- yesterday
Neil Tappin and PGA Pro Alex Elliott talk through the biggest mistakes golfers make when practising their games.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Hello everyone, Neil Tappan here from Golf Monthly and welcome to West Hill and this
00:07video in which we're looking at the 7 biggest practice mistakes. We're going to take a look
00:11at everything from building fundamentals, how you practice under pressure, what you
00:16do with the final ball of a session, look at those mistakes that people regularly make
00:21and how to avoid them. In this video we are joined by Alex Elliott, he's a PGA professional,
00:26he's going to provide all the advice you need to make sure that your valuable time spent
00:30on the range is spent in the best way possible. Guys, if you're new to the Golf Monthly channel
00:34please do hit the subscribe button to make sure that you don't miss any of our videos,
00:38hit the like button if you like what you're watching, but let's head over, meet Alex and
00:42find out what the 7 biggest practice mistakes are.
00:47Okay, so the first one on our list relates to the way in which you kind of assess how
01:00you're practicing. In particular, Alex, it's about where to video your swing from. It's
01:05one of the points that you came up with, where should you be videoing from and where shouldn't
01:09you be videoing from? For me, for example, if you get an online lesson it's really important
01:14that you get the camera angles from the right place. For one, coach is probably going to
01:18want it from down the line and from face on. And even if this is you just videoing your
01:22swing to do some self-analysis, it's really important because getting it from a different
01:26perspective will make your swing look slightly different.
01:29Okay. So my go-to angles are at 90 degrees, face on.
01:33Okay. And what do you see from that angle? What are the things that people should be looking
01:36at from that angle? I guess from that angle the kind of general things would be swaying,
01:39which is a lot of people would be looking at in their swings. So swaying off, sliding through,
01:44width of the backswing, club face to impact, hands ahead of the ball.
01:48But if you're slightly off the angle, it might look as if your ball position is too far back,
01:52like you're way ahead of the ball through impact when actually you're not whatever it might
01:56be. So actually you need to keep an eye on those things.
01:58Definitely. And then you could actually start critiquing things in your own game that don't
02:02need critiquing. And then you can go off the boil and actually you can think, well, why is it
02:05going off the boil? And you could actually think because you've got the camera in the wrong angle,
02:10this is one of the reasons why you've gone off the boil a little bit.
02:12Which you don't need any more help in playing bad golf. I certainly don't.
02:16Definitely. And then what about down the line?
02:18Down the line, for me, this is where everybody wants to get the videos from.
02:22Yes. We all look at it from the classic over-the-top move. Am I into out? Am I shallow in the club?
02:26For me, really nice and simple. You can get a tripod, very inexpensive,
02:30getting off most online retail stores and a holder for your iPad, a holder for your camera phone.
02:34Okay. So here's sometimes I have been known to do this in the past, going to the driving range,
02:42putting my phone down on the floor, sort of propped up against the wall, filming myself from
02:48ground level, but that's not good. No, but just again, from the same point of view,
02:52from looking at it from face on, it's going to look like a slightly different move. If you took it down,
02:57down at kind of ground level, I kind of guess you're looking at more of what the club's doing at impact.
03:01Right. Because you're going to see a lot more of what's happening at ground level.
03:04Whereas you're not going to see necessarily as well what's happening at the top of the swing.
03:07Exactly. And from that perspective, being down there, it could look like the club's coming
03:11slightly over the top. If you had it a little bit to the right, a little bit to the left,
03:14it's going to look like it's two different swings, even though it could be the same swing.
03:18So where exactly should it be then, Alex? Really nice and simple. A lot of time, you're in a bay,
03:23kind of got right angles. If you're on a driving range, I like to have it at hand level. So hand
03:28level left to right and hand level up and down, because that's going to give you a good perspective
03:33of what the overall swing is doing. Okay, fine. And if you get a tripod, one, it's steady, two,
03:38you can get the same height every single time. And again, going back to constants, repetitiveness,
03:43this is all we're searching for in our golf swing. Yeah. So why not do it when we're actually
03:46analysing our swing as well? Okay, fine. Fine. Okay. All right. I've got you on camera here. Yeah.
03:51No pressure. Yeah. I've got to remember where I'm aiming.
04:06Okay, number six on our list relates to not warming up properly. Alex, I know this, for everyone
04:11watching this, it's not the most exciting topic, is it, warming up? No, definitely not. But it is
04:15important, isn't it? And we're not going to talk about exactly how to warm up, because we've produced
04:19video content on that in the past. You'll be able to find that on the YouTube channel. But Alex,
04:23talk about what the mistakes are that people make and why you really need to avoid them.
04:28I think we're all so self-critical about what our ball is doing. So if we're working on a certain
04:32thing and we're, say for example, we're trying to draw it with our coach, which is a common thing
04:36everybody tries to work on, we get on the range and we expect the first ball to be a draw. And we almost
04:41become so self-critical and so kind of predetermined about what the ball flight's doing at the start,
04:46that can certainly ruin our range session. So even going out there and saying, right,
04:50the first 10 balls and putting 10 balls to the side and saying, right, this week on this practice
04:55session, I'm going to use my odds. I'm just going to hit a few away, not worry about ball flight,
04:59and almost kind of detach myself from ball flight. And then say, after those 10 balls,
05:04that's when I start looking at my swing. And are you starting off slowly and building up pace? Or
05:08you've already done your stretching before that, so you should be starting at full pace. Exactly.
05:11I mean, I would always start with pitching wedge or kind of one of my wedges, build up through to
05:16seven iron. So for example, today I'd start with a pitching wedge, then probably go eight iron,
05:20six iron, four iron, and maybe then one driver, and then back down to kind of hitting the lower
05:25irons just while I warm up. But ultimately, if we can just get tuned in to just getting a bit of
05:30contact on the ball, and the ball going down the range, not in specifically towards the target yet,
05:35we don't attach ourselves to bad images, bad history. And then when we get into the session,
05:40we can set the tone of the session when we're actually warmed up and working on our particular
05:44things. Yeah, so you can end up starting off on a fairly negative point, which can then affect
05:49the whole thing. Right, Alex, hit one for us so everyone can see how they hit. Not hit many,
05:54so this is a good... This is actually a true reflection.
06:01We're not worried about where it went. It may have gone straight towards the target, but Alex,
06:04we're not worried about where we went. So there you have it. If you are heading to the range
06:08anytime soon, make sure that you do a little bit of warming up before you start working on your swing
06:12first, because if you don't, you could ingrain a few faults and a sort of negative attitude towards
06:18what's going on that could affect you in the long run.
06:24Okay, so number five on our list is something that we all do from time to time. When we go to the range,
06:28you hit one shot, you look at it, you walk off the mat, you come back on, you hit another one,
06:33and you've not really thought too hard about your alignment. Alex, why is that such a big problem?
06:39For me, there's really two main reasons. Firstly, just a good habit, getting square alignment. You
06:44get on the golf course and you've got your alignment on the range good. Hopefully, then you transition
06:48that to the course. So for example, if I was aiming straight down at this yellow flag here,
06:53if I didn't have a reference to where I was aiming and I built a habit of aiming a little bit to the
06:57right every time. Which we do. I mean, people do. I mean, even the pros do it. Yeah, exactly. And then
07:02you take that to the course. Well, then you could start missing it to the right or vice versa. You
07:06could actually make compensations in your swing of working a little bit left. Yes. So you could,
07:11you could adapt to where you're aiming and you could swing it to adapt to where you're aiming.
07:15So I really think square alignment is number one important for just general alignment to target.
07:20But my second biggest point is, it's reference to ball flight. Okay. If you're,
07:25if you've not kind of got a reference to where you're aiming or alignment sticks down on the
07:29ground, and we'll show you that in a second, you could start predicting a ball flight and actually
07:32see a ball flight that travels right to left. But that's a ball flight that could start left of
07:37target and move further left. It's a pull hook. Exactly. Like if we look at the definition of
07:41a draw, it's a ball that starts the right of target and comes onto target. Yes. So if we know
07:45what target we're aiming at, we know what our actual ball flight is. Yeah. So we got on the course,
07:50we know what we've got coming out of our locker this week. Yeah. Okay. Well then that begs the,
07:55how do you do it? Obviously a lot of you out there, I'm sure we'll have alignment sticks.
07:58If you don't, don't worry, use your golf clubs. They do exactly the same job. So how would you set up?
08:03Really nice and simple. I kind of like call it the train tracks. I can use two,
08:07three alignment sticks. Firstly, I would always set my ball to target line out and I always like
08:11to put this in front. So if we go straight down towards this yellow flag here, make sure the ball's
08:18on that. Secondly, then we're going to put our feet line. And for an ideal scenario,
08:23this is someone who's just aligning to a target. If you were drawing it, you'd move your feet line
08:27slightly to the right, slightly to the left, but just to have a baseline to what target you're going
08:31at. I like them to have my feet running parallel to this. So I'd have two parallel lines, one for
08:36my ball to target line, which I like to have in front because I really think that gives you a good
08:40visual and something to take to the course. It's almost like a shot tracer pointing where you want
08:44it to go and then get into a good habit of having these feet running parallel.
08:48Okay. And then the last one as a midpoint reference to check that your shoulders are aligned.
08:53Yeah, exactly. Shoulders aligned, where are my hands? Have I got a reference in my hands,
08:57look too far ahead, too far back? And ultimately, I think golf's easier if you think of it in straight
09:02lines. If we go, okay, this is my target. I'm trying to aim towards that rather than the guesswork
09:08of going, where am I? Yes. So there you have it. If you're going to the range, you're probably doing
09:14so because you want to get better at golf. And if you want to get better, you have to lay these
09:18foundations. They will make a big difference to the quality of your alignment and your swing as well.
09:32Slightly out of the heel, but it'll do. Alex, this next one is one I'm definitely guilty of. My
09:39favourite club in the bag is definitely my driver. And when I go to the range, I probably hit more shots
09:43with this club than I do any other club, partly because I'm trying to enjoy my range time,
09:47but maybe that's not the best way to improve. No, I think a lot of people, whether that be
09:51driver, favourite club is seven iron, notoriously for some people. And you get into a rhythm of just
09:57searching for your favourite club and practising with your favourite club. So we get to the course.
10:00So for example, you like driver. You get to say a six iron that you told me you don't like as much.
10:06You get in a situation where, well, oh, I don't know about this one because I don't actually hit any shots with it.
10:11Practice with it. Yeah. And I think the best and simplest way to do this with each session,
10:15right. Okay. I'm going to hit my odds this session, so my odd irons, and then I'm going to go and hit
10:19my evens. And then ultimately we're spreading our wear one across our club. So our equipment lasts a
10:25bit longer. Yeah. So you don't have that spot in your seven iron that gets absolutely battered
10:28where the rest of the golf clubs are okay. I'm guilty of doing the seven iron too much.
10:32So I just think ultimately, the more you can practice like you do on the course,
10:37you're going to be in a better situation. And we know we don't follow a seven iron with a seven iron
10:41with a seven iron very often. We might be a seven iron, might be a five iron, might be a four iron.
10:45Right. So you're mixing up the length of the shaft, you're changing ball positions and like those subtle
10:50changes that you're having to make out on the golf course. Definitely.
10:52So question then, Alex, a lot of people watching this, they will have problems specifically with a
10:57certain club. And I suspect a lot of people will find that it will be with their three-wood or maybe like
11:02their three iron or four iron is a club that they, whenever they have to pull it out, they do so
11:07with a bit of dread. What's the tactic to improve those areas? For one, pull it out on the range.
11:13I really think if you were to pull that club out, I wouldn't leave it to the end of the session.
11:17I would use it in the kind of middle of your practice session. So once you're warmed up,
11:20once you've hit a few shots, you've gone into a bit of rhythm and say, right, for these next 10 shots,
11:25I'm going to hit my four iron. For example, a lot of people don't like long irons. They try and get it into
11:29the air and find a way of hitting it because on the golf course, there's no pictures. All we need
11:35to have is an ability to, okay, with the long irons, especially for your club golfer, we're not
11:39expected to get it that close. It's sort of that kind of medium gap where, okay, we've got to get
11:44it near the green and then give us a chance of getting up and down. If we hit the green, fantastic.
11:48Because it's a big thing. I think if you get into the range and you get your seven iron, you're always
11:52hitting it off for you, Neil, who likes the driver and you're seeing the driver go down the range,
11:56mentally, you're like, oh yeah, I've seen this one go. You get then your six iron out. You've not
12:00seen that go as much. Straight away, mentally, you're on the back foot.
12:04Yes. And you're set up and naturally, you're in a dress position, you're kind of ready to hit
12:08drive and then you stand over a six iron and it all feels a bit alien, a bit different.
12:12Exactly. Right.
12:12So there you have it. Really simple stuff. If you are heading to the range,
12:16practice with a vast majority of clubs in the bag. Don't just stick to your favourite one.
12:20Okay. So the next one relates to pressure. A lot of people out there, Alex, will know that they
12:29probably should incorporate a bit of pressure into their practice. The question I've got for you is,
12:33can you really replicate the pressure that you feel on the golf course and can it help?
12:38I guess you can never really fully replicate it, but you can definitely go a long way to making a
12:44scenario which replicates it as close as you can on the range. Okay.
12:47So the best way I do it is if you get your iPhone or your smartphone out and you've got a note
12:52speed on your phone and say we're on driver at the end of our session, we're going to have 10 golf
12:56balls, we're going to set a fairway and we're going to have 10 shots written down on our phone.
13:01And I want to have a tick if we hit the fairway. Okay.
13:04Left, right. And almost set a benchmark, okay, where I am this session. Okay. Now I've got to beat that
13:10every single time. And don't cheat. Right. The temptation to cheat will be there, but try not to.
13:14So Alex, in this situation, where are the two? What's the fairway?
13:18I'm going to pick, you can see the kind of orangey tree on the right. I'm going to use
13:21the left edge of that one. Yeah.
13:22And then the same on the left. We've got kind of two trees here.
13:25It's quite a tight fairway.
13:28I'd be giving myself much more leeway for room than that. Go on then, Alex,
13:32hit one for us and then tell us what you'd then be writing down.
13:34Yeah. Another point though, if you set a smaller fairway,
13:37then on the golf course, it's then going to feel a little bit easier as well.
13:40That's true. But my worry would be that I would have no confidence when I got to the golf course,
13:43because I'd feel like I'd missed all the fairways before going out to play.
13:46Positivity here. That's what we want.
13:47Yeah. That's what I'm lacking.
13:49So I'll go through my full routine as well with each shot.
13:55All right. Shot number one.
13:56Oh, it's depressingly straight down the middle there, Alex. What are you writing down there
14:10on your notepad? You just put a big tick next to it.
14:12Big tick. And we've got the emojis on our phone. And I think it's good. You put the big green tick,
14:16put whatever you've got on your phone, because going forward mentally, if you can start seeing
14:21repetitiveness, okay, well, I've hit that fairway, I've hit that fairway. You'll not only build confidence,
14:25but you'll probably also develop a stock shot as well. Yes.
14:28And having a stock shot is so powerful.
14:29You know, a move that you can make that you know you can get the ball. Now, question for you then,
14:33Alex. I know this is something that a lot of mental game coaches sort of talk about. Are you,
14:38when you're out on the golf course and you're under pressure, are you kind of,
14:42is there any part of you that's sort of picturing this sort of scenario on the range?
14:45Definitely. Definitely. I think whatever you can do, if, for example, you're coming down the last
14:50and you're on to beat your handicap by two shots, we all get a little bit nervous. We know we're
14:55going to lower our handicap now. You can go back to scenarios and actually, no, I had a tighter
14:59fail on that range. I hit it. So you've got that belief that you can go forward and carry that to the
15:05course. So there you have it. I mean, golf without question is one of the most mentally demanding
15:09sports you can play. You can prepare for it on the range if you put a little bit of this into play.
15:17Okay, Alex, next one. Machine gun practice. Something that I've definitely been guilty of
15:23in my time. What do you, what's the fault? What do you see people doing?
15:27If you were to walk down the range, now your local driving range, you'd see someone hit it,
15:31pull another ball, hit it, pull another ball. And especially if they're struggling with their game
15:35and on a club that they don't like, pull, hit, pull, hit. Where's that gone? Disgusted. Pull
15:41another one in, have another go. Exactly. And you don't really take into account what you're
15:45doing in your swing. You're searching for a different feeling every single time. And I think
15:50it then almost becomes a little bit of guesswork to actually, how do I get the ball from A to B
15:54the best possible way? Yes. So if we're someone who takes lessons, or even if we're not someone who
15:59takes lessons, just taking a little bit of time in between each shot, one, it replicates what happens
16:03on the course. We've sometimes got five, 10 minute break on a par five, waiting on the tee. We haven't
16:08got that ability to go, oh, I've got another one to go here. Oh, okay. That wasn't good. Right. Okay.
16:13Reload. I got a second go here. We know we only have one go on the course. Yes, of course. Yeah.
16:18So I kind of come up with a thing, and this is something that I do. A lot of people that come
16:21for a lesson is a five ball set. I call it. Okay. Three balls, which could be something what you've
16:27decided with your coach you want to work on. So say for example, you were working on a little bit of club
16:31face control in a certain drill. You'd spend these three golf balls working on that area of the game.
16:36Okay. And then not really worrying about ball flight too much, still having a target to go to.
16:41And then the final two, this is where ultimately, I'm a big believer in these two. We're not tuned
16:47in enough when we practice, especially if we're someone who pulls a ball, hits, pulls a ball, hits,
16:52into actually performance on the course. So these two would be change of club, change of target,
16:57and trying to replicate going through your full routine of what happens on the course on the range.
17:02And are you trying to then with those two balls, trying to lose all kind of technical thoughts of
17:07what you've been working on? Exactly. Or are you still thinking about that stuff?
17:10I guess that's a person to person basis. Personally, I try to get people to have one,
17:15possibly two swing thoughts, absolute max, definitely going more towards losing the swing thoughts than to
17:21having them and almost trying to say, right, okay, this is the swing thought I had. I'm now going to try and hit a draw shot.
17:26I'm now going to try and hit a fade shot, being definitely more tuned into the ball flight.
17:30So in the sense of a shot, I'm going to try and hit instead of a specific swing thought,
17:34which would be the other three. And I always say to everybody as well, machine gun practice,
17:38you could get a hundred balls and do them in 20 minutes. I say to all the people that I kind of help out,
17:44I say, well, go and get 50 and spend the same time you're hitting 50 as you were 100 or even longer,
17:50just by setting them out in five ball sets. You take your time, you know what you're working on,
17:55and you're actually getting some real time feedback that's going to help you out on the course.
17:59And you can pay attention to things like your alignment and your posture and all of those
18:03good things that make a big difference to your game. So if you are heading to the range,
18:06avoid the temptation of pulling a ball, hitting it, pulling another one, hitting it.
18:10It can actually do more harm than good.
18:24Ah, well, that's my last ball of the session, Alex, and I've hit a bit of a slice there.
18:30What's the mistake? What you sent to me, you said people have a last ball syndrome when they
18:36practice. What is it? And what's the mistake? We've only got one ball now, one chance to hit
18:41a good shot. And say, for example, we had 75 balls in our practice session. We're now on the 75th.
18:46I really believe that people determine their practice session on what that golf ball does.
18:50So if we had 74 good shots and we hit one bad one to finish, they remember that one.
18:55Well, that's true, but we're often told when it comes to practice that
19:00your last ball needs to be, you're replicating the first tee shot. So if you're warming up to go and
19:04play, often the tour players will say the last shot I hit will be the first shot I hit on the
19:08golf course. Is that not a good theory to have? Does that put too much pressure on that final ball?
19:13I guess if you perform well and it goes on the range, it's a good thing to do. But I don't want
19:18you to feel that that's going to determine how good your practice was. I think if we look at it
19:22realistically, a lot of people have probably one practice session a week and then go and play at the
19:26weekend. And they always lose thought of the 74 good shots or the 50 good shots and go,
19:32Blimey neck. My last shot on Wednesday was, I think slice off to the right. And all the
19:37picture now on the first tee is the ball doing this. So again, this is kind of a double-edged
19:41sword. If it goes well, it's fantastic. But what I would say is don't put yourself in a situation
19:47where it's the be all and end all. Okay. Well, so if you are heading to the range,
19:51try not to put too much of an emphasis on what happens with your final shot.
19:56So there you have it. Those were the seven biggest practice mistakes. Guys, I hope you've enjoyed the
20:01video. If you have, please do hit the like button and also leave some comments below. Was there
20:06anything that we were missing from our list? Things that you see when you head to the driving range?
20:10We'd be really interested to hear your thoughts. We'll get Alex on if there's any questions you
20:14have to answer them to make sure that you do get the most from your valuable practice time.
20:18Guys, thank you for watching. We'll see you next time.
Recommended
19:50
|
Up next
5:36
3:56
1:13
4:10
0:15
15:58
1:40
5:10
10:51
6:31
2:30
19:17
2:44