Why You Need This: Today you'll be able to better answer "Why Do I Hit It Great on the Range & Terrible on the Course?"

I know how frustrating it can be to get into a rhythm on the driving range only to head to the course and not be able to find that groove you were in just a short time earlier.

Well, there's a multitude of reasons that this happens to you, but there are things you can do when you're practicing that will help your game better translate to the course.

In particular, there are two unique practice routines that you can put to use on the range to help with the different settings you'll encounter once you hit the course.

I also have some tips that will help improve your consistency.

There's a key focus that I think will promote some good habits in your swing and should help you become a more consistent golfer.

All of this is covered in today's video.  I can't wait to see what it can do for your game!

 

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    Quentin Patterson    

Video Duration: 7:01

Video Transcription:

Clay: Absolutely great to have you here. I’m joined with Quentin Patterson, he’s our Director of Online Instruction at Top Speed Golf, and a really, really sharp guy.

Now, he recently got a question in your office hours, and most people don’t know what office hours is, but if you’re a member of Top Speed Golf, every single day, five days a week, every business day I should say, for one hour Quentin is online there to answer any of your questions.

You can get on there every single day and have your personal coach, ask him questions about your golf game, ask him whatever you’d like to and he’s there to answer. Like I said, really sharp guy. That’s a huge benefit.

What’s one of the most popular questions you get that really gets people frustrated and we’ve talked about this a little bit, definitely frustrates me sometimes too.

Quentin: Right, I get this question all the time, probably at least once a week, twice a week. They ask me why am I great on the range, I’m like Michael Jordan on the range, but then when I go to the golf course it’s like I’ve never played golf before, sometimes.

What do you think are some reasons why people have trouble taking their range game to the golf course?

Clay: That’s a good one, so you’re a superstar on the range and it looks like you’ve never played before when you get out to the course.

A big part of this is being able to feel the differences in clubs. What I see most of the time, and I’m as guilty as anybody about this, I practiced like this for years, but I would just grab a middle iron.

Today I’m holding an 8 iron here. I pull over a bucket of balls, I might hit 20 or 30 8 irons in a row to the same target, then switch to a driver, hit 20 or 30, and then go out and play some golf.

Well the problem with that is, you can get in a roll, on a roll, you can get into a rhythm when you’re hitting the same club over and over again.

It gives you the false sense of confidence when that’s happening. But there’s a skill that can be developed with changing clubs.

So if I grab my driver here, we can see right away, my driver is much longer than my 8 iron. It’s going to feel different. The angle of my driver is much different than the different of my 8 iron.

So even though the swing is going to feel somewhat the same with all the clubs, there is a skill to feeling the difference in weight, to feeling the different rhythm between clubs, and a great drill that I have to get really good at that skill is what I call a three club game.

So what I do, is I grab a wedge, you can grab whatever you want, I like to use a 56°, I’ll grab a middle iron, say a 6 iron or an 8 iron, I have an 8 iron here. Then I have my driver.

I’ll hit one shot with my wedge, then I’ll switch over to the 8 iron, then I’ll switch over to the driver, then back to the wedge.

As you start to do this you start to develop a feel where as soon as you make that first swing, you kind of get a better feel for what the driver’s doing, what the wedge is doing, and it’s not going to happen in one day.

You’re not going to hit 20 shots and all of a sudden it’s a miracle and you’re really solid with every club, and it carries over to the course.

But you’ll be surprised, it won’t take very many days. You do this two or three times, you’re going to see a noticeable difference.

So that’s one of my favorite ones, what about you, Q? Do you have any tips for this?

Quentin: Yeah, so a big reason why you have trouble with this is because there’s no pressure on the range, it’s non-situational.

If you hit a bad one, you just roll another ball over, and you kind of forget about that last one. You just keep hitting them.

What I like to do is actually play the course on the range. If I’m getting ready to go out and play, I’ll get all warmed up. I’ll hit a few fades, draws, and things like that. Get a good feel for my swing.

Then with the last few balls, 20 or 30 balls or so, I’ll play the course on the range. So I may start out on number one, it’s a 400-yard par 4. Maybe there’s some trouble on the left.

I will try to favor that right side a little bit, maybe play a draw, start it away from the trouble and work it back into the fairway.

If I hit a good one, 300-yard drive would be a good one for me. I’d go up there and I’d hit a wedge on the next one.

So it’s similar to what you’re doing, except now you’re putting yourself in a situation, and you’re preparing yourself to go out and play, and play a really good round.

The best part about this game, once you get on the green, you make all the putts. You’ve got a lot of confidence once you’re going to the first tee that you’re getting ready to go out there and shoot a really low score.

That’s one thing that I really, really like to do.

Clay: So that’s really good. I like that drill. One thing though, is it’s not all mental. There’s a mental side to this which is what we just talked about, those are really good drills to do on that. There’s also a technique side to it.

So if my fundamentals aren’t very solid, there’s no way I’m going to be as consistent as somebody who’s got really solid fundamentals.

If I had to pick one drill to say this is just my favorite drill to be really consistent, I would focus on my weight shift as I start the downswing.

As I’m coming to the top of the swing, the very first thing that I feel like I’m doing to start my downswing, is putting a little pressure on my left heel.

Now a lot of times what I see layers doing, is as you start your downswing, all of a sudden I’ casting a little bit, I’m standing up, kind of getting farther away from this golf ball, and look what happens to my weight, it goes up on my toes here.

You can see my hips start to slide forward, that’s a disaster, because now I’m getting closer to the ball, all of a sudden this little hosel starts to creep in, closer to the golf ball, that’s not a good feeling. Then I have to flip to even reach the golf ball when I’m doing that.

So my very first feeling that I like to have, is to put a little pressure on my left ankle, my left heel as I’m starting my downswing.

So as I’m here, as soon as I’m ready to start my downswing, that’s the first motion I want to have is to get driving into that heel. That’s going to let me to sink back, give me plenty of space out there to hit.

It also makes it where my weight’s going more left, it’s easier to come down and make ground first – or ball, don’t want to make ground-first contact – make ball-first contact so you can hit it nice and solid. So let me go ahead and get that feeling and try to hit a shot here.

All right, so hit that one really nice and solid. Right down the middle. That really helps to make that ball-first contact, to stop those chunks and thin shots, and getting that weight going to the left.

Unfortunately, there’s another piece to this. If I still have that little bit of a cast motion from the top, I’m starting to cast this club out, even if I get my weight left, typically I’m going to be coming across the ball slightly and I’m going to lose feeling of where this club head is.

So I might still hit a few chunks and thin shots, even though having the weight left is going to hep with that, it’s not going to be the perfect solution.

Now what is the perfect solution is if I can lag this club and pair that up with my weight shift to the left. If I can get my body now in a much better position, and I can have all this lag, my club coming from the inside, I don’t see very many good players that do those two things that aren’t phenomenal players.

So if I can get that lag from the inside and then get my weight driving into my left ankle, then I’m really going to be super, super consistent.

So what I recommend you do is don’t stop here. Practice getting that weight to the left on the inside of the heel to start your downswing, but then go to the Lag section of the Top Speed Golf System.

Start working through level one, level two, and level three, and it’s going to come completely natural for you to whenever you start your downswing, you’re going to have that good angle of lag, and you’re going to be super consistent.

Now pair that up with the drills we’ve talked about here today, and you’re going to be virtually unbeatable, but it’s a process.

You’ve got to start from the first level of The Lag, move to level two, level three, that’s going to really ingrain it.

I can’t wait to get started with you, helping you with your lag, I’ll see you in the Top Speed Golf Lag System.