Improve Your Game With These Golf Swing Checks

Hello everyone, Welcome to Cherson Golf Club. My name is Dan Hendrickson and we're here in the heart of the English Riviera. Now, you may be coming out of the season with a few bad habits. Well, today we've teamed up with Footjoy to give you a few tips that can help you moving into next season. We're going to cover 7 simple checks for different parts of your game that are going to get you back on track. Let's get into it now. There's some key points that you're going to want to work on when it comes to hitting those big drives during the season. You may have fallen into the fault of moving that ball position a little bit too far back because you're trying to steer that ball around the golf course. Ultimately we're trying to score well During the winter you can focus on two key points that can help you get that ball launched up in the air and hitting it further. So key point #1 is going to be your ball position and we're going to be focusing on getting that ball position a little further up in your stance. We're going to try and focus on somewhere between the inside of the left heel and your left toe. Being for a right-handed golfer, this is going to enable you to be able to sweep that golf ball away off that nice high tee. The next thing is we're going to focus on our shoulder position and we're going to get the sensation of just dropping that right shoulder down a fraction again, just enabling that shoulders to feel like a little bit of a launchpad again, allowing you to be able to hit up and away with that driver. So once you've got yourself into this set up position, you're going to get the sensation of around 60% of your weight is going to be on your right side on your trail leg. This again is going to enable you to be able to turn into the backswing and then again hit through and up as you deliver into that ball. So working on those two key setup points is going to enable you to hit longer drives moving into next season. So moving on from driver, we're going to look at the iron setup. Where is the driver? We wanted power, we wanted that ball to move up off the tee. Well, with the iron the ball is either going to be on the ground or on a very low tee. Therefore we need our angle of attack to move more on the way down. So we're looking to try and hit the ball, then the ground as we come through and where I had the ball position very much forward in my set up with the driver with the iron, we're going to have it anywhere between the centre point of your stance and a club head inside that left heel. That's going to give you the optimum position to be able to hit that golf ball and then into the ground from there. So as we then put the Golf Club behind the ball, what we're going to do is we're going to put our lead hand on the club 1st and as we bring that right hand down our trail hand down onto the club, you'll notice that my right shoulder will naturally just drop fractionally. I'm not going to get the sense of dropping the right shoulder like I was with the driver. I'm just going to naturally let it sit on the club and the sense of weight between my feet is going to be more 5050 rather than feeling as though I'm leaning behind the ball. Remember as we come through the shop we want ball then divot getting that angle of attack correct and this set up is going to enable us to be able to do that. And the last thing to remember is with a driver we had a nice wide stance. Remember we were looking for power, we needed a good stable foundation. Well with the iron we're looking for more control shoulder width. The part inside the left and right heels is kind of your reference point for this shot. Again, just giving you that stable base to be able to control that shot and with the simple key points of set up, we're going to start to hit a much more crisper strike, which is what we all want. So once we've got ourselves into that perfect set up position, I want you to get the sensation of a what I call a one piece take away and this is the move of the body and the club taking that club away together. Everything is going to move the arms and the hips and the shoulders getting the sense of putting that club into that first point of reference. So looking at this now from a down the line perspective and once we've got our club into that first point there from a a nice even take away, we want to get the sense that the shaft is now level with the feet and if you were taking a video from down the line you wouldn't see too much of the shaft because the head would be covering it. The 2nd checkpoint is the face of the club and in particular looking at the leading edge. I'm trying to get this leading edge in line with my spine angle, getting that tilt of my spine angle, making sure that face is just tilted in line with that setting, that club in the perfect position to be able to swing that club down the line. And from here we're in the perfect position to be able to transition to the top of the backswing, giving you the perfect take away. So by following those two simple checkpoint positions, it'll enable you to get that club in a much better take away position, swinging it on plane and hitting straighter. Golf shots just like that. So one of the most common faults that I see with golfers is alignment. You see it all the time on tour ranges. Tour players focusing hard on getting their alignment right and an approach to the golf ball is the first point that I want to talk about. A lot of players tend to approach the ball from the side and as soon as they get into the ball and hit their shot, they're aiming down the right hand side. So what you think is a bad shot is actually a good shot because you're aiming in that direction. The other fault is the player will want to move their swing, adjust their swing during it to be able to get that club back online. Well, in this video we're going to focus on a drill that you can go through that's going to help you align it much better. So earlier I mentioned about tour players, and the next time you're watching a tour event, I want you to focus on what tour players do when they approach the golf ball. And in this situation, they would be focusing on an alignment point, an intermediate point of reference between the ball and the target. That will be their main aiming point. When you approach this shot, you're going to pick a spot just in front of the ball, about a foot in front of the ball. In this case, we've got a leaf and it could be a divot, it could be a blade of grass, but it's something that you can align your club face to when you're setting up to the ball. You'll notice now that I'm going to approach this golf ball from behind, and the first point is to get this club face lined up to my intermediate target, which is that leaf. Once I take my stance, I'm going to pick this club up and put the shaft over the top of the leaf and the golf ball going to bring that back to my feet as a second reference point for my feet to be now parallel to that point. So with this set up, I now have the confidence that I'm aiming down towards my intended target with just two tea pegs. I'm going to help you improve your strike either at home or on the golf course. So to me, strike is king. Getting that strike out of the middle of the club face consistently is very important to better golf. For those players that strike it around the club face, you're going to lead to off centre strikes, leading to low ball speeds but also directional problems. Now there's a couple of options that you've got when it comes to figuring out where you are on the club face. You can put face tape or even foot spray on the actual face, which enables you to be able to hit the shot and see instantly where you've struck that ball. However, I've got a simpler one for you, which you can do either at home, in your garden, or even in your lounge if you've got enough base, simply setting up two tea pegs. Now in this situation, I've set up two tea pegs that are about an inch either side of the actual club head, and what I'm going to do is start to get the sense of just hitting little chip shots between those two marking positions. And what you're going to find is if you're someone that tends to come from the inside a little bit too much, you're going to hit the inside tea peg. If you're somebody that gets that club working away from you too much, you may hit the outside of that club face, which ultimately is going to move your straight location from kind of heel to toe. And what we're trying to focus on is trying to just brush that club through those gates, just trying to make sure that we get that centre point through it. And as I get a little bit more confident with this, I'm just going to widen my stance and just increase my club head speed to try and then move into hitting full shots between the gates. This is such a simple technique that can really help your strike and even when you get to the golf course you can set this up. Tee up a ball and give it a whack and make sure you're getting it out the centre point of your club. We're going to go back to basics with chipping. When you come out of the season, it's very common to see lots of players who have struggled with their chipping maybe move their ball position a little bit further back in their stance. Which during the chip shot you may feel that that club digs into the ground or the opposite of where they push the ball position, maybe a little bit further forward again, almost trying to help that ball into the air. You got to think about the chipping as kind of like a putting stroke. Ball position stays pretty much in the centre of the stance, even taking the grip of what you wid with your putter standing a fraction closer, feeling as though the heel of the club is a little bit off the ground. And then simply all I'm going to do differently from a putt to a chip, it's just leaned my weight about 70% onto my forward leg. Allow that handle of the club just to fall forward with you and then simply take that putting stroke and execute the shot. So moving into the winter months and even going into the main season, you may come across some slower greens. And I've got three key tips that I want to focus on for you that you can work on, that can help improve your putting going into these slower grains. And the first thing we're going to focus on is the tempo side of it with your putting. And I want you to think about the tick tock in your mind and thinking of as you take that club away, that putter away, you're going to focus on tick and then as you come back down through tock. So it's going to focus on TikTok as you come through to impact. Also, I want to see you maintain that stroke. I like to see players that focus on trying to just lengthen the backswing slightly lengthen the follow through, just to make sure you keep that tempo and that rhythm consistent. These are two key points that are going to help you keep consistency in your stroke. And lastly, I want you to focus on ball position. I want you to push it half a ball further forward in your stance. The idea of this is that we're trying to increase our launch with the putter into the ball. We're trying to get a little bit more loft onto the putter. This will enable that ball to sort of pop off the face a little higher and get it rolling on top of that grass just that little bit easier. So ball position just slightly further forward in the stance and then normal putting stroke, getting that ball up and along the grass and in. So take those seven key checkpoints into the winter months for some training and you'll emerge as a better golfer moving into next season from me at Churston Golf Club. Big thank you to Footjoy. We'll see you again soon.