In this video, Neil Tappin is joined by Tour Coach Liam James to look at the biggest driving mistakes and how to avoid them!
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00:00Hello everyone, Neil Tappin here from Golf Monthly and welcome to the London Club and this video on
00:04the biggest mistakes that players make off the tee. We've teamed up with Ping and with tour coach
00:09Liam James to offer you the best advice that we can about how to stop hooking it, how to stop
00:13slicing it and also about how to find a little bit more distance off the tee as well. This is all
00:19about trying to make the game as easy as possible so if you do struggle off the tee this video should
00:24really help. If you're new to the Golf Monthly channel please do hit the subscribe button to
00:27make sure that you don't miss any of our videos. Hit the like button if you're liking the video but
00:31let's head out now onto the golf course here at the London Club and look at the biggest driving mistakes
00:35the players make. Okay Lynn let's start with a lack of distance off the tee, a lack of speed. If there
00:45was a fault that you see more often than not with amateurs that costs them yardage what would it be
00:51do you think? I'd say the biggest fault is them trying to generate more speed in the manner that
00:55they do so the biggest thing that we start to see more than anything is that in a bid to try and hit
01:01the golf ball harder they're moving from side to side more often and then moving towards the target
01:06too much is causing them actually to hit down on the golf ball even more and essentially slice the
01:11golf ball so in a bid to try and hit the golf ball harder and further they're actually hitting it
01:16shorter so there are things that you can do in the setup that will just make sure that you generate a
01:21little bit more speed without losing the control of where the ball strikes on the face. Yeah and don't
01:26forget you're looking for that kind of high launch low spin those perfect optimized launch conditions
01:31to get the most out of your driver. Absolutely and that's the thing even if players are swinging at
01:37slow speeds or slower speeds than we see on the television we can still optimize those speeds by
01:42making sure the impact factors are as good as they possibly can be and 90% of the time that's just how
01:48they set up to the golf ball that's got nothing to do with what's happening in the swing. Okay so give
01:52us some ideas about what people should be looking out for. So the biggest thing first of all is I think
01:57we need to maximize everything we can in the setup in order to actually wind up behind the golf ball
02:03and give ourselves the biggest range of movement we possibly can and a very simple tip for that would
02:07be obviously the first thing to just keep an eye on is the ball position we want to make sure that's
02:12inside my left heel but I've got a nice wide base here now but as you have a look you can see my toes
02:18are fractionally turned out now what that's actually enabling me to do now is turn my hips okay if we
02:24see players which we see a lot of almost turned in with their toes it really restricts their range of
02:30movement and it's impossible for them to make a full turn up to the top of the back. Yeah so that little
02:34bit more range movement in your hips gives you more range movement in your shoulder which is what
02:38you're looking for absolutely and then it's a bigger rotation it's not necessarily more effort it's not
02:44them doing it any faster all you're all you're doing simply here is turning your toes out freeing
02:49your knees and your hips up to complete a full turn and as a result of that you're going to generate
02:54more speed. Okay go on then let's show I'll show you through it hit one for us. So again ball up off
03:00that left heel I've got a nice wide base with my toes turned out I'm gonna have a little rehearsal up
03:05to the top full rotation then I'm just going to go ahead and give it a hit. Yeah hopefully and what
03:14you should see through the cameras there is just how well centred Liam stays over the shot he's not
03:18making a big sway off the ball and then back onto it because if you are it's quite dangerous that isn't
03:23it? Absolutely and it may feel like might feel quicker it might feel like more effort but essentially
03:29all that's going to do is increase your off-center hits whereas if you're doing as we're mentioning here
03:34turning your toes out big wide base nice rotation up to the top you're then going to stay behind it
03:40and not only swing it faster just due to that but hit the middle of the face more often. Yeah more
03:44speed and more control. Okay so we're going to move on to slices and hooks I think most golfers their
03:49bad shot will likely be one or other of these two so Liam let's talk about I know that you're going to
03:54speak about them in connection with each other because the thought I guess is the kind of opposite of
03:58each other right? Absolutely I mean you know you tend to see very similar characteristics of a
04:04player who's slicing the golf ball and then counter to that you see the opposite when you've seen a
04:09player hook it and generally most of those things are coming from the way they're setting up to the
04:13golf ball and actually the way they're placing their hands on the grip so we start with the slicer.
04:18Yeah. The biggest thing that we'll start to see with excessive slices of the golf ball is quite
04:23simply where the golf club is running through your left hand so players who get it too much into the
04:29palm okay it's going to do two things for you if you're too much in the palm it's going to lean
04:34you too much towards the target and you set up. And that's a setup position you see a lot isn't it?
04:38Absolutely right so their head's closer to the target than their belt buckle is and that's going
04:43to cause them to hit out and down on the golf ball and the second thing that grip's going to do is
04:47that's going to make this club face open up too much on the way back so now we've got the golf club
04:52coming from the outside with the face wide open you're just going to hit slices. Hook then is the
04:56opposite issue is it? Absolutely right so if we see a player with an excessively strong grip now to
05:02define strong grip I don't mean strong in strength I mean strong in if I was to look down at my left
05:08hand now I can see all four of my knuckles so that would that would define as a strong grip. Now as a
05:14result of that what we're going to tend to see is not much loft on the golf club at the top so
05:19we would call this a closed position with the club face not much loft and now the compensations that
05:26the players are having to make in order to try and get the ball up in the air now we're going to
05:30start to see a lot of leaning back and that's going to obviously cause the hook so just by two
05:35poor grip positions in the setup all these things you know the slices are coming over it the hooks
05:41they're leaning back so you know you've got to be careful with how you're setting up. So that begs
05:45the question what's the checkpoint that people need to get the right grip on the club to be stood
05:50correctly at the ball at address? So it's all keep it really constant with the routine so
05:54the biggest thing I would say about this is when you see golfers on on the golf course it's where
05:59they actually place their hands on the golf club in their routine so you'll see some players have
06:04it down here some players it's up in the air keep it really consistent we want to hold the golf club
06:09up out in front of us shafts parallel with the ground here and I'm just going to run this golf club
06:14just through the fingers of my left hand and if I place a little look now and I just have a look at
06:19my left hand I've got a two knuckle left hand grip now so that's what we would define as a neutral
06:23grip that's going to feel much weaker to a guy who grips it strong and it's going to feel much
06:28stronger to the slices but just by fixing the left hand grip it's going to offer us the chance
06:34to get set up fractionally in behind the golf ball with my shirt buttons but now I've got a neutral
06:40left hand in order to make sure that club face is square throughout my swing. Okay go on there Liam
06:45hit one for us so let's see what it looks like. So I'll show you my routine shaft up in front of me
06:49clubbing the fingers two knuckle left hand grip
06:53and then I'll give it a hit.
07:02Lovely. So there you have it if you are struggling with your driving I think that the advice that Liam
07:08has given us there shows that it doesn't have to be a big technical fix to do with any of the
07:12complicated movements in your golf swing it can be something simple and a lot of the time
07:17these things can be done at address and there's no reason why any golfer can't get them right.
07:22Thanks for watching we'll see you next time.