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Tyler Ferrell is the only person in the world named to Golf Digest's list of Best Young Teachers in America AND its list of Best Golf Fitness Professionals in America. Meet your new instructor.

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Find The Ground, Then The Ball

Often in lessons, I see golfers take practice swings that "feel good" but couldn't possibly work if the ball was actually there. There are a few reasons why this would be true, but one of the most common that I see is to take practice swings where the club doesn't make contact with the ground OR where it makes contact with the ground way behind the ball. This is asking your brain to make on the fly adjustments, which are hard to use as the platform for building your swing.

After you have done a drill to get a feeling, or image, take a practice swing where the club makes contact with the ground in the way that you want. THEN put step up to the ball and try to just press repeat.

Tags: Mental Game, Intermediate, Beginner

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This drill video is fine the ground, then find the ball.

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So this could really be a drill or a concept, but it's a way to help you practice the movements

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that you're working on.

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Essentially what we're trying to do is we're going to have contact with two different

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things, at least when we're hitting an iron.

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We're going to have contact with the ground and we're going to have contact with the golf ball.

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Well it's more important to figure out a consistent contact with the ground and then put

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the golf ball in the right place, which will overall help you build your swing.

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So for example, have people when I'm giving a lesson in person and let's say we're working

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on early extensions.

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So let's say I'm working on not thrusting this way, so I'm going to have them work on this

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movement.

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I'll very often see them okay.

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So I'm going to push the ground away from me, got it and then they'll just step up to the

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ball and they'll try to recreate it.

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And I'll say that's probably too big of a jump for what your brain can handle.

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So what I want you to do is I want you to take a few swings and just feel how the club

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is going to contact the ground like so.

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And then what you can do is if you can get solid contact with the ground a couple times,

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then you can step up to the ball, put it in the right place and take the swing.

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I think it can be too big of a jump to go straight from technique to trying to hit a golf

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ball.

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The other time that this really factors in is in designing your pre shot routine.

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If you have an uneven lie, if you're just kind of lost in your swing, one of the things

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that you should go to first is can I get the club to hit the ground where I want to.

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If I'm not quite sure where the club is hitting the ground, I can go to the advanced

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where the regular, the famous line drill to give myself some feedback for where the club

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is entering the ground.

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But use where the club is entering the ground as your first point of feedback and then

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position the golf ball just behind where the club is entering the ground and you'll hit

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some solid shots.

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Even if you don't have the movements down perfect and that's a great way to transition

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working on your mechanics to working on playing random practice games and ultimately on

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the course.

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