PETER FINCH: My Top 5 Golf Swing Tips!

Right, welcome Pete, Vince, we've got you back where it all began, I guess. A bit of coaching. Yeah, yeah. Some tips for everybody at home. At the beautiful range here at Formby Golf Club. We've got a couple of questions from readers we're going to get stuck into in a bit, but first, a couple of sort of basics I want to start with you. Okay. In your long time as a coach, prior to being a content creator. I mean, medium time. Why are you trying to make me sound so odd? In the grand scheme of the history of the earth. Why do you think I'm wise? I'm young. I'm still energetic, I've still got it. So as a young, hip content creator and formerly very young coach. Appreciate that, thank you. What is the tip you sort of gave out the most? What's the real common thing that you taught people that maybe people forget back at home? Face. Understanding where the face is aiming throughout the swing. So I think a lot of people, when they have a lesson and if they've seen their swing on video, they'll say, oh, you know, I'm coming over the top, I'm slicing it, I'm hitting a hook, I'm coming from the inside, flipping the hands. They'll jump to a technical explanation and big major swing changes before they even look at the club face. So the amount of lessons I've given where people are hitting a slice, they say I'm coming over the top, I'm moving left, I'm hitting a slice, I've tried to come from the inside or the rest of it. When you actually look at their club face throughout the swing, it's open, their grip is too weak and they don't have control over the actual thing, which is hitting the ball. So with those guys and girls, I mean, if they're swinging and that club face is open, so pointing to the right of the target for a right-hander and they would swing on play in a nice neutral path and their impact would send the ball off to the right-hand side with an open face, what the brain will do, because it's a target-orientated sport, is automatically try and send the club a little bit more out that way as a way to try and correct with path. So before even getting on to any aspect of the swing, club face. Club face is key. Very good. I think something we could all take away with us if you're struggling a little bit, think about that club face, maybe think about that grip as well before we start major swing changes. Okay Pete, next up, what's the best piece of swing advice that you think too many golfers ignore? Aim. Ah. Thanks for watching. Appreciate that. So, I mean, there's a perfect example I had with a lesson of my Nigel who, we were seeing each other for a good 12 months, regular lessons, and he was swinging it unbelievable. Like his ball flight, you could aim him down a straight road and he'd be middling it every single time. It was so consistent. But then he'd always come back and he'd say, Pete, I'm shooting eight over, nine over, I'm hitting a slice. I just can't find the fairway. It's always going off to the right-hand side. And this was very confusing for me because obviously when we were coaching, everything was great. It looked great. So we had a playing lesson and it pretty quickly became evident right from the first hole that he was aiming consistently 20 to 30 yards right at target. And then he was putting his normal swing on it that we'd been working really hard on. The ball was finishing 20, 30 yards right and he was like, I'm slicing it, I'm pushing it. What's going on with my swing? Nothing, Nigel. And he'd say it like that, I'll let it go for three holes. So when I did come up with the explanation, I looked like an absolute genius. But basically, if you are playing golf, there's something that you need to remember and you need to take to heart. This is a target-orientated sport and yet aim, a club face, a body, is one of the few things that golfers overlook consistently, same with grip, same with things like posture. If you think about this, if you were watching an archer and an archer was consistently aiming 20 yards right at the target, would that not be a red flag that this is not Robin Hood, right? This is the worst archer that you've ever seen. And yet, if you're watching this, if you're listening to this, when was the last time you actually worked on your aim in a target-orientated sport? I'm going to guess that probably 70-80% of you haven't worked on where they're aiming for F. And it's a crazy thing and it's one of the reasons why golf is such a crazy, frustrating sport. But to give you a very, very quick overview of this, you've got two lines you need to be worried about. Target line, which is the imaginary line going from your ball to where you want it to finish. Now, I'm going to do parallel alignment here, so this is aiming your body and your club along the same line, well, the same path. What I mean by that is if you imagine a train track here, outer rail, inner rail, this is parallel alignment. So your body doesn't technically aim at the target, it's just parallel to your target line. Now, this is an alignment if you want to hit the ball relatively straight. If you're someone who hooks the ball consistently, this alignment might switch over to the right, it might switch over to the left. But it's just understanding your club face and how that interacts with your aim. But, my God, please, please, please, please work on your aim before you start messing around with other things. Sounds like it's frustrated you quite a lot, Pete. It's just so obvious. It is, isn't it? But we don't do it. No. When was the last time you worked on your aim? Be honest with me. I'm in the 70-80%. I don't do it at all. What do you do out on course, though? Is there a little rude, like, what's your pre-shot? If I took all this away, right? Yeah, yeah. And we're on a hole here and you've got whatever iron in hand. What do you do on course to then help and make sure that's consistent? And we don't do a Nigel, as I'm going to refer to it. So, first of all, we need to establish what target line is. So, let's say I'm aiming down here towards... Well, let's keep it really simple. So, I'm going down here towards this first yellow flag. Got you. Now, imagine this was 200 yards in the distance. Yeah. Okay. It's a lot easier to line up to something just in front of the ball than it is a long way away. So, I'm behind the ball. I'd establish what my target line is. So, from my ball to this yellow flag here. Usually, I just lift my shaft up. I draw it down straight line and then I pick something just in front of my ball. So, this little... A little worm. Worm cast. Very good, yeah. Worm. Worm cast, everybody. Yeah, David Attenborough, I'm coming for your job. So, I'd go with this worm cast here. I'd start with my feet together. I'd aim my club face at the worm cast, which I know sits on my ultimate target line. Now, because my feet are together, my toes, my knees, my hips, my shoulders are all square and they're all parallel to my club face. All I need to do then is separate my feet the appropriate amount and I know that I'm in a line parallel to my target line with my body. Easy as that. Simple as that. But again, it's just routine. You're doing it again and again and again. And again, that's something I don't do on course enough for every shot and I definitely don't work on my aim. So, I think you're pretty frustrated by this and I get it. But just think about it. I'm jealous. Just think about this. I'm getting told off at school here. Think about it. In any other target-driven sport, you would be considered crazy if you didn't work on where you're aiming it. But in golf, it's like, ah, no, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It does. It really matters. If you want to get better, you've got to know where you're aiming. Okay, next up, Pete. We all have swing thoughts. We have lots of thoughts. Sometimes it can get a bit busy. But when you're working on something and have to go out on the course and play, how many swing thoughts would you suggest people have actually on the golf course and then nose chat about what you're thinking about in the minute to help people identify that? So, in an absolute ideal world, you shouldn't have any. Yes, I'm very sure that would be nice. You shouldn't have any. The simplest way of doing this and the simplest way of demonstrating this, and I'll need a willing volunteer. Thank you so much. I believe you're one of those left-handed people. I am, yeah. I do it all the wrong way around. In every culture, there are some. So, we have basically very simple here. So, target down towards that first yellow flag. This guy here, yeah. Just give it a chuck. Just throw it? Yeah, try and hit it if we can. Just throw it right-handed. Oh, you throw it right-handed? Of course. Of course he does. Why wouldn't he? So, throw it right-handed. Down we go. Okay. Cool. Same again. Just throw it down towards the target. This time, try and keep your elbow at a 90-degree angle towards the floor. And throw it? And throw it. That's going to look great on camera. Look at that go in. That's wonderful. Great accuracy. I'm going to start throwing it. How wonderfully awkward did that feel? Awful. All I could think about was my elbow and how silly I looked. So, the point that I'm trying to get across here is you are playing a sport which involves pretty much every single part of your body. It is moving in a synchronized or sometimes a non-synchronized manner, trying to propel a golf ball down towards your target. The whole motion, whole operation, takes usually a second or less. The chances are of making an effective swing on the course while you're thinking of these different aspects of your technique are almost zero. You don't have time. You have different lies. You have different winds. You have different conditions. The chances of actually making a swing change whilst you're playing are so small that it's almost not worth it. Now, you may be thinking, well, Pete, you're a golf coach. You give lessons on how to change technique. What on earth are you talking about? Well, ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to something called the driving range. This is a part of a golf course or hopefully in your local town and area where you can come and practice and work on your technique in the safety, surroundings, and comforting manner which doesn't involve keeping a track of a score. The whole point of practice is that you work on your swing here. You ingrain changes like that first throw you did that was natural, that you weren't thinking of it because you've done it all your life. Then you take it out of the golf course and you trust the fact that you've practiced enough to make that change. Because as soon as a target's introduced, that's where your thought needs to be, not on the process. If you're out on the golf course, the chances are you will have a swing thought. Golf is such a hard sport and when you see and when you interview the very best players, when you ask them about a monumental round that they've had, often they'll talk about not really remembering much of it or being in the zone because they've got their technique and they're trusting it to the extent that they're just going out and playing golf in its purest form, you know, they're not thinking about anything. However, to get to that point, often having a swing thought which is as simple as possible and often which is orientated around target is the best thing to do. So extending arms down towards the target, that's a bit of a weird funky drill. There's things which you can do about tempo, about trying to keep yourself on an even keel mentally. There are things and thoughts that you can have. What you don't want to be doing is getting on the golf course and thinking, oh I need to have a little bit more pronation in my elbow, I need to tuck my right shoulder in external rotation. These kind of things won't translate into better shots. It might feel like it's making a difference, it's like a comfort blanket. If you go out on the golf course, which is a big scary place, but you think, I haven't got all this swing thought. All this swing thought I can cling to. More often than not, if you were to watch your video on the golf course and your swing, the changes aren't there, which is why you need to practice it here. So if there is a swing thought that you have on the course, something like just a tempo drill. That's why, like you said, something to grasp onto to keep yourself, I don't know, not bound to the swing during a game. Like having something which allows you a little bit of a feeling of smoothness, of being in control. That's fine, but try and keep it away from those big technical thoughts and really work on them on the range before you go on the course. That's the only way you're going to improve. That's the only realistic way you're going to be able to change your swing. I think good tips there. Let's clear that mind and let's just throw it like I did first time, I guess. Yes. It's the hardest thing to do that. Yeah. So if you do have swing thoughts on the course, you can do slip into it. You're very much not alone. Like 99% of golfers are there with you. Try and drift it a little bit though. Good stuff. Yeah. Right, Pete. Last two bits. We've got some questions from readers. Actually, the first one's from Dan in Solihull, which is from me. I want to work on compressing my irons better. I can hit it okay, but I'm not getting that nice fizz and that thump into the ground that we spoke about. The sort of altar contact I'm really after. Yeah, yeah. Have you got a drill for Dan in Solihull who can help him work on that? Well done. Thanks for calling in. Yes, I do. I kind of caveat this very slightly because if you want to compress your irons, so we're talking here about the feeling of compression, of squeezing that ball first and then hitting the turf. Yeah. Not compression. The golf course is a very different thing. So if you are a golf nerd out there, don't get on the keyboard and get excited. We're talking about the feeling of compression. Thanks very much. There was somebody hopping. Oh, there was someone there. There was someone there. I remember doing a video on this a while ago. I talk about compressing the irons and it's like, ah, it's not compression now, is it? Which in my head is the voice that all kind of internet know-it-alls have. That's the comment voice. Yeah. Which, yeah, I think everyone understands. So, compressing the irons. Two things you need, two things I do need to say about this. Now, it's perfectly possible to hit the ball and then the turf from a multitude of different positions coming into the ball. However, having said that, I do get a lot, have a lot of lessons really of people trying to hit the ball first in the turf, but consistently hitting fats and thins. Now something which is a common occurrence with those golfers is that the club for a right-handed golfer or your left-handed, so we can flip this around for a mirror edit if you want, will move into the ball from this position. So coming over the top and then moving down. Now this is a steep position. Okay. Now you would think, okay, if it's a steep position, I can move down and it is perfectly possible to do that. However, if you come down and steep and you're trying to send the ball straight, but the club is moving in this direction, with a target-orientated ball, you're naturally going to react to that because if you're stuck in that position, the ball's going to go over here, super low. So what tends to happen is when golfers move in this position, they will back up. So the body will start to move towards the back foot, and then they will try and open the club face to try and get ball back to target, which is why you hit thins and fats now and hit it clean at times. So a lot of golfers will be really trying to hit down, but they're not allowing themselves to do that because it'd just be a scuttler across to the left-hand side. So you need to make sure that if you do want to compress the ball properly, is you need to be moving a little bit straighter, a little bit more on a neutral kind of pattern playing into the ball. First thing to say, so if you are trying, but you are struggling, it might just be a path playing issue rather than an actual impact issue. So, having said that. Having said that as a caveat. Having said that. So a drill that you can use now, this. T-peg. Congratulations. We've got a golfer with us, ladies and gentlemen. This is a T-peg. I think this is a T-peg. Is that a weasley? Looks like it. Is that a weasley? I've never actually played that. It's just a swan. Or a goose. We're not, you know. Canadian goose. We're not. Geese are fine animals as well. I'm not going to presume what that bird is. Exactly. Just because you like swans more than geese. If you are a goose watching, it doesn't mean any offence. Sorry. So what we're going to do with this T, is we're going to place it in the ground just after the ball. Now, if you want to work on path as well, let's say our target line here is again towards this first yellow flag, if I put the T-peg in the ground slightly towards the outside of the golf ball, this is going to help path as well. Ah, okay. I see. So it's just doing two things at once. Exactly. Because the idea of this drill is to get set up, hit the ball first, and then hit the T. However, the thought process is to take the ball out of this completely. Your idea here is to hit the T and not the ball. Yes. That make sense? I think so. So if you manage to forget about the ball, which is part of the problem with golfers when I think about hitting the ball. If that's out of the way in your mind's eye and you're focused on the T-peg, if you manage to hit that T-peg out of the ground, your club will have to be moving down through the point of impact. So you'll be hitting the ball first, collecting it during the downswing, and the club will continue to move downwards if it wants to make contact with that T-peg. That makes sense? It all makes sense. Could I see it? Could I see it in my own eyes? You certainly can. I'll go a little bit straighter down the range. Go for a straight one, yes. Just because of the position of the cameras, we don't want to mess those up. I don't want to confuse everybody. So there's a long time to set up. Now we're not putting it that far in front of the ball. I've actually moved it a little bit further in front than really necessary here. Like it could only be an inch or so. And like I said, you can do this without a ball to begin with. Yeah. But we're swinging here and we're just focused on trying to get that T-peg out of the ground. See here? There it is. Look at that. Beautiful little snappage. That means the swan's dead. The goose is dead. That's what we're going for. Now my target here was to get that T-peg. Like I said, it was a little bit far forward. But managed to make contact, snap the T-peg. So if anything else, I know there that my cover's been moving down to impact. So I've managed to make contact with the ground and hit the T-peg. I wasn't really aiming anything particular there, but the sound and the strike, I also knew that it was that kind of contact. Very simple drill, but it also allows you to kind of play a trick on your mind as well. Because you're taking away the ball, which is a big issue. I know this sounds really silly, but there's so many golfers watching this and understanding that they can have great practice swings. You know, they can hit the ground with their practice swings. As soon as the ball is introduced... It all gets a bit weird, doesn't it? Things start to go wrong. What if someone's practicing on a map? We've got a beautiful grass range here at Formby, but is it like, you know, is that when we put a towel in front of it? Or just some kind of object? It's an object that you can hit away. So it could be a broken T. For example. Just something that you're not going to miss. I don't use 20lb notes. It depends who you are. Start distributing them out into the range. I mean, if Jeff Bezos is watching this... Probably hit 20lb notes, to be fair. But something that can be moved after the ball. Exactly, because that's what you want to focus on hitting. Got you. The ball is just very much getting in the way. Well, Dan in Solihull, I hope that was really useful and you can take that away with you and get better hitting those irons. Right, lastly then, Pete. Howard and Peter have got in touch. And he is topping his fairway wood, both off the tee and off the deck. Needs some help with it. It's a valuable club in the bag. Something to get right. What are some tips? And some general striking tips, I guess, for these quite tricky clubs. So, first thing to say, it is a difficult club to hit. There's not a lot of loft on there and that automatically makes people try and lift it up in the air. Now, if you're topping your fairway wood, most likely, as you're coming through impact, the body is backing up and away. The club head overtakes the hands in this kind of motion and that's where the club is ascending through impact on its angle of attack. Well, not angle of attack, angle of attention. And that is why you're catching the top of the ball and not hitting it flush. It's something that a lot of people struggle with, as said. So, don't worry, you're going to be OK and we're all here for you. It's a safe space. Now, we used, in a drill previously, we did use a teapag. OK. I've got another teapag. I can see what's coming out of your pocket. Now, this teapag's from the nest. Now, the first teapag I used from the Wisley, I've never been there and I don't know where the nest is either. Where are these coming from? I don't know. It's definitely my bag. I've not picked up a random one in the car park. I don't know. Someone's obviously gifted me some tea. Now, I'm going to put the ball to the side for just one second. I'm going to pop the tea in the ground. I'm just going to leave just a little bit of it showing. Just a little bit of it showing. Now, very, very simply, we want the club to be moving through impact with the fairway woods, hitting the ball, and then just bruising the ground. Just giving it a little caress. That's a nice turn of phrase. As it goes through. Just bruising the ground. Just bruising it. We just want it skimming along it. We don't want a big, deep divot, even though you can still hit a successful shot like that. We just want that briefest moment of contact. Bruising. Brief contact. Bruising the ground. I'm learning. The way to do that is to control low point. As the club moves through impact, it comes down, and then eventually it'll start rising up. This is middle bit, right at the bottom, which is what you need the control of. So, with this tea peg, all I want you to do is setting up to it as you would a fairway wood. So, the ball is going to be just inside that left heel. Just going to take half a swing back, and as we move through, we just want to get the feeling that we can just click that tea peg. Okay? So, it's only a little bit out of the ground. We just want that feeling that we can just click it as we go through. Okay? That is controlling low point. Now, you might say, well Pete, that's really simple. It is. And that's the key. Because this is a hard club to hit, we don't need those complicated tools. Okay? If you can click that tea peg, and you can control low point, you're halfway there. Okay? Now, the second thing, if you want to have something technical to think about, is all about where your sternum position is. Okay? Now, sternum, right here, middle of the chest. Pretty much keeps the rib cage together. Very important. If you don't have one, consult your doctor. But I'm presuming most of you will. Are we doing well to set up? I'm watching this video. Listen, if you're topping your farewell with you, you don't have a sternum. Wow. You've got, but your priorities are in the wrong place. All right? Get this checked out first. So, when we talk about low point, what this is referring to, is the imaginary circle that the club takes around the body. It's not a circle. It moves into different shapes. So if you think about the swing going around the body as a circle. Okay? Whatever you want to think about it. Clock face, the aurora of the sun, I don't know, whatever. A circle. Now, the circle is basically the centre, if you think about it, being in the sternum. The bottom of the circle is going to be here, which is right in line with that sternum on the ground. Okay? Now, if you move through and you back up, the circle shifts to the right and the bottom of the circle, the bottom of the swing guard, will be before the ball. Which is why you hit tops and all the rest of it. So we can use that T peg drill but really simply, as you move through the ball, try and keep the sternum position over the top of the golf ball. Okay? In reality, with a fairway, with a driver, as the club's getting longer and the ball moves further forward, the sternum will often be slightly behind the ball. Don't need to worry about that too much. As a swing thought, try and feel like the sternum stays on top. If your sternum stays on top of the golf ball, you will not be able to move in this direction. Now you can combine those two feelings T peg drill, sternum over the top of it, but I think set up as far as getting the ball position right as well, the sternum on top, and just get the feeling of clipping that T peg as you go through. It's the same, without the T, if the ball's on the ground, same feeling, same drill. Good work! That was it, I think that was really clear. So Howard in Peterborough, thank you for that, that's really simple. Some really great drills there Pete, and some really great pieces of advice. As the young, vibrant coach that you are, thank you for coming on the channel. I don't really know, I'm out of breath. Thanks for sharing some tips with us Pete. Alright. Let's catch your breath and let's go and get warm. Thanks for watching. Cheers.