In this video, golf's biggest YouTuber Rick Shiels walks you through his ultimate 30 minute range session. Starting with the basics around the technique, he then moves onto into some of the games and challenges you can take on at the range that will improve your overall skill set. Use Rick's framework to power boost your game for the year ahead.
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00:00 Oh I've leaked it! Hang on ball! I want it to feel like your heart is racing, certainly
00:07 on the last few shots because that's how you're going to best develop your skills.
00:12 Alright guys, it's Rick Shields here, top 50 coach for Golf Monthly and today I'm going
00:21 to show you a 30 minute power boost range session to get you ready for this season to
00:27 have the best golfing season you've ever had. So let's hit the clock, 30 minutes, we're
00:32 going to break this up into three different elements. The first 10 minutes is all going
00:36 to be about getting your basics correct, things like alignment, ball position and technique.
00:44 I'll somewhat say the boring stuff, let's go through that first, even though it's boring
00:48 it's incredibly important. First thing I want you to do is get a couple of long golf clubs
00:53 out of your bag, something like the 3 and the 4 iron and we're going to use one of the
00:57 golf clubs for an alignment aid and another golf club for a ball position aid. You'll
01:04 even still see right now some of the best players in the world when they practice, they
01:10 will have ball position aids out and alignments, it's so unbelievably important. What I want
01:17 you to do with this alignment one on the ground, I want you to pick a target, so I'm going
01:22 to go for that blue flag that's just to the right of the 100 marker, I'm going to put
01:27 this club just running parallel to the left of that line. I'm then going to make sure
01:32 this club is at perfect right angles to the club on the ground because we're going to
01:37 use, I'm just going to use something quite lofted to start things off like a pitching
01:41 wedge. We're going to use the club that's on the ground here to use as a reference point
01:48 for our alignment. You can see there my right foot and my left foot are perfectly spaced
01:53 between that club. And then this club on the ground we're using mainly for ball position.
01:59 So for a pitching wedge I've got that absolutely smack bang in the middle of my stance. If
02:04 anything it's just a reminder, it's almost setting that kind of default setting back
02:10 to make sure that you're not getting out of place with where you aim or where your ball
02:14 position is going to be. So what I would do from here then is hit a few shots to warm
02:19 up and also just to get your eye in. So I've got my alignment, I've got my ball position
02:27 and I can work on a few nice easy shots. And it's not always like me, I just hit that exactly
02:36 over that blue flag that I was aiming for. So that gives me a lot of confidence that
02:40 my alignment is absolutely spot on. And each time when you address the ball, almost step
02:46 out of that mould and come back in again. Don't get lazy. So I'm going to hit about
02:51 10 shots doing this, making sure this drill is absolutely nailed on to start things off.
03:18 Okay so I'm really happy with that. I feel like I've got my eye in for my ball position
03:23 and my alignment. The next thing to work on is your technique. Again, I'll be honest
03:30 with you, the slightly boring stuff. But we want to get out of a practice session, we
03:33 want to improve, even if it's by 1%, even less than 1%, as long as every time we go
03:39 to the range we improve by that little amount. Now the best way is in person lessons, go
03:45 and see a coach, work on techniques that you need to work on. Or there's a few YouTube
03:50 channels out there, obviously Golf Monthly's, or my own where you can pick up on some golf
03:54 tips. And what I'd also recommend to get hold of is something like this. This is basically
04:01 a monopod with a little stand on the end. And you can attach your phone to this handle.
04:06 I'm going to set my phone up and just take a few videos of my swing so I can have a look
04:10 at my technique in slow motion. Top tips, have the camera placed at waist height and
04:15 have the angle of the phone in between where your feet are going to sit and where the ball
04:20 is going to sit. The reason why we have that positioning is because if the angle of the
04:24 phone is too far to the right or too far behind you, the actual path of your club coming down
04:30 will look totally different. Almost the aspect ratio just will look totally wrong. So making
04:36 sure that phone position is at waist height and in between your feet and the ball, pretty
04:41 much in line with your hands is the perfect location. And this is where I'm going to get
04:45 a little bit more technical. So for myself, I'm working on keeping that club face more
04:49 closed going back. So this is my main focus right now. I'm almost forgetting results for
04:54 a minute and focusing solely on this point in my golf swing. Exaggerating that feeling.
05:03 Not too worried about where the shot is going to go. This is the technique element of your
05:08 practice session. Exaggerating that move. And then looking at your phone and getting
05:24 that feedback. So what I like about this now, I'm getting that instant feedback. I can see
05:29 the feeling that I'm getting from that swing is matching up with the actual reality of
05:35 my club face being more closed or more square. Which is exactly what I'm working on. You
05:40 know what I love about this as well. I'll often send this to a friend or I'll post it
05:44 online or even send it to the golf coach I've been working with just to get that kind of
05:48 feedback. Or sometimes, I don't know if it's a real true practice session if you've not
05:52 actually shared it on social media. It makes you just feel a little bit better about yourself.
05:56 That everyone's not practicing and you are. You're getting better. This is invaluable
06:01 feedback. We've all got these in our pockets now. Use it. It definitely helps.
06:08 Okay so that is the housekeeping stuff done. They're the things that will definitely help
06:12 you start your practice session off well. I mentioned earlier, a bit of the boring stuff
06:17 but very, very important stuff. Right, next up, it's time to test yourself. I've got a
06:24 few really simple games here that you can do this with. So the phone goes away, the
06:28 monopod goes away, these clubs get put back in the bag because now it's time for you to
06:33 start getting in the zone of doing some testing yourself games. I've got three really good
06:38 ones. The first one is a distance challenge game. So start off with one of your irons.
06:44 Now what I want you to do is think about when you practice, you want to improve on your
06:48 weaknesses. You don't want to just practice all the time your strengths because there's
06:52 no massive value in that. You're already good at that. Practice your weaker shots. So for
06:56 example, my weaker shots, I'm not particularly very good from 100 yards and in. So that's
07:01 what I'm going to practice here. And dead simple, I'm going to grab my sand wedge, quite
07:04 a lofty golf club, and I'm going to set myself a task. I want to hit 10 shots in a row and
07:11 each shot I want to gradually be further than the last shot. If I fail in that task and
07:18 I hit a shot that's too short, I've got to start again. Now there's two ways of doing
07:23 this. You can do this visually at driving range or a practice ground. Down here at the
07:28 driving range, we've got the technology here of Top Tracer. So I'm going to reset all that
07:33 and I'm going to work on the carry distances each time being a little bit further than
07:38 the last. Let's see if we can get 10 in a row that accomplishes that feat. So the first
07:44 shot I'm going to hit about 25 yards is the goal. And 25 yards is the shot I hit. So I'm
07:55 really happy with that start. So the next shot I want to hit past 25 yards, but I don't
08:01 want to hit it too long. Something in the 30s, low 30s would be an incredible start
08:06 to this challenge. Should be good. 31. Okay. So really strong start. I'm going to go kind
08:17 of 40 yards for the next one. Oh, a bit heavy. Oh, I got away with it. 33 yards. We've done
08:32 three in a row so far. Let's see if we can get 10. Strong. Oh, right.
09:02 We failed. We managed to get one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Oh, we almost
09:10 got up to nine and then we failed. But that's good because it means now I've got something
09:15 to work on. The big thing is as well is track your result. Get your phone, have a little
09:20 notepad in your golf bag and say, this time I managed to do eight out of 10 because next
09:26 time you've got something to work on. Right. Next challenge is all about controlling trajectory.
09:32 Starting off low and aiming to try and hit it higher. So again, similar to last time,
09:36 you can either use your visual perspective of how high these shots are going to go or
09:41 using technology like top tracer. I'm going to now move up to my seven iron and the minimum
09:46 yards I've got to hit this is a hundred yards. So I can't just chip it 50 yards in front
09:50 of me. But I'm going to start off by doing is hitting it super, super low, as low as
09:54 I can possibly hit a seven iron. And then each time just trying to change the trajectory
09:59 a little bit until we finish actually trying to hit it super, super high. Again, a bit
10:04 like the last challenge. If we can do 10 in a row, it's an amazing achievement. So let's
10:09 see how we go on. It's got to go minimum a hundred yards. I'm going to start really low.
10:13 So the couple of things you can do here from a technique standpoint as well to hit a seven
10:18 iron lower ball position further back in the stance, hands further forward. One thing that
10:23 creates height is speed, speed and loft increase height. So we're going to decrease the loft
10:30 and hit it softer, slower. And let's start off nice and low. We're going to try and hit
10:35 a little low hundred yard seven iron. That's a really, really low flight. Got a bit longer
10:47 than a hundred yards, 125 yards. And it went 48 feet in the air. The next shot, we're going
10:53 to go slightly higher, but again, it's got to go over a hundred yards. So this time I'm
10:57 going to hit the ball a tiny bit faster than the last shot just to get that height. That's
11:08 a nice strike. There we go. We've elevated the shot by 10 feet. So now we're going to
11:14 go a little bit higher, similar ball position, a tiny bit faster. So the first three I've
11:23 done very good so far. I'm going to just tweak this a little bit, change the trajectory.
11:27 I'm going to put the ball position slightly more towards the middle of my stance because
11:31 that's going to bring the loft back to its more natural setting. But I'm still going
11:35 to hit this super soft. Might be higher though. Yeah, 52. Okay. Middle of the stance. I'm
11:51 going to go a little bit faster this time. So I've done six so far and successfully got
11:59 to this stage. I'm now going to move the ball position a little bit further up in my stance
12:03 again to increase the loft. This is going to be interesting. I'm going to hit this over
12:08 90 feet. It's starting to get quite high now. That should be good. This is good in practice
12:21 because I've got to shot number seven now. I'm starting to feel the pressure. I want
12:25 to get to number 10 and it's good to practice under pressure. Keep the ball position forward
12:30 and go a little bit more speed. I've got to try and get over 104 feet in the air. Easy.
12:39 Okay two more to go. 118 to beat. Ball position forward. Almost maximum speed. Okay. Last
12:53 shot in the 10. Ball position forward. Maximum speed. As hard and fast as I can hit it. And
13:01 our last little sprinkle of magic. Finish with really, really high hands because it
13:06 keeps the loft on the face. I've got to beat 132 feet. I'm going to send this to the moon.
13:18 And that is 10 successful shots, each going higher than the last. Last challenge to test
13:26 yourself. The driver. It's going to be dead simple this. 10 shots and you're going to
13:31 picture a fairway. How many times can you hit the fairway? And again, great ways of
13:35 doing this. Out on the golf driving range here, you can pick a couple of flags. There's
13:39 two flags. A yellow one on the right, a yellow on the left. And I can picture that as my
13:43 fairway. Or, using the top tracer, I've come here on the long drive, driving range fairway
13:50 effectively. I'm going to hit 10 shots and see how many times consecutively I can hit
13:55 the fairway. How many out of 10 should I say I can get? And again, this is great. You can
13:59 note it down on your phone or in a little notebook and each time try and improve on
14:03 your previous score. Right, let's go. What I want to try and get out of this as a practice
14:09 session and for everybody watching is I want it to feel like nervous. I want it to feel
14:14 like your heart is racing, certainly on the last few shots, because that's how you're
14:18 going to best develop your skills and how taking your game from the driving range to
14:23 out on the golf course. Let's go. 10 shots. I'm somewhat even nervous on the first shot.
14:27 It feels like a first-team nerves type of vibe because you want to start strong. I'm
14:33 picking my line, really visualizing where I'm going to hit this. And let's start off
14:38 straight down the middle of the fairway. That should be a very good start. One out of one.
14:52 Might be a tiny bit right. Should be good. Just, but we're on the fairway. I'm not trying
15:05 to hit these as hard as I can. These are all fairway finding drives. That was a little
15:23 bit high and definitely got affected by the wind. I'm not looking for distance. I'm looking
15:28 for accuracy. That's four out of four so far. Right. This is the point where it starts to
15:42 feel a bit more nervous. I'm just at six really good drives there, straight down the fairway.
15:46 We've got four more to go to get 10 out of 10. The old heart is pumping. This is what
15:53 we want. We want that excitement. We want that kind of nerves. Can I finish strong?
15:58 This is coming down the straight. I've got a good round of golf going. Can I keep hitting
16:02 fairways? Not my best, but it's straight down the middle. Straight down the middle. Three
16:14 to go. Oh, I've leaked it. We might have missed the first fairway. Hang on ball. Hang on.
16:26 Oh, I got lucky. That wasn't my best shot. The old nerves started twitching, but this
16:32 is good. This is what you want in a practice session. Two more to go. Okay. This is it.
16:44 Last shot. Again, they've not all been pretty. They've not all been perfect, but this is
16:51 the one. I'm on for a record score. 10 out of 10. Can I finish? This is walking down
16:56 the 18th hole. You've got a good round of golf going. You just want to finish strong.
17:01 You want to hit that great tee shot. Well, this hard work on the driving range will help
17:06 you next time you get in that situation. Heart is pumping. Hands are twitching. Can I finish
17:12 with a 10 out of 10? Hang on to that right hand side. Oh, it's absolutely perfect. That
17:25 is good. That's good practice. I feel motivated with that. And next time I got on the golf
17:29 course, I can't imagine hitting it anywhere else apart from straight down the middle of
17:33 the fairway. Right. Next up, let's challenge someone else.
17:39 Right. The last section of your practice here at the driving range is to challenge somebody
17:46 else. Whether that's a friend or whether it's actually just someone else at the driving
17:49 range, ask them if they fancy a bit of a competition. This is a way that you can put everything you've
17:54 just worked on for the first two sections of this practice session into a more realistic
17:59 setting. So you can do things like nearest the pin challenges, who can hit it closest,
18:04 whether it's at a target at the driving range or again, using top tracer technology, or
18:08 whether it's a longest drive challenge against each other. And you could even finally pretend
18:14 you're playing a hole again, either on the range by using different targets, or why not
18:19 jump on one of the most famous holes in the world using top tracer. And you know what?
18:24 Why not make it a bit spicy as well? The loser has to do a forfeit, whether that's clean
18:29 the other one's golf shoes, or even simply carry the other golfers clubs back to the
18:34 car, make it mean something, because then you're going to at least try your best. And
18:40 it matters. Like you want that bit of nerves, you want that bit of excitement to definitely
18:45 put you in the right frame of mind. That is how you power boost your practice session,
18:51 ready for a great season. Go out there, work hard in your golf game, because believe me,
18:56 when you play well, you enjoy it a lot more. We'll see you next time.
18:59 [Outro Music]
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