Practice your short game at home with multiple European Tour winner and Ryder Cup legend Paul Casey and other elite European Tour coaches in our exclusive ‘Practice at Home’ coaching programs. During these challenging times, we wanted to bring golfers around the world high-level practice that can be performed in the space of your own home. Experience our hand picked drills and exercises, dedicated to making you a better golfer FREE for one month. As an additional bonus all European Tour newsletter readers, get an extra 15% off your monthly subscription when you sign up before the end of April.
HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR SHORT GAME IN THE COMFORT OF YOUR OWN HOME
For many of you, practicing golf at home will be an entirely new prospect that you may never have even considered before. We wanted to reassure you that this is not only entirely possible but can be an extremely effective way of improving your short game. We have handpicked a selection of drills and exercises which are perfect for being performed at home.
The Basic Chip Shot by Paul Casey
When playing any type of golf shot, it's critically important that you know the basic set of rules or fundamentals to go by before you play the shot. Paul Casey is very clear that he has 3 main rules which he applies to his chip shots to help him make good contact every time.
Rule 1: Your Sternum should be in front of the ball
This is incredibly important if you want to make solid contact with the ball each time. Typically, the bottom of our swing arc is in line with our Sternum (middle of your chest). We do not want to ‘bottom out’ before the ball because that means we will be hitting the ground first.
Rule 2: Weight on your lead leg
One of the most common mistakes amateur golfers make is leaning back on their trail leg in an attempt to get the ball airborne. Unfortunately, all that is going to do is lead to you hitting the ground way before the ball and losing all control of distance. Keep that weight forward and this will help you keep your Sternum in front of the ball at impact.
Rule 3: Hit down on the ball
Your irons and especially your wedges have a lot of loft already, so there is no need to try and lift the ball in the air. Keep the face open and hit down on the golf ball every time and simply let the loft of the club do the work for you.
These are the 3 key tips for helping you play a solid chip shot every time. Once you master these fundamentals you can then begin to start experimenting with altering lofts, using different clubs and really practicing distance/spin control.
Practicing Distance Control at Home with Hugh Marr
Thanks to the excellent advice from Paul Casey, you are now ready to start working on your distance control. The ‘Ladder Drill’ is an extremely simple yet effective way of practicing this and it requires very little space. The aim of this drill is to hit a ball a couple of yards in front of you and then land the next one just past it. You then play to the next furthest ball away. It teaches you how to control distance by giving you variance. Here is a detailed description of how to perform this at home.
How to perform the ‘Ladder Drill’ by Hugh Marr at Home
Equipment needed: Wedge, golf balls
Key learning objective(s):
- Improve your distance control
How to practice at home:
- This drill requires very little space, so your garden should be perfect here. Take a wedge or any club you prefer to chip with and 5-10 balls.
- Now starting at one end of your garden, hit your first shot about 5 yards away from you. Your objective is to land the second shot just past the first one. If you succeed, you then use the second ball as your new target and so on.
- If you fall short or hit it too far past, ignore those and work towards the original target.
- Try to see how many you can score in a row. This is a great drill for improving your distance control at home.
Top 5 tips and hints on how to practice at home and how to improve your short game by Paul Casey and Hugh Marr
- True for all shots but particularly valuable for chipping - master great set up. Great swings are built on great foundations
- Master the simple things - get good with one type of shot with one club. You can then build more skill on top of this
- Practice your fundamentals every day!
- Plan your practice and keep a diary of your progress
- Keep using Birdietime for more great advice!
We’re here to help…
The team at Birdetime alongside some of the world’s best coaches and players are able to provide you with hundreds of first-class instructional videos and a library of tailored coaching programs including our new ‘Practice at Home’ coaching programs.
We are not just another video library, but a way to connect the best teachers to the most eager improvers and we are dedicated to creating the best service for our members.
We want to help all golfers around the world to keep practicing. Sign up before the 30th of April 2020, to get your FREE one month membership to Birdietime.tv which includes both our new Practice at Home coaching programs and all other content that we currently offer. Plus an additional 15% off a monthly subscription available exclusively to European Tour members.
How to claim my offer? Just follow these steps and you are good to go:
- Start Your FREE membership
- Register to Birdietime.tv
- Start using Birdietime.tv
It’s really that simple. Start your journey to better golf today!
Hugh Marr, European Tour coach and Birdietime Chief Golf Officer
