In this video, Neil Tappin is joined by PGA professional and Golf Monthly Top 50 Coach Katie Dawkins. They discuss some of those simple lessons we all get taught when we first pick up the game but that we all forget! These are the simple and effective tips that can make a huge difference to your scoring potential. Katie's advice should help you from tee-to-green!
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00:00Hello everyone Neil Tappan here from Golf Monthly and welcome to West Hill Golf Club
00:03and this video in which we're going to take a look at the seven tips that every golfer forgets.
00:09Now these are all things that you'll pick up as you play golf over the years, the really simple
00:13stuff that can actually make a big difference to your scoring but that from time to time we all
00:19forget. Now the advice in this video comes courtesy of Katie Dawkins, she's a PGA pro,
00:24she's one of the Golf Monthly top 50 coaches and she's going to talk you through everything you
00:28need to know and it should help you in all areas of the game from tea to green. Right let's get
00:33started. Right so for our first one we're going to talk about the speed of your swing and in
00:42particular the tempo of your golf swing. Katie what do people forget here? I think people tend
00:48to forget that this is a golf swing it's not a golf hit right and I think that's probably the
00:53key thought for a lot of people to kind of bank in their memory banks because actually the fact
00:59the act of the golf swing suggests that there's a natural flow to it, there's a natural swing back
01:04and swing through. The problem people tend to find is that they've got lots of swing thoughts going
01:09on in their in their minds and that tends to stunt this nice natural rhythm that we're looking for
01:15in the golf swing. So you tend to find people thinking about stuff too much and therefore even
01:19if you're a decent sports person you've got a good ability to hit a ball with a racket a club
01:25a bat whatever you happen to be using that can sometimes disappear just because you're
01:29overthinking it and you're trying to hit it and trying to force the ball to do what you want it
01:33to do. It's such a good point I think my specific issue on this I think is that I tend to start
01:40getting too aggressive when I'm on the golf course under pressure start snatching at it a little bit
01:45too much so okay so most people watching this will know tempo really important so how do people
01:51practice it how do you make sure that you don't go too far wrong? I think it's important to have
01:56something that you can take out on the golf course with you because like you said there's situations
02:00out there where you need a little bit of restraining perhaps so you actually need just to
02:07calm things down a bit so a really good drill to do that is to actually maybe do one of your
02:12practice swings or just your sole practicing with your feet together because what that does
02:17is it starts to create this lovely freewheeling chilled out tempo. If you go at it like a bat
02:24out of hell with your feet together guess what you fall over so you're throwing yourself
02:28throwing yourself off balance. Okay so if you are somebody like me who has a tendency to snatch at
02:33their shots a little bit too much that feeling that you're hitting and not swinging try to
02:37incorporate that into your pre-shot routine. Okay so we have reached the inevitable part of this video
02:46which we're going to talk about alignment and most golfers watching this will know how important it
02:51is and yet there'll be a lot of people watching this that don't do it correctly every time
02:55and that's because they're forgetting something. What is it that golfers tend to forget
03:00about aiming properly? I think the biggest thing golfers tend to forget with alignment is they
03:04forget that it's not their body that's lined up to the target they're on those old train tracks so
03:09the ball and the target are on one train track your feet knees hips and shoulders are on the other
03:14so in theory you're running parallel to your target but the problem is when a lot of people
03:19set up to the ball is they look down their shoulder and they tend to kind of shuffle
03:23themselves and aim themselves out so they've skewed themselves across the line. Yes so what's the
03:29what's the process how do you get it right time and time again? So you need to build into your
03:33pre-shot routine so you need to stand behind the ball use your club almost like a ruler pointed at
03:38your target pull the club down and pick yourself a mini target just in front of the ball it's so
03:43much easier to get yourself lined up on those train tracks because you can see the tracks down
03:48there yeah when we're looking up at the target it's much easier to have a little shuffle do a
03:52little dance and immediately you you've pushed yourself offline yeah so having a mini target is
03:58probably my biggest tip for this and being able to aim yourself to that is much much easier than
04:03longer one yeah and it's it's so important so if you can just do what Katie said and get it right
04:08more often chances are you'll also start making better swings better contacts and just generally
04:13playing golf a little bit better. Okay so we've come down to the green here and Katie we're talking
04:22about chipping what do people forget to do in a situation like this? I think the biggest problem
04:28people have when it comes to shots out on the course around the green is they choose the wrong
04:33club right so I think there's that idea that because I'm chipping I need to look good and
04:38they want that Seve-esque sort of high floaty shot that's going to land right by the flag and
04:42zip back and stop that's not reality. Reality would be if I was to give you a ball and throw
04:48it to the flag go on then yeah right I'm not going to go up and over like that because I've got no
04:53control over it the bounce is going to be more unpredictable everything's just a little bit more
04:57dangerous my safest possible option would be to almost play lawn bowls basically so I'd roll it
05:04on the first available bit of green it would run to the flag yeah so then what I'd want you to do
05:10out on the golf course is kind of put into your hand the club that best fits that carry and roll
05:15right so for me that went low and rolled out so it'd probably be something like an eight iron
05:20yeah the majority of people would not be choosing an eight iron from here well I think that they
05:24possibly just automatically grab the lob wedge or the sand wedge yeah whenever they're whatever
05:28shot they're facing around the green I know that I probably have a tendency to do that a bit from
05:32time to time just immediately pick the club you just want to look at the best you can possibly
05:36look and for a lot of people that's the ball in the air but what's interesting about this case
05:40is that you're saying work backwards figure out what the shot looks like the best most reliable
05:44looking shot what it looks like and then pick your club so with this little short chip this almost
05:50tick tock action I can afford to miss hit it a little bit and still get away with it
05:55I think that's the important thing that's the important miss hit it and get away with it oh great
06:01so all I'm going to do is just that little tick
06:04tock bounce it on that top and let it roll around this is good you told me to miss hit it and I said
06:11no but I think the point remains keep it simple it's the best way to do it
06:20posture it's something that I think most golfers understand how important it is to have a nice
06:24athletic posture yet the amount of golfers that you see out on the course who are sort of stood
06:28over the ball not looking particularly athletic why is it so important to get right firstly Katie
06:35it's so important to get right because posture good posture gives you good balance
06:40which in turn gives you control in your golf swing and we want control in our golf swing right
06:45yeah we don't want to stand there in a position where we're rocking about the place and this is
06:49what happens when the position that you're setting up in is poor you're setting up in
06:54a state of almost sitting down or sometimes tipped over too much but the one we see the
06:59most is the fat back kind of slightly lazy posture almost what you've got there is you've got the
07:05weight on the heels so you're gonna swing the club back and you're gonna be rocking around
07:09rocking all over the place what we want to see is a more of a planted onto the balls of the feet
07:15and the ability to actually be in balance as you come back to the ball good posture to begin with
07:21is usually going to mean better posture as you hit the shot yeah poor posture you're just not
07:26going to introduce any of the bigger muscles so you're not going to get that lovely rotation
07:30and that lovely weight transfer through the ball so what's a good tip what's a good checkpoint to
07:34make sure you're in the right posture you could stand in front of a mirror at home and actually
07:38take your posture if the mirror is there take your posture set yourself up have a look go yeah
07:43all right that's great but we want something we can take onto the golf course you do see people
07:48out there going tippy over flex your knees and going through almost a little routine in their
07:51heads but that can introduce tension okay in good posture you should be able to a bit like you're
07:57about to return to serving tennis you should be able to give your heels a little tap that tells
08:01us we're ready to run somewhere tells us we're athletic if you're setting up to the ball and you
08:07try and do that and you think oh blimey i'm rocking back already because i can tap my toes
08:12if you're a toe tapper your posture's lacking athleticism it's a really simple tip and if you
08:17do have issues with your posture over the ball then maybe introduce that into your pre-shot
08:22routine it could make all the difference okay so we're going to talk about bunker play and
08:31obviously the two biggest mistakes are either leaving it in the bunker or thinning it over
08:36the back the lesson that people forget here is that the bunker shot the green side bunker shot
08:41is the only one in which you're not trying to make contact with the ball first right exactly
08:46and i think this is the thing is that we don't want to hit the ball first we want to hit the
08:50sand behind the ball so it floats out on that lovely cushion so it's really important here that
08:55we address the part we want to hit so we're actually addressing the sand behind the ball
09:00okay so talk us through how you did so it's important to almost think of the ball as being
09:05sat on a fried egg so the ball is the yolk essentially just draw a couple of little circles
09:09obviously not allowed to do this in real play for obvious reasons but draw a couple of circles around
09:15the ball and you can even give yourself three circles in a row almost like traffic lights
09:20practice hitting the right bit of sand so if i was to have a little practice traffic light if you like
09:25so i'm going to set myself up swing back swing through and take the whole thing out
09:31what i'm then going to do is set myself up to the back of the egg where the ball is
09:36and again almost try and repeat it so i'm just letting the ball get in the way
09:39but i'm aiming to hit the back of that egg
09:44perfect great shot and you'll notice i mean that description there that katie's given so simple
09:49it's something that every golfer can do but you do need to practice these things
09:53trust it and practice it it should help
10:01okay so our next one is about grip pressure and this is starting to feel actually a bit like a
10:05personal counseling session for me because i know that under pressure i have a tendency to
10:10really squeeze the grip and strangle the grip and i know that's not good but can you explain
10:15to everyone why it's not good so the first thing is you're not alone probably 90% of the people
10:21that i teach are strangling the club now the effect that this has on your ability to get back
10:26to that ball is huge the reason being if you're holding the club in an appropriate manner an
10:32appropriate amount of pressure is being applied you're holding it almost like a tube of toothpaste
10:36with the lid off so that would be quite a good way of remembering it what people tend to do is they
10:41tend to go from setting themselves up holding it all right and then suddenly the squeeze comes in
10:46so you've got a nice relaxed hold where the club's on the ground check out what my club face
10:51does when i squeeze it that's literally down to me strengthening my grip my forearms are
10:57contracting and therefore shortening and lo and behold you can imagine the shots that you're
11:02going to get from that you've got an iron in hand you're likely to hit i think you're likely to hit
11:06bins yes maybe tops absolutely yeah you are but also it's the impact that it has on your rhythm
11:13which we've talked about before you want that free easy swing you want that lovely flow to your
11:20golf swing yeah so as katie said a nice light grip pressure it'll help your rhythm it'll help
11:25all sorts of different things in your golf swing okay so the number one tip on our list that
11:35golfers forget is they forget to aim at the middle of the green in particular when the flag is cut
11:41tight to one side or another so imagine for a second that the green behind katie and i here
11:47imagine that flag is tucked just over the bunkers on the right hand side appreciate it's not today
11:51but imagine that it is that's a really dangerous flag yeah especially when you consider katie
11:58you've got so much room to aim out on this green haven't you and we've all said it we've all got
12:01up there and gone damn it i'm in the bunker look how much room there is on the left yes and for
12:07some reason reason we tend to go at tiger line at the flag stick something that will really help
12:14you to avoid this and remind you that actually the middle of the green you want to be on the
12:18middle of the green because you're never going to get a really long putt you're never going to be
12:21too far from the flag are you no but it's just a safe place to be but a way that you can do that
12:27is actually pay attention to what's behind the green so for example here we've got two tall
12:32fir trees um just to the right of where our flag is but that's central to the green
12:37i'd be thinking about aiming at those and use that as my marker as my part of my pre-shot
12:41routine just draw my attention to what's at the back it lifts you up body language wise so you're
12:46looking up you're visualizing a decent shot because you're going at something that's beyond the green
12:52yeah and it takes your attention away from any trouble that might be sneaking around in the
12:57foreground come on katie let's finish off with a good shot shall we so that flag let's be honest
13:02is in a pretty good spot not giving you any excuses here all right no pressure
13:11lovely shot nice high soft draw very easy and i think it goes to show that if you're out on the
13:17golf course and you're thinking about how to compile a score maybe just have one round of
13:21golf where you just aim at the middle of the greens forget about where the flag is see what
13:24it does to your score it might just help okay so there you have it that's our look at the seven
13:30tips that every golfer forgets if you've enjoyed the video please do hit the like button if you
13:34have any questions or any comments leave them below but that's it for now from west hill
13:39thanks for watching we'll see you next time