- 04/07/2025
In this video, Neil Tappin is joined by Top 50 Golf Coach Ged Walters to provide his 5 best ball striking drills. He'll help you with your angle of attack and weight transfer to improve the quality of your striking. If you are heading to the range to work on your game, this video is a must watch!
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00:00If you're looking to shoot lower scores this year then one thing you'll undoubtedly need to do is
00:04strike the ball consistently well and that's exactly what this video is all about. We've got
00:09five of the best ball striking drills for you. Now the advice in this video comes courtesy of
00:14Jed Walters. Jed is one of Golf Monthly's top 50 coaches. He's got some really simple and
00:19effective advice on ensuring that you'd strike the ball before the ground. Now it's also important
00:24to say this video is coming to you in partnership with KBS Shafts. They have a whole shaft range
00:29from driver all the way through the bag. All designed to help you get the most from your
00:34equipment. Right we're here at the London Club. Let's get started.
00:48This drill is all about ensuring that you catch the ball before the ground. It doesn't matter whether
00:53you're hitting a wedge or hitting a long iron. That's the same principle all the way through.
00:57So it's something we all need to work on. Jed what's the drill and how does it work?
01:02Okay instant feedback is what it really is all about. So if I take a tee and I just scratch
01:06a line in the ground here. So from that point of view there I've now got a focal point from
01:15which I can work around. So here with a long iron that ball position is going to be a little
01:21bit further towards my lead side. And from there it's about making swings and trying to get
01:28the club to hit the ball and the turf. So I want to be really brushing the line and left
01:34of it for me away.
01:36Yes and crucially you're not hitting the ground behind the line. That's the number one thing
01:40that you're trying to avoid. And the great thing about this drill Jed is you're taking practice
01:44swing after practice swing after practice swing and you get that instant feedback. Is your body
01:48working in the right way to deliver the club at the right angle of attack?
01:51Definitely. Now obviously that would change. So if I took wedge in there, ball position then
01:56is going to go more central. So that can be even more, can be deeper this side here. But
02:01the one thing I'm going to find is if I was to make a practice swing here and hit the wrong
02:04side of this line then I know that our body's back here. Right okay well I've hit the ground
02:09there. Well there's the line. Hit the ground back there. So what I'm looking for is to keep
02:13the pressure moving forwards. So I can hit the ground more to the left. You can see there
02:16I've hit the ground sort of way in front of the line there by just keeping the body moving in the
02:21right direction. Okay so then you make a series of practice swings and then eventually you get to
02:25a point where you put the ball on the line, hit a shot and then you get the feedback of what you're
02:28doing actually in the swing itself. Exactly. Go on then. Okay. So in the setup I've got a 50 degree wedge here.
02:38So centered ball position and then just making sure that I get my body working in the right order.
02:49Perfect. Hopefully you could hear through the mics the quality of the strike there. Absolutely
02:52perfect. And you can see this divot is starting I'd say not quite almost an inch after the line.
02:59Yeah after the line which is exactly what you're looking for. So use this really simple drill.
03:03It will really help your ball striking. Okay so this drill is all about controlling the low point
03:13in the arc of your swing. Something that's so important for good quality ball striking.
03:17Jen you've got a ball on the tee here. Yes. What are we doing? We're getting used to with this one
03:21just the difference in the line that we can get. We practice most of our golf on a mat. On driving range
03:26it's flat it's the same level as your feet. You get on a golf course and it's above your feet below your
03:31feet it's different slopes. So the first thing we need to do is just make sure that we're adaptable
03:35and we can adjust. So we've got this one teed up here and I'm literally just going to clip it off
03:40the tee. Yeah it's plain and simple as that. Yeah so my ball position and everything is going to be
03:45the same but now you can see now this is what you know good three three and a half inches above my feet
03:50so I just want to get used to being able to be slightly more adaptable. So if this was a ball above
03:55my feet situation where I've got my normal ball position but I'm now just adapting to the lie
04:02I just want to clip it away. Beautiful. Good strike. So what's next? So what's next now is we now need
04:11to look at it from a point of view of improving the ball striking itself. So the ball goes back on the
04:18same tee and now what you're going to do is about four inches behind it so you know it's not a million
04:24miles away from the length of your club head is I'm going to put another tee.
04:29Okay. Same height. Same height. Now the key with this is anybody who struggles sort of so fat shots,
04:37thin shots, top shots, all those kind of things generally it happens because the weight of the
04:42body is too far back so we start to scoot we start to flip well first thing you're going to do then is
04:48you're going to hit that tee. Hit that tee. So we've just got to miss it. So the simple drill here is
04:52hit the ball, don't hit the tee. Yeah so that's going to now encourage a little bit more of a
04:56downward angle and to have that I've got to make sure that I'm moving my body in the right direction.
05:00Okay simple task here then Jeff, don't hit the tee. Dead simple so just don't hit the tee.
05:10Very good. Okay and there it is. Good contact. Right but there's a third part. There's a third element to this
05:16drill. So if I take a third tee and I now put it here so it's on the opposite side around the same
05:25distance from the one that's at the back. Okay so now what we're looking at doing is not just missing
05:34this tee but now I want to hit this one. Yes. Because that now is giving me the feeling of that downward
05:40angle of attack controlling the low points more target side again we're back to being ball turf which
05:45is everything that good ball striking is. Is okay. Okay. So now I just want to miss the back tee,
05:52hit the shot and try and clip this tee that's in front here.
06:01Yeah it's a really solid contact and it's a really simple drill that one to just help you establish
06:06that right angle of attack so the club bottoms out in exactly the right place because that is where
06:11really good quality contacts come from.
06:17Here's a great ball striking drill for those golfers that don't want to get caught thinking
06:21too technically about the golf swing. It can really help Jed. What is it?
06:26So it's about trying to make a comfortable speed swing and stopping as fast as you can beyond impact.
06:32Okay. What it does is it gets the body to organize itself a little bit more naturally. We play our best
06:36golf when we're in subconscious when it doesn't you know thinking about anything so that's what we want
06:40to try and encourage. So from this drill here it's simply just taking a you know a lofted club at 99
06:47here we're just going to make some swings which only go maybe halfway back but the key to it is feeling
06:53like the downswing the focus is just stop. What you'll find is when you look at it from face on at this
07:01point here I'm not really doing anything other than stopping yet you can see how my weight's moving
07:07forward my pelvis is tucking underneath the torso so I'm extending extending to the legs to the pelvis
07:13to the spine and I've got a little rotation in there as well. And you're nicely connected between
07:18your arms and your body as well. What I'm looking at when I see this is just how good the impact
07:23position is just by doing such a small and simple golf swing. It trains everything to just happen in the
07:29order that it really wants to happen it's almost the brain which confuses it and makes it happen
07:33in different ways. Yeah so you can start off at slower speeds and then just build up your speed and you
07:38can go flat out speed if you wanted to there so when you're accustomed to the drill you could be a little
07:43bit more and get some real crispness to what's happening there you can see where those divots are
07:50always I can see that left of where I'm taking where the golf ball would be yeah it's just it's developing
07:55that speed into it but just focusing on the stop as quickly as you can yeah so from a setup point of
08:00view you're only thinking about putting a little bit more pressure into your lead foot just almost
08:05like that there just pushing down into the ground a little bit more keeping that pressure there and
08:10then just making a nice controlled swing stopping as quickly as you can beyond impact
08:18yeah and you can see that divot it's perfect it's just after where the ball would have been
08:21definitely you can just this shot of Jed here just shows you so many good things about the golf
08:26swing if you can focus on finding that position the chances are the quality of your ball striking
08:32will greatly improve
08:37this drill is all about swing direction something that's going to really help you with your iron
08:41ball striking Jed what's the thinking here what's the drill all about so all great ball strikers have
08:47a fairly neutral swing direction so that's not to say that it is always say a bit to the right some
08:55are a little bit to the left but it's mind you we're talking a couple degrees left of target
08:59a couple right couple degrees right of target not excessive which you would see from people who would
09:04slice and hook it they would maybe be 10 degrees to the right 10 degrees to the left so getting your
09:08swing direction more neutral will help you control your centeredness of strike and also help you control how
09:15your body then wants to move towards the target so you can control the ground contacts and get those
09:20lovely crisp ball turf strikes yeah and it sounds complicated but it doesn't have to be if you have
09:25a really good drill that can help you sort of visualize what you're trying to achieve and that's
09:28what we're doing here so uh talk us through it okay so we're looking from sort of both perspectives
09:34um obviously i've got this little station set up here this is just as a quick visual really to what
09:40would represent uh a fairly neutral swing plane of being sort of up and down yeah but the swing
09:47direction is literally what the club is sort of doing as it comes here through the impact so if i
09:52was like sort of this there that would be a swing direction quite a lot to the right that would be
09:57quite a lot to the left so this is tailored relative to you as the individual if you were
10:03somebody who slices the golf ball pulls it or slices yeah across the ball yeah so you'd have a swing
10:10direction which would be if i put it into sort of a 2d visual on the floor would be a bit like that
10:16so right okay well what you need to do is practice the opposite so we would turn the sticks
10:25out to the right i mean that's probably somewhere in the regions of 40 degrees maybe
10:30to the right so right okay your visual then if you were somebody who's coming here
10:34your visual is to swing the club in the downswing between the sticks yeah and then suddenly your
10:40angle of attack improves the amount of the face you're getting on the ball improves the quality
10:45of the strike goes up it can it can do so many good things for you can't it yeah and then vice versa
10:50if you hook the golf ball then you would just turn them the opposite way and feel like you were
10:54coming across a little bit more now bear in mind these are feels what what you're feeling and what
10:58really happens are completely different you know a slicer would feel like they're swinging way off
11:03to the right and when you look at the swing direction it's probably still a little bit left
11:07it's just that you know if what feels hugely one way might move it eight degrees but if you were
11:13already 10 left then you're still a little bit left but the important point is it's more neutral so
11:18you're going to make your striking better you're going to make your start lines better you're going
11:23to make your overall ball striking better yes so this is one for those players who have big shapes in
11:27their game so either big draws or big fades if you want to just rein those in slightly you'll
11:32improve the quality of your ball striking and this is a great way to do it
11:40okay so this is a ball striking drill aimed specifically at those golfers who have a tendency
11:45to hang back through impact hit the fat shots and the thin shots that we all hate so much and it's
11:51a it's a great one for the range talk us through it Jed okay so on a driving range you could use
11:56the basket of the balls coming it's simply just propping your trail side up so all your pressure
12:03all the weight goes to the lead side you're probably going to be talking 90 to 95 percent of your
12:08pressure is going to be lead side so that's going to mean well i can't go back because i'm up on an
12:14angle that's going to keep me there so i'm going to get used to feeling what it's like to have the
12:18pressure forward through impact and it's going to give you the ability then to have a nice downward
12:22angle attack and give you those lovely ball turf crisp strikes yeah and that feeling of what the
12:27correct contact should feel like so just go for it then talk talk us through the drill so i've just
12:32put my bag on the ground there and all this is going to do is this is going to help me elevate
12:37my trail foot so from here and bear in mind you only need to sort of hit lofted clubs out we're not
12:43talking about doing this with driver it's just getting used to doing it with like a wedge or a nine iron
12:48or something so just taking you know if that was my normal setup there then what i'm going to do now
12:53is i'm just going to take my trail foot i'm just going to lift it and i'm just going to rest it on
12:56the back of my bag so now all my pressure is into my lead side so from here i'm going to keep the
13:03pressure into my lead leg i'm going to flex it a little bit more than normal just because it's taking
13:09all the weight pretty much you'll notice then on my right leg will sort of really straighten out a
13:13little bit as you see from this angle there's very little flex left in there keeping the pressure
13:17then pushing down into the left leg i'm just going to make little swings now it's going to be a
13:21little half swing back and then just down so you can see the angle attack is going to come down
13:26it's going to help me find a low point more to the left so i just need to keep my arms nice and
13:31extended you know i'm going to swing to there i'm not making a full follow through i'm just making a
13:36nice back and through swing so if i was to click this one now i'm set i'm ready and i'm just going to
13:43make a nice smooth swing yeah and you've got that little ball turf strike you will really really
13:51struggle to hit the ground before the ball if you try this drill and i say it is a great one for
13:56getting your body in the right position get the weight moving towards the target so the club hits
14:00the ball before it hits the ground give it a go so there you have it that's jed's five best ball
14:05striking drills if you are having issues with the quality of your iron strikes then give some of those
14:10drills a go if you can find a feel that helps you hit the ball before the turf then you should
14:16start hitting your irons much better but that's it for now from the london club thanks very much
14:20for watching we'll see you next time
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