Author Archive: Brian Fitzgerald
Does Putter Length Matter?
“Does Putter Length Matter?”
Improve Your Putting Distance Control With The 4 By 8 Drill
Improve Your Putting Distance Control With The 4 By 8 Drill
Hello I’m Brian Fitzgerald The Golf Doctor.
Today we are going to look at a really good putting drill to try and get some control over the distance that you hit the ball.
I call it the Four By Eight Drill. I hope you enjoy it.
So I have set up my Four By Eight Drill here.
Basically I set up four balls here all pointing at the hole. That’s eight paces away. I put a circle of tees one club length around the hole. So my target is to get my ball inside that circle.
I’ve also done similarly here. I’ve set these four balls up four metres or four paces from the hole and I’ve set up a circle of tees one putter length around the hole. The object is to see how many of the eight balls I can get into the circles. That’s the plan. Lets see how I go.
A little bit to the right.
Almost.
That makes it easy.
Oh. Nearly.
OK the last short one.
Ok, so that’s how we do it.
Now what we do is we go up and we have a look and we try and count how many balls are inside the circle. so I have all four in the circle there and one in the hole.
And over here I have got all four well and truly in the circle.
So by doing that we are working on our distance control. If we can control our distance, we stop 3 putting and we are going to be better off.
Ok so that was the Four By Eight Drill.
If you practice the Four By Eight Drill regularly. You’ll find you get better distance control. If you get better distance control you won’t have as many 3 putts. if you don’t have as many 3 putts you will definitely lower your score.
So do it regularly. It’s a fantastic Drill. Look at some of my other putting drills.Which also deal with distance control.I’ll put links to the video up there.
Thank you for letting me help you with your golf. I’m Brian Fitzgerald “The Golf Doctor”.
The Simple Concept Of A Pitch Shot
The Simple Concept Of A Pitch Shot
Hello, I’m Brian Fitzgerald “The Golf Doctor”.
And today we are going to have a look at pitching, and just the simple concept for pitching.
Pitching is actually one of the simplest shots in golf. All we need to do when hitting a pitch shot is to start with the club down near the golf ball and then we try and return the club underneath the golf ball.
If we can do that we are going to hit a good pitch.
I’m going to show you a funny way to do it.
So here’s a strange way of teaching people how to hit a pitch shot. I quite often say to kids when I teach them “What makes the ball go in the air”?
It’s actually quite a simple thing. What makes the ball go in the air is the loft of the golf club. Provided there is loft on my club. And provide the club comes down underneath the golf ball. The ball will go in the air.
I’m going to show you how it’s done.
As you can see there, there is definitely loft on my golf club. I’ve got the ball in the middle of my stance. All I need to do is let the club get under the ball and the ball goes in the air. It’s pretty simple really isn’t it. Try that one at home.
Thank you for letting me help you with your golf.
I’m Brian Fitzgerald The Golf Doctor.
The Right Heel Up Pitching Drill
Hello I’m Brian Fitzgerald The Golf Doctor.
Today I’m going to teach you how to improve your pitching.
It’s a little bit of a strange drill, but you are used to me using strange drills now.
Today is one of my better ones. I hope you enjoy it.
[MUSIC]
Okay, we are going to do some pitching today.And when I play with amateurs, most people go wrong when they try to hit pitch shots because they are trying to help get the ball in the air and they are lifting up. They are not necessarily lifting their head, that’s what their playing partners are actually telling them.
But it’s lifting the whole body so they are hitting it on the up and I’ve got a 56 degree sand wedge here. There is enough loft on that 56 sand wedge to get the ball in the air. What I have to do is get the club down underneath the golf ball. So provided my golf club can get down underneath the golf ball, I have a chance at getting the ball in the air so I am looking for a downward strike. I am not looking at hitting it on the up. So the drill that I use to teach people how to hit with a downward strike.
Is to take a normal setup and then get their right foot back here with their toe on the ground and their heel up.
That forces your weight to go on to the left foot, it moves my upper body slightly to the left and that encourages me hitting the ground. So you can see there I’m easily hitting down under the golf ball.
And that’s the type of swing we want to use when we play this shot.
So we take our setup and then I just hit down and the ball went up in the air quite nicely.
It’s a simple drill, it’s effective. If you use that on a regular basis I think you’ll find your pitching will improve.
Thank you for letting me help you with your golf.
I’m Brian Fitzgerald The Golf Doctor.
If you like these videos why don’t’ you share them with a friend. You can also find further information on my Facebook page or my twitter page.
The Secret To Hitting A High Soft Pitch Shot
Hello, I’m Brian Fitzgerald The Golf Doctor.
Today we are going to be doing the high soft pitch.
I did try and do this video several months ago. But my video camera was pretty poor and I’m going to have a go at re-filming it today. I hope you enjoy it.
[MUSIC]
So here we have a shot of about 20 to 25 meters. It’s going to be over the bunker and not many people like this shot.
It’s bad enough when your ball is in the bunker, but when you have to hit it over the bunker people really don’t like that one.
So the way to play it is to keep your club low to the ground.I have my 60 degree sand wedge here. A sixty degree sand wedge has a lot of loft. I want to use that loft as much as I can.
I don’t want to try and manipulate the club to make something special happen.
If I just swing the club back keeping the club low to the ground. keeping a shallow angle of attack, the loft of the club should get the ball in the air and that will stop the ball.
When I do that, I’m going to be inclined to stop on it. We don’t want to do that. Stop on it and you might hit a good shot but in all probability you won’t.
As much as you possibly can you really want to try and make sure that you keep that club head moving and I try and get my follow through to about shoulder height.
So I swing it slowly, that stops the ball from traveling too far and I’m gripping the club very light. It took me a long time to actually get the confidence to grip the club light when I play this shot. I kept wanting to grip it tight, the ball went a bit lower and when it landed the ball ran on a bit too much.
So I really want to keep it light. I want to keep my swing slow and I just want to get the club sliding underneath the ball.
I’ll see how I go.
[HIT]
So you can see the ball went up nice and high, it landed quite softly and it ran just a little bit past the flag stick.
For the lack of practice that I do lately I’m pretty happy with that shot.
But the ball did go high, I didn’t take a massive divot and the ball did land soft. So first and foremost you want to make sure you get it over the bunker. You don’t want to leave it short.
I’m pretty happy with that, I can get a putter out with my next shot.
So give that one a try at home. Grip it light, have a full swing but a slow swing and keep your angle of attack shallow.
I’m Brian Fitzgerald The Golf Doctor. Thanks for letting me help you with your golf.
If you like my videos, you can get further information from my website which is www.thegolfdoctor.com.au that can be found here.
We also have my Facebook page which you can click on just there.
Or there is my Twitter page which you can click on there.
If you want to leave a comment ah at the end of the video. Just go down to the bottom of the video on the YouTube and you can add comments. I am happy to answer any of them.
[MUSIC]
How Throwing A Bucket Can Improve Your Golf Swing
Hello there.
I’m Brian Fitzgerald “The Golf Doctor”.
And today we are going to use a drill that is going to help you to combine how you use your hands and how you use your body.
I call it the “Throwing The Bucket Drill.”
I hope you enjoy it.
[MUSIC]
Alright, today we are doing the throwing the bucket drill.
And all we do is use a simple bucket. You can substitute the bucket for a basketball. You can throw a cushion inside the house, as long as you don’t break the light that’s in the lounge room.
You can use anything that’s available to you.
But all we do is we get ourselves in our normal set up position, making sure we have the right posture, spine tilted forward and I’ve actually said in another video how to actually achieve the correct posture.
So I’ll put a link to that video just on that video there. Link to Correct Posture Golf Tip.
So we grab the bucket. Get into our posture. All we have to do here, is try and throw the bucket in a straight line.
You wouldn’t really throw the bucket by doing that. I would call that the discus method. And what is the shape of the field that you throw a discus to? It starts narrow and gets wider.
I don’t know too many fairways that have fairways shaped like that. They are more like corridors. So we want to get the hands traveling away and upwards and away and upwards.
So it looks something like this. By doing that it actually teaches you how to combine your hand movement with your body movement and it gets you swinging on the right swing plane.
Okay, so that’s how we do it. If we do a correct swing. Watch what happens if I do it the wrong way. If my shoulders start pulling my hands down, I’m going to release the bucket that way. So my hands are around the back of me, and you can see my swing is traveling to the left. That could produce a slice but it can also produce a hook. It just depends on where my club face is at the time of impact.
So now I’ve got a club in my hands.I will do the same sort of things. I get into my posture and I try and swing the club back as if I’m trying to throw the golf club down the range. We don’t want to pull the club down. It’s called a golf swing and we swing the club head. So we swing the club through as if my right hand is throwing the golf club.
If you can do that you’ll hit much better shots and you will get more consistent.
So if you like my videos, why don’t you share it with a friend. You can share it by clicking the share button at the bottom of YouTube, or you can email a friend or you can also find further information on my Facebook page or my Twitter page. If you really like them you can also subscribe and that way you get informed when I’ve got a new video up.
Thank you for letting me help you with your golf.
I’m Brian Fitzgerald The Golf Doctor.
[MUSIC]
3 Things You Need To Do To Improve Your Golf
There are three simple things golfers of all standards can do to improve their golf.
1. Make your bad shot better,
If your bad shot is a 30 meter slice with your driver and you can turn it into a 20 meter slice your score will definitely improve.
2. When you have a wedge of any description in your hands, get it on the green.
How many times have you found your self hitting a wedge into the green. You have the hole at your mercy and instead of getting the ball on to the green you leave it short in the bunker or blade it over the green. This is quite often compounded by a followup bad shot as you are steaming from missing the green the first time. You may even three putt for good good measure.
3. Stop 3 putting
Nothing ruins your golf score faster than 3 putting.
Look at my putting playlist and try to do the Distance Control Drill.
If you imagine a hula hoop around the hole on long putts. Try to get your ball to finish inside the hula hoop rather than trying to get the ball into the hole.
Alternatively place a club 1 club length behind the hole and try to get four balls between the hole and the club from different distances. Say 4 meters 8 meters and 12 meters. If you get your first putt close to the hole you will 3 putt less.
Titleist Pro V1 & Pro V1X Product Launch
Last week I was invited to the launch of the Titleist Pro V1 & Pro V1X golf balls.
Mike Mahoney The Director of Golf Ball Product Management for Titleist shared with me some amazing facts.
Titleist are responsible for every piece of the manufacturing process of the golf ball. They don’t outsource anything. The do their own research and development, they make their own components including the urethane cover (every other ball manufacturer purchases their urethane from a company like DuPont).
A Pro V1 golf ball has to pass 91 quality control checks before it makes it into the box and is good enough to be sold.
A Pro V1 X has to pass 124 checks.
Golf balls made using the exact same formula at different times of the year eg. summer and winter perform very differently. If they are not careful this would lead to a golf ball being made that exceeds the speed limit and would get Titleist struck off the approved ball register. A very bad outcome.
Titleist can change the recipe slightly for the different times of the year so that no matter when the ball is made it will perform identically. Titleist are right on the legal speed testing limit and this process allows them to stay there.
Last year Titleist made close to 1.35 million Pro V1 & Pro V1X golf balls.
The total number of golf balls returned world wide were 15 golf balls.
What this means is they have great quality control and we the consumer get the best ball on the market. It made me think “I would be crazy to use another brand of golf ball”.
Just a footnote. I am not contracted with Titleist and other than the odd sample here and there I actually buy my own golf balls from Titleist. I have been doing this since 1985.
Worlds Top 20 Golf Courses
Interesting to see Golf Digest (USA) has released the worlds top 20 Golf Courses.
The good news is Australia have 3 courses in the Top 20. Kingston Heath Golf Club Melbourne is ranked Number 20.
Barnbougle Dunes Golf Course Bridport, Tasmania (The Original) is ranked Number 11.
Royal Melbourne West Course Melbourne is ranked Number Number 9.
The composite course at Royal Melbourne which is made up of 12 holes from the West course and 6 holes from the East course is not considered to be a golf course as it is only played in Tournaments such as the Australian Masters, Australian Open, Presidents Cup etc.
When it is considered (for rating criteria) as a complete course it is usually in the top 3 courses in the world.
I find it very interesting that courses like Royal Melbourne East, Royal Adelaide and Metropolitan are not featured on the list. I feel that all of these courses are better golf courses as a whole than Barnbougle Dunes.
Don’t get me wrong. I love Barnbougle and am a huge fan. It is a wonderful golf course and a great place to visit. I do and have done almost every year for the past 10 years.
Its just that when we are talking about the WORLD TOP 20 Golf Courses…..Barnbougle has too many ordinary holes to make that list. I think people get carried away with the beauty and majesty of the holes among the dunes, mostly on the front 9.
if I had the chance to play a round at Royal Melbourne East, Royal Adelaide or Metropolitan or Barnbougle Dunes I would choose the first 3 courses every day.
I often ask myself after playing a new course. “Could I play this course all of the time?” If my answer is yes I give it a big tick. When I ask myself this question after playing Barnbougle Dunes my answer is no. A handful of rounds per year would see me out.
Ranking golf courses is always full of conjecture. There is no right or wrong. Everyone has a different opinion and that is a great thing.
It is a great way to stimulate conversation at the 19th hole after your round.
I would be interested to know what you think.