- 3 years ago
In this video, golf's biggest YouTuber Rick Shiels walks you through his ultimate 30 minute range session. Starting with the basics around the technique, he then moves onto into some of the games and challenges you can take on at the range that will improve your overall skill set. Use Rick's framework to power boost your game for the year ahead.
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00:00 Oh I've leaked it! Hang on ball! I want it to feel like your heart is racing,
00:06 certainly on the last few shots, because that's how you're going to best develop your skills.
00:10 Alright guys, it's Rick Shields here, top 50 coach for Golf Monthly, and today I'm going to show you
00:21 a 30 minute power boost range session to get you ready for this season to have the best golfing
00:28 season you've ever had. So let's hit the clock, 30 minutes, we're gonna break this up into three
00:33 different elements. The first 10 minutes is all going to be about getting your basics correct,
00:39 things like alignment, ball position and technique. I'll somewhat say the boring stuff,
00:45 let's go through that first, even though it's boring it's incredibly important. First thing
00:50 I want you to do is get a couple of long golf clubs out your bag, something like the 3 and
00:55 4 iron, and we're going to use one of the golf clubs for an alignment aid, and another golf club
01:01 for a ball position aid. You'll even still see right now some of the best players in the world
01:08 when they practice, they will have ball position aids out and alignments, like it's so unbelievably
01:15 important. What I want you to do with this alignment one on the ground, I want you to pick
01:21 a target, so I'm going to go for that blue flag that's just to the right of the 100 marker, I'm
01:26 going to put this club just running parallel to the left of that line. I'm then going to make sure
01:31 this club is at perfect right angles to the club on the ground, because we're going to use, I'm just
01:38 going to use something quite lofted to start things off like a pitching wedge, we're going to use the
01:43 club that's on the ground here to use as a reference point for our alignment. You can see there my right
01:50 foot and my left foot are perfectly spaced between that club, and then this club on the ground we're
01:56 using mainly for ball position, so for a pitching wedge I've got that absolutely smack bang in the
02:02 middle of my stance. If anything it's just a reminder, it's almost setting that kind of default
02:09 setting back to make sure that you're not getting out of place with where you aim or where your ball
02:14 position is going to be. So what I would do from here then is hit a few shots to warm up and also
02:20 just to get your eye in, so I've got my alignment, I've got my ball position and I can work on a few
02:28 nice easy shots, and it's not always like me, I just hit that exactly over that blue flag that
02:37 was aiming for, so that gives me a lot of confidence that my alignment is absolutely spot-on, and each
02:43 time when you address the ball almost step out of that mold and come back in again, don't get lazy.
02:49 So I'm going to hit about 10 shots doing this, making sure this drill is absolutely nailed on
02:56 to start things off.
02:57 Okay so I'm really happy with that, I feel like I've got my eye in for my ball position and my
03:24 alignment. The next thing to work on is your technique, again I'll be honest with you,
03:30 the slightly boring stuff, but we want to get out of a practice session, we want to improve,
03:34 even if it's by 1%, even less than 1%, as long as every time we go to the range we improve by
03:41 that little amount. Now the best way is in-person lessons, go and see a coach, work on techniques
03:47 that you need to work on, or there's a few YouTube channels out there, obviously Golf Monthly's,
03:51 or my own, where you can pick up on some golf tips. What I'd also recommend to get hold of
03:57 is something like this, this is basically a monopod with a little stand on the end,
04:03 and you can attach your phone to this handle. I'm going to set my phone up and just take a
04:07 few videos of my swing so I can have a look at my technique in slow motion. Top tips,
04:13 have the camera placed at waist height, and have the angle of the phone in between where
04:18 your feet are going to sit and where the ball is going to sit. The reason why we have that
04:22 positioning is because if the angle of the phone is too far to the right, or too far behind you,
04:28 the actual path of your club coming down will look totally different, almost the aspect ratio
04:34 just will look totally wrong. So making sure that phone position is at waist height, and in between
04:39 your feet and the ball, pretty much in line with your hands is the perfect location. And this is
04:44 where I'm going to get a little bit more technical, so for myself, I'm working on keeping that club
04:48 face more closed going back, so this is my main focus right now, I'm almost forgetting results
04:54 for a minute and focusing solely on this point in my golf swing, exaggerating that feeling.
05:00 I'm not too worried about where the shot's going to go, this is the technique element
05:08 of your practice session. Exaggerating that move, and then looking at your phone and getting that
05:24 feedback. So what I like about this now, I'm getting that instant feedback, I can see the
05:29 feeling that I'm getting from that swing is matching up with the actual reality of my club
05:35 face being more closed, almost square, which is exactly what I'm working on. You know what I love
05:40 about this as well, I'll often send this to a friend or post it online, or even send it to the
05:45 golf coach I've been working with, just to get that kind of feedback, or sometimes, not if it's
05:50 a real true practice session, if you've not actually shared it on social media, it makes you
05:54 just feel a little bit better about yourself, that everyone's not practicing and you are, you're
05:58 getting better. This is invaluable feedback, we've all got these in our pockets now, use it, it
06:04 definitely helps. Okay, so that is the housekeeping stuff done, they're the things that will definitely
06:12 help you start your practice session off well. I mentioned earlier, a bit of the boring stuff,
06:17 but very, very important stuff. Right, next up, it's time to test yourself. I've got a few really
06:24 simple games here that you can do this with. So the phone goes away, the monopod goes away,
06:29 these clubs get put back in the bag, because now it's time for you to start getting in the zone of
06:34 doing some testing yourself games. I've got three really good ones. The first one is a distance
06:40 challenge game. So start off with one of your irons. Now, what I want you to do is, think about
06:46 when you practice, you want to improve on your weaknesses. You don't want to just practice all
06:50 the time your strengths, because there's no massive value in that, you're already good at that.
06:54 Practice your weaker shots. So for example, my weaker shots, I'm not particularly very good from
06:59 100 yards and in. So that's what I'm going to practice here. And dead simple, I'm going to grab
07:03 my sandwich, quite a lofty golf club, and I'm going to set myself a task. I want to hit 10 shots in a
07:10 row, and each shot I want to gradually be further than the last shot. If I fail in that task and I
07:18 hit a shot that's too short, I've got to start again. Now, there's two ways of doing this. You can do this
07:24 visually at driving range or a practice ground. Down here at the driving range, we've got the
07:28 technology here of Top Tracer. So I'm going to reset all that, and I'm going to work on the carry
07:34 distances, each time being a little bit further than the last. Let's see if we can get 10 in a
07:40 row that accomplishes that feat. So the first shot I'm going to hit about 25 yards is the goal.
07:47 And 25 yards is the shot I hit. So I'm really happy with that start. So the next shot, I want to hit past
07:58 25 yards, but I don't want to hit it too long. Something in the 30s, low 30s, would be an incredible
08:05 start to this challenge. Should be good. 31. Okay, so really strong start. I'm going to go 40 yards for the next one.
08:19 Oh, a bit heavy. Oh, I got away with it. 33 yards. We've done three in a row so far. Let's see if we can get 10.
08:47 Strong.
08:48 Oh, right. We failed. We managed to get one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Oh, we almost got up to nine, and then we failed.
09:11 But that's good because it means now I've got something to work on. The big thing as well is track your result.
09:19 Get your phone, have a little notepad in your golf bag, and say this time I managed to do eight out of ten,
09:25 because next time you've got something to work on. Right, next challenge is all about controlling
09:31 trajectory. Starting off low and aiming to try and hit it higher. So again, similar to last time,
09:36 you can either use your visual perspective of how high these shots are going to go, or using technology
09:41 like Top Tracer. I'm going to now move up to my seven iron, and the minimum yards I've got to hit
09:47 this is 100 yards. So I can't just chip it 50 yards in front of me. What I'm going to start off by doing
09:52 is hitting it super, super low. As low as I can possibly hit a seven iron, and then each time
09:57 just trying to change the trajectory a little bit until we finish actually trying to hit it super,
10:02 super high. Again, a bit like the last challenge, if we can do 10 in a row, it's an amazing achievement.
10:08 So let's see how we get on. It's got to go minimum 100 yards. I'm going to start really low. So there's a
10:13 couple of things you can do here from a technique standpoint as well. To hit a seven iron lower,
10:18 ball position further back in the stance, hands further forward. One thing that creates height
10:24 is speed. Speed and loft increase height. So we're going to decrease the loft and hit it softer, slower.
10:32 And let's start off nice and low. I'm going to try and hit a little low 100 yard seven iron.
10:37 That's a really, really low flight.
10:44 It's gone a bit longer than 100 yards, 125 yards, and it went 48 feet in the air. The next shot, we're
10:52 going to go slightly higher, but again it's got to go over 100 yards. So this time I'm going to hit
10:57 the ball a tiny bit faster than the last shot, just to get that height.
11:01 That's a nice strike. There we go. We've elevated the shot by 10 feet.
11:13 So now we're going to go a little bit higher, similar ball position, a tiny bit faster.
11:17 So the first three I've done very good so far. I'm going to just tweak this a little bit,
11:26 change the trajectory. I'm going to put the ball position slightly more towards the middle of my
11:30 stance because that's going to bring the loft back to its more natural setting.
11:34 But I'm still going to hit this super soft.
11:36 Might be higher though, yeah 52.
11:44 Okay, middle of the stance. I'm going to go a little bit faster this time.
11:52 So I've done six so far and successfully got to this stage. I'm now going to move the ball position
12:01 a little bit further up in my stance, again to increase the loft. This is going to be
12:06 interesting. I'm going to hit this over 90 feet. It's starting to get quite high now.
12:11 That should be good.
12:20 This is good in practice because I've got to shot number seven now.
12:23 I'm starting to feel the pressure. I want to get to number 10 and it's good to practice under pressure.
12:28 Keep the ball position forward. I'm going to go a little bit more speed.
12:31 I've got to try and get over 104 feet in the air.
12:34 Easy. Okay, two more to go. 118 to beat. Ball position forward, almost maximum speed.
12:47 Okay, last shot in the 10. Ball position forward, maximum speed. As hard and fast as I can hit it.
12:56 And our last little sprinkle of magic. Finish with really, really high hands because it keeps
13:02 the loft on the face. I've got to beat 132 feet. I'm going to send this to the moon.
13:15 And that is 10 successful shots, each going higher than the last.
13:19 Last challenge to test yourself, the driver. It's going to be dead simple, this. 10 shots
13:27 and you're going to picture a fairway. How many times can you hit the fairway? And again,
13:31 great ways of doing this. Out in the golf driving range here, you can pick a couple of flags. There's
13:35 two flags, a yellow one on the right, a yellow on the left, and I can picture that as my fairway.
13:40 Or, using Top Tracer, I've come here on the long drive, driving range fairway effectively.
13:47 I'm going to hit 10 shots and see how many times consecutively I can hit the fairway. How many out
13:52 of 10 should I say I can get? And again, this is great. You can note it down on your phone or in a
13:56 little notebook and each time try and improve on your previous score. Right, let's go. What I want
14:02 to try and get out of this as a practice session and for everybody watching is a little bit of
14:07 a practice session. I want it to feel like nervous. I want it to feel like your heart is racing,
14:15 certainly on the last few shots, because that's how you're going to best develop your skills
14:19 and how taking your game from the driving range to out on the golf course. Let's go. 10 shots.
14:25 I'm somewhat even nervous on the first shot. It feels like a first-team nerves type of vibe
14:30 because you want to start strong. I'm picking my line, really visualizing where I'm going to hit
14:36 this and let's start off straight down the middle of the fairway. That should be a very good start.
14:46 One out of one.
14:50 Might be a tiny bit right. Should be good.
15:02 Just, but we're on the fairway. I'm not trying to hit these as hard as I can.
15:06 These are all fairway finding drives.
15:09 Okay, that was a little bit high and definitely got affected by the wind,
15:25 but I'm not looking for distance. I'm looking for accuracy. That's four out of four so far.
15:30 Right. This is the point where it starts to feel a bit more nervous. I'm just at six really good
15:36 drives there, straight down the fairway. We've got four more to go to get 10 out of 10.
15:40 The old heart is pumping. This is what we want. We want that excitement. We want that kind of nerves.
15:47 Can I finish strong? This is coming down the straight. I've got a good round of golf
15:51 going on. I'm going to try and get a good shot. I'm going to try and get a good shot.
15:55 I'm going to try and get a good shot. I'm going to try and get a good shot.
16:00 I'm going to try and get a good shot. I'm going to try and get a good shot.
16:04 I'm going to try and get a good shot. I'm going to try and get a good shot.
16:08 I'm going to try and get a good shot. I'm going to try and get a good shot.
16:12 I'm going to try and get a good shot. I'm going to try and get a good shot.
16:16 I'm going to try and get a good shot. I'm going to try and get a good shot.
16:20 I'm going to try and get a good shot. I'm going to try and get a good shot.
16:24 I'm going to try and get a good shot. I'm going to try and get a good shot.
16:28 I'm going to try and get a good shot. I'm going to try and get a good shot.
16:32 I'm going to try and get a good shot. I'm going to try and get a good shot.
16:36 I'm going to try and get a good shot. I'm going to try and get a good shot.
16:40 I'm going to try and get a good shot. I'm going to try and get a good shot.
16:44 I'm going to try and get a good shot. I'm going to try and get a good shot.
16:48 I'm going to try and get a good shot. I'm going to try and get a good shot.
16:52 And record score, 10 out of 10. Can I finish?
16:56 This is walking down the 18th hole. You've got a good round of golf going.
17:00 You just want to finish strong. You want to hit that great tee shot.
17:04 Well, this hard work on the driving range will help you next time you get in that situation.
17:08 Heart is pumping. Hands are twitching.
17:12 Can I finish with a 10 out of 10?
17:16 Hang on to that right-hand side.
17:20 Oh, it's absolutely perfect.
17:24 That is good. That's good practice. I feel motivated with that.
17:28 And next time I get on the golf course, I can't imagine hitting it anywhere else apart from straight down the middle of the fairway.
17:32 Right, next up, let's challenge someone else.
17:36 Right, the last section of your practice here at the driving range
17:44 is to challenge somebody else. Whether that's a friend or whether it's actually just someone else
17:48 at the driving range. Ask them if they fancy a bit of a competition.
17:52 This is a way that you can put everything you've just worked on for the first two sections of this practice session
17:56 into a more realistic setting. So you can do things like
18:00 nearest the pin challenges, who can hit it closest, whether it's at a target
18:04 at the driving range or again using top tracer technology, or
18:08 whether it's a longest drive challenge against each other. And you could even
18:12 finally pretend you're playing a hole again. Either on the range
18:16 by using different targets or why not jump on one of the most famous holes
18:20 in the world using top tracer. And you know what, why not
18:24 make it a bit spicy as well. The loser has to do a forfeit.
18:28 Whether that's clean the other one's golf shoes or even simply carry
18:32 the other golfers clubs back to the car. Make it mean
18:36 something because then you're going to at least try your best and it
18:40 matters. Like you want that bit of nerves, you want that bit of excitement
18:44 to definitely put you in the right frame of mind. That is how
18:48 you power boost your practice session ready for a great season
18:52 go out there, work hard in your golf game because believe me when you play
18:56 well, you enjoy it a lot more. We'll see you next time.
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