Are you fed up of your playing partners knocking their tee shots past yours? Well don't worry, we can help! Specifically, Top 50 coach Trey Niven, who in this video outlines five easy drills and swing feels that should help you generate more speed and power in your golf swing, resulting in longer drives. Filmed in Hawaii courtesy of adidas golf, these tips should help you get further down the hole and leave you with a shorter iron in your hand, which is a sure-fire way to start shooting lower scores.
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00:00Right, Trey, hello. Thank you for joining us.
00:02Appreciate it. Good to see you again, and Hawaii.
00:04Worst places to be, though.
00:06Clang. Pick that one up.
00:08Let's get people hitting the ball a bit further.
00:10It's something people are always chasing.
00:12It's probably easy bits that I think we can give people today.
00:14Start with alignment.
00:18Typically, people
00:20start off wrong, so they don't get the setup
00:22right, in terms of how the body is
00:24actually aligned, like knees, feet,
00:26knees, hips, shoulders, kind of
00:28feeling it from the ground. I think when I see
00:30it, often, especially with
00:32drivers, people will be all kind of
00:34weird.
00:36Funky positions. Yeah, hips will be left
00:38and then the shoulders will be here
00:40and then tilts and everything are all out of sync.
00:42So I think, really easy, ball
00:44position needs to be up with a driver,
00:46depending on what shot shape you're hitting. I like to see
00:48pretty neutral shot shape,
00:50maybe just inside the left heel, as
00:52one. As this happens,
00:54what tends to happen with golfers is they move
00:56it forward, the shoulders then start to
00:58aim left. So I think, as we move
01:00the ball forward, be weary
01:02and aware that the shoulders are going to move left, so
01:04we have to just adjust this slightly.
01:06So right hip back and maybe just
01:08feeling the right hips back and then we've kind of neutralised
01:10everything. And with that as
01:12well, my body's tilting.
01:14So I'm then encouraging that angle
01:16of attack to go up. So ball position
01:18and then just being aware of
01:20knees, hips and shoulders to get back to
01:22neutral. It's a few nice easy bits, isn't it,
01:24that I think people at home can work
01:26on that, get the basics right, get your alignment right,
01:28sweep on the ball, you hit it a bit further.
01:34Okay, next up Trey, let's talk about the backswing.
01:36Lengthening it a little bit and helping people
01:38hit the ball a bit further because of it. How are
01:40people going to do that though? Yeah, I think it's important
01:42to note we're not, generally, golfers
01:44aren't full-time players. So we're not
01:46hitting balls all day, every day. So I think
01:48mobility is one. If you can work on your
01:50mobility with stretches, with a personal coach
01:52or whatever, that's really important. But if we're
01:54not going to do that and we want some help
01:56to create a longer backswing, so arm swing,
01:58swing length,
02:00essentially, the longer we can get the arms back there,
02:02if you want some more yards, we're
02:04going to be able to have more opportunity
02:06to create speed on the way down. So if
02:08you're struggling with your mobility, generally, it's
02:10coming from, kind of, hips and thoracic region,
02:12so upper body.
02:14A good way to increase the backswing
02:16length is, one, I like to just turn this foot
02:18out a little bit. It helps us turn into the
02:20right hip. So that's kind of working in the
02:22first early phase of the swing
02:24to create this. I think the next part
02:26really simply is, if we try
02:28and stretch all the way up to the top,
02:30we get a little bit tight in this, kind of, left side
02:32and left glute here. So maybe just raising
02:34this left heel a little bit.
02:36To begin with, it might feel like you're a little bit
02:38out of control and out of sync, but we've
02:40seen some great players do this in the
02:42past, when they've got to, kind of, senior level,
02:44start to have a little bit of left heel
02:46lift. And all of a sudden, that's freeing up
02:48my, kind of, thoracic area,
02:50ribcage, to be able to create
02:52more turn, so then I can get my arms
02:54way up in a backswing to create
02:56more speed. That's a nice, easy one, I think, for people at home
02:58who are told, could you show us you doing that?
03:00We're going to whack one for us.
03:02Into the middle of nowhere, it seems.
03:04The middle of Hawaii.
03:06So I'm just going to feel that right foot
03:08out a little bit.
03:10Starting to that left heel lift to create
03:12that momentum and motion.
03:18Bosh.
03:20Sent well into the sky.
03:22I might start doing that.
03:24Start listening to yourself, mate. That left heel one's
03:26really interesting. Well, I've not tried that before, so I'll check it out.
03:28Some easy things you can do there, even if you're
03:30not a really flexible person,
03:32I think that's very doable and something that's going to get you hitting the ball
03:34as far as that.
03:38Okay, next up, Trey.
03:40We've done alignment, we've done a bit of backswing.
03:42We're coming back down now.
03:44Let's talk about hand speed. And getting more speed anyway,
03:46everyone's trying to chase it, but I think even
03:48not the quickest swingers at home now can up their
03:50swing speed a bit. How are they going to do that?
03:52I've got some really good drills, actually. One in particular,
03:54a lot of long drivers use this.
03:56Long drive coaches that I've spoke to
03:58as well have kind of
04:00found out that long drivers are the quickest in the world.
04:02They're the quickest from P4
04:04right at the top of the backswing to about
04:06P5, so
04:08just about left arm parallel from the top in that
04:10space with the hands. So the hand speed
04:12is the quickest there in that phase.
04:14So it's not to get yanky with the
04:16handle to the top, it's got to be all the way
04:18down to feel that. So a really good
04:20drill. You can split the grip, so
04:22left hand or lead hand at the top,
04:24trail hand between
04:26the grip and the shaft,
04:28and you're just going to start to set it
04:30here, there,
04:32to the top, and then what we're trying
04:34to do, I'm trying to feel the waggle
04:36at the end of the club there, so almost
04:38trying to, you see Rory do this as well,
04:40but trying to feel that you're going to
04:42snap the club, like break it at the
04:44bottom, and if you can pull that down quick,
04:46you can really
04:48see that there as well.
04:50And that's just to me
04:52feeling that I'm delivering the
04:54arms really fast and down.
04:56Most people go out
04:58and they slice it. And that's sort of
05:00training your brain a little bit, isn't it?
05:02To keep the speed up there, which is so interesting
05:04I think, and you can see the waggle there.
05:06So something you can try there, so you can go
05:08try it at home.
05:10It's not going to snap the head, right?
05:12Hopefully not. If you're too quick, if you're doing
05:14it right, you might snap it, but hopefully
05:16no broken driver shaft. Give it a go
05:18though, it's going to help you hit the ball a lot further.
05:24Typically for me, I see this in beginner
05:26golfers a lot,
05:28especially beginner golfers, they grip it way too tight.
05:30I'm a strangler. I want to bomb it,
05:32so I want to hold the club really hard. I don't know what it is,
05:34people just think it needs to go
05:36fast, so they grip it tight and grip it hard.
05:38But that is counterintuitive, isn't it?
05:40Yeah, it is. I think as soon as you start to relax
05:42the grip, you can allow the
05:44release to happen, so you allow the club to get past
05:46the hands, and then the
05:48speed increases. When people squeeze
05:50hold of the grip, they don't release the
05:52golf club, so they yank their arms
05:54up, and it looks like it's
05:56from this camera angle, you'll see the club
05:58head in frame, and you'll see my arms
06:00starting to get out the left side
06:02of my shoulder, so as soon as I start
06:04to relax this and just make some short
06:06and easy swings and just build up, you can see
06:08the flow of that golf club.
06:10No hanging on through here, you're seeing the
06:12passive release and the club head
06:14release, and straight away there, I can feel
06:16not much effort,
06:18but a very quick swing.
06:20So I think that is point one,
06:22and then I think the next one for me is just
06:24finishing the swing.
06:26Getting right through it. Yeah, they just hold on,
06:28and they kind of like that
06:30old Seve follow through. I think
06:32I like to feel for people
06:34to release it, and actually to increase
06:36chances of hitting draw or straighter shot
06:38for your slices, is
06:40relaxing the hands, releasing it, and
06:42then feeling like the club is scratching you back
06:44on the way through, and that's just
06:46freeing everything up on the way
06:48through. Go on then, give us a nice languid
06:50big swing down there again, hit it to the disc.
06:52You hit the other one nicely, but real lazy.
06:54Softest hands
06:56I've got. Without letting
06:58go.
07:00Beautiful.
07:02Again, you see how much speed you build up,
07:04and that to you is a soft languid easy one.
07:06The speed comes anyway, doesn't it?
07:08Great tips there.
07:12Right, lastly then Trey,
07:14for helping people hit the ball a bit further,
07:16bit of a mental one, we were just chatting about it off camera,
07:18really interesting one about playing with your
07:20shot shape, right? How is that actually going to
07:22help people in the long run out
07:24on the course? Yeah, I think it's like,
07:26what is your body built to do,
07:28and move, so a lot of golfers
07:30they fight things that are natural to them, so
07:32typically I see people move the ball
07:34left or right, they come for a lesson,
07:36and they don't want to do it, and they want consistency,
07:38I'm like, the most consistent
07:40part about your game is the ball flight that you
07:42hit left or right, so let's not get rid of it,
07:44let's just harness it. So, typically
07:46here we've got a bit of wind
07:48off the left,
07:50most golfers carry on
07:52with that shot shape, just aim a bit further left,
07:54play with it, get it right in the wind,
07:56and then the yards are going to come out of that.
07:58So, I mean, let's have a go. Have a little
08:00fade mate, so it's off the left at the minute,
08:02you're just going to want to sort of go with it.
08:04Yeah, so maybe aim in towards
08:06the white flag, big tree,
08:08moving it onto the blue flag
08:10if I can, I'm just going to aim everything out there,
08:12and just see it and feel it,
08:14play with the shape that
08:16is natural.
08:22And that is a bit of a bigger cut,
08:24a bit bigger than you'd like, but still you're going
08:26with what your body feels like. For the serial
08:28slicers watching, is that still going to work as well?
08:30You don't want to be fully chopping it.
08:32You don't want to be chopping
08:34it completely for people who are
08:36renowned slicers, but
08:38the whole point about getting people better at golf
08:40is to reduce the
08:42bad shot. So, if a slicer came
08:44to me, I'm not instantly trying to get rid of it,
08:46I'm trying to see how we can curve it
08:48less, because as soon as the path and the face
08:50are separated, the more that
08:52kind of dispersion
08:54between the two are, the bigger that
08:56is going to curve, which means less
08:58distance we're likely to have. So, if we can square
09:00face and path up a little bit for your slicers,
09:02it's going to make it go a little bit further.
09:04And for the drawers and the hookers out
09:06there, same thing, right?
09:08Go with it, aim it a bit further right.
09:10Probably a bit easier in this wind for this one.
09:12If you're
09:14right to left player, wind off the left,
09:16it's a weird one because you feel like
09:18sometimes you get in here and hit it right.
09:20What I like to do is
09:22almost picture what
09:24do I need to do aggressively to
09:26hit a neutral shot, and that typically
09:28is just a normal swing. But my natural
09:30shot is right to left, so
09:32here I just feel like I'm going to aim straight,
09:34normal shot should give me my neutral
09:36ball flight. Let's have a go.
09:38Blue flag, aim and add it
09:40to be honest. It should just counteract each other.
09:50And that's dead straight.
09:52That's quite pleasant to watch
09:54and hear. But there you go,
09:56I really like that one, I think one I've not heard
09:58really before, that mental side of it, play
10:00with your shape and embrace what your
10:02body is asking you to do.
10:04Brilliant, well five awesome tips
10:06there from Trey, thank you mate, on how to hit the ball
10:08a little bit further this year. Take us to the range of you, take us to
10:10the practice area, really easy things to work on
10:12and let us know if you start hitting the ball a little
10:14further.