I'm at the beautiful Bali National Golf Club. This is hole number 8.
And Richard has written into our Search 4 Scratch Program,
asking about consistent contact on his short game shots,
his chipping and pitching shots around the green, he's sculling shots and so on.
And it's affecting his confidence greatly. And Richard,
what I wanted to do is give you some ideas,
some simple concepts of how you can get some solid contact and get some good
results going. So, first and foremost,
if you're lacking confidence because you're not hitting the golf ball close
enough to the hole, or you're not striking the ball well enough,
part of the challenge that you probably have is that,
you're facing something that a lot of golfers face, and that is, you
don't realize that you've got all this tension building up in your shoulders and
your shoulders are actually pulling up around your ears like this and reducing
the radius of the swing. In other words,
the distance of the bottom of the club to my shoulders is changing because
I'm getting tense.
So all the muscles are starting to contract in my arms and my shoulders and
shortening the golf club. So when I come through two things can happen,
I either strike up on the ball because my arms pull up this way with my
shoulders. So I make a stroke and pull up and hit a shot like that,
or because of anxiety, I'll come in. And as I swing in,
I chunk behind it. I start releasing the club aggressively into the ball,
and it almost feels like an impulse that you can't stop. So, first and foremost,
this is an important thing to realize.
You have to take a deep breath and reduce the tension in and
around your shoulders. So the first thing I want you to become aware of,
Richard is the tension in your body. So when you're chipping a shot,
as you're walking into the ball with the club that you're going to use,
just ask yourself how you feeling right there and then like,
where is the tension? And if you've got a lot of tension in your body,
take a big deep breath and just let your shoulders relax.
And then just calm down a little bit like this.
And then when you stand over the shot and you have a practice stroke,
it is really important that you're relaxed enough here,
so that as you're swinging,
you can just brush the grass underneath the golf ball and that you feel like
your stroke is rhythmical, and you're not feeling as tense.
Now you're going to have to practice this,
obviously because you probably practice not being confident and having that
tension that's getting in the way. So that's first and foremost,
most important thing to do. Second thing is keep the goal simple.
So if you're chipping and pitching around the greens,
rather than go for really lofted clubs,
go for a little bit less loft and aim for more solid context. So in other words,
I've got a pitching wedge here and I'm close to the green, but you know what,
this is all mown here. So in this case, Richard,
I probably don't need that club. I could probably go to say, an 8 iron.
I'm playing it sort of towards my back foot.
And one of the things I suggest you do is hold down the bottom of the golf club,
just off the bottom of the grip like this.
So choc`king down on it and then just pull your arms up, knee your body.
So they're resting here, and then just let them drop out. Drop out like that.
So you're reducing tension. So set up,
pull your arms into your body and then just let them drop to the ground and find
the bottom of the stroke and then make the stroke. So in other words,
pull it up like that, get down to the maximum radius.
And then you're going to keep your arms and stroke working from there,
swing back and through the stroke. Nice solid contact.
All right. So from the front view it would look like this. So you pull set up,
pull your arms into your body like this, and then just let your arms drop out.
So you keep the pressure in your hands, light,
let the club drop out and find the bottom of the swing and then just make a
swing back and through and use straighter face clubs so that you get
more pressure against the back of the ball that you can feel up through the
shaft, which will give you confidence rather than making long swings,
make sure to swing straighter faced clubs, shorter strokes,
and aim for a simple goal of solid contact.
So radius control, straighter faced clubs,
smaller stroke, aim for solid contact. Richard,
if you do those things,
I guarantee you're going to hit the ball a lot better than you have.
We really appreciate you sending you a question in and best of luck with your
game.
Well, there it is. We hope you enjoyed this lesson.
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