THE GOLF COACH ACCESS BLOG

Increased Handle-Lead Hip Stretch

This is not only a key move for creating power but a fundamental part of a well-sequenced swing in general.  

Vapour Trails

Often when we look at elite players' swings it can leave us chasing 'vapour trails! It is alluring to try and emulate certain aspects that catch the eye and stand out from other less effective patterns. One of the challenges with...

How you hold the golf club has an enormous influence on how you can move in the swing.

Firstly, a functional grip allows for a full range of motion around the wrist hinge and arm rotation necessary for speed and fluidity. Moreover, the relationship between your hands and the clubface will afford you certain patterns of movement through the ball (I say afford because a solid hold on the club...

It is easy to disregard the finer points of taking the club back because as the saying goes in golf. "you don't hit it with your backswing".

It is a nice sentiment and it is true that with enough practise you can learn to hit the ball from a variety of backswing body shapes, however, the downswing gets easier and less reliant on coordination and complex self-organisation when the backswing...

I love this drill for freeing up a golfer's movement. There is a lot of technique involved but I rarely need to give much prompting as it is all highly intuitive.

Everybody moves from the ground up and gets their lower half rotating much better than in the actual swing. The need to get the club behind the head and across the eyeballs means that the ribcage has to rotate past the point of...

The video above was a coaching scenario that occurred at the Monte Rei Coaching Trip 2020 but I am probably faced with this motion at least 4-5 times every week. It is too intuative to move this way but it's a real strike wrecker. The golfer is too keen to hit the golf ball and in doing so ruins their dynamics and thus, robs themself of speed and hits the ground early.

There is a...

We all need a reliable method for dealing with these kinds of situations.

Historically, I would have gone with the aggressive shaft lean approach but I haven't played in that way in a long time now and I would try and move my students more toward using bounce wherever possible.

The decision of which option to use here needs to be based on a lot of practise and the scenario that you are...

 As you might expect, having absolute clarity as to how the club meets the ball has huge knock-on effects throughout your golf game. Any misunderstanding around this area can come back and bite you way beyond your formative golf years.

Early Days

From a learning perspective, if a golfer believes, which is quite intuitive, that the club needs to get under the ball in order to lift it into...

In my experience, fairway bunker shots can be a card wrecker.

It is alluring to think that we can just hit a normal full swing with visions of Sandy Lyle's famous shot to win the US Masters.

More often than not this has led to me choosing too much club (not enough loft) and thinning the ball into the face of the bunker for it bounce back at me for another try.

 An Alternative Approach

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Attentional Focus

I see this concept play out in just about every golf lesson I give. It is amazing how quickly golfers recover their strike when I give them an external focus cue. Here are some of the benefits of external focus that have been supported by over 1000 scientific studies:

External Focus

• Closer links to the task
• Less cognitive activity
• More efficient movement (less muscular...

Working on any drill that can bring this game back to a feeling of 'bat and ball' is generally a good use of your time.

'If you only do a few drills from this website, please make sure that this is one of them. It has to be experienced to feel how easy the game can be'.

This is a drill that can be used as an immediate intervention for directional issues but used at its best it is practised on a...