In this video, Neil Tappin and Katie Dawkins discus how to take your game from the range to the golf course.
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00:00Now one of the biggest areas that golfers often struggle with is how do you take your golf game
00:07from the range with you out onto the golf course. We've all been there before where you've hit it
00:12well on the range preparing for a big round of golf and then you get onto the golf course and
00:17suddenly all those good shots suddenly elude you and you play really poorly and it's very
00:21demoralizing. So that's what this video is all about and we're going to offer some really simple
00:26and effective advice. Now the tips come from Katie Dawkins, she's one of the Golf Monthly Top 50
00:32coaches and she'll offer you a framework for practice and a way in which you can put that
00:36practice into play when you're on the golf course. Now a lot of this is about information gathering
00:42and so that's why in this video we've partnered up with Garmin. They've got a whole host of different
00:46technologies you can use both when you're on the range and also when you're out on the golf course
00:50to help you gather all that information you need to make smarter choices while you're on the golf
00:55course. Right we've split this video up into three sections off the tee, ball striking and pitching
01:02and we're going to start right here on the range.
01:14Okay so we are going to start with the game off the tee and I guess the biggest difference between
01:19the range and the golf course is consequence. So when you're hitting balls on the range you've got this big
01:23expanse to hit at yeah there's no consequence. It doesn't matter if you don't get it right does it?
01:28So how do you make sure that your range session then is as valuable to you as possible when
01:33you're working through it? So you have to keep it more in line with how you would play on the course
01:37and the way that I do that is I go through my pre-shot routine every single time so every shot I hit
01:43I'll walk behind the ball and I'll prepare myself and rehearse the swing right and then I'll come in and
01:48hit the shot exactly how I do in the course. And that so when you're on the golf course that puts you in a more
01:52positive state of mind does it? Yeah because I trust it I trust my routine it's almost like having
01:57a safety blanket. That's interesting because I think a lot of people know they have to have a
02:01pre-shot routine and it's something they use on the golf course but how many of you watching this
02:05use it on the range as well and Katie's talking about doing it on every single shot requires real
02:10discipline. Okay Katie why don't you hit one for us? Okay. We have the Garmin Approach R10. A portable
02:17launch monitor on the ground so that will give me some feedback on the app about where it's going.
02:21You've got nowhere to hide sorry about that. That's fine.
02:28Lovely shot slight fade straight down the middle and that has gone it's carried 195 it's gone 212.
02:36So a good shot a nice shot but the one of the first shots that we've actually hit this morning I think
02:41as you you know as you warm up you'll probably start to hit it a bit further but the question is
02:46how do you then prepare specifically for the game off the tee with the different clubs that you'd be looking
02:51to hit what would be the way you'd do it? So I'd be wanting to make sure I know my average carry
02:55with the driver then perhaps with a fairway wood yeah so maybe my five wood I would pick
03:01just in case there's holes where this is just going to go too far yeah but also a rescue club
03:04as well off the tee right I think it's important to have those three options in your bag for when you
03:09come across a hole that's got a lot of trouble halfway down it perhaps. Yeah now that's a good question
03:14then is you hit that one fairly well I reckon you could probably hit them a bit better but
03:18what are you looking to gain as the yardage that you have in mind is it your absolute best
03:23or is it somewhere in the middle? No and I think this is the thing that people come a cropper with
03:28is that out on the golf course they're clubbing themselves with the very best shot they've ever
03:31hit with that club and of course that gets them into trouble because eight times out of ten they'll
03:35come up a bit short. Right. So it's important to have the average yardages and it's important to
03:40perhaps write them down in a little notebook to have that in your bag so you can go oh it's that
03:45far and if I hit it that far I won't go in the heather let's have a look and see what club does
03:49that for me. The other question I was going to ask you was about your dispersion so this one has gone
03:55a little bit left it's gone 14 yards left of the centre line we would all of us have a tendency to
04:02miss either right or left what would be yours Kate? Mine would be I would miss to the right so I'm aware
04:08of what trouble is up on the right hand side on a hole and I will pick the safest route away from
04:13that so I'll often aim left up a hole to allow for that. Okay so there's some really good advice
04:19there about how to practice the question is how do you then put that into play on the golf course?
04:23Let's go and find out. Okay so you've done your homework on the range you know your carry distances
04:28for your driver and your fairway woods the other key driving clubs that you have in your bag plus you've
04:34done some work on your pre-shot routine and that this is where all of that should should come to
04:39fruition and help you hit a good shot but there's some more important thinking to do Katie isn't there
04:44tell us what do you need to do? So I think the fact that we've been on the range and we've done a bit
04:48of homework our confidence should be much higher if you haven't prepared on the range so you haven't had
04:55a good practice you haven't seen yourself hit those good shots then chances are you can't visualize
05:00them yes so it's really important to have that in the bank before you then expect yourself to do
05:04well out here yes exactly and then once you are stood here a lot of it is about information gathering
05:10because you need to develop a picture for exactly where you need to hit the ball don't you absolutely
05:14and you need to know how far your clubs carry because we know that that bunker on the right is
05:19about 140 and the bunker on the left about 174 and I know that my five wood for example is going to carry
05:26both of those quite happily and I've suddenly devised myself a lovely safe plateau to land my
05:31ball on yes the heather's about 200 isn't it well the heather is actually 210 it's 210 we know that
05:38because the yeah because the laser has told us that it's 210 but importantly you don't have to hit it 209
05:44do you no you don't and I think it's important to hit a club that you like and that this is the thing
05:49you look at your distances and go well my three wood goes this far so I must hit that well you don't have
05:54to you could be 10 15 yards further back than that and probably be more likely to hit a good shot
06:00because you like your five wood right more than your three wood you've had more success rate with it
06:04therefore you're more likely to commit to the swing and finish it and be way more confident with the
06:08way you hit the shot this is it and this is where Katie your concept of having a personal par really
06:13comes into play isn't it it's something that we've talked about before but explain to us what is a
06:18personal par and how does it work in a scenario like this it's very easy for a golfer to stand on the
06:22tee look at the scorecard and go wow this is a par five I've got to get down the hole in five shots
06:27that's not the case you have a handicap for a reason that's the wonderful thing about golf
06:32is you're on a kind of fairly even keel with the people you're playing because of your handicap
06:36so if you were playing off a handicap of 18 your personal par on this hole isn't five it's six
06:41because you get an extra shot in each hole so you would stand here thinking well actually
06:46I've got another shot to play with so you can then start to devise yourself the safest route
06:50up that hole yes taking into account the shots the shots you love to hit and the clubs that your
06:55favorites and I think you can sort of start to make a picture almost especially using the course
07:01planner on your watch yes you can almost plot yourself a nice little safe route so the bunker
07:07on the right is 145 to carry the bunker on the left is 174 to carry the heather to reach it is 210
07:13so this is a club that should deal with all of that really isn't it it should do and I'm looking in
07:17the distance at that white post okay so although that's in line with my lovely little safe zone
07:23it's way further than this is going to go yes but it's important to pick a target beyond your landing
07:28area why is that that's because you're visualizing then a good shot also by focusing on something in
07:34the distance it helps all the hazards and all the trouble you're trying to get over to sort of merge
07:39and blur away if you like okay Katie so run through the routine that we've already talked about
07:44and uh and hit it for us so really important we're going to do one rehearsal make sure we make decent
07:48contact with the turf I always do it looking down the hole so nice back and through tickle of the
07:55turf point my club at my target in the distance the white post in this yep pick a mini target
08:01and just try and recreate what I did on the range
08:09oh oh straight is that on that white post it is it's very good and it's in a really it's in that safe
08:17spot it's in a perfect yeah you're then able to go and attack the green you don't have to play perfect
08:21golf to get the ball round in a lower score but what you do need to do is you really need to think
08:26smart and if you can employ what Katie said there it should make a big difference
08:35okay so for the second part of our video we're gonna focus on one of the areas that I think a lot
08:40of players really struggle with when it comes to taking their game from the range to the course and
08:44that's ball striking particularly with your irons when the golf ball's on the ground okay i'm going to
08:49start by asking you for just a straight up tip give us a drill give us a tip that people can use while
08:53they're on the range to really help them with their ball striking so i think first of all starting with
08:59what people don't do a lot of the time when they're not striking it well right they're not getting the
09:04ground under the ball whether that's the grass the t-peg whatever the ball sat on they're not making
09:08contact with it because they're almost trying to lift the ball in the air right okay so that's the first
09:12reason that sometimes it doesn't work so that's what we want to focus on on the range by placing
09:17something down just in front of the ball whether it be a little t-peg a leaf a feather whatever you can find
09:22you've got something that you're just aware of that's after the ball what that's going to help
09:26you to do is going to help you to hit the ball first and be aware you've got to collect
09:30that little mini target just after the ball as well okay so it helps you stay lower for longer
09:35so seven iron shot we've got the r10 running again
09:42very nice okay so katie the carry distance for that was 140 total distance 148
09:48uh five yards left to the center line looked perfect to me it felt good yeah a really good
09:52shot now obviously you want to spend some time on your ball striking to make sure that you're
09:57you feel comfortable running through your routine as we've already talked about
10:01but you also need to gather some information in this session so what information are you trying to
10:06gather about your irons you're trying to gather your average carry with them right so it's very similar
10:12way we did with oh absolutely 100 so that you know when you're out on the golf course that your
10:17seven iron will carry over the bunker just short of the green that that kind of information what
10:22why is the total distance less important well because the conditions are going to vary so sometimes
10:29you're going to be landing the ball in the summer on quite hard ground sometimes you're going to be
10:33landing the ball in the winter on soft ground the ball's not going to get any roll at all so it's
10:37important to know you're going to carry any trouble and this is also really important to say this is
10:42about developing your confidence so that when you get to the golf course you know what it feels like
10:46to have the ball come in flush out the middle of the golf club you know time after time by using that
10:51drill and then gathering the data it can really help you okay so with your iron play this is all about
10:57good quality ball striking when you're on the golf course katie you've given us a really good drill
11:01to use on the range to make sure you're getting that ball first ground second contact that we all need
11:07but you're still on the golf course here you've got trouble all in front of you you still need to
11:11focus on that good quality contact how do you do it when you're on the course so on the range we put
11:17a little something rather a little mini target ahead of the ball just to encourage ourselves to stay
11:22lower for longer out on the course it's very easy to suddenly get result orientated you suddenly worry
11:28about the water the bunkers what happens if it goes wrong what happens with that then is you come up on
11:35the ball therefore you don't get the grass underneath it right you don't get so just having an awareness
11:41of what's ahead of the ball helps you just to keep the club a little bit lower therefore get little
11:45ball then the big ball see the last thing you all need to be doing during a medal at your golf clubs is
11:50go hang on everyone i'm just going to stick a little something or other just in front of the ball
11:52because you can't touch your line of play so you can just have a look we're on the golf course it's a
11:58natural surface it's grass there's some little bits and pieces on the ground we've actually got
12:02a little twig just in front of our ball so when i stand behind my ball and go through that really
12:07important pre-shot routine and i point the club at the target line draw a line down i'm going to pick
12:11something just ahead of the ball on that that's simple it's effective it's something we can all do
12:16the other part that we can all get do and get right is figuring out the yardages the work that we've
12:21done on the range to work out our carry yardages you need to now apply it so the shot that we've got
12:25here the second shot into 16 here at west hill the back of the green the laser is telling me is 164
12:31flag is 160 to cover the bunker on the right is 152 that's to carry that yeah so what club are you
12:38going to play what's the key yardage of all that that you're trying to take into account so i want
12:43to carry the bunker but at the same time it's a really good idea when you're going for your approach
12:47shots to actually focus on hitting the middle of the green and my watch says 153 to the center so i'm
12:52going to hit something i'm confident on average and it's really important that part on average
12:58goes 150 yards right katie so you're going to hit this for us now it is quite dewy this morning you
13:03just gave me a very good tip in this scenario what is it so when there is dew on the ground you can
13:09actually see where your club hits the world and that's important that gives you immediate feedback
13:14and for us immediate feedback if you've done a good swing is really real confidence booster so you
13:19would have picked your little mini target just ahead of the ball but then so we know where we're
13:23aiming because we've got that spot then you're going to set up level with the ball and you're
13:28going to do your practice swing back and through yeah and you can see where you can really see so i
13:34can see that my first point of contact would have been the ball after that i've made a nice little
13:38neat divot mark ahead of that so i know that i'm collecting that mini target that we were using on the
13:44range i'm ticking that box i've committed to the shot and i've hit what's under the ball yes and
13:50the dew really highlights go for it lovely great strike now where's that going middle of the green
14:04very good decent two-part i'd be happy with that yes indeed and it's just a really good way to think
14:09it doesn't need to take you an awful lot of time but just having the awareness to think about some of
14:13these factors while you're on the golf course should really help you shoot lower scores
14:23okay so for the final part of our video we're looking at pitching now pitching Katie is one of
14:27those areas the coaches like you will tell amateurs like me you need to focus on this because it's the
14:32fastest way to save your shots out on the golf course but you've got to practice it right and so
14:37the first question is how do you practice your pitching well i think like you say it is this is like
14:42your score zone so if you can get your wedges actually hitting the greens you are going to
14:47save shots it's quite simple but a lot of people don't like doing the half shots three quarter shots
14:52so you need to know your wedge distances with the full swing first and foremost that's your first port
14:56of call right and we can do that on the range yes you can and it helps to have a laser to identify
15:02how far the flags are so i've already done it the first flag is 71 second flag is uh 83 and the third flag
15:09is 109. so Katie why don't you hit a full shot with your which club is this this is my sand register
15:14it's 54 degrees right fine and we've got the uh approach r10 on the floor as well so i'll be able
15:20to get some feedback okay right good shot Katie now that's carried 74 and again the carry yardages are
15:27what you're looking for you're looking at average carry yardages and i guess having a good understanding
15:31for how far a full you know wedge shot goes for each of your wedges maybe your nine iron etc is going to be
15:37really useful to you but if you really want to get good at pitching you need to add an extra dimension
15:42to everything what is that so the extra dimension that you need is to be able to control the length
15:47of your swing because it's all very well knowing how far you hit a full shot but we're not always
15:52going to have a full shot out there no and people try and manufacture that less length by slowing down
15:58and decelerating we all know what that yeah fat shots yeah lovely big old fat shots and you think that
16:02was a lovely drive what a waste yeah and so it's just a point of frustration yeah for everybody
16:07okay so you can practice this and how so how do what's the way that you think about so one of the
16:11best visuals that i tend to use when i'm coaching is that your head is 12 o'clock and you're doing a
16:16length of swing that's almost nine bang through to three okay so it's like a half swing yeah and you
16:22would work on your averages like we talked about before so the average distance that say you'd hit
16:27between seven and ten balls doing that length swing with each of your clubs yes now you can get
16:32more in depth in this you can do sort of 10 o'clock swings you can but we're suggesting in this instance
16:37just to get a foothold in all of this that nine till three swing with each of your clubs through to
16:43i guess even up to seven yeah even up to a seven or a six sign if imagine you're playing link score
16:48links golf out by the seaside you need to bump and run that ball in you need to be able to control how
16:53far you carry it yeah and obviously the result there on in yeah so it's important to go all the
16:59way through your clubs but initially just your sort of four wedges or so would be sufficient would be
17:03a good start so i'm now interested to find out how much a nine to three swing takes off your normal
17:09full pitching swing shot which was as we know carry distance 74 so yeah uh yeah hit full
17:15uh sorry hit a nine to three uh sandwich shot for us lovely okay
17:26and now that's interesting katie because that's uh carried 60. yeah so there's a 14 yard uh carry
17:32distance gap between those two shots and i hit that pretty well you hit that okay probably one of my
17:38better wedge shots right so i probably wouldn't take that probably more than i'd normally hit my nine to
17:44three okay on average yeah so that's an important point it's not to take that's why it's so important
17:49to do the sort of seven to ten shots shots yes okay fine so once you've got that um that average for
17:55each of the shots then you can do that with each of the different clubs yeah and i guess a key point
17:59here is practice just the repetition of being comfortable hitting those half shots yeah and when
18:04you're going through your routine on the course you're rehearsing you've got a definite place to go
18:08that nine o'clock is a really good kind of band of distance to swing that club back and through
18:14and obviously if you've written it down you look at you look at the yardage on the course
18:18and you go what's that oh that's my nine o'clock pitching wedge yeah my nine o'clock and the other
18:23great thing about this is that when you get to the golf course this process gives you options as
18:28you're about to find out okay so you've done all of that work on your pitching you should have
18:33some confidence in hitting the numbers that you're trying to hit but again you need to be smart while
18:38you're out on the golf course now katie the the flag i've lasered the flag it's 80 to the flag
18:43what is it to the back what is it to the middle so you've got 71 to the middle of the green and like
18:47we mentioned we've mentioned before the middle of the green is just safe place yes safe option so 71
18:53to the middle uphill a little bit so we're going to take that into account but it's 83 to the back so
18:57hit one for us then katie so this is a this will be a full slam wedge shot for you but we've got two
19:02clubs because we're going to i'm going to ask you to play in two different ways because this is the beauty
19:06of really getting to know your pitching distances you can play these shots in different ways yeah
19:11so i'm going to hit my full sandwich first of all
19:18lovely that's good you know that's actually i think that's pin high what did you say yeah
19:25that's pretty good literally my full sandwich will go about 75 80 yards perfect so my watch you
19:32know said 72 and actually we went to the backyard just said it's perfect yeah so we're going to play
19:36the same shot again but with a nine iron using that nine to three action and hopefully the ball
19:43will go sort of a similar sort of distance yeah and the reason this is quite a good idea as well is
19:47there's no trouble in between us and the flag so you can bump and run it in if you like and a shorter
19:54swing is a lot safer yeah a lot of golfers would stand there with a full sand wedge that's a lot of golf
19:59swing if you catch it skinny yeah and you can hit it's gonna go a long way pulls or pushes as with
20:04any other part of your game so maybe this is the most consistent way of doing it absolutely it's the
20:08safest way of doing it yeah and i'm from where i'm stood it's so interesting because it's a lot more
20:18of a driven ball flight it's a lot lower and it's half the swing it's run once it's gone onto the green
20:24it's run probably a yard or two further than the first one but not a huge amount no and and probably the
20:29most important thing is if i hadn't quite caught that say i had caught it a little bit skinny
20:34there's not enough swing there to send me into a lot of trouble i may be at the back of the green
20:38but i'm not going to be really in a pickle yeah so as i said before this might feel like a really kind
20:43of advanced technique but you can see from katie's the way that katie's played it it's actually really
20:48simple but it does require that time on the range to make sure that you know what you're doing because
20:53once you become comfortable with shots like this they can really really help you out on the course
20:58so there you have it that's our look at how you take your game from the range to the golf course
21:04yeah and i think it's it's not just about what you do on the golf course it's about building good
21:10habits when you're practicing so that you are in fact practicing the same game here as you play out
21:16there yeah it's a simple piece of advice but it requires real discipline and real thought to make
21:22sure that you get it right hopefully katie's tips today will make a big difference but that's it for
21:26now thanks very much for watching we'll see you next time