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