In this video, Golf Monthly Top 50 Coach Trey Niven takes a look at the swing of former Premier League footballer, Jay Bothroyd. Since retiring from football Jay has devoted his time and effort to his golf game and has quickly reduced his handicap. But what does he need to do to reach the next level? We take a look at Jay's swing and the tips and drills that will hep him improve
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00:00 Hey guys, Trey Niven here, Top 50 UK coach. I'm joined with a very special guest of mine, Jay.
00:07 We also got the Outer Bound show which we've been hosting at the minute.
00:11 We've just been playing a few holes out at Hadley Wood, amazing golf course, amazing weather today.
00:16 Spotted a couple things in your swing Jay. Just a couple? Just a couple, yeah.
00:20 Not giving you too many though because I don't want you to get too good.
00:23 I need you to show me how good you are. So these tips could potentially get my handicap down.
00:28 Which is what now? At the minute? 6.7. I've done some work in the winter.
00:33 Things are looking good, I'm improving. But obviously, you say you're a Top 50 golf course coach.
00:40 We're going to get you down. Show me then.
00:42 I think before I give you some tips, we're going to get down to 5 and below. Deal? Deal.
00:47 Tell you what Jay, strike perfect. A little bit right there. And off balance.
00:56 Do you think that's something you see in your game typically?
00:59 Yeah, I don't feel confident. There's some days you turn up and you feel good with your driver.
01:05 But more often than not, I don't feel confident from tee to fairway.
01:09 When I'm on the fairway, I feel really good and I think that's why my scores are low.
01:14 If I can improve on my tee shot, I think my score will come down dramatically.
01:19 So that's what I struggle with I think.
01:20 Just hit one more drive for us Jay, but I think driver is going to be the one we look at today.
01:26 That's a good shot actually.
01:30 Well done.
01:34 So I think, again, you hit some really good tee shots. You hit, I would say, more shots right than left.
01:42 But you can still have a bit of a left miss as well, can't you?
01:45 But it's the right shot we've got to probably look at first.
01:48 Yeah, sometimes I just like that kind of knuckle ball to the right.
01:54 So firstly in that, what's really important to understand, especially for the people at home,
01:59 is if it's a directional miss, say right or left, what do you think is causing that?
02:05 What's the physics? What's happening at impact to cause that do you think?
02:08 My face is going to be closed.
02:09 100% yeah. So you've got to go straight to the club face.
02:13 If it's right, left, high or low, it's generally where the loft is pointing.
02:17 So you've got to think, OK, how do we potentially, if it's low, less loft.
02:22 If it's right, it's also closed.
02:24 So how do we bring that club face back and get it straight?
02:28 So I think just looking at your swing out on the course and just on a video then,
02:33 just set yourself up as if you were going to hit one.
02:36 Good, hold that there.
02:38 And just take the club back to my hand here.
02:40 Great. So this part for you, if we slow the video down, what you saw,
02:44 you saw your grip start to twist the club quite a lot early on.
02:48 So now he's taken all the loft off the golf club and actually shutting the face.
02:52 So if you did nothing from here, and let's just say you brought the club back down
02:56 with no twist, you can see club face is pointing a little bit low.
03:00 And then I'll probably do that, right?
03:02 Yeah. And then you add things in to try and compensate for that kind of loss of loft
03:07 and shut club face. So everything tries to go.
03:10 That's another thing that I feel. I feel that sometimes I do that.
03:13 Yeah. Try and combat it. And then sometimes it works.
03:16 Yeah. But majority of the time it doesn't.
03:18 Yeah. And you see the bit that goes up is almost like your part to save yourself.
03:23 Yeah. Because we don't want to overcomplicate things.
03:26 We want to try and keep it quite simple. So just think it's going low, right?
03:29 I need some loft and I need to square the face up a bit more.
03:32 Yeah. So just bring it back to about my hand again.
03:34 So about waist height, just to there. Perfect.
03:37 I want you to focus on getting that club face pretty perpendicular to the ground.
03:42 So more of like the toe up. The toe is down.
03:45 Less loft. This is a little bit more.
03:48 So this is just really simple, just take away piece.
03:51 You might focus on this little logo here or your watch pointing up more.
03:55 That way? Yeah. That's probably overdone,
03:58 but I'd rather you over exaggerate it a little bit to practice it at the start.
04:02 Okay. So just do that one more time.
04:04 That's good. And again.
04:11 Good. That looks really good. Okay. We're going to hit one now.
04:14 Okay. Try again. Feel a bit different? Yeah.
04:20 That feels really different actually.
04:23 So just ever so slightly feeling that watch up to the sky.
04:30 Good. So that one, it's like the opposite way a little bit now.
04:36 Yeah. Definitely didn't have any of that hook spin on it, did it?
04:39 Yeah. So you can see whatever you change there in that early phase,
04:43 change how the face was impacting the ball.
04:46 Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I'll tell you one thing for me,
04:49 that when I, right now, where my game's at,
04:52 I just want to see my, in an ideal world, obviously fairway.
04:57 Yeah. But just down there in play, even if it's in the rough,
05:01 I feel confident from there that I can still get to the flag with my irons.
05:05 Yeah. Because I feel my iron play is good.
05:07 Yeah. I'd work on club face really simply. Don't overcomplicate it.
05:11 So like there? Yeah.
05:12 Just feeling like that watch is pointing up more to the sky.
05:15 As simple as swinging back to here. That's it.
05:18 That's right. And just check where the face is. Do it again.
05:20 That's it. Just keep it as so simple as that.
05:23 Yeah.
05:25 Good.
05:30 And then you can even rehearse that into a little practice swing and then hit one.
05:35 That's it. Like Justin Thomas practices that really early part, doesn't he?
05:39 Oh, okay. That there? That's it. And then you go and hit.
05:42 Okay.
05:44 And then what I think on top of that, if you did start to see some go out that way,
05:55 what that is, is you're almost, you're old release,
05:57 like you hanging on to trying to add loft.
06:00 So now you can just allow your hands and arms to release.
06:03 I'll tell you, for me being a football player, I respond well to feel.
06:09 Yeah.
06:10 Like as an analogy, you know, so for me, when I've seen that my practice swing,
06:15 my practice thing feels like my, that's the way my real swing should be.
06:20 Yeah. So for example, that's my practice swing,
06:25 but I can't replicate that with my real swing. Yeah. And that's where I'm.
06:30 But the more you do of that though, and you're prepped.
06:33 So if those last two have gone a little bit left, add the same first move in,
06:37 but react to it, try and bring it back now through the ball.
06:40 Good try. That was better. Yeah. So educate yourself,
06:47 like hit different shapes, like rights and lefts,
06:50 like educate your hands to be able to figure out where the faces.
06:53 So the practice for me then would just be that to there.
06:56 Yeah. And then back through square in it. That's it.
07:00 Good. Happy with that? Yeah. Yeah. No, I can't give you too much.
07:04 Because you might beat me.
07:06 So a bit of a summary for that one for Jay.
07:11 He had a little bit of a low right miss for him as a left-handed golfer.
07:15 So straight away, got to go for the club face,
07:17 doing anything that we can in that session there to square the club face a bit more,
07:22 find a little bit of loft and just help him kind of generate a square impact.
07:26 So just if you're trying to get your club face a little bit squarer
07:30 and trying to find some loft, I'd start with a grip if you can.
07:34 If you can't find it through the grip, try and find it early on in the swing.
07:39 And that's kind of the approach that we went with Jay,
07:41 because he's kind of got his grip. He's quite comfy with that.
07:43 So got to find it in the swing,
07:45 try and see the ball do something a little bit different.
07:48 And then after that, see if you can bring that ball back to where you want it to finish.
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