Why You Need This: In this video, you'll learn how to kill the first tee jitters and hit with confidence.

We've all been there...

You climb up to the first tee box...

And you start to wonder where to hit the ball and what kind of shot shape to go for.

All these thoughts rushing through your head can make it difficult to relax and focus on hitting a solid shot.

Not to mention, it's such an awful feeling to mess up on your first shot of the round.

So what can you do to help settle the first tee jitters?

Start by creating a plan.

As soon as you reach the golf course, find out what the first hole is like.

If you can see it before your round, then great.

If you can't, at least check out the scorecard or any other option you have to check out the yardage, where the water and/or bunkers are located, and judge the wind direction.

You can even ask someone in the clubhouse to give you first tee tips or the cart attendant.

The point is to get enough information about the first hole well before your start time.

That way you can focus on the shot that you chose well before you get to the tee box.

Watch this video now to discover how to kill the first tee jitters...

And crush your first shot of the round with confidence!

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    Robin Rosado    

Video Duration: 4:32

Video Transcription:

Clay Ballard: I’m Clay Ballard.

Robin Rosado: I’m Robin Rosado.

Clay: Today we’re going to talk about how you can rip your shot right down the first tee, have no jitters, and be really confident. Let’s go ahead and get started.

Robin: The most important thing to get those first tee jitters out of the way is having your plan before you even hit the range. So maybe when you’re driving up to the golf course, maybe you can see the first hole, try to get a good idea of what it looks like right?

You don’t want to get, maybe there’s trouble down the left side, or there’s trouble down the right, kind of what your shot shape is gong to be.

If you really can’t see that first hole, maybe walk to the first tee before you get to the range, or even look on the score card, get a good yardage, if you know your distances especially with your driver, say OK, I can hit it here and that bunker in the fairway is going to be out of the play.

That’s knowing that pre-game plan before you’re even at the range is going to give you an idea of the shots you’re going to want to hit on the driving range.

Once you get to the driving range, then you have a good idea, so this hole here that we have is a little slight dog leg right, bunker’s on the right side, you’ve got some woods on the left side. On the range, maybe this shot’s kind of playing for a little bit of a fade.

Fairway slope is a little bit left, I can see. You’ve got water on the right side of those bunkers, so aim down the left side of the fairway, and they kind of cut it back, and that’s what we’re going to try to do.

Clay: That’s a good point too, because I’ll see a lot of times like this hole is sloping a little bit to the left. If I’m playing a draw and I’m playing a bigger draw, then that could catch that slope and kind of roll down. It’s going to be easier to hit a little bit of a fade, it’s going to stick in the fairway.

You’re going to have a better margin of error for that one. How about I go ahead and hit a few, and you can describe maybe what I’d be looking for, for my strategy. I’m going to pretend like I’m on the range here warming up, and we’ll just get a couple on flight scope and try to hit some fades.

Robin: Yeah, so that’s exactly it. Like I said, we’re going to try to hit a fade here. If you’re on the range, you’re going to try to warm up, try to visualize your shot, get your alignment, pick your point, and really try to cut back a little bit where you want to do. Perfect, just like that.

Clay: Wasn’t the most beautiful shot in the world, but it’s fine. Up the right side of the fairway, faded out there, so that’d be a good shot. Would you want to try to pick an exact spot, and kind of visualize that in your mind? Are you picking a starting line most of the time?

 

Robin: Especially on the first tee it’s really important to get visual with it too, so try to visualize what you see here on FlightScope, just that pro tracing shot, kind of fading out a little bit to the right there.

That’s perfect right there. You want to pick your line and then see it fall to the right, and let it go and try to get maybe down the range, so then when you get on to the first tee you don’t have those nerves, and you don’t know what you’re ready to do.

You don’t know if you’re going to hit a draw, you don’t know if you’re going to hit, so at least you know walking up there, you’re confident in what shot you want to and execute it. There you go.

Clay: Once I’ve done four or five in row and I feel good with it, it’s like well I’ll just g do that again on the first tee.

Robin: Yeah, then the jitters are out, going up their confident, and then you’re good to go.

Clay: All right, we’re going to switch it up a bit, Robin’s going to hit the last couple balls here. As we’re leaving the range, one thing that I recommend is getting that last swing key that’s helping you to hit the shots that we just did.

So I’m hitting four or five in a row, I’m getting a feel for what I’m doing, I’m taking just one swing key, whatever it is for that day, and I’m going to recreate that on the first tee.

That way it gives you something to focus on rather than getting worried about, maybe people that are watching, or noises or whatever can get you distracted.

You’ve got your swing key, you’re walking up here to the first tee, and now the last thing I would recommend is to be extra confident, if you really want to feel like you’re going to hit a good one.

Sometimes when you rip one right down the middle, you just feel like you don’t even have to watch it land, you’re going to go reach down and pick up the tee and head back to the cart, because you know it’s going to be a good one.

Get in that mindset, kind of visualize doing that before you ever hit the shot, and that’s going to give you a little bit more confidence. Let’s go ahead and let I rip, and let’s play a little power fade down the left side.

Robin: Yeah, definitely. So I’ll get you my swing, my swing key is feel like I’m just kind of holding it off just a little bit, create a little fade. So I want to end on the left side. That last feeling just holding it off a little bit, and try to mimic that and go up there and hit with some confidence on here.

Clay: Go ahead. There we go, nice. Right down the right-center of the fairway. That was a really good one, hit that one nice and solid. We’re going to go pick a game plan before we ever go to the driving range.

Go to the driving range, recreate that game plan. Hit four or five in a row as you’re finishing up your range session.

Find that swing key that was helping you to do that, then go straight to the first tee, get some confidence, and rip one right down the middle like Robin just hit one there, 325. So smoked that one.

Best of luck to you guys, we’ll see you all soon.