- 1 day ago
Robert Rock meets up again with Golf Monthly's Joe Ferguson to go through a typical practice session on the driving range at Little Aston Golf Club to explain how he got his golf swing into such an enviable place.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:04right behind me over there is a man in possession of what many people think is
00:08the most aesthetically pleasing and technically good golf swing in the game
00:11and the last time we did a video with Rob you guys loved it the comments were
00:15popping off so I've come to Rob's home course so we're gonna do a little
00:18practice session let's get stuck in oh that was a good one wasn't it Rob good to see you mate
00:30morning mate we are here at your home course right Little Aston yeah Little Aston yeah
00:34so this is where you do most of your practice where I do my practice and my coaching now yeah
00:38it's a lovely spot so what we wanted to do we had a great video out in Abu Dhabi last
00:42time I saw it
00:42slightly different weather wasn't it but this is equally as beautiful here so what I want to do
00:46today is I want to go through what you would do in a typical practice session can you still look
00:51after your game right you still you still play some stuff and you're still working on you've
00:55just been telling me before and working on some other things in your game so you're still practicing
00:59so I want to see what a typical Robert Rock practice session would look like now and almost
01:04talk me through what you were doing when you were playing full-time on the European tour
01:07that would be great sound right yes good yeah yeah absolutely could be loads of bucket of balls but it
01:12could be a lot of the time it was a lot of filming a lot of thinking about what I
01:16was
01:16doing a lot of rewinding watching swings again trying to trying to always move forwards with the
01:23swing to to get it where I wanted wanted to and that just took a lot of lot stopping and
01:31starting
01:32and now now I know a bit more about my own swing and I understand it better now it's more
01:36putting
01:37it back into where I want it using the notes and knowledge that I've sort of gained on my own
01:44game
01:44it's what do I need to put in today to make it work if I'm playing a tournament this week
01:48and it
01:49doesn't take me as long thankfully so talking of clipping balls well let's go let's get going so
01:53when you just turn up here are you pre-stretched do you stretch here do you just not stretch do
01:59you
01:59someone who just gets into hitting shots and uses that as a stretch I didn't used to stretch before
02:03I would just build the swing up slowly with a six or seven clip some away when we're talking people
02:07want to see you get balls yeah so nowadays I'm putting the well and before I would be just my
02:14stretching would basically be rehearsing the swing in slow motion just feeling where I'm trying to get
02:21to in the whole the whole action this bit at the end hurts a bit more than it used to
02:28so that's what
02:29I'm wary of when I'm building it up I've got to loosen up so that that that happens okay and
02:34I have to do
02:35more shots in sort of a slow slow motion version like that to build up I've already hit like 20
02:44shots
02:46probably takes me more like 40 to get up to full speed I'm going to caddy for you as well
02:50Rob give
02:50me that club oh you're not happy with that no no filthy let's get let's get some proper shots thank
02:55you
03:03so that would be a drill that you do so obviously you set up a little station here for your
03:06swing
03:06plane and your alignment yeah it's a seven iron trying to keep myself as close to the edge of
03:11this stick as possible so that this one's relevant I'm trying to skim my way up that one
03:15and come down pretty close to it hopefully over the top of it and is this something you would do
03:20at the
03:20start of a session so you're kind of calibrating plane at this point and then you'd get on to some
03:24other stuff where I did I kind of when I was using irons I had this here all the time
03:28so it was it was
03:30a good reference when when I was playing tournaments my takeaway was pretty much everything to me and if
03:36that sort of flowed up that line I played really nice I remember from Abu Dhabi there's a couple of
03:41times when you were hitting shots where you'd get to that and you just wouldn't you just stop and go
03:45again
03:45because I with this as a reference I can sometimes feel that I'm going out away from it and trying
03:50to
03:50find it very rarely I go to inside and clatter it so when I snatch the club away a little
04:00bit quicker
04:00I can feel that it goes too far out and then I'm trying to pull it back and that's what
04:05messes me up
04:07so I want to feel a really smooth incline to that which I've done in various ways to be fair
04:13it's about
04:14finding what what do I need to do to get this club head to because the grip really isn't doing
04:19much
04:19well the butt end of the club I'm trying to get the club from pointing straight down at the ball
04:24to be pointing away from the target and you can control that with all sorts really so that varies
04:31the position I'm after will always be the same but how I actually get there is determined by what
04:37what do I feel I need to move more on a particular day I want to see it again then
04:41so try and do it as
04:43slow as I can caught that a bit fat and I don't really pay too much attention to
04:53how I'm hitting it you're just finding positions I'm just trying to get comfy with building the
04:57backswing up then when that flows a bit easier then I start trying to put the other bits into play
05:02so you're not sort of counting balls here you're not going I hit 10 20 using this then I move
05:07on to
05:07this this is a feel thing for you when you start to feel okay that's good then you might remove
05:11yeah
05:11move on when it feels good and looks good okay cool so it's got a it's got to feel good
05:15from here
05:16while I'm taking the club away it's got to feel like it's going back smoothly it's got to look good
05:20from there and from there so you'd be in a session now that you just turned up you'd be recording
05:25this
05:26you'd be constantly referring back to what you're seeing and cross-referencing but I mean you've got
05:30two cameras here I'd generally do it one I'd have one camera there and when it starts to feel nice
05:36from
05:36this view I check it if it feels nice from there then I go this side does it marry up
05:42with what I
05:42think loads of early days this side would look great that side look terrible got to start again
05:48this is the stuff that's fascinating because but keep clipping away but people when they watch your
05:51golf swing it's so fluid it's so natural it looks like you were just born swinging it like that
05:56what people don't yeah yeah yeah I saw it we picked that up on the camera so people don't understand
06:01what sound that was by the way that was pretty people don't understand the the level of work
06:06and maintenance that's going in to make something look as easy yeah there was a lot to it it is
06:11not
06:11my natural swing because going back to your early career maybe you're saying something like you you
06:15sort of figured out early on that you what your current technique wasn't going to cut it wasn't going
06:21to take you to where you wanted to be so that that was kind of when you started those seven
06:26eight
06:26all-day practice sessions right so to get you to where you want to be and you was that independent
06:31research yeah and it was just watching other players I thought I just can't do that watched
06:35some of the great players play different shots that I couldn't play this is good isn't it is
06:42and I thought well if I'm gonna be a proper pro and understand my my job and my craft proper
06:50I've got
06:50to be able to do 90 what was it specifically you can do you say shots you couldn't hit was
06:55it
06:55strikes was it it was right it was strike of irons it was consistency of a starting line it was
07:01a shape
07:02something that basically attacking flags yeah you've got to be able to home your iron shots into some
07:08degree in your medium to short irons they've got to start going close yeah not not long irons right
07:13I don't think I've played with anyone that's great with long irons
07:17um no one hits long irons tappings really very often um I could probably count some of my memorable
07:25long irons but I didn't do it very often I hit lots of six sevens eight nines close
07:29but not really threes and fours okay cool is it another one of these
07:34but it was yeah it was about me also being aware that my putting probably
07:39wasn't going to be my strongest part
07:43that never bothers me by the way I know you brought that up off camera so that's
07:46kind of because you're where you're setting this up I see a lot of people setting this kind of drill
07:50up and they're moving the ball kind of like three or four inches this way you've got loads of leeway
07:54so that's got to be tight to match that because it makes that irrelevant right yeah exactly otherwise
07:57you've got to keep moving that so I'd I'd keep hitting out of a hole okay because I knew this
08:01was set
08:02up right so on tour practice areas where I was just I didn't really didn't have enough room to move
08:09back a
08:09lot I couldn't move side to side because somebody front and back so I would just I'd end up just
08:14taking out of holes like that because I knew that it was all right then I was I wasn't really
08:19paying
08:19attention too much to the shot it didn't really matter another bit of tall sauce here while Rob's
08:25Clifton is away I see many men with a graphite design tour aid the alignment stick that's a big flex
08:29everyone just for you Joe big flex very flashy this guy
08:37flush I also knew that this bit being so close and I was trying to fade it I was going
08:43to skim it
08:44so I didn't mind that cool so let's assume now we're in the position we've checked the camera
08:50you're in a position where you're feeling things are good now you are you moving that out the way
08:54you're moving everything out the way would you get into a point now where you're just kind of like
08:58I'm going to hit some shots I'm going to shape some is that what you do next or where do
09:01you go
09:01very very rarely did that okay I trusted that what I'd set up and measured if you like or saw
09:10on the
09:11video that it would make me hit a little fade okay and it generally did if I got it all
09:16right
09:18like all the the viewpoints of it and I was taking a nice divot cutting across it tiny little bit
09:25they
09:25should fade while I'm doing this so I paid attention to some of the shots at the end and I
09:30may have
09:30taken that out when I wanted to be a little bit more um rhythmical and yes that's what I'm getting
09:37at so I guess this is would be classed as kind of like I never get the terminology right but
09:40like block
09:41practice technique work right this is this was swing building for me that I felt like I had to redo
09:47every Monday okay but then so say Monday halfway through that session you that's it that's what you do
09:53you're just rebuilding recalibrating this technique you're not then going I'm going to discard those
09:57I'm going to hit some shots I'm going to shape some I'm going to do this you're still just staying
10:00in
10:01yeah I'm staying in this this zone because I knew if I did this on a Monday and however long
10:05it's some
10:06some nice days it only took the morning's work and I went home thinking well that last tournament I
10:12played okay checked it on the Monday morning and it wasn't far off a few little tweaks in the
10:20setup and the takeaway maybe a little bit later on what and I'd work through it nicely and there
10:25wasn't a lot to do then I would give give myself a bit of a break um and not hit
10:30so many balls on
10:31the Monday knowing that I'm then going to go out on Tuesday or I'm flying Monday night or I'm flying
10:36Tuesday morning then I've got to see whether the swings made it on the flight over with me
10:42which is a funny yeah funny thing but often it didn't okay often it felt amazing at home on
10:48Monday and then just the environment of being at a tournament and trying to redo this setup at a
10:52tournament didn't feel the same let's clip a couple more so in terms of I don't see I mean obviously
10:58we've got a guide here for club path and swing point are you someone who obviously your fundamentals
11:03when we look at everything from a face-on point of view which we'll show you now your grip which
11:07only
11:07you use the gold pride align grips which I think help get you in a nice neutral position you all
11:13we've spoken about here is is what's in your brain of this position and this takeaway fundamentals of
11:19alignment of grip of posture is that something you're always looking at on camera as well or is
11:22that just now ingrained with you it's because of all because of this um I would have my caddies check
11:28my alignment once I got to on the course stuff yeah I mean instead I mean there's nothing to alignment
11:35here is it's already done for me so it was it was one variable that needed checking once I got
11:39out
11:40on the course where there's nothing no reference points to me a lot while I'm doing this in practice
11:46sessions at home I would be coming back here just trying to picture
11:53the alignment stick and this as a plane so that I could walk into it and kind of build it
11:59into my
12:00pre-shot routine which which sometimes I I managed to do on the course but it
12:08when the takeaway and the alignment felt nice the game was easy but as soon as I had a well
12:15hitting
12:15the ball was easy as soon as I had a doubt about my alignment that changes this
12:22so if I of course yeah if I'm thinking I'm there but I'm here or the other way around
12:27this has got to move and that put me off so I did easily put myself off interesting well I'm
12:34still
12:35trying to get to the bottom of this session so we've done our maintenance work we're happy with
12:39takeaway we're happy with what's going on here is that literally like you just said the Jack Nicklaus
12:43right cool I'm good I'm moving on are you not going you're not even clipping any drivers I'll hit
12:47some drivers yeah okay I'll change this I'll shift the angle of this can we do that hit some drivers
12:51yeah we might break stuff but we'll try it today that's fine yeah so I've got a club repair shop
12:56we can sort that out can we sort that right yeah we can sort that right out all right like
13:00my little
13:01last and head cover I do that's beautiful I'm actually going to pick one of these up I told you
13:04I got a little jones bag yesterday and that's going to look great on it a little vintage look
13:08I'll treat you to one of them mate oh what a man what a man you've got that on camera
13:11right
13:11I'll treat you to one of them um there's also we'll show a little b-roll of it now a
13:15lovely little sounder
13:16sunday bag clutch tortillas in the studio we've got a lot going on I bet you've got some lovely
13:23teas haven't you I've got a nice little tea bag as well haven't I look she's gorgeous yeah
13:26I'm stunned and when I got them Himaland clutch come on then let's have a little look at how you
13:33would recalibrate this so this I need to do this on video but I'm going to trust you to help
13:36me do
13:37this okay well that's not a wise move no probably not let's give it a whirl so again I might
13:42cut myself a
13:43little more slack with the driver because it's yeah it's not easy is it and this is the first one
13:48and this is the first one and in truth coming slightly underneath this with the driver is no
13:53big deal you big wuss he's got that basically horizontal I wouldn't do many of these right I
14:03want to make sure that the swing moves feel the same gives me a slightly different position at the top
14:10because it's the driver but I want the takeaway to feel nice and I would assume the work you're
14:15doing with seven iron is going to bleed into this it should be the same yeah I might only do
14:18a handful
14:19of these cool okay once everything's organized and pretty good there'd be previous days like in
14:26early 2000s I'd get the six iron looking good driver oh my god looks horrendous so now I'm starting
14:34again and it looks horrendous from the front more importantly I used to bend the left arm lots and
14:39used to hate it so you can't see that so clearly from down the line so that's why I'm constantly
14:44doing
14:44both views because the bending was the fault that I hated the the line wasn't always terrible I dropped it
14:54back and shallowed it too much I didn't like that it's been a big fad but I hated it nothing
14:59good in
15:00that I don't think um so and it's something I I do and I don't really want too much of
15:06it
15:07lay it down too flat it's no good um so I'd constantly be thinking about what's it going
15:13to look from there and what's it look like from there is this feeling better um so I had to
15:19try
15:19and marry two images up in in my head at the same time which is quite quite difficult just as
15:24you're
15:24clipping these away I want you to think about because what you said there about bent left arm a lot
15:27of
15:27people at home will have that problem I've got that problem so I'd love to know what you did to
15:30rectify that it's not such a big problem I made it a bigger problem than it was in your head
15:34yeah
15:34okay I hated it I could feel it because some people think an extra lever isn't yeah it is yeah
15:40I used
15:40to drive it brilliant with a bent left arm right okay right okay I felt like that was the reason
15:45why
15:45I couldn't strike my irons really really well got you probably wasn't okay so but I didn't like the look
15:52of it and the fact that the fact I couldn't fix it irritated me so it became a thing to
15:57do
16:00unnecessary thing to do maybe I should have spent more time on putting than the
16:03bent left arm aim pointing aim pointing exactly
16:09well I think we only need one of those Rob that was pretty good yes if I'd done that procession
16:13and
16:14it looked right I'd be like I'm done brilliant but those days were few and far between come on do
16:18it again
16:18show me it wasn't a fluke but I think there's some great lessons in it this is two in a
16:21row you
16:22must be able to you're Robert Rock you've got to quit Robert Rock you must be able to so there's
16:27some good lessons in here for me like but that could have been great right but if it weren't right
16:31at
16:31the top and it didn't look right from there I'm still going we're not stopping I'm not showing you
16:35that just assume it was good this could be wasting my time now couldn't I so that's a very good
16:41point but
16:41I guess the lesson here for a lot of people at home is that rather than that yeah that's really
16:46good by the
16:46way there's a bit I can't do now which I hate is the fact that my right leg skips forward
16:51because
16:51my back hurts Rob calm down it looks great there's like you gotta bank it in a bit better than
16:57that
16:57the lesson in here is that search for me there's so many people trying a different swing thought
17:02every week going for a lesson with their club bro then a lesson with someone else and getting all
17:05these different things there once you get like you've said you've found your key to what what your
17:10checkpoints and what make yours makes your swing work do it to death and never deviate away from it
17:16and in no time your swing will look like that and start to actually enjoy what you've got and I
17:22wish I'd I wish I'd enjoyed my swing a bit more and actually in the end I was really happy
17:27with what
17:27it turned out but I think it was good from probably 2008 onwards but I guess that self-critical part
17:33of
17:33you you wouldn't have got to where you've got no I wouldn't have got there yeah I wouldn't have got
17:36there that's true I could have had somebody blowing smoke telling me I should have employed you to do
17:43that and then that would have made me feel better
17:55not bad just slightly faster would be good wouldn't it yeah if we could speed it up a
18:00bit I mean let's just go steady you're getting you're getting any younger
18:02like speed we can do that for me can't you right give us one more rob and then we're gonna
18:06wrap
18:06this up that is absolutely fantastic I didn't didn't mention this I used to do this off astroturf
18:11with no tee okay just so that because you can't tee it up and on a mat with a at
18:18home I was in a
18:19it was on a artificial putting green where I didn't have a tee and I couldn't I couldn't be bothered
18:25to
18:25keep bending over teeing it all start doing driver off so I just kept doing it off the deck because
18:29I could
18:29hit it off the same place and I wasn't bothered where it went into a net and I guess the
18:32side
18:33benefit of that is the precision of strike you need to do that you're training something else
18:36right was good and it helped me keep myself from tilting too far back which I thought was one of
18:42the reasons why I was bending out too early yeah I could bottom out too early yeah so I would
18:46do them
18:46all like this but I'm not going to do one of these because I'll probably top it no you're going
18:50to do it
18:50now you're not you are but it's easier like that I would do that and I would just I mean
18:55I probably
18:55topped hundreds of them but I was just building a swing with a ball to hit at not trying to
19:03hit a
19:03shot because you can make a practice swing and make that look nice but as soon as there's something to
19:08hit it changes doesn't it so I didn't I didn't care really what driver's shot was hitting at the time
19:16I just wanted a ball to swing out at some sort of pace to make sure that things are lined
19:23up and
19:23actually struck it all right so I do I did hundreds thousands like that so we've got our alignment
19:29sticks down we've got your plane set up are you other than this are you a training aid sort of
19:33a guy do you use anything else to kind of get stuff we've got Liam from TRS here just chucking
19:39in
19:39training aids we've got TRS everything we're going to just I didn't use a load of training aids to be
19:45honest but I mean these were what you call these training aids or not they're just sticks aren't they
19:51right but part of the process for me later on was trying to maximize my practice time and make it
20:00more efficient because I couldn't hit the thousands of balls I wanted to hit so when we talked about
20:06my takeaway and the takeaway really was the key part for me but building it up to the top
20:11and the transition obviously transition's like major isn't it in the swing to make sure everything's
20:17working properly and I was one day I was trying to think a bit further ahead and I wanted to
20:23be sure my right arm was doing a certain job at the top so that I could think further into
20:28the
20:28downswing to see if my idea was going to work so I bought a load of seat belt off ebay
20:35and a couple of
20:36clips and made this right and the idea was I wanted my arm to be so just back to you
20:40literally just bought
20:41seat belt off ebay I bought seat belt off ebay and some plastic clips but pretty much close to what
20:45we've got
20:46other than the nice fancy bit that Liam did to it in the end so I one seat belt strapped
20:51around the
20:51chest because I tried putting a glove under my arm right didn't like how that felt and it didn't do
20:59the job that I wanted it to do tried the towel under the arm drill which is basically the same
21:03thing and
21:03that doesn't work either because it just keeps your arms fixed in one point which I don't think they
21:08should be doing so I made this bit to give you a little bit of room and a tiny gap
21:14yeah so it's not
21:14it's not wedged to me like it would have to be if I took this under there right so this
21:19has got like
21:20a what we got there like three or four millimeter gap and the ability for it to to move so
21:28it's on a
21:29level with my chest and I wanted my right arm to be able to do that to its basically maximum
21:36range of
21:36motion going backwards whilst it was flexing okay right so I wanted to be able to get my right arm
21:43folded and I wanted to get the the arm around my body as far as I could without it drifting
21:49up off
21:49my side sure because I wanted to get the order of the downswing better so I wanted my right arm
21:55to
21:55be the furthest point behind me at the top not pinned in front of me yeah so it became the
22:01last thing to
22:02come down in the order of the the downswing but not floating but not floating so if I let let
22:08it
22:10go way behind me with my right arm sticking miles out behind I knew that was no good because the
22:14elbow
22:15would get stuck coming down yeah so I wanted it to be in order but also relatively close and have
22:20some
22:22um relationship to a body turn and you hit shots of this right this isn't just uh yeah it was
22:26it was me
22:27trying to go go ahead like a month's worth of work so if I strap this close to me I
22:34can keep going in
22:35the backswing know that it's knowing that it's within certain boundaries but I can stretch my backswing
22:40out more because I was getting getting a bit older and less flexible so I didn't want to just let
22:47my
22:47right arm go loose and go anywhere but I wanted to stretch it further back so I wanted that to
22:52go deep
22:52as far as I could so that then when I unwound my body I could give myself more time for
22:57my shoulders
22:58to unwind because one of the faults that I had was that the shoulders didn't unwind quick enough
23:03and if the arms come down too soon you haven't got time for your shoulders to open up so that
23:10was
23:10the idea so this was to get the arm behind feeling a bit more behind my shoulder and then use
23:18my shoulder turn to then create space for my right arm to fit into on the way down
23:25and as a little bit of a byproduct it kept it quite nice and organized on the way through but
23:30that wasn't the original intention
23:37yeah that looked pretty good didn't it and it does feel pretty much like what my swing
23:44normally feels like whereas if you were using a towel or tying a rope around yourself or the
23:48blood not realistic yeah it's not realistic got to be tight around your chest so it doesn't
23:54give you too much room and it's got to sit level
24:05yeah and I did notice that I actually started to hit some really good shots with this on
24:10and I found a pretty good rhythm with it and it did do what I wanted it to do was
24:14the bottom line
24:15so we ended up making it do we need to next time you're playing a tournament do we need to
24:19take
24:20your sweater off and check you haven't got it on underneath there I'll keep I can keep this one
24:23underneath can I just hold the belly in a little bit
24:35for most people the follow-through part will be the more restrictive feeling the backswing should be
24:42okay and if it doesn't feel okay chances are you're doing something wrong right yeah yeah and then I
24:46mean it's only to give you a feeling of how close the arms can be to the body while still
24:52getting a full full swing in it shouldn't make the swing too short and it's a bit like Ben Hogan's
24:59Ben Hogan's drill of having his he had his he had his arms strapped together sometimes and he had his
25:05arms strapped to his his chest with a belt I believe to try and get that and that relationship which
25:11you
25:11see in his swing where his elbows the right elbow folds in nicely in for into his side coming down
25:18but
25:18then he refolds his left arm really well that's something I haven't been able to do but I wanted
25:23to be able to do so get that to fold quickly like that without the wrist having to do that
25:29the elbow folds better on the way through you get a better release up the plane I think but I
25:35haven't
25:35managed to quite train myself to do that cool
25:43Rob that is absolutely fascinating stuff there's some really good lessons there everyone can take
25:46something different from that really appreciate that people really want to see hope we've not
25:50spoken too much over that because I wanted to just get loads of Rob rock swings because that's what
25:53people want to see and if I have spoken too much of that apologize cue a really nice cinematic slow
25:59-mo
25:59montage of Rob
26:30so
26:30K
26:30and
26:50in
26:50out
26:51in
Comments