- 7 hours ago
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. So it's
00:58something we all need to work on. Jed what's the drill and how does it work? Okay instant feedback
01:03is what it really is all about. So if I take a tee and I just scratch a line in
01:07the ground here.
01:10So from that point of view there I've now got a focal point from which I can work around. So
01:17here with a
01:18long iron that ball position is going to be a little bit further towards my lead side and from there
01:25it's
01:25about making swings and trying to get the club to hit the ball and the turf. So I want to
01:32be really
01:32brushing the line and left of it for me away. Yes and crucially you're not hitting the ground
01:39behind the line. That's the number one thing that you're trying to avoid and the great thing about
01:42this drill. Jed you're taking practice swing after practice swing after practice swing and you get
01:46that instant feedback. Is your body working in the right way to deliver the club in the right angle of
01:51attack? Definitely. Now obviously that would change so if I took wedge in there ball position then is
01:56going to go more central so that can be even more can be deeper this side here but the one
02:01thing I'm
02:01going to find is if I was to make a practice swing here and hit the wrong side of this
02:05line
02:05then I know that our body's back here right okay well I've hit the ground there well there's the line
02:10hit the ground back there so what I'm looking for is to keep the pressure moving forwards
02:14so that can hit the ground more to the left you can see there I've hit the ground sort of
02:17way in
02:18front of the line there by just keeping the body moving in the right direction. Okay so then you
02:22you make a series of practice swings and then eventually you get to a point you put the ball on
02:26the line you hit a shot and then you get the feedback what you're doing actually in the swing
02:29itself exactly okay so in the setup got a 50 degree wedge here so centered ball position
02:41and then just making sure that I get my body working in the right order
02:48perfect hopefully you could hear through the mics the quality of the strike there absolutely perfect
02:52and you can see this divot is starting I'd say not quite almost an inch after the line yeah after
02:59the line which is exactly what you're looking for so use this really simple drill it will really help
03:04your ball striking. Okay so this drill is all about controlling the low point in the arc of your swing
03:14something that's so important for good quality ball striking. Jen you've got a ball on the tee here yes
03:19what are we doing? We're getting used to with this one just the difference in the lie that we can
03:23get
03:23on the we practice most of our golf on a mat on driving range it's flat it's the same level
03:28as
03:28your feet you're getting a golf course and it's above your feet below your feet it's different slopes
03:32so the first thing we need to do is just make sure that we're adaptable and we can adjust so
03:36we've got
03:36this one teed up here um and I'm literally just going to clip it off the tee yeah it's plain
03:42as simple as
03:42that yeah so my ball position and everything's going to be the same but now you can see you know
03:46this is
03:47what you know good three three and a half inches above my feet so I just want to get used
03:51to being
03:52able to be a slightly more adaptable say if this was a ball above my feet situation where I've got
03:58my normal ball position but I'm now just adapting to the lie and just want to clip it away
04:07beautiful good strike okay so what's next? So what's next now is we now need to look at it from
04:12a point of view
04:13of improving the ball striking itself so the ball goes back on the same tee and now what you're going
04:21to do is about four inches behind it so you know it's not a million miles away from the length
04:25of
04:25your club head is I'm going to put another tee okay same height same height now the key with this
04:33is
04:33anybody who struggles sort of so fat shots thin shots top shots all those kind of things generally it
04:41happens because the weight of the body is too far back so we start to scoot we start to flip
04:46well
04:46first thing you're going to do then is you're going to hit that tee hit that tee so we've just
04:49got to
04:49miss it so the simple drill here is hit the ball don't hit the tee yeah so that's going to
04:55now
04:55encourage a little bit more of a downward angle and to have that I've got to make sure that I'm
04:59moving
04:59my body in the right direction okay simple task here then just don't hit the tee
05:05very good okay and there it is good contact right but there's a third part there's a third element to
05:16this drill so if I take a third tee and I now put it here so it's on the opposite
05:23side 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
05:39that 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
05:51hit the shot and
05:53try and clip this tee that's in front here yeah it's a really solid contact and it's a really
06:03simple drill that one to just help you establish that right angle of attack so the club bottoms out
06:08in exactly the right place because that is where really good quality contacts come from
06:17here's a great ball striking drill for those golfers that don't want to get caught thinking too
06:21technically about the golf swing it can really help Jed what is it so it's about trying to make
06:28a comfortable speed swing and stopping as fast as you can beyond impact okay what it does is it gets
06:33the body to organize itself a little bit more naturally we play our best golf when we're in
06:37subconscious when it doesn't you're not thinking about anything so that's what we want to try and
06:41encourage so from this drill here it's simply just taking a you know a lofted club at nine nine here
06:47we'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
07:00at this point here i'm not really doing anything other than stopping yet you can see how my weight's
07:06moving forward my pelvis is tucking underneath the torso so i'm extending extending to the legs to the
07:12pelvis to 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
07:23impact
07:23position is just by doing such a small and simple golf swing it trains everything to just happen in
07:29the order that it really wants to happen it's almost the brain which confuses it and makes it happen in
07:33different ways yeah so you can start off at slower speeds and then just build up your speed and you
07:38can
07:38go flat out speed if you wanted to it there so when you're accustomed to the drill you could be
07:43a
07:43little bit more and get some real crispness to what's happening there you can see where those divots
07:50are always i can see that left of where i'm where the golf ball would be yeah it's just it's
07:54developing
07:54that speed into it but just focusing on the stop as quickly as you can yeah so from a setup
08:00point of
08:00view you're only thinking about putting a little bit more pressure into your lead foot just almost like
08:05that there just pushing down into the ground a little bit more keeping that pressure there
08:10and then just making a nice controlled swing stopping as quickly as you can beyond impact
08:17yeah and you can see that divot it's perfect it's just after where the ball would have been
08:21just this shot of jed here just shows you so many good things about the golf swing if you can
08:27focus on finding that position the chances are the quality of your ball striking will greatly improve
08:37so this drill is all about swing direction something that's going to really help you
08:41with your iron ball striking jed what's the thinking here what's the drill all about so all great ball
08:47strikers have a fairly neutral swing direction so that's not to say that it is always say a bit to
08:54the right some are a little bit to the left but it's minute we're talking a couple degrees left of
08:58target
08:59a couple degrees right of target not excessive which you would see from people who would slice
09:05and hook it they would maybe be 10 degrees to the right 10 degrees to the left so getting your
09:09swing
09:09direction more neutral will help you control your centeredness of strike and also help you control
09:15how your body then wants to move towards the target so you can control the ground contacts and get
09:20those lovely crisp ball turf strikes yeah and it sounds complicated but it doesn't have to be if you
09:25have a 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
09:33um obviously i've got this little station set up here this is just as a quick visual really to what
09:40would represent a fairly neutral swing plane of being sort of up and down yeah but the swing direction
09:47is literally what the club is sort of doing as it comes here through the impact so if i was
09:52like sort of
09:53this there that would be a swing direction quite a lot to the right that would be quite a lot
09:58to the
09:58left so this is tailored relative to you as the individual if you were somebody who slices the golf
10:06ball pulls it or slices yeah across the ball yeah so you'd have a swing direction which would be if
10:12i
10:12put it into sort of a 2d visual on the floor would be a bit like that so right okay
10:16well what you need
10:17to do is practice the opposite so we would turn the sticks
10:24out to the right i mean that's probably somewhere in the regions of 40 degrees maybe to the right
10:31so right okay your visual then if you were somebody who's coming here your visual is to swing the club
10:36in the downswing between the sticks yeah and then suddenly your angle of attack improves the amount of
10:43the face you're getting on the ball improves the quality of the strike goes up it can it can do
10:47so
10:47many good things for you yeah yeah and then vice versa if you hook the golf ball then you would
10:52just
10:52turn them the opposite way and feel like you were coming across a little bit more now bear in mind
10:56these are feels what what you're feeling and what really happens are completely different you know
11:01a slicer would feel like they're swinging way off to the right and when you look at their swing
11:05direction it's probably still a little bit left yes it's just that you know if what feels hugely one way
11:11might move at eight degrees but if you're already 10 left then you're still a little bit left but the
11:16important point is it's more neutral so you're going to make your striking better you're going
11:21to make your start lines better you're going to make your overall ball striking better yes so this is
11:25one for those players who have big shapes in their game so either big draws or big fades if you
11:30want
11:30to just reign those in slightly you'll improve the quality of your ball striking and this is a great way
11:35to 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
11:50and it's a it's a great one for the range talk us through it Jed okay so on the driving
11:55range you could
11:56use the basket the balls come in 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
12:09is going to be lead side so that's going to mean well i can't go back because i'm up on
12:14an angle that's
12:15going to keep me there so i'm going to get used to feeling what it's like to have the pressure
12:19forward
12:19through impact and it's going to give you the ability then to have a nice downward angle attack and give
12:24you those lovely ball turf crisp strikes yeah and that feeling of what the correct contact should
12:28feel like so just go for it then talk talk us through so obviously i've just put my bag on
12:33the
12:33ground there and all this is going to do is this is going to help me elevate my trail foot
12:38so from
12:40here and bear in mind you only need to sort of hit lofted clubs out we're not talking about doing
12:44this
12:44with driver it's just getting used to doing it with like a wedge or a nine iron or something um
12:49so just
12:50taking you know if that was my normal set up there then what i'm going to do now is i'm
12:54just going to
12:54take my trail foot i'm just going to lift it and i'm just going to rest it on the back
12:57of my bag
12:57so now all my pressure is into my lead side so from here i'm going to keep the pressure into
13:04my lead
13:05leg i'm going to flex it a little bit more than normal just because it's taking all the weight pretty
13:09much you'll notice then on my right leg will sort of really straighten out a little bit as you see
13:14from
13:14this angle is very little flex left in there keeping the pressure then pushing down into the left leg i'm
13:19going to make little swings now so it's going to be a little half swing back and then just down
13:24so
13:24you can see the angle attack is going to come down it's going to help me find a low point
13:28more to the
13:28left so i just need to keep my arms nice and extended you know i'm going to swing to there
13:33i'm not making
13:33a full follow through i'm just making a nice back and through swing so if i was to click this
13:39one now
13:40i'm set i'm ready and i'm just going to make a nice smooth swing
13:47yeah and you've got that little ball to strike you will really really struggle to hit the ground
13:52before the ball if you try this drill and i say it's a great one for getting your body in
13:56the right
13:57position get the weight moving towards the target so the club hits the ball before it hits the ground
14:02give it a go there you have it that's jed's five best ball striking drills if you are having issues
14:07with
14:08the quality of your iron strikes then give some of those drills a go if you can find a feel
14:13that helps
14:13you hit the ball before the turf then you should start hitting your irons much better but that's
14:19it for now from the london club thanks very much for watching we'll see you next time
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