How To Best Improve Short Game Touch And Feel - Senior Golf Tip (Video) - by Dean Butler
How To Best Improve Short Game Touch And Feel - Senior Golf Tip (Video) - by Dean Butler

Okay. There’s many ways that you can improve your putting, your short game for touch and feel and what I’ve done here, I’ve kind of basically picked out four that I feel are really, really, very, very important and not so hard to actually put into practice. The first one is what we call putting wheel, not much when you go on the putting green. First of all take the flag out, take it out so you’re now actually in the same environment as what you would be on the golf course. Put 10 balls I want to hear to limit it sort of space with the map. Imagine 10 balls around about – most probably a meter away from the hole. And one way to do is to set yourself up and practice hitting that ball into the hole working your way through that wheel. By doing this and taking your time, don’t just walk up and just hit it and hit it, line yourself up, do exactly what you would do on the golf course line, hit up, go for your routine, give yourself the best opportunity. And what by doing this it’s just going to keep your mind nicely sharp, because you’re focusing on lie low, pull the trigger back and then from here hit the putter into the hole. Hear it drop that’s good, don’t let your eyes follow it, keep your head still, puts it drops and you hear it just move on to the next ball line it up, so there’s the putting wheel a very, very good tip to keep sharp.

The second one is we’re going to stay on this putting green and this is called Fringe Putting, this is all about feel. How many times on the green have you blundered and it’s about 30 foot away from the hole, you’re almost dreading what you’ve got to face now. Trying to get the ball inside a dustbin liters we call it’s almost like oh my, gosh so difficult. So a good tip would be to go to the edge of the putting green just inside the fringe and then from there concentrate on putting the ball across the green, stopping at just short of the fringe, so say 12 inches off the fringe we start and we want to stop at 12 inches short. And it takes a lot of practice, this isn’t going to happen straight away it takes a lot of practice to feel that putter going through and getting that roll, but it gives you feel and that’s something that you can’t really teach people, you can give yourself the tools to get feel, but you have to put that practice in. This isn’t going to happen in five minutes, but it’s a real good one for that feel, for those long push, getting that bull dead, okay? So there’s two nice putting green ones now let me just change my club. So what I’m going to do now is we’re going to talk about chipping. So, chipping is where we play a club maybe a six times, seven or eight times we’re just off the green, we’re just in that light fringe and what we want to do now is we’re going to play that shot and one difficulty about chipping sometimes is just trying to gauge that sort of distance. So it’s very similar to that sort of Fringe Putting, but obviously we’ve got a 7/9 which is approximately 40º aloof so not quite as easy maybe as the putter. So I’m going to practice on setting yourself up for the chipping run where we’ll be playing the ball, play the ball quite essential in your stunts, feet quite close and the chipping swing really is the same so the technique as a putter. So set yourself up, put your hands all nice and low and from here concentrate on swinging from the shoulders, keep the body weight still slightly on the left hand side and from the chipping run take the club back and you can see what I’ve done here, I’ve swing the club out of my shoulders backwards and through and by doing that and basically recreating that putting technique. The loft of the club is naturally just throwing the ball just above part of that fringe, remember we’re on that fringe lands and it releases up to the hole. So it’s a very, very good chipping to improve that chipping technique go to the edge of the green, put that club in your hand and practice that technique. The third one, the fourth one rather is again part of the short game, we’ve done putting; we’ve done chipping runs now we’re going to go high. How many times are you faced with that shot, you’ve come with shots in the green, big debunker and the flag is maybe just top of the yard on the other side, so now it’s all about how well you play that shot, it’s almost like throwing a ball up in the air and you’ve got to land it just on this little space of green to stop it or maybe the flag’s 30 yard on, but it’s all about judging the distance. So a good tip would be to get your umbrella out of your back, put it up, stick it in the ground let’s say to start with 10 yards away, push it into the ground with a spike and then from there we want to now start playing those shots with your sand wedge, with your lob wedge whatever you will play that shot with around that green throwing the ball up and from there just try and judge the length of the swing to actually get the ball there. Technique wise the set up would be ball position towards the left foot, but not on the left foot just inside, weight positioning on the left hand side 60:40, hands slightly forward and from here keep that weight on the left hand side so just swing it back so far, half way back and the club is doing the job, that ball’s gone nice and high and landing very, very soft. So there you’ve got the technique four really, really, very, very good tips there, techniques for you go away and practice because remember you’ve heard the saying drive for show, putt for dough. Well this is where you score, it’s around the green and on the green. So put those tips into practice and with a bit of practice, because it’s all about feel and repetition in getting confidence, you’ll have that ability to go and improve and improve those scores.
2013-12-11

Okay. There’s many ways that you can improve your putting, your short game for touch and feel and what I’ve done here, I’ve kind of basically picked out four that I feel are really, really, very, very important and not so hard to actually put into practice. The first one is what we call putting wheel, not much when you go on the putting green. First of all take the flag out, take it out so you’re now actually in the same environment as what you would be on the golf course. Put 10 balls I want to hear to limit it sort of space with the map. Imagine 10 balls around about – most probably a meter away from the hole. And one way to do is to set yourself up and practice hitting that ball into the hole working your way through that wheel. By doing this and taking your time, don’t just walk up and just hit it and hit it, line yourself up, do exactly what you would do on the golf course line, hit up, go for your routine, give yourself the best opportunity. And what by doing this it’s just going to keep your mind nicely sharp, because you’re focusing on lie low, pull the trigger back and then from here hit the putter into the hole. Hear it drop that’s good, don’t let your eyes follow it, keep your head still, puts it drops and you hear it just move on to the next ball line it up, so there’s the putting wheel a very, very good tip to keep sharp.

The second one is we’re going to stay on this putting green and this is called Fringe Putting, this is all about feel. How many times on the green have you blundered and it’s about 30 foot away from the hole, you’re almost dreading what you’ve got to face now. Trying to get the ball inside a dustbin liters we call it’s almost like oh my, gosh so difficult. So a good tip would be to go to the edge of the putting green just inside the fringe and then from there concentrate on putting the ball across the green, stopping at just short of the fringe, so say 12 inches off the fringe we start and we want to stop at 12 inches short. And it takes a lot of practice, this isn’t going to happen straight away it takes a lot of practice to feel that putter going through and getting that roll, but it gives you feel and that’s something that you can’t really teach people, you can give yourself the tools to get feel, but you have to put that practice in. This isn’t going to happen in five minutes, but it’s a real good one for that feel, for those long push, getting that bull dead, okay? So there’s two nice putting green ones now let me just change my club. So what I’m going to do now is we’re going to talk about chipping.

So, chipping is where we play a club maybe a six times, seven or eight times we’re just off the green, we’re just in that light fringe and what we want to do now is we’re going to play that shot and one difficulty about chipping sometimes is just trying to gauge that sort of distance. So it’s very similar to that sort of Fringe Putting, but obviously we’ve got a 7/9 which is approximately 40º aloof so not quite as easy maybe as the putter. So I’m going to practice on setting yourself up for the chipping run where we’ll be playing the ball, play the ball quite essential in your stunts, feet quite close and the chipping swing really is the same so the technique as a putter. So set yourself up, put your hands all nice and low and from here concentrate on swinging from the shoulders, keep the body weight still slightly on the left hand side and from the chipping run take the club back and you can see what I’ve done here, I’ve swing the club out of my shoulders backwards and through and by doing that and basically recreating that putting technique. The loft of the club is naturally just throwing the ball just above part of that fringe, remember we’re on that fringe lands and it releases up to the hole. So it’s a very, very good chipping to improve that chipping technique go to the edge of the green, put that club in your hand and practice that technique.

The third one, the fourth one rather is again part of the short game, we’ve done putting; we’ve done chipping runs now we’re going to go high. How many times are you faced with that shot, you’ve come with shots in the green, big debunker and the flag is maybe just top of the yard on the other side, so now it’s all about how well you play that shot, it’s almost like throwing a ball up in the air and you’ve got to land it just on this little space of green to stop it or maybe the flag’s 30 yard on, but it’s all about judging the distance. So a good tip would be to get your umbrella out of your back, put it up, stick it in the ground let’s say to start with 10 yards away, push it into the ground with a spike and then from there we want to now start playing those shots with your sand wedge, with your lob wedge whatever you will play that shot with around that green throwing the ball up and from there just try and judge the length of the swing to actually get the ball there.

Technique wise the set up would be ball position towards the left foot, but not on the left foot just inside, weight positioning on the left hand side 60:40, hands slightly forward and from here keep that weight on the left hand side so just swing it back so far, half way back and the club is doing the job, that ball’s gone nice and high and landing very, very soft. So there you’ve got the technique four really, really, very, very good tips there, techniques for you go away and practice because remember you’ve heard the saying drive for show, putt for dough. Well this is where you score, it’s around the green and on the green. So put those tips into practice and with a bit of practice, because it’s all about feel and repetition in getting confidence, you’ll have that ability to go and improve and improve those scores.