In this video, Neil Tappin is joined by PGA professional Alex Elliott to look at the main reasons why golfers get stuck at the same handicap for long periods. Alex offers some insights into the traps golfers fall into and provides advice on how to move forwards and possibly even to get your handicap down.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Hello everyone and welcome to The London Club. In this video we're going to take a look at the top
00:0410 reasons that golfers do not get better. Looking at everything from the mental challenges out on
00:09the golf course to some of the tough shots that are costing you. Right let's head out and get started.
00:18Right so number 10 on our list and the first one we're going to look at Alex is making
00:22swing changes mid-round. Yeah I think this can work both ways like you could make a swing change
00:29actually hit a decent shot if you've been struggling throughout that round but then you
00:33sort of question yourself well what did I do differently. You try it again and then the ball
00:37goes off in a different direction. So question for you then Alex how many swing thoughts do you think
00:43is the right number of swing thoughts for a ball? I like to have two just in the sense of like having
00:48a back swing thought and then a trigger thought. Okay for example like mine would be take it wide
00:55and then belt buckle to target just to make sure I get through the ball but the two feelings that
01:02are something that are easy to do. Right okay. It's not like move this do this. No not a really
01:07technical complicated move. Exactly that and just actually if you're going to make a swing change
01:12either maybe get it from a YouTube video or get some advice from a PJ bro. Yeah so as Alex said two swing
01:18thoughts stick with them while you're on the golf course if it hasn't worked then make a change
01:23don't make that change while you're on the course.
01:28So number nine on our list is about distance. Alex what is it? Yeah I mean this might be a bit
01:34of a contradiction to what you've probably heard on online before and if you don't drive it far
01:39enough it's actually hard to lower your scores. Right okay so let's say you've got somebody out there
01:44who hits it 200 yards but pretty straight what sort of handicap would you say they could get to before
01:49they start to struggle to get any lower from that point? I would say trying to access single figures
01:54potentially. Right. Because you're going to drive it to a point where you're always going to have
01:58a medium to long iron into majority of par fours whereas we know long irons are hard to get greens
02:04and it's hard to get close so your proximity to the hole it's just generally harder to lower your scores
02:09that way. Yeah. Now Alex has got some advice on his YouTube channel about how to hit the ball further
02:13off the tee. We have plenty of videos about the same topic on our YouTube channel. If you are struggling on that
02:18front take a look at some advice to help you hit the ball a bit further it could be the thing that
02:23is stopping you from shooting lower scores. Okay so this one is about being too hard on yourself
02:32putting too much pressure on your shoulders to perform. Alex what do you think is the mistake
02:37here that sort of causes players to play poorly? I think obviously we all want to play our best golf we
02:42all invest a lot of money a lot of time and we put the pressure on ourselves to perform and if it
02:48doesn't happen we get a little bit wound up sometimes potentially and it's a downward spiral.
02:52I agree with you right and I've definitely fallen foul of this in the past but we're all human beings
02:57it's kind of natural to want to play your best every time you go out especially if you've been
03:01investing in clubs and lessons so how do you take pressure away from yourself? I think it's
03:07basically managing your expectations so it's going out there going actually well I'm going to just enjoy
03:11today and to Athens. Right you think about this I bet you've done this exact scenario you've not played for
03:16two or three weeks you've come out and played your best golf. Yes. It's been raining you've gone out
03:20with waterproofs on wet gloves on expectations no one will shoot a good score today probably shot a
03:25good score. Yes. Expectation levels are lower you can relax and actually let your creative juices flow.
03:31Yeah so don't be too hard on yourself golf is a difficult sport maybe sort of try and feel your way
03:36into the round and then see how things are going before you start building any expectations because
03:41trying to go out there every single round from the first shot trying to shoot your lowest score
03:45is very difficult. Number seven is not tracking your stats a lot of really valuable information
03:55that you might just be giving up on by not tracking your stats yeah what should people be looking out
03:58for Alex here? I just think something things simple like how many fairways are we hitting how many
04:04greens regulation and then on that are we missing it more left or more right? Okay so it gives you an idea
04:09about how to work on your game but then also an idea about how to strategize while you're on the golf
04:13course yeah like take this flag here it's a right hand side flag if you miss more to the right it's
04:17probably not a good idea to short side yourself yes so you can build in knowledge about your game as
04:22well as working on the correct areas and not just the areas you like to work on yeah and so you might
04:28have a theory about where you miss you might have a theory about how many fairways you hit how many
04:33greens you hit but actually backing it up with the data gives you that framework doesn't it exactly
04:37that and then you actually start to see improvements because you're actually working on the areas that need work
04:42yeah okay Alex uh you're gonna have to hit this one for me so we've got 191 Alex has got a very very
04:48skinny uh cobra four iron in his hands this is really going to test you out isn't it and it's cold
04:53and it's cold
05:00you've taken it on Alex you've actually committed exactly the crime that you were guarding helping
05:06people guard against yeah but it's got a good short game so i'm sure it'll be fine
05:13this one is about not having exactly the right equipment for your game Alex what's the big mistake
05:19here yeah i think there's two one with driver which most people probably think about when they go for
05:23a driver fitting but also with irons it's having the correct length and lie angle to help you play
05:29better golf okay so if you get it wrong what will players see so if a club is too long and therefore the
05:35lie angle is too upright we'll start to see that golf ball launch a little bit left for the majority
05:40of your shots and even more so with lofted irons if it was the opposite if that line goes too flat
05:46we're going to see that shot start to the right now where do most people swing this golf club yeah a
05:50little bit over stand up create it a little bit flatter out to the right yeah so having the right
05:56equipment for you crucial in terms of your accuracy with your eyes what about with the driver with the
06:00driver i think we all have this thing about we have to have the stiffest shaft we have to have
06:04the club with the most or the least loft to act like we can hit it a long way we're actually
06:09optimizing the correct shaft and possibly more loft for most golfers is going to make it a little bit
06:14further yeah so that low loft low spin performance might be good for your best swing and your best
06:20strike and your best shot yeah but how often is that going to actually cost you when you're not got
06:25your best swing and strike exactly on the ball and that's where we want to play our better golf right we
06:30want to be able to get around the golf course round our handicap when we're not playing our best golf
06:34yeah some really handy advice there for getting the right equipment for your game
06:42so number five on our list is about putting and alex everyone could do with holding a few more
06:48putts it doesn't matter what handicap you are definitely but what's the sort of advice here what's
06:52the mistake that people make i think we always try and get a little bit complicated because we think
06:58now our golf game is based on such fine margins it's now a hole not a fairway and not a green
07:04we've got to be really perfect okay yeah but so you're telling me we don't have to be perfect well
07:08not really no i think a lot of us try and be too perfect and then we don't have any flow to our
07:13stroke okay so if flow to your putting stroke is so important then give us a quick tip how do you get
07:18it so i i like to think of it like this i think a lot of it comes from grip pressure i always picture
07:23tiger now that's not the analogy that i have his hands look comfortable on the club yeah so we're
07:28in there hands looking comfortable maybe give the shoulders a bit of a waggle and i have the practice
07:32wings looking at the hole just tuning myself into my senses about what i've got to actually do yeah
07:39and if you can do that then you don't have to think too much about how hard you're hitting the
07:43ball it should happen naturally yeah um come on then i'm going to put you under pressure make make it
07:47for us you've given me a left to right here i'll give you a slightly right although greens are perfect
07:51i'm giving you no excuses oh dear not enough flow not enough flow but a lovely pot
08:08okay so number four on our list is about strategy and alex it's about the eight out of ten rule
08:14explain yeah i i think no matter what level you are it's using this strategy where if i have a shot that
08:20i'm about to hit if i can't pull it off eight times out of ten then possibly it's rethinking
08:26either the club or where we're aiming okay good so how does it apply in this scenario well this is a
08:31tough hole here at the london club right water all down the left one place you can't go is left now
08:36most club golfers we hit it with a bit of a slice so you might think you know what if me take this
08:41fairway i've got to aim at the trouble yes let it come in whereas actually we know if i aim down the
08:47middle maybe hopefully we hit the bullet straight but worst case scenario i'm in the right rough i'm
08:51in play yeah and you can always recover you can always make a sort of four or five the further up
08:57you get up the hole but if you're in the water off the tee because you've hit that brilliant tee shot
09:01that's gone dead straight then you're not going to be able to recover that exactly yeah so think
09:05about the eight out of ten rule while you're out on the golf course use it to your advantage
09:09it could really help so number three is not warming up okay how many of us are guilty of not
09:18doing anything before we go and play golf to warm our bodies up it's really important also the other
09:23point here is that not everyone is going to have a facility like there is here at london club where
09:26you can go and hit balls if you do have a facility like this what's the best way of doing it kind of
09:31quickly because most people out there don't have hours to spend before they tee off i would if
09:35we've got a facility like this i'd do five minutes putting five minutes chipping finish off a little
09:40bit on the range head straight to the first tee whereas most people actually do it in the reverse
09:45yes but i want to do the last thing on the range the first thing i'm going to do on the first tee
09:50right so you're imagining that first tee shot that you're going to be hitting exactly okay and then if
09:53you don't have a facility like this let's say you don't have any practice facilities whatsoever how
09:59should you do it stretch him just use your locker room like you can actually mobilize your body
10:04quite easily just by going in the locker room doing a few dynamic stretches and if you're wondering
10:09where to get that advice my tpi has got loads of different exercises and i use them quite regularly
10:14if i know if i'm going playing a tournament with a golf course that's got no range i'll go and spend
10:1910 minutes in the locker room yeah it's really simple stuff and again it's the sort of preparation
10:23that we all know we should do but we often fail to do it if you do commit to doing it chances are those
10:29first few holes you might just score them a bit better so number two on our list and it's something
10:38that stops a lot of golfers from lowering their handicaps lowering their scores is that they don't
10:42have a shot for a scenario like this they don't work on those scoring shots alex yeah and i think
10:49even for a higher handicap right in a scenario like this on a long par four we're going to be in a
10:54situation where we're going to have this 30 yard chip for our third shot more often than not yes
10:58and even for higher handicappers you want to be getting it up and down every now and again you
11:02certainly never want to be getting down in four which means executing this shot a little bit better
11:07so alex give us a tip so i always think most people would resort most lofted club to pull here
11:13a shot like this i use the rule if i can ship it run it last resort get it in the air okay so nice
11:18and simple go slightly towards the back of your stance narrow stance pull width apart and wait on
11:23your left okay this makes it more of a long chip rather than like a pitch okay so which club have
11:29you got so i've got pitching match okay go on then that's it there we go i'm looking for around about
11:35two to three feet on running it up there as much as possible
11:41yeah lovely and just notice how simple that action is it's something that
11:45every golfer can try and replicate themselves keep it simple hit it a bit closer you might get it up
11:50and down a bit more often okay so number one the number one fault that is holding golfers back and
11:59stopping them from scoring their best is alex practice right yeah so not using the range in the
12:06best way possible like i call it like machine gun fire people get their 100 ball that's gone in 30 minutes
12:11yeah and i think most people watching this will have heard this sort of tip before and they go to
12:17the range myself included with the best intentions yeah but before you know it suddenly you've hit 30
12:22shots very quickly and you've stopped thinking about anything that you're working on so what's a good
12:26way of kind of thinking about it and committing to doing it properly i think playing your hardest hole
12:31at your golf club in your head is a great way to actually well get over that hole but also tune yourself
12:37in to actually playing some shots rather than out there just trying to make a perfect swing and
12:42oh that wasn't good right i just do this yes actually get out there and do something that reflects
12:47what you're going to do what you're trying to do on the golf course so let me ask you then alex so
12:50you've got driver in your hand here you're imagining the fifth hole or whatever it is at your course
12:55are you actually picturing the fairway what are you what are you seeing definitely i'm quite a person a
13:00visual person so for me it helps me picture the fairway i picture the shot and i'll set a boundary
13:05between let's say the two red flags in front of us right let's test you out then so what is the
13:09boundary what's the shot that you're hitting okay what can you see so we'll use the fifth at my golf
13:14club it is as narrow oh it perceives it looks as narrow as these two red flags so i hit a fade so
13:21i'm thinking right can i fade it off the left flag into the middle of that fairway okay that's what i'm
13:26picturing so i would do this as well going through my full routine because that's really important you
13:33reflect and you mirror what you want to do in the middle round on a saturday yeah so you're more
13:38comfortable in all of those scenarios out of the course beautiful beautiful and it's it's simple
13:51processes like that if you are serious about shooting learned scores a bit more often than
13:55preparing yourself for the pressure of these scenarios getting you the most out of your practice time
14:01it's absolutely essential so there you have it that's our look at the top 10 reasons golfers do
14:06not get better at the game hopefully you found some of alex's tips in there helpful some useful
14:11things to take out with you on the golf course going forward if there is anything that you think
14:16we've missed please do leave some comments below we'd love to hear what you think but that's it for now
14:20for the london club thanks for watching we'll see you next time