- 2 days ago
In this video, Joe Ferguson runs through the six telltale signs that you need new golf clubs, or that your equipment choices are hurting your scores.
Category
š„
SportsTranscript
00:00Right, so as we all know, golf is hard,
00:03so you don't want to make it any harder
00:04by using the wrong equipment, right?
00:06Well, stay with me, because in this video,
00:08I'm going to show you how to spot a few telltale signs
00:11that the equipment you're using
00:12might actually be hurting your score.
00:32That's a nice-looking shot.
00:36Okay, so I'm going to go and get my divot.
00:40Obviously, I'm going to repair this divot,
00:42because that's good etiquette,
00:43but one thing I want you to do
00:45is when you are repairing divots,
00:47don't miss out on a good opportunity
00:48to learn a little bit about your golf equipment.
00:50If you come down here and take a look,
00:52looking at my divot here,
00:54that's exactly what I would want to see.
00:55It's about a dollar in length,
00:57and it's very even side to side,
00:59so I'm really pleased with that.
01:01That gives me the indication that my club,
01:03now I'll tidy it up,
01:05gives me the indication that my club
01:06is soling out correctly on the floor
01:08from a lie angle point of view,
01:10so wherever I'm presenting that face,
01:12I'm going to get a true reflection
01:13in terms of its launch direction
01:14of how this club should play.
01:16However, when you look down and see your divots,
01:19if they look a little bit like this,
01:21chances are you need to go to your local pro
01:23and get your lie angles checked out.
01:25If you're looking at a divot
01:26that's got a little bit more depth
01:27on one side to the other,
01:28and that's quite noticeable,
01:29there's a very good chance your lie angles are inaccurate.
01:32Furthermore, if they look like this,
01:34this kind of skinny slither,
01:36that's another really good indication
01:37that your lie angle may not be where you want to be.
01:40That's going to affect your launch direction,
01:41and as such, it's going to affect your dispersion,
01:44so make sure you don't fall foul
01:45of that little telltale sign.
01:51So here's another telltale sign that your equipment choices
01:54might actually be hurting your game,
01:56and it's problem holes.
01:57Do you have that one hole on your course,
01:59or a course that you visit,
02:00that's always that card record,
02:02you can't seem to get through it?
02:03Well, for me, here at the Caversham,
02:05the 16th is one of those.
02:06Every time I've come here,
02:07I've had a little bit of a problem.
02:08So looking down the fairway there,
02:10I've got a bunker right in the middle of the fairway.
02:12In fact, we've got a couple,
02:13but the first one is the one that causes me problems
02:15from this particular tee.
02:17It's about 280 to 285 to get past.
02:20That's a Sunday best driver for me in terms of carry,
02:23so if there's any headwind at all,
02:26I'm struggling to make that carry.
02:27If I then go down to three-wood,
02:29well, three-wood's just going to go straight into it.
02:31It's right at my carry distance of around 260,
02:34so that's a bit of a problem club.
02:35So if I want to hit big clubs on this hole,
02:37I'm going to have to go left or right at those bunkers,
02:40which brings a little bit of jeopardy into play
02:42of the hedges on the right and left of the fairway.
02:44Now, ordinarily, when I've come here,
02:46I would go from driver three-wood down to my four-iron,
02:48and hitting a four-iron off a hole of this length
02:51would just leave me too far in
02:52and make my second shot become a problem.
02:55So what I do when I play here,
02:57and when I study golf courses before I go and play them,
02:59is look for holes like this,
03:00be it with a problem in the middle of the fairway
03:02or a dogleg that you're going to run out of room
03:04with certain clubs,
03:05and make sure you've got a club
03:07that will cover the distance you need.
03:08So for example, here, I pop in my driving iron,
03:11which gets me around 250 yards from the tee.
03:14So I'm laying up short of that bunker.
03:16I'm taking that hazard out of play entirely,
03:19even if I hit my very, very best shot,
03:21but I'm not leaving myself too far in.
03:24So make sure you're not making those mistakes on the golf course.
03:27Make sure you've got the equipment, the bag set up
03:29to cover the problem holes
03:30and the things that could trip you up.
03:36Right, so you might think there's not much can go wrong
03:39with your equipment in your short game,
03:40your chipping and your pitching,
03:41but truth be told, you'd be wrong.
03:43I see a lot of mistakes here,
03:45particularly with people like myself.
03:46We play a lot of golf in the UK.
03:48I think we've arguably got the most changeable ground conditions
03:52of any golfers out there.
03:53In the summer, we've all seen it.
03:54We can play it off bare hard pan that feels
03:57like playing off the motorway.
03:58Now we're here in November
04:00at the beautiful Caversham Golf Club.
04:01There's been a bit of rainfall.
04:03The ground gets a little bit softer
04:04and that demands a little bit more precision in strike
04:07and it demands some thoughts on the equipment you're using.
04:10So I've got a little 50 yard pitch shot here.
04:13I'm on a relatively tight bit of fairway,
04:15but it's quite soft underfoot.
04:17Now I've got a six degree bounce Callaway wedge here,
04:20which is quite a low bounce wedge.
04:22Now, if I just play this shot,
04:27I mean, I've struck that quite well.
04:28I've got away with that reasonably well there.
04:31But when you've got a low bounce wedge like this,
04:34when you've just got six degrees of bounce on the sole,
04:37in soft conditions, it puts a real premium on your strike.
04:40If I hit that a millimetre fat,
04:43there's a very good chance it would only get halfway to the hole.
04:46So when the ground gets a little bit softer,
04:48it's really worth considering going up to a higher bounce wedge.
04:51Now, a lot of you might be thinking,
04:52well, I don't want to buy two wedges. I don't want to have two wedges hanging about.
04:56In truth, that would be my preference, and that's something that I do.
04:59But I get my equipment free as a tester.
05:01So I understand your point there.
05:02So if you don't want to do that, I think there's another good option.
05:05And this is funnily enough, what Scotty Scheffler does.
05:07So Scheffler has a very, very low bounce lob wedge.
05:11So 60 degrees, around four degrees of bounce.
05:14But then he goes up, his next wedge is a 56 degree,
05:19but he's more into double figures of bounce here.
05:21So I've got a 54 degree here at 14 degrees of bounce.
05:24So the angle gets a lot steeper between the back edge and the leading edge.
05:28That back edge acts like a little bit of a rudder through the soft turf
05:31and gives you that little bit more margin for error.
05:33Yes, you might have to play a few shots with a slightly different loft
05:37to what you might be used to.
05:38However, I think it's worth it for that extra insurance from the sole.
05:42Now, this counts for bunkers as well.
05:44We all know wet sand and dry sand and fine sand and coarse sand,
05:48if you're playing different courses, reacts differently.
05:50So if you've got a couple of different options in your wedge arsenal,
05:54that's really a good way to beat those changeable conditions.
05:57Well, I hope you're enjoying the video.
05:59If you are, if you could just hit that like button and subscribe to the channel,
06:02that really helped us out and get in the comments down below.
06:05Let me know if you've made any horror equipment errors that have affected your game.
06:18Okay. Well, that was annoying.
06:20It was all too familiar.
06:21Does that happen to you?
06:22You think you've hit a good putt from long to mid range.
06:24It just pulls up five to six feet short.
06:27Well, there is obviously a potential for human error here
06:30whereby you're just not hitting it hard enough
06:31or your speed control is not good enough,
06:33but it could also be a telltale sign that your putter's not set up correctly for you.
06:38And specifically, I'm talking about your loft here.
06:41It is crucial to get your loft on your putter to match your stroke type
06:44and the conditions you're playing on.
06:46So for example, if you have too much loft on your putter,
06:49the ball can come off with a little bit too much backspin and skid too much,
06:53and it won't reach the full potential of its roll distance.
06:56Similarly, if you don't have enough loft on your putter,
06:58the ball can get stuck in the grass.
07:00It doesn't get above the grass quick enough on the green and start rolling,
07:04which again will rob the ball of energy and come up short.
07:07So keep an eye out.
07:07If you are consistently coming up short, it's worth getting your putter off check.
07:11And I've got a very easy way to do this on your own with just yourself and your iPhone.
07:16So what you want to do is you want to get your phone out, set it up, rest it against
07:20two T-pegs,
07:21face on to where you're putting.
07:23If you can put a cross or a line on your ball with a Sharpie pen facing that camera,
07:28what you'll notice is when you go in slow motion, film it in slow motion,
07:33if that cross or the line that you put on the ball is staying very much in the orientation
07:37it was in for the first foot or so of its roll, the chances are your loft's in a good
07:42place.
07:43So you don't need to worry and you can blame your lack of ability and lack of speed control
07:46for coming up short. However, if you see that ball oscillating backwards and the cross rotating
07:52like it's got backspin, there could be a very good chance you've got too much loft on your putter
07:57and that's something you'll need to address. And you'll also see if you've got too little loft,
08:01you'll probably see the orientation of the cross moving a little bit, but moreover,
08:05you'll see the ball bouncing a little bit through the grass before it sets off on a true roll.
08:10So this is a really good way of getting to grips, getting a feel of if you have got your
08:15loft right,
08:15it's worth checking before you start blaming yourself for your lack of ability.
08:25Ah, I thought that was a good swing and it's just set off wonky. Have you ever been in that
08:31situation
08:32where you think you're putting good swings on your iron shots but they're just not starting off in
08:36the direction that you were expecting them to? You're looking up and it's coming out of a different
08:40window, well that can be another telltale sign of an incorrect lie angle. So essentially what we want
08:45when we come into impact is this club soling out flush to the ground because then the loft points
08:50exactly where the face is pointing. And what I mean by that is you could come in with a perfectly
08:55square club face, but if your lie angle is wrong and you're too toe up, so you can see if
08:59this club
09:00face is pointing squarely at the camera and it's sold out flat on the ground without opening or closing
09:04the club face at all. If I just get the lie angle wrong, you can see how that loft is
09:08now pointing off to
09:09the left there for me or if the lie angle is too toe down, it's pointing off to the right.
09:13So getting
09:13your lie angle is absolutely crucial to getting that start direction right on your golf ball. And
09:18a good way you can check whether you're in a good place is if you grab a golf ball, one
09:21of your practice
09:22balls and a sharpie pen and also if you've got one of these line me up things that can be
09:26really useful,
09:26but it doesn't necessarily need that. Pop that on your golf ball, pop a nice fresh sharpie line
09:35on that golf ball. Then if you just get in behind, set it up so that golf ball is nice
09:41and vertical on
09:42the ground where you're going to strike it. And then relatively soon after that, you get in there
09:51and you strike that golf ball. Because that's fresh on the tape, do you want to come in a bit
09:55closer here?
09:57I've hit it out the heel, but you can see how almost perfectly vertical that is for me. So I
10:02know these
10:02lie angles for me are really, really good. If you see any of this left to right tilt on that
10:08line
10:08that's left on the club base, then you know you've probably got some lie angle issues which are
10:12affecting your start direction. So you need to get into the pro shop and have a chat to your local
10:16pro about getting that fixed. While we're on the putting green, I want to talk about another aspect
10:24of the putter that might be costing you strokes and it's to do with the alignment. We see so many
10:29different alignment cues available today from two balls, from top lines, from flange lines,
10:35to dots, to no lines. So how do you know which one's right for you? Well, there's a few ways
10:40you
10:40can go about this. Probably the most prudent way is to go and book a fitting with your pro who
10:44will put
10:44you on something like a Quintic or a sand putt lab, something like that, and can actually quantifiably
10:49measure which putters you aim better than others. If you haven't got access to that, however, it's very easy to
10:56get on a putting green. Maybe go into your pro shop and ask if you can just borrow a couple
10:59of putters.
11:00You don't even have to hit any putts with these, so don't make your pro worry about that. But what
11:04you can do, take a friend out to the putting green, get them to take their phone with them,
11:08get yourself set up over a six to ten foot putt, relatively straight, and aim bang at the centre of
11:14the hole. So get different alignment aids, put the first one down and get yourself aiming bang at what
11:18you think square to the centre of the hole is. When you say go, they take a picture. Refer to
11:24that picture and
11:24go and see how close to centre you are. Then move to another style of alignment aid, whether it was
11:29a
11:29top line to start with, move to a flange line, then move to the two ball, then move to a
11:34dart, then move
11:34to no alignment aids, and just cross-reference how well you line those clubs up. It's not a perfect
11:40science, but it will give you a really good indication of what style of putter works better
11:45for you for your eyes because we're all very, very different. Make sure you're checking that out
11:50because you can put the best stroke on any of these putts you like. If you're not pointing in the
11:53right
11:54place to start with, you're going to hole very little. Right, so there you have it. I hope that
11:57was helpful. I hope that's given you a few indicators of how to spot those telltale signs your equipment
12:02might not be working for you. Let me know in the comments down below, have you fallen foul of any
12:06of those, and let me know if you fix it. I really want to hear about it.
12:09Thank you!
12:18You
Comments