In this video, Neil Tappin is joined by Top 50 Golf Coach Ged Walters to provide his 5 best ball striking drills. He'll help you with your angle of attack and weight transfer to improve the quality of your striking. If you are heading to the range to work on your game, this video is a must watch!
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00If you're looking to shoot lower scores this year then one thing you'll undoubtedly need to do is
00:04strike the ball consistently well and that's exactly what this video is all about. We've got
00:09five of the best ball striking drills for you. Now the advice in this video comes courtesy of
00:14Jed Walters. Jed is one of Golf Monthly's top 50 coaches. He's got some really simple and
00:19effective advice on ensuring that you'd strike the ball before the ground. Now it's also important
00:24to say this video is coming to you in partnership with KBS Shafts. They have a whole shaft range
00:29from driver all the way through the bag. All designed to help you get the most from your
00:34equipment. Right we're here at the London Club. Let's get started.
00:48This drill is all about ensuring that you catch the ball before the ground. It doesn't matter whether
00:53you're hitting a wedge or hitting a long iron. That's the same principle all the way through.
00:57So it's something we all need to work on. Jed what's the drill and how does it work?
01:02Okay instant feedback is what it really is all about. So if I take a tee and I just scratch
01:06a line in the ground here. So from that point of view there I've now got a focal point from
01:15which I can work around. So here with a long iron that ball position is going to be a little
01:21bit further towards my lead side. And from there it's about making swings and trying to get
01:28the club to hit the ball and the turf. So I want to be really brushing the line and left
01:34of it for me away.
01:36Yes and crucially you're not hitting the ground behind the line. That's the number one thing
01:40that you're trying to avoid. And the great thing about this drill Jed is you're taking practice
01:44swing after practice swing after practice swing and you get that instant feedback. Is your body
01:48working in the right way to deliver the club at the right angle of attack?
01:51Definitely. Now obviously that would change. So if I took wedge in there, ball position then
01:56is going to go more central. So that can be even more, can be deeper this side here. But
02:01the one thing I'm going to find is if I was to make a practice swing here and hit the wrong
02:04side of this line, then I know that our body's back here. Right okay well I've hit the ground
02:09there. Well there's the line. Hit the ground back there. So what I'm looking for is to keep
02:13the pressure moving forwards. So I can hit the ground more to the left. You can see there
02:16I've hit the ground sort of way in front of the line there by just keeping the body moving
02:21in the right direction. Okay. So then you make a series of practice swings and then eventually
02:24you get to a point where you put the ball on the line, hit a shot and then you get the
02:28feedback of what you're doing actually in the swing itself. Exactly. Go on then. Okay.
02:33So in the setup, I've got a 50 degree wedge here. So centered ball position and then just
02:42making sure that I get my body working in the right order.
02:47Perfect. Hopefully you could hear through the mics the quality of the strike there. Absolutely
02:52perfect. And you can see this divot is starting I'd say not quite almost an inch after the line.
02:59Yeah after the line which is exactly what you're looking for. So use this really simple drill
03:03it will really help your ball striking.
03:05Okay. So this drill is all about controlling the low point in the arc of your swing. Something
03:14that's so important for good quality ball striking. Jen, you've got a ball on the tee here.
03:18Yes. What are we doing?
03:20We're getting used to with this one just the difference in the line that we can get. We
03:24practice most of our golf on a mat. On driving range it's flat, it's the same level as your
03:28feet. You get on a golf course and it's above your feet, below your feet, it's different slopes. So
03:33the first thing we need to do is just make sure that we're adaptable and we can adjust. So
03:36we've got this one teed up here and I'm literally just going to clip it off the tee. Yeah. It's
03:41plain and simple as that. Yeah. So my ball position and everything's going to be the same,
03:45but now you can see, you know, this is what, you know, good three, three and a half inches above my
03:50feet. So I just want to get used to being able to be slightly more adaptable. So if this was a ball
03:55above my feet situation where I've got my normal ball position, but I'm now just adapting to the lie,
04:02I just want to clip it away. Beautiful. Good strike. So what's next? So what's next now is we now need
04:12to look at it from a point of view of improving the ball striking itself. So the ball goes back on
04:18the same tee. Um, and now what you're going to do is about four inches behind it. And so, you know,
04:24it's not a million miles away from the length of your club head is I'm going to put another tee.
04:27Okay. Same height. Same height. Now the key with this is anybody who struggles sort of, so fat shots,
04:37thin shots, top shots, all those kinds of things. Generally it happens because the pressure, the weight
04:42of the body is too far back. So we start to scoot, we start to flip. Well, first thing you're going to
04:47do then is you're going to hit that tee. Hit that tee. So we just got to miss it. So the simple drill here
04:51is hit the ball, don't hit the tee. Yeah. So that's going to now encourage a little bit more of a
04:56downward angle. And to have that, I've got to make sure that I'm moving my body in the right
05:00direction. Okay. Simple task here then, Jeff. Don't hit the tee. Dead simple. So just don't hit the tee.
05:11Very good. Okay. And there it is. Good contact. Right. But there's a third part. There's a third
05:16element to this drill. So if I take a third tee and I now put it here, so it's on the opposite side
05:23around the same distance from the one that's at the back. Okay. So now what we're looking at doing
05:32is not just missing this tee, but now I want to hit this one. Yes. Because that now is giving me the
05:38feeling of that downward angle of attack, controlling the low points, more target side. Again, we're back
05:44to being ball turf, which is everything that good ball striking is. Is okay. Okay. So now I just want to miss the
05:51back tee, hit the shot and try and clip this tee that's in front here.
06:01Yeah, it's a really solid contact. And it's a really simple drill, that one, to just help you
06:05establish that right angle of attack so the club bottoms out in exactly the right place,
06:09because that is where really good quality contacts come from.
06:12Here's a great ball striking drill for those golfers that don't want to get caught thinking too
06:22technically about the golf swing. It can really help. Jed, what is it?
06:26So it's about trying to make a comfortable speed swing and stopping as fast as you can beyond impact.
06:32Okay. What it does is it gets the body to organize itself a little bit more naturally. We play our best
06:36golf when we're in subconscious, when it doesn't, you're not thinking about anything. So that's what
06:40we want to try and encourage. So from this drill here, it's simply just taking a, you know, a lofted
06:46club at nine nine here. We're just going to make some swings, which only go maybe halfway back.
06:51But the key to it is feeling like the downswing, the focus is just stop. What you'll find is when you
06:59look at it from face on at this point here, I'm not really doing anything other than stopping yet.
07:04You can see how my weight's moving forward. My pelvis is tucking underneath the torso. So I'm
07:10extending, extending to the legs, to the pelvis, to the spine. And I've got a little rotation in
07:16there as well. And you're nicely connected between your arms and your body as well. What I'm looking
07:20at when I see this is just how good the impact position is just by doing such a small and simple
07:26golf swing. It trains everything to just happen in the order that it really wants to happen. It's almost
07:31the brain, which confuses it and makes it happen in different ways. Yeah. So you can start off at
07:36slower speeds and then just build up your speed and you can go flat out speed if you wanted to there.
07:41So when you're accustomed to the drill, you could be a little bit more
07:45and get some real crispness to what's happening there. You can see where those divots are always
07:50I can see that left of where I'm where the golf ball would be. Yeah, it's just it's developing that
07:55speed into it, but just focusing on the stop as quickly as you can. Yeah. So from a setup point of view,
08:01thinking about putting a little bit more pressure into your lead foot, just almost like there,
08:06just pushing down into the ground a little bit more, keeping that pressure there and then just
08:10making a nice controlled swing, stopping as quickly as you can beyond impact.
08:18Yeah. And you can see that divot. It's perfect. It's just after where the ball would have been.
08:21Definitely. And the body position. Just this shot of Jed here just shows you so many good things
08:26about the golf swing. If you can focus on finding that position, the chances are the quality of your
08:31ball striking will greatly improve.
08:37This drill is all about swing direction, something that's going to really help you with your iron
08:41ball striking. Jed, what's the thinking here? What's the drill all about?
08:45So all great ball strikers have a fairly neutral swing direction. So that's not to say that it is
08:52always, say, a bit to the right. Some are a little bit to the left, but it's minute. We're talking a
08:58couple of degrees left of target, couple of degrees right of target, not excessive, which you would see
09:03from people who would slice and hook it. They would maybe be 10 degrees to the right, 10 degrees to the
09:07left. So getting your swing direction more neutral will help you control your centeredness of strike
09:13and also help you control how your body then wants to move towards the target. So you can control
09:19the ground contacts and get those lovely crisp ball turf strikes.
09:22Yeah. And it sounds complicated, but it doesn't have to be if you have a really good drill that
09:26can help you sort of visualize what you're trying to achieve. And that's what we're doing here. So
09:30talk us through it.
09:31Okay. So we're looking at it from sort of both perspectives. Obviously, I've got this little
09:35station set up here. This is just as a quick visual, really, to what would represent a fairly neutral
09:43swing plane of being sort of up and down.
09:46Yeah. But the swing direction is literally what the club is sort of doing as it comes here through
09:50the impact. So if I was like sort of this there, that would be a swing direction quite a lot to the
09:56right. That would be quite a lot to the left. So this is tailored relative to you as the individual.
10:02If you were somebody who slices the golf ball, pulls it or slices it, you're coming across the ball.
10:08Yeah. So you'd have a swing direction,
10:10which would be if I put it into sort of a 2D visual on the floor, would be a bit like that.
10:16So right. Okay. Well, what you need to do is practice the opposite. So we would turn the sticks
10:25out to the right. I mean, that's probably somewhere in the regions of 40 degrees, maybe to the right.
10:31So right. Okay. Your visual then, if you were somebody who's coming here, your visual is to swing
10:36the club in the downswing between the sticks. Yeah. And then suddenly your angle of attack improves,
10:42the amount of the face you're getting on the ball improves, the quality of the strike goes up. It
10:46can do so many good things for you, can't it? Yeah. And then vice versa, if you hook the golf ball,
10:51then you would just turn them the opposite way and feel like you were coming across a little bit more.
10:55Now bear in mind, these are feels, what you're feeling and what really happens are completely
11:00different. You know, a slicer would feel like they're swinging way off to the right. And when you look at
11:05the swing direction, it's probably still a little bit left. It's just that, you know, if what feels
11:10hugely one way might move at eight degrees, but if you were already 10 left, then you're still a
11:14little bit left. But the important point is it's more neutral. So you're going to make your striking
11:20better. You're going to make your start lines better. You're going to make your overall ball
11:24striking better. Yes. So this is one for those players who have big shapes in their game. So either big
11:28draws or big fades. If you want to just reign those in slightly, you'll improve the quality of your ball
11:33striking. And this is a great way to do it.
11:40Okay. So this is a ball striking drill aimed specifically at those golfers who have a tendency
11:45to hang back through impact, hit the fat shots and the thin shots that we all hate so much.
11:50And it's a, it's a great one for the range. Talk us through it, Jed.
11:54Okay. So on a driving range, you could use the basket of the balls coming. It's simply just propping
12:00your trail side up. So all your pressure, all the weight goes to the lead side, you're probably going
12:06to be talking 90 to 95% of your pressure is going to be lead side. So that's going to mean, well,
12:12I can't go back because I'm up on an angle. That's going to keep me there. So I'm going to get used to
12:17feeling what it's like to have the pressure forward through impact. And it's going to give
12:21you the ability then to have a nice downward angle attack and give you those lovely ball turf,
12:25Chris strikes. Yeah. And that feeling of what the correct contact should feel like. So just go for
12:30it then. Talk, talk us through the drill. I've just put my bag on the ground there.
12:34And all this is going to do is this is going to help me elevate my trail foot. So from here,
12:40and bear in mind, you only need to sort of hit lofted clubs out. We're not talking about doing
12:44this with driver. It's just getting used to doing it with like a wedge or a nine iron or something.
12:49So just taking, you know, if that was my normal set up there, then what I'm going to do now is I'm
12:53just going to take my trail foot. I'm just going to lift it and I'm just going to rest it on the back
12:57of my bag. So now all my pressure is into my lead side. So from here, I'm going to keep the pressure
13:04into my lead leg. I'm going to flex it a little bit more than normal, just because it's taken
13:09all the weight pretty much. You'll notice then on my right leg, I'll sort of really straighten out a
13:13little bit. As you see from this angle is very little flex left in there. Keeping the pressure then
13:17pushing down into the left leg. I'm just going to make little swings now. So it's going to be a little
13:21half swing back and then just down. So you can see the angle attack is going to come down. It's
13:26going to help me find a low point more to the left. So I just need to keep my arms nice and extended.
13:32You know, I'm not going to swing to there. I'm not making a full follow through. I'm just making a
13:36nice back and through swing. So if I was to click this one now, I'm set and ready and I'm just going to
13:43make a nice smooth swing. And we've just got that little ball to strike. You will really,
13:51really struggle to hit the ground before the ball if you try this drill. And as I say, it's a great
13:55one for getting your body in the right position, get the weight moving towards the target so the club
14:00hits the ball before it hits the ground. Give it a go. So there you have it. That's Jed's five best
14:05ball striking drills. If you are having issues with the quality of your iron strikes, then give some of
14:10those drills a go. If you can find a feel that helps you hit the ball before the turf, then you
14:16should start hitting your irons much better. But that's it for now from the London Club. Thanks
14:20very much for watching. We'll see you next time.