Hi, welcome to my world of golf.
It's a world I've grown to love over the years.
And in the next 45 minutes, I'm going to give you some basic fundamental tips on how to
improve your game.
But there's only one person in the world who can do that, and that's you.
And the place we have to do it is out there on the driving range.
So let's go out there now, try and understand my tips, and improve our game.
See you out there.
The game of golf is a relatively simple game if you approach it the right way.
First of all, we work on the grip.
Now, there's three different ways of gripping the golf club.
You can have the overlapping grip, which is this way, or you can have the interlocking
grip, which is this way, and the very rare one, which I've very seldom seen people use,
the baseball grip, which is all 10 fingers on the grip.
Now, I myself use my own mixture of grip.
I've experimented many times.
I've come up with, I never liked the overlapping grip, I never liked the interlocking grip.
So I came up with what I call the Norman grip.
It's more or less a mixture of the overlapping and interlocking.
Now, a lot of people have asked me why I've done that.
I think for the hands to work as a one, they've got to be as close as possible together.
So in doing that, putting these two fingers in between like that, I get the right hand
nestled very close to the left hand.
And so when the club head goes away from the ball, they're working as a one.
They're a unit.
There's not one's going to be down the shaft, one's working against the other.
They're going to be together.
So the grip is really up to your finger size.
You've got to experiment whether you want the overlapping or the interlocking or the
baseball.
It's up to you.
Now, the best way to have the grip sit in your fingers is very simple.
What you do is you put your palming hand down like this and you just let the golf club sit
across the joints of your fingers where your fingers meet your palm.
Let them sit there like so and close your hand.
We're talking about the top hand on that club now, the left hand for the right handers and
the right hand for the left handers.
And we just close our hand up.
And when we do that, the back of your hand should be pointing towards the target.
I'll go into that in a little while, but that's how we want the left hand to look.
So that the back of our hands shooting straight down the target.
Now with the thumb, you know, I've read again in books that the thumb should be fractionally
to the right center of the grip.
I don't necessarily agree with that.
My thumb sits directly on top and it's going to sit where it's most comfortable.
And the same thing should happen for you.
You should feel the most comfortable with your hands.
My thumb sits there.
And the other thing you've got to remember with your left hand is make sure there is
no gap between your thumb and the first finger.
If you get a gap like that, you're going to lose control of the club.
So keep the thumb near the top of the shaft, not definitely not to the left of the top
of the grip, either on top of it or fractionally to the right.
From there, once we've closed it up, you lift the club head up to a parallel plane on the
surface of the ground.
And when you let go with the thumb and the first finger, you'll notice that these three
fingers here are the fingers that grip the club.
They're your pressure points.
If you grip them properly, you're going to have complete control of your club when you
get to the top of your swing, right there.
If you don't have that correct grip, if your little finger just lets go a little, the club
head is going to drop over at the top.
You're going to lose control of the golf club.
And then when that happens, you start your downswing and we get like a fishing rod effect,
casting the fishing rod.
You fling out with the right hand and it comes in there like that.
Now if you're doing a little experiment, if you push your thumb down like that, down the
shaft towards the club head, you'll feel as though your wrist is lifting up off the grip.
Now as soon as that happens, you're pulling your fingers apart.
You're pulling your fingers off the palm and off your grip.
Now if you do it the opposite way, if you pull your thumb up the shaft and pull it nearer
to the top, you'll feel as though there's more pressure being developed in these three fingers.
That is why I've always been taught and always been by my teacher that to not have any gap
between my thumb and my first finger, the point I made before.
So that is the reason why I'm pulling it up the shaft to create pressure in these three
fingers.
So when I get to the top of my swing, it's going to remain firm and it's not going to
go past parallel.
The first finger really just sits there.
It doesn't do much work at all.
It's just more or less a nice snug, nice mate for your little finger on your right hand.
Now your right hand, it's almost the same principle.
When we put the palm down like that, put our fingers together, we want the shaft or sorry,
the grip to run through the joint, just where your fingers meet your palm again.
So when we shut your fingers there, your palm of your right hand is pointing in exactly
the same direction as the back of your top hand or your left hand.
So when we close it up like that, fingers open like that, close it up, you can see my
little fingers wrapping around, pulling my palm in and my palm is going to be aiming
dead straight for the hole.
And the same with the left hand, you've got to have pressure points in your right hand.
And the pressure points for your right hand are the two middle fingers.
And we go through the same principle.
We hold the golf club parallel to the ground and the two fingers that keep all the pressure
are your middle two.
And you'll feel that the grip is in the body of your hand there and you'll feel the pressure
you need to hold there.
If you can't do that, your fingers aren't strong enough to grip the golf club anyway.
So when we got our hands together like so, we got the back of our left hand pointing
to the target, the palm of our right hand there and the V, the V you form there, goes
somewhere between your right shoulder and your chin.
Now it sounds a little complicated, but if you just concentrate on holding your hand
with your left hand up here like this, your pressure points there, with the back of your
hand pointing to the target, there are three things to remember with that.
Make sure your thumb and your first finger are very close together and then we got the
pressure there.
With the right hand, the same thing, make sure your pressure fingers are close together,
put them on the grip like so and when we close up, we've got a perfect little unit there
where nothing can get away from anything.
So no matter whatever pressure we get under or whatever shot we have to play, our grip
is going to remain constant.
The pressure is going to remain constant.
Now to talk about the word pressure, most people I see play golf get on the first tee
and the pressure in their hands get very tense.
You can see the whites of their knuckles coming out because they're tight.
They're tense and they're nervous, whatever it is, they just grip it too tight.
I'm a strong believer in that when you grip the golf club, just grip it light enough that
if someone came along, they'd be able to pull it out of your hands.
Now the reason why I do that or say that is because as soon as your club head starts the
movement back, you're naturally going to tense up.
Your forearms must tense up and your fingers must tense up because you're in motion.
You can't make a motion without having some muscular contraction.
So we start out, we start at the dress position nice and relaxed.
When we take the club head away, your fingers tighten up to a nice pressure that allows
you to complete your swing.
Now if you have too much pressure in your hands, as soon as you go away, you're going
to tighten up a bit more and you start feeling restricted about here.
You can't complete your swing, so what happens is you've got to let go of your grip.
As soon as you let go of your grip, we've lost it all.
So grip pressure is a very important point when you're starting off on any shot, on any
tee.
And the more pressure you get under when you've got the club championship or you've got to
make a shot at the last to win the medal for the day, make sure you just relax your hands.
As soon as you relax your hands, your whole body's going to relax and you're going to
be able to swing through it.
Right, from the grip, we move on to our stance.
I put the club head there, make sure it's going straight towards the target, and I put
my left foot there.
And when my left hand takes grip of the club, the top, my left hand on top of the grip covers
my instep on my left foot.
It's a very simple procedure.
I don't know whether it'll help you, but it's a very simple way to make sure your stance
and your hand position to your body is exactly the same every shot.
And that's what we're trying to do is get repetition, same hole, same hole all the time.
Now we get onto the ball position in your stance.
Also, I keep harping on people who keep coming up to me and say, why don't you move your
ball back in your stance for every shot?
Well, I don't believe in doing that.
The simple reason is this.
If you keep moving your ball back in your stance, an inch for a five iron and then another
inch for a six iron and another inch, by the time you get down to your pitching wedge,
you've got the ball in the middle of your stance.
So what happens there is you're changing your center of gravity and you're changing your
impact point on the club head to the ball all the time.
Now what I do is I keep the ball in the same position for every shot except my driver.
And this way I'm getting consistency, repetition.
And I know exactly how far the ball is going to fly from the same position all the time
with every club.
And the loft of the club, that's why it's designed.
Each club has got a certain amount of loft on it.
So you just play with it.
Just let it happen naturally.
Don't change the ball position because as soon as you change it, you change your angle
of impact.
You change the loft in your club.
You change the center of gravity.
You change your club head speed at impact.
There's so many different variables that change.
Now that we've done our grip, stance and ball position, let's work on our setup and get
nice and comfortable with the setup to hit the golf ball.
The best way to do this, I think, is to pretend somebody is going to pitch a ball to you and
it's going to land about 10 feet in front of you and the ball's coming hard.
Now what are we going to do?
We're going to brace ourselves.
We're going to put our weight back on our heels.
We're going to put our hands in front here.
We're going to lean our body a little bit forward to brace and get the impact of the
ball.
This is pretty much the same way you get set up to the golf ball.
We get down there.
We get our stance to a nice comfortable width.
Put our weight on our heels.
Put maybe 70% of your weight back on your heels so you don't fall forward or fall back.
You're trying to get all your balance around your heels and around the inside of your legs.
We want to feel some pressure going down this part of my leg here, coming down through my
instep and then the same on this part, coming down through my instep.
So we don't, when we take the club head away, we don't have our knee going this way.
So we have that little bit of pressure going through our knees at an angle like that.
Now that we have our nice balance position here with our weight on our heels, the tension
in our legs running down on the inside of our legs through our instep, we just lean
our top part of our body forward so we feel comfortable.
Let our arms hang down naturally and where they hang down, you just put the grip in your
hands and that's it.
You get a nice comfortable position.
We're not stretching for the ball too much, ready to fall over when we hit it.
And we're not too close to the ball, cramping our style and cramping our swing.
We're in a nice comfortable, relaxed position.
Our arms are loose, our shoulders are loose, our muscles in the back of our neck are loose,
so we're ready to take the club away.
We feel nice and comfortable.
Now, we talk about takeaway.
The best way to take away a club is to relate the left arm and the golf club as a one.
If you're a left-hander, that's related this way, or your right arm and your golf club
act as a one.
And in doing this, when we go to take the club head away from the ball, everything goes
away together.
From your shoulder here down to your club head, we turn it away.
We push it back, straight back.
And whenever you go to hit the golf ball, you'll always know when you're going to have
a good swing in the first two feet of your takeaway.
So the best way to determine that is, as I say, keep everything a one and take it away
with the elbow of your left arm.
Take that away and push your elbow straight back away from the target.
Now, when that happens, your wrist is not going to break.
It's not going to start cocking early, which you shouldn't do, and it's not going to drag
back here like this, which I've seen happen many times with weekenders.
Everything is going to go back together.
Your right hand, take your right hand off the club for a minute and just practice that.
Take it away straight, bang.
Every time it's going to go straight back from the ball.
You can't do anything else.
You can't pull it in here because your hands will be pulling it in here.
And if you push out there, your arm's pushing it out there.
So if you take it back with the elbow of your left arm, you know you're going to get a nice,
smooth, low, straight back takeaway.
And the straighter you take the club back, the straighter you'll be able to bring it
down and through the ball.
Watch what happens to my right knee if I don't have the pressure going down the inside of
my right leg.
Just watch carefully.
When I take the club head back away from the ball, my right knee is going to go with the
club head.
And as soon as that goes with the club head, my body's done a lateral movement away from
the ball.
Now, it's impossible for me to get back to the ball in a nice position for impact from
there.
So the reason why we keep that pressure running down our right side is to keep the knee in
the same position throughout your entire swing until after impact.
So if we keep that knee in the same position like this, get the weight on the inside, bang,
the knee doesn't move, stays in that position.
And this is where you get all your power from.
The hit the ball long and straight is right here, this part of your body here.
Your right hip has gone back enough coil to turn your shoulders and turn the back of your
shoulders towards the target.
And coming down, the un-coiling of this creates so much club head speed coming down, it's
what drives the ball 100 and 300 yards down the fairway.
Another little interesting tip, if you want to try and remember it, if you're having
trouble moving your hips on your backswing, just try this method.
Without using a club, just standing there, just remember pushing the right pocket back.
I call it the RPB shot.
What we do is move this pocket straight back, you see, just push it back like that.
Keep the knee in the same position, push the pocket back.
And see what happens?
You're automatically getting a hip turn, without any conscious movement of your hips like that,
you can go bang like that, we've got hip turn.
Simple as that.
So if we get in the takeaway position here, all we've got to do is remember, right pocket
back, slide it into there, and we're getting a turn, and that's it.
It's back here, where we want it.
So at the top of the swing, we come down, this drive from here, drives forward, turn,
bang, away we go.
Very simple procedure, very easy one to remember.
It's not that difficult to apply, and not that difficult to practice.
So if you remember these basics, and the fundamentals, go out and practice them hard yourself, and
understand them yourself, you'll be able to go out on the golf course, have a bad day,
and correct it half way around.
So let's go to the practice tee now, and see how we can apply them.
If you don't loosen up the first ball, five, maybe six holes you play, your body's trying
to get loose, and you're going to play so many different shots that you haven't played
before, you're going to get frustrated and irritated.
So you start here around, you're going to lose your enthusiasm to come out and play,
and you're going to lose one third of your round of golf.
So we come out on the driving range, and we hit a few shots.
If there isn't a driving range, and they have a driving net, just go into the net, and hit
maybe 10, 15 shots into the back of the net.
We want to enjoy our game, we want to loosen our muscles up before we play, because most
people go out on the first tee, and they pull out their drive, and they swing.
There's two things that can go wrong.
A, you can hurt yourself very badly with the lower part of your back, or poor muscle, and
B, you're not going to get off to a very good start.
So out here on the driving range, what we do is we pull out our pitching wedge, all
your sand on, one of the shortest pops in your bag, and we're just going to take a few
very loose, slow, soft swings.
So the idea of that is to let our muscles get free, get loose, and get relaxed.
So I've got my pitching wedge in my hand here, and I'm going to concentrate on hitting about
80 to 85 yards.
I don't want to go out there and try and hit my pitching wedge 120 yards, which I can do,
hitting it hard, because that's not the idea.
We're trying to loosen up.
The idea of coming into the driving range is to warm your body up.
So first of all, we're not going to concentrate on direction, we're just going to concentrate
on getting a nice, smooth swing.
So we just flip the club down here, grip the club nice and loosely, and just hit the ball
about 85 yards.
Hit this shot about five, maybe eight times, and each time you hit it, just start to hit
a little bit harder.
Feel your body starting, your legs working a little bit stronger.
So eventually when you finish hitting your eight pitching wedges, you're up to about
your full strength.
One of the most important factors of warming up, too, is concentrating on your rhythm.
Each time before a tournament round, I go out there and practice.
That is the key to decide whether I'm going to play well.
If my rhythm is good on the practice tee, I know my rhythm's going to be good on the
golf course.
Once you finish hitting your pitching wedges, you'll be able to feel that you're ready
to hit some longer shots.
I normally go with my pitching wedge, seven iron, five iron, three iron, one iron, then
my three-wooden driver.
This way I'm getting my swing developed all the way through.
I'm slowly building up to my maximum club, which is my driver, where I'm going to be
hitting probably 80, 85% of my power.
So all the way through my clubs, I'm going to be building up to it.
I'll move to my seven iron now.
The clubs I've just used, the pitching wedge, the seven iron, the five iron, as I explained
before, are pretty much the clubs you should have in your golf bag.
Now I'm moving on to my three iron, which is a maybe, maybe golf club.
For ladies, it's probably one of the tougher clubs to use because it's got less loft on.
For the men, if you're just beginning to play the game, I think you want to try and steer
a little bit clear of the long eyes.
Get yourself, as I said before, a lofted wood club, which makes it a little bit easier to
play.
Always play your natural game.
If you naturally slice the ball, play for it.
Lee Trevino does.
He aims down the left side, fades it back.
If you draw the ball like Gary Player, he aims down the right side and hooks it back.
So always play your natural game because it's there.
You know where the golf ball is going to go so you can play for it.
So now we're into the longer clubs like the seven iron.
We're going to be swinging a little bit harder and obviously your natural shot is going to
start coming in.
Once you're on the practice tee, these are things you try and pick out yourself.
You try and feel why you hit that shot bad.
And if you can find out yourself when you get on the golf course, you can correct it
yourself.
You don't need somebody out there to try and pinpoint and show you what you're doing wrong.
And as you build through your clubs, your driver, obviously, is going to be the most
spectacular club because you're going to get all your distance out of it.
Now I'm going to go into my longer irons, three iron and one iron.
Now the most important thing with a three iron and one iron is don't try and pick it
up.
What I mean by pick it up is don't try and hit it in the air.
I know there's a few clubs that have got the least amount of loft on them and most of the
weekend players have a tendency of not wanting to use them because they can't hit them in
the air.
All you've got to do is just try and sweep the ball.
We're getting nice and loose now so we can just sweep in there and don't try and hit
down into the ball.
Try and pick it clean.
Just try and sweep the ball off the surface and let the loft of the club do all the work.
Now I'll move on to good old faithful which is my driver.
This club here is my favorite club in the golf bag because I feel as though I hit it
the best.
And the driver to me is the club that's going to do all the scoring for you.
A lot of people say drive for shell and putt for dough.
I think it's the opposite.
You drive for dough and you putt for show because without your driver hitting the ball
on the fairway all the time you're not going to be on the greens putting for birdies.
So your driver is the most important club in your bag because it's the club that's
going to set up the hole for you.
If you miss hit your driver you're going to finish in the trees.
If you hit the driver properly and with rhythm and consistency and keeping the ball in play
you're A, you're going to enjoy your game and B, you're going to set yourself up for
attacking the flag which is what you need to do in golf.
So it's one of the most important things with your driver when you're warming up is to make
sure you get your extension low and slow.
At the moment right here for the last two or three shots I was trying to keep my driver
going back low to the ground and straight away from my target.
That way we're getting the extension straight and we can bring the club head back straight
through the ball.
It's a little tip you can try and practice when you're warming up because it's going
to help you when you're playing the golf course.
The motto to try and remember is low and slow.
Perfect.
Okay now that I've finished with my drivers what you can do you don't necessarily have
to do it you go to your sand iron and wind down a little bit because we've been winding
up to the full length clubs we go back and just soften our swing down a bit by hitting
a few soft sandwiches maybe 25, 30 yards and what this does is just get the feel back into
your hand the feel for the soft shot.
So we can go out here go out on the golf course and we cover the complete range of our clubs.
Now just take our sand iron out and swing at a very soft.
Four or five of these I'm ready to go out on the golf course and win the competition.
So good luck.
There we go straight off the practice tee onto the first tee and I hit a nice solid
drive.
And that was the beauty about going out onto the practice tee.
We went out and loosened up and warmed up.
So I could come out here and hit a nice solid drive.
And once you do that you feel enthusiastic you feel ready to go out and play.
And once you do that bang we're going to win more competitions than we're going to lose
because we're keen we're eager.
So remember go to the practice tee loosen up and come out on the first tee and drive
off.
When you get to the first tee just relax don't try and hit the drive down on the fairway
just remember what you did on the practice tee the rhythm the tempo a nice smooth low
take away building up to all that power we talked about coming through and unleashing
it just waiting for that club here to come through and hit the ball.
So just wait for it and relax and go out there and shoot 63 and have a great day.
Right here now we've played our tee shot we've got a second shot into the green and we see
all the trouble down there and the trouble I see is down the front.
So therefore we've got to make sure we take enough club to carry the trouble.
Don't play the 100% shot it's a game of golf we've got to try and make simple we've got
to try and make it easy so everybody can enjoy it.
So here we are now we're looking at the green we've got all the trouble short I've got about
180 to 82 yards there.
So what I'm going to do is I'm going to take out my four iron a nice smooth four iron and
make sure I get over all the trouble and get it near the flag.
So we address here calculate where the wind's coming from and in this situation it's just
down to the left quarter and set up for that remembering our basics rhythm tempo nice grip
pressure comfortable stance your body nice and relaxed and just swing away at it putting
out of your mind all the trouble and all we're thinking about is the flag and where we want
the ball to go.
So here we go nice smooth rhythm.
I want to hit it right on the flag.
Look at the percentage shot don't go for the 100% shot the 100% shot only comes off about
10% of the time so we've got 90% more to play with and we're guaranteed to improve our game.
There's one other shot I'd like to show you we're in exactly the same position as the
shot I just hit but this time I want to demonstrate the punch shot for you.
It's a very effective shot in the wind especially here in Australia where the southeasterlies
and the southerlies get up all over the country and you've got to learn to play the punch
shot no matter who you are or how bad a golfer you are or how good a golfer you are the punch
shot is a very important shot and it's a very easy shot to learn because it's a simple shot
it's got very simple basics and a very simple movement and this is a quick way to learn.
What we do is we're trying to bring the ball back in our stance we're trying to keep the
ball below the wind we're going to bore it in there and to do that we've got to bring
it back in our stance now this is contrary to what I said before about keeping the ball
in the same position that was for a full swing a normal swing this time we're playing a punch
shot so we bring the ball back in our stance a little bit bring it there maybe equal in
the middle of our stance and what we're doing is we're going to widen our stance just a
tad so when we get in this position here we lean towards the target not lean like this
or fall into it or just lean just a fraction ahead our hands are ahead of the ball we keep
our club face square to the target which is most important the club face is square we're
leaning into it our weight is back on our heels and what we're doing here is we're
lowering our center of gravity we're bringing the center of gravity our body closer to the
ground so we can keep the ball lower to the ground so we get in that position with the
ball back in our stance a little bit we've got our club face nice and square to the target
our hands are fractionally ahead and because our center of gravity is a little bit lower
the hand position is going to be a little bit lower because our knees are flexed and
the softer so what now we get into this nice smooth compact powerful punch position I call
it because we're already we want to drive that club head into the ball and shoot it
down underneath the wind so we've got this position here now we've got to relax our grip
make sure we don't get too much pressure like in every golf shot we keep the same tension
in our hands and what we're going to do is we're going to push it back so low a little
bit longer around along the ground extension is the key to this shot keep the club head
going away from the ball and in doing that making sure we turn our body and turn our
hips and we're only going to go to back to about here we're going to stop short now swing
and from there we're going to drive very hard with our right knee and come through making
sure we don't fall into the shot make sure we keep the head behind the ball and we're
going to drive there like that and the club face is going to come through a little bit
shut we're going to hit it out to the right and draw it back so here we go see if we can
do practice what we preach get in that position I'm ready to drive the ball get it under the
wind nice short firm follow through you notice my follow through didn't get above my waist
it stopped about here because I was driving I was keeping my left hand the back of my
left hand going through to the target holding the club face up like this the other easy
punch shot is to play for the fade punch shot which I think is the easiest shot to play
and the one I stick to whenever I play it it's the same setup same ball position just
instead of aiming right I aim left and I take the club head fractionally on the outside
of the line and in doing that I'm going to come down nice and low to the ball with a
little cutting action across the ball and the ball is going to start left very low and
fade back to the flag so if you just watch carefully same position as the draw punch
shot hands ahead same swing and the ball will fade back on the target it's an easy shot
to practice because it's very simple the basics are there so go out and work on it well here
we are I've hooked it off the tee into the trees to the left of the fairway and out to
the right here is the fairway about 50 yards I have two options I could play I could chip
it out onto the fairway it's a par 5 and hopefully get it on the green and 3 to try and salvage
my par or I can look at the option of going up and over it's an almost a hundred percent
shot to play and it's a shot that you've really got to feel hundred percent comfortable about
the way I approach this shot is underneath the elevation so therefore I'm going to put
the ball further forward in my stance I'm going to put more weight back on my right
heel and in doing that I'm going to change my center of gravity I'm pulling my center
of gravity back away from the ball so when I come in through the impact position my body
is back here my weights behind it and the club is going to come through the ball and
up much quicker than normal and from there we just put a normal swing on don't try and
rush at it just take your time and swing at it normally and this one last look at the
top of the tree to get the height you need to hit on it and then through the ball up
and over now we've got a good chance of making four I'd just like to demonstrate to you at
this time a few trouble shots especially the hook shot and the slice shot when we're getting
into low lying trees or high lying trees and we've got to get them around back on the fairway
very quickly the hook shot can be very important shot the best way to do it I've heard a lot
of people make comments about when you go to hook the ball use your body to hook it
change your swing and change your grip well I think that's when you try and change your
swing you're making too many basic fundamental errors the best way I think and the simplest
way to hook the ball is this way what we do is we pick out where we want the ball to finish
like if we're trying to get the ball around a tree back onto the green what we do is we
put our club face at the target where we want the ball to finish so if we want to hook it
around a big tree just here we aim to put our club face on the flag and then we take
our normal stance and set up aiming to the right of the target of where we want the ball
to go around so this way we just put our club face down there if you notice my club face
is very shot very hooked to the ball and I take my normal grip don't change your grip
at all take my normal stance and this way all we have to do is swing the club a natural
way without changing anything and when that happens you take it back there and the club
face comes in shot it's still aiming where the where the target is or where the end result
of the ball is going to be and so the club face is going to put all the hook on the ball
hook spin and will turn around your tree or your trouble don't try and hook the ball when
you're in this position because your club face is going to do it for you so here we
go we put our club face nice and shot take a normal address position aiming around our
object or around all our trouble and just take a nice smooth swing and it'll hook around
them one thing you must remember though is don't try and force the ball you've got to
relax and let it happen and if you're going to try and hook it say 150 yards take out
an 8 iron or a 9 iron because by the time you shut your club face as much as we need
to hook it around the tree your club's going to finish up like a 5 or 6 iron that's therefore
take an 8 or 9 iron shut your club face aim around your object make sure your face is
where you want the ball to finish and take a nice smooth natural swing and the ball will
automatically turn around your trouble now I'm going to show you the intentional slice
it's exactly the same principle we're going to open up our club face instead of shutting
it we're going to aim left around the object you want to slice the ball and just swing
normally the only difference for this shot is instead of taking an 8 or 9 iron for the
150 yard shot we're going to take something like a 5 or a 4 iron because the more you
open the club face the more loft you're going to put on it so therefore we're just going
to lay the club face on the target where we want the ball to finish we're going to aim
our body around the tree or the rock or whatever problems are in front of us we're going to
swing the same we're going to grip the same we're not doing anything different with our
goal swing just making the club face do all the work so we put the club face way open
where we want it to finish take a normal grip normal stance and just swing at it nice and
relaxed don't try and force the ball around the tree because it'll go around itself it's
as simple as that so whenever we get into trouble anywhere on the golf course with these
basic ideas on concentration on hook and slice we should be able to get out and go on to
improve our golf score to sweep the ball off the surface for our bump and run shot the
easiest way to do that is have minimal wrist break and what I mean by minimal wrist break
and I see a lot of weekend players and even professional golfers attempt a shot like this
by breaking their wrist and what happens there is you're picking the club head up when you
pick the club head up you're going to be coming down on such a descending blow the ball's
going to have too much backspin on it so with our bump and run shot that I'm trying to show
you now what we're going to do is keep minimal wrist break take the club head low back along
the ground and keep it coming through the ball to the ground as well keeping a parallel
to the surface no divot or anything like that so we remember minimal wrist break keep the
hands nice and light we take it back low to the ground and it bumps up there and trickles
up near the flag as long as you keep the club head going through the ball you'll find that
it's a lot easier to get the ball near the hole.
The shot we have here is a simple little chip shot and the best way to relate to a chip
shot is like an extended putt here we've got about six feet or more of dead grass and then
we're coming under the putting surface and there's about 35 45 feet of putting green
and we're going to just pop the ball onto the ground onto the putting green and roll
it down to the hole and the way we do that is just set up like a normal putt and take
the club head back low to the ground and make sure you're accelerating through the ball
so we just pick that target on the green make sure we're trying to land it there without
any backspin and let it run on down to the hole.
The biggest problem with people who hit the ball in the bunker is they try to get the
ball out.
Now in a bunker shot you don't go in there and you dig at the ball and try and hit it
into it hard the bunker shot is a very smooth free flowing swing what you're trying to
do is getting the sand between the ball and the club face to throw it out that way.
The ball very seldom touches the club face it's the sand that throws the ball out and
it just depends how hard you hit into the sand is how hard or how much spin the ball
comes out with.
There are many bad faults with people in the bunkers they get in there and they a they
grip the club too tight they come in here and they go and move forward on the shot dig
into the sand you notice there's a big divot there they've tried to get the ball out.
The other big fault that the weekend players have is they come in here and instead of staying
down with the ball they come up and they rifle it right over the top of the green.
So what we're trying to do with the bunker shot is come in here and be friends with them.
When I miss this green with my second shot I'd rather miss it into the bunker than miss
it onto the grass because in the sand I know I can do it many different shots I can spin
it or do whatever out of the grass you can't control the ball as much.
So eliminating the faults that I just showed you before hitting a fat and then hitting
the ball right in the middle the idea is to come in here and just swing at it nice and
smooth let your hands come into the sand and let it keep going through don't try and force
the club head through the sand let your hands bring the club head through slowly.
We're trying to just flop it out we've got to grip the club very lightly that's another
important thing grip the club loosely because you automatically when soon as you start taking
the club head away you're going to tighten up anyway and the more you tighten your grip
the more you're going to swing shorter and the faster you're going to come down.
So what we do is we have a nice loose grip we lay our club face back flat and we just
treat it nice and relaxed and just flop the club head into the ball like that and it's
just a nice smooth easy motion you notice I didn't jerk at it to try and get the ball
out all I did on that shot was just get the ball on the green and run it down to the hole
now when you try it out there just relax don't force the ball just let the ball get onto
the green.
When you notice when I came through the sand the club head kept accelerating through it
didn't decelerate I didn't stop at it which is probably one of the biggest faults the
weekend players use on a bunker just keep the club head going through the sand nice
and softly the hands working towards the target keeping down on the ball and it'll come out
nice and softly for you.
Before I showed you the shot out of soft sand now my balls come over the back of the green
and I'm in a very hard panned line because this is probably one of the toughest shots
you can get to play especially if there's very little green to work with now every sand
on your bar you're going to have a flange on it and the flange is what's going to help
you get the ball out.
We want this part to strike the hard ground first and when it strikes a hard ground it
naturally closes the club face a little bit so if you start with the club face there it's
going to go like that even more and just dig in so what we're doing is we're opening it
up a little more so this part of the sole of the club is going to strike the ground
first it's automatically going to shut the club face just fractionally it's going to
be minimal but it's going to be enough to bring the club face back to its normal position
and hopefully the ball will go out nice and smooth but we're just going to try and take
a little bit easier we're just going to use a little softer hand motion and just try and
flop it out.
Once again we spread our stands we know there's no sand underneath there so we just take
our time open that club face right up and just flop the club head in behind the ball
like so.
Now we come to one of the most hated shots in golf the buried lie you notice my ball
there is in a nice poached egg position most people who see this shot get all panicky because
they don't know how to get it out an actual fact it's probably one of the easiest shots
to get out if you know what you're going to do what we're going to try and do here is
we're going to try and bring the club head into the sand just at the top of the crater
there and we're going to bring it in there and I have my own way of playing this shot
what I do is I bring the club head in there with a very open club face and I stab at it
I go like that just stab it out and what's happening there is I'm just dropping the club
head in behind the ball stopping the club head there and letting the sand throw it out
that's all you need to do the ball is going to come out with a hell of a lot of roll on
it so we just got allowed just to land on the green and run down so we're just going
to put a little bit further back in our stance make sure we're going to come down with a
more of a descending blow before we weren't coming down so sharply what I mean by sharp
is picking the club head up and coming down like chopping wood this one we want to chop
the wood the other ones were more or less sweeping away very slowly and very softly
now this shot here we're going to remember we're going to try and enter the sand at the
top of the crater club face open and we're just going to stab down on it and the ball
is just going to pop up and run down towards the flag tap the pot in we made our path now
we've got a shot in the bunker there's a very difficult shot to play we've got very little
green to work with let's say we've got 15 feet of green to work with we've got a high
bank to get up over so we've got to get the ball up quickly with a lot of backspin now
this way this shot we once again open the cop face wide open lay it well back flat almost
parallel almost the same shot as a hard pan shot I mean same position and we put the ball
a little further forward now stance because what we want to do now is we're trying to
nip the ball we don't we're trying to take a minimum amount of sand as possible and then
doing this we're going to get elevation and we're going to get spin so what I do I put
my ball further forward in the stance and I bring my hands back a little bit I mean
don't mean back like this I mean just this is my normal hand position here and I'll just
bring it back here like that and what happens there and bring it back when I come in to
strike the ball my hands are going to go back to the normal position and with my right hand
whipping through like this the club is going to be opening up a little more and going to
be throwing the ball up higher with a lot of spin in this position here I'm laying
the club face well open nice and flat almost parallel to the surface of the bunker and
I'm going to whip my right hand through a little quicker and what I mean by through
I mean I want to come this way not roll over like that but bring it through and under the
ball like that and what that does is it just brings the club face coming up like that it's
almost like an elevator effect and the club it'll come in underneath the ball it's increasing
its speed through the ball and it's going to pick it up like that we're going to stay
in behind the ball keep our head steady and whip it through don't be scared of the shot
if you're scared of it it'll never work be positive and with the positive approach you're
going to get it up and down without any problem how many times have we all played this game
we've ended up with a shot like this we've got the ball sitting in fluffy grass we've
got a big yawning bunker in front of us we've only got about 22 maybe 25 feet of green to
work with what we do is we're going to lay the club face very flat behind the ball by
me flat I mean just like the soft bunker shot we had soft sand we lay it down there and
this shot is mainly a hand shot we're trying to get our hands to float in through and underneath
the ball so we're going to try and flip it grip the club very softly and flip our right
hand and left our left hand through the ball with a very soft slow swing so we lay it back
down there nice and flat grip the club very soft and we're trying to just use our hands
very little leg action and we pop it up in the air and we nearly get it in the hole so
you've got to remember that it's a hand shot you've got to have loose hands relaxed hands
and make sure the club head comes through very slowly through the ball and gets accelerating
through and it's going to pop it up with the open club face and it's going to just land
on the green and trickle on towards the hole well here we are we finally hit a good tee
shot hit a good second shot into the green and we've got about a 15 18 footer to make
birdie what we do is when we reach the putting green we try and sum up the situation we look
at the color of the grass we look at the slope of the green and then we try and judge the
speed by the by the texture of the surface a good little tip to remember is when you're
walking to the green is look at the color of the grass if you see a dark color that
means you're going to be going into the grain so just remember dark color into the grain
and if it's a light color surface that means you're going down grain so it's going to be
faster so if you're into the grain and it's dark it's going to be slow if you down grain
and it's light it's going to be quick i don't think i could tell you the best way to grip
a putter because everybody's got their own feel i think what you've got to do is experiment
yourself what i can do for you now is just show you a few basic tips with putting by
keeping the potter low to the ground keep it accelerating through the ball making sure
the potter stays square to the line you've chosen all the way to the hole and another
good little tip too is just imagine in the back of the ball you can see a tack so when
you're standing over the top of the ball and you're looking down ready to putt you picture
a tack sitting in the back of the ball and what we're going to do is imagine we're going
to drive that tack with the putter head into the ball and to do that we've got to hit through
it and bang we keep the motion accelerating the putter head through to the ball through
to the hole it's a simple little tip it's easy to put in your mind because a tack you
can relate to and it's just like hitting an ale with a hammer okay so we put the clubhead
behind the ball get it nice and square picture the tack in there make sure our eyes are directly
over the top of the ball so we can get nice and square however you stand is up to you
once again it's individualistic you stand the way you feel most comfortable in the most
balance then we just stand there picture the tack now pick out your target what i do when
i putt i like to pick out a point where i want to putt over if there's a little break
from left to right i'll pick out a little object like an old different mark or a different
color part of the green where i want the ball to go over right now we're in a nice solid
position we've got our weight back on our heels we're relaxed and the most important
thing is make sure your hands are loose and relaxed because when your hands are relaxed
your forearms and shoulders are going to be relaxed and we can let that putter flow through
freely through the ball and from this position again put it in your mind the speed and the
distance the hole is away from you pick out your target on the green where you're trying
to put it over and make sure you visualize the tack in the back of the ball and from
there we concentrate follow through and we make the putt now there's many different ways
you can grip the putter i myself grip it a couple of ways depending on how i feel each
week sometimes i grip it with my left hand a little bit more underneath the putter by
that i mean the back of the hand is pointing towards the ground and sometimes if i feel
very confident very nice i keep the back of my hand square to the hole it just depends
on how you feel putting is all feel it's all in your hands so you go out there and experiment
you see some very strange grips out there on the putter on the golf course but they
all work doesn't matter how you grip it as long as you get that nice smooth acceleration
through to the hole it's going to work now there are different putters you can buy there
again it's individualistic i can't tell you how long you should have your putter i can't
tell you how heavy it is again go out there experiment for yourself and once you find
out the right one stick to it because you've got to get used to the feel and get to know
your putter because it's going to get to know you to go on and win many tournaments so good
luck have a good putting round have a good day on the golf course and i'll see you out
there sometime