- today
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 biggest thing
03:04is assessing your lie more than anything else um it's not so much about how far do i have to cover
03:12in terms of being able to hit the green or get up around the green it's about whether i can advance
03:17the ball out from the lie that i've got so if we take this front one here well there's not a lot of
03:24room between the golf ball and this lip now if i was to say hit seven iron which i've got here well
03:35depending on strike that might not get up quick enough so there's no point in me hitting the lip
03:41but bury it in the foot catching the lip and it just sort of bobbling out forward i might as well get
03:46pitching wedge and advance it 100 yards and that's the key to it whereas when you've got a little bit
03:51more room that you might have here well i've got a bigger distance now to that lip so seven iron
03:57is plenty loft to be able to to get out and cover more of the ground so the first thing you need to
04:03do is assess your lie and then choose your golf club rather than just thinking it's 150 yards i need
04:09my seven eye and off i go after that the approach is just like you would be in the fairway apart from
04:16a few little tweaks that i'd like to see and settle yeah it's just like we've normally
04:21be in the bunkers um i'm going to approach it with ball position exactly the same as i would do
04:26for 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 i'm
05:00just pushing down through the floor a little bit more and then i'm just going to go a fraction as
05:06you can see it's not a lot down the grip there i haven't gone all the way down i'd normally be here
05:11i've just gone down i don't know maybe half to three quarters of an inch and then i'm just thinking
05:16about making the the normal swing that i normally would do making sure that i keep the pressure of
05:21the body moving forward so i'm finishing tall and forward on that left hand side so hitting this shot
05:28should look a little bit like this so i've advanced it down there you know i've probably got maybe
05:40around 50 yards left somewhere around there um give or take and that's a much better place to be than
05:46being in there playing the shot in the same way with a seven iron from there and you've got your chance
05:51than hitting the green right we found ourselves in a pretty tricky situation here jed off the tee and
05:57it's not too it's not looking too bad i think you and i are both looking at this gap we've had a
06:01discussion that is probably the play but let's let's talk sensible here what how can we save a shot
06:07here and not cost us any penalties probably the way i look at it is i mean everybody looks down there
06:13and they look at that and think oh i can get it through there they've all forgot that they've just
06:17missed the 50 yard fairway question number one so i can't hit the 50 yard fairway but i can get
06:23through that sort of what's that we've probably got about what six seven feet maybe to get through
06:28something like that we're lucky um so a couple of things that we need to do is one we need to be
06:33sensible we don't you know we want to take six and seven out of play that's the first thing we want
06:38to do um so we assess the lie we choose the right option which is going to help us make the next shot
06:44easier ultimately that's it um so from here i mean we've got a nice space just to nudge it back
06:51nice and simply out onto the fairway when you nudge it out of the fairway from this position in there
06:57it's probably less than i don't know 140 yards maybe 130 yards in for your next shot anyway
07:03take all the danger out of play take the six and the seven out of play and just nudge it back into
07:08the fairway just making sure that you choose the right club for it i mean i've got eight iron in
07:12my hands here it's sitting down a little bit but it's not a bad lie um i haven't got any real
07:18overhanging branches or anything that i need to avoid so it would literally just be playing a little
07:24bumped shot feet together a little bit of pressure forward and we're just going to nudge it back into
07:31play and we just take our medicine move on and then hopefully well i've got a chance of getting up and
07:40down but if if i make five then i make five and not six or seven so jed we're back on the tee box here
07:48and i just happened to catch your first tee shot there and you sailed it right into the trees i'm
07:54not sure we'll be able to find it it wasn't great it wasn't a good good first shot but now i've noticed
07:59you've not changed your golf club a lot of people will be thinking provisional i'm going to get my hybrid
08:04or an iron out so i can hit the fairway make sure i'm in play but not you no um it's an option
08:12but it's one that i would sort of use as a last resort i think everybody needs to have what i would
08:19call a second serve with the driver so if we put that into golf terms well the second serve with the
08:25driver is i need a go-to shot that i can hit which is going to hit the fairway now it might not always
08:32hit the fairway but it's going to be in play it's not going to be offline by loans now for the majority
08:38of people i would say a second serve would be tee it down give yourself the the biggest amount of
08:45clubface to hit and look at trying to see the ball move generally a little bit from left to right
08:52so if you've got a tight fairway where you might have trouble on the left out of bounds on the right
08:58i know a few holes with us out of bounds both sides you need a second serve because so many cards get
09:04absolutely destroyed by hitting one two three out of bounds so my advice for that would be you know
09:11we're thinking about that little bit of a faded shot i want to go a little bit more onto the the right
09:17hand side for me as a right-handed golfer of the tee box to open up the funnel a little bit more so i can
09:22aim it a little bit more down the left hand side and just get it moving nice and smoothly into play
09:29let's have a look let's see it second ball there and if we think well that would be teeing it up
09:35normally where you can probably see around about half of the golf ball sitting above the club head
09:39there right 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 this is a little tiny bit at the top of the head button over the top
09:52of the head but not a lot um and from that point of view there it's all about getting it a nice
09:58controlled swing it's not your flat out speed but it's not super slow i don't want you to take loads
10:03of speed out of it just want you to think more about controlled tempo and just letting it go and
10:09play let's have a look so i'm going to be sort of aiming a little bit more down towards the gap in
10:15the trees on the left hand side so we've got the big tree on the left and then the little line of
10:19trees in towards that gap there so my ball position isn't going to change it's going to be just a
10:26fraction inside of my left heel and then it's just going to be sort of nice and smooth get it in play
10:34and 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
10:49the tee second serve tee it low nice and easy and you'll find the fairway and hopefully save that par
11:00jed this looks quite interesting here to to me the untrained eye you're putting to nothing
11:06what are you trying to achieve from this drill right here speed control um so there's two big key
11:13areas really where golfers can save shots on the putting green number one is being able to hole out
11:20from sort of three feet and inside and number two is being able to control speed of the putt from
11:27distance the biggest reason that they three putt is because they don't control the speed it's not
11:33because they don't get the line um because the line is determined by what speed you're going to hit
11:36it if i'm going to hit it really really hard it's not going to break much if i'm going to hit it soft
11:39it's going to break more if there's any break on it so speed is the most important thing but nobody
11:43practices it everybody just hits puts two holes they might hit them to a hole over there in a distance
11:49and think they're practicing speed but really you need to practice being able to control the speed
11:53at a specific length so if you can get the ball to finish within i don't know six seven inches of each
11:58other then you're going to be able to control your speed much better so from here this drill's great
12:03just put into the fringe um so all i want to do is hit these four putts and i want to try and get
12:08them as close to the fringe as possible and i imagine this is something you would do for any course
12:13you turn up to before your round it's a good idea to get the pace of that green yeah find out what the
12:18speed is there's loads of golfers you go out and they'll come in afterwards they'll be in the bar and
12:22they'll say i couldn't get the speed of the greens all day um well if you've practiced this drill
12:27you walk onto the first green you'll know instantly if the speed of the putting green is the same as
12:32the speed of the greens outside on the golf course and if it's not it's only one hole that it takes
12:36to adjust amazing all right so there you have it come out onto the putter green before your round
12:41give this little putt to the fringe drill a go so you can nail the speed of the greens so you can go
12:46out and shoot your lowest score yet all right jed this looks uh this looks very interesting mate what
12:56have we got going on here so a little practice drill really call it around the world it simply
13:01just covers holding out from all different angles so you're not just hitting the same putt over and
13:06over you're covering it from you might have a bit of right to left a bit of left to right a bit up
13:11slope down slope rather than just picking a nice flat straight one and just getting good at rolling
13:16that one in and you get on the golf course and you've got two feet with a little bit of right to
13:19left and panic station setting and how is this going to help us lower our scores out on the golf
13:25course 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
13:39then they 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
13:58you've got good speed control and you get it into here if you're practicing this bit you're going to
14:01save shots all right amazing so i'm guessing it's called around the world for a reason your idea is to
14:06make yourself go all the way around without missing so don't let me slow you down okay let's uh
14:11see you finish this off then yeah so it's just making sure you go through your routine that you
14:15would normally as if you were on the golf course put yourself into that situation and then just set
14:21yourself in and just have a nice positive stroke probably so a little bit of putting practice outside
14:30off the golf course can help lower your scores on the golf course some great advice there from jed
14:37definitely some tips i'll be implementing into my game that's all from us here at sandyway golf club
14:43in cheshire we look forward to seeing you next time
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