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The post Here’s why Shane Lowry says the range can be a ‘dangerous place’ appeared first on Golf.

But, as he explained to GOLF’s Dylan Dethier on the latest episode of Warming Up, that’s the whole reason why he says the driving range can be a “dangerous place.“

Dethier and Lowry were talking through how Lowry would hit a low fade to one of the polls down range when Lowry explained that even if he hits what would be a good shot on the course, it may not look like a good shot on the range.

“I’m just trying to get it finish in on the yellow poll. And that’s why the range can be dangerous place at times as well,” Lowry said. “Because you stand here like and let’s say I stand there with a 3-iron and I, I hit it on it misses my target by like 10 yards, on the range that doesn’t look like a good shot. But on the golf course it’s a good shot when you’re playing a tournament.”

Lowry said it’s easy to get too precise on the range when you have a much larger margin for error in actuality.

News

At the same time, Lowry explained how it’s it during his warm-up and what is game is actually like on the course can actually have a bit of an inverse relationship. He’s hit enough balls to know that if he hits a couple loose ones on the range, it won’t necessarily mean he’s going to hit it bad.

But it goes the other way too.

“I’ve had some of the best warm-ups in my whole career and went out and shot 75,” he said. “And I’ve been the other way. I’ve hit the ball really badly. And it’s almost like the other way around is when things are not feeling that great, it kind of focuses in more to go out and just try and shoot the best score you can.

“Whereas when you’re feeling great and hitting the ball well, I almost feel like you got like a little complacent or something.”

You can watch the full Warming Up episode with Shane Lowry below.

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The post Shane Lowry’s advice for pro-am partners is good for every golfer appeared first on Golf.

The post Shane Lowry’s advice for pro-am partners is good for every golfer appeared first on Golf.

I documented 10 things I learned from my first-ever pro-am last summer, which was an unreal experience that tested my mental game as much as my physical game. And while I’m appreciative of the guys I played with (which featured four guys per team), with all due respect to my playing partners, I would’ve much rather had Shane Lowry as a teammate.

Instruction

Lowry is one of the more successful pro players in the world, and tends to find himself hovering around the top of the leaderboard during most tournaments — as evidenced by his five T10 finishes this season. And as someone who frequents pro-ams himself, Lowry is more than happy to share some advice for amateurs playing in them.

So what pro-am tips does Lowry have? He recently revealed some to our Dylan Dethier on GOLF’s Warming Up (and talked about a bunch of other topics, too), which you can see in the video below. (Ed. Note: The tip begins at the 19:14 mark in the video below, or on YouTube here).

2 pro-am tips from Shane Lowry

Dethier starts the conversation with Lowry by asking about his tendency to play in pro-ams, and wonders if he’s happy to lend some advice or if he’s more of the quiet type. Lowry gave a pretty funny answer.

“I wouldn’t be a good coach,” Lowry quips in response to Dethier’s question. “I’m not very technically-minded with the game, but I can give quick tips that will fix someone.”

Lowry then shares one of his favorite things to do on the golf course: Giving advice and seeing the recipient instantly play better.

“My favorite thing to do is to give someone a quick tip, and then see them start playing well for the rest of their pro-am,” he adds. “Then they think you’re an absolute hero.”

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When asked about the most common piece of advice he tells amateur players like you or me, Lowry first asks the person how much golf they play before diving into sharing tips.

“I try to fix their setup,” he replies. “When they tell me it’s their second round this year, I’m like, ‘well I’d be sh*t too if I played only twice a year.'”

Lowry then serves up a quirky reminder for all amateurs to remember — especially when it comes to managing expectations on the golf course.

“I play golf with the best players in the world everyday, so you’re not going to impress me today, so don’t try to,” he quips. “I think that’s a good piece of advice because, they’re generally very nervous. If you put me on a football or soccer field and got me to do that in front of loads of people, I’d probably have a little bit of anxiety.”

So while performance anxiety is certainly a mental barrier that many golfers often battle, Lowry reminds players of all levels to stay within themselves and just play their games.

You can watch the full Warming Up episode with Shane Lowry below, and get other great golf tips by following GOLF’s YouTube channel.

The post Shane Lowry’s advice for pro-am partners is good for every golfer appeared first on Golf.

The post 10 secrets Shane Lowry taught me in an hour on the driving range appeared first on Golf.

The post 10 secrets Shane Lowry taught me in an hour on the driving range appeared first on Golf.

But after an hour at this one, it feels like he was just getting going.

It’s a sweltering summer’s day when Lowry kindly agrees to meet me at Chris Cote’s Performance Center, a lovely green slice of rural Connecticut just down the road from TPC River Highlands, where he’s gearing up for the Travelers Championship.

Before Lowry, our most recent episode of “Warming Up” had featured Bryson DeChambeau, whose approach is proudly outside-the-box, proudly technical and proudly range-centric to the point where outside of tournament weeks, he almost never plays golf. His approach has also been extremely successful — he just won the U.S. Open, after all. Lowry recognizes all of that — but still.

“Obviously that works for Bryson — he’s a pretty good player,” he says with a chuckle. “But if I spend all my time on the range, I think I’d just be thinking about it too much. And when I start thinking about it, that’s when it goes wrong.”

Lowry practices plenty; he loves golf but also treats it as his job, which is why you can find him on the course or at the practice facility most working hours of most days. But the beauty of golf and my favorite part of this series is just how differently these pros approach the same goal of getting the ball in the hole as effectively as possible.

The session with DeChambeau was more X’s and O’s. During the session with Lowry, it often felt like the actual ball-hitting was secondary. Here are 10 things he taught me.

1. He can’t roll from the car to the first tee like he used to

Lowry practically rolls his eyes as he says it.

“I do, like, a little — it’s not a workout. Just something with my physio, like 20 minutes that I do.”

He’d started feeling the effects of a life on the road, a rotational sport and the realities of life in his mid-30s, so the past couple years he’s built in a bit more time. So Lowry gets to the course about an hour and a half before the round. He meets his caddie on the range 45 minutes pre-tee time. And then it’s go time.

2. He skips his odd irons, too

Another former “Warming Up” guest, Brooks Koepka, admitted that he never practices with his odd clubs. Turns out Lowry’s the same way. He starts with his 50-degree wedge and then goes 8-iron, 6-iron, 4-iron.

“Always evens. Never odds.”

I find myself drawn to the 8-iron during warmups, too, and it feels logical to drop to the 6 from there — or the 4, if time is tight. But I’d never considered that this might be a universal preference. Or just a thing with Srixon players?

3. Setup is everything

Lowry likes shaping shots in both directions, but his go-to shape is a small, left-to-right fade. How does he make that happen?

“I actually play with my ball position quite a bit forward, and that encourages a fade,” he said, explaining that if he keeps the ball in front of him, his club will exit left, promoting a left-to-right shape for a right-hander

“Probably the main thing I work on with my coach is setup stuff. As long as my alignment, posture, ball position, all that stuff is pretty similar to what it is, I’m going to play well. And when I’m not playing well, that just gets off,” he says. “I had a really bad weekend at Memorial and you feel a million miles away. I spent a couple hours on the range with my coach and it was just setup stuff. I was aiming way too far left. I was getting the ball too far back [in my stance] with my irons. I was getting a two-way miss and it just kinda spooked me, because my iron play has been so good all year. But it’s generally something pretty straightforward when it comes to us.”

As for amateurs? Setup is still the place to start, he says.

“I play loads of pro-ams and you see guys coming out and their setup is so wrong, but they’re working on something with the club back here,” he says, mimicking a complex swing adjustment. “And I’m like, if we get your setup correct, you’ve got a better chance of hitting a good shot.”

4. Speaking of pro-am partners: Shane has two messages

“I wouldn’t be a good coach,” he says. “Not very technically minded with the game.”

Still, he can dial up a quick, well-placed tip now and again.

“My favorite thing in the world to do is give someone a quick tip and then they start playing well for the rest of the pro-am and then they think you’re an absolute hero,” he says.

Those two messages both have to do with expectation management.

“To be honest, I ask them how much golf do they play. And they’ll be like, oh, this is my second game this year. And I’m like, well, I’d be s— too if I played only twice a year,” he says, laughing.

“I say to them, I’m like, I play golf with the best players in the world every day. You’re not going to impress me, so don’t try to,” he adds. “I think that’s a good piece of advice because they’re generally very nervous … it’s an intimidating place. Like, if you put me on a soccer field or something and got me to try and do that in front of a lot of people, I’d probably have a little bit of anxiety.”

5. He likes a driving-range drive-by chat

Pros have all sorts of different game day personalities as they warm up before tournament rounds; Lowry says he’s a talker.

“I talk to people and walk down the range and say hello to people, and if there’s one of my friends, I’ll stop and watch them hit a couple, see how they’re doing.”

Still, he’d prefer not to end up next to certain types of pros.

“There’s some players, I won’t name any names, who can get quite talkative on the range … some people will talk to you through the whole warmup,” he says. “To each their own, but if their coach is with them and they’re working on something and you’re listening to what they’re working on, it’s quite off-putting.” Fair enough.

6. True Tour friendships are valuable in many ways

Lowry says it’s not a long list of pros he’s close with, but he values those friendships. There are European Ryder Cup pals, guys like Rory McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood and Tyrrell Hatton; McIlroy in particular has become a close friend in recent years.

“I’d say in the last five years we’ve only become quite close. Like, our wives have become really close. They’re close as sisters, and our kids are similar ages, they hang out a little bit,” he says. The two teamed up for this year’s Zurich Classic, which they went on to win in a playoff. That’s no coincidence.

“It’s great because like, I play a lot of golf with him and playing against one of the best players in the world, it drags you towards that level.”

There are also Jupiter neighbors, guys like Erik van Rooyen.

“We live like 400 yards from each other,” he said.

And there are men from the same island, guys like Padraig Harrington, Graeme McDowell or Darren Clarke. On Harrington: “We’re not that close in age. But we get on very well — and two very different people, as well. But he’s great for me. I miss him out on Tour, actually. I like having him around, y’know, weeks of majors, the PGA, the Open.”

7. The range can be a “dangerous place”

Lowry takes aim at a yellow flag. He doesn’t spend much time visualizing virtual holes or creating fairways out here; he hits at targets.

“I’m just trying to get it to finish in on the yellow [flag],” he says. “And that’s why the range can be dangerous place at times as well. Because let’s say I stand here with a 3-iron and I miss my target by like 10 yards on the range. That doesn’t look like a good shot. But on the golf course it’s a good shot, when you’re playing a tournament, y’know what I mean? You can almost try to get too precise when you’re on the range.”

Lowry has also experienced the same sensation as every other golfer — that a good range session doesn’t always translate to the course. I liked the way he articulated this bit:

“I’ve had some of the best warmups in my whole career and gone out and shot 75. And I’ve been the other way; I’ve hit the ball really badly, and it’s almost like the other way around. When things are not feeling that great, it kind of focuses you in more to go out and just try and shoot the best score you can. Whereas when you’re feeling great and hitting the ball well, I almost feel like you got like a little complacent or something.”

8. His favorite part of pro golf? It’s the anticipation

Most pros have favorite tournament weeks. Lowry? He has favorite practice weeks.

“The week before the Masters is like, my favorite week of the year,” he says. “Because I’m home in Florida, I always go up on the Monday-Tuesday before, spend two days there. I come back to my house in Florida. I just practice every day, in bed early every night, taking it easy, I love it. And then the week before the Open as well, I’m in Ireland and I go and I play golf around Ireland with my friends.”

Presumably that’s where Lowry is now, enjoying his week, soaking in the excitement of what could still come as he celebrates the fifth anniversary of his Open Championship win at Royal Portrush.

“When you’re on the flight on the way to a tournament, that’s it. Like I always say that’s why we do — that’s why we play golf.”

9. If he wants to hit a shot, he’ll picture it in his head

How do you hit a specific shot shape and trajectory? As Lowry alternates low and high balls with his 3-iron, he explains.

“We do it so much, we do it every day, it just becomes instinctive. I’ll try and explain this to my friends as well, guys who are good golfers, and I’ve got this one friend, I won’t name him, but he doesn’t hit the ball very high and all I try to get him to do is, like, look in the window, look higher and you’ll start to think higher and naturally he’ll just do everything to try and hit it higher.

“But he won’t listen to me.”

Lowry went on to explain the difference between a poor tournament mindset, where he’s trying to swing the club, versus a positive mindset in which he’s trying to hit the shots and play golf. Trust yourself and your instincts, in other words. Especially if you have the instincts of Shane Lowry.

10. He loves a Diet Coke

I point out that some golf fans have a caricaturish impression of him, believing that he’d be finishing each round and heading for a few pints of Guinness. How accurate is that?

“I wouldn’t say it’s very accurate at all, but yeah, I’ll let people think what they think,” he says. “I do love having a good time with my friends when I get the chance, but you don’t get that much of a chance anymore. I’m married with two kids now and they take up more of my time.

“But one of my favorite things to do is to sit there and have a Diet Coke. People think I love drinking so much, and don’t get me wrong, I like having a drink. But sitting back, having a Diet Coke, I’m a pretty happy man. Diet Coke in the evenings and a coffee in the mornings and I’m pretty happy.”

There’s a good place to leave it; even if you can’t swing it like Shane, you can borrow some of his satisfaction for the simple joys of life. Coffee in the morning, Diet Coke in the evening, occasional drink with a friend? They do say golf is a game of balance.

I hope you watch the entire video below or on YouTube here.

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For Bryson DeChambeau, the journey to improvement has never been conventional. He’s experimented with everything from side-saddle putting to packing on as many pounds as possible, all in the name of shooting lower scores. As you can likely guess, his philosophy on improvement is far from conventional as well.

In the latest episode of Warming Up, he shared with GOLF.com’s Dylan Dethier that he almost never plays golf on his own time.

“I’ll go out and play three holes every once in a while to make sure that nothing has gone crazy awry, but I focus on being able to repeat motion,” DeChambeau said. “If I can do it again and again and again and have the same shot shape, that’s literally all that matters to me.”

The “to me” qualifier is important in this answer. While this all-practice, no-play philosophy works for DeChambeau, that’s largely because of the amount of on-course experience he already has accrued. For the average joe looking to improve, it’s important to get reps on the course in a variety of situations.

Putting

“You need to play enough rounds of golf where you can go to the reds, go to the blues — any tee [box], and shoot damn well under par,” DeChambeau says. “If you can do that, you know how to strategize on the golf course with any situation that occurs.”

In the past, DeChambeau said that he taught himself how to go low by playing from the forward tees as a teenager. This helped him get comfortable with shooting low scores and taught him how to think his way around the course.

“I learned how to score from a young age. I shot 58 once, I shot 59. And so I got to a place where I was like, ‘Man, I know how to score. I know how to get a golf ball to a place where I’m comfortable. I know how to strategize on this type of hole,” he said. “Once I got comfortable with strategy on the golf course and was able to learn how to score with wedging and was pretty consistent with everything around the greens, it all became how repeatable can I be.”

Check out the entire episode of Warming Up below.

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The post Bryson DeChambeau says 1 thing stresses him out on the practice range appeared first on Golf.

So what’s the No. 1 thing that causes DeChambeau anxiety on the practice range? He recently revealed his answer to our Dylan Dethier on GOLF’s Warming Up (and talked about a bunch of other topics, too), which you can see in the video below. (Ed. Note: The tip begins at the 8:58 mark in the video below, or on YouTube here).

Bryson DeChambeau reveals what stresses him out on the practice range

Dethier asks DeChambeau what his common miss is, with the U.S. Open champ saying it’s a chunk. But that’s not really what causes him the most stress when hitting on the range.

“What gets me stressed is improper curvature,” DeChambeau says. “If I’m thinning or chunking it, I’m OK with it. But if it starts curving too much one way, that’s when I really get stressed.”

Approach Shots

So what does DeChambeau do to overcome those types of mishits? He simply practices for longer and hits more balls until the issue alleviates itself.

“That’s when you’ll see me hit golf balls [on the practice range] for quite awhile,” he quips. “So it’s just getting back to basics, yeah.”

While most amateur golfers get frustrated with mishits like topped or chunked shots, players of DeChambeau’s caliber expect their ball-flight to be nearly perfect — and when it’s not, that’s the type of thing that really gets under their skin.

You can watch the full Warming Up episode with Bryson DeChambeau below, and get other great golf tips by following GOLF’s YouTube channel.

Rukket Sports Pathfinder Impact Mat

$69.99

Are you looking for a golf training mat to help your golf game? The Rukket Pathfinder Impact Mat was designed with input from professional golfers and golf teachers to help players of all abilities improve their game. The strike mat tracks club face alignment and helps ensure clean contact with the ball while the foam pylons can be used to keep your swing on plane. Use all four pylons to practice hitting straighter shots or remove pylons to practice hitting draw or fade shots. It’s the most versatile golf swing practice mat available and works with every club in your bag! Features 2-in-1 golf swing training mat combining the features of an impact mat / strike mat and a swing path trainer to help golfers quickly identify and correct common swing problems like hooks and slices. It’s a golf swing impact / strike mat to help identify and correct club face alignment. Use the “velvet” turf to ensure you’re making clean contact with the ball. It’s also a golf swing training aid to help with swing plane alignment. Use it to fix a slice or a hook, and to practice hitting draw and fade shots. What’s in the Box (1) Rukket Pathfinder Impact Mat (4) Foam Pylons (1) Instruction Booklet Product Specs 25in x 13in x 0.8in RUKKET FAIR PLAY GUARANTEE & LIFETIME WARRANTY: At Rukket Sports we know you came to win. We also understand that in order to win you need to train hard, so that’s why we’re proud to offer the Rukket Fair Play Guarantee & Lifetime Warranty for no-risk purchasing plus outstanding USA-based customer service!

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Whether it’s using 3D printed golf clubs or soaking his golf balls in Epsom salt to make sure they properly spin (among plenty of other ideas), the recent U.S. Open champ has brought the fun back to a sport that desperately needs it.

Driving

What I most admire about DeChambeau is that he’s unapologetic when it comes to improving his game, and he’ll go to great lengths to test something out — no matter how out of the box it may appear to others.

The two-time major champ recently talked to our Dylan Dethier about a number of topics on GOLF’s Warming Up. One of those things was the bizarre (yet practical) reason why he actually mishits shots during practice — and how it makes him a better ball-striker. (Ed. Note: The tip begins at the 14:46 mark in the video below, or on YouTube here).

Bryson DeChambeau explains the reason he purposely mishits shots

While amateur golfers like you and I accidentally mishit shots off the heel or the toe, DeChambeau says he’s prone to do it on purpose during his practice sessions — all with the intent of helping understand the parameters of the miss.

When asked by Dethier how often he’ll screw around in practice with different types of shots or mishits, DeChambeau was quite candid.

“I’ll do it every single day. It’s a couple shots, and then I go back to what I’m doing good,” he says. “I want to know the parameters. If I know what the toe is, a little bit of heel, [and the] center, then my brain gets calibrated to what it needs to do.”

DeChambeau then goes onto demonstrate a purposeful mishit — with the image below showing how far on the toe he sets up to the ball.

“For example, if I super-toe this, I know that, even if I miss the golf ball, that ball’s still going straight,” he adds. “All I care about is where that ball’s going, I don’t necessarily care about the strike.”

DeChambeau then shows how a heel ball looks before hitting a normal, center-face shot — which helps him understand his dispersion depending on what type of ball contact he makes with the club. Put simply: he’s calibrating the center of the clubface by testing the parts around it.

“It just helps me know [for me],” he says. “But everybody’s got to experience it on their own.”

You can watch the full Warming Up episode with Bryson DeChambeau below, and get other great golf tips by following GOLF’s YouTube channel.

Rukket Sports Pathfinder Impact Mat

$69.99

Are you looking for a golf training mat to help your golf game? The Rukket Pathfinder Impact Mat was designed with input from professional golfers and golf teachers to help players of all abilities improve their game. The strike mat tracks club face alignment and helps ensure clean contact with the ball while the foam pylons can be used to keep your swing on plane. Use all four pylons to practice hitting straighter shots or remove pylons to practice hitting draw or fade shots. It’s the most versatile golf swing practice mat available and works with every club in your bag! Features 2-in-1 golf swing training mat combining the features of an impact mat / strike mat and a swing path trainer to help golfers quickly identify and correct common swing problems like hooks and slices. It’s a golf swing impact / strike mat to help identify and correct club face alignment. Use the “velvet” turf to ensure you’re making clean contact with the ball. It’s also a golf swing training aid to help with swing plane alignment. Use it to fix a slice or a hook, and to practice hitting draw and fade shots. What’s in the Box (1) Rukket Pathfinder Impact Mat (4) Foam Pylons (1) Instruction Booklet Product Specs 25in x 13in x 0.8in RUKKET FAIR PLAY GUARANTEE & LIFETIME WARRANTY: At Rukket Sports we know you came to win. We also understand that in order to win you need to train hard, so that’s why we’re proud to offer the Rukket Fair Play Guarantee & Lifetime Warranty for no-risk purchasing plus outstanding USA-based customer service!

Buy Now

View Product

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But Bryson DeChambeau? He rarely plays at all. Unless he’s at a tournament or filming a video for his increasingly popular YouTube channel, he’s generally at home on the range by himself, working on what he likes to refer to as “repeating motion.”

Last week DeChambeau became a U.S. Open champion for the second time. He also finished second at the PGA Championship and T6 at the Masters. The beauty of golf? There’s more than one way to get it done.

Before the start of major championship season, DeChambeau joined our crew to film an episode of “Warming Up,” (on YouTube here) where he walked me through his pre-round prep and spilled some secrets on how he thinks about practice and tournament golf.

Here are 10 things I learned from the session, which you can watch on YouTube HERE. Otherwise, read on!

1. He doesn’t work out before rounds.

Had our range session come the Sunday of a major championship, what would DeChambeau have done beforehand? Surprisingly little, it turns out.

“I woke up. I really don’t do much,” he said.

Unlike other pros, who spend hours activating in the fitness trailer before their rounds, DeChambeau opts to work out post-round instead. He’ll hit the gym around 6 or 7 p.m., depending on his playing schedule. But before a round he leans on “active motion” to warm up, which is a fancy way of saying he’ll start with little chip shots and work his way up from there.

2. He works the clock system.

DeChambeau thinks of his arms and hands as the hour hand on a clock; that’s one of the ways he makes his swing repeatable. He also builds up from small swings to big. As he starts with contact and gets a specific feel for the day he’ll take what are essentially half-swings, taking the club back to what feels like 9 o’clock (it ends up going a bit further) and following through to 3 o’clock.

Eventually he works his way to 10 o’clock — hands at shoulder height, roughly 75 percent — then 10:30, then full, which is something like 11 o’clock.

3. He has a simple way to think about contact.

If DeChambeau isn’t hitting it well? He goes back to the basics.

“Super simple: ball, divot,” he said. That’s his focus: proper contact. But if his contact is sketchy the simplest fix is just to adjust his ball placement. “If I’m hitting it thin I’ll usually move it up in my stance a little bit. If I’m chunking it, I’ll move it back in my stance just a little bit.”

That’s it!

“Very simple, nothing crazy. I don’t try to overcomplicate things, which is pretty unique for me,” he said.

4. He doesn’t vary his ball flights.

Plenty of pros I’ve talked to enjoy working the ball in different directions based on the shape of a hole or the location of a flag. Not DeChambeau.

“I try not to. I want to be a master of one,” he said. “There’s so much field, so much grass out there that I can pretty much hit the same shot over and over and over again and just be consistent with that.”

For DeChambeau that “same shot” is a little draw. He estimates the average curvature is some 10-12 yards; for a wedge it may be four or five yards while for driver it’s more like 20. He’s stuck with the draw over the years.

5. His most common miss is a chunk, but contact doesn’t stress him out.

I took a little turf to the face after he caught one short iron heavy. That’s his most common miss, he said: a chunk. But a couple fat shots on the range doesn’t stress him out. Missing left and right, on the other hand?

“If it starts curving too much one way, that’s when I get really stressed. That’s where you’ll see me hit golf balls for quite a while,” he said.

We have seen a lot of those marathon range sessions over the years. Now I better understand one reason why.

6. He “never” plays golf at home.

This was fascinating. While DeChambeau will use a grass range every day — not turf, he said, which can mess with angles of attack, etc. — he doesn’t often hit the course.

“Never,” he said. “Very rare. I’ll go out and play three holes every once in a while to make sure that nothing has gone crazy awry. But I focus on being able to repeat motion more consistently. To see if I can do it again and again and again at the same shot shape. That’s literally all that matters to me.”

I pointed out that while this makes some intuitive sense, it’s wildly different from the approach of nearly every other top pro I’ve talked to.

“I know, it’s wild. I think they like trying to shoot the lowest score. But my thought process is like, the lowest score is going to come about by the most consistent and repeatable shots. And if I can hit a shot again and again and again more often than other players I feel like I’m going to do better than other players.”

7. Still, he thinks it’s important to play golf to be good at golf.

If you’re looking to emulate DeChambeau’s approach, this bit’s important: He’s not suggesting you skip the course altogether. Not until you reach a tiny top percentile of golfing talent and under-pressure scoring ability.

“You need to play enough rounds of golf where you can go to the reds [forward tees], go to the blues [back tees], go to any tee position and shoot damn well under par,” he said. “Blues consistently under par. Reds close to 60 every time. And if you do that, you know how to strategize on the course with any situation that occurs.”

Why multiple tee boxes? From the forward tees you’ll be forced to squeeze driver onto super tight holes, you’ll hit wedges into par-3s and you’ll playing par-5s like par-4s. Back tees, meanwhile, will demand long irons on par-3s and test you on difficult par-4s. If you can get to that point, DeChambeau said, you can flip your focus to the range.

“And then over the course of time when you get good enough and you play enough tournament golf that you’re comfortable under pressure? Then repeating motion more than anyone else is really the key answer to getting better,” he said.

“I could be completely wrong. Everybody’s different, obviously. But that’s my formula for success — and I like it. It’s fun. Compared to wasting four hours of my day, shooting 65 and going oh, what does that mean? Nothing. That’s why most people gamble, but I’m not a gambler.”

My instinct is that he’s missing out. Then again, he’s the U.S. Open champ, so his is the instinct you may want to trust.

8. He’ll “calibrate” with different parts of the club face.

Want to find the center of the club face? It doesn’t hurt to test the other parts, just to see where they are. He swings one super inside-out and tries to hit it off the toe. It makes a clanky sound, hooks a little extra and falls out of the air. Later he hits one off the heel that spits out weak and right.

“So I start trying to hit it on different parts of the face to calibrate my brain of where the whole club is,” he said. “Which is crazy, people are like, ‘what are you talking about?’ I’m like, dude, I just want to know.”

He messes around with different points of contact and different shot shapes every single day, he said. But it’ll just be for a few shots and then he’ll return to that draw he’s trying to groove.

9. He thinks conditions can affect carry yardage more than you might think.

DeChambeau’s 5-wood flies 285, he said. His 3-wood flies 310. His driver? Further than that. But simple conditional changes like temperature can change those numbers by some five percent — which can translate to 15 yards or more at these distances.

There’s a reason DeChambeau has gotten involved with salty balls and protractors and spray bottles and more: He knows the little stuff makes a big difference.

10. He takes “one shot at a time” to the next level.

DeChambeau says he tries to ignore the situation completely. He tries to ignore the rest of the golf course completely. Hell, he’s not even really focused on the golf ball.

“Here’s the funny thing. Most people are like, oh, I’m looking at the golf ball and I’m focused on hitting the golf ball,” he said. “But I don’t even see the golf ball when I hit the shot. I’m literally feeling what my body is doing and just repeating that feeling every time. Peripherally I still see it, but I don’t focus on it.

“Growing up I’d hit golf balls with my eyes closed for quite a while just trying to ingrain motion. Repeating motion, motion, motion. That’s all I focused on. And it paid huge dividends because I was able to go inside whenever I got nervous and focus on executing the motion and not worry about the situation.”

11. …and there’s more!

The good news is that these 10 come from the first half of the video. DeChambeau talks diet, regret and growth. He hits one “hard” just for fun. He takes us to No. 16 at Augusta National. He quotes Vince Lombardi and Ben Hogan. Good news: You can watch the rest below.

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The post What you can learn from Wyndham Clark’s clever range routine appeared first on Golf.

The post What you can learn from Wyndham Clark’s clever range routine appeared first on Golf.

Whether it’s carelessly taking driver-only swings or firing shot after shot into the abyss without a target in mind, there are lots of ways you can ruin a range session. But having a smart, thought-out plan can pay major dividends — and it might help you to steal an idea or two from a pro.

Wyndham Clark, for example, has a couple of ideas amateurs can learn from. The 2023 U.S. Open champ recently joined GOLF’s Dylan Dethier for the latest episode of Warming Up, and in it Clark explained how one important part of his warmup includes not only getting loose and hitting the shot shapes he wants, but planning ahead for specific holes he’s about to play.

One portion of his range session is called “tough tee balls,” in which his caddie, John Ellis, goes through tough driving holes they’ll face on the course that day. Ellis might call out the 5th hole, for example, and Clark will then hit his tee shot as if he’s playing it, dialing up a low cut, draw or whatever they feel would best conquer that hole in the given conditions that day.

The last thing they do on the range, however, is play the first hole. While that might be something some amateurs do as well — ending with a driver they plan to hit a few minutes later off the opening tee — Clark takes it a step further. He not only hits the club they plan to tee off with, but he’ll also hit the likely approach club and shape it the way they’d like to attack that day’s pin position in whatever wind or weather they are dealing with.

Speaking to Dethier, Clark explained what this drill might look like if they were about to play the par-4 1st hole at Augusta National. He’d usually hit 3-wood off the tee, he said, which would likely leave about 170 yards and a 7- or 8-iron.

“So hopefully it’s center of the fairway [off the tee], and if it’s front-left pin — you can’t miss left there — I’m going to try and start this ball, in my mind, kind of at the center or right-center of the green and draw it into the flag,” Clark said. “If it doesn’t draw, then I’m putting up the hill 20 feet. So you hit that shot, then you go, ‘OK, perfect,’ then you just walk right to the tee and you’ve already hit the shot and feel good and you hopefully just replicate what you did on the range.”

Another reason this is a good practice is because you are following one shot (a driver or wood off the tee, most likely) with an iron (for your approach). That’s obviously the order of operation on the golf course, but not necessarily how you usually practice on the range, where it’s more common to hit the same club over and over.

So next time you are on the driving range and preparing for your round, take a quick glance at that scorecard and try to figure out what club you want off the tee and with your approach into the green. It works for Clark; maybe it will for you, too.

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The post Want to hit a cut shot? Major winner dishes on his simple moves  appeared first on Golf.

The post Want to hit a cut shot? Major winner dishes on his simple moves  appeared first on Golf.

From statistically struggling on shots hit toward the green. To becoming one of the PGA Tour’s best.

All in just one season for Wyndham Clark — 2021-22 to 2022-23.

There are questions here, of course. Has he figured something out? Seems like it. He also won a U.S. Open in that stretch. 

Would he be willing to share, though?

Yessir. Have a look at the video below. It’s the latest episode of GOLF’s Warming up. We’ll wait. 

Good stuff. Clark dished on all things swing. Including how best to hit a cut — which you can watch starting at about the 12-minute mark. There, Clark had a few thoughts, after host Dylan Dethier asked him whether he made any adjustments for the shot, or whether the cut was his natural shot shape. 

Clark said he makes a few simple moves:

— On a standard shot, he said his ball is lined up neutral in his stance and that he’s aimed at the target. But on the cut, he aims left. 

— The ball position goes up a “fraction” in his stance.

— “Then what I just try to feel,” he said on the video, “is that I just keep that face open to the path. And so as I’m set up here to hit another cut — so I feel like I’m left of the target and then I just try and hold the face just a little bit to hit a nice little cut like that.”

On the video, Clark then hit. 

Said Dethier: “Sweet.” 

Said Clark: “Yeah.” 

Said Dethier: “Whew, right on it.”

Notably, Clark said his caddie, John Ellis, helps guide his range work, and he’d maybe ask for a draw now. Perhaps he’d require extra yards during a round. 

Instruction

“So we’ll go through shots,” Clark said, “where he’s like, OK, today on — you know, it’s all assuming we hit the tee ball exactly where we want and we’re in the fairway, but he’s like, OK, we’re going to have, it’s back-left pin on, you know, whatever hole, and he goes, we’re going to have 148 and I’m hitting my pitching wedge 144 that week, so he goes, we need four to five extra yards. I’ll hit a tight draw to try to gain that extra yardage and so I’ll set up and kind of visualize the shot.”

On the video, Clark picked a target. He hit.

The ball drew.  

Said Dethier: “Nice. Look at you, you got that draw left going into the wind even.” 

Said Clark: “Yeah, I’m actually swinging better than I thought I would this morning.”

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The post The peculiar way that Wyndham Clark begins his range sessions appeared first on Golf.

The post The peculiar way that Wyndham Clark begins his range sessions appeared first on Golf.

Wyndham Clark has a pair of alignment rods.

Confused? Let us explain.

Clark, as perhaps you know by now, is one of golf’s rising stars. After a few years of miring in the PGA Tour’s working class, Clark has burst onto the scene in a big way over the last 12 months, winning three times during that stretch, including his maiden major championship victory at the U.S. Open.

But Wyndham is also one of golf’s most unconventional players because unlike the majority of his pro golf counterparts, he doesn’t retain the services of a swing coach. This means the only maintenance that Clark does from week to week comes in the form of his own unique set of practice routines. And when it comes to Wyndham Clark’s practice routines, well, you wouldn’t be telling the story without a pair of alignment rods.

As Clark told GOLF’s Dylan Dethier in the newest episode of Warming Up, his game begins and ends with one peculiar swing drill called the “T-Drill.”

“I don’t have a swing coach,” Clark said, pointing at the alignment rods in the ground. “I work on it myself. This is my swing coach.”

In order to execute the drill, Clark explains, set your two alignment rods perpendicular to one another, forming a “T.” Now set your ball up in a neutral position just outside of the tee, and begin taking your typical practice swings. As you strike the ball, Clark says to pay attention to two key factors.

“I T it up every time for two reasons: for ball position and set up, so that I’m starting at neutral — and the other thing is to make sure I don’t get too steep,” he said. “I tend to be steep. And so under pressure, I start swinging really left, taking big divots, and hitting wipey cuts. And so what I’m trying to do here is neutralize that and be the opposite. So then when I get into competition, it’s where I want to be so I’ll start out here.”

The key of the drill, Clark says, is to overcorrect the swing plane, bringing him out of his natural out-to-in path and into the feel of an in-to-out swing. If Clark can hit draws during the practice sessions, he knows he’s flattened out his swing enough to be able to play the fade during the round with the type of control he prefers, eliminating that big right miss. And if he can’t hit draws, he can use the tee to examine his strike point and alignment to make sure that he can pinpoint the issue.

“I’m trying to be really, really shallow,” he says. “If I come out here and it seems like I’m hitting cuts or pulls or pushes, I go okay, is it ball position? Is it where you’re swinging? Where is the gap wedge in your stance?”

Clark says he’ll start the drill with his gap wedge and continue up through the set, hitting anywhere between “five to seven” clubs to get a baseline for his performance.

It’s a strange way to begin a warm-up, he says, but there’s no question that it’s been working. And for golfers who struggle with straightening out a consistent miss, Clark says the biggest fix can also be the simplest one.

Just grab a pair of alignment rods.

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