- Welcome, Adam Bazalgette,
back in beautiful Mediterra Club in Naples, Florida.
I'm two-time PGA Teacher of the Year award winner.
Today's subject, one we've had a lot of requests for.
It's an important one in golf,
the pre-shot routine.
(exciting electronic music)
So for golf, the pre-shot routine,
it's a very, very important thing.
Let me just say, they come in all shapess and sizes.
We'll touch on a few different things.
You've gotta customize something that works for you.
But I believe there's some principles,
some things you have to get done well,
alignment, posture, those things.
There's some principles that can really, really
help you do it consistently,
and I think are the easiest way to do it.
And within that, customize it the way
you wanna do it, so to speak.
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There's quite a bit that goes in to
getting ready to hit a shot, if you want to call
that entire thing the pre-shot routine.
There's the deciding upon what shot to hit,
how the lie effects it, all that sort of stuff.
There's the breathing, the calming of the mind.
Just kind of settling in and getting yourself
in the right place to go.
But what we're gonna confine ourselves to in this video
is just more the physical aspect.
What are some of the things that you wanna do
as you get ready to hit?
The first thing I touch on is the grip.
Not gonna get into that in any great detail,
it's not a grip lesson,
but I would certainly advise that you take your grip
to the side of your body, with that lead hand.
Left hand, for the right-handed golfer.
There's a couple of reasons this helps.
Let me show you close-up.
When the hand hangs at the side,
it hangs straighter on.
When you bend forward and hang it in front of you
it tends to turn palm inwards.
So I always think it's less complex
for a lineman to have it straighter on,
i.e. have the hand at your side.
Secondly, if you can avoid the temptation
to look over your shoulder
and see what's going on with your hand,
your hand will relax.
When it's relaxed, forms a beautiful contour,
a place for the club to just rest.
I don't grab the club at all until it's resting down
in that contour of the fingers,
sort of at the base of the fingers.
Then I apply just a little pressure and squeeze down.
Now once that left hand is on there,
then I bring the club up and put my right hand on it.
You'll see that a lot of TV.
Notice golfers looking out there,
how they go about taking that grip like that.
Not all of them, but that's pretty common.
Next comes what I believe is just a
fundamental principle of the pre-shot routine.
And that's what happens when you step into the ball.
The principle is this, line the club up,
and only line yourself up to the club,
not to the target.
Let's have a look from this angle.
How many times have you seen players doing that?
I hate that.
Never do that if you wanna be a good golfer.
First off, it's extremely difficult to
line yourself up this way, anyway.
And second place, you shouldn't be aimed
directly at the target.
You should be aimed parallel and left of it.
Here's what you wanna do, and literally,
all top players do this.
Line the golf club up,
and simply stand in front of the golf club.
Don't line yourself up other than to face the golf club.
When you do it I would recommend, in fact,
I would be insistent upon the fact,
step in with the back foot, that's my right foot,
the trailing foot, that gives me a better
perspective of the hole.
Once my left foot's up here, it's harder to line up well.
Step in with the back foot, then place the golf club,
and when I'm happy with that all I do
is stand in front of the golf club.
It's very easy, just picture one standing here in space
and just walk up to it.
That's as much as you need to do to line it up.
Make sure you do it that way,
you'll have a lot more success.
Let's look at it from in front.
Now, before we look at what I think
is the other really major fundamental,
or major component, to me in a good pre-shot routine,
let's just say one other thing.
You've gotten your grip, you've put your other hand on there
in one form or fashion,
when you step in with that trailing foot,
step in a little bit behind the ball,
if that's the target line.
The more you step in behind it,
and I'm only suggesting a little bit,
the better your perspective of that target line is,
and getting that club on-line.
You do not wanna get in front of the ball a little bit
and try to line up something that's behind your eyes,
club head, with something in front of you.
So just slightly behind that ball,
and that's the spot I'd recommend.
Okay, so one final principle.
And I think this is just foundational as well,
and that is, when you go ahead and step in
and put the club on the ground,
that's when you take good posture.
You could put the club on the ground
any one of a lot of ways, don't do that.
Stand here, if you're in front of your computer
or something with a golf club.
Stand up, nice and tall, with a good grip.
We presume, arms hanging against body,
there's a little bit of angle here.
Club doesn't reach the ground.
It's a foot or so off the ground.
Watch on TV, when the good players do this
that club does not go the ground
without the proper hip tilt.
That's how they place it on the ground.
So that's just the routine there,
and that keeps you in good posture.
You've gotta practice it a little bit to get comfortable.
It's not super difficult, but it takes a little bit
of practice to get comfortable at it.
But avoid that terrible pitfall of just
sticking the club on the ground,
and then trying to fight your way into good posture.
Check it out of TV again.
When they step in, they take their posture beautifully
in order to put the club down.
It's a lot, lot easier way to go about it.
Hope that helps you with golf's pre-shot routine.
As I say, there's different ways to do it.
But adhere to some of these principles,
develop it a little bit,
and I think you'll have some success with it.
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