- 1 year ago
In this video, Golf Monthly Top 50 Coach Ged Walters explains the 6 essential skills every golfer needs to shoot lower scores. The best golfers often also have the highest golf IQs, this means they make the right decisions at crucial moments that help them avoid the big numbers on the scorecard - something mid and high handicap golfers really struggle with.
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00:00so you're a good golfer but you're struggling to put together some scores well this could be the
00:04video for you now jed what's the first point of call when it comes to this so commonly known
00:11really is your golf iq it's just strategic mental mistakes poor choices trying to hit a shot
00:20but you shouldn't really be trying to hit and all those little things just add up to
00:24extra shots and when you add up to extra shots you look at the end of the day and the score and
00:28it's just like maybe i don't know some people can be anything between six and 12 shots difference
00:34so it's all about strategy really golf course strategy definitely and we're here on a tee box
00:40and you're going to talk to us about the importance of teeing up the golf ball the right way is that
00:44correct yeah i mean so we're here on the 17th of sandy way but a lot of people don't pay attention
00:50to the shape of shot that they hit and what i mean by that is all the time people have just come right
00:56into the middle of the tee box and they'll tee it up and then they'll take their setup aiming right
01:03down the middle of the fairway yet they slice the ball 40 50 yards well if we look at what's 40 50
01:10yards to our right it's just a dead zone you just cannot hit the golf ball there if you want to score
01:17so what you have to do is you have to think about the shape of shot you hit and then look at the
01:22position that you need to tee the ball up so if we keep that shape of shot that 40 50 yard slice well
01:27if i was then to say right if i teed the golf ball up over here then that's going to open up the target
01:35for me and what i mean by that would be if you were to imagine a funnel from where your golf ball is and
01:44the target line if i move that to the left hand side i've now got a massive space to hit the golf ball into
01:52rather than teeing the golf ball up in the middle and only having less maybe than half of that space
01:59so i could hit me 40 50 yard slice and i can just set up at the trees just on the left side of the
02:06fairway and now i have all of that open space for the golf ball to land in and i guess that works vice
02:12versa if you were to vice versa from here yeah you know if you're hitting the ball with a hook or you're
02:17hitting it with a draw then you know down this side out towards where the sandy way tree is there
02:24and you've got all that space on the left hand side it's playing the shape of shot that you have
02:31is the important bit it's making sure that you give yourself the biggest amount of space to hit
02:36the golf ball in an area which is going to enable you to hit the next shot where you need to absolutely so
02:42there we go don't just walk onto a tee box and plonk your tee and your ball into the middle find
02:47the space that suits your game for that day and hopefully you can find the fairway so jed you found
02:53yourself in a fairway bunker here explain to us what we're going to do from this position you've got
02:57two balls two very different positions two very different outcomes possibly yeah the the biggest
03:03thing is assessing your lie more than anything else um it's not so much about how far do i have
03:11to cover in terms of being able to hit the green or get up around the green it's about whether i can
03:17advance the ball out from the lie that i've got so if we take this front one here well there's not a
03:24lot of room between the golf ball and this lip now if i was to say hit seven iron which i've got here
03:34well depending on strike that might not get up quick enough so there's no point in me hitting
03:41the lip but burying it in the front catching the lip and it just sort of bobbling out forward
03:46i might as well get pitching wedge and advance it 100 yards and that's the key to it whereas when
03:51you've got a little bit more room that you might have here well i've got a bigger distance now to that
03:56lip so a seven iron is plenty loft to be able to to get out and cover more of the ground so the first
04:02thing you need to do is assess your lie and then choose your golf club rather than just thinking
04:08it's 150 yards i need me seven iron and off i go after that the approach is just like you would be in
04:15the fairway apart from a few little tweaks that i'd like to see and settle yeah it's just like we'd
04:20normally be in the bunkers um i'm going to approach it with ball position exactly the same as i would
04:26do for a normal shot um you can see i mean these bunkers are great because they're they're quite
04:31firm if the sand is really soft a little but not a lot of of wriggle of the feet in just to secure
04:38yourself on the the soft the foot in that sand is um and then to just encourage a hair more of a
04:46of a steeper angle of attack we just want to feel a little bit more weight into this lead side
04:52so i would be here around about 70 pushing down into my left foot i'm not leaning loads this way
05:00i'm just pushing down through the floor a little bit more and then i'm just going to go a fraction
05:06as you can see it's not a lot down the grip there i haven't gone all the way down i'd normally
05:10be here i've just gone down i don't know maybe half to three quarters of an inch and i'm just
05:16thinking about making the normal swing that i normally would do making sure that i keep the
05:20pressure of the body moving forward so i'm finishing tall and forward on that left hand side
05:26so hitting this shot should look a little bit like this
05:36so i've advanced it down there you know probably got maybe around 50 yards left somewhere around there
05:43give or take and that's a much better place to be than being in there playing the shot in the same
05:49way with a seven iron from there and you've got your chance then to hit the green right we found
05:53ourselves in a pretty tricky situation here jed off the tee and it's not too it's not looking too bad
05:59i think you and i are both looking at this gap we've had a discussion that is probably the play but
06:04let's let's talk sensible here what how can we save a shot here and not cost us any penalties
06:09probably the way i look at it is i mean everybody looks down there and they look at that and think
06:14oh i can get it through there they've all forgot that they've just missed the 50 yard fairway question
06:19number one so i can't hit the 50 yard fairway but i can get through that sort of what's that
06:25we've probably got about what six seven feet maybe to get through something like that we're lucky
06:30um so a couple of things that we need to do is one we need to be sensible we don't you know we want to
06:35take six and seven out of play that's the first thing we want to do so we assess the lie we choose
06:42the right option which is going to help us make the next shot easier ultimately that's it um so from
06:48here i mean we've got a nice space just to nudge it back nice and simply out onto the fairway when you
06:54nudge it out of the fairway from this position in there it's probably less than i don't know 140 yards
07:00maybe 130 yards in for your next shot anyway take all the danger out of play take the six and the
07:05seven out of play and just nudge it back into the fairway just making sure that you choose the right
07:10club for it i mean i've got eight iron in my hands here it's sitting down a little bit but it's not
07:15a bad lie um i haven't got any real overhanging branches or anything that i need to avoid so it would
07:22literally just be playing a little bumped shot feet together a little bit of pressure forward and we're
07:29just going to nudge it back into play
07:34and we just take our medicine move on and then hopefully well i've got a chance of getting up
07:40and down but if if i make five then i make five and not six or seven so jed we're back on the tee
07:48box here and i just happened to catch your first tee shot there and you sailed it right into the
07:53trees i'm not sure we'll be able to find it it wasn't great it wasn't a good good first shot but
07:58now i've noticed you've not changed your golf club a lot of people will be thinking provisional i'm
08:03going to get my hybrid or an iron out so i can hit the fairway make sure i'm in play but not you
08:08no um it's an option but it's one that i would sort of use as a last resort
08:16i think everybody needs to have what i would call a second serve with the driver
08:22so if we put that into golf terms well the second serve with the driver is i need a go-to shot that
08:28i can hit which is going to hit the fairway now it might not always hit the fairway but it's going
08:33to be in play it's not going to be offline by loans now for the majority of people i would say
08:40a second serve would be tee it down give yourself the the biggest amount of club face to hit and look
08:47at trying to see the ball move generally a little bit from left to right so if you've got a tight
08:54fairway where you might have trouble on the left out of bounds on the right i know a few holes where
08:59there's out of bounds both sides you need a second serve because so many cards get absolutely destroyed
09:06by hitting one two three out of bounds so my advice for that would be you know we're thinking
09:12about that little bit of a faded shot i want to go a little bit more onto the the right hand side
09:18for me as a right-handed golfer of the tee box to open up the funnel a little bit more so i can aim it
09:23a little bit more down the left hand side and just get it moving nice and smoothly into play let's have
09:29a look jed let's see it second ball there and if we think well that would be teeing it up normally
09:36where you can probably see around about half of the golf ball sitting above the club head there
09:40right i'm going to tee this down so step one would be to tee it down that's step one so from
09:46that point of view there now maybe there's a little tiny bit at the top of the head button
09:51over the top of the head but not a lot um and from that point of view there it's all about
09:57getting it a nice controlled swing it's not your flat out speed but it's not super slow i don't want
10:02you to take loads of speed out of it just want you to think more about control tempo and just
10:08letting it go and play let's have a look so i'm going to be sort of aiming a little bit more
10:13down towards the gap in the trees on the left hand side so we've got the big tree on the left
10:18and then the little line of trees in towards that gap there
10:23so my ball position isn't going to change it's going to be just a fraction inside of my left heel
10:28and then it's just going to be sort of nice and smooth get it in play and move on for the next shot
10:40excellent well that's far better than the first tee shot that sailed right
10:44i don't i think we might have to climb the fence again so there you go if you're struggling off the
10:49tee second serve tee it low nice and easy and you'll find the fairway and hopefully save that par
10:58one more time now jed this looks quite interesting here to to me the untrained eye you're putting
11:05to nothing and what are you trying to achieve from this drill right here speed control um so
11:12there's two big key areas really where golfers can save shots on a putting green number one is being
11:19able to hold out from sort of three feet and inside and number two is being able to control speed of the
11:27putt from distance um the biggest reason that they three put is because they don't control the speed
11:32it's not because they don't get the line um because the line is determined by what speed you're going
11:36to hit it if i'm going to hit it really really hard it's not going to break much if i'm going to hit
11:39it soft it's going to break more if there's any break on it so speed is the most important thing
11:42but nobody practices it everybody just hits puts two holes they might hit them to a hole over there
11:48in a distance and think they're practicing speed but really you need to practice being able to
11:52control the speed at a specific length so if you can get the ball to finish within i don't know six
11:57seven inches of each other um then you're going to be able to control your speed much better so from
12:02here this drill's great just put into the fringe um so all i want to do is hit these four puts and i
12:08want to try and get them as close to the fringe as possible and i imagine this is something you would
12:12do for any course you turn up to before your round and it's a good idea to get the pace of that green
12:17yeah find out what the speed is there's loads of golfers you go out and they'll come in afterwards
12:21they'll be in the bar and they'll say i couldn't get the speed of the greens all day well if you've
12:26practiced this drill you walk onto the first green you'll know instantly if the speed of the putting
12:31green is the same as the speed of the greens outside on the golf course and if it's not it's only one
12:36hole that it takes to adjust amazing all right so there you have it come out onto the putting green
12:40before your round give this little putt to the fringe drill a go so you can nail the speed of the
12:45greens so you can go out and shoot your lowest score yet all right jed this looks uh this looks
12:55very interesting mate what have we got going on here so little practice drill really call it round
13:00the world it simply just covers holding out from all different angles so you're not just hitting the
13:05same putt over and over you're covering it from you might have a bit of right to left a bit left to
13:10right but up slope down slope um rather than just picking a nice flat straight one and just getting
13:15good at rolling that one in and you get on the golf course and you've got two feet with a little bit
13:19of right to left and panic station setting and how is this going to help us lower our scores out on the
13:25golf course too many people don't like hitting short putts from like i mean these are one pace away from
13:31the hole um yeah people tap them don't quite give it enough speed some then give it too much speed and then
13:40you get caught in between and miss far too many than you should it really should hold about 95 of
13:45them give or take across all sections so it doesn't matter what your slope is about 95 and you should
13:52hold um so then you're not going to three put a lot if you can put it into this space so as long as you
13:58got good speed control and you get it into here if you're practicing this bit you're going to save shots
14:02all right amazing so i'm guessing it's called around the world for a reason your idea is to make yourself
14:07go all the way around without missing so don't let me slow you down okay let's uh see you finish
14:11this off then yeah so it's just making sure you go through your routine that you would normally
14:16as if you were on the golf course put yourself into that situation
14:20and then just set yourself in and just have a nice positive stroke
14:27probably so a little bit of putting practice outside off the golf course can help lower your scores on
14:33the golf course some great advice there from jed definitely some tips i'll be implementing into my
14:39game that's all from us here at sandyway golf club in cheshire we look forward to seeing you next time