Pete Finch – PGA Teaching Pro

When you go onto the golf course, you don't especially want to be thinking about and you don't really want to be getting into the minutiae, the details between differences of angles of attack and what you want to be doing between the driver and the iron swings. So how can you teach yourself to go a little bit more unconscious, how can you teach yourself to hit these different shots without thinking about it too much.

Now I've already got this drill that you can use at the driving lane which is great which separates you between the iron and the driver swing. But when you're on the golf course, what can you do very simply to switch in between the two. Now using the great pre-shot routine to make sure that you have the correct ball position is the most simple thing to do. So when you're on the course with a seven iron here that I've got, all I want to be doing is making sure that my ball position is just forward of center.

Now how do I do that; first of all I make sure that my alignment is correct so I pin my target line, I trace it back, I pick something just out in front of the ball and I get my club face aligned to that point. Now as I'm getting aligned to that point, I'm getting my feet together. My feet are together, they're not separated and they're pointing straight to the ball. So I know that my toe line is at right angles to my target line. So my toes are at the ball, my feet are together. I get my club face aligned and I know that I want my ball position just forward of center.

So what I'm doing to do is I'm going to take a little step to the left-hand side, with my left foot and I'm going to take a slightly bigger step with my right foot. And that as put that ball position there just forward of center. Now if I complete a good successful golf swing with my weight shifting left, I know that that club should bottom out just after the ball, hit the ball first, then hit the turf and lead to a successful shot.

Let's say you are on a tee and you got the driver, you're pretty much — should have figured out by now but all you need to do is make sure that that ball position is in the inside of the left heel. And you can go through exactly the same routine. So, this is getting set up, feet together, club face aligned to a target. And then all you need to do is open that left foot up a tiny, tiny step. Get a big step off to the right-hand side and then all of a sudden the ball position here is going to be inside the left heel. It's there. Moving it there.

So what I have done there is I have used a pre-shot routine, a simple pre-shot routine to start to make the changes that you have been working on within your practice routine. If you can do that when you're on the golf course, it's going to make it a lot simpler to make the changes in between the two techniques.