– 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..