In this video, Neil Tappin is joined by John Howells, head professional at JCB Golf and Country Club to look at 8 beginner golfer mistakes and how to fix them.
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00:00Hello everyone, Neil Tappan here from Golf Monthly and welcome to the beautiful JCB Golf
00:05and Country Club and this video in which we're going to take a look at the 8 biggest beginner
00:09golfer mistakes and how to fix them. These are either all traps that you might be falling
00:14into when you're out on the golf course or simple swing mistakes that might be costing
00:17you. Now the advice in this video comes courtesy of John Howes, he's the head pro here at JCB
00:22and he offers some really simple and effective ways to get yourself back in the game if you
00:27are making a few of these mistakes. Right, let's head out on to the golf course and get
00:33started. So one of the things you are going to need to do if you're getting into golf
00:38is figuring out how far you hit the ball with every club in the bag and John I think the
00:43key bit of advice here is that it's not your best shot with every club in the bag, it's
00:46your, it's a sort of true reflection of how far you hit the ball isn't it? Yeah absolutely,
00:51I think all too often we have players and students that will know they hit a shot once
00:56upon a time, they might have hit that 7-iron 185 yards but it was downhill, downwind,
01:02maybe caught a little bit of a flyer for example and the shot is going to go an awful lot further
01:07in that situation but what we need to do is really have a, I would call like a normalised
01:11shot, which is just a shot that is on a calm, flat day with no extra help from certain conditions.
01:19Okay so that begs the question, how can people go out and get that yardage? Well the best
01:23thing to do is to do it away from the golf course, you should do it either at your practice
01:26area or at the driving range, a practice area is ideal because you could actually hit a
01:30shot out onto the range with maybe your 7-iron, a series of 20 shots, put your bag in the
01:36middle of that grouping of shots and then laser that yardage from where you hit from.
01:40Okay yeah, really simple, really effective, what if you can't go out onto the range, what
01:43if it's a sort of normal driving range set up? Obviously it's going to be a little bit
01:47more challenging, probably going to have to do it on the golf course late in an evening,
01:50something like that, go out there onto a golf course, maybe even just hitting to the
01:53fairway in a flat situation where it's, you've almost kind of controlled some of those variables.
01:58Okay so let's say then you have your yardages for your clubs, when you get out onto the
02:03golf course then you need to add in all the different factors that might be going on and
02:07this is a really good example of that, so this is the 17th hole at JCB, it's the signature
02:11hole of the golf course, play slightly downhill, over water, trouble everywhere, how do you
02:17figure out your yardage on a hole like this John?
02:19Absolutely, so first of all I've taken the Bushnell Laser and I've lasered the flag at
02:22195, now I know my 6 iron in normal conditions will go about 182, but I've got a situation
02:30here where I'm downhill, a good sort of 5-6 degrees so that's going to take some yardage
02:34off and I've also got a little breath of downwind which is also going to help me, so I'm factoring
02:41in the fact that I'm downhill using a little bit of educated guesswork and I know that
02:466 iron is going to be about the right number.
02:47Right ok and if you were playing uphill the opposite sort of rules would apply right?
02:51Yeah absolutely, you're going to have to use again a bit of educated guesswork, you can
02:55use your Bushnell to sort of train yourself, there are certain Bushnells that will allow
02:58you to factor in how much degrees uphill or downhill and how much that's going to add
03:04on to the actual number that you're playing, but for most people it's going to be a bit
03:08of educated guesswork.
03:10Ok, so the moment has arrived John, I think it's time for you to hit this one for us.
03:14Ok, let's give it a try.
03:16So I'm just thinking middle of the green here Neil.
03:19I should think so too.
03:27Lovely, starting at the centre of the green and pretty much staying there.
03:32So there you have it, some really handy advice on how to pick the right club.
03:37Ok, so the first one on our list is something that costs players and it can cost them in
03:45terms of accuracy and the quality of their strike John, and it's about the way in which
03:49you turn your body in the backswing or whether you sway in the backswing right?
03:55Yeah exactly, so all too often with amateur golfers we see a lot of hip sway, this kind
03:59of lateral movement, which I think people with the best intentions, they're trying to
04:03make a nice weight shift, but they probably overdo it.
04:06Right ok, so what does it look like then?
04:07What does the wrong position look like?
04:09From this kind of camera angle basically, as we do our backswing, what we see is people
04:14kind of doing this weight shift where their right hip kind of laterally moves away from
04:19the target, they get this big weight shift but they haven't really made much turn in
04:22their hips.
04:23Right, fine, so what's the best way to think about it to get yourself out of that mode
04:27and get yourself into a better rotation?
04:30So we've got to replace that hip sway with rotation.
04:32So if I put the alignment stick just through my front two belt loops, I'll just have to
04:37breathe in a little bit, but basically what I'm trying to do is get this feeling that
04:42as I do my backswing, I'm turning, I'm trying to match this 45 degree angle that I've put
04:48on the ground here, so I'm getting the hips to match that white stick that's on the ground.
04:53So I'm making a nice big turn, you can see that if I drew a line from my right hip down
04:57to my right ankle, I'm turning within that line as I do that backswing, it's going to
05:02help me on multiple fronts.
05:03Okay, and you've got another drill as well?
05:05Absolutely, yeah, so we can try and then once we've got this feeling of a hip turn, we can
05:09just slide in a little blocker, maybe just pop it on the outside of my right hip and
05:15do exactly the same thing.
05:16Now I'm going to get a bit of feedback from a touch, if I'm swaying into that yellow stick,
05:22then obviously I'm going to feel that during my golf swing.
05:25You can see I've done it incorrectly there and I'm trying to basically give myself very,
05:29very narrow margin for error here and just turn inside of that right hip line.
05:35And you should see through the camera there that as John turns, there is still a weight
05:39shift but it's kind of more of a natural shift that happens as the rotation of the body takes
05:43place as opposed to really thinking about, I've got to get my weight onto my right side
05:47of the top, which is a good thought in some ways but can lead to the wrong kind of action.
05:52I think people overdo it, don't they?
05:54They're good at doing it but they overdo it.
05:56So if you tend to hit slices or you're catching shots a lot of the time, thin or fat, give
06:01these two drills a go.
06:06Right, so we have some strategy advice for you and if you are looking to try and get
06:10your handicap down, there are a few things you can do to get your ball safely around
06:15the golf course, which is absolutely crucial.
06:16John, what's the advice here for people?
06:19Yeah, absolutely.
06:19So I think all too often, people take dead aim at the flagstick and I think what's a
06:23lot more realistic is if you can think about the shot pattern that you hit, it's kind
06:27of probably the size of a football centre circle.
06:31The middle of that is obviously where you're trying to hit it but if you think about your
06:33right-most miss and your left-most miss, that's going to give you quite a big shot pattern.
06:38Now what we need to try and do is sort of centre that shot pattern so that all potential
06:43shots that you might hit are in a safe location, i.e. not in the bunker, not in a water hazard.
06:48We want them all to be pretty much on the green.
06:50Yeah, it's a really simple way of looking at it and actually the scenario that we face
06:53here on 17 is a good example of that because the flag is over there on the right-hand side
06:59of the green.
07:00It's a bit of a sucker pin, isn't it?
07:01Yep.
07:02So if you're playing away from the flag, have a very positive mindset, pick a spot, be really
07:05positive with it and then go for it.
07:07Absolutely.
07:08Okay, so John, I think one of the mistakes I think we all make when we start playing
07:14golf is sort of trying to help the ball up into the air.
07:18It can lead to really inconsistent strikes.
07:20Can you tell us what people should and shouldn't be trying to do when it comes to impact?
07:24You're absolutely right.
07:25I see it a lot and I think it often comes down to the concept that people think that
07:30they're trying to give it all this loft at impact, the setup position and the impact
07:35position should actually be different as you can see me demonstrating there.
07:38The setup should have the shaft pretty well neutral or 90 degrees to the ground as you
07:43look at it here, but as I approach impact, I'm looking to get that shaft leaning forwards
07:48a little bit so that I can hit down on the golf ball and get that nice compressed strike.
07:52Yeah, because it's that combination of the speed in your swing and the angle of attack
07:55down into the ball creates the backspin that you need to get the ball up in the air.
07:59It's not actually hanging back and delivering lots of loft to the club.
08:02Exactly right.
08:03So John, you've got a drill for us.
08:04Can you just talk us through what the drill is and how people should be doing it?
08:10Yeah, for sure.
08:11So what we're going to do in this drill is get yourself into that adjusted impact position
08:15where basically we turn our hips a little bit, we put a little bit more pressure onto
08:19our left foot, my right heel for a right-handed golfer might just come up in the air a little
08:24bit and I'm going to start the swing here, do a tiny little backswing and then try and
08:29return back to that impact fix that I had at the start.
08:32So let's give it a try.
08:33Yeah, lovely.
08:34And you can see the strike is just perfect there.
08:41It's the ball and then the ground, which is exactly what you're looking for.
08:45And then I think if you can, I guess, build up the swing from there, keeping that impact
08:49position in mind, that will really help.
08:51Yeah, build it up over time.
08:53Try to start with small swings like I did there and then build it up into a three-quarter
08:57length backswing and then eventually up into a full shot.
09:00But it's about getting that concept correct, first of all.
09:02Yeah, so if you're looking for more consistency of strike, you're looking to eradicate fat
09:06shots or thin shots from your game, this drill is a great one to use.
09:14Right, so chipping.
09:15Jon, what's the biggest mistake that you see when people will start out with the chipping
09:19that's costing them?
09:20Well, typically people will set up in a way that doesn't really give them a chance of
09:24success.
09:25So what we often see is a situation where the club is de-lofted like this, where I've
09:30got the handle way in front of the golf ball and I've got the ball way back in my stance,
09:35almost opposite my right foot.
09:37The problem with that, Neil, is obviously I'm going to now chop down and I'm going to
09:41get that leading edge of the club to dig into the ground, which isn't really going to be
09:45an effective way to chip.
09:46Yeah, you need to catch the ball absolutely perfectly, otherwise you're going to hit it,
09:50you're going to duff it really, aren't you?
09:51Or you're going to thin it over the back.
09:52You've got a very small landing area to land that club on the ground in that situation.
09:56So then, Jon, how do people get to use the right part of the club in order to strike
10:00their chips more effectively?
10:01Yeah, so what we need to do is use the bounce on the bottom of the club.
10:04On every wedge, there's a little bit of bounce at the bottom that's the difference between
10:09the trailing edge and the leading edge.
10:10And if we present that in the correct way at setup, i.e. not having the shaft leaning
10:15super far forward, let's get it a little bit more neutral as you look at it from this perspective.
10:19And we're trying to actually return it very simply to that position that we started in.
10:24We can now start to utilize a bit of that bounce on the bottom of the club and our landing
10:29area is a lot bigger to actually get the club to land on the ground.
10:33I see.
10:34Do you have any drills that you can show us to help us with that?
10:36Absolutely.
10:37Let's try this one.
10:39What I want you to do first of all, is just set up to the grass just here and I'm going
10:44to put these two sticks in perfect vertical alignment, okay?
10:47Okay.
10:48Now if you do the one, the incorrect one first of all, just to show people what that's like.
10:52So typically what we're going to do there is we're going to hit the yellow stick before
10:56the white stick.
10:57That means that we've got an awful lot of shaft lean and we're going to dig the club
11:00into the ground.
11:02Then if someone was struggling with that, what I would try and get them to do is almost
11:05hit the sticks simultaneously.
11:07Let's try that now.
11:08I'm trying to hit the white stick, maybe even a fraction before the yellow stick.
11:11So now we're starting to see that the club is interacting with the ground in a much more
11:15efficient way.
11:16Right, yeah.
11:17It's sort of surfing the turf, I like to call it.
11:19Yeah.
11:20It's that feeling that I get when I'm doing that, is that my sort of, the club head's
11:23sort of almost overtaking the hands.
11:25It's certainly catching up with the hands through impact.
11:27It's the one area that's very different to long game, isn't it?
11:29Yes.
11:30It's one area where we do want to throw that club a little bit and try and get the bounce
11:34being used.
11:35So you've got a couple of balls on tees here, Jon, what's that for?
11:38So what I would do, if someone was struggling with their chipping, I would start with them
11:41up on a high tee and just get them to do this sort of action, just nipping the ball off
11:45the top of the tee.
11:46So why don't you set up to that big tall tee first of all, and yeah, you've got a nice
11:50set up there.
11:51We've got a nice vertical sort of shaft alignment, and your job now is to imagine those two sticks
11:56there and almost try and hit the bottom stick before the top stick.
12:00Very nice.
12:01That was a really nicely nipped chip shot.
12:03Over time, we would progress to bringing that tee height down a little bit lower and
12:08still trying to just interact with the tee peg only.
12:11Nope.
12:12No, it's just, it's hard, isn't it?
12:13Challenging you now because your depth perception of where that tee peg is, is obviously a little
12:18bit more tricky.
12:19Over time, we could start to raise the level of that tee peg down and down and down until
12:23eventually you don't need it at all.
12:24Yeah, well, there you have it.
12:25If you are struggling with your chipping, use Jon's technique there, it should really
12:29help you out.
12:34Right, so the next one on our list is about clubface control.
12:37Obviously, if you want to hit the ball straight, you've got to have control of where the clubface
12:40is pointing through impact.
12:41And I guess, Jon, the key mistake, the key fault here that people make when they're starting
12:45out tends to be a slice, doesn't it?
12:47Yeah, it tends to be.
12:48Most people have a poor understanding of what causes that open clubface that we see with
12:53a slice.
12:54And I often see it, first and foremost, with the basics of a grip.
12:58Typically, people who grip the club in what we would call a weak position, so that means
13:03the left hand, the V of this left hand, pointing up towards my lead shoulder, or also the right
13:09hand.
13:10Sometimes the right hand can be weak, Neil, and that points up towards the lead shoulder.
13:13That will typically mean that the clubface is going to be open during the backswing and
13:17probably into the downswing.
13:18So where should those two Vs be pointing ideally?
13:21So what we would want to see is basically a neutral grip where the V of this left hand
13:25and probably the V of the right hand are pointing up towards that right collarbone, anywhere
13:29in and around the right ear or the right collarbone.
13:32You can probably see it here on screen.
13:34Yeah.
13:36And then the clubface is going to want to square up through impact and that's exactly
13:40what you're looking for.
13:41But, John, I would say I've seen people with good grips who've obviously seen videos like
13:45this and they understand what they're trying to do.
13:47They're holding the club in a pretty good position and they're still hitting a slice.
13:52What's going on then?
13:53Yeah, so you're absolutely right.
13:55And that comes down to people's intent and their understanding of what happens when the
13:59club gets moving.
14:00So typically if we have a position in the backswing, I'll turn to the camera here, if
14:05we have a position where that left wrist gets into a very cupped position in the backswing
14:09or maybe even a cupped position at the top, and also even on the way down, if that left
14:13wrist is in a really cupped position, you can see just how open the clubface is there
14:17and how the clubface is going to be pointing right at target, at impact.
14:21Okay, John, so you've shown us the cupped left wrist.
14:23How do people get control of that so it's in a better position at the top?
14:26Yeah, absolutely.
14:27What we want to try and see from a backswing perspective, if we've got a neutral grip,
14:32we would like to see a pretty flat left wrist, i.e. there's no real cup or no real bow, a
14:37pretty flat left wrist.
14:39Even all the way up to the top of the backswing, we'd want to see that pretty well flat at
14:43the top.
14:44Now, if you're really struggling with this, I would suggest even going full John Rahm.
14:49You can see his golf swing, he gets the left wrist and the logo on his glove actually pointing
14:54away from his chest, and that gives a really strong look to the clubface, which is going
14:58to be an exaggeration, but it'll probably help the golfers out there.
15:01Yeah, so if you are someone, if you're struggling with a bit of a slice, there's a couple of
15:04different ways you can fix it.
15:05Either focus your attention on your grip, get that right, and then make sure that your
15:09left wrist is in the right place at the top, you should start hitting the ball a bit straighter.
15:18So when it comes to playing from the bunker, I think a lot of golfers know that they need
15:22to use the loft on the face, they need to open up the face to get the ball out.
15:26But there's a way to do it, and there's a way not to do it.
15:30And can you just talk about that for us, John, because this can be where some of the problems
15:33occur, can't it?
15:34Yeah, all too often I see players setting up with their normal full swing grip.
15:39They basically take this grip to begin with, and then they try and open the clubface from
15:44a position where they've already gripped the club.
15:46And ultimately, if we do that, when we swing down and hit the shot, we're just going to
15:50return the clubface back to a square position.
15:52And obviously, for hitting a high lofted bunker shot, that's no use.
15:56No, and you're not going to be using the bouncers, we've already talked about with chipping.
15:59So how do you open the face correctly then to use it from sand?
16:02Absolutely, it's really simple.
16:03All you need to do is just twist the club open before you're taking your grip.
16:07So pop it out in front of you, give it a little twist about the shaft, and then take your
16:11grip as if you haven't done anything at all different.
16:14That's really how you do it correctly.
16:15Go on then, let's have a look.
16:17All right.
16:19So I've twisted it there, just open, ball position just forward in my stance, a little
16:23bit more squatted than normal.
16:30And you can see how much loft there is there, without John trying to do anything particularly
16:34out of the ordinary, he's created an awful lot of loft, and yet kept the motion as simple
16:38as possible.
16:39Okay, so hopefully you now know how to grip the club in order to open the face.
16:45But John, one of the keys to playing bunker shots consistently well is taking the right
16:49amount of sand every time.
16:51It's something that so many golfers struggle with.
16:54I can see you've got a drill here, what is it and how does it help?
16:56So we've got two little scoops of sand here, one with ball, one without, and what I want
17:00you to understand is that really we're trying to control the depth of this divot, Neil.
17:04So if I set up just to the side, I want to make a swing where I don't actually break
17:09the ground.
17:10I don't want to see a divot being taken place because if I do that, I've gone way too low.
17:15So by setting up to this little bit of sand, same bunker sort of technique, I'm going to
17:20just look to hit the sand only.
17:23You can hear that really nice sound that you hear on great bunker plays.
17:26Yeah, and there's no divot, it's just a sort of light bruising of the ground, isn't it?
17:30Yeah, just nipping that sand, getting plenty of spin, plenty of height on the shot, and
17:34you can try that with a golf ball as well.
17:36Yeah, it's a really nice way of thinking about it.
17:45It's a drill I've not seen before actually, Jon, and hopefully if you try it, it will
17:49help you get that consistency that you need with your splashes in the sand to get the
17:53ball out every time.
17:55Okay, Jon, so green reading, what have we got going on down here?
18:02So we've got this funny looking contraption.
18:04It's a perfect putter.
18:05It's a device that can actually guarantee that we're starting the ball on the same line
18:09every time, but we've got different speed markers on the device here so we can roll
18:13the ball at different speeds and see whether or not it goes in.
18:16Yeah, because there is a direct correlation between your line and the pace that you hit
18:21the ball.
18:22If you don't get both right, you're likely to miss, aren't you?
18:24Absolutely.
18:25A speed and line match up is what we need.
18:27The line is only as good as the speed that you're trying to hit it into the hole at.
18:31Show us how it works then.
18:32Okay, so what we've got, basically, we've figured out this putt here and we're going
18:35to roll it from the little marker on two here and we know that if we do that, we're going
18:40to be very, very close to holding it and it's gone in nicely there.
18:44If I was to roll it at a slightly slower speed than that, so I'm going to go down to zero,
18:49just two little clicks lower on this little speed device, you can see that it breaks that
18:54little bit more and it ends up missing on the low edge.
18:57And if I now do it differently, I'll go up to a four on the little speed marking.
19:03You can see that extra bit of speed.
19:05It just kind of grabs that top edge of the hole.
19:07It probably would have gone in if the flag was out, but it caught more of the right edge
19:11of the hole.
19:12If I maybe go even quicker than that, maybe up towards a five on this little device, you
19:16can see that's on an awful lot higher line and then as a result, it doesn't actually
19:20go in.
19:21Yes, it's a really good visualisation.
19:22Even though each putt, each ball is going down on exactly the same line, the pace that
19:27you hit your putts will have a direct impact on whether you're able to make them or not.
19:33What's interesting about this though, as I look at it, I guess the temptation, I guess
19:37the mistake here that people make is that they miss on what's often called as the amateur
19:42side, which would be the low side.
19:43You'd end up hitting more times that you miss, you'd miss low than missing high.
19:47Absolutely.
19:48Why is that?
19:49Why do people tend to miss low more than they miss high?
19:51Well, I think people often see and visualise what we've laid out here, but they end up
19:55aiming at the apex ball, which would probably be about this ball here, which obviously,
20:00as you can see in this demonstration, is actually way lower than the start line, which is this
20:05white string line.
20:06So we need to start the ball a lot higher than the apex that we visualised.
20:10I think the apex is a worthy picture to draw yourself, but you've got to make sure you're
20:16aiming it higher than that on this right to left breaking putt.
20:19Yes, it's a really interesting subject and these small things, it's just one of those
20:23things that if you can take it out with you onto the golf course, get used to hitting
20:27your putts high enough when you're faced with some break like this, you should, should be
20:31able to hold a few more.