- 9 minutes 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.
01:17So here with a long iron that ball position is going to be a little bit further towards my lead
01:23side
01:24and from there it's about making swings and trying to get the club to hit the ball and the turf.
01:31So I
01:31want to be really brushing the line and left of it for me away. Yes and crucially you're not hitting
01:38the
01:38ground behind the line. That's the number one thing that you're trying to avoid and the great thing about
01:42this drill Jed is I take it you're taking practice swing after practice swing after practice swing and you
01:46get that instant feedback. Is your body working in the right way to deliver the club in the right angle
01:51of attack?
01:51Definitely. Now obviously that would change so if I took wedge in there ball position then it's going
01:57to go more central so that can be even more can be deeper this side here but the one thing
02:01I'm going
02:01to find is if I was to make a practice swing here and hit the wrong side of this line
02:05then I know that
02:07our body's back here right okay well I've hit the ground there well there's the line hit the ground
02:11back there so what I'm looking for is to keep the pressure moving forwards so that I can hit the
02:15ground
02:15more to the left you can see there I've hit the ground sort of way in front of the line
02:19there by just
02:20keeping the body moving in the right direction okay so then you you make a series of practice
02:23swings and then eventually you get to a point you put the ball on the line hit a shot and
02:28then you
02:28get the feedback what you're doing actually in the swing itself exactly go on then yeah okay
02:35so in the setup I've got a 50 degree wedge here so centered ball position and then just making sure
02:42that I get my body working in the right order perfect hopefully you could hear through the
02:50mics the quality of the strike there absolutely perfect and you can see this divot is starting
02:55I'd say not quite almost an inch after the line yeah after the line which is exactly what you're
03:01looking for so use this really simple drill it will really help your ball striking
03:10okay so this drill is all about controlling the low point in the arc of your swing something
03:14that's so important for good quality ball striking jen you've got a ball on the tee here yes what are
03:19we doing we're getting used to with this one just the difference in the lie that we could get on
03:24the
03:24we practice most of our golf on a mat on driving range it's flat it's the same level as your
03:28feet
03:28you're getting a golf course and it's above your feet below your feet it's different slopes so the first
03:33thing we need to do is just make sure that we're adaptable and we can adjust so we've got this
03:37one
03:37teed up here and I'm literally just going to clip it off the tee yeah it's plain as simple as
03:42that yeah
03:43so my ball position and everything's going to be the same but now you can see now this is what
03:47you
03:47know good three three and a half inches above my feet so I just want to get used to being
03:52able to
03:52be slightly more adaptable so if this was a ball above my feet situation where I've got my normal ball
03:58position but I'm now just adapting to the lie I 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
04:12of view of improving the ball striking itself so the ball goes back on the same tee and now what
04:20you're
04:21going to do is about four inches behind it and so you know it's not a million miles away from
04:25the length
04:25of your club head is I'm going to put another tee okay same height same height now the key with
04:33this
04:33is anybody who struggles sort of so fat shots thin shots top shots all those kind of things generally
04:40it happens because the pressure the weight of the body is too far back so we start to scoot we
04:45start to
04:46flip well first thing you're going to do then is you're going to hit that tee hit that tee so
04:50we just
04:50have a simple drill here is hit the ball don't hit the tee yeah so that's going to now encourage
04:55a
04:56little bit more of a downward angle and to have that I've got to make sure that I'm moving my
04:59body
05:00in the right direction okay simple task here then just don't hit the tee dead simple so just don't hit
05:05the tee
05:10very good okay and there it is good contact right but there's a third there's a third element to this
05:16drill so if I take a third tee and I now put it here so it's on the opposite side
05:23around 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 try and clip this tee that's in front here
06:00yeah it's a really solid contact and it's a really simple drill that one to just help you
06:05establish that right angle of attack so the club bottoms out in exactly the right place because that
06:10is 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 a
06:28comfortable speed swing and stopping as fast as you can beyond impact okay what it does is it gets the
06:33body to organize itself a little bit more naturally we play our best golf when we're in subconscious when
06:38it doesn't you're not thinking about anything so that's what we want to try and encourage so from
06:42this drill here it's simply just taking a you know a lofted club at nine nine here we're just going
06:48to
06:48make some swings which only go maybe halfway back but the key to it is feeling like the downswing the
06:55focus is just stop what you'll find is when you look at it from face on at this point here
07:01i'm not really
07:02doing anything other than stopping yet you can see how my weight's moving forward my pelvis is tucking
07:09underneath the torso so i'm extending extending to the legs to the pelvis to the spine and i've got a
07:15little rotation in there as well and you're nicely connected between your arms and your body as well
07:19what i'm looking at when i see this is just how good the impact position is just by doing such
07:25a small
07:25and simple golf swing everything to just happen in the order that it really wants to happen it's
07:31almost the brain which confuses it and makes it happen in different ways yeah so you can start off
07:36at slower speeds and then just build up your speed and you can go flat out speed if you wanted
07:40to there
07:41so when you're accustomed to the drill you could be a little bit more and get some real crispness to
07:48what's happening there you can see where those divots are always i can see that left of where i'm
07:52where the golf ball would be yeah it's just it's developing that speed into it but just focusing
07:56on the stop as quickly as you can yeah so from a setup point of view you're only thinking about
08:01putting a little bit more pressure into your lead foot just almost like that there just pushing down
08:07into the ground a little bit more keeping that pressure there and then just making a nice controlled
08:11switch stopping as quickly as you can beyond impact yeah and you can see that divot it's perfect it's
08:20just after where the ball would have been definitely you can just this shot of jed here just shows you
08:25so many good things about the golf swing if you can focus on finding that position the chances are
08:30the quality of your ball striking will greatly improve
08:37this drill is all about swing direction something that's going to really help you with your iron ball
08:42striking jed what's the thinking here what's the drill all about so all great ball strikers have a
08:48fairly neutral swing direction so that's not to say that it is always say a bit to the right some
08:55are
08:55a little bit to the left but it's mind you we're talking a couple degrees left of target couple right
08:59couple degrees right of target not excessive which you would see from people who would slice and hook it
09:05they would maybe be 10 degrees to the right 10 degrees to the left so getting your swing direction
09:09more neutral will help you control your centeredness of strike and also help you control how your body then
09:16wants to move towards the target so you can control the ground contacts and get those lovely crisp ball
09:21turf strikes yeah and it sounds complicated but it doesn't have to be if you have a really good drill
09:26that can help you sort of visualize what you're trying to achieve and that's what we're doing here so
09:30talk us through it okay so we're looking from sort of both perspectives um obviously i've got this
09:35little station set up here this is just as a quick visual really to what would represent a fairly
09:42neutral swing plane of being sort of up and down yeah but the swing direction is literally what the
09:48club is sort of doing as it comes here through the impact so if i was like sort of this
09:53there that would
09:54be a swing direction quite a lot to the right that would be quite a lot to the left so
09:59this is tailored
10:00relative to you as the individual if you were somebody who slices the golf ball pulls it or slices
10:07yeah so you're coming across the ball yeah so you'd have a swing direction which would be if i put
10:12it
10:12into sort of a 2d visual on the floor would be a bit like that so right okay well what
10:17you need to do
10:17is 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 so
10:31right
10:32okay your visual then if you were somebody who's coming here your visual is to swing the club in the
10:36downswing between the sticks yeah and then suddenly your angle of attack improves the amount of the
10:43face you're getting on the ball improves the quality of the strike goes up it can it can do so
10:47many good
10:48things for you can't it yeah and then vice versa if you hook the golf ball then you would just
10:52turn
10:52them the opposite way and feel like you were coming across a little bit more now bear in mind these
10:56are
10:57feels what what you're feeling and what really happens are completely different you know a slicer would
11:02feel like they're swinging way off to the right and when you look at their swing direction it's probably still
11:06a
11:06little bit left yes it's just that you know if what feels hugely one way might move at eight degrees
11:12but if you were already 10 left then you're still a little bit left but the important point is it's
11:17more neutral so you're going to make your striking better you're going to make your start lines better
11:22you're going to make your overall ball striking better yes so this is one for those players who have
11:26big shapes in their game so either big draws or big fades if you want to just
11:31rein those in slightly you'll improve the quality of your ball striking and this is a great way to do
11:35it
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
12:19three 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 um and all this is going to do is this is just going to help me elevate my
12:38trail foot
12:39so from here and bear in mind you only need to sort of hit lofted clubs out we're not talking
12:44about
12:44doing this with driver it's just getting used to doing it with like a wedge or a nine iron or
12:48something um so just taking you know if that was my normal setup there then what i'm going to do
12:53now
12:53is i'm just going to take my trail foot i'm just going to lift it and i'm just going to
12:56rest it on
12:56the back of my bag so now all my pressure is into my lead side so from here i'm going
13:02to keep the
13:03pressure into my lead leg i'm going to flex it a little bit more than normal just because it's taking
13:08all the weight pretty much you'll notice then on my right leg will sort of really straighten out a little
13:13bit as you see from this angle there's very little flex left in there keeping the pressure
13:17then pushing down into the left leg i'm just going to make little swings now it's going to be a
13:21little half swing back and then just down so you see the angle attack is going to come down it's
13:26going to help me find a low point more to the left so i just need to keep my arms
13:31nice and extended
13:31you know i'm going to swing to there i'm not making a full follow through i'm just making a nice
13:36back and through swing so if i was to click this one now i'm set i'm ready and i'm just
13:43going to
13:43make a nice smooth swing yeah and you've got that little ball turf strike you will really really
13:51struggle to hit the ground before the ball if you try this drill and i say it's a great one
13:55for
13:56getting your body in the right position get the weight moving towards the target so the club hits the
14:00ball before it hits the ground give it a go so there you have it that's jed's five best ball
14:05striking
14:06drills if you are having issues with the quality of your iron strikes then give some of those
14:10drills a go if you can find a feel that helps you hit the ball before the turf then you
14:16should start
14:16hitting your irons much better but that's it for now from the london club thanks very much for
14:21watching we'll see you next time
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