In this video, Neil Tappin is joined by PGA Professional Alex Elliott to look at the 5 biggest golf swing mistakes and how to fix them.
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00:00Hello everyone, Neil Tappin here from Golf Monthly and welcome to West Hill Golf Club
00:04and this video looking at the five biggest golf swing mistakes and how to fix them.
00:10I'm joined in this video by Alex Elliott, he's a PGA pro and he's got some really simple
00:14and effective advice for what we think are the most common mistakes that might be costing
00:18you hitting slices or hooks or just hitting shots slightly fat or slightly thin, whatever
00:23your issue, hopefully there should be something in this video to really help you out.
00:32Right, so the first one on our list of biggest golf swing mistakes is the grip and it's something
00:38you're going to need to pay attention to. Alex, what do people need to look out for here?
00:42What are the biggest faults in terms of the grip?
00:44I think if we start off firstly with the palm, we all sort of hear this one banded around
00:49quite a lot. So if you're a golfer, if you're right handed, you struggle losing that ball
00:53off to the right and really don't feel you get a big bang for your buck, then we're going
00:57to tend to see this golf club run through the lifeline, where we're actually told to put
01:01the putter actually for most people. So essentially when we've got the club in the palm, we're going
01:06to see it very similar to as I've got here. And if you just waggle that golf club up and
01:11down, it's going to feel quite heavy.
01:13And what happens in this scenario is that when you return the club to impact, the way in
01:18which your body works, you're going to more than likely return it slightly open, aren't
01:22you? Slightly open or tenter with driver, potentially add a lot of loft, right? So like our ability
01:28to create a good efficient hit is dramatically reduced.
01:31Yes. So if you're, if you have a fault in your grip that isn't a weak grip, but a strong
01:36grip, what does that look like?
01:37So a strong grip would be, let's say two to three knuckles, maybe even four knuckles
01:41showing really our logo of the glove pointing to the sky and sort of this look to how we're
01:46set up to the ball. Yeah. We're going to see that real hook curvature. So finishing off
01:50to the left for right-handed player, finishing off to right for a left-handed player. And
01:54that for me is where we're going to really struggle to control the golf ball, especially
01:59in firm conditions like it is now, like having that strong grip, we're only going to see
02:03sort of lowish ball flights, a lot of hook spin on it.
02:06Exactly. So what does the absolutely technically
02:08good grip look like and how can people set it?
02:11The one thing I'd say with this, Neil, is that we've got to be sort of, I always think
02:16of people improving their grip by edging it back slowly because your grip matches how
02:19you release the club. So we need to make sure it's not going from one extreme to the other.
02:23Okay. The only sort of caveat to that is if you do have it in the palm, get it in the
02:26fingers straight away. But if you are weak, edge it stronger. If you are really strong,
02:30edge it a little bit weaker. Okay. But that common ground where I want you to end up in the
02:34end would be a nice simple routine for this as well. If you're out on the golf courses,
02:39grip it sort of in the middle of my shaft, as I've done here, tilt it slightly away, place
02:44it in the fingers. And you can see that I've got it right at the base of my fingers, meaty
02:49part on top, quick test, club feels light, club down to the ground. We can see sort of
02:54two and a half knuckles, fingers on in my right hand. And both of these creases should
02:59be somewhere around my right shoulder. Quick question for you, Alex, if you get the left
03:03hand grip right, will the right hand grip then automatically be correct?
03:06I think so, yeah. You've got a better chance.
03:08Right, fine. So focus, are we saying focus on the left hand grip?
03:11I think your left hand grip, right hand is the opposite way.
03:14Yeah, simply whatever one you have your glove on, get that right, will tend to have a better
03:18chance of getting some good shots. Okay, good. And if you get it right, then you should hit
03:22some nice neutral flighted golf shots, a bit like this one. No pressure. So yeah, nice,
03:28simple routine in the fingers, meaty part on top. It's going to give you a much better chance
03:33of returning that golf club back to relatively good to our path.
03:41A bit like that. Very good.
03:47Okay, so next up, alignment. And it sounds easy enough, doesn't it, to get your alignment right?
03:52But it's something that can go wrong quite easily and something that even the best players in the
03:56world are constantly checking, making sure they get it right. So, Alex, how do you get it right?
04:01Firstly, don't aim your shoulders at target. Right. Which might sound like, to you watching
04:06this right now, a comment where you go, well, of course you do. If you're going to throw something
04:11or fire something, you'd be sort of looking at our alignment. And a lot of you will be standing
04:14there going, right, I'm aligning to target. Stand up, check. Oh, I look a little bit left here.
04:21Start to adjust ourselves. So it looks like our eyes are perfect. Well, in reality, it's going to be aiming to the right.
04:26It's the club face that you need to worry about, not your body alignment. So definitely.
04:30What's a good way of checking it in practice, out on the golf course? Yeah, I would, like we've got
04:35set up here. So I would do these simple things when you're hitting balls in the range. And if you play
04:41on your own in an evening, just throw them down on the ground. But then we'll also talk through a
04:45scenario you can use in a competition. So everything, Neil, has got to start from a ball to target line.
04:49Yes. So I would stand behind at the start of a range session and simply pick out my ball to
04:56target line, place the alignment stick down there. Then I can walk in and it's making sure that our
05:03feet, knees, hips and shoulders all run parallel to this. And when you do stand up, your shoulder
05:09line will be working parallel left to target. Yeah. So it's like you're almost like you're on a set
05:13of train tracks. Exactly that. And then you're out on the golf course playing a competition.
05:19You know you have a tendency to aim a bit right. How do you make sure that you don't do that?
05:22Simple, simple trick. We all got logos on our golf balls or some others even put lines on our
05:28golf balls from a button. Use this line to advantage on par three tees. And when you're
05:33hitting some drives away, stand behind the golf ball again, as if you've got an extension of what we did
05:38during practice, place that down parallel lines. And we can simply again, build our stance from this,
05:47as opposed to building it from this way to the ball, build it from the ball upwards. It's called
05:51a ball to target line for a reason. Yeah. And I think the important point to make here is that
05:55if you are devoting some time to your alignment, it won't be wasted. There's a whole host of other
06:00good things that will happen once you've got your alignment spot on.
06:04Right. Next up, the slice. Alex, most of us know how it feels. Most of us, it's very demoralizing
06:14when it happens. What have you got here? I can see you've got a drill for us.
06:18Yeah. I mean, it might look quite strange you're putting this out on the range, but honestly,
06:22I've used this analogy with people who come for lessons and this is really nice and simple. If I gave
06:27you a tennis racket, but we don't have that right here because it's not something that you can attach quite
06:32easily to a golf shot. So let's use our right palm. Okay. Okay. So if we're a slicer and our
06:36golf ball was sort of at this height, we'd work like this. Yeah. And we'd go, oh, of course the
06:42ball would work this way. Yeah. Okay. So if we did the opposite to that in golf posture, but then we
06:47just stand upright to hit this ball away, like tennis, I want to take the ball away as far as I could,
06:53we'd make sort of this motion. So that would be my club traveling a little bit more into out,
06:58my club face being a little bit more closer to square, if not close to my path. And this would
07:03be quite an easy motion for a lot of us to make with the ball that height. Yes. So question then.
07:10So it feels like a fairly simple resolution. So how does it look with the golf club in your hands,
07:15Alex? And how, what should people be wary of the kind of body movements that they're making that are
07:20causing them to cut across it? I think that the biggest reference point I would have for a lot of
07:25golfers is when we start the downswing and it comes so, especially with driver, we want to hit it
07:30far. We want to get that distance. It's right shoulder, right hip working out, which works this
07:36way. Yes. In tennis. A bit eager to hit it quite a long way and suddenly you come over the top.
07:39Exactly. Whereas in tennis, the ball would come, we'd move in and through. And we'd make that sort of
07:47reaction to a good body movement because we're orientating it to a moving object. Now,
07:51obviously in golf, the little white balls, it's that still. So we've got to think of an analogy
07:56and a nice simple way would be actually address the golf ball down here, swing up, feel that you
08:03meet the golf ball away. Okay. Now you might think we're actually standing up, but what we're trying
08:07to do is get the club to work this. Right. Yes. Not the other way around. Exactly. Yeah. So we could
08:13have two or three practice swings on the course, on the range, walk into the shot. We've now got the
08:18feeling of being able to work the club through this space as if we're hitting a tennis shot away,
08:24but just more tilted over the golf ball. Okay. Go on then. Hit one for us. Let's see how it looks.
08:28So I'd really make a few waggles, tennis shot away. Imagine I'm hitting that ball down to target.
08:39Arrow straight. If you have a slice, it can be one of those things that takes a little bit of time to
08:43get it out of your game, but work on it. As Alex is saying here, it could really help.
08:52This one is all about starting the golf swing correctly, but let's start with the fault.
08:56Alex, what do people do that cost them in the golf swing? I think we just put it into two categories.
09:02One, not control the club face and not get the arms and body working together. So simply it would be
09:07closing it too much or open too much. Right. Okay. And it looks, that second one looks as if you're
09:14taking it away on the inside. Are you taking it away on the inside? Yeah, very much so. And I think
09:18sort of that open face, especially with longer clubs, everybody thinks it's a little bit more rounded.
09:23It's very tempting to sort of work it in this direction. Yeah. And it's something you see a lot,
09:28isn't it? So what can people do to resolve the problem? So a nice, simple routine as I've done here is
09:34I've simply just placed my golf club down directly behind my ball. So if we sort of give those two
09:40scenarios, if I go too much in the inside, we'll look how the club really works. If I wanted to
09:46push that golf club back as far as I could, I would really want to get arms and the body working
09:52together and more of what would feel like this sort of, I guess the term a lot of people would
09:56use one piece takeaway. Yeah. You hear it a lot. So down behind the ball, I mean, look at the difference
10:01of this here. Yeah. A lot more control. Golf club's gone a lot further back.
10:06Yeah. And if you were to draw a triangle between the club head and your shoulders,
10:09that triangle would pretty much be kept in intact for a lot of that, wouldn't it?
10:13Exactly. Rather than changing your angles, changing them means a lot more compensations
10:18have got to take place. Yeah. So if you can start the golf swing correctly,
10:21the chances are the rest of the swing will follow and you'll hit better shots.
10:25So the last one on our list is standing up in the downswing. Alex, what do you mean by standing up
10:34in the downswing? I think a lot of people will see another term that they'd use is early extension.
10:38So essentially belt buckle getting higher or standing up and then we see that scoopy sort of
10:44look to our impact position. Right. Okay. Yeah. It's something you do see quite a lot. So how do you
10:49solve the issue? I think you see, I'll even with very good players as well. It's not just sort of
10:53your beginners, your higher handicappers. It's something that happens with a lot.
10:57So a simple thing we can do. I mean, I've just placed my bag here. This could be alignment sticks.
11:01If you're watching this at home, this could actually be the wall behind you. If you've got
11:05a few spare minutes each day, I think the important thing of this, Neil, is we make it flow.
11:10Right. Okay. So golf club across our chest, we don't want to just be position, position,
11:15position because we know in reality, the golf swing's got a bit of flow to it.
11:19So what I want you to do here is have the bum just out of touch of whether it's the wall alignment
11:23stick or your golf bag as I've got here, go through swing, try and touch it with your left pocket,
11:29back, right pocket, through left pocket. And you can really see here how I'm a lot more
11:35over the golf ball throughout the whole motion. Yes. Yeah. And you're avoiding that issue of standing
11:40up, aren't you? You're retaining that posture, that really good posture that you set at address.
11:45I can see that you're still in it as you reach that kind of impact position. Exactly. And
11:49just to sort of preempt a few questions that people might ask to us to stay more over the
11:53golf ball at impact. Well, our belt buckle has to work more to target to give us the ability to be
11:58here. If our belt buckle is a little bit higher, we're going to find it very, very hard to hit the
12:02golf ball in that direction or remain over it. Yeah. It's a really simple way of thinking about it.
12:07Hopefully it's a sort of a non-technical fix for a technical issue that should help you out.
12:13So there you have it. Some really great advice there from Alex. Really simple,
12:18really effective. If you do have any questions, please do post them below. We'll hope to get back
12:22to as many of you as possible. But that's it for now from West Hill. Thanks for watching,
12:26and we'll see you next time.