Neil Tappin and PGA Pro Alex Elliott talk through the biggest mistakes golfers make when practising their games.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Hello everyone, Neil Tappan here from Golf Monthly and welcome to West Hill and this
00:07video in which we're looking at the 7 biggest practice mistakes. We're going to take a look
00:11at everything from building fundamentals, how you practice under pressure, what you
00:16do with the final ball of a session, look at those mistakes that people regularly make
00:21and how to avoid them. In this video we are joined by Alex Elliott, he's a PGA professional,
00:26he's going to provide all the advice you need to make sure that your valuable time spent
00:30on the range is spent in the best way possible. Guys, if you're new to the Golf Monthly channel
00:34please do hit the subscribe button to make sure that you don't miss any of our videos,
00:38hit the like button if you like what you're watching, but let's head over, meet Alex and
00:42find out what the 7 biggest practice mistakes are.
00:47Okay, so the first one on our list relates to the way in which you kind of assess how
01:00you're practicing. In particular, Alex, it's about where to video your swing from. It's
01:05one of the points that you came up with, where should you be videoing from and where shouldn't
01:09you be videoing from? For me, for example, if you get an online lesson it's really important
01:14that you get the camera angles from the right place. For one, coach is probably going to
01:18want it from down the line and from face on. And even if this is you just videoing your
01:22swing to do some self-analysis, it's really important because getting it from a different
01:26perspective will make your swing look slightly different.
01:29Okay. So my go-to angles are at 90 degrees, face on.
01:33Okay. And what do you see from that angle? What are the things that people should be looking
01:36at from that angle? I guess from that angle the kind of general things would be swaying,
01:39which a lot of people would be looking at in their swings. So swaying off, sliding through,
01:44width of the backswing, club face through impact, hands ahead of the ball.
01:48But if you're slightly off the angle, it might look as if your ball position is too far back,
01:52like you're way ahead of the ball through impact when actually you're not whatever it might be.
01:56So actually you need to keep an eye on those things. Definitely. And then you could actually
01:59start critiquing things in your own game that don't need critiquing. And then you can go
02:03off the boil and actually you can think, well, why is it going off the boil? And you could actually
02:07think because you've got the camera in the wrong angle, this is one of the reasons why
02:11you've gone off the boil a little bit. Which you don't need any more help in playing
02:15bad golf. I certainly don't. Definitely. And then what about down the line?
02:18Down the line, for me, this is where everybody wants to get the videos from.
02:22Yes. We all look at it from the classic over-the-top move. Am I into out? Am I shallow in the club?
02:26For me, really nice and simple. You can get a tripod, very inexpensive, get off most online retail
02:31stores and a holder for your iPad, a holder for your camera phone. Why? Okay. So here's sometimes,
02:38I have been known to do this in the past, going to the driving range, putting my phone down on the
02:44floor, sort of propped up against the wall, filming myself from ground level, but that's not good.
02:50No, but just again, from the same point of view, from looking at it from face on,
02:53it's going to look like a slightly different move. If you took it down at kind of ground level,
02:58I kind of guess you're looking at more of what the club's doing at impact. Right.
03:02Because you're going to see a lot more of what's happening at ground level. Whereas you're not
03:05going to see necessarily as well what's happening at the top of the swing. Exactly. And from that
03:08perspective, being down there, it could look like the club's coming slightly over the top. If you had
03:12it a little bit to the right, a little bit to the left, it's going to look like it, two different
03:16swings, even though it could be the same swing. So where exactly should it be then, Alex? Really nice and
03:21simple. A lot of time you're in a bay, you've kind of got right angles if you're on a driving range.
03:25I like to have it at hand level. So hand level left to right and hand level up and down, because
03:31that's going to give you a good perspective of what the overall swing is doing. Okay, fine. And if
03:36you get a tripod, one, it's steady, two, you can get the same height every single time. And again,
03:40going back to constants, repetitiveness, this is all what we're searching for in our golf swing.
03:45Yeah. So why not do it when we're actually analysing our swing as well? Okay, fine.
03:48Okay, I'll... Right, I've got you on camera here. Yeah. No pressure. Yeah. I've got to remember where I'm aiming.
04:06Okay, number six on our list relates to not warming up properly. Alex, I know this, for everyone watching
04:12this, it's not the most exciting topic, is it, warming up? No, definitely not. But it is important,
04:15isn't it? And we're not going to talk about exactly how to warm up, because we've produced video content
04:19on that in the past, you'll be able to find that on the YouTube channel. But Alex, talk about what the
04:24mistakes are that people make and why you really need to avoid them. I think we're all so self-critical
04:30about what our ball is doing. So if we're working on a certain thing and we're, say for example,
04:34we're trying to draw it with our coach, which is a common thing everybody tries to work on,
04:37we got on the range and we expect the first ball to be a draw. And we almost become so self-critical
04:42and so kind of predetermined about what the ball flight's doing at the start, that can certainly
04:46ruin our range session. Okay, yeah. So even going out there and saying, right, the first 10 balls
04:51and putting 10 balls to the side and saying, right, this week, on this practice session,
04:56I'm going to use my odds, I'm just going to hit a few away, not worry about ball flight,
04:59and almost kind of detach myself from ball flight. And then say, after those 10 balls,
05:04that's when I start looking at my swing. And are you starting off slowly
05:07and building up pace? Or you've already done your stretching before that,
05:10so you should be starting at full pace. Exactly. I mean, I would always start
05:13with pitching wedge or kind of one of my wedges, build up through to seven iron. So for example,
05:17today, I'd start with my pitching wedge, then probably go eight iron, six iron, four iron,
05:22and maybe then one driver, and then back down to kind of hitting the lower
05:25irons just while I warm up. But ultimately, if we can just get tuned in to just getting a bit of
05:30contact on the ball, and the ball going down the range, not even specifically towards the target
05:35yet, we don't attach ourselves to bad images, bad history. And then when we get into the session,
05:40we can set the tone of the session when we're actually warmed up and working on our specific
05:44things. Yeah, so you can end up starting off on a fairly negative point, which can then affect the
05:49whole thing. Right, Alex, hit one for us so everyone can see how they hit. Not hit many, so this is a good...
05:55This is actually a true reflection.
06:01We're not worried about where it went. It may have gone straight towards the target,
06:04but Alex, we're not worried about where it went. So there you have it. If you are heading to the
06:07range anytime soon, make sure that you do a little bit of warming up before you start working on your
06:11swing first, because if you don't, you could ingrain a few faults and a sort of negative attitude
06:17towards what's going on that could affect you in the long run.
06:20Okay, so number five on our list is something that we all do from time to time. When we go to the
06:28range, you hit one shot, you look at it, you walk off the mat, you come back on, you hit another one,
06:33and you've not really thought too hard about your alignment. Alex, why is that such a big problem?
06:39For me, there's really two main reasons. Firstly, just a good habit, getting square alignment. You get
06:44on the golf course and you've got your alignment on the range good. Hopefully, then you transition that
06:49to the course. So for example, if I was aiming straight down at this yellow flag here, if I
06:53didn't have a reference to where I was aiming and I built a habit of aiming a little bit to the right
06:57every time. Which we do. I mean, people do. I mean, even the pros do it. Yeah, exactly. And then you
07:02take that to the course. Well, then you could start missing it to the right or vice versa. You could
07:06actually make compensations in your swing of working a little bit left. Yes. So you could, you could adapt
07:12to where you're aiming and you could swing it to adapt to where you're aiming. So I really think square
07:16alignment is number one important for just general alignment to target. But my second biggest point
07:22is, it's reference to ball flight. Okay. If you're, if you've not kind of got a reference to where
07:27you're aiming or alignment sticks down on the ground, and we'll show you that in a second,
07:31you could start predicting a ball flight and actually see a ball flight that travels right to left.
07:35Well, that's a ball flight that could start left of target and move further left. It's a pull hook.
07:39Exactly. Like if we look at the definition of a draw, it's a ball that starts the right of target
07:43and comes onto target. Yes. So if we know what target we're aiming at, we know what our actual
07:48ball flight is. Yeah. So we got on the course, we know what we've got coming out of our locker this
07:52week. Yeah. Okay. Well then that begs the, how do you do it? Obviously a lot of you out there,
07:57I'm sure we'll have alignment sticks. If you don't, don't worry, use your golf clubs. They do exactly
08:01the same job. So how would you set up? Really nice and simple. I kind of like call it the train tracks.
08:06I can use two, three alignment sticks. Firstly, I would always set my ball to target line out,
08:10and I always like to put this in front. So if we go straight down towards this yellow flag here,
08:17make sure the ball's on that. Secondly, then we're going to put our feet line and for an ideal
08:22scenario, this is someone who's just aligning to a target. If you were drawing it, you'd move your
08:26feet line slightly to the right, slightly to the left, but just to have a baseline to what target
08:30you're going at, I like them to have my feet running parallel to this. So I'd have two parallel lines,
08:36one for my ball to target line, which I like to have in front, because I really think that gives you a
08:40good visual and something to take to the course. It's almost like a shot tracer pointing where you
08:44want it to go and then get into a good habit of having these feet running parallel.
08:48Okay. And then the last one as a midpoint reference to check that your shoulders are aligned.
08:53Yeah, exactly. Shoulders aligned. Where are my hands? Have I got a reference? My hands look too far ahead,
08:58too far back. And ultimately, I think golf's easier if you think of it in straight lines.
09:02Yeah. If we write, okay, this is my target. I'm trying to aim towards that,
09:06rather than the guesswork of going, where am I? Yes. So there you have it. If you're going to the
09:12range, you're probably doing so because you want to get better at golf. And if you want to get better,
09:17you have to lay these foundations. They will make a big difference to the quality of your alignment
09:22and your swing as well. Oh, slightly out of the hill, but it'll do. Alex, this next one is one
09:38I'm definitely guilty of. My favorite club in the bag is definitely my driver. And when I go to the
09:41range, I probably hit more shots with this club than I do any other club, partly because I'm trying
09:45to enjoy my range time, but maybe that's not the best way to improve. No, I think a lot of people,
09:51whether that'd be driver, favorite club is seven iron, notoriously for some people.
09:55And you get into a rhythm of just searching for your favorite club and practicing with your
09:59favorite club. So we get to the course. So for example, you like driver, you get to say
10:03a six iron that you told me you don't like as much. You get in a situation where, well,
10:08I don't know about this one because I don't actually hit any shots with it.
10:11Practice with it. Yeah. And I think the best and simplest way to do this with each session,
10:15right. Okay. I'm going to hit my odds this session, so my odd irons, and then I'm going to go and
10:19hit my evens. And then ultimately we're spreading our wear one across our club,
10:24so our equipment lasts a bit longer. Yeah, so you don't have that spot in your
10:26seven iron that gets absolutely battered where the rest of the golf clubs are okay.
10:29I'm guilty of doing the seven iron too much. So I just think ultimately, the more you can
10:35practice like you do on the course, you're going to be in a better situation. Yes.
10:38And we know we don't follow a seven iron with a seven iron with a seven iron very often.
10:42We might be a seven iron, it might then be a five iron, it might be a four iron.
10:45Right. So you're mixing up the length of the shaft, you're changing ball positions and
10:49like those subtle changes that you're having to make out on the golf course. Definitely.
10:52So question then, Alex, a lot of people watching this, they will have problems
10:56specifically with a certain club. And I suspect a lot of people will find that it will be with
11:01their three wood or maybe like their three iron or four iron is a club that they, whenever they
11:06have to pull it out, they do so with a bit of dread. What's the tactic to improve those areas?
11:11For one, pull it out on the range. I really think if you were to pull that club out,
11:15I wouldn't leave it to the end of the session. I would use it in the kind of middle of your
11:19practice session. So once you warmed up, once you've hit a few shots, you've got into a bit
11:22of rhythm and say, right, for these next 10 shots, I'm going to hit my four iron. For example,
11:26a lot of people don't like long irons. They try and get it into the air and find a way of hitting it
11:32because on the golf course, there's no pictures. All we need to have is an ability to, okay,
11:36with the long irons, especially for your club golfer, we're not expected to get it that close.
11:41It's sort of that kind of medium gap where, okay, we've got to get it near the green and then give
11:45us a chance of getting up and down. If we hit the green, fantastic. Because it's a big thing. I think
11:49if you get into the range and you get your seven iron, you're always hitting it off for you,
11:52Neil, who likes the driver and you're seeing the driver go down the range. Mentally, you're like,
11:57oh yeah, I've seen this one go. You get then your six iron out. You've not seen that go as much.
12:01Yeah. Straight away, mentally, you're on the back foot. Yes. And you're set up. Naturally,
12:06your address position, you're kind of ready to hit drive and then you hit a stand over a six iron,
12:10you just feel it all feels a bit alien, a bit different. Exactly. Right.
12:12So there you have it. Really simple stuff. If you are heading to the range,
12:16practice with a vast majority of clubs in the bag. Don't just stick to your favourite one.
12:24Okay. So the next one relates to pressure. A lot of people out there, Alex, will know that they
12:29probably should incorporate a bit of pressure into their practice. The question I've got for you is,
12:33can you really replicate the pressure that you feel on the golf course and can it help?
12:39I guess you can never really fully replicate it, but you can definitely go a long way to making a
12:44scenario which replicates it as close as you can on the range. Okay.
12:47So the best way I do it is if you get your iPhone or your smartphone out and you've got a note speed on
12:52your phone and say we're on drive at the end of our session, we're going to have 10 golf balls,
12:57we're going to set a fairway and we're going to have 10 shots written down on our phone. And I
13:02want to have a tick if we hit the fairway. Okay. Left, right. And almost set a benchmark, okay,
13:07where I am this session. Okay. Now I've got to beat that every single time. And don't cheat.
13:11Yeah. The temptation to cheat would be there, but try not to. So Alex, in this situation,
13:15where are the two, what's the fairway? I'm going to pick, you can see the kind of orangey
13:20tree on the right. I'm going to use the left edge of that one. Yeah. And then the same on the left.
13:24We've got kind of two trees here. It's quite a tight fairway.
13:26Practice hard. Well, I'd be giving myself much more leeway for room than that. Go on then, Alex,
13:32hit one for us and then tell us what you'd then be writing down. Yeah. Another point though,
13:35if you set a smaller fairway, then we get on the golf course, it's then going to feel a little bit
13:40easier as well. Well, that's true, but my worry would be that I would have no confidence when I got to
13:43the golf course, so I'd feel like I'd missed all the fairways before going out to play. Positivity here,
13:47that's what we want. Yeah, that's what I'm lacking. So I'll go through my full
13:50routine as well with each shot. All right, shot number one.
14:07Oh, it's depressingly straight down the middle there, Alex. What are you writing down there
14:10in your notepad? You just put a big tick next to it. Big tick. And we've got the emojis on our phone,
14:14and I think it's good. You put the big green tick, put whatever you've got on your phone,
14:18because going forward mentally, if you can start seeing repetitiveness, okay, well,
14:22I've hit that fairway, I've hit that fairway, you'll not only build confidence, but you'll
14:25probably also develop a stock shot as well. Yes. And having a stock shot is so powerful.
14:29You know, a move that you can make that you know you can get the ball. Now, question for you then,
14:33Alex. I know this is something that a lot of mental game coaches sort of talk about. Are you,
14:38when you're out on the golf course and you're under pressure, are you kind of,
14:42is there any part of you that's sort of picturing this sort of scenario on the range?
14:45Definitely. Definitely. I think whatever you can do, if, for example, you're coming down the last
14:50and you're on to beat your handicap by two shots, we all get a little bit nervous. We know we're
14:55going to lower our handicap now. You can go back to scenarios and actually, no, I had a tight affair
14:59on that range. I hit it. So you've got that belief that you can go forward and carry that to the course.
15:05So there you have it. I mean, golf without question is one of the most mentally demanding sports you can play.
15:10You can prepare for it on the range if you put a little bit of this into play.
15:17Okay, Alex, next one. Machine gun practice. Something that I've definitely been guilty of
15:23in my time. What's the fault? What do you see people doing?
15:27If you were to walk down the range, like a local driving range, you'd see someone hit it,
15:31pull another ball, hit it, pull another ball. And especially if they're struggling with their game
15:35and on a club that they don't like, pull, hit, pull, hit, hit. Where's that gone? Disgusted.
15:41Pull another one in, have another go. Exactly. And you don't really take into account what you're
15:45doing in your swing. You're searching for a different feeling every single time. And I think
15:50it then almost becomes a little bit of guesswork to actually, how do I get the ball for me to be the
15:54best possible way? Yes. So if we're someone who takes lessons, or even if we're not someone who takes
15:59lessons, just taking a little bit of time in between each shot, one, it replicates what happens on the
16:04course. We've sometimes got five, 10 minute break on a par five, waiting on the tee. We haven't got
16:09that ability to go, oh, I've got another one to go here. Oh, okay. That wasn't good. Right. Okay.
16:13Reload. I got a second go here. We know we only have one go on the course. Yes, of course. Yeah.
16:18So I kind of come up with a thing, and this is something that I do a lot of people that come for
16:21a lesson is a five ball set. I call it. Okay. Three balls, which could be something what you've decided
16:27with your coach you want to work on. So say for example, you were working on a little bit of club face control
16:32in a certain drill. You'd spend these three golf balls working on that area of the game. Okay.
16:37And then not really worrying about ball flight too much, still having a target to go to.
16:41And then the final two, this is where ultimately, I'm a big believer in these two. We're not tuned
16:47in enough when we practice, especially if we're someone who pulls a ball, hits, pulls a ball, hits,
16:52into actually performance on the course. So these two would be change of club, change of target,
16:57and trying to replicate going through your full routine of what happens on the course on the range.
17:02And are you trying to then, with those two balls, trying to lose all kind of technical thoughts of
17:07what you've been working on? Exactly.
17:08Or are you still thinking about that stuff? I guess that's a person to person basis. Personally,
17:14I try to get people to have one, possibly two swing thoughts, absolute max. Definitely going more
17:19towards losing the swing thoughts than to having them and almost trying to go, right, okay, this is the swing
17:24thought I had. I'm now going to try and hit a draw shot. I'm now going to try and hit a fade shot,
17:28being definitely more tuned into the ball flight. So in sense of a shot, I'm going to try and hit
17:32instead of a specific swing thought, which would be the other three. And I always say to everybody
17:37as well, machine gun practice, you could get a hundred balls and do them in 20 minutes.
17:41Yes. I say to all the people that I kind of help out, I say, well, go and get 50 and spend the
17:47same time you're hitting 50 as you were a hundred or even longer just by setting them out in five ball sets.
17:52Yes. You take your time, you know what you're working on and you're actually getting some
17:56real time feedback that's going to be help you out on the course. And you can pay attention to
18:00things like your alignment and your posture and all of those good things that make a big
18:04difference to your game. So if you are heading to the range, avoid the temptation of pulling a ball,
18:08hitting it, pulling another one, hitting it. It can actually do more harm than good.
18:22Well, that's my last ball of the session, Alex, and I've hit a bit of a slice there.
18:30What's the mistake? In what you sent to me, you said people have a last
18:35ball syndrome when they practice. What is it? And what's the mistake?
18:39We've only got one ball now, one chance to hit a good shot. And say, for example,
18:42we had 75 balls in our practice session. We're now on the 75th. I really believe that people determine
18:47their practice session on what that golf ball does. So if we had 74 good shots and we hit one bad one
18:53to finish, they remember that one. Well, that's true. But we're often told when it comes to practice that
19:00your last ball needs to be you're replicating the first tee shot. So if you're warming up to go and
19:04play, often the tour players will say the last shot I hit will be the first shot I hit on the golf course.
19:08Is that not a good theory to have? Does that put too much pressure on that final ball?
19:13I guess if you perform well and it goes on the range, it's a good thing to do. But I don't want
19:18you to feel that that's going to determine how good your practice was. I think if we look at it
19:22realistically, a lot of people have probably one practice session a week and then go and play at
19:26the weekend. And they always lose thought of the 74 good shots or the 50 good shots and go,
19:32oh, my last shot on Wednesday was, I think, slice off to the right. And all they're picturing now
19:37on the first tee is the ball doing this. So again, this is kind of a double-edged sword. If it goes
19:42well, it's fantastic. But what I would say is don't put yourself in a situation where it's the be all and
19:48end all. Okay, well, so if you are heading to the range, try not to put too much of an emphasis on
19:53what happens with your final shot. So there you have it. Those were the seven biggest practice
19:59mistakes. Guys, I hope you've enjoyed the video. If you have, please do hit the like button and also
20:04leave some comments below. Was there anything that we were missing from our list, things that you see
20:09when you head to the driving range? We'd be really interested to hear your thoughts. We'll get Alex
20:13on if there's any questions you have to answer them to make sure that you do get the most from your
20:17valuable practice time. Guys, thank you for watching. We'll see you next time.