In this video I’m going to talk to you about the pendulum action when you’re putting. In true sense, what we want to do is to keep the head moving and keep the butt of the club stable.

If the butt of the club starts moving around, we start to actually hinder the ability to create a pendulum, and if you think about how effective a belly putter is or a broom-handle putter is, where this end stays fixed, then the head can move freely, we’re trying to replicate that but with a normal conventional length putter.

So, a nice simple swing thought for that is to try and keep this butt of the club incredibly still and let the head do the work in your putting stroke. And if you take a look at the video you’ll see how that looks.

Take your normal stance, and try and feel as though the butt of the club stays incredibly static and your head is doing all the work.

In summary, to help you keep your effective pendulum, keep your butt of the club incredibly static, think about that broom-handle or belly putter and try and feel as though the head is the piece of the putter doing the movement, not the butt of the club.

I’m going to give you a nice little tip to try and feel that you can freewheel and release the putter to help with head speed and help you with your distance control.

Problems I see among my clients and many golfers on the golf course, is the feeling through the left elbow detaching, the handle moving ahead of the club, and then that effectively stops this moving as freely and as fast.

A little exercise to stop that and help freewheel that putter head is to hold the club in your right hand, assume your normal putting stance, hug your right arm in to your side with your left hand, and make a putting stroke just feeling that your keeping everything nice and tight, and allow the putter head just to freewheel and overtake the handle through impact.

This then keeps the speed, which then equates to distance control, and when you come to these lag putts you’ll find it much easier to get the ball nice and close to the hole. Take a look at the video to see how that’s done.

In summary, if you can try every now and again when you’re on the putting green to just try and hug your arm in on the side, it helps to keep this as one unit, lets this putter head freewheel and release, and you’ll get that ball nice and close to the hole on those long putts.

In this video I’ve set up a simple exercise where I’ve popped a tee peg on the outside of the golf ball.

Now this is placed so that when you actually place the ball at the centre of the club head, there is just enough breathing space for the toe of the putter to go past it. What I’ve also done is something to deaden the blow if you catch it off the toe to give you a little bit of a penalising practice session.

The exercise being, when you come and set yourself up to create yourself a nice neutral path, we want to miss both the tee peg and double sided tape. If you take the club on the outside on your way through you’ll catch the tee peg. If you take the club on the inside towards your body on the way through, you’ll catch the deadening blow of the double sided tape.

Today I want to help you to compress your iron shots and impart a slightly downward blow on the golf ball.

Now, with help with our launch monitor data, on tour the average downward blow with a 7 iron is about 3.7 degrees. For that to occur, there needs to be an element of lean on the shaft. The handle needs to be ahead of the club head on impact. How we position our hand on the club helps us to get that lean.

If we just take a normal address position and we put our left thumb on the handle on top of the grip, what you’re going to see is the wrist around to the left too much. Now as the club then comes into impact, it’s quite difficult to get the lean on the shaft, as it’s unnatural.

Whereas if we’re to align our wrist correctly at address, it’s very easy to get that lean and that pressure on the golf ball at impact. So, what I want to happen is the left thumb to be around to the right of the shaft, and you can see in the video that my wrist moves a little bit more on top of the handle.

Then automatically you can see that if I just let my arm hang, there’s an element of lean on the shaft. Next you make your movement into the ball and the club is delivered with a bit of downward pressure.

If you take a look at the video above I’ll show you how that’s done. Pop the club behind the ball, move the left thumb around to the right side so that the wrist sits just ever so-slightly on top of the handle, there’s a touch of lean on the shaft and then just re-create that pressure back at impact.

I’m going to try and eliminate the curvature on your ball by matching up the swing path and the face angle.

Now common mistakes you see at impact are open face or close face, and people struggle to hit it straight. I’m going to just show you in this video something that’s very easy; before you hit the shot, just to give your eyes something to focus on with how they want to command the forearm movement, and therefore then the club face.

Assume your set-up, go to the top of your back swing, come down and then show yourself what open looks like with the club face. Then do the same and show yourself what shut looks like, and then stand there and bash one that’s bang between the two, absolutely dead-on square.

When you show yourself open and shut it’s much easier to find square.

Show yourself those three positions, take it away on the golf course; you’ll hit it much straighter time and time again.

For today’s video I’ve set up a very simple exercise to give you ‘Scoreable Practice’.

This is simple a 10-yard chip shot, and when you practice I want you to record your results and beat that personal best every time.

The circle is 6-foot, so this is the parameter that the tour pros will chip within every time, and I think that’s something you should try and relate to and try and apply to your practice. As you can see in the video, I’ve got three, I’m going to apply a more normal technique, see how many more I can get, record it and then next time I come and attempt that shot I will try and beat it next time.

By the end I’ve got the 10-yarder mastered, I might need to make that a little bit longer and put myself under a bit more pressure.

When you’re practising around the greens, it’s absolutely vital that you focus on the landing area.

What I’ve done in this video is to pop a towel on the green to help me focus on where I want that ball to land. A nice way for you to score whether your landing area control is improving; is to just grab six balls, grab a little notepad and make a note of how many times you can land it on the flat spot to get your ball to run out to the hole.

The biggest mistake I see with the amateurs that I teach, pros that I teach or club golfers that I see on the golf course is they have very poor control of where that ball lands. So, with this exercise, let’s try and focus in on where it lands, tighten up our short game and crisp up our distance from the hole.

In today’s video I’ve set up a little exercise station to help you get the clubs sole, when you’re in a bunker, into the sand in the right position and its position is about a hands width away from the golf ball. It gives you a nice focal point of where you want to be driving that club in to the sand.

The tighter you can get the club into the ball the better the spin control. But generally, if you can focus on the mid-way point between towel and ball, you’ll play a successful bunker shot.

So, get yourself into position as you would do normally. I like to see the ball more forward. I like to see my players with a touch of weight in the left-hand side, and your goal is to focus on driving the club in to the sand, getting the sole of the club to bottom out in that half-way point between the towel and the ball.

Take a look at the video to see that in affect.

So, to help you crisp up your trap shots and get your entry point nice and tight to the ball, towel one hands width away from that golf ball and your focal point is half-way between the ball and the towel.

As you can see in this video I’ve set a little station inside the bunker, and this station is designed to improve the ‘Takeaway Plane’ of your golf swing.

Now ‘Plane’ improves path and angle of attack, so if we get that wrong in a bunker, we’re in a lot of trouble. If we can start the club on its journey correctly, we then set up the chain-reaction of movements and the journey of the golf club through impact will improve naturally.

So, the cane in the video that I’ve stuck in the ground that’s coming out at 45 degrees to the left of the cameras you’re looking is set to help the club stay in front of the hands in the ‘Takeaway’. If you whip this club on this inside, you’ll get a little reminder off the cane.

So the whole purpose of this exercise is to run the club away from the ball, away from the target and out in front of your hands with lots of loft on.

Problems I see in bunkers are where the club head tracks behind the hands very early, club gets shut, off plain, club comes to far on the inside and you get a very early entry point. So this exercise is designed to keep the club in front and get the entry point nice and neutral.

So this station – I don’t expect you to hit balls from it, but just get yourself feeling what it’s like to start your club on the right journey, keeping the club out in front, and then come and hit one applying those feelings.

So use this station to help you get the feeling, and then step in and hit some.