– Hello, and welcome to how
to play golf, the long game. Thank you so much for taking part. We're really excited
to be able to coach you over the next four weeks. Now, if you've come from how to play golf, the basics, welcome. This is the next step in
your how to play journey. – Yeah, so over the next four weeks, we're gonna be fixing that ball flight, showing you how to hit the golf ball out the center of the club.
Plus we're working with
the longer clubs as well. The hybrid, the fairway metal, and the driver, the big stick. So thank you so much,
and lets get started. (upbeat music) – In golf there are lots of words that don't often make sense. So today, we're gonna be talking about the square, open, and closed club face relative to the cub head. So Andy, what is a square club head? – Well, square club head is basically when the club face is
pointing at the target. We're talking about set up and impact here when the club strikes the golf ball. So really, this is what we want. We wanna get the club face pointing somewhere close to where the target is. Now if you're a right-handed golfer, an open club face is when the club face will point to the right.
This is probably a common thing that we don't necessarily want to see because we get that ball sort
of curving out to the right. And a closed club face is very simple, it's the opposite of that. It's where it points to the left. So that really helps you understand what that means when we're
talking about the club face, cause we're gonna be discussing this as we go through the weeks. So that's as simple as it is. Let's get into this weeks practice. (upbeat music) – It's now time to get into your practice, and what better place to
do it on the 9th Fairway here at La Reserva at Sotogrande.
Beautiful hole Andy coming up, looking forward to you playing your shot. So, if you've done how to play the basics or you've got some experience in golf, and you've been building your swing, that's fantastic, but what's starting to
probably happen to you now is you're starting to get the
golf ball going right or left, and it could be a consistent bad shot. So what we're gonna be doing
in this practice segment is working really hard to show you how to get rid of that shot, and also understanding
what may be causing it. So there's two main things
that we need to look for. The club path and the club face. Now, the club face is
the most important one so that's the one that
we're gonna focus on today. So Andy, if you've got a golf ball which is going to the
right and to the left – Yeah – We know we gotta look
at the grip haven't we? So let's go with a right-handed golfer. If the ball is going to the right, how could the grip be influencing this? – Yeah.
You know, no matter what level you are, I think we have to look at
the hands as well Piers. – Have to. – Because, it's just so influential on what this club face is doing, so don't really bypass the grip, it's a great place to
actually just come back to. So, if we're hitting it to the right, and we're a right-handed golfer, we often see that the hands
are too far around to the left. We call this a weak grip. So if I just exaggerate this, I'm gonna get the lead hand a little round to the left like this.
I can't see any knuckles
on the back of that hand. I'm gonna get my trow hand
a little too far around to the left where the v between
the thumb and forefinger point to my left shoulder. This is a weak grip. Now, what happens here now, as I swing back and down, the club face will want
to return to the right, open, and we know that open club face wants
to get the golf ball starting out to the right. So, we'll start to see
these as we play golf, and then we'll have to make compensations – Of course.
– in the golf swing which
we don't want to do either. So, if we can really
build a very neutral grip, or very consistent grip, [Piers] Yes. – It makes us, it makes it so much easier to produce an efficient swing with as little compensations as possible. – And this is really really important, Andy is saying here that if you don't get the grip correct, you make compensations, so we're definitely gonna stress that start with the grip so
that these compensations don't come into your swing. So, I'm gonna ask you to hit
a shot with this weak grip. – Okay. – I'm probably not safe here am I? – You're definitely not safe there. – So I'm gonna come over here.
This ball is definitely
going to the right. – Okay, so, both hands
around too far to the left. I'll do a normal golf swing here. You'll just see where
this ball starts off. – (Laughs) – And that was no difference in terms of what I was
doing there, but the grip, and so many, is very short as well because the club face is open it adds loft and it's really
weak, which we don't want. – So that's you trying, you're just doing a normal shot there – Normal. – with just a very poor grip. – Exactly. – Wow, okay. – So let's look at the person
hitting the golf ball left, for a right-handed golfer. So, this is a really common one as well. We get the hands too
far around to the right. So, you can see now here, I can see the whole of
the back of the hand here, all of the knuckles. I can see the logo on the
glove is facing the camera. The right hand often gets too much underneath the club like this.
This is what we call a strong grip, and this is gonna have the opposite effect of what we've just seen. As I swing back and down now, the club face will want to
return and point to the left, in a closed position. The ball is gonna start out left, and I'll probably be
hunting for the golf ball in the trees down there, – (Laughs) – which we don't want obviously. – Hit one here, let's see it go again. – I might lose this golf ball Piers? – Again, really important, this is the grip that we
often see people start with. They get a little bit too
much round to the right. – Okay, so I'm really, as you can see I'm getting those hands really around to the right
there, normal golf swing. And you can see that ball starting left, and I'm definitely gonna
be hunting for that Piers, in the trees.
– But if you two, if you were two people, hitting ball right and left like that, I wouldn't want to be
playing golf with ya. We'll have a quiet time, that's for sure. Okay, so, what do we, what do we need then to actually get these,
get the grip correct? – Well let's go through just building the neutral grip again. Let's just recap from what we want in terms of the position
of the club in the hands. So first of all, let's build it with
the, with the lead hand. So if I take my club, and bring it up to sort of club hand about eye height like that. Now I'm gonna position the lead hand just to the side of the club like this, and I'm gonna place the grip diagonally across the base of the little finger, across the heel pad, diagonally
through the bottom part of that forefinger there. So, if I just make sure
I'm in a good place there, and then close my hand, I now have a neutral grip. Now, when I'm looking down at this now, I can see two to maybe three knuckles.
The thumb is slightly down the
right hand side of the club. So I've got a great left hand there. Now, if I put the right
hand down on the side, keeping the club angled like this, I'm gonna place it across
the base of the fingers again here, close it around, and then just slide it up so
that they touch each other. Now the thumb and the
forefinger form that v and that is now pointing
to the right of my chin. So I've got a really neutral grip there, and this now will really help me deliver a square club face back to the golf ball. It really minimizes those chances of me doing some very funky
moves to get back to square. – It makes absolute sense. – So building that grip is key. – Okay, should we see you
hit one of those then? [Andy] Yeah, let's see if I can help it. I've gotta hit one straight haven't I? – You, well, anywhere in between them will classify as a straight shot, I think. – Okay, so I can see two
knuckles still there. I know that v is pointing somewhere to the right of my chin.
So, normal golfing again. – And that was pretty much as you said, right between the knife. – Again, look at, look at the distance, distance on that Piers. So much further as well
compared to the two. – It was actually a lot better wasn't it? [Andy] It was. – He was a lot better. Okay, so look those grips
are really important. Now, this is something you may be asking. Well, we're still talking
about the baseball grip. There are some options on how you can intertwine the hands and the fingers. So Andy, there's a
couple of simple options, what are those? – Okay, well the first one, let's talk about the interlock.
This is probably the, the first thing that most people get told that they need to do. You need to join the
fingers together like this. – Well Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus do this one, so it makes sense. – Exactly, yes. So, the interlock is
when the little finger on the trow hand just sort of interlocks with the forefinger on the lead hand like that. So we just lock the fingers together. Now we don't want to go
too deep in like this, cause that can cause some poor things, but we just want to join them
together lightly like that. Making sure that the hands
stay in the very similar place. We don't wanna lose the positioning, this is really important. – Again, really important
as Andy was saying before. Bring the hand in from
the side as you said, we don't wanna be coming
underneath like that. – Yeah. – That's gonna be really bad
for you, and cause a bad grip.
Exactly, now let's go to the overlap. This is something that I actually use. So there's the baseball. The overlap is just literally overlapping the little finger on the
glove hand like that. So you can see there, I'm just sort of lightly
resting on the knuckle. This is something that
I feel comfortable with. What we would say is, there's nothing wrong with the baseball, there's nothing wrong with any of these, just do what feels comfortable, but most importantly, do
what gives you the results. [Piers] Yes. – If you're having a
go with a few of these, and one feels more
comfortable than the other, stick with the one that
feels comfortable to you, and actually works. That's the important thing. – Okay, okay, absolutely. Alright, so look, we've spoke about obviously how the grip influences the club face. How about the first
part of the back swing? We call that the moveaway. How can that influence
right and left shots? – Well, it's a, it's so important that we
get off to a good start in the swing, because if we get off to a poor start with the club face moving
all over the place, again we have to make some
adjustments and compensations.
So, if we can just get it
starting in the right way, again, it's gonna make things
so much easier for you. So, let's, let's talk about
the right shot Pierce yeah? To start with. – Yes. – So in the moveaway, somebody who hits it a little
bit too much to the right, we want you to check this. So as I swing back now to what we call waist height position, if the club face is sort of pointing too much towards the sky, this leading edge too much up, this can cause the ball
to go to the right. It might even be more than that. This is what we call open. Now, if you're hitting
the golf ball to the left, we often see that the leading edge, or the club face, is pointing
down towards the ground now. This is closed. So, these sort of positions, these excessive movements of the club face can influence the impact. Now, in an ideal position, ideal point, we want the club face to be parallel to the spine angle like so.
So if the club face is parallel
to the spine angle here, we are off to a good start, and it means we're not gonna have to make those little adjustments
to get it back on track. – Yeah, the thing is,
this is really important, we're not actually trying to say that there's only one way to swing. It's important for you to
develop your own swing, but we want to make sure
there's a few key positions, that if you can put it in that area, you're definitely going
to be a lot better off.
And the one thing that I will
say going into this Andy is, that the grip massively influences [Andy] It does. the moveaway as well doesn't it? [Andy] It does. [Piers] If you've got a hooking grip, you're probably gonna
be in a hooking place when it comes to the moveaway. [Andy] And the way that
I like to practice this, is I'm just taking my set up and you can do this at the range as well. You can either video
yourself, use a mirror, or if you haven't got those things, swing back to waist height, take a look, and see, is that club face in a good spot. Now, if you do this without looking, you swing back, and you then take a look and
you can see the club face is sort of wanting to be open or closed, then you have that sensation.
So then rehearse the moves until you get the feeling of what is good. What is it when that club face gets that sort of parallel
to the spine angle? You'll start to rehearse this move then, and the more you do this,
the more it's comfortable, and the more consistent you're gonna be from doing that as well. – Suddenly, what you do at work, your workload is gonna get a lot worse, what you do at home, you're gonna do a lot less
around the house as well, because you'll be practicing
this all the time. I think a video camera as well, on the phones now is also a
good way of just checking this. – I'm gonna hit one more shot Pierce because that last one was nice, so I'm just gonna go with the way I would rehearse this
on the, on the range. So, normal set up obviously, I've got a good grip here now, I'm gonna swing back, take a look, that club
face is looking good there.
– I like it – Okay, now I'm gonna go. – Let's see if we're gonna
produce another good one. Again, nicely on the green there. Again, it makes such a difference if you can get that first part right. – Sure does. – So, we hope you're enjoying the video. If you are, hit that thumbs up, and if you've got any questions, make sure you leave them down below. And also, don't forget to
check out the rest of the plan over at MEANDMYGOLF.com. (upbeat music) – The driver is definitely unique when it comes to the rest of the set.
So Andy, let's just go through this. – Well look, first of all, look at the size of it. It's a long club. It's the longest club in the bag, and I think the men's generally averages about over 45 inches long. But you've also got a
few different things. This shaft is carbon
fiber so it's graphite. Obviously in the steel, in the irons, [Inaudible] you get is
a lot of steel shafts, but generally with the driver you're gonna see this
graphite carbon fiber, which is very light, because it helps you
swing the club faster.
Remember, this is all built for speed. Then you got the heads, a great big whopping head, which hopefully gives you
a little bit more room for error on the face here as well. But then you have the options in loft. Anything between eight
degrees and 15 degrees loft, depending on your swing speed, and actually how you swing the golf club. So, there's quite a few options. And also, in some of the latest drivers, you'll have this
adjustability in the club, where you can actually move
some of the weights around, and play around with it to actually complement the things
that you're working on. So, certainly a very
different club to hit, but unique in the fact
that it's very long, it's designed for speed, and it's quite forgiving.
So, so much fun when you
actually get to use this as well. – It definitely is. Now you know what it's about. It's time to hit it. (upbeat music) – Now this is where
things get interesting. We're talking about the
driver, the big dog, and Andy, there's no better place than the 18th hole here at La Reserva. What a beautiful tee shot we have here. – I'm looking forward to
hitting this one actually.
– Absoulutely. Right, okay, so we're gonna be talking abut
the concept and the set up. So Andy, the concept, what are we looking to achieve
when we're hitting a driver? – Well I think, hopefully you know now that
we can either hit down, level, or up with a golf club. And obviously with the irons, we want a slightly downward hit, cause that's what's gonna
produce that nice solid strike. Now, with the driver it's different. We want get this thing, hitting it down the
fairway as far as possible. And to do that, it helps if we can have a
slightly positive attack angle, which means we can hit it
slightly on the way up. So there's certain
things that we need to do in the golf swing, and in the set up that
just help us to do this, to really give it the maximum
distance that we need.
The first things is tee. We're gonna tee it really high so, as we've got such a large club head here, we're gonna tee it quite high. So I like to really
get it pegged up Piers. Quite a lot of the golf ball is above the crown of the club there, because if I can hit it really center or slightly above center,
that really helps as well. So the first thing is just getting the tee height really high.
The second thing is, a nice wide stance. We need a nice wide base. We want to use the legs to create power. It also helps us get more behind it to hit up on the golf ball. And you can see here, I've got my alignment
stick on the ground here. This is where we want the
ball positioned to be. We want it forward in the stance. It's gonna feel strange having it here, but having it forward in the stance really helps the club bottom
out a little bit early, and then collect it off the
tee on the way up there. So, just a couple of simple
things that we can do. Now one more thing, and that is how we tilt the body. Now, a lot of people with
the ball position so forward are gonna wanna creep this way.
We're gonna ask you to go the other way. So I'm gonna take my set up here, lead hand on only, trow hand on the leg here, and all I'm gonna do is actually slide it down a
few inches towards the knee, and then I'm gonna place
my hand on the golf club. Now, notice what this has done. It's tilted the spine. It's got me a little bit more
over to the right hand side, and this really helps
add to that attack angle where I can sweep it off Piers.
[Piers] Absolutely – So, few key things there, we've got the set up being a little wider, ball position being forward, a little bit of tilt, and just in terms of weight on the feet, we wanna be 50 50, it's not the end of the world even if you favor in the right leg. Again, it puts you more
behind the golf ball.
– Okay, just do that one more time. What I really like about this is when Andy slides his hand down his leg, and then puts his hand on the golf club, notice his shoulders. They're still running pretty square. Sometimes when we bring the hand around, Andy how does it go? Alright, so there's some people
who bring it around like so, and then the shoulders
go well off to the left. So if you're left with your
shoulders with your driver, it's a big big no no.
– So, oh I'm ready for this one Piers. – (chuckles) This is cool. – It's a great hole to finish
on. So what I'm gonna do. – The sun is perfect. – Table set up, trow hand on, little bit
of a slide down here, I'm ready to go. I still need to put a good
swing on it though Piers. And that, is an absolute beauty, look at the height on that Piers. – It was actually better than all the practice
shots that you hit before. – That's a lot better
than the practice shots. – (laughs) – I'm warmed up now. – Absolutely, all right so look, this is your practice for week one. First of all, we want you to have two practice sessions a week, hitting 50 golf balls on
those practice sessions.
And then we need to break it up, so you hit 10 shots
working at your new grip, 30 shots working at
the club face moveaway, making sure the club face is square, and then your final 10
shots with the driver. [Andy] Yes, exactly, and don't forget if you wanna take part in the rest of the plan
where we cover so much more, including how to hit the
hybrids, the fairway metals, how to create power, and the beautiful flowing golf swing, click the link in the description, and we look forward to coaching you through the rest of the plan.
Thanks again..