- Are you ready for golf again?
Hi I'm Piers from Me and My Golf
and today we're going to be sharing with you
our advice on how to get back to golf after lockdown.
Plus, we're going to be sharing with you four tips
that we're going to be giving our subscribers
based on their questions.
Now, if you are new to the channel
and you want to see more videos like this
to help you improve your game,
hit the subscribe button.
Hit the notification bell.
So you know when we release our new video.
Twice a week, we are now doing at Me and My Golf.
Okay, so look, are you ready for the ground breaking advice
on how to get back to golf?
Go and play golf.
There it is, go and play golf.
Now, bear with me on this,
because there is three things I'd like you to do.
So, obviously you've been hitting shots at home
or doing practice swings at home.
Hitting shots if you're lucky enough to have a net
or doing these practice swings at home.
We need to get you on the golf course.
So, you haven't been playing for a couple of months.
We need to obviously get used to hitting off grass again.
That's the first thing.
But the one thing that we want to be able to do is,
is not be stuck on the driving range
working at your golf swing.
Now, here's the first tip.
if you want to work at your swing,
do it on the golf course.
So, if you're swinging over the top
or you're swaying,
go on the golf course and work at it.
That's the environment where ultimately you're playing.
So, let's see if you can fix your faults,
whilst you're on the golf course.
Now, you wouldn't want to do that in a match,
but you could do that by playing golf by yourself.
Playing golf by yourself
is where you get the most discovery.
And my second one is,
literally discovery on the golf course.
So, again go out on the golf course by yourself,
but before you go out there,
make a list of all the stuff that you can't do that well.
So, if you can't hit a flop shot.
If you can't hit a low hook out of the trees.
If you can't hit a chip and run.
If you can't hit an iron shot
between 125 and 150 that accurately.
Go out on the golf course with your list
and work at those shots.
You may only have chance to work at one or two.
You may only have chance to play four five holes.
That's absolutely fine.
You can get your most practice done on the golf course
when you are playing by yourself.
Okay now, the third tip.
On the golf course again, is toughen things up.
Now, you can do this by yourself
or you can do this when you are playing with a partner.
So, one of the best games
that I like to put pressure on you,
is a point scoring system.
So, basically you get a point for hitting the fairway.
You get a point for hitting the green in regulation.
Point for a par.
Two points for a birdie.
And then, if you beat the person your playing on the hole,
you get a point for winning that hole off the as well.
So, you haven't got to do it exactly like that.
You can make your own little points up.
But basically, think of this,
if you're standing on the third tee
and you're thinking,
"Oh, I earned a bit, I've got a point for grabs here."
You know you're thinking about what to do.
You're not just aimlessly hitting the shot.
You are thinking,
"Right, I want to put myself under pressure
"to hit that fairway and to get that point."
And to keep the pressure on your opponent
or even just to beat your own score.
So, if you can do those three things
when you go and play golf...
So, work at your swing faults
on the golf course by yourself.
Work at the shots that your not very good
on the golf course by yourself.
And then put pressure on yourself
when you're on the golf course.
Whether it be playing games by yourself
or with a playing partner.
Right, let's go and do one of our first drills.
So, The Golfer NR1 is asking,
"How can I stop bending my left arm
when I'm striking the gold ball?"
So, here's the first thing I would say to you,
don't worry too much about it
if you're relatively consistent,
but if you're hitting a weak high ball flight
and you are slicing it a little bit?
Then we need to change it
and this is what generally happens as a result.
So, what we're saying is,
when this lead arm is bending,
it's usually caused by a downswing which gets too steep.
So, the club head above the hands at this stage here.
Club coming down, coming down steep and the body going,
"Hang on a bit, I need to stop turning."
And your left arm goes,
"I need to start bending,
because otherwise that club is just going
to go crashing into the ground."
So you almost have this movement here,
where you stop turning.
You bend the left arm
and you almost stand up when you're striking it.
This is what it looks like from the front view.
Again, you swing down steep.
Body stops turning,
because it's aware something is going wrong.
It's aware the club wants to dig into the ground.
So, we just break everything down.
Stop the body turning and we allow the arm to bend.
And if we think about this,
if you were to get this mat.
And even this mat here and I were to push that,
we just might bend left arm, I've got no power.
Whereas if I were to do this...
Keep my left arm straight,
but actually push that mat by the turning of my body.
I've got more power.
Now, the key is we can't just say, "Turn your body."
Because if you turn your body
with the shaft coming down steep,
then you're in all sorts of trouble.
So here's what we need to do,
We need to get you used to...
Of course do this on the golf course,
because that's where you're going to be practicing
now for the next couple of months.
We need to get you the feeling of getting
the club shaft shallow on the way down.
So, we've spoke about this a lot.
So, you can check out other videos.
But we need the club head to drop down behind your hands,
to shallow the club.
That will then allow you to turn your body more
and as a result of that now as it shallows
and we turn, the left arm is going to stay a lot straighter.
And it's as I said, it's not imperative.
Lee Westwood, one of the best ball strikers ever,
had a bent left arm.
Has a bent left arm when he's striking the golf ball.
So, you really need to understand,
if you're slicing it, hitting it weak?
Then we can change it.
If not, kind of keep it there.
If you're relatively happy with your game,
think about something else that you need to do better.
Like a flop shot or a low hook out the trees.
So, again from here let it shallow,
turn and I suppose the only thing you could think
on the way through is extend that arm.
But these are little practice swings you can do at home.
The key thing for you on the golf course is,
let the club shallow and then see what happens from there.
So, let's hit a shot.
Before we then move on to putting.
So, shallow and turn the body.
All right, let's go and do some putting.
Now, before we help you and Brad Thomson with you putting.
We want to know from yourselves,
what is the most important thing that you've learnt
about your game on yourself during lockdown?
So please comment down below,
what's the most important thing you've learnt
about your game whilst in lockdown?
Now, as we've said,
Brad Thomson is asking for some tips on putting.
So, what we're going to do...
There's loads of things that we can do,
but there's two areas I'm going to break this down to.
Number one, is becoming a better lag putter
and number two, becoming a better holer out.
So, what I want you to do, Brad,
next time you go and play golf
and you can do this with someone else
or you can do this when you playing golf by yourself.
You can even do it on the putting green if you want to,
but I want you to find...
Let's say you're on the first green.
I want you to find the hardest 30 foot putt
on that green you can.
So, 30 feet is dead easy.
It's just 10 paces, 10 nice paces away from the hole.
And find the hardest putt that you can.
And what I want you to do, is try and two putt.
You do that on the first green.
You do the same on the second, third, fourth,
all the way the way through to the ninth.
The objective is, after nine holes,
we've had nine two putts.
That's a total of 18.
That's what we want you to get.
That'll be your par.
So, if we think about this.
If you can two putt 10 times in a row,
from 30 feet on a very difficult putt?
You're improving your putting.
So, make sure...
And that's a really good way
of putting some competitive practice on yourselves.
You can do that on the putting green,
obviously as a warmer before go out there as well,
but that's the first thing.
Second thing, short putts.
I think one of the biggest issues
that we see with short putts
is that golfers tend to move around a little bit
and they get a bit indecisive.
So, we've got the PuttOut Mat here.
We've got the wall here as well.
PuttOut there is in place.
We're going to us the wall as a reference point.
So, I'm going to turn my cap around backwards.
I'm going to get my golf ball in there.
As it would normally be for my eye line.
Now, the key from here is now,
I'm just resting against the wall.
If I move my head into to the wall,
I'm going to feel it.
If I come away, I'll feel it.
If I go from side to side or up and down,
I'm going to feel that movement on the wall.
The objective would be to stay steady on the wall.
Don't lockdown yourself so you're too tight over the putt,
but just say to yourself,
keep your head steady against the wall.
That will allow you to stay more solid over the putt
and then from there you can be more consistent
with your strike and your face and path of delivery.
So, again I think the biggest one
that we would see golfers do when they putt,
is that they will want to look early.
Now, it can work,
but you not going to move early
when your head is on that wall there,
because you're going to scrape your forehead.
But this is something you can do at home obviously.
It's a really good drill to sort of get
that feeling of what the body is doing.
One more, keep the body still, head still.
Let the shoulders and the arms do the work.
All right, give those a try.
Get on the golf course and start having some fun again.
Over to you Andy.
- Hello everybody and thanks Piers,
some great advice there.
Make sure you get out on the gold course.
Spend a bit more time there
and if you can get out on your own as well,
it will massively help.
Now, what would my advice be?
Well, I've got a couple of things you that you can do.
What we often hear,
some people get on the golf course after a layoff.
After maybe one or two months off.
Their first game of golf is often really good.
So, they'll get out there and they'll surprise themselves
and go, "I played great.
"I've hadn't played for two months and I've played great."
Well what's the reason for this?
Well a lot of it is because,
they had no expectations,
but also they're not thinking about
hitting certain positions in their swing.
They're not on the golf course thinking
about all these technical things.
They often just get out there and play.
They look at what's around them.
They figure out where they need to hit the golf ball
and they just play without any thoughts.
But what often happens then is, two or three rounds later,
once they've got back into it.
They're starting to think.
They're starting to react
and all of a sudden they go into themselves
and start thinking of how to get it to a certain space
or place on the golf course.
Instead of just actually doing it.
So, my advice is,
if you're going to get back on the golf course.
Almost forget everything.
A lot of people think,
"I need to remember everything.
"Remember my grip, my stance, my posture."
Forget it all.
Get out there, play golf.
Don't think too much.
Don't think about how you going to get it there.
Think about playing golf.
Now, the one other thing I'm going to say to you guys
as well, is that we've missed golf a lot.
So, when you get back out there, enjoy the experience.
Have a chat with your friends in between shots.
Make sure your eyes are up noticing around,
each beautiful little moments.
Look at the nature,
because if you're not sort of looking down,
walking down the fairway and internalizing everything.
You're going to be able to switch off,
enjoy the experience, relax
and if you're doing that you're probably going to
have a better chance of having some good scores as well.
So, my advice forget it all.
Get out there, play, have a chat with your friends
and notice where you are.
Okay, so let's answer some of your tips.
Dan Skudlarz said, that he's struggling,
because his hands are separating or disconnecting
in his backswing.
Do we have any drills that we can help him with?
Yes, we do Dan.
So, here's a great thing that you can do.
Now, the disconnected move away.
This is what happens...
What Dan's saying is,
he's saying that his hands are moving away from his body,
in the backswing.
He said a few inches away.
Now, the great thing about the backswing is, we have time.
If it was something in transition,
it happens so fast it's hard to change.
So, what I would say, Dan,
is we're going to do some really slow swings.
Maybe even stopping and feeling what's going on.
So, here's a great drill that you can do.
When we saw Mcllroy, about 18 months ago,
Rory said he was doing this drill, he demonstrated it.
So, the first move away,
instead of getting the separation here,
what we want you to do.
Take your setup.
We're going to go really slow and controlled.
First, move away super slow.
Until the hands get past the right thigh.
That's where we want to feel the connection.
So, from here swing back nice and slow,
hands to the right thigh.
From here, set and go.
And from here, this is a great way,
because we have that control.
The backswing doesn't need to be fast.
And if we are struggling with this,
go down really slow.
Slow the speed down.
We'll do that again, watch.
So, from here, hands nice and close to the thigh, set
and then through.
And then what you can do,
you can start to move it all together
and blend the motion in.
So, from here now, I'm still going to go slow,
but you'll see the same feeling on the way back.
Hands stay close,
but now I'm blending that motion in.
And just doing that I think the great thing is,
remember the backswing doesn't need to be fast.
If you struggling with the motion,
break it down, slow it right down
and you'll be able to feel that and improve that movement,
but over time you'll be able to start
to actually speed it up.
Okay so, Dudefood is asking do we have any mental tips
to help him on the golf course.
Yes, we do.
Now, think about this, on the golf course how you feel
is going to influence your decision making
and how you play.
But what influences how you feel,
the thoughts that go through your mind and how we speak?
So, what we want you to do is,
be aware of how you speak on the golf course.
Your self talk, what you say to yourself and other people
or internally is really important.
So, for instance this is what we hear,
you get on a hole and people say,
"This is my nemesis hole. I hate this hole here."
That isn't good,
because it's going to make you feel in a certain way.
Some people might get onto you and say,
"I never make a par here.'
Well that's a lie, you probably have made a par.
So, why lie to yourself?
Or I always hit it out of bounds.
I always hit in the water here.
They'll hit a bad shot and go,
"You idiot, what are you doing?"
They'll start speaking to themselves in the negative way
and you wouldn't speak to your best friends like that.
Well hopefully not anyway.
So, you need to take control of how you speak.
So, next time you get on the golf course,
certainly when you get back on
the golf course from lockdown.
Think about that on every shot that you do.
When you walk onto the tee.
In between shots.
What are you saying?
What are you saying to your playing partners?
Are you speaking negatively?
If you are, remember that's going to impact how you feel.
So, maybe you get on a hole that you don't like
and instead of saying, "I hate this hole."
Say, "I love this hole. It's a great challenge."
Because you saying those words verbally out loud,
will actually change the way you feel about things.
Instead of saying, "I hate this. I never make a par here.
"It's my nemesis hole."
Well that's going to impact how you feel.
Might put some tension in your hands
and then, you're off to a poor start.
So my advice, I think it's a game changer
if you can be aware of this.
Get on the golf course,
start being aware of how you speak.
We always say, "Imagine you are your own caddy."
You're caddy wouldn't speak to yourself in a bad way.
He's always going to give you that encouragement
in a positive way.
So, be your own caddy.
It's going to make a massive difference to your scores
and it's going to help you enjoy the game a little but more.
And we all want that.
Okay guys, hope you enjoyed the tips.
There's some really useful tips
that if you apply on the golf course,
we know they're going to make a difference.
So if you did enjoy those,
make sure you hit that thumbs up
and leave a comment down below how we can help your game.
Now, also we have what we feel is the best thing out there
to improve your golf.
We've got meandmygolf.com,
which is a platform that we've created for you
to help you achieve and be the best you can be.
We've got loads of coaching plans over there.
From the break series, break 100, break 90, break 80,
we've got loads more.
And we've got a brand new putting coaching plan
launching very soon.
So make sure you click the link in the description.
Head over there and we'd love to see you over there.
Thanks again and we'll see you soon.