Wear And Tear Warning Signs For Your Golf Equipment
What is your golf equipment telling you about your swing? In this video Neil Tappin and Alex Elliott discuss some of the warning signs you should be on the lookout for.
Category
🥇
SportTranscript
00:00Hello everyone, Neil Tappan here from Golf Monthly and welcome to West Hill Golf Club
00:08and this video in which we are looking at the five important clues your golf equipment
00:12is giving you about the way in which you're swinging the club.
00:15We're going to look at everything from the wear marks on your glove and your grip, T-marks
00:19on your driver and also any marks that you might have on your wedges.
00:22They're really important clues about the way you're delivering the club to the ball.
00:26Now the advice in this video comes from Alex Elliott.
00:29He's a PGA professional.
00:30His tips are really simple and concise, really easy to follow.
00:33Guys, if you're new to the Golf Monthly channel, please do hit the subscribe button to make
00:36sure that you don't miss any of our videos.
00:38Hit the like button if you like what you're watching and also please do leave comments
00:41below.
00:42Is there anything you've missed or is there any more information or advice that you're
00:44looking for?
00:45Let us know.
00:46We'd be more than happy to help.
00:47Right, let's head over, meet Alex and find out what these five important clues are from
00:52your golf equipment.
00:55Okay, so number five on our list relates to your glove and the clues that might be there
01:01for you to see with your glove.
01:03What are the areas of wear on the glove that people need to be aware of and need to try
01:07to avoid?
01:08Two main areas, really.
01:10One is that excessive wear to the palm and then usually we see it as kind of a combination.
01:15We get excessive wear here, then as a result, we get excessive wear along the thumb as well.
01:19In the thumb.
01:20So, yeah, look at your own glove.
01:21Take a moment.
01:22Get your golf equipment out.
01:24Have a look at the gloves.
01:25See if you've got any wear in the thumb and in the palm.
01:27Why is that not good?
01:28Ultimately, if I demonstrate now with a golf club, if I get a grip or take a hold of a
01:33club when it's too much through my palm, one, I'm relying on the thumb and the forefinger
01:37to kind of take the weight, but ultimately it stops us creating a lot of wrist set or
01:42wrist hinge throughout the swing.
01:43And a common thing that I see is that a lot of the time that we get this, we then got
01:46to sacrifice bending of our lead arm to complete the swing, ultimately because we can't set
01:51the wrist.
01:52Hinge your wrist properly.
01:54Fine.
01:55So what about the sort of general state of your golf glove?
01:58Firstly, at what point should people chuck a glove away?
02:01At what point is it redundant?
02:03And secondly, how long should it take you to get to a point where it's redundant?
02:06I think if we look at it and said, if your glove was wearing very quickly, then we might
02:10be gripping it too hard and we might then have issues in our grip and just general wear
02:14and tear happens too quickly.
02:15I would say, one, it depends how much rain you play in.
02:18Yeah.
02:19How often you play golf.
02:20Yeah.
02:21I'd say nine, 10 rounds.
02:23Fine.
02:24And that would be someone that would be probably very taking care of their appearance and wanting
02:28to have a nice, fresh glove every time.
02:29You could probably get a bit longer, but I'd say probably two or three a season would be
02:32a good.
02:33Yeah, fine.
02:34So more, I mean, nine, 10 rounds, that's quite, if you're somebody that is really into
02:37your golf equipment, you want your stuff to be.
02:39If you're not, so also don't forget, you can store old gloves in your bag and use them
02:44when you practice.
02:45That's a good thing to do.
02:46Exactly, exactly.
02:47So look out for wear and tear on your glove.
02:48It could hold some important clues as to what you might be doing wrong in your swing.
02:56Okay, so the next one on the list relates to wear marks on your golf clubs.
02:59On my golf clubs, without question, commonly my wear marks tend to be slightly more towards
03:05the heel than they are towards the centre, which is a dangerous place to have your wear
03:10marks.
03:11And Alex, you've got driver there.
03:12What's the thing for people to be wary of with the wear marks on their driver?
03:16I think if we say, people to be wary with driver, that seeing the ball flight could
03:20just be due to your strike.
03:21And if you've got a kind of a wearing of your strike towards the heel or towards the toe,
03:26this could have a massive impact on your ball flight.
03:29So what you're saying is that you could end up seeing the ball drawing or fading when
03:33actually your swing isn't the problem.
03:36It's actually the strike that's causing that.
03:38Yeah, exactly.
03:39Because we've got a driver here and we've got all modern drivers now, very forgiving.
03:42They've got the centre of gravity low and far back.
03:45This creates gear effect in the driver.
03:46So if I was to hit one out the heel now, this would cause the heel of the club to kick back
03:50a little bit, the ball to work in the opposite direction, and we might actually start seeing
03:54a slice or a big fade curvature.
03:57And then you'd end up possibly putting some drills into play or working on your swing,
04:01thinking that you're coming over the top of it, when actually that's not the case.
04:04Exactly.
04:05Exactly that.
04:06And then the same thing would happen from the toe.
04:07People that are hooking the ball excessively could just be that they're catching this ball
04:10out the toe.
04:11The toe kicks back a little bit.
04:13The ball works like cogs and gears in the opposite direction, causes that ball to move
04:16right to left curvature.
04:17Okay, fine.
04:18So how do you work on the quality of strike?
04:20What's something that we all need to do from time to time?
04:23It doesn't matter what handicap you are, how do you do it?
04:26Foot spray.
04:27Really, really easy.
04:28Or even when you go to a driver fitting, you can get this face tape that you put on it.
04:31Now that will affect the ball flight because of friction.
04:33So foot sprays would be your best option here.
04:36And just seeing actually, well, where am I striking the ball?
04:40Because with all modern drivers, because they are so forgiving, it's hard to know where you
04:42hit it from.
04:43Yes, yeah.
04:44So actually getting, okay, well, am I, I'm a little bit towards the toe.
04:47Towards the toe.
04:48Yes.
04:49Guilty of that all the time.
04:50And so what?
04:51Then you can just start to make compensations in your own kind of games.
04:54I guess another, a drill, an easy drill that I would do.
04:57So imagine I would tee the golf ball up on the middle.
05:00I would then place a tee just inside this and I would try and take out the inside tee
05:04and that would hopefully move my strike from the toe into the middle and vice versa.
05:09So I would tee a ball up and put a tee just peg just outside the golf ball and try and
05:13take out the outside tee peg as well.
05:14And again, moving that strike from heel to the middle.
05:17I think we can all agree that striking the ball from the centre of the club face is fairly
05:20important when it comes to golf.
05:22There's some great tips there from Alex to help you first identify where your strike
05:26pattern is and then to hone it in so that you get it a little bit more centred a little
05:29bit more often.
05:31Good shot.
05:36Now, one of the most obvious signs to look out for with your golf equipment is the tee
05:43marks that get left on your driver after you've hit a shot.
05:46Take a look at the sole plate of your driver.
05:47You'll probably see where the tee is running.
05:49And Alex, what's the thing that people need to look out for here?
05:53The most common fault that you think people look at?
05:55So most common ball flight is left to right slice, whether it be for a right handed player
05:59or a left handed player as well.
06:02These tee marks will generally run from the heel all the way across to the toe on a diagonal
06:08motion.
06:09Okay, now, good question here for you then is why does it start in the heel?
06:13Why exactly does the tee marks begin on that part?
06:15Because it would suggest that we've got a path that's travelling from out to in.
06:18So if I showed you here, over exaggerated, this club head would be travelling from outside
06:22the line to inside the line.
06:25So we could imagine like we're grating across this ball and that tee is slashing across
06:29the sole of your club.
06:30So question then, if the person watching this hits a fairly consistent fade, is that
06:37a problem?
06:38No, I mean, what I would say though, the more your path is out to in, the more diagonal
06:42that these tee marks will probably become.
06:44Fine.
06:45So if yours are particularly aggressive, they're going kind of sideways across, then it is
06:49something you need to sort of work on.
06:51If that's the case, how do you work on it?
06:54A really nice simple drill and what I always try and get people to react to kind of a scenario
06:59in front of them.
07:01Imagine that I place the tree in front of you.
07:02A lot of people that would have an object in front of them would actually go, oh yeah,
07:06I know how to move it from right to left around that, I can do that.
07:09So I go, right, okay, if we picture we've got a tree in front of us, what would we do?
07:12How would we manipulate our swing to do so?
07:15Okay, fine.
07:16A lot of people would make that adjustment, okay, aim a little bit up the right and they
07:19would naturally swing a little bit more to the right and have a slightly different release
07:23pattern as well.
07:24Okay, and if you got it right, that would mean that the tee mark started in the toe
07:27and then went towards the heel, is that right?
07:29I would say that I would generally want to see it go the opposite way.
07:32Some people may have that, if they're a draw of the ball or hook the golf ball, they may
07:35have it travelling from toe to heel, but I would say that drill would probably hopefully
07:40get people close to neutral.
07:42Even though it feels quite excessive, it probably gets them quite neutral, maybe even just a
07:46little bit off to the right.
07:47Okay, go on then, Alex, hit one more for us.
07:49So we're imagining we've got our tree just in front of us, we're going to try and feel
07:52that we create the opposite.
07:53So remember before, the tee marks were working this way, across the golf ball, we're going
07:58to try and feel the absolute opposite.
08:05Good shot.
08:09Right, so the next one on our list relates to your wedges and where the wear marks are
08:13around about the sole.
08:14So, Alex, what we're going to talk about in this part is about angle of attack, how steep
08:18you are into the ball, and there's going to be two clues, it's going to be the divot on
08:23the ground and then where the marks are on your wedge.
08:26Talk us through it.
08:28So first off, I see a lot of people that struggle with that kind of steep contact in the back
08:32of the ball, or one that fires out really low and spinny and out of control, is that
08:37a lot of the time people get this steep angle of descent into the ball, so the club would
08:40almost get stuck in the ground and we create a big divot.
08:43And when this ground is wet, we also take a long, large divot as well, especially over
08:48a pitching distance.
08:49So one would be a steep divot, so a very deep divot, and then secondly, we'd probably start
08:55to see a little bit of wear around this leading edge, because that's doing a lot of contact
08:59in the ground, we start then to see a lot of wear around this area.
09:02Okay, fine.
09:03So if you were using the sole of your wedge, as so many coaches are now teaching the short
09:07game, you would get more of an even wear across the bottom of the sole, because you'd be using
09:12that sole a little bit more often.
09:13Exactly.
09:14I mean, that would be kind of the overall general statement.
09:16The main thing that we know with wedges, we get a bad line, we might have to manufacture
09:19a shot and be a bit steeper, but as a general rule of thumb, yes.
09:23For a basic sort of short game shot like the one we're facing here.
09:26Now, one thing I would say is that over the years, people have been told that in order
09:30to get spin, in order to get that one that bounces up and then checks, you want to be
09:33steeper into the ball, you want to kind of drive it in there, but actually that's not
09:37what you're advocating.
09:38I mean, to create spin, it's something called spin loft, so it's a difference between the
09:42loft you've got on your face and your angle of attack, so it's the vector that you create
09:46between it.
09:47Now, there is a mean point at which you go beyond this point, it'll drop off a scale
09:50and you won't create any spin.
09:51So generally, more loft and either moving face up, so adding more loft, or steeping
09:58the angle of attack and keeping the same face will add spin.
10:00The thing you've got to understand here is that if you move your angle of attack and
10:04face by the same amount, all you're going to change is your trajectory.
10:08Changing one of these vectors will create some spin.
10:11Okay, fine.
10:12So show us how you play this particular shot.
10:13Granted, this is probably like, as a playing point of view, this is probably one of my
10:16worst errors in my game, but the analogy that I like to use, because I'm one of them people
10:20that do get steep into the back of the ball, I like to think of the bottom of this club
10:23being the wheels of a plane, so I like to feel like I just get the wheels of the plane
10:26just touching down.
10:27Right, okay, just brushing the ground.
10:28Yeah, so not crash landing, and not aborting the landing and scooping it, just feeling
10:33like I'm going to get it brushing the ground.
10:34Okay, good.
10:35Hopefully like you're playing this.
10:36Yeah, nice analogy, I like it.
10:44Very nice.
10:45Spin.
10:46Very good.
10:48Very good.
10:49And you'll see, I think through the camera you should be able to see, there's a divot
10:52there, but it isn't too bad, it's not too deep of a divot.
10:55No, it's a nice divot.
10:56It's a nice divot.
10:57So, something to look out for with your wedges.
10:59If you do struggle with your short game, the chances are you're probably a little steep
11:03into the ball, you're probably hitting down a little bit too much into the back of it.
11:07Club gets caught in the turf, all sorts of bad things can happen.
11:10Try and shallow out that angle of attack, you could hit a few more shots just like that one.
11:18Okay, so for the next one, you might want to grab your driver and take a look at the
11:22grip.
11:23See if there are any areas on the grip of your driver where there are wear marks.
11:26Alex, what's the thing to look out for here?
11:29It would be where my top hand, my thumb, meets the golf club here.
11:33Now, if you're someone who excessively has excessive grip tension, so say for example,
11:3710 out of 10 was strangling it, and you had that with the driver, we would start to see
11:41sort of a wear pattern in that same place.
11:44Another thing, it would be if your grip was moving a little bit as well.
11:47So your actual grip is slightly changing during the swing?
11:50Yeah, exactly.
11:51Right, okay, I wouldn't have thought that people did that.
11:53I wouldn't have thought you could hang on to the golf club if you did that.
11:55It does.
11:56Ultimately, when we grab the golf club, our thumb works slightly upwards, so it kind of
12:01retracts in slightly.
12:03So any time that some people kind of have a long thumb, it's kind of what I call, it's
12:07not as stable, so it can move a little bit more, a bit more rigid.
12:09So this again would add to wear on that area of the club.
12:13But for me, it's where people have excessive grip tension, which is one of the main ones.
12:18Yes, which is what I was wanting to ask you about.
12:19So as far as grip tension goes, grip pressure, what's the advice?
12:24A really nice, simple one.
12:26Imagine your grip now is a tube of toothpaste, and it's open at the end.
12:30We don't want to squeeze the toothpaste out, we want to just put enough tension onto that
12:33grip where we've got our hands lightly on the club.
12:38Why don't you want to grip it too hard?
12:39I mean, all fine, but why don't you?
12:43What's the problem with gripping it so hard?
12:44Big thing is release.
12:46If you were to grip it really hard now, this tension then travels up your forearms.
12:50So it's a lot less of a forearm release and arms and body working together.
12:53We're more likely to hold on to this club face.
12:57Other points are in terms of actually creating a turn during the backswing, that tension
13:00travels up the body.
13:01Up the body, right.
13:02So you can find that tension spreads from your hands up through your arms, and then
13:05before you know it, you're not actually turning very effectively.
13:07And if we've got that tension on the range, we turn to the first tee as well, and that's
13:11where we're probably going to be most nervous.
13:13Okay, go on then, hit one for us.
13:15So I'm trying to feel like I'm gripping a tube of toothpaste.
13:20Good shot.
13:23So there you have it.
13:24Those were our five most important clues that come from your golf equipment about the way
13:29in which you're swinging the club.
13:31If you've liked what you've watched, please do hit the like button, and also leave some
13:34comments below.
13:35Have you got any questions about anything we've talked about in this video?
13:37We'd be more than happy to help out and give some answers where we can.
13:40And have we missed anything out?
13:42Are there any signs that your golf equipment is giving you about your swing that you'd
13:46like some information on?
13:47Again, we'd be more than happy to help out.
13:50But for now, from West Hill, it's goodbye.