7 Tips To Help You Find Your Golf Ball
In this video, Neil Tappin shares some handy tips to help you find your golf ball more often and avoid costly penalty strokes.
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00:00 Hello everyone, Neil Tappan here from Golf Monthly and welcome to the London Club
00:03 and this video in which we are going to offer some advice to help you
00:07 search for and find golf balls that you've hit into a little bit of trouble.
00:11 Now we all do it from time to time where we hit tee shots or other shots into
00:14 you know difficult areas of the golf course to find your ball in
00:18 and actually there are some really good practical tips that will help you find
00:21 your ball more often than not and that's what we're
00:24 going to go through in this video. Guys if you're new to the Golf Monthly
00:27 channel please do hit the subscribe button to make sure you don't miss any
00:29 of our videos. Hit the like button if you like what you're watching but let's take
00:32 a look at the seven best tips to help you search for and find your golf ball.
00:37 Now this tip relates to keeping a very close eye on your ball whenever you hit
00:54 it into trouble. Now it sounds incredibly obvious doesn't it but the
00:58 truth is whenever you hit a bad shot the temptation is to look away in
01:02 frustration or to think about what you've just done wrong in your swing
01:05 that's caused you to hit such a bad shot but that's not going to help you find
01:08 the golf ball. The only way you're going to find your golf ball is to keep a very
01:12 close eye on exactly where it's gone. In this scenario I've just hit
01:16 a bit of a slice here off the 15th tee at the London Club.
01:19 I know it's up the right but because I turned away in disgust I have absolutely
01:23 no idea where it's finished. So keep watching your ball very closely
01:27 until it lands so you get all the information that you need. If you need to
01:31 walk over to the side to get a better view of exactly where the ball's gone. In
01:34 this scenario it's gone over a little mound on the right hand
01:36 side. I can probably see a bit more of its flight if I walk
01:39 over to this side of the tee. All of those things, they might seem small, they
01:42 might seem obvious but they will make a big difference
01:45 if you've hit your ball into trouble.
01:49 Whenever you've hit your ball into trouble you will of course need to get a
01:54 good idea of how far you've hit it. I think the big mistake I see in this
01:58 scenario is that people tend to overestimate how far they've hit the
02:02 ball. Often you'll find yourself searching for
02:05 somebody's ball in the group and they're looking
02:07 in an adjacent area to where the other players are who've hit them straight
02:10 down the fairway when in fact they've hit a slice and
02:13 chances are if you've hit a slice the ball will not go as far. So just
02:16 be realistic about how far you've hit the ball. If you're looking
02:20 for a push shot or a slice shot take a bit of yardage off.
02:23 That's always a sensible idea. Alternatively if you have hit a hook
02:27 then perhaps it might have gone a little bit further
02:28 but do remember also that if the ball's gone into an area like this with some
02:31 really thick long grass there's not going to be any run on it
02:34 either. So as you can see here my playing partner's hit a really good drive
02:38 that's just ended up in the right hand semi on this hole. My ball
02:41 which was further right than that was a bit of a slice there's some thick grass
02:44 in here it's never going to have gone as far as
02:47 that drive there. So just having a sort of a sensible
02:51 approach a common sense approach to how far you've hit the ball
02:54 whenever you've hit it into trouble might well help you identify a better
02:59 area to search for your ball in and it might just yield the results you're
03:02 looking for.
03:05 Now whenever you've hit your ball into trouble it is really important that you
03:19 get a very good line on where that ball has gone. Now I'm on
03:22 the 16th hole here on the international course at the London Club and I've hit a
03:26 hook off the tee. My ball has gone just over
03:29 the left hand edge of the bunker that I think you can probably see there
03:33 at the end of the fairway. Now by having a really really good line on it and by
03:36 knowing the ball's gone over just that left hand edge I've got a much
03:39 better chance of finding it. Now it might well be that you pick out a
03:42 spot on the horizon whether that's a electricity pile on a church spire a
03:47 tree whatever it is pick something out that's really easily
03:50 identifiable and as specific as possible so that when you get into the area
03:55 to search for your golf ball you can pick out that spot once again
03:59 and you should be able to have a much better idea of where your ball
04:03 has come to finish.
04:05 Now it's not essential under the rules of golf that you do this but we would
04:11 always advise that you put an identification mark
04:14 on your golf ball this is my Titleist ProV1X number two
04:18 and I put two green dots above the Titleist on both sides of the golf ball
04:22 that means that if I do hit the ball into an iffy area and chances are there
04:26 are going to be other Titleist 2s over in that area I know exactly which
04:30 ball is mine. It can be one of those things
04:33 that can really help sort of clear up any unwanted confusion whenever it
04:36 comes to the rules of golf you really want to avoid
04:38 any confusion so when it comes to searching for and finding your golf ball
04:42 I'd say it's always a good idea to put a unique identification mark
04:46 on your ball.
04:49 Okay so the next one is a really important one and it relates to how you
04:54 go about searching for your golf ball now
04:56 this is the 13th hole on the International Golf Course here at the
04:59 London Club and I've hit a slight pull off the tee
05:02 and I know that my golf ball is somewhere behind me in amongst these
05:06 trees and the long grass now having got a good
05:09 line on my tee shot I know it's in line with that tree that you can see behind
05:13 me but where exactly I don't know. Now if I'm carrying my
05:17 golf clubs which I am today then I would walk from the tee
05:20 into the area that I think I've hit my ball on the line
05:23 of the shot effectively at some point I should sort of run into my golf ball I
05:27 should see it as I walk in on that line. Now that's not always
05:30 going to be possible of course because sometimes you're going to be playing in
05:33 a buggy or you're going to be using a trolley and in
05:36 those scenarios what I'd say is a good idea is to pull up roughly
05:40 sort of adjacent to the area you think your ball might be in
05:43 walk into the rough and by looking back towards the tee and looking forward
05:47 towards the tree I'm effectively retracing the line of
05:51 the shot I can then walk forwards and hopefully I should be able to find
05:55 my ball and some really simple stuff there but when it comes to searching for
05:58 golf balls in difficult areas that's the sort of stuff that can make
06:02 all the difference.
06:04 So if the sun was out for this shot which I appreciate it's a bit in and
06:10 out of the clouds then I'd be hitting directly into the
06:13 sun and it can be really really difficult to see where the ball goes
06:15 you make a swing at the ball you look up to see where it's gone and suddenly
06:18 you're blinded by the sun you can't see where it's gone.
06:20 In this situation it always makes sense just have a word with your playing
06:24 partner and say do you mind just keeping an eye on this one
06:27 just to make sure that your playing partner isn't you know
06:31 practicing his grip or checking his sort of backswing while you're
06:34 hitting because if that does happen and you lose sight of it and your playing
06:38 partner hasn't seen it at all you could end up losing a ball that
06:41 actually was perfectly findable in the first place.
07:00 In the latest set of revisions to the rules of golf that were released by the
07:03 RNA and USGA at the beginning of 2019 they
07:07 decided to remove the penalty for accidentally moving your ball while
07:11 searching for it so if you're somebody that's played golf for many years you
07:13 might think to yourself oh if I accidentally step on my ball
07:17 or hit my ball with my club while I'm searching for it I'm going to get a
07:20 penalty shot that is now not the case so my advice to
07:23 you would be get in there have a good look for it feel you know
07:27 move the grass around with your feet that will really help you
07:29 uncover the ball in difficult areas especially if you're playing in the
07:32 autumn when leaves are coming down off the trees
07:35 the ball can go underneath those leaves can be very annoying can lose a ball
07:38 in some really sort of findable areas. Now if you do happen to accidentally
07:44 move your ball so my ball's just here and if I'm searching for it I
07:47 accidentally move it like that I don't get a penalty but
07:51 I must replace the ball to its original position so I'd simply
07:55 pick it up and then I know exactly where it was but if I didn't know exactly
07:59 where it was then I'd have to sort of guess to the best of my
08:02 knowledge where it was originally situated which was just in there and now
08:07 I can carry on knowing that I've not broken the rule so the advice here is
08:10 very simple if you're searching for your ball
08:12 search for it get in there move the grass around try and find it and if you
08:16 move it simply put it back to its original
08:18 position. So there you have it that's our list of seven tips for how to search
08:22 for and find your golf ball whenever you hit it into
08:25 a spot of bother on the golf course I hope you found that useful guys
08:28 before you go hit the pause button and let us know if you have any tips for
08:32 searching for golf balls that you think might be helpful to
08:34 other people I think it's always useful to share
08:36 those ideas around but that's it for now from the London Club thanks for
08:40 watching and we'll see you next time
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