Golf At Home

With the golf course closed, it’s easy to worry about losing your form, technique and fitness for golf.

The golf team are creating some drills, coaching tips and fun games to make sure you’re ready to spring into action as soon as those greens re-open.

CHIPPING

Chipping…not the most exciting skill in the the game of golf, but a skill worth working on as it could make the difference in driving down your score. Chipping can be the single faster way to lower your score or even save that all important round.

The aim of golf chipping is to carry the ball onto or close to the green and get it rolling out towards the hole. Good distance control and wrist action what we need to work on.

To chip well; engage your shoulders and chest. The best chippers control the motion with their bigger muscles such as shoulders and chest. The hands remain fairly passive. If you can get consistent with the club head returning low to the ground at impact and trust the loft on the club, the results will speak for themselves!

If you miss the green and hit a poor chip, a bogey is often the outcome.  If you miss the green and hit a good chip to within a few feet, you could well save your par.  So, the question is, how many greens do you miss during a round?

Here are some tips to improve your chip shot at home.

Correct follow through

In this picture you can see that the body has rotated towards the target and the butt end of the golf club is pointing towards my belt buckle which is a great indication that I have released the club correctly. The wrists are in the same position that they would be at the address position which is what we are looking for.

Incorrect Follow through

In comparison this follow through is opposite to the previous one. Here you can see the wrists have broken through the hitting area, and the butt end of the club is now aiming away from the body which shows a lack of connection between the hands and the body. This is a follow through we tend to see when people try to lift the ball into the air to create loft.

A drill that can help to improve the follow through, and overall connection in the chipping action is to either put an alignment stick or a towel under the armpits. This helps to get the hands, arms and body working together.

DRILLS TO PUT LIKE A PRO

Control your stroke length and perfect your rhythm with this simple drill which take 2 minutes to set up.

Using a ruler or stick draw 5 lines, firstly the starting line (ball starting position), then lines which are equal distance from the starting line at two different distances. The aim is to get the putter face to stop at the first line in the backswing and stop at the first line in the follow through, use the other two lines for a longer putt. This can help even out both the length of your stroke and the pace of your stroke.

Have you ever struggled with the path of your stroke? To much ark is a common problem. Well here’s a great way to groove your putter path. Using the skirting board in the house, place the toe of your putter against it and try and keep it touching during the whole stroke. This promotes a much straighter back and through swing of the putter head. Now hit some putts normally and feel the difference.

Want to improve your accuracy, all you need is a cup! Practice hitting putts to a cup at any distance, try and stop the ball in the cup for the perfect putt! Also do you use any alignment aid on your golf ball? Try drawing a straight line or using the writing on your golf ball and lining it up with the hole, this helps you check your putter is also aligned straight.

Get all this right and when you return to the golf course you will be putting like a pro!

Stay Connected in your putting stroke

This drill allows the player to keep connected during the stroke.

Simply use an alignment stick, or even a tea towel under each arm. The purpose of this drill is to hit consecutive putts, keeping the stick/towel in the same place.

You should feel straight away that this forces the player to use the their body more during the stroke.

Using the hands independently is disastrous for consistency when putting so let’s stay connected and hope more putts!

The right ball for you

Do you use the same type of ball?
Often during a putting lesson we will ask a golfer what type of ball they use, quite often the answer is something along the lines of “whatever I find on the course” or “anything in my bag”.

This may not have a huge difference on the long game but it really does for the short game. Let’s say you use a pretty hard feeling ball to start your round and then lose it a few holes in. You dive into your bag for more ammunition and randomly pick out a soft feeling ball. You spend the next few holes 3 putting as you adjust to the different feel off the face of a different type of ball.

To a point it doesn’t matter what type of ball you use as long as it is always the same type.

This way if you lose one when you go into your bag you are replacing like for like and therefore it won’t throw you off your feel for the ball.

Go and grab a few different types of ball from your golf bag and hit some putts with each, the noise and feel off your putter face will be noticeable between some of those balls.

Chose the one you prefer and stick with that type. You will get more consistent for sure.

Read up on the Titleist website regarding the different golf balls and what might suit your game.

Face control

For this drill, you need a small amount of blue tack and a tee. Simply stick the tee to the centre of the putter face. As you can see, this will show you exactly where the face is during the stroke. Make a few practice strokes using this drill to show you where the face is pointing. If the putter face opens through impact the tee points right of the target, if the face closes the tee points left of the target. The aim is to see the tee pointing at the target through impact showing you have good control over the putter face and therefore more likely to hole putts!

Game On: show me the money!

A fun combination to practice your put and have a bit of fun with the family!

Place a £5 (£10 or £20…) note on the floor, ten paces away from you.

Take turns hitting three putts each, with the goal being to get the ball to stop on the note.

(HARDER THAN IT LOOKS!)

First one to get their putt to stop on the note wins the money!

Share the fun by filming it and sharing it with us on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.