- 14/04/2025
In this video Neil Tappin is joined by PGA Professional Alex Elliott to look at 10 tips to handle your first golf competition!
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00:00Playing competition golf is not easy and that's why we've come out here today to produce a
00:05video on the 10 best tips to handle your first golf competition. This is all the things that
00:10you need to do from the strategy that you have on the golf course, good course management,
00:14to developing some of the stock shots that you need to be able to compete and get yourself in
00:19the best possible mindset to return a good score. Right, let's head out onto the golf course here at
00:24Fox Hills and look at the 10 best tips to handle your first golf competition.
00:34Okay, so we're on the first tee here at the long course golf course at Fox Hills and Alex,
00:39you said to me that one of the best things that you can do if you're going to play in a competition
00:42is to have a stock shot. Definitely. Now, I think a lot of people when you say stock shot, they
00:47associate like low handicappers, professionals, but that could literally be for anybody. Now,
00:53most commonly for players who are a high handicap, that might be a lot of movement left to right
00:57or right to left, depending on if you're a right or left-hander, but just sticking with that,
01:02knowing what happens is very powerful. Okay, so if you were to advise somebody
01:08and just say, this is a good stock shot to have, what would you suggest they use?
01:13Now, it can vary day to day. If you've got the opportunity to practice the day before or on the day
01:17before on a driving range, I would just see what comes out, whether it be a fade, whether it be a
01:22draw, and I would stick with that on the golf course. Okay, fine. All right, well, I'm going
01:26to go for my stock shot here, which is my stock shot in this scenario would be a little fade,
01:31I think, Alex. Okay, so interesting, as you said before,
01:34sometimes it feels a draw, but if you have to hit a fairway, it becomes a fade, so that is your stock
01:39shot. If you're one of those players that likes to hit a draw, but you have to hit a fairway swing,
01:44and it comes out a fade, that becomes a stock shot. Yes, a safe shot, something we can all do with.
01:48Right, let's see if this one can work for me.
02:00Beauty, that is really nice.
02:14Now, the next one on our list is a very simple one, but it's really important. Alex, what is it?
02:20Cleaning your clubs after every single shot. Yes. Do you know what? It's very,
02:25very wet underfoot at the moment in the UK. We've had so much rain, and it's obvious to clean your
02:30clubs after every shot, but why is it so important? I think the main thing is when it doesn't look like
02:35it's got much on it, it could be a little bit of broken mud inside the grooves, you're more likely to get
02:40a flyer. Right, so that means when you're hitting from the rough, likely to end up hitting it too
02:45far. Exactly. Well, having dirty grooves, having grass in the grooves, you could have that same
02:50effect from the fairway, so a shot that could go 90 yards, and it could go 100 yards, getting you in
02:55trouble. Because it's not spinning. Exactly, so when you get grass between the ball and the grooves,
02:59or some sort of debris between the ball and the grooves, this causes the ball to spin less,
03:05the ball could potentially go further. Yes, so obviously, carry a golf towel,
03:09give every club in the bag, a quick wipe, once you've hit it, and you'll be fine. Exactly.
03:20Okay, so the next one on the list relates to your scorecard, and a little bit of prep you can do
03:25before you go out and tear up for the first time in a competition. What is that prep, Alex?
03:30Firstly, we've got to have our name, date, competition, and your handicap. What I get people
03:35to do, especially if they're brand new to the game, and find the scoring system potentially a
03:39little bit difficult on a stable foot, I get them to mark on everywhere they've got a single shot,
03:44or off the handicap, say, for example, 20, where they get two shots.
03:47Fine, so you're just making that little note on the stroke indexes to say,
03:51you get two shots here and two shots here, and that's important because that can actually have
03:55a bearing on the way in which you play those holes, right, Alex?
03:58Exactly, so say, for example, the stroke index one, we know we don't potentially have to get it on
04:02in three, we can actually get it on in one more than that.
04:04Yeah, and if you can just get away with making even a double bogey, you might find yourself
04:09picking up shots on the field, and just that little bit of prep before you can go out to play
04:14can make a big difference.
04:21Right, so as you can see, we've made our way up to the green, and if you're about to play in your first
04:25golf competition, you're going to face long putts like this, and actually, as anyone who's played golf
04:30for a while, we'll know three putts really do kill a score. They kill your momentum and your mood.
04:37So, Alex, what's your advice when putting from long range?
04:39Now, when we've got a putt of this length, we see on TV, we saw the highlights,
04:43them draining putts on this distance, 25, 30 feet, when really, we're not expected to,
04:49so if we watch that, we run the risk of trying to be too aggressive at this point. I mean,
04:53of course, we could hold the putt, but we run the risk of hitting it three or four foot past,
04:57got a knee knocker coming back.
04:58Yes, so what should we be aiming for then?
05:01I like to use the kind of bin lid method, so if we can get the ball around the bin lid,
05:06we keep it stress-free, we've got a better chance of maintaining that score, keeping that momentum,
05:10like you said. Yes, so just take a little bit of pressure
05:12off your own shoulders. Just try and get the ball, as Alex said, within that kind of bin lid around
05:17the hole. You'll be taking three putts out of the equation, won't you?
05:20Exactly, exactly.
05:21Go on then, show us how it's done.
05:22No pressure.
05:31Okay, so for the next one on the list, you can probably guess what we're about to tell you,
05:44that is the importance of warming up. Alex, people know that it's important to warm up
05:49before they go and play, but what should they be doing?
05:51I would firstly research a few stretches that you can do online, just to basically get mobility
05:58through back, through spine, and just get us generally warmed up, ready for exercise.
06:02Okay.
06:02Then, I would make sure if you hit a few golf balls, don't treat it like a practice session.
06:07Don't treat it like a practice session. All right? We've all done it.
06:11Yeah, it's very, you hit one bad one, you pull one, then suddenly you're like, well,
06:14maybe I did this, maybe I did that. You start tinkering.
06:16So what do you do in that scenario? You hit a bad shot, how do you put that to your back in mind?
06:19I mean, you're always going to want to tinker a little bit. What I'd do is, I would go back to
06:23either my last lesson, my rules of thumb, what I've been working on in general,
06:27and trust that is, that's going to come through.
06:29Okay, fine. Let's say you've done your stretches, you've hit how many balls?
06:3425, max.
06:35You've hit 25 balls. What's the routine? What's the timeline between arriving at the golf course
06:42and stepping onto the first tee?
06:43So a lot of people finish on their putting as the last thing they do before they go on the first tee.
06:48Now, generally that probably is because the putting means near the first tee, but if we can,
06:52my absolute ideal scenario is stretching, putting, few wedges, mid-irons, and lastly,
06:59finish on about five drives, straight to the first tee, we're ready to go.
07:03Off you go. Okay, so what happens if that last drive you hit, what happens if you carve
07:08it off to the right-hand side? It's not a great image to have as you step onto the first tee, is it?
07:11No, it's not, but you could argue if your first tee shot of the day was a bad one,
07:15then that could set the tone for the day. What I would say is, literally look at the warm-up as a way of just
07:21getting your body loose, body ready, and don't judge the last shot as what's going to happen on
07:25the first tee, because you're in a completely different environment.
07:28Yeah, I mean, the truth is, you can't really expect to play well if you haven't done some
07:33form of warming up before you step onto the first tee. If you haven't got the ability to hit balls
07:37before you go and play, because that's not always the case, then at least do the sort of physical
07:41stretches that you can, do a little bit of putting, get to the first tee in some degree of readiness
07:46so that you can go and shoot a good score.
07:53Okay, so Alex, the next one on the list is a really simple one. It's got nothing to do
07:57with technique or even strategy, but it actually can make a difference to you on the course,
08:01and that's related to where you put your bag when you're putting on the green.
08:06Definitely, and just in terms of speed of play, I mean, I've got a prime example here. I just hit the
08:10front edge. Now, the flag is at the back of the green. The next tee is actually over the back of
08:15the green. Over there, yeah. Now, this would be an absolute killer for me to leave my bag here,
08:20put out, have to then walk back, collect my bag, off to the next tee. Your plane partners you're
08:25playing with are not going to like you, and especially the guys behind.
08:28Actually, it's one of those things that can create a sense of pressure on your own shoulders,
08:33because you can feel like you're actually holding people up. People are looking at you as if to say,
08:37come on, get a move on, and actually, you're just trying to do your best, aren't you?
08:40Exactly, and especially if you're then first on the next tee, you're then running over.
08:43It could actually affect your next shot. Yeah, so actually, Alex, come over here,
08:47because in actual fact, your best bet, both of us in this scenario, is to park both the bags over here
08:56and then walk back to your golf ball and then go on from there, isn't it?
08:59Exactly, so we're straight off to the next tee.
09:07Okay, so the next one is, Alex, a really important one, isn't it? It's course management. If you want
09:12your first competition to be a good one, if you want to shoot a good score, you need to think
09:16about this stuff really closely. What's your advice, generally speaking, on course management, Alex?
09:22Most golf courses either have a course guide, or people have a digital device, or even in fact,
09:27on each hole, they have a visual of what you can see. My kind of rule of thumb is, one, look at the
09:32visual. Where's the trouble? Is the bunkers? Is the water? Is the trees like there is here at
09:37Fox Hills? I would then think about, have I got a shot on this hole? Because having a shot on this
09:43hole might mean we can take a little bit less risk from the tee and plan our way down the hole a little
09:47bit better. Okay, so are you identifying where the big trouble is? So you're just basically plotting
09:53your way through saying, that's a kind of card wrecking area over there. I can't hit it.
09:57Exactly. And I think if we are a higher handicapper, if we avoid a card wrecker and we,
10:02say, if we're off 20 and we accumulate just a run of bogeys, we're going to be under our handicap.
10:07It's when we have those sevens, or we turn those sevens into nines, that's when it can be really
10:12bad for our game. Okay, so a specific scenario we've got here, this is 170 yards, slightly downhill,
10:18wind off the left. You can see that the flag is sort of tucked a little bit behind that bunker on
10:24the right-hand side. What is your advice to, I guess, different golfers and different abilities
10:29from a place like this? So if we are a better player, so single figures potentially, and we
10:34have a bit more confidence in our game, I would like you to kind of base the flag on a colour code
10:39system. So green being one you can attack, that might be one in the middle of the green here.
10:43Amber being one, if we feel like it's a good win, it's a good shot shape, it's accessible for our game,
10:49that's when it comes into one that maybe you go for. And a red would be potentially this scenario
10:54behind the bunker, over water, where it could be again a card-wrecking situation.
10:59Yeah, okay, so for me, what's this one? I would think for you, because you said on the
11:04start of the video, stock shot was a fade, this one might be an amber for you. Amber to red,
11:10depending on how we feel and the stage of the game. Now, if you are a higher handicapper, my rule of
11:14thumb is, if we hit the green and the centre of the green every single time, we're not going to be
11:19far away. No. Okay, fine. And I guess, how much are you thinking about where to miss? Because a
11:25shot like this, if you miss this particular shot, short left, you're absolutely fine.
11:30Exactly. But if you miss it short right,
11:31you're in a bad position, aren't you? Are you thinking about that stuff? And if you are,
11:36how are you blocking out sort of bad thoughts from kind of causing you to make a bad swing?
11:41I think you're never going to block bad thoughts, and potentially they will come in,
11:45but I always think you can't plan for a bad shot. You know the trouble's there, you use a colour code
11:50system almost as a way of weighing up the trouble, but not almost highlighting the trouble. Okay, fine.
11:56And then we plan to hit a good shot. Like, for example, here, we'll be planning to hit a nice fade
12:00into the flag. I wouldn't want you thinking, well, I can miss it short left, I can miss it short right.
12:04Right, fine. Because that's just going to give you bad underlying thoughts. Okay, good. Well,
12:08I'm going to give this a go then, Alex. All right, I want to see the stock shot.
12:11Okay, fine. Yeah, well, you've asked for it, so I'll have to do it. Okay.
12:28Go. Oh, no. Guess where it's gone, people. It's in that trap short right. I got a little bit greedy
12:36with it, didn't I? I thought it was going to be all right for a second,
12:39but the wind just held it up there. Oh.
12:47Okay, so the next one on our list relates to swing thoughts. Now, we all, I guess most golfers
12:52have swing thoughts, things in their goal swing they're looking to achieve. Alex, a question for
12:56you, how many is a good number of swing thoughts to have, do you think? Before I give the answer,
13:01I want to know, how many do you have? One. One. Okay, so I'd say you're generally probably
13:07not the norm. Oh, really? Most people that come for lessons have,
13:11sometimes it was a five swing thoughts. Right, so like grip, posture, whatever.
13:15Exactly. Right, fine. So my tip for that is because we're always going to have,
13:18if we're new to the game of golf and it's our first competition, we're going to have something that we
13:22need a bit of a checklist. Yes. So I kind of like separate that into pre-swing, so grip, stance,
13:27all those aspects. Okay, yeah. So we can throw them away once we've done it.
13:30Fine, so you do all of the groundwork that you know you need to do to get yourself in a good
13:34position over the ball. Exactly. And then once you're there.
13:37I tend to have, hopefully, no more than one, potentially two, one backswing and one trigger
13:42thought. Okay, so what is it for you then? So I like to feel that the club goes wide on the way
13:46back. Okay. Because I get kind of a little bit narrow is my bad swing thought. On the way through,
13:51I'm an absolute bugger for keeping my head down. Okay, right. So it stops me to rotate through,
13:55so I like to feel like I call it anacrit. That's literally my only thought on the way through.
13:59Okay, right, yeah. So I try and work on like a role model that I can copy and almost
14:04create the same thing as what I visualize and see. Okay, that's good. Well, I have, as I have one,
14:10and my one is because I tend to get a bit snatchy from the top. I just like to just feel as if I'm just
14:18not pausing, but just there's a bit of time at the top of the backswing. Just don't rush the start of the
14:22downstream. Your role model will maybe match the armor to the top and then go.
14:26Exactly. It doesn't always look like that. I'm sure anyone who's seen any of our videos
14:29in the past will know it doesn't always look like that. But for me, I know it's a swing thought
14:33that's worked well for me. I guess, Alex, the point is that it's different for different people and
14:38different golf swings, isn't it? Exactly. But the one key thing is, between me and you,
14:41it's simple. It's not a specific position. It's a simple thought and a feeling to work to.
14:48Okay, good. Shall I have a hit? Let's have a hit. Right, I've got to really try and pause at the top now, Alex.
14:55Yeah.
15:05A little bit over fade, but it's okay.
15:13So as you can see, the next tip we've got for you is about alignment. And we've chosen alignment
15:17because it's something that everyone can get right. It makes a big difference if you do get
15:22it right. But equally, it's something that we all get wrong from time to time. Certainly, Alex,
15:25I'm somebody that can often stand quite close to the ball at a dress.
15:28I'm the same.
15:29Why is it important to get your alignment rock solid?
15:32I think the main aspect is the fact that a lot of people's bad shots and bad swings
15:37just stems from poor alignment, like you were saying about yourself there.
15:40Okay.
15:41So having a routine to stick to on the first tee is absolutely key to assure you've got good alignment.
15:46Yeah. So, I mean, we're talking here about how to handle your first competition.
15:50And one of the big challenges of playing competition golf is that you can get a bit
15:54scrambled at times. And these are the sorts of things that can fall by the wayside. How do you
15:58make sure that doesn't happen?
16:00I would visualize exactly what we've got down here. We've got two alignment sticks,
16:04one down the ball to target line, and then a parallel one for our feet line.
16:08Okay, fine. So how are you building that stance then?
16:10So straight away, I'd do this, and I'd make this as part of every single shot,
16:14whether it be the first tee shot, whether it be the last shot into the 18th green.
16:18Fine.
16:18And even if it's your first round, I would make sure you build this into a good thing,
16:22which happens every single round.
16:24Okay, good.
16:25So behind the golf ball, establish your ball to target line,
16:29and that would be where we want the ball to finish.
16:30Yes.
16:31So I don't then tend to make it like a thin line. I like to feel like an alignment channel.
16:36So that's going to be our outside alignment stick. I would then, once I've got a strong visual of the
16:40outside one and highlighted it, I would bring in a second one, which feels like my feet line runs
16:46parallel to that. From that, I can build my stance around it, my hips, my shoulders,
16:50and then I'm ready to go.
16:51Yes. So two parallel lines, that's the key. Obviously, you can't put shafts down like this
16:56in competition. Just remember to get those two parallel lines set, get yourself set properly over
17:01the ball. If you do, you are more than halfway to making a good swing.
17:05Okay. So the last one on the list relates to your scorecard. Actually, we're talking here,
17:15Alex, about what you do after a round. Because you might think that you've finished your round of
17:18golf, nothing can go wrong. But actually, before you hand your card in, something can go wrong.
17:23What do people need to do? What do they need to look out for?
17:25So first point of call, we've got to have the gross scores correct.
17:29Okay. Yeah.
17:30So I know we talked about playing in a stable third, and we have a tally of points that we get. Now,
17:34if they don't add up correctly, it doesn't matter. And if they're not the correct points,
17:37that doesn't matter. The main thing is, as long as your gross scores for each hole are correct.
17:41Yes. So I would go through my card, and I'd check what I'd put you down for, and against what you've
17:47got on your card, we just make sure that the scores on both cards tally up, right?
17:51Exactly.
17:52And then if they do?
17:53Two things you've got to do then. Okay.
17:55Number one, make sure you sign it. But the one I find a lot of people forget is the playing
17:59partner's got to sign it too. Yeah. Okay. So get that right, hand your card in, and you'll be good to go.
18:05So there you have it. That was our list of the 10 best tips to handle your first golf competition.
18:11Guys, what did you think? What did you think of Alex's tips? Is there anything that you've done,
18:15playing under pressure, playing in competition, that's really helped you out? We'd be really
18:18interested to hear your thoughts. But for now, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.
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