You don’t need an instructor (like me) to fix these common issues

You might be wondering why a person who makes a living teaching golf would want to show you how to play better without needing one of my lessons.

Good question. Ideally you would come visit me or one of my academy instructors when problems arise, but I know a lot of times that’s not practical. So in a bit of the paying-it-forward spirit, I wrote a book that addresses 72 of golf’s most menacing issues from tee to green and explains how to fix them without me – or any other teacher for that matter. My new book – Fix It Yourself – is very much a self-help troubleshooting guide.

In this article, I’m going to give you a sample of some of the common issues addressed in the book and teach you how to teach yourself. Let’s get started.

Adapted from the book Fix It Yourself, by David Leadbetter, with Ron Kaspriske, St Martin’s Press

No distance off the tee? ‘Snap’ the clubhead

If you’re struggling to maximise your distance potential with the driver, the problem could be from misunderstanding what you need to do to generate good clubhead speed. The first mistake is thinking you need to grip the club harder to hit it further. The second is starting your downswing with everything you’ve got. In both cases, it’s wasted effort. Let me explain why.

When you grip the club too hard, you can’t utilise the suppleness of your hands, wrists and arms to provide a snap-like action into the ball. That “snap” really generates a lot of power. When you start down from the top as fast as you can, there’s a good chance your clubhead will be slowing down when it gets to the ball. Like I said, it’s wasted energy. Instead, your grip pressure should feel relaxed and the start of your downswing unhurried. You want your driver moving its fastest through the hitting area. You don’t hit at the ball, you swing through the ball.

A time-honoured drill to get a feel for this snap is to flip the club upside down and grip the shaft at its neck. Now make practice swings creating a whoosh sound as the grip end passes over the ground where your teed ball would be sitting [above]. Keep the grip pressure light and let speed build. If you hear the sound halfway into your downswing, you’ll know you’re still gripping too hard and swinging too fast at the start. Try to create that sound much later. When you go back to hitting drives, you’ll be out of “hit” mode, and your swing should feel much more free.

Still not satisfied with your drives? Sync your arms and body

Another common power leak comes from making a weak backswing. Sometimes you get short and armsy out of fear of missing the ball. Sometimes it’s simply not correctly blending the swinging of the arms, hands and club with the body’s pivot. Let me teach you how to sync those things up with my push-palm drill, and I promise you’ll get longer off the tee.

Get in your address posture without a club and place your right hand under and against your left so they’re pressed against each other [above right]. Now mimic a backswing while keeping pressure against the back of the hands. The upper part of your left arm should be linked to your chest as your upper body coils against your right leg [middle right]. Meanwhile, your right arm should remain a touch higher than your left as you reach the top of the backswing [above right]. Hold this position for a few beats and feel how your left side is pushing while your right side is pulling. By exaggerating the push-pull action, you are linking your arm swing with your body pivot. That’s crucial.

This is the feeling of synchronicity you need to make a good backswing that creates and stores energy you can use to hit the ball further. As a bonus, this drill also is great for flexibility.

Hitting slices and pulls? Adjust your swing path

A common swing-path mistake is often described as “coming over the top”. It means the club is swinging into the ball crossing over the top of the track it went back on. It’s caused by starting the downswing incorrectly with the upper body, putting the club on a steep, out-to-in path in relation to the target line. The result is a pull (straight shot left of your target) or a slice (a curved shot right of it). If you want to banish those misses, you need to stop coming over the top.

To groove a swing into the ball that comes from inside the target line, try this side-step drill: grab a 7-iron, and with your feet nearly together, address a ball two inches closer to the target than your front foot [above left]. Now swing. As you transition down, step towards your target with your left foot [above middle], plant it so that it’s now closer to the target than the ball  and then swing through [above right]. Don’t worry if the shot wasn’t good. Just get used to making this weight shift forward.

You’ll soon realise that stepping towards the target helps unlock the natural chain of motion, releasing your coil from the ground up. When you feel pressure in that left foot, you’ll acquire the lower-body motion needed to allow your club to swing down into the ball on a path inside the target line. That’s how you stop hitting those slices and pulls.

Not compressing your iron shots? Learn how to lag

Ask pros what their favourite lie is for hitting iron shots, and they’ll say, “The tighter the better.”
Ask most amateurs, and they’ll probably describe that cushy quarter-inch-high cut of grass just off the fairway. Why? Many amateurs “cast” the clubhead down into the ball. It’s a term that comes from its resemblance to the action required to cast a fishing line into the water. The surest way to hit crappy iron shots is to start the downswing with the hands and arms. To compress the ball, you need your lower body to lead the way.

The clubhead path down into the ball should trail the movement of the feet, legs and hips – which push down and then rotate towards the target. This trailing action is known as lag, and it’s the key to pure iron shots. In fact, it’s the reason pros often hit their 7-irons as far as you hit a hybrid or fairway wood. The lag delofts the clubface into impact, and it allows better players to pinch the ball off the turf powerfully.

To feel how to properly sequence movement in the downswing – lower body first, then upper body, arms and finally the club – make a fully wound backswing with your wrists nicely hinged, your left arm pinned across your chest and the club’s shaft feeling loaded up. From this spot, mimic the start of your downswing, but pump a couple of times up and down with your ankles and knees [above] before unwinding into the ball. This dynamic drill subconsciously trains you to get that lower-body activity going ahead of your torso, arms and club. It’s key to the lag you need to compress your irons. You can even hit shots with this pump drill. 

Struggling with half-wedge shots? Perfect your pivot

When facing a short shot that requires less than a full swing, many amateurs mistakenly try to regulate distance with their hands and arms. There’s very little body movement. When the hands and arms take over, it’s tough to hit the ball solid, and distance control is all about quality of contact.

Your focus on these half-wedge shots should be on blending the movement of your hands and arms with the rotation of your torso – the pivot. Think of pitch shots as a mini version of your full swing, and in the full swing, it’s your body that governs the action, not your hands.

A great drill to help improve your pivot action is to grab a bath towel and trap it under your arms and across your chest as you get into your address posture with a wedge. Now make practice swings (no ball at first) while keeping the towel in place. Feel how your arms and body are unified as you swing back and through. It should feel simple and economical, with the upper part of your left arm moving across your chest in the backswing and the right arm moving along with it in the through-swing. Feel how your hands and arms are guided by the movement of your rib cage.

Once you know how to pivot, you can use some wrist action, hinging and unhinging them to add touch to your shots. Then progress to hitting shots [above]. Focus on making quality contact swing after swing. You’ll achieve that if you keep your body pivoting well past impact.

Can’t get over the bunker lip? Skim your ball up and out

When standing in a greenside bunker with a high lip between you and the green, a common mistake is to try to help the ball out with some body English. To get the ball up quickly, I see players rising up or hitting off their back foot or trying to scoop the ball out of the sand with a flick of the wrists – all sorts of bad moves that are likely to leave the ball anywhere but on the green. If you struggle with bunker play, you need to trust your sand wedge to do the work.

A great visual for how your body, hands and club should operate in a bunker swing is to visualise skimming a stone across a pond. The way your body rotates and your arm folds and shallows towards the ground to get the stone to hop is very similar to how your right arm should control a bunker swing. In fact, next time you’re practising, make some sidearm throws down range with a golf ball and feel how you time the throwing motion with your body rotation. Then employ that action in a bunker.

Another way to get a feel for this blending action is to make one-arm swings in the bunker, rotating your body towards the hole as your arm skims through the sand. When you go back to hitting bunker shots, remember this skimming action and keep the clubhead moving well past the time it strikes the sand. When you finish, the clubhead should be looking back at you [above right].

Hate chipping off tight lies? Go with your hybrid

Tour pros love hitting chips off razor-cut fairway lies, but I bet you prefer a little cushion of grass under your ball. Trying to play a standard chip shot with your sand or lob wedge from a tight lie leaves very little margin for error. Unless you’re practising these greenside shots a lot, you’re probably better off going with an easier option.

This is especially prudent if you don’t have to get the ball airborne for your next shot, like when it’s resting just short of the green in a fairway or in a collection area on the side of the putting surface. What you want in these scenarios is the play that gives you the best chance of getting the ball close to the hole – considering your skill level. Don’t forget that last part. It’s much easier for average golfers to execute a chip-and-run shot with a hybrid. Assuming the lie is clean, this shot is especially useful for longer greenside shots or when there’s a steep bank between you and the pin.

To chip with your hybrid, think of the shot more like a long lag putt. Stand taller than your normal putting posture and open your stance a little. These adjustments will help free your stroke. Also, grip down on the handle a little for control. To make good contact, play the ball a little behind your sternum [right], and set up so that the shaft is more upright with the heel of the club just off the ground. With all these setup adjustments in place, all you need to do is make a good lag putting stroke. Keep your lower body still as you swing your arms and rotate your body a touch towards the hole. The club will collect the ball and get it rolling through the grass around the green with enough momentum to keep it tracking towards the cup once it’s on the putting surface. 

Coming up short on long putts? Flip your stroke

A common mix-up is that the putterhead should be accelerating as it meets the ball. Why is this flawed? If the putter is gathering momentum and accelerating into the ball, the energy of the strike makes distance control difficult to regulate. When analysing the strokes of the best putters, there is little or no acceleration at impact. The putter is actually moving its fastest in the transition from backstroke to through-stroke.

This notion of speeding up through the ball causes many golfers to make a short backswing and a long follow-through – especially on those big lag putts. I’ve already mentioned what this does for distance control, but a jerky stroke like that also can cause an off-line putt, because it’s harder to keep the face square to your intended path.

Instead, you want to make a stroke with an even one-two tempo. The putter should move at the same pace no matter if it’s a four-footer or a 40-foot putt. Also, make a longer backstroke and shorter follow-through [above]. That’s a key adjustment – and it’s probably the opposite of what your instinct tells you to do, but this long-short action eliminates the temptations of steering the putterhead or putting too much pop into the strike. Most importantly, it ensures you don’t speed up into the ball. 

Photographs by J.D. Cuban