7 Tips To Help You Find Your Golf Ball

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In this video, Neil Tappin shares some handy tips to help you find your golf ball more often and avoid costly penalty strokes.
Transcript
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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