In this video, golf's biggest YouTuber Rick Shiels walks you through his ultimate 30 minute range session. Starting with the basics around the technique, he then moves onto into some of the games and challenges you can take on at the range that will improve your overall skill set. Use Rick's framework to power boost your game for the year ahead.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00oh I've leaked it hang on ball I want it to feel like your heart is racing
00:06certainly on the last few shots because that's how you're going to best develop
00:10your skills all right guys Rick Shields here top 50 coach for golf monthly and
00:20today I'm going to show you a 30-minute power boost range session to get you
00:25ready for this season to have the best golfing season you've ever had so let's
00:31hit the clock 30 minutes we're gonna break this up into three different
00:34elements the first 10 minutes is all going to be about getting your basics
00:38correct things like alignment ball position and technique I'll somewhat
00:44say the boring stuff let's go through that first even though it's boring it's
00:48incredibly important first thing I want you to do is get a couple of long golf
00:53clubs out your bag something like the three of them four iron and we're going
00:57to use one of the golf clubs for an alignment aid and another golf club for
01:02a ball position aid you'll even still see right now some of the best players in
01:08the world when they practice they will have ball position aids out and alignments
01:14like it's so unbelievably important what we to do with this alignment one on the
01:20ground I want you to pick a target so I'm going to go for that blue flag that's
01:23just to the right of the 100 marker I'm going to put this club just running
01:28parallel to the left of that line I'm then going to make sure this club is at
01:33perfect right angles to the club on the ground because we're going to use I'm
01:38just going to use something quite lofted to start things off like a pitching
01:41wedge we're going to use the club that's on the ground here to use as a
01:47reference point for our alignment you can see there my right foot on my left foot
01:51are perfectly spaced between that club and then this club on the ground we're
01:57using mainly for ball position so for a pitching wedge I've got that absolutely
02:01smack bang in the middle of my stance if anything it's just a reminder it's
02:07almost setting that kind of default setting back to make sure that you're not
02:11getting out of place with where you aim or where your ball position is going to be
02:15so what I would do from here then is hit a few shots to warm up and also just to
02:21get your eye in so I've got my alignment I've got my ball position and I can work
02:28on a few nice easy shots and it's not not always like me I just hit that exactly
02:36over that blue flag that was aiming for so that gives me a lot of confidence that
02:40my alignment is absolutely spot-on and each time when you address the ball almost
02:46step out of that mold and come back in again don't get lazy so I'm gonna hit
02:50about 10 shots doing this making sure this drill is absolutely nailed on to
02:56start things off
03:17okay so I'm really happy with that I feel like I've got my eye in for my ball
03:23position and my alignment the next thing to work on is your technique again I'll be honest
03:30with you the slightly boring stuff but we want to get out of a practice session we want
03:33to improve even if it's by one percent even less than one percent long as every time we
03:39go to the range we improve by that little amount now the best way is in person lessons
03:45go and see a coach work on techniques that you need to work on or there's a few YouTube
03:50channels out there obviously Golf Monthlies or my own where you can pick up on some golf tips
03:55and what I'd also recommend to get hold of is something like this this is a basically try a
04:01monopod with a little stand on the end and you can attach your phone to this handle I'm gonna set
04:07my phone up and just take a few videos of my swing so I can have a look at my technique in slow
04:11motion top tips have the camera placed at waist height and have the angle of the phone in between
04:18where your feet are going to sit and where the ball is going to sit the reason why we have that
04:22positioning is because if the angle of the phone is too far to the right or too far behind you the
04:29actual path of your club coming down will look totally different almost the aspect ratio just
04:34will look totally wrong so making sure that phone position is at waist height and in between your feet
04:40and the ball pretty much in line with your hands is the perfect location and this is where I'm going to
04:45get a little bit more technical so for myself I'm working on keeping that clubface more closed going
04:50back so this is my main focus right now I'm almost forgetting result for a minute and focusing solely
04:57on this point in my golf swing exaggerating that feeling
05:00I'm not too worried about where the shot's going to go this is the the technique element of your practice
05:08session exaggerating that move
05:16and then looking at your phone and getting that feedback so what I like about this now I'm getting
05:27that instant feedback I can see the feeling that I'm getting from that swing is matching up with the
05:34actual reality of my clubface being more closed or more square which is exactly what I'm working on
05:40you know I love about this as well I'll often send this to a friend or I'll post it online or even send
05:45it to the golf coach I've been working with just to get that kind of feedback or sometimes I don't
05:50know if it's a real true practice session if you've not actually shared it on social media
05:54makes you just feel a little bit better about yourself that everyone's not practicing and you are
05:58you're getting better this is invaluable feedback we've all got these in our pockets now use it it
06:04definitely helps okay so that is the housekeeping stuff done they're the things that will definitely
06:12help you start your practice session off well I mentioned earlier a bit of the boring stuff but
06:17very very important stuff right next up it's time to test yourself I've got a few really simple games
06:25here that you can do this with so the phone goes away the monopod goes away these clubs get put back
06:31in the bag because now it's time if you'd start getting in the zone of doing some testing yourself
06:36games I've got three really good ones the first one is a distance challenge game so start off with
06:43one of your irons now what I want you to do is think about when you practice you want to improve on
06:48your weaknesses you don't want to just practice all the time your strengths because there's no massive
06:52value in that you're already good at that practice your weaker shot so for example my weaker shots
06:58I'm not particularly very good from 100 yards and in so that's what I'm going to practice here
07:02and dead simply I'm going to grab my sand wedge quite a lofty golf club and I'm going to set myself
07:07a task I want to hit 10 shots in a row and each shot I want to gradually be further than the last shot
07:16if I fail in that task and I hit a shot that's too short I've got to start again now there's two
07:23ways of doing this you can do this visually at driving range or a practice ground down here at
07:28the driving range we've got the technology here of top tracer so I'm going to reset all that and I'm
07:33going to work on the carry distances each time being a little bit further than the last let's see if
07:40we can get 10 in a row that accomplishes that feat so the first shot I'm going to hit about 25 yards is
07:47the goal and 25 yards is the shot I hit so I'm really happy with that start so the next shot I want to
07:58hit past 25 yards but I don't hit it too long something in the 30s low 30s would be an incredible
08:05start to this challenge should be good 31 okay so really strong start I'm going to go kind of 40 yards
08:18for the next one oh a bit heavy oh I got away with it 33 yards we've done three in a row so far
08:33let's see if we can get 10 let's see if we can get 10
08:35strong
08:48oh right we failed we managed to get one two three four five six seven eight oh we almost got up to
09:10nine and then we failed but that's good because it means now I've got something to work on the big
09:17thing is as well is track your result get your phone have a little notepad in your golf bag and
09:22say this time I managed to do eight out of ten because next time you've got something to work on
09:28right next challenge is all about controlling trajectory starting off low and aiming to try
09:34and hit it higher so again similar to last time you can either use your visual perspective of how high
09:39these shots are going to go or using technology like top tracer I'm going to now move up to my
09:44seven iron and the minimum yards I've got to hit this is 100 yards so I can't just chip it 50 yards
09:50in front of me what I'm going to start off by doing is hitting it super super low as low as I can
09:54possibly hit a seven iron and then each time just trying to change the trajectory a little bit
10:00until we finish actually trying to hit it super super high again a bit like the last challenge if we
10:05can do 10 in a row it's an amazing achievement so let's see how we get on hunt's got to go minimum
10:11100 yards I'm going to start really low so there's a couple of things you can do here from a technique
10:16standpoint as well to hit a seven iron lower ball position further back in the stance hands further
10:21forward and one thing that creates height is speed speed and loft increase height so we're going to
10:29decrease the loft and hit it softer slower and let's start off nice and low then try and hit a little low
10:35100 yard seven iron that's a really really low flight got a bit longer than 100 yards 125 yards and it
10:49went 48 feet in the air the next shot we're going to go slightly higher but again it's got to go over
10:55100 yards so this time I'm going to hit the ball a tiny bit faster than the last shot just to get that
11:01height that's a nice strike there we go we've elevated the shot by 10 feet so now we're going
11:14to go a little bit higher similar ball position a tiny bit faster so the first three I've done very
11:24good so far I'm going to just tweak this a little bit change the trajectory I'm going to put the ball
11:28position slightly more towards the middle of my stance because that's going to bring the loft back
11:32to its more natural setting I'm still going to hit this super soft might be higher though yeah 52
11:44okay middle of the stance I'm going to go a little bit faster this time
11:52so I've done six so far and successfully got to this stage I'm now going to move the ball position
12:01a little bit further up in my stance again to increase the loft this is going to be interesting
12:07I'm going to hit this over 90 feet it's starting to get quite high now
12:12that should be good
12:17this is good in practice because I've got to shot number seven now I'm starting to feel the pressure
12:25I want to get to number 10 and it's good to practice under pressure keep the ball position
12:29forward and we go a little bit more speed we've got to try and get over 104 feet in the air
12:35easy okay two more to go 118 to beat ball position forward almost maximum speed
12:47okay last shot in the 10 ball position forward maximum speed as hard as fast as I can hit it
13:00and our last little sprinkle of magic finish with really really high hands because it keeps a loft on
13:07the face I've got to beat 132 feet I'm going to send this to the moon
13:12and that is 10 successful shots each going higher than the last
13:23last challenge to test yourself the driver it's going to be so dead simple this 10 shots
13:30and you're going to picture a fairway how many times can you hit the fairway and again
13:35great ways of doing this out on the golf driving range here you can pick a couple of flags there's
13:39two flags a yellow one on the right a yellow on the left and I can picture that as my fairway
13:44or using top tracer I've come here on the long drive driving range fairway effectively
13:50I'm going to hit 10 shots and see how many times consecutively I can hit the fairway or how many
13:56out of 10 shall I say I can get and again this is great you can note it down on your phone or in a
14:00little notebook and each time try and improve on your previous score right let's go what I want to
14:06try and get out of this as a practice session and for everybody watching is I want it to feel like
14:12nervous I want it to feel like your heart is racing certainly on the last few shots because
14:17that's how you're going to best develop your skills and how taking your game from the driving range to
14:22out on the golf course let's go 10 shots I'm somewhat even nervous on the first shot it feels
14:28like a first tee first tee nerves type of vibe because you want to start strong I'm picking my line
14:33really visualizing where I'm going to hit this and let's start off straight down the middle of the
14:39fairway that should be a very good start one out of one
14:51a tiny bit right should be good just but we're on the fairway I'm not trying to hit these as hard as
15:06I can these are all fairway finding drives
15:09that was a little bit high and definitely got affected by the wind but I'm not looking for
15:27distance I'm looking for accuracy that's four out of four so far
15:30right this is the point where it starts to feel a bit more nervous I'm just at six really good
15:45drives there straight down the fairway we've got four more to go to get 10 out of 10
15:49the old heart is pumping this is what we want we want that excitement we want that kind of nerves
15:56can I finish strong this is coming down the straight I've got a good round of golf going
16:01can I keep hitting fairways
16:03it's not my best but it's straight down the middle
16:10straight down the middle three to go
16:14oh I've leaked it we might have missed the first fairway hang on ball hang on oh god lucky that
16:28wasn't my best shot the old nerves started twitching but this is good this is what you want in a practice
16:34session two more to go
16:35okay this is it last shot again they've not all been pretty they've not all been perfect
16:49this is the one I'm on for a record score 10 out of 10 can I finish this is walking down the 18th hole
16:57you've got a good round of golf going you just want to finish strong you want to hit that great tee shot
17:02well this hard work on the driving range will help you next time you get in that situation
17:07heart is pumping hands are twitchy can I finish with a 10 out of 10
17:13hang on to that right hand side oh it's absolutely perfect that is good that's good practice I feel
17:26motivated with that and next time I get on the golf course I can't imagine hitting it anywhere else
17:31apart from straight down the middle of the fairway right next up let's challenge someone else
17:37right the last section of your practice here at the driving range is to challenge somebody else
17:47whether that's a friend or whether it's actually just someone else at the driving range ask them
17:50if they fancy a bit of a competition this is a way that you can put everything you've just worked on
17:54for the first two sections of this practice session into a more realistic setting so you can
18:00do things like nearest the pin challenges who can hit it closest whether it's at a target at the
18:05driving range or again using top tracer technology or whether it's a longest drive challenge against each
18:11other and you could even finally pretend you're playing a hole again either on the range by using
18:17different targets or why not jump on one of the most famous holes in the world using top tracer and you
18:24know what why not make it a bit spicy as well the loser has to do a forfeit whether that's clean the
18:30other ones golf shoes or even simply carry the other golfers clubs back to the car make it mean
18:36something because then you're gonna at least try your best and it matters like you want that bit of
18:42nerves you want that bit of excitement to definitely put you in the right frame of mind that is how you
18:48power boost your practice session ready for a great season get out there work hard in your golf game
18:55because believe me when you play well you'll enjoy it a lot more we'll see you next time
19:18you