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Top 50 coach and popular YouTuber @AlexElliottGolf explains easy fixes to the five most common swing faults amateur golfers struggle with. Covering the driver, iron play and pitching, he demonstrates some simple drills that will help golfers of all skill levels overcome these frustrating faults and ultimately shoot lower scores as a result.
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These are the five biggest swing faults I know are affecting your game and I'm going to show you
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exactly how you can fix them. We're going to start from the tee with driver, move down the fairway
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work on those approach shots into the green and I know for a fact right, fixing these will help you
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lower your scores. The first swing thought I want to start with is early on in the chain
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the takeaway i often think about it like this if you start a journey let's say from here to the
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airport right and you take the first turning wrong it takes a lot longer to get there and we all get
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a little bit upset right same thing in your goal swing the ball is going to fly all over the place
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so the first swing thought i want you to look at here is the relationship of the toe to the heel
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in your takeaway i never want to see the heel start i think from player cam you can really see
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this and I never want to see the toe start I want you to try and feel nice and simple to fix that
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takeaway and get the iconic position we see I'm trying to think of some of the best players in
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the world right now let's go Scotty Scheffler he's pretty good right now for a recent win
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I want to see this position the toe and the heel move away together that's us simply just keeping
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the club face square so I would just nicely even build us into your pre-shot routine
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not toe starting not heel starting trying to move them away together and my little checkpoint is two
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waggles before every single shot of getting that position right there and you know what you just
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simply look at that copy that and bring that into your driver swing right now
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the second swing fault on my list you'll be happy to hear is that clubface open impact so
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when we're swinging in that clubface point into the right of our path and our target line. For a
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right-hander, that's going to end up over here. And for a left-hander, that's going to end up over
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here. And here at La Cala on the Asia course on the fourth hole, wow, this golf resort has some
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tight, very beautiful golf holes. Now, let's just talk about how we can fix this. Now, don't worry
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There's not just a one size fits all. There's two ways you can do this. Let's start with the
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Let's have a look at this grip here. Let say this is our grip we looking at roughly two knuckle showing and our club face at impact is still pointing way out to the right The first way I want you to try is I want you to rotate your hands to the right side of the golf club
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So you're making this club have a chance of pointing a little bit more close to your path by the time we're striking this golf ball
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Now, if we create a grip like this, we need to match it in a release style
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and I would really strongly recommend if you're somebody that's a little bit less mobile
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maybe a little bit more senior in age you actually steal a few yards here which is always a Brucey
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bonus so I would really feel if I'm rotating my hands to the right as my way of controlling my
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club face we would need to feel a little bit more roll of the forearms through the release
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and a little bit more roll of the wrists to aid me to square the club face think of your grip
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as your steering wheel to your shot and then you're matching that with your release style
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so that's the first one I want you to try the next one I would definitely say if you're someone who's
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a little bit more athletic a little bit more side bend through the golf ball we had a grip that was
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maybe a little bit on the weaker side what you could feel is that as we're swinging down now in
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this downswing could we feel a little bit more flexion as we start down to allow our club face
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to be a little bit more square into delivery and then therefore square at impact. Now I would stress
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this would require a lot more flexibility but definitely one we can learn and bring into our
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game. So what I recommend is try both out on the range, take them to the course, put yourself under
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pressure and see which fix works best for your game. Next on my list is the fault of applying the
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same swing for your driver as you have with your iron or vice versa. Now I want you to be really
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aware of the subtle differences and it's easy this. Think of two dots, one in our sternum and
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one in our belt buckle. Let's take driver here. I want you to feel with driver at the top of the
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backswing, the dot in your sternum is slightly behind your belt buckle and then at impact it
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stays slightly behind your belt buckle. Now this is where you going to have the fix for the irons I thinking about the swing slightly differently I want you to be really aware now with irons those two dots so the sternum and
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the belt buckle at the top of the back swing with iron, sit more on top and at impact, sit more on
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top. This is going to help very much more of a downwards hit as opposed to an upwards hit with
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your driver that's exactly why you can't go down the route of thinking of the swing the same that
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would be a huge swing fault so just think about the dots moving on to the next swing fault and
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we're looking now at the top of the backswing and more importantly this position right here
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now the reason why me and all top coaches want to have a look at this position is that it has a huge
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impact on where we get at impact now the issue would be and the fault is when we have a very
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cupped lead wrist and all that means is this position right here and the influence that has
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on your club face is it will be open now with an iron that's going to promote a more scoopy contact
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with a drive if you're a driver you're probably looking at shots that travel way off to the right
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and have a look at this shot right here. I don't want weak contact and I certainly don't want
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off to the right or a saved action. Now, let me just demonstrate that. And I would really just do
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some one-handed swings for me to be fair. I want you to go to the top. If you're cupped and you do
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nothing, where does my face end up at impact? Way off to the right. So that's where a save
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a scoop would have to get you out of trouble. Now the fix for this, I want you to hook this in
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it's so good this feeling hook it under your lead arm just like this and i want you to practice
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getting the logo of your glove at the top of the backswing to point to the sky now when you first
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do this it's going to feel super aggressive because it's got a long way away from here
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into here but it's going to create a much more squarer club face and a much more reliable
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release pattern so when we get to shots like this we don't feel i guess as nervous in fact
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Let's play it. So my swing thought for this fix would be logo of your glove to the sky
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So here we go. Maybe have a few waggles feeling that on the course walk into your shot and play it that was a beautiful hit she all over the flag let hope we get the club oh go in the hole
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that nearly just went in just like that we said we were going to talk approach shots and here we go 75 yards out now arguably this is the
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it apart from putting that makes a huge impact on your scores. Now the fault that I would really see
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so commonly is approaching this shot as if you had a regular iron in your hand so that would be
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a really wide stance weight 50-50 and then the tempo of that shot would be very fast and very
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brisk on the way down and we always wonder then why do we get it thin? Why do we get it fat? Well
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the simple fix is, I want you to think about it this way. If I was stood 30, 40 yards away from you
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make it look like you're hitting a controlled shot. So the steps to this fix are, number one
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grip down a little bit. Number two, take a little bit of a narrow stance. Number three
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place that ball slightly towards the back of your stance. And I love this feeling. Whilst keeping
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your weight on your lead side through the shot, I almost want you to feel like you could have a
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conversation at the top of your backswing so what i mean with that is on the way down it's almost
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like gravity is hitting that shot away this is a great way to regulate your distance so when you're
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faced with 75 or 100 or 50 you've got control you've got control of that club and the strike
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so nice and simple from the top let's hit this one away grip down narrow stance ball back weight left
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a little look to target and feel like we've got an age and have a conversation back here
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They're my five biggest swing faults and exactly how to fix them. I see them so much in my lessons
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and I know they're really going to help you. Don't forget to like this video and subscribe
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to Golf Monthly's YouTube channel for more content just like this
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