degrees but I would have a slight
01:52kink in my arm. Just be relaxed. Yeah so it's just, I guess this is one for
01:56anyone out there that's really getting a bit too focused on keeping this very
02:00straight. It all can become very mechanical and so lacking in that kind
02:05of free-flowing movement that you're looking for. Exactly and if we look at
02:07Ernie Els, Jordan Spieth, all free-flowing movements. We're not stood here like a
02:12mechanical robot really focusing on this because our focus is on this then, not
02:16the shot in hand. Yeah so there you have it. Don't worry too much about keeping
02:19this elbow perfectly straight during the golf swing.
02:27So for the next one as you can see we are on the putting green and Alex it's
02:31again another tip that you'll hear people give to each other which is that
02:35you've got to keep your wrists really locked down, have a repeatable
02:39consistent putting stroke but actually again it's a thought that can do more
02:43harm than good. Why? Exactly, well if you just imagine you're going to address the
02:47ball on the floor there. If you feel the wrists are locked, straight away we're
02:50going to get tension in the arms, tension the shoulders and it becomes a very
02:54wooden, no flowing motion. Now there are techniques where we
02:59potentially get the arm in the arm lock and we do create it to be locked out. So
03:03putting is very individual to you and if you're using that kind of grip then
03:07that's okay for that technique. Yes but otherwise for most of us who aren't
03:11using an arm lock grip actually you want a little bit of freedom in your wrist.
03:16We look at Jack Nicklaus, one of the best putters, best short game, having
03:20that flow, even feeling, I'm not saying flick it but a little bit of giving the
03:24lead wrist, it's going to help you develop feels and help you longer
03:28putts, shorter putts and just overall help you flow. But as you say you don't want
03:32to flick it because I guess the truth, again there's always an element of truth
03:36behind all of these and the truth is you see a lot of players when they
03:40get into that position there they kind of do all of the work by flicking the
03:44wrist of the ball and why is that not a good idea? Almost going to hit up on the ball, we're
03:48going to hit above the equator, we could put the face left, put the face right. So
03:52what I would tend to give as my advice if I was holding it a more traditional
03:57way is that we want a motion that's driven mainly by the arms in the body
04:01and very little with the wrist. So if I make this motion here you wouldn't stick
04:07out that I'm flicking the golf ball club, but I have an element of softness
04:11to my wrist and that's what I want you to have, the element of softness almost
04:15like you're squeezing a tube of toothpaste. Yeah so just that little bit
04:18of, I guess you could call this a little bit of lag actually, in your wrist it's
04:22going to help the freedom of your stroke, the flow of your stroke, ultimately
04:25improve your overall consistency on the greens.
04:32Okay so the next one on our list relates to lag and it's something that a lot of
04:37amateurs go in search of because they know that it's the kind of that secret
04:41ingredient that delivers more power, but why is lag itself something that players
04:46should sort of not be so worried about searching for? I think it's a dangerous
04:50topic for most people, it can for me cause them to stiffen up, put the face
04:56right a target and really become very obsessed in creating a move that looks
05:00very false in rehearsal. Now there are essence in saying that okay we've got to
05:05kind of create the opposite scenarios to what we've got, but I would say for most
05:10people if you look at you've got a good grip, good body movement, good sequencing
05:14that will help you create lag. Okay fine. Rather than going searching for it
05:19directly. So don't be led down the path and thinking it's this kind of magic you
05:23know little single thing that you can do that it's going to deliver more power.
05:27Exactly we're not saying it's not important, it is, but being too focused on
05:31it can be the wrong avenue for you. Okay go on then hit one for us Alex. Okay.
05:42Okay lovely shot and I think we'll show that again from the sort of square on
05:47angle you'll be able to see that Alex creates lag in his golf swing but he does
05:51it for a whole host of other things that are working well trying to focus purely
05:55on delivering that lag it's probably not the right way to go.
06:03Okay so the next one on our list relates to chipping Alex what is it? So I always
06:09hear this especially when we're trying to create a bit of spin around the
06:12greens. Put the ball back, get the hands forward, hit down the golf ball. I was
06:17told it as a junior. Yeah I was actually taught that as being the right way to
06:21chip. I mean there probably are times and scenarios where we probably want to
06:25adopt a similar technique for that but sometimes by putting that ball back and
06:29the hands forward all we're doing there is exposing that leading edge and it's
06:33gonna dig. And you're gonna potentially duff it which is something that I am
06:37very familiar with Alex. So if that's not the right technique for chipping what is
06:41the right technique? Well I like to make sure the ball is a little bit more
06:45central so the rule of thumb that I use is my stance I like to have just wide
06:50of a clubbed width apart and if the chip becomes a little bit longer I get a
06:53little bit wider accordingly. Ball position just on my zip or just the
06:58right of my zip and then from there hands on the golf ball because now we've
07:02got an opportunity to display some loft and hit slightly down on it which is a
07:06good recipe for creating spin. And crucially you're gonna be employing a
07:09bit more of the bounce of the golf club so the club should just glide off the
07:13top. Exactly you've got a much more margin for error so in the winter when you're
07:16chipping or it's a bit of a wet lie, a bit of a bad lie, you've got a bigger margin for error.
07:19No you've just put yourself under a bit of pressure there because it is winter here, it is very wet underfoot, this is a real prime
07:27scenario for duffing it isn't it and that's exactly why you shouldn't have the ball
07:30back in your stance and your hands forward. Exactly. So yeah show us how it's done Alex.
07:33Okay no pressure.
07:41Well it just grabbed on you there but as you could see absolutely no danger that
07:45the club was gonna dig and that Alex was gonna duff that one.
07:59That's not your best Alex. Now if we were playing golf in that scenario I might be
08:04tempted to say to you just slow it down a bit because it looked a bit ragged.
08:08Yes, yeah it looked a little bit off balance I guess. But actually it's a tip, again it's a tip that gets
08:14handed from one amateur to the next that might not be that useful. Now if we look
08:19at the top players in the world they're trying to swing the club as fast as they
08:23can. It's all about distance in the modern game so I'm really reluctant to
08:27tell someone to slow it down. I'm more bothered about the tempo of the swing.
08:31Okay fine. So my speed might be the same as yours but we have slightly different
08:35tempo and how we go about it. Okay fine so that begs the question how do you
08:40work on tempo? Tempo is one of those things isn't it that you either have one
08:43day or you don't. Yeah so the analogy that I like to use and I use this on the course as
08:48well so not just in my practice. I imagine a rev counter that works from
08:51transition down to the golf ball so on the downswing. Okay. So a lot of people
08:57like that swing there would have looked like the high peak and the higher revs
09:00in your car were really early in the downswing. Right at the top almost. Exactly. I want you to feel like you
09:06build up to that so we're peaking our revs just before impact. Yeah and it's I
09:11guess it's the reason why many of the world's best players they look like they
09:14swing the ball and swing the club quite easy but they hit the ball very
09:18hard because actually they don't get speed until they really need it most. I
09:22mean Ernie Owls as soon as I think rhythm and tempo he comes straight to my
09:26mind. Yeah so next time someone says to you I think you might need to slow it
09:30down just check yourself and think actually it's tempo it's a smoother
09:34tempo that I need that might just help you straighten things out and hit better shots.
09:43Okay so Alex I'd say the number one thing that you hear amateurs say to
09:47other amateurs that pros really don't like is keep your head down. Yeah. You
09:53know you've hit a bad shot there or you lifted your head. Especially when you see
09:56a top shot. I hear that all the time. Why is that unhelpful advice?
10:01Well just in terms of if we look at how we want to work through the golf ball we
10:06want to be very rotary through the golf ball. Now to help us do that the chin has
10:11to lift we have to start looking towards the target. Yeah I mean take a
10:15look at the way that Henrik Stenson swings the golf club or the way that
10:18Anna Kosorenstam hit the ball. Both of them through impact their head
10:22would be at kind of that angle wouldn't it? Exactly so what I would say is anytime
10:26that we are trying to keep our head down is what the tip that we hear this is
10:31really limiting our ability to swing through and rotate. We're using club head
10:36speed and it's going to do more harm than good because that face could be
10:39pointing left and right because we're really relying on our hand-eye
10:42coordination to time it. Now Alex I'm gonna play devil's advocate here and say
10:47there is an element of truth to don't keep don't lift your head and that
10:51element of truth is that you don't want people to lose their posture their
10:55spine over. You don't want someone to sort of lift up or I guess you'd less
11:00see people dipping down. Is that true? Is that fair? Yeah that's the kind of I
11:04think where it kind of gets a little bit led down the wrong avenue when we
11:09say lift our head. In an ideal world I like to think the goal swing we get
11:12light we get heavy and we get light but through doing this our head roughly
11:18stays around the same position. We never want to see too many changing levels.
11:22Yeah okay well hit one for us then Alex we can see what you mean. So what I try
11:26and feel is in terms of trying to get me to get my head to move towards target I
11:30try and imagine I'm gonna follow the spots on the golf ball down to target.
11:34Okay good.
11:41Lovely so there you have it don't focus too hard on keeping your head down
11:45during the golf swing. Chances are if you're hitting bad shots it's not
11:48because you're not looking at the ball through impact it'll be something
11:50different. Hopefully Alex's tip will show you what to do. So there you have it
11:54that's our list of the six golf tips you should ignore. Guys please do leave some
11:58comments below. Is there anything that you think we've missed? Any tips that
12:02you've been given in the past that have actually done you more harm than good?
12:05We'd be really interested to hear your thoughts but for now thanks for watching
12:09we'll see you next time.