00:05One of the fastest ways to improve your game this year might well be to concentrate on the
00:10short game. Now we've teamed up with Ping and we're here at the London Club to offer you some
00:14really helpful pointers about how to improve starting, Liam, with bunker play. Now I guess
00:20the issue that a lot of people will have is that they either are in danger of thinning the ball
00:24into the face or fatting it and leaving it in the bunker so how do you get more consistent with
00:28the
00:28amount of sand you take? Yes so the most inconsistent thing that you see in the bunker really is
00:32obviously where the club is striking the ground so as you've just mentioned there some players
00:37trying to help the golf ball out of the bunker hitting the hitting the sand in the wrong place
00:41and then obviously that fearful thin that goes through the back of the green but we've got a
00:45simple drill for you here basically that just enables you to obviously make sure that when
00:50you're practicing back home and you're practicing in the bunker you are entering the sand in the
00:54right place every time so it's just a simple line here in the sand and there's a couple of basic
00:59things that we're going to do in your setup just to enable you to ensure that we're going to hit
01:03that
01:03ground in the right place. Okay so tell us about that setup then what do you need to do to
01:08make
01:09sure that you're in the right place before you start? So again just a little common thing that we start
01:12to
01:12see quite a bit of is that you know when a player's set up here obviously the first thing that
01:17we
01:18generally see is the golf ball gets a little bit too far back in their stance so this line that
01:22I've got here on
01:23the ground I'm just going to make sure that that's just inside my left heel in the setup and then
01:28obviously when I've got now into my address position I'm just going to place a little bit more of my
01:32weight onto my left side so I've got about 70 to 80 percent of my weight on this left side
01:37now
01:37and as I'm just having a few practice swings all I'm going to ensure is that I'm just going to
01:42strike
01:42that line in the same place every single time. I guess the temptation Liam for people when they're
01:49hitting a bunker shot but any sort of chip shot is to kind of lean back on it a bit
01:54and feel like
01:54you're helping the ball up in the air it can feel like the most natural thing to do but actually
01:59that
01:59can hurt you. Absolutely and that's where you've just got to trust the fact that you've got plenty
02:03of loft in your hands in the first place I mean we've got 56 degrees of loft here so there's
02:07no need
02:07for me to try and add any more loft at any given point but there's just a little bit of
02:11a trust thing
02:11in there to make sure that you you set up in the right place first of all but 80 percent
02:16of this really is
02:17your setup if we get that right the rest of it is a lot more straightforward. Okay Liam so talk
02:21us through the drill. Okay so basic drill obviously I've drawn the line in the sand here so all that
02:26we're going to do really when we set ourselves up in the practice now two or three practice swings
02:30before we go ahead and hit the ball and I'm just going to make sure that this golf ball is
02:34just
02:34positioned inside of my left foot here okay and now I'm going to place around 70 percent of my weight
02:39onto that front side as I mentioned and I'm just going to have a few practice swings making sure
02:44that I'm hitting the sand in the right place okay the big thing to watch out for when you're doing
02:50this is obviously making sure we're not seeing the club enter the sand too far behind that line
02:55because that will refer to what we spoke about so shall I give it a go give it a go
02:58yeah let's see
03:01okay so plenty of loft on the golf but in a dress there ball's just inside my left foot
03:05I've got a little bit of weight on that left side
03:10perfect and then off we go lovely and if you can do that then you should be able to kind
03:14of
03:14eradicate some of those really poor shots that might be costing you in the bunker
03:17okay so we're moving on to chipping now and Liam I guess for whatever level of golfer you are
03:24getting consistently the distance right is the key isn't it so how do you how do you go about
03:30training that how can you practice for that absolutely so I mean there's there's first of all
03:34a couple of things that you can do just generally basics in your setup that offer you a little bit
03:39more control kind of when you're hitting a chip shot so often we see a lot of amateurs hitting golf
03:44shots with their hands right at the top of the grip here now the clubs actually it's heaviest when
03:49you're holding all the way up here so to gain yourself a little bit more control and again help you
03:55gauge
03:55the distance a little bit better the first thing to do is just grip down the golf club a little
03:59bit so
03:59you can see my hands are almost covering the golf pride there on that grip so right now the second
04:05thing that I've got set out here for when you're practicing is there's just a towel on the green
04:09there so that's my ideal landing area for this shot so to refer that to your distance control all that
04:16we're going to do now is just have a few different practice swings and the only thing that I'm trying
04:20to do here is is just have a relevant practice swing of how hard I'm trying to hit that often
04:25we see a lot
04:26of golfers have very irrelevant practice swings where they might be swinging back too far or they
04:30not even have a practice swing at all yes so you're really trying to gain a feel for distance just
04:36by
04:36looking at the towel and then feeling the left side swing so just eyes on the towel a few different
04:41practice swings there just keeping my eyes on there and just trying to gauge if I'm taking that golf club
04:46far enough back in order to land it where I want and when you're out of golf course then are
04:50you trying
04:51how much attention are you paying to your landing spot when you're on the golf course is that
04:54just as important there 100% identifying that landing area first of all is a really important
05:00part and often some think a lot of golfers don't do so it's worth just taking a little look having
05:04a little walk around before you hit the chip shot and just trying to identify yourself an area where
05:09you'd like to land the golf ball in order for it to release back down to the pin okay let's
05:13give it a
05:14go okay so I'm going to make sure that as I mentioned my I'm just covering that the logo on
05:19the bottom of
05:19my grip there I'm going to have two or three practice swings just keeping my eye on that landing
05:24area just trying to replicate the swing that I need I'm going to get in there and give it a
05:29hit
05:34very good it's these sorts of drills that if you can use them it stops you getting too technical
05:39stops you thinking too much but should help improve your feel and that could make a big difference to
05:44your scores
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