In this video, Neil Tappin is joined by Top 50 Golf Coach Ged Walters to provide his 5 best ball striking drills. He'll help you with your angle of attack and weight transfer to improve the quality of your striking. If you are heading to the range to work on your game, this video is a must watch!
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00:00If you're looking to shoot lower scores this year then one thing you'll undoubtedly need to do is
00:04strike the ball consistently well and that's exactly what this video is all about. We've got
00:09five of the best ball striking drills for you. Now the advice in this video comes courtesy of
00:14Jed Walters. Jed is one of Golf Monthly's top 50 coaches. He's got some really simple and effective
00:20advice on ensuring that you'd strike the ball before the ground. Now it's also important to
00:24say this video is coming to you in partnership with KBS shafts. They have a whole shaft range
00:29from driver all the way through the bag, all designed to help you get the most from your
00:34equipment. Right we're here at the London Club, let's get started.
00:48This drill is all about ensuring that you catch the ball before the ground. It doesn't matter
00:53whether you're hitting a wedge or hitting a long iron, that's the same principle all the way through.
00:57So it's something we all need to work on. Jed, what's the drill and how does it work? Okay,
01:02instant feedback is what it really is all about. So if I take a tee and I just scratch a line
01:07in the ground here. So from that point of view there I've now got a focal point from which I
01:16can work around. So here with a long iron that ball position is going to be a little bit further
01:22towards my lead side and from there it's about making swings and trying to get the club to hit
01:30the ball on the turf. So I want to be really brushing the line and left of it for me away. Yes
01:36and crucially you're not hitting the ground behind the line. That's the number one thing that you're
01:41trying to avoid and the great thing about this drill Jed is that you're taking practice swing
01:44after practice swing after practice swing and you get that instant feedback. Is your body working in
01:49the right way to deliver the club in the right angle of attack? Definitely, now obviously that
01:52will change. So if I took wedge in there, ball position then is going to go more central so that
01:58can be even more, can be deeper this side here. But the one thing I'm going to find is if I was
02:02to make a practice swing here and hit the wrong side of this line then I know that our body's
02:07back here. Right okay, well I've hit the ground there. Well there's the line, hit the ground back
02:11there. So what I'm looking for is to keep the pressure moving forwards so I can hit the ground
02:15more to the left. You can see there I've hit the ground sort of way in front of the line there
02:19by just keeping the body moving in the right direction. Okay so then you make a series of
02:23practice swings and then eventually you get to a point you put the ball on the line,
02:27you hit a shot and then you get the feedback what you're doing actually in the swing itself. Exactly
02:30got it okay. So in the setup I've got a 50 degree wedge here so centered ball position
02:41and then just making sure that I get my body working in the right order.
02:46Perfect. Hopefully you could hear through the mics the quality of the strike there. Absolutely perfect
02:50and you can see this divot is starting I'd say not quite almost an inch after the line. Yeah after
02:57the line which is exactly what you're looking for. So use this really simple drill, it will really
03:02help your ball striking.
03:08Okay so this drill is all about controlling the low point in the arc of your swing. Something
03:12that's so important for good quality ball striking. Jed you've got a ball on the tee here. Yes. What
03:16are we doing? We're getting used to with this one just the difference in the line that we could get.
03:21We practice most of our golf on a mat, on driving range, it's flat, it's the same level as your feet.
03:26You get on a golf course and it's above your feet, below your feet, it's different slopes.
03:30So the first thing we need to do is just make sure that we're adaptable and we can adjust.
03:33So we've got this one teed up here and I'm literally just going to clip it off the tee.
03:39So my ball position and everything's going to be the same but now you can see you know this is what
03:42you know good three and a half inches above my feet. So I just want to get used to being able to
03:48be slightly more adaptable. So if this was a ball above my feet situation where I've got my normal
03:53ball position but I'm now just adapting to the lie I just want to clip it away.
04:01Beautiful, good strike.
04:03So what's next? So what's next now is we now need to look at it from the point of view of improving the ball strike in itself.
04:10So the ball goes back on the same tee and now what you're going to do is about four inches behind it
04:16so you know it's not a million miles away from the length of your clubhead is I'm going to put another tee.
04:22Okay, same height, same height. Now the key with this is to make sure that you're not
04:28Okay, same height, same height. Now the key with this is anybody who struggles sort of so
04:36fat shots, thin shots, top shots, all those kind of things, generally it happens because the weight
04:42of the body is too far back so we start to scoot, we start to flip. Well first thing you're going to
04:47do then is you're going to hit that tee. So we've just got to miss it. So the simple drill here is
04:52hit the ball, don't hit the tee. Yeah so that's going to now encourage a little bit more of a downward angle
04:57and to have that I've got to make sure that I'm moving my body in the right direction.
05:00Okay, simple task here then, don't hit the tee. Very simple, so just don't hit the tee.
05:11Very good. Okay and there it is. Good contact. Right but there's a third part. There's a third element
05:16to this drill. So if I take a third tee and I now put it here so it's on the opposite side
05:24around the same distance from the one that's at the back. Okay so now what we're looking at doing
05:32is not just missing this tee but now I want to hit this one. Yes. Because that now is giving me
05:38the feeling of that downward angle of attack, controlling the low point, more target side. Again
05:43we're back to being ball turf which is everything that good ball striking is. Is, okay. Okay so now
05:50I just want to miss the back tee, hit the shot and try and clip this tee that's in front here.
06:01Yeah it's a really solid contact and it's a really simple drill that one to just help you
06:05establish that right angle of attack so the club bottoms out in exactly the right place because
06:10that is where really good quality contacts come from.
06:13Here's a great ball striking drill for those golfers that don't want to get caught thinking
06:17too technically about the golf swing. It can really help. Jed, what is it? So it's about
06:23trying to make a comfortable speed swing and stop as fast as you can beyond impact. Okay. What it
06:28does is it gets the body to organize itself a little bit more naturally. We play our best golf
06:32when we're in the subconscious, when it doesn't, you're not thinking about anything. So that's what
06:36we want to try and encourage. So for me, I'm going to try and get the body to organize itself a
06:40little bit more naturally. So that's what we want to try and encourage. So from this drill here,
06:44it's simply just taking a lofted club at nine nine here and we're just going to make some
06:49swings, which only go maybe halfway back. But the key to it is feeling like the downswing,
06:55the focus is just stop. What you'll find is when you look at it from face on at this point here,
07:01I'm not really doing anything other than stopping yet. You can see how my weight's moving forward.
07:07My pelvis is tucking underneath the torso. So I'm extending to the legs, to the pelvis,
07:13to the spine. And I've got a little rotation in there as well. And you're nicely connected between
07:18your arms and your body as well. What I'm looking at when I see this is just how good the impact
07:23position is just by doing such a small and simple golf swing. It trains everything to just happen in
07:28the order that it really wants to happen. It's almost the brain which confuses it and makes it
07:33happen in different ways. So you can start off at slower speeds and then just build up your speed
07:38and you can go flat out speed if you wanted to there. So when you're accustomed to the drill,
07:43you could be a little bit more and get some real crispness to what's happening there. And you can
07:49see where those divots are always left of where I'm taking the set up. It's developing that speed
07:55into it, but just focusing on the stop as quickly as you can. So from a set up point of view,
08:00you're only thinking about putting a little bit more pressure into your lead foot,
08:05just almost like that there, just pushing down into the ground a little bit more,
08:08keeping that pressure there and then just making a nice controlled swing,
08:12stopping as quickly as you can beyond impact.
08:18Yeah, and you can see that divot. It's perfect. It's just after where the ball would have been.
08:22Just this shot of Jed here just shows you so many good things about the golf swing. If you can
08:27focus on finding that position, the chances are the quality of your ball striking will greatly
08:32improve. This drill is all about swing direction, something that's going to really help you with
08:41your iron ball striking. Jed, what's the thinking here? What's the drill all about?
08:45So all great ball strikers have a fairly neutral swing direction. So that's not to say that it is
08:52always a bit to the right. Some are a little bit to the left, but it's minute. We're talking a
08:58couple of degrees left of target, couple of degrees right of target, not excessive, which
09:03you would see from people who would slice and hook it. They might be 10 degrees to the right,
09:0710 degrees to the left. So getting your swing direction more neutral will help you control
09:12your centeredness of strike and also help you control how your body then wants to move
09:17towards the target. So you can control the ground contact to get those lovely crisp ball
09:21turf strikes. Yeah. And it sounds complicated, but it doesn't have to be. If you have a really
09:25good drill that can help you sort of visualize what you're trying to achieve and that's what
09:28we're doing here. So talk us through it. Okay. So we're looking from sort of both perspectives.
09:34Obviously I've got this little station set up here. This is just as a quick visual really
09:39to what would represent a fairly neutral swing plane of being sort of up and down,
09:46but the swing direction is literally what the club is sort of doing as it comes here through
09:50the impact. So if I was like sort of this there, that will be a swing direction quite a lot to the
09:56right. That will be quite a lot to the left. So this is tailored relative to you as the individual.
10:02If you were somebody who slices the golf ball, pulls it or slices it, you're coming across the
10:08ball. Yeah. So you'd have a swing direction, which would be, if I put it into sort of a 2D
10:13visual on the floor, would be a bit like that. So right. Okay. Well, what you need to do is
10:17practice the opposite. So we would turn the sticks out to the right. I mean, that's probably somewhere
10:28in the regions of 40 degrees, maybe to the right. So right. Okay. Your visual then, if you were
10:33somebody who's coming here, your visual is to swing the club in the downswing between the sticks.
10:38Yeah. And then suddenly your angle of attack improves, the amount of the face you're getting
10:43on the ball improves, the quality of the strike goes up. It can do so many good things for you.
10:48Yeah. And then vice versa, if you hook the golf ball, then you would just turn them the opposite
10:53way and feel like you were coming across a little bit more. Now bear in mind, these are feels. What
10:57you're feeling and what really happens are completely different. You know, a slicer would
11:02feel like they're swinging way off to the right. And when you look at the swing direction, it's
11:05probably still a little bit left. It's just that, you know, if what feels hugely one way might move
11:11at eight degrees, but if you were already 10 left, then you're still a little bit left.
11:15But the important point is it's more neutral. So you're going to make your striking better.
11:20You're going to make your start lines better. You're going to make your overall ball striking
11:24better. Yeah. So this is one for those players who have big shapes in their game. So either big
11:28draws or big fades, if you want to just reign those in slightly, you'll improve the quality
11:33of your ball striking. And this is a great way to do it.
11:40Okay. So this is a ball striking drill aimed specifically at those golfers who have a tendency
11:45to hang back through impact, hit the fat shots and the thin shots that we all hate so much.
11:50And it's a, it's a great one for the range. Talk us through it, Jed.
11:54Okay. So on a driving range, you could use the basket of the balls coming. It's simply
11:59just propping your trail side up. So all your pressure, all the weight goes to the lead side.
12:05You're probably going to be talking 90 to 95% of your pressure is going to be lead side.
12:10So that's going to mean, well, I can't go back because I'm up on an angle. That's going to keep
12:15me there. So I'm going to get used to feeling what it's like to have the pressure forward
12:19through impact. And it's going to give you the ability then to have a nice downward angle attack
12:23and give you those lovely ball turf crisp strikes. Yeah. And that feeling of what the correct
12:28contact should feel like. So Jed, go for it then. Talk us through this drill.
12:32I've just put my bag on the ground there. Um, and all this is going to do is this is
12:36going to help me elevate my trail foot. So from here and bear in mind, you only need to sort of
12:42hit lofted clubs out. We're not talking about doing this with driver. It's just getting used
12:45to doing it with like a wedge or a nine iron or something. Um, so just taking, you know,
12:50if that was my normal setup there, then what I'm going to do now is I'm just going to take my trail
12:54foot. I'm just going to lift it and I'm just going to rest it on the back of my bag. So now all my
12:58pressure is into my lead side. So from here, I'm going to keep the pressure into my lead leg. I'm
13:05going to flex it a little bit more than normal just because it's taken all the weight pretty
13:09much. You'll notice then on my right leg, I'll sort of really straighten out a little bit as
13:13you see from this angle is very little flex left in there. Um, keeping the pressure then pushing
13:18down into the left leg. I'm just going to make little swings now. So it's going to be a little
13:21half swing back and then just down. So you see the angle of attack is going to come down. It's
13:26going to help me find a low point more to the left. So I just need to keep my arms nice and extended.
13:32You know, I'm going to swing to there. I'm not making a full follow through. I'm just
13:36making a nice back and through swing. So if I was to click this one now I'm set,
13:42I'm ready and I'm just going to make a nice smooth swing.
13:45Yeah. And you've got that little ball to strike. You will really, really struggle to hit the ground
13:50for the ball. If you try this drill and they say it's a great one for getting your body in the
13:54right position, get the weight moving towards the targets. The club hits the ball before it
13:59hits the ground. Give it a go. So there you have it. That's Jed's five best ball striking drills.
14:04If you are having issues with the quality of your iron strikes, then give some of those
14:08drills a go. If you can find a feel that helps you hit the ball before the ball hits the ground,
14:13hit the ball before the turf, then you should start hitting your irons much better. But that's
14:19it for now from the London Club. Thanks very much for watching. We'll see you next time.