What is My Natural Shot Shape? (Video) - by Pete Styles
What is My Natural Shot Shape? (Video) - by Pete Styles

What is your natural golf shot shape? This is a question that comes up quite often when people who’ve been watching golf from the TV and the commentator often talking about his natural shape or he naturally draws it, he naturally fades it, oh this hole suits his natural shape. And people coming down to see me for lessons and say well, “What’s my natural shot shape been?” Well really your natural shot shape is the shot you would hit when you’re most relaxed swinging nice and freely and it’s probably the shot you would hit as an average shot. We don’t always hit the same shot every time, but we’ll generally have an average shot shape, a natural shot shape.

Now it’s okay to have a natural shape and ideally we’d like a golfer to stick to hitting their natural shape, but only if their natural shape is a good shape. So if your natural shape is a little fade that lands on the fairway or a little draw that lands on the fairway, that’s fine, but if you come in and say to me, “Pete my natural shot shape is a forty yard slice onto somebody else’s fairway,” well that’s all right being natural but we need to really do something about that. We need to get your natural shot shape to be a little bit straighter, a little bit more playable. So we might have to start making some changes to improve your natural shot shape. So next time you go to the driving range, I’d like you to line up 15 balls down the side of the map and hit those 15 balls with kind of your brain switched off into auto pilot, so you’re not really thinking too much about the technical side of your swing. You tee it up you swing freely and do that for 15 times and just notice your results and notice the direction of flight of your results. So if it’s landing left or right, if it’s drawing or fading. And if it started to show some degree of consistency and some degree of having an average flight, we could say that’s your natural shot shape. And if it’s playable and if you’re happy with your natural shape then that’s great, let stick to that let’s go on the golf course lets play with that natural shape. But if you don’t really have a natural shape because you’re spraying it everywhere, then there is probably something wrong with your technique somewhere and if your natural shape if quite pronounced and off the fairway to the right, to the left not a very playable shot, then we probably need to tweak your natural shape. So ideally you play within your natural shot, but only if that natural shot is consistent and playable. 2014-05-13

What is your natural golf shot shape? This is a question that comes up quite often when people who’ve been watching golf from the TV and the commentator often talking about his natural shape or he naturally draws it, he naturally fades it, oh this hole suits his natural shape. And people coming down to see me for lessons and say well, “What’s my natural shot shape been?” Well really your natural shot shape is the shot you would hit when you’re most relaxed swinging nice and freely and it’s probably the shot you would hit as an average shot. We don’t always hit the same shot every time, but we’ll generally have an average shot shape, a natural shot shape.

Now it’s okay to have a natural shape and ideally we’d like a golfer to stick to hitting their natural shape, but only if their natural shape is a good shape. So if your natural shape is a little fade that lands on the fairway or a little draw that lands on the fairway, that’s fine, but if you come in and say to me, “Pete my natural shot shape is a forty yard slice onto somebody else’s fairway,” well that’s all right being natural but we need to really do something about that. We need to get your natural shot shape to be a little bit straighter, a little bit more playable. So we might have to start making some changes to improve your natural shot shape.

So next time you go to the driving range, I’d like you to line up 15 balls down the side of the map and hit those 15 balls with kind of your brain switched off into auto pilot, so you’re not really thinking too much about the technical side of your swing. You tee it up you swing freely and do that for 15 times and just notice your results and notice the direction of flight of your results. So if it’s landing left or right, if it’s drawing or fading. And if it started to show some degree of consistency and some degree of having an average flight, we could say that’s your natural shot shape. And if it’s playable and if you’re happy with your natural shape then that’s great, let stick to that let’s go on the golf course lets play with that natural shape. But if you don’t really have a natural shape because you’re spraying it everywhere, then there is probably something wrong with your technique somewhere and if your natural shape if quite pronounced and off the fairway to the right, to the left not a very playable shot, then we probably need to tweak your natural shape. So ideally you play within your natural shot, but only if that natural shot is consistent and playable.