Beginner Golf – Long Game Basics | Me And My Golf

– Hello, and welcome to howto play golf, the long game.

Thank you so much for taking part.

We're really excitedto be able to coach you over the next four weeks.

Now, if you've come from how to play golf, the basics, welcome.

This is the next step inyour how to play journey.

– Yeah, so over the next four weeks, we're gonna be fixing that ball flight, showing you how to hit the golf ball out the center of the club.

Plus we're working withthe longer clubs as well.

The hybrid, the fairway metal, and the driver, the big stick.

So thank you so much, and lets get started.

(upbeat music) – In golf there are lots of words that don't often make sense.

So today, we're gonna be talking about the square, open, and closed club face relative to the cub head.

So Andy, what is a square club head? – Well, square club head is basically when the club face ispointing at the target.

We're talking about set up and impact here when the club strikes the golf ball.

So really, this is what we want.

We wanna get the club face pointing somewhere close to where the target is.

Now if you're a right-handed golfer, an open club face is when the club face will point to the right.

This is probably a common thing that we don't necessarily want to see because we get that ball sortof curving out to the right.

And a closed club face is very simple, it's the opposite of that.

It's where it points to the left.

So that really helps you understand what that means when we'retalking about the club face, cause we're gonna be discussing this as we go through the weeks.

So that's as simple as it is.

Let's get into this weeks practice.

(upbeat music) – It's now time to get into your practice, and what better place todo it on the 9th Fairway here at La Reserva at Sotogrande.

Beautiful hole Andy coming up, looking forward to you playing your shot.

So, if you've done how to play the basics or you've got some experience in golf, and you've been building your swing, that's fantastic, but what's starting toprobably happen to you now is you're starting to get thegolf ball going right or left, and it could be a consistent bad shot.

So what we're gonna be doingin this practice segment is working really hard to show you how to get rid of that shot, and also understandingwhat may be causing it.

So there's two main thingsthat we need to look for.

The club path and the club face.

Now, the club face isthe most important one so that's the one thatwe're gonna focus on today.

So Andy, if you've got a golf ball which is going to theright and to the left – Yeah – We know we gotta lookat the grip haven't we? So let's go with a right-handed golfer.

If the ball is going to the right, how could the grip be influencing this? – Yeah.

You know, no matter what level you are, I think we have to look atthe hands as well Piers.

– Have to.

– Because, it's just so influential on what this club face is doing, so don't really bypass the grip, it's a great place toactually just come back to.

So, if we're hitting it to the right, and we're a right-handed golfer, we often see that the handsare too far around to the left.

We call this a weak grip.

So if I just exaggerate this, I'm gonna get the lead hand a little round to the left like this.

I can't see any knuckleson the back of that hand.

I'm gonna get my trow handa little too far around to the left where the v betweenthe thumb and forefinger point to my left shoulder.

This is a weak grip.

Now, what happens here now, as I swing back and down, the club face will wantto return to the right, open, and we know that open club face wantsto get the golf ball starting out to the right.

So, we'll start to seethese as we play golf, and then we'll have to make compensations – Of course.

– in the golf swing whichwe don't want to do either.

So, if we can reallybuild a very neutral grip, or very consistent grip, [Piers] Yes.

– It makes us, it makes it so much easier to produce an efficient swing with as little compensations as possible.

– And this is really really important, Andy is saying here that if you don't get the grip correct, you make compensations, so we're definitely gonna stress that start with the grip sothat these compensations don't come into your swing.

So, I'm gonna ask you to hita shot with this weak grip.

– Okay.

– I'm probably not safe here am I? – You're definitely not safe there.

– So I'm gonna come over here.

This ball is definitelygoing to the right.

– Okay, so, both handsaround too far to the left.

I'll do a normal golf swing here.

You'll just see wherethis ball starts off.

– (Laughs) – And that was no difference in terms of what I wasdoing there, but the grip, and so many, is very short as well because the club face is open it adds loft and it's reallyweak, which we don't want.

– So that's you trying, you're just doing a normal shot there – Normal.

– with just a very poor grip.

– Exactly.

– Wow, okay.

– So let's look at the personhitting the golf ball left, for a right-handed golfer.

So, this is a really common one as well.

We get the hands toofar around to the right.

So, you can see now here, I can see the whole ofthe back of the hand here, all of the knuckles.

I can see the logo on theglove is facing the camera.

The right hand often gets too much underneath the club like this.

This is what we call a strong grip, and this is gonna have the opposite effect of what we've just seen.

As I swing back and down now, the club face will want toreturn and point to the left, in a closed position.

The ball is gonna start out left, and I'll probably behunting for the golf ball in the trees down there, – (Laughs) – which we don't want obviously.

– Hit one here, let's see it go again.

– I might lose this golf ball Piers? – Again, really important, this is the grip that weoften see people start with.

They get a little bit toomuch round to the right.

– Okay, so I'm really, as you can see I'm getting those hands really around to the rightthere, normal golf swing.

And you can see that ball starting left, and I'm definitely gonnabe hunting for that Piers, in the trees.

– But if you two, if you were two people, hitting ball right and left like that, I wouldn't want to beplaying golf with ya.

We'll have a quiet time, that's for sure.

Okay, so, what do we, what do we need then to actually get these, get the grip correct? – Well let's go through just building the neutral grip again.

Let's just recap from what we want in terms of the positionof the club in the hands.

So first of all, let's build it withthe, with the lead hand.

So if I take my club, and bring it up to sort of club hand about eye height like that.

Now I'm gonna position the lead hand just to the side of the club like this, and I'm gonna place the grip diagonally across the base of the little finger, across the heel pad, diagonallythrough the bottom part of that forefinger there.

So, if I just make sureI'm in a good place there, and then close my hand, I now have a neutral grip.

Now, when I'm looking down at this now, I can see two to maybe three knuckles.

The thumb is slightly down theright hand side of the club.

So I've got a great left hand there.

Now, if I put the righthand down on the side, keeping the club angled like this, I'm gonna place it acrossthe base of the fingers again here, close it around, and then just slide it up sothat they touch each other.

Now the thumb and theforefinger form that v and that is now pointingto the right of my chin.

So I've got a really neutral grip there, and this now will really help me deliver a square club face back to the golf ball.

It really minimizes those chances of me doing some very funkymoves to get back to square.

– It makes absolute sense.

– So building that grip is key.

– Okay, should we see youhit one of those then? [Andy] Yeah, let's see if I can help it.

I've gotta hit one straight haven't I? – You, well, anywhere in between them will classify as a straight shot, I think.

– Okay, so I can see twoknuckles still there.

I know that v is pointing somewhere to the right of my chin.

So, normal golfing again.

– And that was pretty much as you said, right between the knife.

– Again, look at, look at the distance, distance on that Piers.

So much further as wellcompared to the two.

– It was actually a lot better wasn't it? [Andy] It was.

– He was a lot better.

Okay, so look those gripsare really important.

Now, this is something you may be asking.

Well, we're still talkingabout the baseball grip.

There are some options on how you can intertwine the hands and the fingers.

So Andy, there's acouple of simple options, what are those? – Okay, well the first one, let's talk about the interlock.

This is probably the, the first thing that most people get told that they need to do.

You need to join thefingers together like this.

– Well Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus do this one, so it makes sense.

– Exactly, yes.

So, the interlock iswhen the little finger on the trow hand just sort of interlocks with the forefinger on the lead hand like that.

So we just lock the fingers together.

Now we don't want to gotoo deep in like this, cause that can cause some poor things, but we just want to join themtogether lightly like that.

Making sure that the handsstay in the very similar place.

We don't wanna lose the positioning, this is really important.

– Again, really importantas Andy was saying before.

Bring the hand in fromthe side as you said, we don't wanna be comingunderneath like that.

– Yeah.

– That's gonna be really badfor you, and cause a bad grip.

Exactly, now let's go to the overlap.

This is something that I actually use.

So there's the baseball.

The overlap is just literally overlapping the little finger on theglove hand like that.

So you can see there, I'm just sort of lightlyresting on the knuckle.

This is something thatI feel comfortable with.

What we would say is, there's nothing wrong with the baseball, there's nothing wrong with any of these, just do what feels comfortable, but most importantly, dowhat gives you the results.

[Piers] Yes.

– If you're having ago with a few of these, and one feels morecomfortable than the other, stick with the one thatfeels comfortable to you, and actually works.

That's the important thing.

– Okay, okay, absolutely.

Alright, so look, we've spoke about obviously how the grip influences the club face.

How about the firstpart of the back swing? We call that the moveaway.

How can that influenceright and left shots? – Well, it's a, it's so important that weget off to a good start in the swing, because if we get off to a poor start with the club face movingall over the place, again we have to make someadjustments and compensations.

So, if we can just get itstarting in the right way, again, it's gonna make thingsso much easier for you.

So, let's, let's talk aboutthe right shot Pierce yeah? To start with.

– Yes.

– So in the moveaway, somebody who hits it a littlebit too much to the right, we want you to check this.

So as I swing back now to what we call waist height position, if the club face is sort of pointing too much towards the sky, this leading edge too much up, this can cause the ballto go to the right.

It might even be more than that.

This is what we call open.

Now, if you're hittingthe golf ball to the left, we often see that the leading edge, or the club face, is pointingdown towards the ground now.

This is closed.

So, these sort of positions, these excessive movements of the club face can influence the impact.

Now, in an ideal position, ideal point, we want the club face to be parallel to the spine angle like so.

So if the club face is parallelto the spine angle here, we are off to a good start, and it means we're not gonna have to make those little adjustmentsto get it back on track.

– Yeah, the thing is, this is really important, we're not actually trying to say that there's only one way to swing.

It's important for you todevelop your own swing, but we want to make surethere's a few key positions, that if you can put it in that area, you're definitely goingto be a lot better off.

And the one thing that I willsay going into this Andy is, that the grip massively influences [Andy] It does.

the moveaway as well doesn't it? [Andy] It does.

[Piers] If you've got a hooking grip, you're probably gonnabe in a hooking place when it comes to the moveaway.

[Andy] And the way thatI like to practice this, is I'm just taking my set up and you can do this at the range as well.

You can either videoyourself, use a mirror, or if you haven't got those things, swing back to waist height, take a look, and see, is that club face in a good spot.

Now, if you do this without looking, you swing back, and you then take a look andyou can see the club face is sort of wanting to be open or closed, then you have that sensation.

So then rehearse the moves until you get the feeling of what is good.

What is it when that club face gets that sort of parallelto the spine angle? You'll start to rehearse this move then, and the more you do this, the more it's comfortable, and the more consistent you're gonna be from doing that as well.

– Suddenly, what you do at work, your workload is gonna get a lot worse, what you do at home, you're gonna do a lot lessaround the house as well, because you'll be practicingthis all the time.

I think a video camera as well, on the phones now is also agood way of just checking this.

– I'm gonna hit one more shot Pierce because that last one was nice, so I'm just gonna go with the way I would rehearse thison the, on the range.

So, normal set up obviously, I've got a good grip here now, I'm gonna swing back, take a look, that clubface is looking good there.

– I like it – Okay, now I'm gonna go.

– Let's see if we're gonnaproduce another good one.

Again, nicely on the green there.

Again, it makes such a difference if you can get that first part right.

– Sure does.

– So, we hope you're enjoying the video.

If you are, hit that thumbs up, and if you've got any questions, make sure you leave them down below.

And also, don't forget tocheck out the rest of the plan over at MEANDMYGOLF.

com.

(upbeat music) – The driver is definitely unique when it comes to the rest of the set.

So Andy, let's just go through this.

– Well look, first of all, look at the size of it.

It's a long club.

It's the longest club in the bag, and I think the men's generally averages about over 45 inches long.

But you've also got afew different things.

This shaft is carbonfiber so it's graphite.

Obviously in the steel, in the irons, [Inaudible] you get isa lot of steel shafts, but generally with the driver you're gonna see thisgraphite carbon fiber, which is very light, because it helps youswing the club faster.

Remember, this is all built for speed.

Then you got the heads, a great big whopping head, which hopefully gives youa little bit more room for error on the face here as well.

But then you have the options in loft.

Anything between eightdegrees and 15 degrees loft, depending on your swing speed, and actually how you swing the golf club.

So, there's quite a few options.

And also, in some of the latest drivers, you'll have thisadjustability in the club, where you can actually movesome of the weights around, and play around with it to actually complement the thingsthat you're working on.

So, certainly a verydifferent club to hit, but unique in the factthat it's very long, it's designed for speed, and it's quite forgiving.

So, so much fun when youactually get to use this as well.

– It definitely is.

Now you know what it's about.

It's time to hit it.

(upbeat music) – Now this is wherethings get interesting.

We're talking about thedriver, the big dog, and Andy, there's no better place than the 18th hole here at La Reserva.

What a beautiful tee shot we have here.

– I'm looking forward tohitting this one actually.

– Absoulutely.

Right, okay, so we're gonna be talking abutthe concept and the set up.

So Andy, the concept, what are we looking to achievewhen we're hitting a driver? – Well I think, hopefully you know now thatwe can either hit down, level, or up with a golf club.

And obviously with the irons, we want a slightly downward hit, cause that's what's gonnaproduce that nice solid strike.

Now, with the driver it's different.

We want get this thing, hitting it down thefairway as far as possible.

And to do that, it helps if we can have aslightly positive attack angle, which means we can hit itslightly on the way up.

So there's certainthings that we need to do in the golf swing, and in the set up thatjust help us to do this, to really give it the maximumdistance that we need.

The first things is tee.

We're gonna tee it really high so, as we've got such a large club head here, we're gonna tee it quite high.

So I like to reallyget it pegged up Piers.

Quite a lot of the golf ball is above the crown of the club there, because if I can hit it really center or slightly above center, that really helps as well.

So the first thing is just getting the tee height really high.

The second thing is, a nice wide stance.

We need a nice wide base.

We want to use the legs to create power.

It also helps us get more behind it to hit up on the golf ball.

And you can see here, I've got my alignmentstick on the ground here.

This is where we want theball positioned to be.

We want it forward in the stance.

It's gonna feel strange having it here, but having it forward in the stance really helps the club bottomout a little bit early, and then collect it off thetee on the way up there.

So, just a couple of simplethings that we can do.

Now one more thing, and that is how we tilt the body.

Now, a lot of people withthe ball position so forward are gonna wanna creep this way.

We're gonna ask you to go the other way.

So I'm gonna take my set up here, lead hand on only, trow hand on the leg here, and all I'm gonna do is actually slide it down afew inches towards the knee, and then I'm gonna placemy hand on the golf club.

Now, notice what this has done.

It's tilted the spine.

It's got me a little bit moreover to the right hand side, and this really helpsadd to that attack angle where I can sweep it off Piers.

[Piers] Absolutely – So, few key things there, we've got the set up being a little wider, ball position being forward, a little bit of tilt, and just in terms of weight on the feet, we wanna be 50 50, it's not the end of the world even if you favor in the right leg.

Again, it puts you morebehind the golf ball.

– Okay, just do that one more time.

What I really like about this is when Andy slides his hand down his leg, and then puts his hand on the golf club, notice his shoulders.

They're still running pretty square.

Sometimes when we bring the hand around, Andy how does it go? Alright, so there's some peoplewho bring it around like so, and then the shouldersgo well off to the left.

So if you're left with yourshoulders with your driver, it's a big big no no.

– So, oh I'm ready for this one Piers.

– (chuckles) This is cool.

– It's a great hole to finishon.

So what I'm gonna do.

– The sun is perfect.

– Table set up, trow hand on, little bitof a slide down here, I'm ready to go.

I still need to put a goodswing on it though Piers.

And that, is an absolute beauty, look at the height on that Piers.

– It was actually better than all the practiceshots that you hit before.

– That's a lot betterthan the practice shots.

– (laughs) – I'm warmed up now.

– Absolutely, all right so look, this is your practice for week one.

First of all, we want you to have two practice sessions a week, hitting 50 golf balls onthose practice sessions.

And then we need to break it up, so you hit 10 shotsworking at your new grip, 30 shots working atthe club face moveaway, making sure the club face is square, and then your final 10shots with the driver.

[Andy] Yes, exactly, and don't forget if you wanna take part in the rest of the planwhere we cover so much more, including how to hit thehybrids, the fairway metals, how to create power, and the beautiful flowing golf swing, click the link in the description, and we look forward to coaching you through the rest of the plan.

Thanks again.

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