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We exist to help golfers get more out of the game they love. Our team of passionate golfers and experts produce authoritative in-depth reviews of the latest golf equipment to help you buy better, tips and advice to improve your game, ideas for golf courses to play and places to stay and coverage of the game at every level from grassroots up to Tour.
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SportsTranscript
00:00Hello everyone, Neil Tappan here from Golf Monthly and welcome to this video
00:03in which we are going to take a look at six golf tips you should ignore. These
00:08tend to be the things that amateurs say to other amateurs and they can actually
00:12do you more harm than good. Right let's head out onto the golf course here at
00:16Fox Hills and take a look at the six golf tips you should ignore.
00:22Okay so we're joined by Alex again and Alex the first one on the list is about
00:30the position of your left elbow in the golf swing. Explain to me what it is
00:34that people get told here. There's a lot of talk where we've got to keep this
00:37left elbow straight and left arm straight and now okay there may be
00:41reasons why we actually bend the left elbow due to grip but if we just look at
00:45it just as a whole and saying I don't think there should be so much pressure
00:49on keeping the left arm straight. Okay so can I just play devil's advocate here
00:54for a second. You don't want to be in a position where you're in that position
00:58then. No, no. So there is some truth to this that you shouldn't be in that
01:02position there. Why is that not a good position to be in? Ultimately it's going
01:06to create a very inconsistent bottom of the arc. Now anytime I see a motion like
01:10this I tend to kind of classify people that may be a little bit scoopy into
01:15the golf ball but the thing with this, look at Jordan Spieth. He was a world
01:20number one, Masters winner. He is what we kind of classify as slightly bent at the
01:25top. Okay so what's an okay position to be in at the top? What I would say is we
01:29don't want to feel like we're locked out because that's really going to limit our
01:33rotation. Anytime that we feel like we concentrate on trying to keep that
01:37straight we start to create a lot of tension through the whole body.
01:40Anytime we create tension it's hard to create rhythm, it's hard to create a good
01:43consistent swing. So even when I swing is, and as I come to the top, I would
01:47never be locked out, I would never be at 90 degrees but I would have a slight
01:52kink in my arm. Just be relaxed. Yeah so it's just, I guess this is one for
01:56anyone out there that's really getting a bit too focused on keeping this very
02:00straight. It all can become very mechanical and so lacking in that kind
02:05of free-flowing movement that you're looking for. Exactly and if we look at
02:07Ernie Els, Jordan Spieth, all free-flowing movements. We're not stood here like a
02:12mechanical robot really focusing on this because our focus is on this then, not
02:16the shot in hand. Yeah so there you have it. Don't worry too much about keeping
02:19this elbow perfectly straight during the golf swing.
02:27So for the next one as you can see we are on the putting green and Alex it's
02:31again another tip that you'll hear people give to each other which is that
02:35you've got to keep your wrists really locked down, have a repeatable
02:39consistent putting stroke but actually again it's a thought that can do more
02:43harm than good. Why? Exactly, well if you just imagine you're going to address the
02:47ball on the floor there. If you feel the wrists are locked, straight away we're
02:50going to get tension in the arms, tension the shoulders and it becomes a very
02:54wooden, no flowing motion. Now there are techniques where we
02:59potentially get the arm in the arm lock and we do create it to be locked out. So
03:03putting is very individual to you and if you're using that kind of grip then
03:07that's okay for that technique. Yes but otherwise for most of us who aren't
03:11using an arm lock grip actually you want a little bit of freedom in your wrist.
03:16We look at Jack Nicklaus, one of the best putters, best short game, having
03:20that flow, even feeling, I'm not saying flick it but a little bit of giving the
03:24lead wrist, it's going to help you develop feels and help you longer
03:28putts, shorter putts and just overall help you flow. But as you say you don't want
03:32to flick it because I guess the truth, again there's always an element of truth
03:36behind all of these and the truth is you see a lot of players when they
03:40get into that position there they kind of do all of the work by flicking the
03:44wrist of the ball and why is that not a good idea? Almost going to hit up on the ball, we're
03:48going to hit above the equator, we could put the face left, put the face right. So
03:52what I would tend to give as my advice if I was holding it a more traditional
03:57way is that we want a motion that's driven mainly by the arms in the body
04:01and very little with the wrist. So if I make this motion here you wouldn't stick
04:07out that I'm flicking the golf ball club, but I have an element of softness
04:11to my wrist and that's what I want you to have, the element of softness almost
04:15like you're squeezing a tube of toothpaste. Yeah so just that little bit
04:18of, I guess you could call this a little bit of lag actually, in your wrist it's
04:22going to help the freedom of your stroke, the flow of your stroke, ultimately
04:25improve your overall consistency on the greens.
04:32Okay so the next one on our list relates to lag and it's something that a lot of
04:37amateurs go in search of because they know that it's the kind of that secret
04:41ingredient that delivers more power, but why is lag itself something that players
04:46should sort of not be so worried about searching for? I think it's a dangerous
04:50topic for most people, it can for me cause them to stiffen up, put the face
04:56right a target and really become very obsessed in creating a move that looks
05:00very false in rehearsal. Now there are essence in saying that okay we've got to
05:05kind of create the opposite scenarios to what we've got, but I would say for most
05:10people if you look at you've got a good grip, good body movement, good sequencing
05:14that will help you create lag. Okay fine. Rather than going searching for it
05:19directly. So don't be led down the path and thinking it's this kind of magic you
05:23know little single thing that you can do that it's going to deliver more power.
05:27Exactly we're not saying it's not important, it is, but being too focused on
05:31it can be the wrong avenue for you. Okay go on then hit one for us Alex. Okay.
05:42Okay lovely shot and I think we'll show that again from the sort of square on
05:47angle you'll be able to see that Alex creates lag in his golf swing but he does
05:51it for a whole host of other things that are working well trying to focus purely
05:55on delivering that lag it's probably not the right way to go.
06:03Okay so the next one on our list relates to chipping Alex what is it? So I always
06:09hear this especially when we're trying to create a bit of spin around the
06:12greens. Put the ball back, get the hands forward, hit down the golf ball. I was
06:17told it as a junior. Yeah I was actually taught that as being the right way to
06:21chip. I mean there probably are times and scenarios where we probably want to
06:25adopt a similar technique for that but sometimes by putting that ball back and
06:29the hands forward all we're doing there is exposing that leading edge and it's
06:33gonna dig. And you're gonna potentially duff it which is something that I am
06:37very familiar with Alex. So if that's not the right technique for chipping what is
06:41the right technique? Well I like to make sure the ball is a little bit more
06:45central so the rule of thumb that I use is my stance I like to have just wide
06:50of a clubbed width apart and if the chip becomes a little bit longer I get a
06:53little bit wider accordingly. Ball position just on my zip or just the
06:58right of my zip and then from there hands on the golf ball because now we've
07:02got an opportunity to display some loft and hit slightly down on it which is a
07:06good recipe for creating spin. And crucially you're gonna be employing a
07:09bit more of the bounce of the golf club so the club should just glide off the
07:13top. Exactly you've got a much more margin for error so in the winter when you're
07:16chipping or it's a bit of a wet lie, a bit of a bad lie, you've got a bigger margin for error.
07:19No you've just put yourself under a bit of pressure there because it is winter here, it is very wet underfoot, this is a real prime
07:27scenario for duffing it isn't it and that's exactly why you shouldn't have the ball
07:30back in your stance and your hands forward. Exactly. So yeah show us how it's done Alex.
07:33Okay no pressure.
07:41Well it just grabbed on you there but as you could see absolutely no danger that
07:45the club was gonna dig and that Alex was gonna duff that one.
07:59That's not your best Alex. Now if we were playing golf in that scenario I might be
08:04tempted to say to you just slow it down a bit because it looked a bit ragged.
08:08Yes, yeah it looked a little bit off balance I guess. But actually it's a tip, again it's a tip that gets
08:14handed from one amateur to the next that might not be that useful. Now if we look
08:19at the top players in the world they're trying to swing the club as fast as they
08:23can. It's all about distance in the modern game so I'm really reluctant to
08:27tell someone to slow it down. I'm more bothered about the tempo of the swing.
08:31Okay fine. So my speed might be the same as yours but we have slightly different
08:35tempo and how we go about it. Okay fine so that begs the question how do you
08:40work on tempo? Tempo is one of those things isn't it that you either have one
08:43day or you don't. Yeah so the analogy that I like to use and I use this on the course as
08:48well so not just in my practice. I imagine a rev counter that works from
08:51transition down to the golf ball so on the downswing. Okay. So a lot of people
08:57like that swing there would have looked like the high peak and the higher revs
09:00in your car were really early in the downswing. Right at the top almost. Exactly. I want you to feel like you
09:06build up to that so we're peaking our revs just before impact. Yeah and it's I
09:11guess it's the reason why many of the world's best players they look like they
09:14swing the ball and swing the club quite easy but they hit the ball very
09:18hard because actually they don't get speed until they really need it most. I
09:22mean Ernie Owls as soon as I think rhythm and tempo he comes straight to my
09:26mind. Yeah so next time someone says to you I think you might need to slow it
09:30down just check yourself and think actually it's tempo it's a smoother
09:34tempo that I need that might just help you straighten things out and hit better shots.
09:43Okay so Alex I'd say the number one thing that you hear amateurs say to
09:47other amateurs that pros really don't like is keep your head down. Yeah. You
09:53know you've hit a bad shot there or you lifted your head. Especially when you see
09:56a top shot. I hear that all the time. Why is that unhelpful advice?
10:01Well just in terms of if we look at how we want to work through the golf ball we
10:06want to be very rotary through the golf ball. Now to help us do that the chin has
10:11to lift we have to start looking towards the target. Yeah I mean take a
10:15look at the way that Henrik Stenson swings the golf club or the way that
10:18Anna Kosorenstam hit the ball. Both of them through impact their head
10:22would be at kind of that angle wouldn't it? Exactly so what I would say is anytime
10:26that we are trying to keep our head down is what the tip that we hear this is
10:31really limiting our ability to swing through and rotate. We're using club head
10:36speed and it's going to do more harm than good because that face could be
10:39pointing left and right because we're really relying on our hand-eye
10:42coordination to time it. Now Alex I'm gonna play devil's advocate here and say
10:47there is an element of truth to don't keep don't lift your head and that
10:51element of truth is that you don't want people to lose their posture their
10:55spine over. You don't want someone to sort of lift up or I guess you'd less
11:00see people dipping down. Is that true? Is that fair? Yeah that's the kind of I
11:04think where it kind of gets a little bit led down the wrong avenue when we
11:09say lift our head. In an ideal world I like to think the goal swing we get
11:12light we get heavy and we get light but through doing this our head roughly
11:18stays around the same position. We never want to see too many changing levels.
11:22Yeah okay well hit one for us then Alex we can see what you mean. So what I try
11:26and feel is in terms of trying to get me to get my head to move towards target I
11:30try and imagine I'm gonna follow the spots on the golf ball down to target.
11:34Okay good.
11:41Lovely so there you have it don't focus too hard on keeping your head down
11:45during the golf swing. Chances are if you're hitting bad shots it's not
11:48because you're not looking at the ball through impact it'll be something
11:50different. Hopefully Alex's tip will show you what to do. So there you have it
11:54that's our list of the six golf tips you should ignore. Guys please do leave some
11:58comments below. Is there anything that you think we've missed? Any tips that
12:02you've been given in the past that have actually done you more harm than good?
12:05We'd be really interested to hear your thoughts but for now thanks for watching
12:09we'll see you next time.