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In this video, Neil Tappin is joined by Tour Coach Liam James to look at the biggest driving mistakes and how to avoid them!
Transcript
00:00Hello everyone, Neil Tappin here from Golf Monthly and welcome to the London Club and this video on
00:04the biggest mistakes that players make off the tee. We've teamed up with Ping and with tour coach
00:09Liam James to offer you the best advice that we can about how to stop hooking it, how to stop
00:13slicing it and also about how to find a little bit more distance off the tee as well. This is all
00:19about trying to make the game as easy as possible so if you do struggle off the tee this video should
00:24really help. If you're new to the Golf Monthly channel please do hit the subscribe button to
00:27make sure that you don't miss any of our videos. Hit the like button if you're liking the video but
00:31let's head out now onto the golf course here at the London Club and look at the biggest driving mistakes
00:35the players make. Okay Lynn let's start with a lack of distance off the tee, a lack of speed. If there
00:45was a fault that you see more often than not with amateurs that costs them yardage what would it be
00:51do you think? I'd say the biggest fault is them trying to generate more speed in the manner that
00:55they do so the biggest thing that we start to see more than anything is that in a bid to try and hit
01:01the golf ball harder they're moving from side to side more often and then moving towards the target
01:06too much is causing them actually to hit down on the golf ball even more and essentially slice the
01:11golf ball so in a bid to try and hit the golf ball harder and further they're actually hitting it
01:16shorter so there are things that you can do in the setup that will just make sure that you generate a
01:21little bit more speed without losing the control of where the ball strikes on the face. Yeah and don't
01:26forget you're looking for that kind of high launch low spin those perfect optimized launch conditions
01:31to get the most out of your driver. Absolutely and that's the thing even if players are swinging at
01:37slow speeds or slower speeds than we see on the television we can still optimize those speeds by
01:42making sure the impact factors are as good as they possibly can be and 90% of the time that's just how
01:48they set up to the golf ball that's got nothing to do with what's happening in the swing. Okay so give
01:52us some ideas about what people should be looking out for. So the biggest thing first of all is I think
01:57we need to maximize everything we can in the setup in order to actually wind up behind the golf ball
02:03and give ourselves the biggest range of movement we possibly can and a very simple tip for that would
02:07be obviously the first thing to just keep an eye on is the ball position we want to make sure that's
02:12inside my left heel but I've got a nice wide base here now but as you have a look you can see my toes
02:18are fractionally turned out now what that's actually enabling me to do now is turn my hips okay if
02:24we see players which we see a lot of almost turned in with their toes it really restricts their range
02:30of movement and it's impossible for them to make a full turn up to the top of the backswing. Yeah so
02:34that little bit more range movement in your hips gives you more range movement in your shoulder
02:38which is what you're looking for absolutely and then it's a bigger rotation it's not necessarily
02:43more effort it's not them doing it any faster all you're all you're doing simply here is turning
02:48your toes out freeing your knees and your hips up to complete a full turn and as a result of that
02:53you're going to generate more speed okay go on then let's show i'll show you through it hit one for us
02:58so again ball up off that left heel i've got a nice wide base with my toes turned out i'm gonna have a
03:04little rehearsal up to the top full rotation then i'm just going to go ahead and give it a hit
03:13yeah hopefully and what you should see through the cameras there is just how well centered
03:17liam stays over the shot he's not making a big sway off the ball and then back onto it because
03:21if you are it's quite dangerous that isn't it absolutely and it may feel like might feel quicker
03:27it might feel like more effort but essentially all that's going to do is increase your off-center
03:31hits whereas if you're doing as we're mentioning here turning your toes out big wide base nice
03:37rotation up to the top you're then going to stay behind it and not only swing it faster just due
03:42to that but hit the middle of the face more often yeah more speed and more control okay so we're going
03:46to move on to slices and hooks i think most golfers their bad shot will likely be one or other of these
03:51two so liam let's talk about i know that you're going to speak about them in connection with each
03:56other because the fault i guess is the kind of opposite of each other right absolutely i mean you know
04:01you tend to see very similar uh characteristics of a player who's slicing the golf ball and then
04:06counter to that you see the opposite when when you've seen a player hook it and generally most of
04:11those things are coming from the way they're setting up to the golf ball and actually the way they're
04:14placing their hands on the grip so we start with the slicer yeah the biggest thing that we'll start to
04:20see with with excessive slices of the golf ball is quite simply where the golf club is running through
04:26your left hand so players who get it too much into the palm okay it's going to do two things for you
04:32if you're too much in the palm it's going to lean you too much towards the target in your second and
04:36that's a setup position you see a lot isn't it absolutely right i'd say their heads closer to the
04:41target than their belt buckle is and that's going to cause them to hit out and down on the golf ball and
04:46the second thing that grip is going to do is that's going to make this club face open up too much on
04:50the way back so now we've got the golf club coming from the outside with the face wide open you're just going to hit
04:55slices hook then is the opposite issue is it absolutely right so if we see a player with an
05:01excessively strong grip now to define strong grip i don't mean strong in in strength i mean strong in
05:07if i was to look down at my left hand now i can see all four of my knuckles so that would that would
05:12define as a strong grip now as a result of that what we're going to tend to see is not much loft on
05:18the golf club at the top so we would call this a closed position with the club face not much loft and
05:24now the compensations that the players are having to make in order to try and get the ball up in the
05:28air now we're going to start to see a lot of leaning back and that's going to obviously cause cause the
05:33hook so just by two poor grip positions in the setup all these things you know the slices are coming over
05:40it the hooks they're leaning back so you know you've got to be careful with how you're setting up so that
05:45begs the question what's the checkpoint that people need to get the right grip on the club to be stood
05:50correctly at the ball at address so it's all keep it really constant with the routine so the biggest
05:55thing i would say about this is when you see golfers on on the golf course it's where they actually
06:00place their hands on the golf club in their routine so you'll see some players have it down
06:04here some players it's up in the air keep it really consistent we want to hold the golf club
06:09up out in front of us shafts parallel with the ground here and i'm just going to run this golf club
06:14just through the fingers of my left hand and if i place a little look now i just have a look at my
06:19left hand i've got a two knuckle left hand grip now so that's what we would define as a neutral grip
06:24that's going to feel much weaker to a guy who grips it strong and it's going to feel much stronger to
06:29the slices but just by fixing the left hand grip it's going to offer us the chance to get set up
06:36fractionally in behind the golf ball with my shirt buttons but now i've got a neutral left hand
06:41in order to make sure that club faces square throughout my swing okay go on then liam hit
06:45one for us let's see what it looks like so i'll show you my routine shaft up in front of me
06:50clubbing the fingers two knuckle left hand grip
06:56and then i'll give it a hit
07:02lovely so there you have it if you are struggling with your driving i think that the advice that liam has
07:08given us there shows that it doesn't have to be a big technical fix to do with any of the complicated
07:13movements in your golf swing it can be something simple and a lot of the time these things can be
07:18done at address and there's no reason why any golfer can't get them right uh thanks for watching we'll see
07:23you next time

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