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In this video, Neil Tappin is joined by PGA professional Alex Elliott to look at the main reasons why golfers get stuck at the same handicap for long periods. Alex offers some insights into the traps golfers fall into and provides advice on how to move forwards and possibly even to get your handicap down.
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00:00Hello everyone and welcome to the London Club. In this video we're going to take a look at the top
00:0410 reasons that golfers do not get better. Looking at everything from the mental challenges out on
00:10the golf course to some of the tough shots that are costing you. Right let's head out and get started.
00:18Right so number 10 on our list and the first one we're going to look at Alex is making
00:22swing changes mid-round. Yeah I think this can work both ways like you could make a swing change
00:29actually hit a decent shot if you've been struggling throughout that round but then you
00:34sort of question yourself well what did I do differently? You try it again and then the ball
00:37goes off in a different direction. So question for you then Alex, how many swing thoughts do you think
00:43is the right number of swing thoughts for a ball? I like to have two just in the sense of
00:47like having
00:48a back swing thought and then a trigger thought. Okay for example like mine would be take it wide
00:55and then belt buckle to target just to make sure I get through the ball but the two feelings that
01:01are something that are easy to do. Right okay. It's not like move this do this. No not a really
01:07technical complicated move. Exactly that and just actually if you're going to make a swing change
01:12either maybe get it from a YouTube video or get some advice from a PJ bro. Yeah so as Alex
01:17said two swing
01:18thoughts stick with them while you're on the golf course if it hasn't worked then make a change
01:23don't make that change while you're on the course.
01:28So number nine on our list is about distance. Alex what is it? Yeah I mean this might be a
01:34bit of a
01:34contradiction to what you probably heard on online before and if you don't drive it far enough it's
01:39actually hard to lower your scores. Right okay so let's say you've got somebody out there who hits it
01:45200 yards but pretty straight what sort of handicap would you say they could get to before they start to
01:50struggle to get any lower from that point? I would say trying to access single figures potentially.
01:55Right. Because you're going to drive it to a point where you're always going to have
01:58a medium to long iron into majority of par fours whereas we know long irons are hard to get greens
02:04and it's hard to get close so your proximity to the hole it's just generally harder to lower your
02:08scores that way. Yeah now Alex has got some advice on his YouTube channel about how to hit the ball
02:13further off the tee we have plenty of videos about the same topic on our YouTube channel if you are
02:18struggling on that front take a look at some advice to help hit the ball a bit further it could
02:22be the
02:23thing that is stopping you from shooting lower scores. Okay so this one is about being too hard
02:32on yourself putting too much pressure on your shoulders to perform Alex what do you think is
02:36the mistake here that sort of causes players to play poorly? I think obviously we all want to play our
02:41best
02:41golf we all invest a lot of money a lot of time and we put the pressure on ourselves to
02:46perform and if it
02:48doesn't happen we get a little bit wound up sometimes potentially and it's a downward spiral.
02:52I agree with you right and I've definitely fallen foul of this in the past but we're all human beings
02:57it's kind of natural to want to play your best every time you go out especially if you've been
03:01investing in clubs and lessons so how do you take pressure away from yourself? I think it's basically
03:07managing your expectations so it's going out there going actually well I'm going to just enjoy today
03:12and to Athens right you think about this I bet you've done this exact scenario you've not played for two
03:17or three weeks you've come out played your best golf yes it's been raining you've gone out with
03:20waterproofs on wet gloves on expectations no one will shoot a good score today probably shot a good
03:25score yes expectation levels are lower you can relax and actually let your creative juices flow
03:31yeah so don't be too hard on yourself golf is a difficult sport maybe sort of try and feel your
03:36way into the round and then see how things are going before you start building any expectations because
03:41trying to go out there every single round from the first shot trying to shoot your lowest score
03:44is very difficult
03:49number seven is not tracking your stats a lot of really valuable information that you might just
03:55be giving up on by not tracking your stats yeah what should people be looking out for Alex here I
03:59just think something things simple like how many fairways are we hitting how many greens regulation and
04:05then on that are we missing it more left or more right okay so it gives you an idea about
04:09how to work
04:10on your game but then also an idea about how to strategize while you're on the golf course yeah
04:14like take this flag here it's a right hand side flag if you miss more to the right it's probably
04:18not
04:18a good idea to short side yourself yes so you can build in knowledge about your game as well as
04:23working
04:23on the correct areas and not just the areas you like to work on yeah and so you might have
04:28a theory
04:28about where you miss you might have a theory about how many fairways you hit how many greens you hit
04:33but
04:33actually backing it up with the data gives you that framework doesn't it exactly that and then you actually start
04:38to see
04:39improvements because you're actually working on the areas that need work yeah okay Alex uh you're
04:44gonna have to hit this one for me so we've got 191 Alex has got a very very skinny uh
04:49cobra four iron
04:50in his hands this is really going to test you out isn't it and it's cold and it's cold
05:00you've taken it on Alex you've actually committed exactly the crime that you were guarding helping
05:06people guard against yeah but it's got a good short game so i'm sure he'll be fine
05:13this one is about not having exactly the right equipment for your game Alex what's the big mistake
05:19here yeah i think there's two one with driver which most people probably think about when they go for
05:23a driver fitting but also with irons it's having the correct length and lie angle yeah help you play
05:29better golf okay so if you get it wrong what will players see so if a club is too long
05:34and therefore
05:35the lie angle is too upright we'll start to see that golf ball launch a little bit left the majority
05:40of your shots and even more so with lofted irons if it was the opposite if that line goes too
05:45flat
05:46we're going to see that shot starts the right now where do most people swing this golf club yeah a
05:50little bit over stand up create it a little bit flatter out to the right yeah so having the right
05:56equipment for you crucial in terms of your accuracy with your eyes what about with the driver with the
06:00driver i think we all have this thing about we have to have the stiffest shaft we have to have
06:04the club with the most or the least loft to act like we can hit it a long way we're
06:09actually
06:10optimizing the correct shaft and possibly more loft for most golfers is going to make it a little bit
06:14further yeah so that low loft low spin performance might be good for your best swing and your best
06:20strike and your best shot yeah but how often is that going to actually cost you when you're not
06:25got your best swing and strike exactly on the ball and that's where we want to play our better golf
06:30right
06:30we want to be able to get around the golf course round our handicap when we're not playing our best
06:34golf yeah some really handy advice there for getting the right equipment for your game
06:42so number five on our list is about putting and alex everyone could do with holding a few more
06:48putts it doesn't matter what handicap you are definitely but what's the sort of advice here
06:52what's the mistake that people make i think we always try and get a little bit complicated because
06:57we think now our golf game is based on such fine margins it's now a hole not a fairway and
07:03not a
07:03green we've got to be really perfect okay yeah but so you're telling me we don't have to be perfect
07:08well not really no i think a lot of us try and be too perfect and then we don't have
07:12any flow to our
07:13stroke okay so if flow to your putting stroke is so important then give us a quick tip how do
07:18you get it
07:18so i i like to think of it like this i think a lot of it comes from grip pressure
07:22i always picture
07:23tiger now that's the analogy that i have yeah his hands look comfortable on the club yeah so we're in
07:28there hands looking comfortable maybe give the shoulders a bit of a waggle and i have the practice
07:32swings looking at the hole just tuning myself into my senses about what i've got to actually do yeah and
07:39if you can do that then you don't have to think too much about how hard you're hitting the ball
07:43it
07:43should happen naturally yeah um come on then alex i'm going to put you under pressure make make it
07:47for us you've given me a left to right here i've given you a slight left to right although greens
07:50are
07:51perfect i'm giving you no excuses
08:01oh dear not enough flow not enough flow but a lovely pot
08:08okay so number four on our list is about strategy and alex it's about the eight out of
08:13ten rule explain yeah i i think no matter what level you are it's using this strategy where if
08:20i have a shot that i'm about to hit if i can't pull it off eight times out of ten
08:24then possibly
08:25it's rethinking either the club or error aiming okay good so how does it apply in this scenario well
08:31this is a tough hole here at the london club right water all down the left one place you can't
08:35go
08:35is left now most club golfers we hit it with a bit of a slice so you might think you
08:40know what
08:40if i meet it this fairway i've got to aim at the trouble yes let it come in whereas actually
08:45we
08:46know if i aim down the middle maybe hopefully hit the bullet straight but worst case scenario i'm in
08:51the right row i'm in play yeah and you can always recover you can always make a sort of four
08:56or five
08:56the further up you get up the hole but if you're in the water off the tee because you've hit
09:00that
09:00brilliant tee shot that's gone dead straight then you're not going to be able to recover that exactly
09:04yeah so think about the eight out ten rule while you're out on the golf course use it to your
09:08advantage it could really help so number three is not warming up okay how many of us are guilty of
09:18not doing anything before we go and play golf to warm our bodies up it's really important also the
09:23other point here is that not everyone is going to have a facility like there is here at london club
09:26where you can go and hit balls if you do have a facility like this what's the best way of
09:31doing it
09:31kind of quickly because most people out there don't have hours to spend before they tee off i would
09:35if you've got a facility like this i'd do five minutes putting five minutes chipping finish off
09:40a little bit on the range head straight to the first tee whereas most people actually do it in
09:44the reverse yes but i want to do the last thing on the range the first thing i'm going to
09:49do on the
09:49first tee right so you're imagining that first tee shot that you're going to be hitting exactly okay
09:53and then if you don't have a facility like this let's say you don't have any practice facilities
09:58whatsoever how should you do it stretch him just use your locker room like you can actually
10:03mobilize your body quite easily just by going in the locker room doing a few dynamic stretches and
10:08if you're wondering where to get that advice my tpi has got loads of different exercises and i use
10:14them quite regularly if i know if i'm going playing a tournament with a golf course that's got no range
10:18i'll go and spend 10 minutes in the locker room yeah it's really simple stuff and again it's the sort
10:23of preparation that we all know we should do but we often fail to do it if you do commit
10:27to doing it
10:28chances are those first few holes you might just score them a bit better
10:36so number two on our list and it's something that stops a lot of golfers from lowering their
10:40handicaps lowering their scores is that they don't have a shot for a scenario like this they don't work
10:46on those scoring shots alex yeah and i think even for a higher handicap right in a scenario like this
10:52on a long par four we're going to be in a situation where we're going to have this 30 yard
10:55chip
10:56for our third shot more often than not yes and even for higher handicappers you want to be getting
11:01it up and down every now and again you certainly never want to be getting downing four which means
11:06executing this shot a little bit better so alex give us a tip so i always think most people would
11:11resort most lofted clubs to pull here a shot like this i use the rule if i can chip it
11:15run it last
11:16resort get it in the air okay so nice and simple fall slightly towards the back of your stance narrow
11:21stance full width apart and wait on your lap okay this makes it more of a long chip rather than
11:27like
11:28a pitch okay so which club have you got so i've got pitching match okay go then that's it there
11:32we go
11:33i'm looking for around about two to three feet on running it up there as much as possible
11:41yeah lovely and just notice how simple that action is it's something that every golfer can try
11:46and replicate themselves keep it simple hit it a bit closer you might get it up and down a bit
11:51more often
11:55okay so number one the number one fault that is holding golfers back and stopping them from
12:00scoring their best is alex practice right yeah so not using the range in the best way possible
12:06like i call it like machine gun fire people get their 100 ball that's gone in 30 minutes
12:12yeah and i think most people watching this will have heard this sort of tip before and they go to
12:17the range myself included with the best intentions yeah but before you know it suddenly you've hit
12:2230 shots very quickly and you've stopped thinking about anything that you're working on
12:25so what's a good way of kind of thinking about it and committing to doing it properly i think
12:29playing your hardest hole at your golf club in your head is a great way to actually well get over
12:35that hole but also tune yourself in to actually playing some shots rather than out there just
12:40trying to make a perfect swing and oh that wasn't good right i just do this yes actually get out
12:45there and do something that reflects what you're gonna do what you're trying to do on the golf course
12:49so let me ask you then alex so you've got driver in your hand here you're imagining the fifth hole
12:54or whatever it is at your course are you actually picturing the fairway what do you what do you see
12:59definitely i'm quite a person a visual person so for me it helps me picture the fairway i picture
13:04the shot and i'll set a boundary between let's say the two red flags in front of us right let's
13:08test you
13:09out there so what is the boundary what's the shot that you're hitting okay what can you see so we'll
13:12use the fifth at my golf club it is as narrow oh it perceives looks as narrow as these two
13:18red flags so
13:20i hit a fade so i'm thinking right can i fade it off the left flag into the middle of
13:24that fairway okay
13:27so i would do this as well going through my full routine because that's really important you reflect
13:34and you mirror what you want to do in the middle round on a saturday yeah so you're more comfortable
13:38in all of those scenarios out of the course beautiful beautiful and it's it's simple processes
13:51like that if you are serious about shooting low scores a bit more often than preparing yourself
13:56for the pressure of these scenarios getting you the most out of your practice time it's absolutely
14:01essential so there you have it that's our look at the top 10 reasons golfers do not get better at
14:07the
14:07game hopefully you found some of alex's tips in there helpful some useful things to take out with
14:12you on the golf course going forward if there is anything that you think we've missed please do leave
14:17some comments below we'd love to hear what you think but that's it for now from the london club
14:21thanks for watching we'll see you next time
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