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In this video, Neil Tappin and Katie Dawkins discus how to take your game from the range to the golf course.
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00:01Now one of the biggest areas that golfers often struggle with is how do you take your golf game
00:07from the range with you out onto the golf course. We've all been there before where you've hit it
00:12well on the range preparing for a big round of golf and then you get onto the golf course and
00:17suddenly all those good shots suddenly elude you and you play really poorly and it's very
00:21demoralizing. So that's what this video is all about and we're going to offer some really simple
00:26and effective advice. Now the tips come from Katie Dawkins, she's one of the Golf Monthly
00:30Top 50 coaches and she'll offer you a framework for practice and a way in which you can put that
00:36practice into play when you're on the golf course. Now a lot of this is about information gathering
00:42and so that's why in this video we've partnered up with Garmin. They've got a whole host of different
00:47technologies you can use both when you're on the range and also when you're out on the golf course
00:50to help you gather all that information you need to make smarter choices while you're on the golf
00:55course. Right we've split this video up into three sections, off the tee, ball striking and pitching
01:02and we're going to start right here on the range.
01:14Okay so we are going to start with the game off the tee and I guess the biggest difference between
01:19the range and the golf course is consequence. So when you're hitting balls on the range you've got this big
01:23expanse to hit at. Yeah. There's no consequence. It doesn't matter if you don't get it right does it?
01:28So how do you make sure that your range session then is as valuable to you as possible when you're
01:34working through it? So you have to keep it more in line with how you would play on the course
01:37and
01:37the way that I do that is I go through my pre-shot routine every single time. So every shot
01:42I hit
01:42I'll walk behind the ball and I'll prepare myself and rehearse the swing. Right. And then I'll come in
01:48and hit the shot exactly how I do in the course. And that so when you're on the golf course
01:52that puts
01:52you in a more positive state of mind does it? Yeah because I trust it I trust my routine it's
01:57almost like having a safety blanket. That's interesting because I think a lot of people
02:00know they have to have a pre-shot routine and it's something they use on the golf course but how
02:04many
02:04of you watching this use it on the range as well and Katie's talking about doing it on every single
02:09shot requires real discipline. Okay Katie why don't you hit one for us? Okay. We have the Garmin Approach R10.
02:16A portable launch monitor on the ground so that will give me some feedback on the app about where
02:21it's going you've got nowhere to hide sorry about that. That's fine.
02:28Lovely shot slight fade straight down the middle and that has gone it's carried 195 it's gone 212.
02:36So a good shot a nice shot but the one of the first shots that we've actually hit this morning
02:41I think
02:41as you you know as you warm up you'll probably start to hit it a bit further but the question
02:46is
02:46how do you then prepare specifically for the game off the tee with the different clubs that
02:50you'd be looking to hit what would be the way you'd do it? So I'd be wanting to make sure
02:54I know my
02:54average carry with the driver then perhaps with a fairway wood yeah so maybe my five wood I would
03:00pick just in case there's holes where this is just going to go too far yeah but also a rescue
03:04club as
03:04well off the tee right I think it's important to have those three options in your bag for when you
03:09come
03:09across a hole that's got a lot of trouble halfway down it perhaps. Yeah now that's a good question then
03:14is
03:14you hit that one fairly well I reckon you could probably hit them a bit better but what are you
03:19looking to gain as the yardage that you have in mind is it your absolute best or is it somewhere
03:24in the middle? No and I think this is the thing that people come a cropper with is that out
03:28on the golf
03:29course they're clubbing themselves with the very best shot they've ever hit with that club and of
03:32course that gets them into trouble because eight times out of ten they'll come up a bit short.
03:36Right. So it's important to have the average yardages and it's important to perhaps write
03:40them down in a little notebook yeah have them to have that in your bag so you can go oh
03:44it's that
03:45far now if I hit it that far I won't go in the heather let's have a look and see
03:48what club does
03:49that for me. The other question I was going to ask you was about your dispersion so this one has
03:54gone
03:55a little bit left it's gone 14 yards left of the centre line we would all we all of us
04:00have a tendency to
04:02miss either right or left what would be yours mine would be I would miss to the right so I'm
04:07aware
04:07of what trouble is up on the right hand side on a hole and I will pick the safest route
04:12away from
04:13that so I'll often aim left up a hole to allow for that. Okay so there's some really good advice
04:19there about how to practice the question is how do you then put that into play on the golf course
04:23let's go and find out. Okay so you've done your homework on the range you know your carry distances
04:28for your driver and your fairway woods the other key driving clubs that you have in your bag plus
04:34you've done some work on your pre-shot routine and that this is where all of that should should
04:39come to fruition and help you hit a good shot but there's some more important thinking to do Katie
04:43isn't there tell us what do you need to do so I think the fact that we've been on the
04:47range and
04:47we've done a bit of homework our confidence should be much higher if you haven't prepared on the range so
04:54you haven't had a good practice you haven't seen yourself hit those good shots then chances are
04:59you can't visualize them so it's really important to have that in the bank before you then expect
05:04yourself to do well out here yes exactly and then once you are stood here a lot of it is
05:09about
05:09information gathering because you need to develop a picture for exactly where you need to hit the ball
05:13don't you absolutely and you need to know how far your clubs carry because we know that that bunker on
05:18the right is about 140 and the bunker on the left about 174 and I know that my five wood
05:24for example
05:25is going to carry both of those quite happily and I've suddenly devised myself a lovely safe plateau
05:31to land my ball on yes the heather's about 200 isn't it well the heather is actually 210 it's 210
05:37we know that because the yeah because the laser has told us that it's 210 but importantly you don't
05:43have to hit it 209 do you no you don't and I think it's important to hit a club that
05:47you like
05:47and this is the thing you look at your distances and go well my three wood goes this far so
05:52I must
05:53hit that well you don't have to you could be 10 15 yards further back than that and probably be
05:58more
05:58likely to hit a good shot because you like your five wood right more than your three wood you've had
06:03more success rate with it therefore you're more likely to commit to the swing and finish it and be
06:08way more confident with the way you hit the shot this is it and this is where katie your concept
06:11of
06:12having a personal par really comes into play isn't it it's something that we've talked about before but
06:16explain to us what is a personal par and how does it work in a scenario like this it's very
06:21easy for
06:21a golfer to stand on the tee look at the scorecard and go wow this is a par five i've
06:25got to get down
06:26the hole in five shots that's not the case you have a handicap for a reason that's the wonderful thing
06:31about golf is you're on a kind of fairly even keel with the people you're playing because of your
06:35handicap so if you were playing off handicap of 18 your personal par on this hole isn't five it's six
06:41because you get an extra shot in each hole so you would stand here thinking well actually
06:45i've got another shot to play with so you can then start to devise yourself the safest route up that
06:51hole yes taking into account the shots the shots you love to hit and the clubs that your favorites
06:56and i think you can sort of start to make a picture almost especially using the course planner on your
07:01watch yes you can almost plot yourself a nice little safe route so the bunker on the right is one
07:07four five to carry the bunker on the left is one seven four to carry the heather to reach it
07:13is two
07:13ten so this is a club that should deal with all of that really isn't it it should do and
07:17i'm looking
07:17in the distance at that white post okay so although that's in line with my lovely little safe zone
07:23it's way further than this is going to go yes but it's important to pick a target beyond your landing
07:28area why is that that's because you're visualizing then a good shot also by focusing on something in the
07:34distance it helps all the hazards and all the trouble you're trying to get over to sort of
07:39merge and blur away if you like okay katie so run through the routine that we've already talked about
07:43and uh and hit it for us so really important we're going to do one rehearsal make sure we
07:48make decent contact with the turf i always do it looking down the hole so nice back and through
07:54take a look at the turf point my club at my target in the distance the white post in this
07:59yep pick a mini target and just try and recreate what i did on the range
08:09oh oh straight is that on that white post it is it's very good and it's in a really it's
08:16in that
08:17safe spot it's in a perfect yeah you're then able to go and attack the green you don't have to
08:20play
08:21perfect golf to get the ball round in a lower score but what you do need to do is you
08:25really need to think
08:26smart and if you can employ what katie said there it should make a big difference
08:35okay so for the second part of our video we're going to focus on one of the areas that i
08:40think
08:40a lot of players really struggle with when it comes to taking their game from the range to the course
08:44and
08:44that's ball striking particularly with your eyes when the golf ball's on the ground okay i'm going to
08:49start by asking you for just a straight up tip give us a drill give us a tip that people
08:52can use while
08:53they're on the range to really help them with their ball striking so i think first of all starting
08:58with what people don't do a lot of the time when they're not striking it well right they're not
09:03getting the ground under the ball whether that's the grass the t-peg whatever the ball sat on they're
09:08not making contact with it because they're almost trying to lift the ball in the air right okay so
09:11that's the first reason that sometimes it doesn't work so that's what we want to focus on on the range
09:16by placing something down just in front of the ball whether it be a little t-peg a leaf a
09:20feather
09:21whatever you can find you've got something that you're just aware of that's after the ball what
09:26that's going to help you to do is going to help you to hit the ball first and be aware
09:29you've got
09:29to collect that little mini target just after the ball as well okay so it helps you stay lower for
09:34longer so seven iron shot we've got the r10 running again very nice okay so katie the carry distance for
09:45that was 140 total distance 148 uh five yards left to the center line looked perfect to me it felt
09:51good yeah a really good shot now obviously you want to spend some time on your ball striking to make
09:57sure that you're you feel comfortable running through your routine as we've already talked about
10:01but you also need to gather some information in this session so what information are you trying to
10:06gather about your irons you're trying to gather your average carry with them right so it's very similar
10:12way we did with oh absolutely 100 so that you know when you're out on the golf course that your
10:17seven iron will carry over the bunker just short of the green that that kind of information what
10:22why is not why is the total distance less important well because the conditions are going to vary so
10:28sometimes you're going to be landing the ball in the summer on quite hard ground sometimes you're going
10:32to be landing the ball in the winter on soft ground the ball's not going to get any roll at
10:36all
10:36so it's important to know you're going to carry any trouble and this is also really important to say
10:42this is about developing your confidence so that when you get to the golf course you know what it
10:46feels like to have the ball come in flush out the middle of the golf club you know time after
10:50time
10:50by using that drill and then gathering the data it can really help you okay so with your iron play
10:56this is all about good quality ball striking when you're on the golf course katie you've given us a
11:00really good drill to use on the range to make sure you're getting that ball first ground second contact
11:06that we all need but you're still on the golf course here you've got trouble all in front of you
11:10you still need to focus on that good quality contact how do you do it when you're on the
11:15course so on the range we put a little something rather a little mini target ahead of the ball
11:19just to encourage ourselves to stay lower for longer out on the course it's very easy to suddenly
11:25get result orientated you suddenly worry about the water the bunkers what happens if it goes wrong
11:32what happens with that then as you come up on the ball therefore you don't get the grass underneath it
11:38right you don't get so just having an awareness of what's ahead of the ball helps you just to keep
11:43the club a little bit lower therefore get little ball then the big ball see the last thing you all
11:47need to be doing during a medal at your golf clubs is go hang on everyone i'm just going to
11:51stick a
11:51little something or other just in front of the ball because you can't touch your line of play
11:55so you can just have a look we're on the golf course it's a natural surface it's grass there's some
12:00little bits and pieces on the ground we've actually got a little twig just in front of our ball
12:04so when i stand behind my ball and go through that really important pre-shot routine
12:08and i point the club at the target line draw a line down i'm going to pick something just ahead
12:12of the ball on that that's simple it's effective it's something we can all do the other part that
12:17we can all get do and get right is figuring out the yardages the work that we've done on the
12:21range
12:22to work out our carry yardages you need to now apply it so the shot that we've got here the
12:26second
12:26shot into 16 here at west hill the back of the green the laser is home is 164 flag is
12:32160 to cover the
12:33bunker on the right is 152 that's to carry that yeah so what club are you going to play what's
12:39the
12:39key yardage of all that that you're trying to take into account so i want to carry the bunker but
12:44at
12:44the same time it's a really good idea when you're going for your approach shots to actually focus on
12:49hitting the middle of the green and my watch says 153 to the center so i'm going to hit something
12:53i'm
12:53confident on average and it's really important that part on average goes 150 yards
12:59right katie so you're going to hit this for us now it is quite dewy this morning you just gave
13:03me a
13:03very good tip in this scenario what is it so when there is dew on the ground you can actually
13:09see
13:09where your club hits the world and that's important that gives you immediate feedback and for us
13:14immediate feedback if you've done a good swing is real real confidence booster so you would have
13:20picked your little mini target just ahead of the ball but then so we know where we're aiming because
13:24we've got that spot then you're going to set up level with the ball and you're going to do your
13:29practice swing back and through yeah and you can see where you can really see so i can see that
13:34my
13:34first point of contact would have been the ball after that i've made a nice little neat divot mark
13:40ahead of that so i know that i'm collecting that mini target that we were using on the range
13:45i'm ticking that box i've committed to the shot and i've hit what's under the ball yes and the dew
13:50really
13:51highlights go for it lovely great strike now where's that going middle of the green it's fine
14:04very good decent two part i'd be happy with that yes indeed and it's just a really good way to
14:09think
14:10it doesn't need to take you an awful lot of time but just having the awareness to think about some
14:13of
14:13these factors while you're on the golf course should really help you shoot lower scores
14:23okay so for the final part of our video we're looking at pitching now pitching Katie is one
14:27of those areas that coaches like you will tell amateurs like me you need to focus on this because
14:31it's the fastest way to save your shots out on the golf course but you've got to practice it right
14:36and so the first question is how do you practice your pitching well i think like you say it is
14:41this is
14:42like your score zone so if you can get your wedges actually hitting the greens you are going to save
14:47shots it's quite simple but a lot of people don't like doing the half shots three quarter shots so
14:52you need to know your wedge distances with a full swing first and foremost that's your first port of
14:57call right and we can do that on the range yes you can and it helps to have a laser
15:01to identify how
15:02far the flags are so i've already done it the first flag is 71 second flag is 83 and the
15:09third flag is 109
15:10so Katie why don't you hit a full shot with your which club is this this is my sand register
15:14it's
15:1554 degrees right fine and we've got the uh approach r10 on the floor as well so i'll be able
15:20to get
15:20some feedback okay right good shot Katie now that's carried 74 and again the carry yardages are what
15:28you're looking for you're looking at average carry yardages and i guess having a good understanding for
15:31how far a full you know wedge shot goes for each of your wedges maybe your nine iron etc is
15:37going to be
15:37really useful to you but if you really want to get good at pitching you need to add an extra
15:41dimension
15:42to everything what is that so the extra dimension that you need is to be able to control the length
15:47of your swing because it's all very well knowing how far you hit a full shot but we're not always
15:52going to have a full shot out there no and people try and manufacture that less length by slowing down
15:58and decelerating we all know what that yeah fat shots yeah lovely big old fat shots and you think
16:02that was a lovely drive what a waste yeah and so it's just a point of frustration yeah for everybody
16:07okay so you can practice this and so how do what's the way that you think about so one of
16:11the best
16:11visuals that i tend to use when i'm coaching is that your head is 12 o'clock and you're doing
16:16a length
16:16of swing that's almost nine bang through to three okay so it's like a half swing yeah and you would
16:22work
16:22on your averages like we talked about before so the average distance that say you'd hit between seven and
16:2810 balls doing that length swing with each of your clubs yes now you can get more in depth in
16:33this
16:33you can do sort of 10 o'clock swings but we're suggesting in this instance just to get a foothold
16:38in all of this that nine till three swing with each of your clubs through to i guess even up
16:43to seven
16:44iron yeah even up to a seven or a six sign if imagine you're playing link score links golf out
16:49by the
16:49seaside you need to bump and run that ball in you need to be able to control how far you
16:54carry it yeah
16:55and obviously the result they're on in yeah so it's important to go all the way through your clubs
17:00but initially just your sort of four wedges or so would be sufficient would be a good start so i'm
17:04now interested to find out how much a nine to three swing takes off your normal full pitching swing
17:10shot which was as we know carry distance 74 so yeah uh yeah hit full uh sorry hit a nine
17:17to three
17:18uh sand wedge shot for us lovely okay
17:26and now that's interesting katie because that's uh carried 60. yes there's a 14 yard uh carry distance
17:33gap between those two shots and i hit that pretty well you hit that okay probably one of my better
17:39wedge shots right so i probably wouldn't take that probably more than i'd normally hit my nine to three
17:44okay on average yeah so that's an important point it's not to take that's why it's so important to
17:49do the sort of seven to ten shots shots yes okay fine so once you've got that um that average
17:55for
17:55each of the shots then you can do that with each of the different clubs yeah and i guess a
17:59key point
17:59here is practice just the repetition of being comfortable hitting those half shots yeah and and
18:04when you're going through your routine on the course you're rehearsing you've got a definite place to
18:08go that nine o'clock is a really good kind of band of distance to swing that club back and
18:13through
18:14and obviously if you've written it down you look at you look at the yardage on the course and you
18:18go
18:18what's that oh that's my nine o'clock pitching wedge yeah my nine o'clock and the other great thing
18:24about this is that when you get to the golf course this process gives you options as you're about to
18:28find
18:28out okay so you've done all of that work on your pitching you should have some confidence in hitting
18:34the numbers that you're trying to hit but again you need to be smart while you're out on the golf
18:39course now katie the the flag i've lasered the flag it's 80 to the flag what is it to the
18:43back what is
18:44it to the middle so you've got 71 to the middle of the green and like we mentioned we've mentioned
18:49before the middle of the green is just safe place yes safe option so 71 to the middle uphill a
18:54little bit
18:55so we're going to take that into account but it's 83 to the back so hit one for us then
18:58katie so this is
18:59a this will be a full sand wedge shot for you but we've got two clubs because we're going to
19:03i'm going to ask you to
19:04play it in two different ways because this is the beauty of really getting to know your pitching
19:08distances you can play these shots in different ways yeah so i'm going to hit my full sand wedge
19:13first of all lovely that's good you know that's actually i think that's pin high what did you say
19:25yeah that's pretty good literally my full sandwich will go about 75 80 yards perfect so my watch you know
19:32said 72 and actually we went to the backyard just said it's perfect yeah so we're going to play the
19:37same shot again but with a nine iron using that nine to three action and hopefully the ball will go
19:43sort of a similar sort of distance yeah and the reason this is quite a good idea as well is
19:47there's
19:47no trouble in between us and the flag so you can bump and run it in if you like and
19:53a shorter swing
19:54is a lot safer yeah a lot of golfers would stand there with a full sand wedge that's a lot
19:59of golf swing if
20:00you catch it skinny yeah and you can hit it's going to go a long way pulls or pushes as
20:04with any other
20:04part of your game so maybe this is the most consistent way of doing it absolutely it's the
20:08safest way of doing it yeah and i'm from where i'm stood it's so interesting because it's a lot more
20:18of a driven ball flight it's a lot lower and it's half the swing it's run once it's gone onto
20:23the green
20:24it's run probably a yard or two further than the first one but not a huge amount no and and
20:28probably
20:29the most important thing is if i hadn't quite caught that say i had caught it a little bit skinny
20:34there's not enough swing there to send me into a lot of trouble i may be at the back of
20:38the green but
20:38i'm not going to be really in a pickle yeah so as i said before this might feel like a
20:43really kind of
20:44advanced technique but you can see from katie's the way that katie's played it it's actually really
20:48simple but it does require that time on the range to make sure that you know what you're doing because
20:54once you become comfortable with shots like this they can really really help you out on the course
20:58so there you have it that's our look at how you take your game from the range to the golf
21:03course
21:04yeah and i think it's it's not just about what you do on the golf course it's about building good
21:10habits when you're practicing so that you are in fact practicing the same game here as you play out
21:16there yeah it's a simple piece of advice but it requires real discipline and real thought to
21:21make sure that you get it right hopefully katie's tips today will make a big difference but that's
21:26it for now thanks very much for watching we'll see you next time
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