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 Tappin 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 eight biggest
00:09beginner golfer mistakes and how to fix them. These are either all traps that you might
00:13be falling into when you're out on the golf course or simple swing mistakes that might
00:17be costing you. Now the advice in this video comes courtesy of John Howes, he's the head
00:21pro here at JCB and he offers some really simple and effective ways to get yourself
00:26back in the game if you are making a few of these mistakes. Right, let's head on to the
00:29golf course and get started.
00:35So one of the things you are going to need to do if you're getting into golf is figuring
00:38out how far you hit the ball with every club in the bag. And John, I think the key bit of
00:43advice here is that it's not your best shot with every club in the bag, it's your, it's
00:47a sort of true reflection of how far you hit the ball, isn't it?
00:50Yeah, absolutely. I think all too often we have players and students that will know they
00:55hit a shot once upon a time, they might have hit that seven iron 185 yards but it was downhill,
01:01downwind, maybe caught a little bit of a flyer for example, and the shot is going to go an
01:06awful lot further in that situation. But what we need to do is really have a, I would call
01:10like a normalised shot, which is just a shot that is on a calm, flat day, with no extra
01:17help from certain conditions.
01:19Okay, so that begs the question, how can people go out and get that yardage?
01:22Well, the best thing to do is to do away from the golf course, you should do it either at
01:26your practice area or at the driving range. A practice area is ideal because you could
01:30actually hit a shot out onto the range with maybe your seven iron, a series of 20 shots,
01:35put your bag in the middle of that grouping of shots and then laser that yardage from
01:39where you hit from.
01:40Okay, yeah, really simple, really effective. What if you can't go out to the range? What if
01:43it's a sort of normal driving range set up?
01:45Obviously, it's going to be a little bit more challenging, probably going to have to do it on the golf
01:49course late in an evening, something like that, go out there onto a golf course, maybe even
01:52just hitting to the fairway in a flat situation where it's, you've almost kind of controlled
01:57some of those variables.
01:58Okay, so let's say then you have your yardages for your clubs. When you get out onto the golf
02:03course, then you need to add in all the different factors that might be going on. And this is
02:08a really good example of that. So this is the 17th hole at JCB, it's the signature hole of
02:12the golf course, plays slightly downhill, over water, trouble everywhere. How do you figure
02:17out your yardage on a hole like this, Jon?
02:19Absolutely. So first of all, I've taken the Bushnell laser and I've lasered the flag at
02:23195. Now I know my six iron in normal conditions will go about 182, but I've got a situation
02:30here where I'm downhill, a good sort of five, six 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
02:40factoring in the fact that I'm downhill using a little bit of educated guesswork. And I
02:45know that six iron is going to be about the right number.
02:47Right. Okay. 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 on
03:04to the actual number that you're playing. But for most people, it's going to be a bit
03:08of educated guesswork. Okay. So the moment has arrived, John, I think it's time for you
03:13to hit this one for us. Absolutely. Let's give it a try. So I'm just thinking middle of the
03:17green here, Neil. I should think so too.
03:22Lovely. Starting at the centre of the green and pretty much staying there. So there you have
03:33some really handy advice on how to pick the right club.
03:38Okay. 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 make
04:03a nice weight shift, but they probably overdo it.
04:05Right. Okay. So what does it look like then? What's the wrong position look like?
04:08From 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. Right. Fine. So what's the best way to think about it to get yourself out of that
04:27mode and get yourself into a better rotation?
04:30So we've got to replace that hip sway with rotation. So if I put the alignment stick just
04:35through my front two belt loops, I'll just have to breathe in a little bit. But basically
04:39what I'm trying to do is get this feeling that as I do my backswing, I'm turning and trying
04:46to match this 45 degree angle that I've put on the ground here. So I'm getting the hips to
04:51match that white stick that's on the ground. So I'm making a nice big turn. You could see
04:55that if I drew a line from my right hip down to my right ankle, I'm turning within that
05:00line as I do that backswing. It's going to help 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 could
05:09just slide in a little blocker, maybe just pop it on the outside of my right hip and do
05:15exactly the same thing. Now I'm going to get a bit of feedback from a touch. If I'm swaying
05:20into that yellow stick, then obviously I'm going to feel that during my golf swing. You
05:25can see I've done it incorrectly there and I'm trying to basically give myself very, very
05:29narrow 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 a more of a natural shift that happens as the rotation of the body
05:43takes place as opposed to really thinking about, I've got to get my weight onto my right side,
05:47side of the top, which is a good thought in some ways, but can lead to the wrong kind
05:52of action. I think people overdo it, don't they? They're good at doing it, but they overdo
05:55it. Yeah. So if you tend to hit slices or you're catching shots, a lot of the time thin or fat,
06:01give these two drills a go.
06:04Right. So we have some strategy advice for you. And if you are looking to try and get your
06:10handicap down, there is a few things you can do to get your ball safely around the golf course,
06:15which is absolutely crucial. John, what's the advice here for people?
06:18Yeah, absolutely. So I think all too often people take dead aim at the flagstick. And
06:22I think what's a lot more realistic is if you can think about the shot pattern that you
06:26hit, it's kind of probably the size of a football centre circle. The middle of that is obviously
06:32where you're trying to hit it. But if you think about your rightmost miss and your leftmost
06:35miss, that's going to give you quite a big shot pattern. Now what we need to try and do
06:39is sort of centre that shot pattern so that all potential shots that you might hit are
06:44in a safe location, i.e. not in the bunker, not in a water hazard. We want them all to
06:49be pretty much on the green. Yeah, it's a really simple way of looking
06:52at it. And actually, the scenario that we faced with here on 17 is a good example of that,
06:56because the flag is over there on the right-hand side of the green. It's a bit of a sucker pin,
07:00isn't it? Yep. So if you're playing away from the flag, have a very positive mindset, pick
07:04a spot, be really positive with it, and then go for it. Absolutely.
07:11Okay, so John, I think one of the mistakes I think we all make when we start playing golf
07:15is trying to help the ball up into the air. It 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. I see it a lot. And I think it often comes down to the concept
07:28that people think that they're trying to give it all this lofted impact, the set-up position
07:34and the impact position should actually be different, as you can see me demonstrating
07:38there. The set-up should have the shaft pretty well neutral or 90 degrees to the ground as
07:43you look 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 the tack
07:55down into the ball creates the backspin that you need to get the ball up in the air. It's
07:59not actually hanging back and delivering lots of loft to the club. Exactly right.
08:03So John, you've got a drill for us. Can you just talk us through what the drill is and
08:08how people should be doing it? Yeah, for sure. So what we're going to do in this drill is
08:13get yourself into that adjusted impact position where basically we turn our hips a little bit,
08:18we put a little bit more pressure onto our left foot, my right heel for a right-handed
08:23golfer might just come up in the air a little bit. And I'm going to start the swing here,
08:27do a tiny little back swing and then try and return back to that impact fix that I had
08:31at the start. So let's give it a try. Yeah, lovely. And you can see the strike is just
08:40perfect there. It's the ball and then the ground, which is exactly what you're looking
08:44for. And then I think if you can, I guess, build up the swing from there, keeping that
08:49impact position in mind, that will really help. Yeah, build it up over time. Try and try to
08:53start with small swings like I did there and then build it up into a three-quarter length
08:57backswing and then eventually up into a full shot. But it's about getting that concept
09:01correct, first of all. Yeah. So if you're looking for more consistency of strike, you're
09:05looking to eradicate fat shots or thin shots from your game, this drill is a great one to use.
09:14Right, so chipping. John, what's the biggest mistake that you see when people will start
09:18out with the chipping that's costing them? Well, typically people will set up in a way that
09:23doesn't really give them a chance of success. So what we often see is a situation where the
09:28club is de-lofted like this, where I've got the handle way in front of the golf ball and
09:33I've got the ball way back in my stance, almost opposite my right foot. The problem with that,
09:38Neil, is obviously I'm going to now chop down and I'm going to get that leading edge of the
09:42club to dig into the ground, which isn't really going to be an effective way to chip. Yeah,
09:46you need to catch the ball absolutely perfectly, otherwise you're going to hit it. You're going
09:50to duff it, really, aren't you? Or you're going to pin it over the back. You've got a very
09:52small landing area to land that club on the ground in that situation.
09:56So then, John, how do people get to use the right part of the club in order to strike their
10:01chips more effectively? Yeah, so what we need to do is use the bounce on the bottom of the
10:04club. On every wedge there's a little bit of bounce at the bottom that's the difference between the
10:09trailing edge and the leading edge. And if we present that in the correct way at setup, i.e. not having
10:14the shaft leaning super far forward, let's get it a little bit more neutral as you look at it from this
10:19perspective and we're trying to actually return it very simply to that position that we started in.
10:24We can now start to utilise a bit of that bounce on the bottom of the club and our landing area is
10:30a lot bigger to actually get the club to land on the ground. I see, do you have any drills that you
10:34can show us? Absolutely. Let's try this one. So what I want you to do first of all is just set up to
10:42the grass just here and I'm going to put these two sticks in perfect vertical alignment, okay?
10:47Okay. Now if you do the one, the incorrect one first of all, just to show people what that's like. So
10:52typically what we're going to do there is we're going to hit the yellow stick
10:55before the white stick. That means that we've got an awful lot of shaft lean
10:59and we're going to dig the club into the ground.
11:01Then if someone was struggling with that, what I would try and get them to do is almost hit the sticks
11:05simultaneously. So let's try that now. I'm trying to hit the white stick,
11:09maybe even a fraction before the yellow stick. So now we're starting to see that the club is
11:14interacting with the ground in a much more efficient way. Right, yeah. Sort of surfing the
11:17turf, I like to call it. Yeah, it's that feeling that I get when I'm doing that is that my sort of
11:22the club head's sort of almost overtaking the hands. It's certainly catching up with the hands
11:26through impact. It's the one area that's very different to long game, isn't it? It's one area
11:30where we do want to throw that club a little bit and try and get the bounce being used. So you've got a
11:35a couple of balls on T's here, John. What's that for? So what I would do if someone was struggling
11:39with their chipping, I would start with them up on a high T and just get them to do this sort of
11:44action, just nipping the ball off the top of the T. So why don't you set up to that big tall T first of
11:48all. And yeah, you've got a nice setup there. We've got a nice vertical sort of shaft alignment and your
11:54job now is to imagine those two sticks there and almost try and hit the bottom stick before the top
11:59stick. Very nice. That was a really nicely nipped chip shot. Over time we would progress to bringing that
12:05T height down a little bit lower and still trying to just interact with the T peg only.
12:11No, it's just, it's hard, isn't it? Challenging you now because your depth perception of where that T
12:16peg is is obviously a little bit more tricky. Over time we could start to raise the level of that T
12:21peg down and down and down until eventually you don't need it at all. Yeah, well there you have it. If
12:25you are struggling with your chipping, use John's technique there. It should really help you out.
12:29Right, so the next one on our list is about clubface control. Obviously, if you want to hit the ball
12:38straight, you've got to have control of where the clubface is pointing through impact. And I guess,
12:41John, the key mistake, the key fault here that people make when they're starting out tends to be
12:46a slice, doesn't it? Yeah, it tends to be. Most people have a poor understanding of what causes that open
12:51clubface that we see with a slice. And I often see it first and foremost with the basics of a grip.
12:57Typically, people who grip the club in what we would call a weak position, so that means the left hand,
13:04the V of this left hand pointing up towards my lead shoulder, or also the right hand. Sometimes
13:09the right hand can be weak, Neil, and that points up towards the lead shoulder. That will typically
13:14mean that the clubface is going to be open during the backswing and probably into the downswing.
13:18So where should those two Vs be pointing ideally? So what we would want to see is basically a neutral
13:23grip where the V of this left hand and probably the V of the right hand
13:27are pointing up towards that right collarbone. Anywhere in and around the right ear
13:30or the right collarbone. You can probably see it here on screen.
13:33Yeah. And then the clubface is going to want to square up through impact and that's exactly what
13:40you're looking for. But, John, I would say I've seen people with good grips who've obviously seen
13:45videos like this and they understand what they're trying to do. They're holding the club in a pretty
13:49good position and they're still hitting a slice. What's going on then?
13:53Yeah. So you're absolutely right. And that comes down to some people's intent and their understanding
13:57of what happens when the club gets moving. So typically if we have a position in the backswing,
14:03I'll turn to the camera here. If we have a position where that left wrist gets into a very cupped
14:07position in the backswing, or maybe even a cupped position at the top, and also even on the way down,
14:12if that left wrist is in a really cupped position, you can see just how open the clubface is there and how
14:17the clubface is going to be pointing right at target at impact. Okay, John, so you've shown us
14:22the cupped left wrist. How do people get control of that so it's in a better position at the top?
14:26Yeah, absolutely. So what we want to try and see from a backswing perspective, if we've got a neutral
14:31grip, we would like to see a pretty flat left wrist, i.e. there's no real cup or no real bow,
14:37a pretty flat left wrist, even all the way up to the top of the backswing, we'd want to see that pretty
14:42well flat at the top. Now, if you're really struggling with this, I would suggest even go
14:48in full John Rahm. You can see his golf swing, he gets the left wrist and the logo on his glove
14:53actually pointing away from his chest, and that gives a really strong look to the clubface, which
14:58is going to be an exaggeration, but it'll probably help golfers out there. Yeah, so if you are someone,
15:02if you're struggling with a bit of a slice, there's a couple of different ways you can fix it. Either
15:06focus your attention on your grip, get that right, and then make sure that your left wrist is in the right
15:10place 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 to use
15:22the loft on the face, they need to open up the face to get the ball out, but there's a way to do it,
15:28and there's a way not to do it. Can you just talk about that for us, John? Because this can be where
15:32some of the problems occur, can't it? Yeah, all too often I see players setting up with their normal
15:37full swing grip. They basically take this grip to begin with, and then they try and open the club
15:43face from a position where they've already gripped the club. And ultimately, if we do that, when we
15:48swing down and hit the shot, we're just going to return the club face back to a square position.
15:52And obviously, for hitting a high lofted bunker shot, that's no use. No, and you're not going to be
15:56using the bounces we've already talked about with chipping. So how do you open the face correctly then
16:01to use it from sand? Absolutely, it's really simple. All you need to do is just twist the club open
16:05before you're taking your grip. So pop it out in front of you, give it a little twist about the
16:09shaft, and then take your grip as if you haven't done anything at all different. And that's really
16:14how you do it correctly. Go on then, let's have a look. All right. So I've twisted it there, just open,
16:20ball position just forward in my stance, a little bit more squatted than normal.
16:29And 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 as possible.
16:40Okay, so hopefully you now know how to grip the club in order to open the face. But, John, one of
16:46the keys to playing bunker shots consistently well is taking the right amount of sand every time. It's
16:51something that so many golfers struggle with. I can see you've got a drill here. What is it and how does
16:55it help? So we've got two little scoops of sand here, one with ball, one without. And what I want you
17:00to understand is that really we're trying to control the depth of this divot, Neil. So if I
17:05set up just to the side, I want to make a swing where I don't actually break the ground. I don't
17:10want to see a divot being taking place because if I do that, I've gone way too low. Right, yes. So by
17:15setting up to this little bit of sand, same bunker sort of technique, I'm going to just look to hit
17:22the sand only. Yeah, hear that really nice sound that you hear on great bunker plates. Yeah, and there's no
17:27divot. It's just a sort of light bruising of the ground, isn't it? Yeah, just nipping that sand,
17:31getting plenty of spin, plenty of height on the shot. And you can try that with a golf ball as well.
17:43Yeah, it's a really nice way of thinking about it. It's a drill I've not seen before,
17:46actually, John. Hopefully, if you try it, it will help you get that consistency that you need with
17:51your splashes in the sand to get the ball out every time.
17:58Okay, John, so green reading, what have we got going on down here?
18:02So we've got this funny looking contraption. It's a perfect putter. It's a device that can
18:06actually guarantee that we're starting the ball on the same line every time. But we've got different
18:10speed markers on the device here, so we can roll the ball at different speeds and see whether or not
18:16it goes in. Yeah, because there is a direct correlation between your line and the pace that
18:20you hit the ball. If you don't get both right, you're likely to miss, aren't you? Absolutely.
18:24A speed and line matchup is what we need. The line is only as good as the speed that you're trying to
18:29hit it into the hole. Okay, show us how it works then. Okay, so what we've got, basically, we've
18:34figured out this putt here and we're going to roll it from the little marker on two here. And we know
18:39that if we do that, we're going to 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, just
18:50two little clicks lower on this little speed device, you can see that it breaks that little
18:54bit more and it ends up missing on the low edge. And if I now do it differently, I'll go up to a four
19:00on the little speed marking. You can see that extra bit of speed, it just kind of grabs that top edge
19:07of the hole. It probably would have gone in if the flag was out, but it caught more of the right edge
19:11of the hole. If I maybe go even quicker than that, maybe up towards a five on this little device,
19:16you can see that's on an awful lot higher line and then as a result, it doesn't actually go in.
19:20Yes, it's a really good visualisation. Even though each ball is going down on exactly the same
19:25line, the pace that you hit your putts will have a direct impact on whether you're able to make them
19:31or not. What's interesting about this though, as I look at it, I guess the temptation, I guess the
19:37mistake here that people make is that they miss on what's often called the amateur side, which would
19:42be the low side. You'd end up hitting more times that you miss, you'd miss low than missing high.
19:48Absolutely.
19:48Why is that? Why 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 aiming at the apex
19:57ball, which would probably be about this ball here, which obviously, as you can see in this demonstration,
20:02is actually way lower than the start line, which is this white string line. So we need to start the
20:07ball a lot higher than the apex that we visualised. I think the apex is a worthy picture to draw yourself,
20:14but you've got to make sure you're aiming it higher than that on this right to left braking putt.
20:19Yeah, it's a really interesting subject and these small things, it's just one of those things that
20:24if you can take it out with you onto the golf course, get used to hitting your putts high enough when
20:28you're faced with some brake like this, you should, should be able to hold a few more.