- What do all straight hitters do? Today, we're gonna find out. - Yes, we're gonna show
you the three key things that all straight hitters do, that you can take into your game. Hi, we're Piers and Andy
from "Me and My Golf", and if you're serious about
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- Yeah - All right Andy look, everybody wants to hit
the golf ball straighter, what's the first key? - The first key is ball striking. The best players in the world or the straightest hitters in the world, are consistently finding about the center. - The center.
- It's not always in the center, but it's about the center. And the question we'd
like to ask you guys is, when you go an practice, how often are you measuring your strike? How often are you spraying the face? How often are you actually
gettin' some tapes on there, looking at where you're
strikin' the golf ball? And how well do you know
when you actually mishit it, 'cause this is a key component. And we always say, you can't
improve what you don't measure, so it's really important that you do this when you get to the driving range. And if you can do this,
you're gonna improve it, and if you can find that
center a little bit more often, you're not only gonna
increase the ball speed, you're gonna improve the accuracy as well. - Okay, I'll tell you what,
let's get you hittin' one, because obviously we know that
we can use the strike spray and the tapes to measure this contact, but one thing we always
ask our golfers to do, is take ownership of where
the golf ball came from. So I'm gonna get you to hit a shot, and you're gonna tell me,
without looking at the face, where it came from. So, you should be able to hit a shot and know exactly where
that ball comes from. (club striking ball) - That was an absolutely
beauty, a little bit of draw. Now, even though that was an
absolutely beauty, it was, I've gotta watch that
Piers, it's gone miles. I woulda' said that was just
ever so slightly at the toe. - Yep. - Ever so slightly.
- I agree. - But, it was a beautiful
shape, nice high draw, but slightly at the toe. 'Cause I can feel that
club having a little bit of this sorta twisting action. - And this is the thing, as coaches we're actually pretty good at noting where the strike was, relative to the ball flight as well, because we've seen it happen a lot. But, you too can get this
much tuned into your game because if you keep
understanding where it came from, and then seeing what the ball fly did, you'll very soon gonna be able to get it. I think the one thing
that we do see Andy is, you said earlier the best golfer, sometimes they're off center, but they know where they're gonna be and then they have to manage it. - And it's not massively off center, the further away you are,
generally the start direction and the curve tends to
sorta lose control there. So, just measuring it, is really important and just havin' that awareness is key. Now, what helps us find
the middle more often? What we're really gonna look
at, is one of the key things that the best players in the world do, and that's in the set up. The set up is so solid,
and it's really conditioned or allowing them to really
find the middle more often. Now, let's take a look at
somebody like Lee Westwwod, one of the most consistent
golfers on the planet. He's one of the straightest
hitters out there and one of the most
consistent ball strikers. Now, if you look at his set up, he looks screwed into the ground. (chuckles) He looks like you could run
up and not push him over. He's really solid. And because of this, it means he can use the
ground extremely well. It means he's balanced,
which is another component for finding that center, and it really means there's not gonna be many compensations happenin'
in in his golf swing, and this is what enables
him to find that sweet spot, almost every single time. - Yeah, as you can see
he is a golf athlete, no doubt about it. You've actually played
golf with him as well, as he is, as you said one
of the straightest hitters for the last probably 20 years. - Almost as straight as me. - Almost as straight as you. - But what does he do so well? Let's deconstruct his set up. We'll look at his set up
here, look at his lower body. He's really balanced. The weight is through
the middle of the feet, it's not toes, not heels, it's through the middle of the feet. He has a slight flex in the legs. He hasn't got loads of knee flex Piers, which we see in a lot of golfers. He's got a slight flex in the legs, and he really looks solid
with the lower body. Looks really thick and
solid with the lower body. And then from there, he's
got a slight angle forward of the spine and his arms are
just really nice and relaxed, hanging down, very much
underneath his shoulders. These are key things that
if we apply in our own game, will make a huge impact on that strike. - Yeah, absolutely. Okay, well let's see you
hit, wanna see how balanced your set up, how good your posture is, and generally I would
say that you look solid over the golf ball. - I'm gonna really sorta
think bout Lee Westwood there. Again, the legs for me with
Lee, when I look at it, it looks rock solid. It looks like they're actually sorta screwed into the ground. So, I've Lee Westwood legs here, Piers. (laughing) - This is a valid point, that you can actually have this image in your mind when you're doing this. (club striking ball) - Very interesting on that
one, that was a slight fade, but that was towards the heel. So I've hit that towards the
heel, again the awareness, it's gone slightly this way. It doesn't guarantee
I'm gonna hit it well, but it give me a much
better chance of doing it. - All right, so we have
a question for you. Would you rather hit the
golf ball 30 yards further, hit five more fairways around? Post down below. What would you rather do? - 30 yards further or five more, I would go 30 yards more down the fairway. (laughing) I would, I would, 30 yards further. - You can't have both. - I'm so straight, Piers, you know. - Oh yeah, whatever. - I'm going 30 yards further all day long, and you know, 'cause a wedge in your hand is gonna be a lot easier than
a five iron from the fairway. All right, so look,
second key what do we got? - Okay, second key is, or
before we get into the drill, is shallowing the shaft in the downswing. So, what a lot of the straight hitters do, you'll notice that as they
get to the top of the swing, they all start with the lower body first, where as they start with the lower body, the shaft actually shallows. So the actually angle of the shaft, I'll exaggerate it
here, shallows this way. And what that enables them to do is use their body in a
better way in the downswing. So, from here creating this
sort of this shallowing effect, here with the club head, almost moves behind you in this way, instead of actually moving this way. Soon as we get steep or the
club head wants to go this way, we can't really use the body. We'll end up sorta standing
and rising up here, no rotation, and then a lot of hand action down through the bottom
there, which we don't want. So, a key component for
sorta setting our delivery to the golf ball, is being able to actually
get this club head working a little bit more behind
the hand in the downswing to set up the next path,
creating that shallow. Now, we wanna use, as let's use
Lee Westwood for the strike, and the good posture, but we wanted to use one
of our students, Aaron Rai. Now, Aaron you've seen us do
some stuff with him before, but this is a guy who's
been top five in fairway, taking the European tour
for the last three years. 70% of fairways hits,
so you're right there. Damage your shaft there. So you gotta drill in here,
which is gonna help us obviously get in this shallowing action. So, I've got a short alignment stick here. I'm just placing it
underneath the grip here, and this is great for
some visual awareness of the golf swing. So, I'm just gonna sort
of position it there. I'm gonna make a back swing, and ideally this would point somewhere near towards the target
line on the way back, as we get sorta towards the top. Now, from here what we really wanna do, is as we start with the lower body first, really key that we do this, we're gonna feel as if
the alignment stick, or this red stick here now, actually points down way
in front of the golf ball. This is going to give you that feeling of that shallowing effect. Now you can cheat this, you can do this. So that's doing it with the body. What we wanna make sure that we do, is we keep our posture, keep our angle, start with the lower body, and really feel as if we
can get that alignment stick pointing there and that really again, gets the club now more behind us, setting us up for this next par. - This is a good point now,
because this could happen, just do that again, Andy
with the club in there. Where would most people, if we
haven't got the stick there, if they just, if we just said to them, start with the lower body, where could some people go
from a steepness point of view. - So, if we start with a lower body? - Some people could do this, they can actually get the club steep and getting that in front. So it becomes this disassociation thing whereas, you have gotta work hard, you have to mindful that
where you start the downswing with your lower body, that you have to create
the shallowness then in the downswing and
not do what Andy's doing on those last three,
which is steep and out. - And I like this because
you've really got that visual in front of you here. - Yes, love it. - Yeah, I'm gonna focus on this,
you're focusing on this end of the club which is really good. - It's hard to focus on
that, when it's behind you. - Exactly (laughing) So let me hit a shot here, I'm gonna create that same feeling. This is something that I need to do a little bit more of in the golf swing. Havin' that feeling there certainly creates the right sort
of imprint in my mind of what I wanna achieve. - So, this is great, if you're somebody who
slices the golf ball. If you've clicked on this video, because you wanna hit the ball straight, because you slice it, then
this is a great fix for you. (club hitting ball) - And that really felt like,
- And where did it go? I did it there. That was a beauty. - A bit of a draw of that
one actually, 400 meters. - I really felt I got
that shallowing there, very different motion
to what I normally feel. I'll take that. - All right, before we
get into this third tip, are these tips actually
proving valuable to you? Hopefully they are. Hit the like button if they are. Now Andy, the third one, how
we gonna finish this off? - Okay, the third one is getting open. A lot of people would love to be in this impact position
where we see the best players in the world, certainly
the straightest ones, where they've got these
two cheeks visible here, lot of hip clearance. And this is almost a
by-product of the shallowing. It's vere difficult to
actually get in that impact, when the club gets very steep. As we've said, we start to stand up. So, the best players in the world, the most accurate players, as we've said, they all shallow it as we saw Aaron, he gets to shallowing
here and what this does, it now allows you to
actually rotate the pelvis, rotate the hips here to get
the club nicely on plane, and what happens as we
continue to turn now, this really helps us open the hips. But, what does that do to the club face? Well, this enables the club face now to be a little bit more passive, because we've created the
room to swing through. So, the face here is
still closing somewhat to the target line, but
it's not an aggressive sorta release like this. No independent sort of
hands and arms here. And we'll certainly see on Aaron, when he swings through, we can see that club face nice and stable. There's a lotta hip turn, a lotta turn of the torso, as well. And somebody else who
does this extremely well, one of the straightest hitters ever, is Jim Furyk, he has a
very interesting backswing, but he creates so much rotation. You can see on screen here,
so much rotation of the hips. And just look at how much then
room he's got for his arms, and the club to be very
passive on the way through. - It's very interesting
when you say, Jim Furyk Andy, because he is the
straightest hitter on the PGA tour at the moment of this
video for the 2020 season, even though it's curtailed. But he has been measured
to have the least amount of forearm rotation
through the hitting area. So again, that kind of, yeah,
the ball forearm rotation. If we go to the question,
we said about hitting it 30 yards further, or five more fairways, that's five more fairways,
that's probably 30 yard further. And anyone who's slicing the golf ball, we're not neccesarily saying
this is the best draw for you. But if you are someone who's
a little bit off kilter, then this could definitely help you. - Definitely, so a great drill
that you can do for this, really is just taking your
setup here, as normal, and from here, we're just gonna focus on keeping the arms really light, the grip pressure's really soft, we're not really using the hands here. We're gonna focus on
allowing the hips to turn, and as we allow the hips to turn, it's gonna pull the upper body through and the upper body here, is giving the movements of the club, not the hands and arms
working independently. So, just some slow motion swings here, as you can see, I'm
activating the lower body that's pulling the upper body through. The club face is nice and
passive and you can see here, the shoulders and the hips are really clear on the way through. This is a great feeling then
to take to the actual shot. And you can then blend
it in to some moves here, when you incorporate that same feel. And we always talk about this, what you do past here, or post impact, influences what you do before it impacts. - Yeah, just interesting you saying there, you're finding a way of blending in, so it wants a very static, open the hips and then swinging through. You are blending it in, you start doing these mini-swings and creating that hip rotation,
the clearing of the hips, and obviously the passive
arms on the way through. - Okay. - Now, I don't know whether
you're gonna beat that last one. - I will. - And I will tell the truth if
you're hittin' bad ones here, 'cause I'm really hope
you do hook this one. (laughing) - Okay, I never hook it, Piers. - (laughing) Yeah, exactly. Right, let's get the same three. - Pressure on. - Three out of three. - Same speed in the lower body and the passive hands and arms here. (club hitting ball) - Oh, a little bit cold that time. - Really felt the clearance. That was probably
actually the best strike, the most powerful, slightly
turned over the club face a bit, but really felt the hips
work a lot more on that one. Got the feeling that I needed to get. - All right, so let's summarize this. So, strike massive important. Keep testing it, posture
is often the gateway to getting good strike. Then, we talking about
shallowing the golf swing, make sure you look at
some videos of yourself. Are you shallowing on the way down? And then obviously to finish off with, are you getting good open hip clearance which is then stabilizing the club face, because you don't need to be so flippy with your hands and arms. - Yes, definitely. Now, if you are somebody who wants to hit the golf
ball a little straighter, and you slice the golf ball,
we have a perfect plan for you. A slicer draw plan which is four weeks and see some amazing results. So if you wanna learn
more, and check it out, click the link right down there. We'll see you soon.
