If you are reading this, the chances are you can relate to the maddening frustration of inconsistent ball striking on the golf course.

Improving your ball striking is crucial to cutting your handicap, but how can you achieve that as a high-handicap golfer or total beginner to the game?

Heading to the driving range without a plan is not going to solve anything, so perhaps it's time to think a little outside the box.

Well, Top 50 Coach and PGA Pro Russell Covey has come up with an interesting drill that could provide the results you are after... and all you need is some sticky tape.

Sticky Tape Drill

If you're new to golf, or perhaps even an intermediate golfer who's struggling with their strike, take this exercise to the range (it needs to be off a mat).

Stick one piece of tape behind the ball, one 4ins in front and another just to the side for a rehearsal swing (all sticky side down).

This drill will help you understand that the low point comes after the ball. Start by lining up your club as shown here (behind the imaginary ball).

At this point, I'll say to my students, “I just want you to hit the piece of tape.”

I'll then get a few puzzled looks. Although it doesn't always take place immediately, we get this happening (image below), which is great.

“What were you looking at?” I ask. More puzzled looks. “The tape,” they say, looking at me as if I were stupid!

Then, I ask them to repeat the drill.

“Rest your club on the piece of tape behind the ball, but I want you to look at the piece of tape that's 4ins in front of the ball,” I say.

When they see the tape on the bottom of the clubhead after they've finished their swing, there is genuine shock.

So many golfers focus on keeping their head still and zone in on the ball, which can lead to fat and thin strikes.

For me, this drill provides one of the biggest eureka moments that most people will ever experience in the game – this bottoming out of the club after the golf ball, and the feeling of being 75% into your lead side with the handle leading.

Slice Variation

For those of you with a persistent slice, place the piece of tape after the ball, slightly off to the right.

This might help you to redirect your swing path to something more neutral.

When it comes to your equipment, there’s one particular club that gives you more options than any other – the putter. Finding the right clubs for your game has a huge impact on your ability to fulfil your potential and shoot the lowest scores possible, so making the right choice is vital.

Shot Scope data has shown that golfers of every standard can benefit from using a mallet putter rather than a blade. Put simply, wielding a mallet makes it more likely that you’ll hole putts from inside six feet and less likely that you’ll three-putt. That’s a pretty handy combination when it comes to improving your scoring.

That Shot Scope data reveals that for the average 15-handicapper make percentage from six feet and in increases from 75% with a blade to 82% with a mallet. That extra 7% equates to about one extra putt holed per round and becomes a very significant increase over the course of a season. Plus, the average number of three-putts drops from 2.6 with a blade to 2.3 with a mallet.

In this article and video, Top 50 Coach Adam Harnett explains why using a mallet can make you a better putter, and shares some brilliant tips and drills to help you drain more than your fair share on the greens.

1. Holing out short putts

Alignment is so important on short putts, and the larger head of a mallet putter has more room for alignment aids. I like to use a line on the golf ball, as well, so lining those two up together will really help you set up aiming where you want the ball to go and get it started on target.

There are a lot of different alignment aids available on various makes and models of the best putters, and they’ll all influence different people in different ways, so find what works for you. I’ve got a really simple drill to help you get the ball started on-line.

Put a coin or a ball marker about a foot in front of the ball on the green and try to get the ball rolling over the top of it. It builds confidence and you get great feedback on if you’re pulling or pushing your putts off the clubface.

2. Avoiding three-putts

A mallet is a bigger head, so it’s more forgiving on off-centre hits, which become more common as you have to move the putter head further on longer putts. Mallets are also more stable, so that all helps with becoming more consistent in terms of strike location, start line and distance – and giving you more margin for error when you don’t get it quite right.

Distance control is a lot down to strike. If we don’t hit the ball in the middle of the face, then your distances won’t be as consistent - the tech in a mallet can only do so much! I like a drill that Tiger Woods used to do with two tees set up just outside the putter head at address.

The aim is to putt through those tees without hitting them. If you aren’t hitting the ball out the centre of the face, either the toe or heel of the putter will hit one of the tees. This gets harder the longer the putt is, so start at mid-range and increase the distance you’re hitting the putts to really test yourself.

You can also build feel with a ladder drill. It’s always better to hit different putts when you’re practicing rather than the same putts one after another. That variety replicates what you would be doing on the course and helps you build feel. Hit a series of putts at steadily increasing distances from the hole. Start at the closest and focus on increasing the length of the stroke – while maintaining the same tempo – to hit the ball further.

3. Green reading

There are three elements to putting. We’ve covered the first two – starting the ball on-line, and with the correct pace – but the third element of the trio is green reading, so you know what the optimum combination of line and speed is.

A lot of golfers read a putt by just looking from the ball to the hole, and don’t look further afield. I ask them to look as far as they can to the left and the right to see which side is higher. Greens are built for drainage so there’s going to be an overall slope in some direction.

You can also be looking for that as you’re walking up to the green. I like to have a walk around the hole to really feel the slopes, especially if I’m going up or downhill between the ball and the hole. If you’re still unsure, you can try straddling the line and feeling the slope under your feet like AimPoint.

Putting with a line on your ball also gives you great feedback that you can learn from to improve your green reading. If the line is wobbling, then it indicates a poor strike. But if the line is rolling end over end, it shows you started the ball where you wanted. If it has the correct pace, but it doesn’t go in, that shows you’ve misread it.

Monitoring that can often reveal trends like under or over-borrowing certain types of putts. You shouldn’t be disappointed in yourself if you’ve hit a good putt, but it was a misread. Take the positives and use all the information you gather from that feedback to help you become a better green reader.

4. Which mallet putter is best for you?

Different types of strokes require different putter set-ups. If you’re someone who putts with a lot of arc in your stroke, a heel-shafted putter is designed to help that opening and closing of the face through the arc and will likely suit you best. If your stroke is more straight back and through, a centre-shafted putter will help your stability on that straighter path.

You can also have the shaft attaching further away from the face of the putter to help reduce the torque. Feel is a massive part of putting, and it’s a big reason why a lot of golfers prefer using a blade. But modern face technology like milling, grooves and inserts offer a lot of different feels, so some mallet putters feel amazingly close to a blade putter.

You can also get putters with interchangeable weights in the head, which will impact the feel and performance. It’s important to explore all your options when it comes to alignment aids, shaft type, feel, and overall looks. The right combination will make you a better putter.

The most important point in the golf swing is impact, but how many amateur golfers truly understand what is happening with their low point?

The best ball striking tips have a common goal, to improve your ability to achieve a centred strike more consistently - and this low point lesson is one that every amateur needs to here.

Below, PGA Pro and Top 50 Coach James Jankowski simplifies the key points that you need to know about the low point of the golf swing and offers three simple lessons that will help to improve your ball striking this season...

Low Point Lessons: How To Improve Your Ball Striking

1. Common Misconception

Most golfers treat a fairway wood like a driver and try to sweep the ball away.

But the ball isn't on a tee. The driver is the only club other than the putter that you hit on the upswing. You need a slightly descending angle of attack with a fairway wood.

The wide flat sole glides through the turf rather than digging, so there's no divot, but the club must still brush the turf just after the ball.

Move the ball back an inch and try to feel the club gliding through the grass post-impact, almost as though you're looking to launch a second ball just ahead of the one you're hitting.

2. Why You Top The Ball

If you're topping the ball, that is a low point issue.

For a clean strike, the lowest point of your swing arc must occur after the ball. When it arrives too early, the club is already rising at impact and the leading edge catches the equator.

The culprit is often an instinctive desire to help the ball up, scooping at it and leaning back, which flips the low point to behind the ball.

The fix is to keep the hands ahead of the ball at impact. That forward shaft lean moves the low point forward.

The tee peg drill will help. Set a tee in the ground where the second ball was in the first tip. Push it all the way in and focus on striking it after the ball. The hands lead while the loft lifts.

3. The 'Pitch Shot' Link

Yes, this is a pitch shot but the common theme here is low point.

On a pitch, start neutral with straight arms. In transition, make a small lateral shift towards the target. This moves the low point forward with the club lagging behind the hands to keep the arms long through impact.

As you feel the club and arms catching up to your body, start to rise with your legs to lift the handle just enough to stop the club burying itself into the turf. This syncs up the club, arms and body.

I don't think I am going out on a limb by saying that most golfers have struggled with their short game at one time or another.

Having the right menu of shots to choose from around the green is a great way to improve and bed in consistency, but there is one shot that is particular useful to learn.

The half pitch is a key component in any good short game clinic, but for the purpose of this particular article we asked Top 50 Coach to dedicate his full attention to supporting golfers to learn this crucial shot.

Below, Keith uses more than three decades of coaching experience to explain how you can use your wedges to vary flight, spin and release, before sharing a useful step-by-step guide on how to play the half pitch shot...

How To Play The Half Pitch Shot

First, get to know your wedges. Here, I have four, which will each yield a different result.

If you make the same length and speed of swing, each will deliver a different flight according to the loft and spin generated, so the ball will behave differently on landing.

Take time in practice to get to understand the different results each delivers by swinging all your wedges the same length back and through at a similar tempo.

They will all differ in terms of flight, spin and how much the ball rolls when landing on the green.

If you restrict your backswing, there's only so much forward momentum you can generate, which will cap the distance you can hit each wedge.

Equally, many club golfers swing back too far, then have to reduce speed by decelerating through the ball.

You don't need a wide stance for a half swing. A narrow stance also helps minimise body movement to assist with the strike.

I also have a little more weight on my front foot to encourage a downward strike. Use your torso and shoulders to control the swing with the arms following.

Hinging the wrists a little will help create a steeper angle of attack.

Just as you control the backswing with your upper body, so too the follow-through.

By capping the follow-through, you can move through impact with conviction, unhinging your wrists with purpose knowing the ball can only go so far.

This will help with consistency of strike and also with poor lies or grass snagging the club at impact.

Above, see how I've rotated my upper body in a similar way to the backswing.

By using measured lengths of swing with each different wedge loft, you can create a complete menu of distances.

You might be wondering, what on earth does a chicken wing have to do with my golf game? Bear with me, all will become clear.

Some of the best ball striking lessons talk about connection in the golf swing, but John Jacob's has used decades of coaching experience to distill his expert advice into practical steps to fix the chicken wing fault specifically.

Below, John explains what a chicken wing is in the golf swing, and how to fix it, so that you can shoot lower scores and cut your handicap in 2026...

Why A 'Chicken Wing' Is Stealing Distance From Your Golf Game

The disconnection you see here with the lead arm separating from the chest is what's referred to as a ‘chicken wing'.

The arms have initiated the downswing, and the club gets thrown across the body on an out-to-in swing path across the line of the target.

Look where the lead elbow is pointing. This all leads to loss of control and a lack of power.

To fix the chicken wing, we need everything to be connected. What we want to see is this drive through the lower half.

The alignment sticks are purely for illustration purposes and show just how symmetrical the golf swing is.

Note how the left and right arms are relatively level through the backswing and it's the same in the forward swing.

To marry it up, take some gentle practice swings, noting these positions. This will help to prevent your lead elbow from flaring out through impact.

Imagine that you're going to throw a bucket of water over a dirty car. If you were to adopt a chicken wing, you would have no momentum and that water would go all over you.

As you can see with the alignment stick, I've extended nicely through the ball. I've swung my arms back and mirrored that position on the follow-through. That bucket of water will have shot down the target line as intended!

Punch practice

Hit little punches, ensuring that at the end of the swing the club is pointing through to the target. It will help you sharpen up your strike and regain control of your impact position.

“No, that's wrong – this is right.” I often hear this, or words to this effect.

However, the idea that there might be a ‘wrong' or ‘right' way is, in my view, misleading.

Many golfers could do with viewing things differently – there's a ‘good' way for them, and a ‘bad' way.

Improving your ball striking is a very individual journey, as even the best golf swings in the world all look very different.

Take Chris Gotterup, for example. He adopts a very open stance, which you could call a ‘slicer's nightmare'. This is the point – a good golf swing needs to make sense relative to the style of shot, or the shot they're trying to hit, and match their swing DNA.

So, instead of sharing my ‘best drills' for iron play, I'm taking you through the key components of the golf swing.

Practicing without a plan is one of the seven things you should never do at the driving range, so go armed instead with this formula instead and experiment with these components.

What happens if you do ‘X' or ‘Y'? How does this affect ball flight? I guarantee that your understanding of the swing will improve dramatically, as will your ability to adopt common sense.

How To Experiment With Your Golf Swing

1. Grip

If you took the top 50 players in the world and looked at every golf grip, there would be a really wide range – fairly neutral, weak, strong, very strong.

If someone comes to me for a lesson, I will first look to see what shot they're producing and go from there, because when you alter the grip, you change a lot of what's going on elsewhere.

A strong grip for a right-hander looks like the one in the image above. I can see three or four knuckles on my left hand and none on the right. This grip encourages a more closed face at impact.

By contrast, the above below shows a weak grip, with only one knuckle on the left-hand glove visible.

The line between thumb and forefinger is pointing closer to my head than my right shoulder, which is likely to encourage a weaker face angle.

If someone is consistently tugging the ball left, this grip could help fix that. Sometimes a grip change is necessary, but strong and weak grips don't always have to be altered if the shot shape works.

2. Ball Position

When the ball is set back in your stance, it will come out much lower. It will start right and it's much easier to draw shots when you're steeper into the ball, as you will be when it's back in your stance.

When the ball is forward in the stance, it will launch higher and you'll find it easier to start the ball left and then fade it. Professionals are happy to move their ball position around from shot to shot, especially in links conditions, as it's a simple way to manipulate the ball flight.

3. Tilts

In the image above, you can see that I have more of a bend in my right-hand side and a bit more tilt to my body. This makes it easier to move the low point of your swing back and hit the ball higher.

With less tilt in my right-hand side, as in the image below, it is easier to move the low point of the swing forward to help you hit the ball lower.

4. Hip And Shoulder Alignment

If you're losing the ball to the right (a fade or slice for a right-hander), you might want to try closing your alignment a little.

It's much easier to start the ball right and draw the ball from here. In the image below, you can see my left arm is slightly higher than my right, and my left leg is just in front of my right leg.

As a result, both hip and shoulder alignment are closed relative to the target, helping the swing path travel to the right.

If you're struggling with your swing being too much on the inside, a slightly more open alignment could help.

Now, my left arm is just below my right, and you can just see my left leg is behind my right. This alignment change will allow your path to move to the left and encourage a fade.

5. Hand Depth

The image shows one swing where I'm lower with a much more rounded depth (left).

You can see my hands have gone around and behind me. If someone can get the hand path deep, especially a player who can rotate a lot on the way down, this should help them to achieve an inside path and encourage a draw.

For someone who doesn't rotate much on the way down and struggles with too much of an inside path, a more vertical hand path can help (right).

6. Rotation

Having more rotation, especially in the backswing, will achieve more of an inside path – as well as added clubhead speed and power, of course.

But let's say you struggle to rotate and you're getting limited power, perhaps due to poor flexibility – what can you do?

I'd say you should get fairly deep in the backswing (see point 5), especially if you cut across it, and should probably have your alignment slightly closed (see point 2).

If you can't do one component, you can add in others, which is really the point that I'm keen to stress.

7. Pressure At Address

The more pressure you have forward at address, the further forward your low point moves.

The angle of attack will be steeper, and the ball flight will be lower. It becomes easier to hit on the inside and push the ball right. This is similar to how Rory McIlroy sets up – more of a crunch, push draw.

In this image, my pressure is now more behind the ball and everything is more vertical. The low point is further back. With this set-up, I should find it easier to start the ball left and hit a nice fade on a higher flight.

This is more like a typical Scottie Scheffler position - he moves in a very lateral way. If he were to set up more like Rory, he might find he can't hit his reliable fade anymore.

8. Shifting pressure

Shifting pressure can achieve the same as pressure at address. Some people do it better than others.

Shifting pressure while being very forward at address can lead to low shots that start right; pressure on your back leg, then spinning, can lead to fats and slices.

9. Handle Height

The higher the handle, the easier it is to swing a little bit more around yourself and produce a draw, while starting it right. The lower the handle, the easier it is to start the ball left and fade it.

I'll mention depth here, too. The higher you are, the easier it is to clip the ball off the turf; the lower you are, the easier it is to go deeper into the turf. You see the former used a lot in the short game (the toe-down shot).

This is not something that gets talked about much, but it helps to understand how these variations affect the ball flight and what handle height suits you.

10. Shaft Lean

When the hands are forward, as in the photo on the right here, it becomes easier to swing the club on the inside and start the ball right. The low point of the swing is further forward, and the ball will come out lower.

The further back the shaft lean is, as in the photo on the left, the easier it is to hit the ball higher, start it further left, and get it fading.

Lots of golfers have a dazzling long game but can't chip for toffee - it's a tale as old as time.

Our ultimate short game clinic is a great place to start when trying to sharpen up around the greens, but many of the most common amateur short game mistakes start with setup.

Turning up to practice without a plan is one of the seven things you should never do at the driving range, or the short game area, so we enlisted on of the best in the business to ensure we had the right tools to tackle the most common faults.

In this month's Game Changer Clinic, PGA Fellow Professional and Top 50 Coach Ben Emerson uses more than two decades of experience coaching golfers of all abilities to help one reader improve their short game strikes...

Short Game Weight Distribution Drill For Heavy Strikes

Mid-handicapper Neville Christian visited the game-changer clinic this month after struggling to achieve consistently good strikes on his short-game shots.

This is a common fault among amateur golfers, leading to the dreaded chunk or rocket-like thin over the green, but the issue can be rectified with a simple set-up change and swing thought.

The Problem

With such a short and often delicate shot, which relies very much on touch and feel for success, a significant weight shift in the backswing is not conducive to consistently good ball-striking – but that was exactly the problem that Neville exhibited.

After watching Neville in the studio, Ben explained that there is a time and a place for ‘power shift' mode, but for shorter shots around the green it's important to maintain a stable base and allow the arms to control the motion.

By moving off the ball in the backswing on such a short shot, there is almost no chance of getting back to the ball in time, which leads to poor contact with the golf ball.

The Solution

The first thing that needed to happen was for Neville's weight to favour his lead side at address and then stay there throughout the swing.

By opening his feet slightly to the left of the target, he created the room for his hands to swing through and the club to arrive correctly at impact with a stable base.

His trail foot could almost lift off the ground entirely, as there is practically no weight going through it.

Some players like to use this as a drill in practice. By standing flat on your lead foot but on the toes of your trail foot, you instantly encourage your weight to stay on the lead side throughout – otherwise you will fall over in the backswing.

My favourite drill to help golfers like Neville is to get them standing on a seesaw board as they swing. Any weight shift is instantly identified by movement in the board, so I encouraged Neville to keep the target side of the board on the ground throughout the swing. By nailing the fundamentals Neville was then able to let the club do the work.

Imagine you’re stood over a shot on the course and the chances of success are the flip of a coin, no more than a 50/50 punt of achieving a positive outcome. That’s the reality of a surprisingly high number of scenarios.

Shot Scope has identified five of the most common and costly, and below Top 50 Coach Adam Harnett shares his top tips to help you improve your odds of hitting a good shot and improving your scores.

The specific situations are ability-dependent, but all the advice will help you become a better golfer, whatever your handicap.

1. Hitting the fairway with driver or three-wood

It might surprise you to learn that single figure handicaps have a 50/50 chance of hitting the fairway with driver or three-wood. You need to know where the danger is on the hole to choose the correct club and improve your chances of hitting the fairway.

It might be beneficial to hit three-wood if you’re playing to a specific yardage on a dog-leg, ensuring you can’t reach a penal hazard like a fairway bunker or water, or aiming for a much wider part of the fairway. But if there’s nothing like that, I’d definitely be pulling the driver out as being further down the hole is proven to lead to a lower score.

A great practice game to monitor and improve your driving accuracy is the goal-post game. When you’re on the driving range, pick two targets like flags or trees that are roughly a fairway width apart and record how many balls out of 14 (the typical number of drives in a round) you hit through those goal-posts.

This helps you replicate the real-life scenario while practicing, builds consequence to your shots and helps you track and analyse your performance and trends, such as missing on a particular side. Understanding your shot shape and dispersion will help your on-course strategy, and identifying weaknesses will help you target your technical improvements.

2. Hitting the green from 100-150 yards

The average scratch golfer has a 50/50 chance of hitting the green from 100-150 yards and one of the biggest reasons for this is being too aggressive at the flag.

It’s really important to know your dispersion and miss tendencies. If your miss is left, you shouldn’t aim at a flag tucked left – likewise, a tucked right flag if your miss is right – because you can leave yourself short-sided. Give yourself enough margin for error with where you’re aiming that your common miss and outer dispersion still finds the green.

When you get into the shorter area of this zone at around 100 yards, club selection is important. For example, I could hit my 56° wedge that distance, but it would take a full swing, and then too much spin becomes a problem, especially in the wind. Spin control is really important, especially for a scratch golfer, so I’d go to my 50° gap wedge and use a three-quarter swing that should make me way more accurate with my distance control.

3. Coming Up Short

A typical 25-handicapper has a 50/50 chance of missing the green short from 100 yards, and a 20-handicapper has a 50/50 chance of missing short from 150 yards. It’s important to know your yardages with each club – and select your club based on the average carry rather than your absolute best. 100 yards is a really good reference point.

If you’ve got a club and shot that you know goes 100 yards you can work up and down from that pretty easily. I also like to use a practice game on the course to encourage you to avoid missing short. If you miss short of the green it’s a bogey, if you’re on the green but short of the flag it’s a par and if you’re on the green and past the flag it’s a birdie.

This really helps you change your mindset when it comes to hitting the ball to and past the flag, and tracking your performance is really helpful.

4. Missing the green from 75-100 yards

The average 10-handicapper has a 50/50 chance of hitting the green from 75-100 yards. You can easily improve these numbers with some structure around how you hit different distances in this range, because it normally isn’t a full stock shot.

A lot of golfers like to use a clockface method with your left arm (for right-handers) going back to 9 o’clock, 10 o’clock and 11 o’clock in the backswing. As Ben Hogan once said, “show me a man who hits full wedge shots, I want to play him for money.”

Keep the same tempo with each of these backswings and the ball will travel three different distances. If you do this with all your wedges – and introduce more backswing and grip positions if needed – you will build a matrix of different shots (carry distance and trajectory) that you can easily implement for those tricky in-between distances.

5. Holing out from 3-6 feet

Golfers with a handicap in the 20s have a 50/50 chance of holing a 3-6ft putt. Former Ryder Cup player David Howell was one of the best putters of all time, and I like to recommend a compass point drill he used.

Place tees at three, four, five and six feet from the hole, at north, south, east and west. The aim of the game is to hole a putt from each tee and then move back a foot, working on one compass point at a time. I would advise you to go through your normal pre-shout routine for every putt, rather than just firing the putts off quickly.

You can hit every putt and score it as a total out of 16, or do it as a completion game so you have to go back to the start when you miss one. Either way, it adds pressure to your practice so you’re feeling the same things stood over these putts as you would be out on the golf course.

You want the putts to be pretty flat so it isn’t too hard, but introducing some slope will also help you learn about how much slope affects putts of different lengths and speeds when holing-out.

Some people believe that playing with a low number on your golf ball brings luck or if you tap the inside of the cup with the ball after a good putt that run will continue - but let's face it... these are nonsensical myths.

Those particular examples are fairly harmless, but one particular putting myth is actually costing you shots on the green - and that can't continue if you want to improve!

Putting is an often neglected art in the amateur game, which is a travesty when you consider that tools like our ultimate putting improvement guide can help you shoot lower scores and cut your handicap by shaving shots off the card on the green.

James Jankowksi, a putting expert who has helped over 3000 golfers to sharpen up on the greens, believes that a common misconception around how the putter moves is the cause of great pain for amateur golfers.

Below, James busts the myth and shares his expert advice on how you can putt better for the remainder of the season...

The Putting Myth That's Harming Your One-Putt Potential

First, you need to understand how the putter moves.

At address, the shaft sits on an inclined plane, so the putter swings naturally on an arc, and the face gradually opens during the backstroke.

A common mistake is trying to keep the face square to the target, or simply not allowing it to open enough.

Relative to the putter's natural arc, this means the face is now effectively shut.

Viewing it on a horizontal plane shows that it really is actually shut, indicating the amount of rotation, and therefore timing, needed to return it to square.

If you don't, you will pull the putt. If you do, you've introduced a timing element that can just as easily lead to you pushing it.

Pulled putts often stem from having to create speed too near impact. A good stroke relies on timing.

If the backstroke is too slow and short, you have to accelerate late into the ball.

The later you create speed, the harder it is to time the stroke.

Some golfers tilt (push) or rotate (pull) excessively at impact; others stall the handle and flip the putter head (pull) or drive the handle (push).

Many golfers are told to hit up on the ball to create topspin but that's not why we want a slight upward angle of attack.

At address, the ball's equator sits around 6-8mm above the putter's sweet spot, so a slight upward strike simply helps return the centre of the face to the equator.

It's a strike function, not a topspin function.

With a conventional putting grip, a small amount of shoulder tilt at address naturally encourages an upward strike.

Those who consciously try to create topspin often manipulate the putter, introducing another timing element.

Get it right and you'll get away with it; get it wrong and the face or path won't return consistently, leading to pushes and pulls.

Dan Grieve has built a reputation as one of the world's leading short game coaches, so we are very excited to be able to share his wisdom with you.

It doesn't matter if you are a scratch golfer or a 20-handicapper, everyone should strive to improve their short game.

Whether it's diagnosing the 7 most common mistakes made by amateurs or sharing his favorite drill, Dan Grieve has helped countless amateurs to do just that.

You don't even have to be on the golf course, either. Dan's expert advice extends to a great bonus tip that you can practice in the comfort of your own home or at your desk in the office - so there really is no excuse.

If you want to shoot lower scores and cut your handicap in 2026, a focus on your performances around the green could be the perfect starting point - and Dan's 5 best chipping drills should be your first port of call...

Dan Grieve's 5 Best Chipping Drills

1. Thumbs Off

The first one, which I call the ‘thumbs off’ drill, is designed to improve your touch and feel, while also helping to create more spin around the green.

The reason I call it the thumbs off drill is because most golfers get very anxious around the green. They get a little bit tight and tense towards the top of the backswing… and that’s where the thumbs tend to squeeze.

The pads squeeze and you will see in the video that it creates this drag or lag, which really creates too much of a hit. The ball starts to jump and I've thrown my hands at it because of tension.

Now, if you take your thumbs completely off the grip and make some swings, perhaps for the first time in your golfing career, you might actually feel the weight of the club head.

This drill lets the club swing almost on its own momentum, which creates so much more control and spin on the golf ball because you start to collect it versus hitting.

If you want to, you can actually hit some balls with the thumbs off totally and see how you get on. Then, when you put the thumbs back on the grip, make sure they're very lightly placed. This will help to increase your feel, control and spin around the green.

2. Lead Arm Only

This is a great drill if you're a bit of a flipper. If you use too much of the bottom hand and it comes off the blade thin or heavy - give this a try. I call it the ‘one arm only’ drill.

The benefit of using your lead arm only is it takes away the trail hand, which is the one that generally wants to flip. Start by making some swings.

The goal is to make sure that the shaft extends through the arm into the follow through. The butt of the grip for a chip and run low shot should really be pointing at that lead hip when in the finish position. I call that release number one.

Start without the ball and when you feel comfortable you can hit some with the ball. If everything matches up you should achieve a strong strike.

This drill teaches you to keep the leading edge down and, while it might feel a bit strange if you've not done this before, it shows you how to get the shaft into the right position without the interference of that dominant trail hand.

Once you've hit a few doing that, put your trail hand back on and then hit some chip shots. Aim to finish in that same manner, with the butt of the grip on that lead hip. That's how you get real consistency on those low basic chip shots.

3. Trail Foot Backwards

Another short game fault I see a lot is where the player leans back to try and help the ball up into the air.

It's human nature, in a way, and I understand why players do it. But, when you're trying to go over something and you lean back, you usually hit the ground way before and the club can either dig or it can hit the ground and kick - depending on the time of the year.

To fix this, we need to control our low point. What I mean by that is the golf swing has an arc, so we need to move the lowest point of the arc forward. One way we can do that is with the trail foot backwards drill.

In the video, you will see I have pulled my right foot backwards and placed all my weight on my left foot. I’m up on my toes on the back foot, which forces me to shift the pressure forwards onto the lead leg.

The goal with this drill is to maintain this stance throughout the strike. Do some practice swings first with your trail foot backwards and on the toes.

If the weight moves backwards, you will become unstable or put your trail foot flat on the ground. This instant feedback is great.

Then, hit some shots and really feel that left leg loaded. You will notice straight away how that strike really firms up and it gets so much stronger and crisper straight away. This really is the drill that you'll see instant results with if you're hitting that heavy shot.

4. Trail Arm Only

Sometimes, you’ve got to go in the air… and it requires more of a swing of the club head and a little more release of the club. Try the trail arm only drill for this one.

Place a ball positioned in line with the heel of the lead foot. You need to have lie that allows the club to slide under the ball, so bare that in mind when setting this one up.

Place your lead hand on your trail shoulder and grip the club with your trail hand only. If you clamp that shoulder in, so that it doesn’t disconnect from the torso, you get a lovely feeling as the club moves through impact.

In the video, you can see how the butt of the grip is swinging towards my belt buckle. I call that a release two. It provides the feeling of how the club should be releasing when you're looking for that higher shot.

5. On-Plane Alignment

Here's a drill if you suffer with what I think is perhaps the most common short game fault - where the player gets under plane.

When I take it away, as demonstrated in the video, you can see it rolls inside. This is a real killer because from there you've got to manipulate it.

If you practice a lot, you might hit some decent ones like that. But, you're never far away from a really bad one if you're rolling it inside.

So, it's quite a tough change to make if you've been doing it for a long time. What you require when you're making swing changes is feedback.

Set up to the ball you're intending to hit. Place the clubhead of another wedge under your trail heel and stand on it.

Now, If I roll the club and go under, you can see in the video that I'm going to hit the club.

That’s the instant feedback you need. If you hit the shaft of the club under your trail foot in the backswing, you’ve rolled inside. I know I'm offline.

In order to get on plane, you need to bring the club back without making contact with the wedge under your foot. The shaft will be running through your arm and the clubhead is outside the hands.

Hit a few and very quickly you will teach yourself that really nice swing plane to get quality strikes. This is a simple exercise to get that strike and improve your swing plane.

Bonus Tip To Try At Home

Put your thumbs together and spread your fingers out wide with flat palms that face the ground. Tuck your elbows into your body and get into golf posture. I want you to really feel like your triceps are connected to your torso.

From that position, simply make a little turn towards the trail side and the same to the target side.

This practice drill stops you getting too handsy and promotes keeping that connection. You don't need a club, so you can do that in your living room or in the office, and it'll just keep you on top of the basics.

The term 'lag' will probably be familiar to most golfers, but how many of them actually understand what it is and how it works?

According to Top 50 Coach Ged Walters, who has more than two decades experience coaching golfers of all abilities, a common misconception around when and how you should release lag in the golf swing is holding many players back.

When trying to cut their handicap and shoot lower scores, many chase the 'lag' holy grail, based on what they think they see from the best golfers in the world, but all is not as it seems.

Below, Ged shares his wisdom on the topic and offers a great drill to help you utilise lag in the golf swing and improve your ball striking...

Lag In The Golf Swing: What Is It and How Does It Work?

Lag in the golf swing is a byproduct of the wrists hinging at an appropriate rate in the backswing.

The best players are then able to unhinge that lag at an appropriate rate and point in the downswing rather that trying to hold onto it, or releasing it too soon. Many golfers try to retain lag long into the downswing and this will cause problems.

There are reasons why many players fail to deliver the club with any forward shaft lean at impact and it's mainly down to a poor body pivot, the wrists and arms overloading in the backswing or no weight moving forward in the downswing.

It could be a combination of all three.

A drill that I see great success with when coaching is for pupils to hit shots with a yoga wedge behind the ball.

All you have to do is not hit the wedge in your downswing. If your wrist angles unhinge too early, your club will strike the wedge.

Remember, you're not trying to hold onto the angles; you're just trying to miss the wedge.

In the image below, the wedge is highlighting the angle of the club through impact if the wrists unhinge too soon. The club travels beyond the full radius of the swing before impact, which can result in fats, tops and thins.

The connection between arms and ribcage is something most golfers would benefit from working on, to help create the ideal impact factors.

If the arms are swinging optimally, the wrist angles will unload at a more functional rate to help you deliver the correct amount of shaft lean through impact.

How often do you pay attention to your feet when setting up to hit a golf shot? If the answer is rarely, like many amateur golfers, you need to address that quickly - if you'll pardon the pun.

Most people think that in order to improve power, you need to invest hours in the best golf fitness exercises trying to boost their strength and clubhead speed.

While that strategy is certainly effective, you can also achieve pretty good results from making a simple foot adjustment at address.

Rotation can either help to generate or kill power in the golf swing, depending on how well you do it, so learning this simple tip can send you on your way to hitting longer tee shots and lower scores this season...

How A Simple Foot Adjustment Could Improve Your Rotation

The image below highlights a problem that plagues the game of many amateurs. I'll see this kind of set-up every day when I teach... and it's a fault that even exists among some lower-handicappers.

Note the position of the feet, both pointing directly at 12 o'clock. It's really restrictive.

People ask how they can generate more power and tell me they struggle with balance and have a general lack of mobility.

Some complain of a backache and it's really no wonder when you consider how square the feet are.

Most players on tour will have at least one foot fanned, typically the lead one at about 11 o'clock.

This is how I start: rotate that lead foot about 30˚ - as demonstrated below.

Quite simply, it gets it out of the way and gives the body more space. When doing this, most people instantly feel more flexible, better balanced and more powerful.

In the backswing, what we're trying to do is create space, power and consistency.

You can't do this with the handbrake on, which is often the case when the feet are square.

So I then get players to fan their trail foot slightly, too (the alignment sticks in the image below are just to highlight the flare or fanning).

When you can't rotate properly, you can't create the space needed to allow the arms to get into the correct pre-impact position – you end up sliding the pelvis across.

Often, because of a lack of balance, this results in a big block or a push/cut to the right.

This (below) is what we want to see. With my lead foot flared, I've rotated nicely, cleared out of the way and used the ground to deliver a sweet and powerful strike.

It's such a simple way to improve the quality of your ball-striking and to be more consistent.

Bonus Drill To Try At Home

Try the tennis forearm drill at home to practice the movement needed.

Pretend to hit a forearm tennis shot. What do you notice? I guarantee that you'll clear your front foot out of the way. Practise this motion, and it will help you get into the habit of flaring that front foot.

Most amateur golfers now carry a hybrid of some sort in their golf bag, but often we assume that the only places it can be used is off the tee and from the fairway.

According to Top 50 Coach Ged Walters, who has more than two decades coaching experience as a PGA professional, this special club is actually tremendously versatile - and learning how to wield it effectively could cut your handicap in 2026.

In fact, Ged believes that shooting lower scores would be more achievable if amateur golfers could master shots from the rough, the fairway bunker and around the green with a hybrid...

3 Shots Amateur Golfers Should Master With A Hybrid

1. From the rough

The hybrid is a great option from the rough but if your ball has nestled down a bit, your angle of attack needs to become steeper.

Some people may be tempted to try and hit a 7-iron to a green 150 yards away from this kind of lie, but all too often this will end up with the ball travelling ten yards, leaving you facing another shot from the rough.

The hybrid is the ideal option for this type of shot as the head will get through the rough better, allowing you to sometimes achieve decent yardage still. But if the ball is buried, it's time to pull out your wedge and just get it out.

If you do decide the hybrid is a sensible option, the way to encourage that steeper angle of attack is to increase your wrist set relative to normal.

If you watch tour players out of the rough, their wrists are so active, whereas generally they're quite passive throughout a normal swing from the fairway.

It's all about making sure that you are hinging the club up a lot more on the way back so that when you deliver it into the back of the ball, you're bringing the club back on a more downward angle.

2. Greenside chips

From certain lies, the hybrid may be your safest option around the greens to prevent snagging.

For a standard chip shot with a hybrid, set your feet pretty close together with at least 70% of your pressure on your lead foot, which you need to keep there throughout.

Because the shaft will be quite vertical, your feet will be closer to the ball.

As the club moves away from the ground on the takeaway, it will arc because of the angle at which you're standing to the ball – a little bit like with a putter.

When you move your arms back down and through, there will be a little bit of rotation with the rib cage coming through, but the angle of attack is steeper than usual.

You then just hit down onto the back of it and bunt it forward. It's a bit like a putt but with elements of a chipping stroke.

A lot of people will go down the grip because of the shaft length, but this comes down to personal preference.

I like to stand tall and hold it in the normal place as I think going down the grip makes it easier to thin it because you've shortened the arc and you want the arc to be constant.

3. From fairway bunkers

Golfers struggle with fairway bunkers, whether that's automatically reaching for the wedge, perhaps unnecessarily, or playing the yardage without looking at the lie, the lip of the bunker and the topography surrounding it.

But sometimes, the hybrid can be a good option if the lie and lip allow, so how do you play this shot?

First, you want your ball position to be pretty much the same as from the fairway – so that's in the front third of your stance.

Then, feel like you're standing a fraction taller than normal. You don't want to catch it even a touch heavy as the sand will just kill it.

Set your weight a little more on the lead side throughout the whole swing to promote a slightly more downward attack angle.

The main issue here is the struggle for consistency over where the bottom of the swing arc is, but as soon as you learn how to find that more easily, you'll be able to enjoy success with this shot.

In the right circumstances, the hybrid can be great from bunkers as its user-friendly rounded sole won't dig in as much.

Reverse spine angle is the No.1 cause of lower back pain in golf - according to PGA Fellow Professional, Ben Emerson.

As his game changer clinic column outlines below, even low-handicap golfers can struggle with this harmful movement - irrespective of your golf fitness, flexibility or mobility.

The impact isn't limited to your long-term participation in the game, however, as reverse spine angle can also be catastrophic for your ball striking consistency.

In this article, the Top 50 Coach and Author of one of our top-12 best golf books, Strike It Pure, shares how you can identify reverse spine angle in your own swing and take steps to improve your ball striking and protect your back in 2026...

Check Your Golf Swing For The No.1 Cause Of Lower Back Pain

The Problem

A reverse spine angle is the number-one cause of lower back pain in golf, and while I could see this was causing single-figure golfer Benjamin some issues now, this was nothing compared to the pain he might be letting himself in for down the line if we didn't fix it.

Benjamin is a fit and healthy individual who plays off single figures, so he can (and is) getting away with that reverse spine angle to an extent.

However, when he naturally loses flexibility and mobility, this will cause significant issues with his performance on the course and the health of his lower back.

It's fairly simple to identify in the golf swing, too. In your next driving range session, record your swing face-on and stop the video at the top of the backswing.

If you drew a line from your belt buckle through the top of your head, the line should point away from the target. If it points towards the target, you've likely fallen into the reverse spine angle trap.

Amateur golfers who exhibit a reverse spine angle in the golf swing often have to make serious compensations to actually make contact with the ball at impact, so consistency of strike can be a real issue for them.

The Solution

To fix this, I placed a large blue foam roller just outside Ben's trail foot and asked him to rotate himself over the top of it imagining he was holding a heavy ball.

Once he had correctly managed the movement, I added a medicine ball to his hands to help pull him over and away from the target – in complete contrast to the direction he was moving previously.

If he performed his reverse spine angle backswing and dropped the ball, it would hit him on the trail foot. However, with the new movement, the dropped ball would hit the floor beyond his trail side.

We also used a band under his lead foot to train the feeling that he was pulling out and then up towards the trail side in the backswing.

It would feel weird to pull the band straight up above his head when starting the backswing, but that is what he would have been doing with the reverse spine angle movement that he came to me with.

Missing a short putt on the golf course is one of the most infuriating experiences for any player - regardless of ability or experience within the game.

There are plenty of great tips and drills on how to hole out more often from short range in our ultimate putting improvement guide, or our tailored high-handicapper's putting manual, but many amateurs don't realise they are stifling their potential due to a common misconception.

According to putting expert James Jankowksi, who has helped more than 3000 golfers to improve on the greens, the idea that you should never aim outside the hole for a short putt is misleading.

Below, James explains why and shares his top tips to help you hole more short putts on the course...

This Common Short Putting Misconception Is Holding You Back

Before we start, let's look at the latest Shot Scope data to see what sort of success rate you should be looking for from 0-3ft.

Benchmarking yourself against the average amateur in your handicap index bracket is a great exercise to help you understand your starting point, which you can then build on with James' expert tips below.

Short Putt Success Rate (0-3ft)

Percentage of putts holed from 0-3ft by amateur golfers in different handicap index brackets

% Putts Made (0-3ft)

0-handicap

98

5-handicap

96

10-handicap

96

15-handicap

93

20-handicap

90

25-handicap

88

0255075100

% Putts Made (0-3ft) Data

Product	Value
0-handicap	98
5-handicap	96
10-handicap	96
15-handicap	93
20-handicap	90
25-handicap	88

Common Misconception (Short Putts)

Many amateurs try to take the break out of short putts. Sometimes this can be effective but it often leads to under-reading and lip-outs.

There's a common idea that you should never aim outside the hole on short putts. That's misleading as short putts still break.

This also introduces the idea of an effective centre or entry point. For example, on a left-to-right putt as here, the effective centre of the cup shifts slightly to the left of the physical centre.

Visualising where the ball is most likely to enter helps clarify the intended start line and improves spatial awareness relative to that entry point. Start picturing and feeling that entry point.

The Role Of The Hands

Short putts are a different motor task to longer putts. A 3-footer is not a scaled-down 40-footer – it is a fine motor movement.

Longer putts rely on a larger, more rhythmic motion from the shoulders and torso to generate energy, but intricate movements are typically felt through the hands, even though the stroke is coordinated through the whole body.

On short putts, the hands provide the sensory ‘read' for the movement, helping to organise timing and face control without excessive motion. Feel the smooth motion in the hands and putter, and the rest will often follow.

Entry Speed

Even on short putts, entry speed matters. The ball needs enough momentum to hold a true roll but not so much that the hole effectively shrinks.

‘Capture size' is the effective opening of the hole at different speeds.

The more speed, the smaller the hole effectively becomes and the less ability to drop the ball has. But at around 0.95mph or below, the ball's roll loses stability, with more chance of it wobbling or drifting offline late on.

Aim for it to enter the hole with some momentum, not dribbling in the front or ramming into the back.

We all head onto the course with the intention of playing and scoring as well as we can, but so many of us make avoidable mistakes that cost us silly shots. It’s so easy to fall into bad habits and make bad decisions, but the good news is, it’s also simple to prevent these blunders if you know what you’re looking for and how to fix the issues.

Thanks to the fantastic data and analysis from Shot Scope, we’re highlighted five key mistakes. In this article and video, Top 50 Coach Adam Harnett explains what they are and shares his tips and strategies to ensure you avoid these errors and play better golf.

1. Using too much loft around the greens

The Scot Scope data tells us that the average 15-handicapper reaches for a wedge 70% of the time around the greens, which gives them a 21% chance of getting up-and-down. But using a less lofted club increases that to 27% and it jumps significantly to 59% if you can use a putter. Develop a reliable chip and run with a short iron and your short game will improve.

Too much loft reduces your margin for error in terms of landing the ball on the correct spot to get it releasing to the hole, and means you need a bigger swing, which is harder to control. A simple chip and run with an 8 or 9-iron is a much safer and more predictable shot.

Set up standing a little closer to the ball, with a narrow stance with the feet one clubhead width apart, the ball position slightly back in your stance, and the handle of the club slightly ahead of the ball. From there, you want to take the rests out of the shot and finish with the same shape with the arms and club as you had at address.

With a 9-iron, you’re looking for the ball to carry 20-25% of the distance in the air and 75-80% with roll. As the ball is going to be on the ground more than it’s in the air, it’s important to read the shot like a putt and aim accordingly.

2. Not taking enough club

The Shot Scope data shows that all standards of golfer come up short with their approach shots far more often than they should. For the average 25-handicapper it’s 69% of the time, for the average 15-handicapper it’s 54%, and for the average five-handicapper it’s 39%.

A lot of golfers make the mistake of looking at the yardage to the front of the green and think ‘what can I hit to get it there’, so they’re always erring on the shorter side. That doesn’t allow for poor strikes either. I encourage players to get the yardage to the back of the green and play to the window between the flag and the back.

You need to take the weather conditions into account too. If you’re downwind I’m not going to change from my normal club for the yardage to the pin because I want the wind to help me get it past the flag. Into the wind is more tricky because most people think they hit the ball further than they do and they try and hit the ball hard, which actually creates more spin and holds the ball up in the air even more.

Try taking an extra club to what you think it is. The time of year and temperature is also important, and I think there’s a two-club difference between the peak of summer and into winter.

3. Hitting three-wood rather than driver off the tee

It’s a strategy that a lot players use for a safer tee shot, but the data shows that three-wood only leads to 1-3% more fairways hit for any given handicap. You’re losing distance as well, so it’s having a negative impact on your scoring ability. Increasing your accuracy with the driver is the route to better scoring.

The set-up with driver is really important. You want a nice wide stance to build a stable base because the driver swing is fast. The ball position should be just inside the left heel to encourage you to hit the ball with the clubhead moving slightly on the up at impact.

Tilting your spine away from the target will also help this, but it’s important to do this before you grip the club. Take your address position but hover your right hand (for right-handers) next to the top of the grip. Then slide your hand down to take your grip and that will create that position while ensuring your shoulders and forearms stay square to the target.

Rhythm and tempo are especially important with the drivers. A lot of golfers are putting in effort because they think that equals speed, but the speed needs to be down at the bottom where you hit the ball. So I’m thinking about a smooth transition and then adding the speed at the bottom of the swing.

4. Not knowing your carry distances

We already know that we’re coming up short too often, and misses like that can start become very expensive when it brings hazards and penalty areas into play. The data highlights that missing in a greenside bunker costs half a shot, and finding water short – or anywhere around the green – can be a real card wrecker. Getting the right club in your hands more often is an incredibly simple way to save shots.

It’s super-important to know your carry distances so you can pick the right club, especially on approach shots. You can work it out using launch monitors like the Shot Scope LM1 and lots of driving ranges these days have launch monitors. You should also record your yardages when you’re playing, making notes of the shots you’ve hit and how far they go in different conditions.

5. Playing it too safe with your second shot on par-5s

Conventional wisdom said you should lay-up to a full swing yardage that you’re comfortable with, but the Shot Scope data shows that isn’t the best strategy to improve your scoring.

The simple truth is that the closer you hit it to the green, the fewer shots on average it will take you to get the ball in the hole. Taking the average 15-handicapper, it’s 3.30 shots from 60 yards, 3.14 from 40 yards and 2.42 from 20 yards, so get the ball down there as far as you can with your second shot. Being confident with your fairway woods will help you do that.

A fairway wood off the ground is one of the hardest shots because it’s a long club and there isn’t that much loft. The thing that’s most important is getting a good angle of attack at the golf ball. You want the ball a couple of inches inside your left heel, and you don’t want the upper body tilt that you have for the driver, because we still need a slight downward angle into the ball.

The best fairway wood players often take a little divot, so you want to make sure you’re making contact with the ground just after the strike. Make a practice swing next to the ball and really feel like you’re making contact with the ground slight forward of the ball. A really common mistake is not shifting your weight and hanging back to try and help the ball in the air. Make sure you transfer your weight forwards.

Hitting a pull or a slice is never fun, but not understanding what causes them to happen can be ever more maddening.

If you want to shoot lower scores and cut your handicap in 2026, you can't be standing on the tee box with a crippling fear that a pull or slice is about to rear its ugly head.

It's a common mistake that plagues the game of amateurs everywhere, but it doesn't have to - enter, Top 50 Coach Keith Wood and his simple drill to fix it.

Keith Wood has been coaching for more than 30 years, working with golfers across the ability spectrum from elite professionals to complete beginners and helping them to play better golf.

Below, Keith explains what causes a pull or slice with driver and how you can fix the problem with a simple drill...

Why You Pull Or Slice Your Driver (And A Simple Drill To Fix)

What Causes A Pull And A Slice?

The pull and slice are very common shot outcomes, especially with the longer clubs, and generally happen when you deliver the club on an out-to-in path across the ball, travelling to the left.

The clubface angle at impact will dictate which direction the ball goes in. A club swung across the target line with an open face will produce a slice, while a closed clubface can deliver a pull or even a pull hook.

There are multiple possible outcomes depending on club path versus clubface angle, but let's try to combat this issue without getting too technical and make some changes in the least invasive way.

How To Fix A Pull And A Slice

In the image below, the club is outside the ball coming into impact and can only make contact if it travels across the target line.

This is generally caused by starting your downswing more with your upper body and shoulders, sending the club out too much in front of you and resulting in an exit into the follow-through that is low and way left of your target.

Casting, or an over-the-top move, is associated with both pulls and slices. Potential causes can be as simple as your body alignment aiming left at address, too weak a grip or not turning sufficiently in the backswing.

This is a great drill to practice on the driving range.

Learn how to swing the club in the opposite direction – in to out and away from you.

Don't be afraid to exaggerate this in practice by feeling the club working from behind you and travelling well right of target.

Picture the path it's working on through impact and pick a target for your clubhead to swing out to, way to the right. In the image above, I've allowed the club to work more from the inside before extending to the right of target.

I thought I'd seen everything at the Open Championship, but Wyndham Clark's coat hanger was not on my bingo card.

Many of you will likely have seen this and be wondering what Wyndham Clark was doing with a coat hanger at The Open, but this unique training aid has been used by top coaches for decades and is a great ball striking drill for amateurs to try if they struggle with clubface control.

Essentially, the coat hanger helps to maintain a better wrist angle throughout the swing - helping you to control the clubface through impact with instant feedback provided.

In the interest of finding out more details on how it helps to improve your game and provide a step-by-step guide for you to try the coat hanger drill for yourself, I reached out to Top 50 Coach Ged Walters who provided his expert guidance on the matter...

Wyndham Clark's Coat Hanger At The Open 2026 Explained

For those of you who prefer to see instruction tips on a video, with visual examples from a top PGA pro, I've got just the thing for you.

In the video below, Ged Walters explains the reason why Wyndham Clark is using a coat hanger at The Open and how it could help your ball striking- plus if you stay to the end you can see me use Ged's tips to give it a go myself.

Why Is Wyndham Clark Using A Coat Hanger?

The coat hanger drill has been around for decades, but it's still just as effective today as when it was first used.

The purpose of the drill is to provide instant feedback and a deeper understanding of how to control the clubface.

Lots of people say it's just to fix a slice, but that's not true as it can help to solve many common amateur faults that stem from not being able to control the clubface.

In his press conference ahead of the Open Championship this week, Wyndham Clark said:

"Mondays are my technical days. You won't see me doing a bunch of that stuff the rest of the week.

"My swing's gotten a little off. I kind of hit it kind of crappy, especially on Sunday - or just yesterday. The coat hanger is for wrist angle, trying to get a little more inflection in my left wrist so I can square the face more. That's just what it is".

How To Try The Coat Hanger Drill

In the video above, I am using a plastic hanger as it's easier to grip with the club.

Place the hanger on top of the grip and take your normal grip. Your hand should be in the middle of the hanger and the butt end of the hanger should rest against the lead forearm.

The idea is to maintain connection between the hanger and the forearm throughout the golf swing, as this keeps the wrist in a more neutral position and promotes better clubface control through impact.

If you start to swing out-to-in, or increase the loft by slicing across the ball, the hanger is likely to have disconnected away from the forearm at some point during the golf swing.

This is one of the best golf drills because it gives instant visual feedback, but it's also so easy to set up and carry out when you practice on the driving range.

You can also work on this at home, without hitting any golf balls, focusing on keeping that hanger in contact with the lead forearm throughout the entire swing.

If you have a mirror or you record your swing, you will see the wrist and the clubface are in a much more neutral position at the top which will ultimately help you to find a centred strike with your irons more often.

How Did Baz Get On?

After listening to Ged tell me all about the drill, and after seeing Wyndham Clark putting coat hangers on the map at The Open, I decided to head straight to the range to try it for myself.

After warming up, I hit five balls without the hanger. The pattern, as you can see in the video, detailed my usual left-to-right wipey slice.

However, after adding the coat hanger I striped one with a little baby fade on my first attempt. The drill takes some getting used to, so I won't lie and say they were all perfect, but that feeling of connection definitely helped me to feel the clubface and strike the ball with a nicer shape.

I'm going to commit to further practice with this interesting training aid, so stay tuned for updates (if you care about my awful golf game).

Why not try it yourself? Let me know how you get on in the comments below - I am more interested in your game than you are in mine!

I've always had a love-hate relationship with putting. As a high-handicap golfer, it's often been the source of much frustration, but the feeling of holing a putt is incredibly addictive.

My putting improved dramatically over the course of a recent winter golf rebuild and I am now playing off my lowest every handicap (20).

I wanted to share some of the best lessons and resources that have helped me along the way, from Top 50 Coaches and PGA pros, in the hope that they can also help you to improve your putting and cut your handicap in 2026.

This is by no means a comprehensive plan for everything you could ever need to work on, but of these eight great examples that I have tried in my own game, there will certainly be something in here that can help any high-handicap player.

Whether you prefer step-by-step guides, instructional videos or simple drills - we have something for you in this one-stop shop for firing up the flat stick.

8 Ways To Improve Your Putting As A High-Handicap Golfer

High-Handicapper Putting Data Analysis

Driving improvement in any area of the game is difficult if you don't assess your starting point. The latest Shot Scope data for 2026 is a great place to start, as it highlights the average performance indicators for 20- and 25-handicap golfers.

Comparing yourself against this baseline, and the ambitious target set by 10 and 15-handicappers, will help you to understand exactly what you need to work on, informing your journey through this guide to ensure you find the most suitable advice and guidance for your game personally.

The graphics below break down average putts per round, number of 3-putts per round, distance to the hole after your first putt and make percentages from different distances.

Baz used this data to determine his own pathway to progress, including a focus on putts from inside 6ft, but you can also use the stats to personalise your own journey.

Putting Fundamentals Lesson

Let's start with the essentials. If you can nail your fundamentals, you are well on your way to better performances with the putter.

Utilising the expertise of putting expert James Jankowski, as part of our article on the 7 things every golfer can do to putt better, this step-by-step guide is a great starting point for a better setup when putting:

• Isolate your lower body: Position yourself to disassociate your legs, core, and head, allowing only your shoulders, arms, and torso to control the putting motion.
• Adopt a relaxed, rounded posture: Fall slightly forward and round your upper body into the posture rather than rigidly bending at the hips. Keep your spine and shoulders soft, avoiding traditional "good posture" which creates too much muscular tension.
• Let your arms hang naturally: Keep your arms free of tension and let them hang down naturally. Without a putter in your hands, your fingers should comfortably brush somewhere around your knees.
• Keep your weight slightly toe-side: Avoid placing too much weight on your heels, as this will activate your legs. Instead, position your weight slightly toe-side on the balls of your feet to encourage your legs to stay quiet during the stroke.
• Focus on soft muscles: Ensure your shoulders, lats, and upper back stay completely soft and relaxed, giving them the freedom to move smoothly without restrictions.

8 Things Great Putters Do (That We Don't)

If you want to be a great putter, it makes sense to learn from the best... right?

Well, Jamie Donaldson certainly knows his stuff when it comes to navigating the greens, and his advice in this instructional video on the 8 things great putters do will inspire you, as it did me, to work on key aspects of your putting.

Putting Grip Case Study

As a high-handicap golfer myself, I decided to try out the claw grip. The reason I have suggested it as part of this ultimate guide to putting for high-handicappers is that the results were very interesting - despite early concerns about it's effectiveness.

Below is a case study of my investigation, but you can also watch the full procedure on the video below.

Background After a barren spell on the greens and feeling like I hadn’t holed anything of note for ages, I decided to switch things up and try something new. Flitting between multiple grips, I couldn’t settle on a contender, so I headed to Sand Moor Golf Club to put the final decision in the hands of the data.

Methodology Armed with my putter and five golf balls, I conducted a simple experiment to gather data. I hit 60 putts from six feet, broken down into 20 putts per grip. All putts were hit from the same spot on a sloping left-to-right six-footer to carefully consider the variables.

Results

The Conventional Grip: Starting with this old faithful, I was surprised by how it performed admirably. The grip felt confident, helping me hole 14 of 20 putts.

Left Hand Low Grip: Proceeding in a positive fashion, I found the bottom of the cup 13 out of 20 times. This style efficiently squared my shoulders along the target line and left me feeling pleased, meaning I didn't totally discount it.

The Claw Grip: Despite an encouraging start, a dry spell during the third set of five balls meant the fashionable claw grip only converted 9 of 20 putts. Shelved for now.

At the time, I moved away from using the claw grip as it actually produced the worst results out of the three methods tried. However, over the first ten balls the success rate was huge, so I decided to give it some time on the course to flesh out the data.

The results showed that, with some practice, this method removed much of the unwanted manipulation from my trail hand and yielded better results. My handicap has since dropped by five shots, albeit not exclusively because of the claw grip, but it has certainly been a positive factor in that improvement.

As with any putting grip, the decision is pretty personal and unique to the individual. Exploring options in practice could provide the solution to your putting woes, and like me you could soon be adopting the claw on the greens.

Step-By-Step Guide: The Claw Grip

Step 1 - The Left Hand Placement

Take your normal putting stance and using your left hand (for a right-handed golfer) grip the putter in the lifelines on the palm of your hand.

When using the claw grip for putting, the left hand is towards the top of the grip, as opposed to the lower position seen in a left-hand low putting grip. The back of your left hand should point towards the target.

Step 2 - The Right Hand Placement

Using your right hand, make a 'claw' shape using the space between your thumb and your index finger. For comfort and stability, you can press your four fingers together to form one pincer of the claw (think of a crab's claw), with the thumb forming the other.

Place your newly formed claw onto the grip of the putter underneath your left hand, with your fingers pointing towards the target side and the grip cradled in the crease.

Step 3 - The Stroke

I like to feel as though my left elbow is more tucked into my side and the stroke is really instigated from my left wrist.

The claw grip for putting is designed to take the right hand out of play, so while it's in contact with the club it shouldn't really be influencing the stroke too much.

The grip pressure is stronger in the left hand, with the right sitting more as a guide than anything else.

When certain golfers suffer are searching for how to cure the putting yips, this technique is popular antidote to administer as it limits the role of an over-dominant right hand when putting.

While the claw grip won't solve all of your putting woes, especially if you are struggling with how to read greens, it will help you to create a reliable stroke that you feel comfortable with - and that's huge!

Best Putters 2026

Having the right equipment is just as important as finding the right putting grip or improving your technique on the greens. Finding the right putter for you again comes down to personal preference, with many styles to choose from.

I switched a few years ago from a blade to a mallet putter and I've never looked back.

You only have to look at the success of the TaylorMade Spider X on the PGA Tour this season to see why the model is so popular.

I love it and couldn't imagine rolling the ball with anything else. Confidence on the greens is so important, which is why it has stayed in my bag for so long.

The video below breaks down the best putters on the market in 2026, reviewed by our expert testers under rigorous conditions, to help point you in the right direction when looking to find your next flat stick...

Line and Pace Putting Drill

This drill is super simple to set up. Grab your putter, a golf ball and three tees - then head to the practice green. The instructions are explained clearly in a step-by-step format within the video, so try it for yourself.

The idea is to increase comfort with holing putts at different speeds for different breaks. If you find this too easy or you want an additional challenge, increase the length of putt or find one with a little more slope!

Green Reading Practice

For this drill, I want you to completely take the hole out of your mind and focus instead on the start line.

So many amateurs will aim straight at the hole every time and then wonder why they are missing the putt by six feet or more. If we can read the high point of the putt correctly, and identify the start line, a challenging putt will become a lot easier.

Identifying the high point of the putt is essentially understanding where the putt will reach it's highest point and start to break most. You can do this with your feet by walking along the line with your feet straddled and feeling where the slope is most severe.

Set up a gate around three foot from your ball, measured at around one putter head's width, which is aiming directly at that high point. This is a great putting drill using tees - something every golfer has in their bag.

In the image below, I have used white markers to visualise the break of the putt. If you don't have access to these, you could use a tee or a ball marker to highlight the high point of the putt.

The aim is to practice hitting the start line effectively, allowing the ball to travel on your intended line and complete it's journey by cosying up to the hole (or going in - of course).

Pick different breaking putts, with varying severity, and you will be able to master slopes in no time at all.

Testing Yourself On The Green

As part of my winter golf rebuild, I took part in some baseline testing with PGA Pro Alex James to determine my skillset and starting point.

This gate drill was frustratingly difficult at first, but by the end I wanted to carry on setting gates up across the practice green to test my start line in different (and increasingly more difficult) circumstances.

Anyone can do this with a putter, a golf ball and a few tees, but working on your start line and marrying up the pace with that read is a great investment for any high-handicap golfer.

“Where were you actually aiming?” As a high-handicap golfer I think that this is one of the daftest questions my playing partners ask me after I’ve missed the target by several fairways (regular occurrence) or landed an approach shot on the green (twice, maybe!).

Don’t get me wrong, my partners aren’t stupid for asking, and the question is a perfectly reasonable one. The daftness rests firmly with me because, although I’d likely answer ‘somewhere in the vague direction of the fairway/green/flag’, it doesn’t matter.

Right now, the idea of actually aiming my golf shot and expecting it to get close to that place is anathema to me. You’d be better off asking me to predict this week’s winning lottery numbers.

Fortunately, Top 50 Coach Josh Mayo was on hand to help me with how to aim in the most recent of my three golf lessons with him... using something called the Parallax Paradox.

A Parallax Paradox Lesson Solved My Golf Alignment Issue

This is why I snort/laughed when my coach Josh Mayo asked me exactly the above early on in my third lesson at Windmill Leisure and Golf in Bristol, England.

I’d, yet again, unleashed a glorious hook from the tee box. The right-to-left flight of so many of my balls is something that Josh and I worked on in my last lesson, when he tried to address my strong grip with the help of a $10 training aid.

To give Josh credit, the learnings and subsequent practice following that lesson have seen an improvement but, as many of you other high-handicappers out there will know, one good shot can be followed by at least four absolute stinkers. Luckily, today Josh has a plan.

“Ball flight and direction are determined by four key factors: where you aim - pre-swing, and then the angle of the club face at impact, the path the club travels through the ball and the strike location,” says Josh.

“In the last lesson we looked at the club face angle, so you already know that you need to work on that, but I’ve got a great exercise to help with your aim.”

Josh tells me that my target is to hit over a black box on a pole out on the range. (As this is one of the reassuringly expensive Trackman radars I assume he’s confident my aim won’t improve that much in the next 30-minutes or so!).

“Show me how you’d aim at the box, and then hit a shot.” I address the ball, take a couple of looks at the target, swing, miss. A couple more goes and the Trackman radar is unthreatened.

Josh grabs a yellow alignment stick attached to a metal base and places it at the edge of the tee platform.

“Stand behind the yellow stick and tell me where to move it so that it’s in line with the target.” After a few left a bits, right a bits, I’m happy with my aim and Josh places a ball in line with the stick.

“Right, now address the ball and look at the stick. Is it still in line with the target?” Erm, absolutely not.

When I address the ball, look at the stick and then the target, the radar box has moved to the left. “That’s all down to parallax error,” explains Josh with the help of a diagram.

I get a bit excited here because, as a keen amateur photographer I'm aware of parallax from using rangefinder style cameras. No, they're not like golf rangefinders...

Put simply, when addressing the ball and then looking at your target, you’re looking at it from an angle and no longer straight on.

So, you need to adjust your aim to account for this difference, otherwise you'll likely find that you ball doesn't head quite where you want it to..

“So, I want you to stand with your body aligned parallel to the yellow stick and not the radar box and aim at the stick.” Says Josh.

I look at the stick. “Hit the yellow stick, go!” And what do you know? I hit the thin yellow stick at the first time of asking and the ball heads in the direction of the target. Even better, Josh was filming me (video below) and my glory has been captured for posterity!

Of course, my elation was short-lived, as I never hit the stick again. Even after Josh added a thick section of foam swimming noodle to create his (possibly) patent pending ‘noodle stick’.

“Adding the ‘noodle’ will help you better visualise what side you miss,” says Josh. “And align your body parallel to the target line rather than directly at the target.

This will force you to focus on where the club face is pointing and how the club path is moving to get to the target.”

“This drill will help build a physical ‘feel’ and routine for your aim,” adds Josh. “It’ll also encourage you to have a more structured approach at the range.

Try practicing with the same club and target to establish your routine. And then change clubs and targets which will help readjust your brain and aim, which is how you’ll need to play on the course.’

On the course, the routine obviously needs to be different. I’ll stand behind the ball and look at the ultimate target and then pick a much closer target like a different coloured patch of fairway or divot mark that also lines up with the green/flag/not-the-bunker.

That’s what I’ll then aim at when I address the ball. Or I might just stick a swimming noodle in my bag – that’s allowed in the rules right?

Swaying in the golf swing is a common issue for amateur golfers, but it's also a direct cause of inconsistent ball striking.

If you want to shoot lower scores and cut your handicap in 2026, identifying and addressing a sway in the golf swing is super important.

Ben Emerson is a PGA Fellow Professional who has more than two decades of experience coaching amateurs and professionals to play better golf, specialising in the fundamentals of movement and how to build an efficient golf swing from the ground up.

In this article and instructional video, Ben helps one of our readers to stop swaying in the golf swing with a great golf lesson that centres around the best ball striking tips...

Swaying In The Golf Swing

Single-figure golfer Neil visited our Game-Changer Clinic after suffering with inconsistent strikes.

It's a problem that plagues the games of many amateur golfers, irrespective of their ability level, but it's often caused by ineffective footwork in the golf swing.

After watching Neil in the studio, Ben quickly identified the fault and provided an actionable plan to fix it – one you can also use to improve the consistency of your strike via better footwork.

Swaying: What Is It?

Swaying – the fault Neil arrived with – is when the trail hip moves away from the ball instead of turning behind you in the backswing.

It's not the upper body moving, it's the lower half. Specifically for Neil, it was his right hip moving up.

If you move away from the ball (sway), you have to move back again to make good contact. This creates far too many moving parts for club golfers to achieve any degree of consistency in the strike.

How To Identify A Sway

Any amateur can identify this fault by recording their swing face-on - which something every golfers should do at the driving range. Stop the video at the top and draw a line along your spine.

If your spine angle (and your head) have tilted towards the target as you seek to retain balance after shifting your centre of gravity laterally, instead of remaining loaded directly above the hips, you've likely swayed off the ball.

How To Fix A Sway

To fix the issue, I needed to stabilise Neil's trail foot in the backswing. We achieved this by placing a force pedal (or you can use a tennis ball cut in half) under that foot.

I encouraged Neil to squeeze into the pedal as he swung back to help him get off that foot and push towards the target side in the downswing, when the weight shift occurs.

To stop moving away from the target in the backswing, we needed to create a blocker, and the best way for Neil to do this was to push hard into the inside of his trail foot.

Another way to try to prevent a sway is to imagine you're swinging with your feet and legs inside a barrel.

You want that rotation in the backswing to exist within the perimeters of the barrel, without your trail hip bumping into the wood. Another drill we tried was for me to loop a band around Neil's waist and pull.

Any hint of swaying rather than rotating would allow me to pull Neil over towards me. A big lateral movement in the backswing is not good for controlling the low point, which impacts strike location and consistency.

A consistently good short game requires more than a 'one size fits all' approach.

A stock shot around the green is great to have, but being able to vary your flight with wedges is a great way to shoot lower scores and cut your handicap in 2026.

In this short game clinic, Top 50 Coach Alex Buckner shares a simple system for altering trajectory when pitching and chipping - which centres on simple setup changes that any golfer can make at address.

Alex coaches top tour players, like three-time DP World Tour winner Marco Penge, but he also helped countless amateurs to improve their short game - now, it's your turn!

A lot of club players don't understand why they launch their wedges a certain way. Often, it's inconsistency in their setup.

Here, you can see the ball is forward in my stance, my weight is stacked on my trail side and I'm tilted to my right. There is no shaft lean.

These are all elements that launch the ball high. If you launch it high and come up short, you may want to change a few things. In the wind, especially, it's not usually the right shot, as it's harder to control.

Most club players struggle to launch their wedges low, which is what I'm set up to do here. I've adopted a steeper position with my body, my weight is slightly forward, and I'm not tilted behind the ball.

In fact, my body has a slight tilt towards the target. The ball is back in my stance, and my hands are forward. Note the shaft lean here.

By making these few changes to the address position, I'm altering the attack angle and moving the low point forward so the ball launches low.

Depending on the scenario, you may want to launch it high or low. For example, picture a front flag, downwind on a hard green, versus playing into the wind to a back flag.

The former scenario best suits a higher trajectory, and the latter a lower one.

The best pitchers can hit their yardages in multiple ways. Practise hitting from 50-100 yards with two different flights to help you master your distance control and learn how to adapt your trajectory.

Matt Fitzpatrick is a Major Champion and a 5-time PGA Tour winner, but he also has the best short game on the planet in 2026.

The Englishman ranks 1st for Strokes Gained: Around The Green over the past twelve months and he uses a very interesting method to achieve that success - cross-handed chipping.

So, if the world's best is blazing a trail with this lesser-seen technique, surely it can help you to sharpen up around the greens, right?

According to PGA pro Ged Walters, who has more than three decades of experience coaching golfers of all abilities, many amateur golfers would benefit from trying cross-handed chipping.

Improving your short game is a key way to shoot lower scores and cut your handicap in 2026, so Ged has broken down the technique and provided a simple to follow guide which can help you follow in Fitzpatrick's footsteps.

I even tried cross-handed chipping for myself, which you can see in the video below, and I loved the results...

Cross-Handed Chipping: PGA Pro Guide

Cross-handed chipping is a great way to prevent the trail hand taking over, which is a common amateur fault that leads to a scoopy action when using a conventional grip.

Many golfers try to help the ball in the air when chipping, but the reality is the club is designed to do all the hard work for you.

In the image here, I'm having to chip over a bunker to the green and this would scare some club golfers into stabbing at the ball to get it airborne.

But the cross-handed chipping method helps to keep everything connected and stable throughout the swing, often leading to better results for players who struggle with their short game.

To try cross-handed chipping, place your left hand below your right on the grip and stand closer to the ball, with the shaft more upright and your stance fairly narrow.

Place 70% of your weight onto your lead foot at address and keep it there throughout the swing.

Take the club away on what feels like a straight line, even though there will be a natural arc to it, and deliver it back on the same line in the downswing.

Allow a small amount of chest rotation throughout the downswing, maintaining connection between arms and chest as you move into impact and through to the finish.

A great drill when practising cross-handed chipping is to use your shirt to maintain connection. Tuck it under your lead armpit at address and focus on maintaining pressure there throughout the swing.

If you release your shirt from under your arm, you have lost connection and increased the risk of topping or thinning your chips.

You could also use a headcover or glove in practice, which can give you instant visual feedback, as the training aid will drop to the ground if you lose connection.

We all want to get better and lower our scores, and while practising any part of your game is going to help, it’s important to know how you can make the greatest improvements in the quickest time, so you can deliver your focus there and work more efficiently.

If you’ve only got a limited amount of time to work on your game, you want to spend it targeting something that’s going to have the biggest possible positive impact on your scoring.

Thanks to the data and insights provided by Shot Scope, we’ve pinpointed five types of shot where you will see the biggest rewards from your hard work and commitment to get better and knock shots off your scores.

1. Fairway-finder off the tee

It all starts with hitting the fairway off the tee. The Shot Scope stats tell us that hitting the short grass compared to a fairway bunker saves half a shot, and the gains are even bigger if you’re avoiding tee shots heading out of bounds or into penalty areas.

Having a consistent shot with the driver that you can rely on hitting accurately will set you up for the rest of the hole.

We need to make some changes from a normal driver set-up. First, tee the ball down lower. I would normally have about half the ball above the top of the clubhead, but for this shot I want the top of the ball in line with the top of the clubhead or just a fraction higher.

From there, narrow the stance a little to naturally reduce the length of the backswing and grip down a little to gain a bit more control. I want to swing at 75% because we’re going for control rather than power. The ball flight will naturally come down, which gets the ball on the ground and running a bit quicker, which is easier to control and keep in play.

2. The Long Approach Shot

It’s very obvious that if you hit more greens in regulation then your scores are going to come down, and this distance where a lot of handicap golfers will be hitting long irons and hybrids makes a big difference. A typical 15-handicapper will hit the green 15% of the time from 150-200 yards, while that doubles to 30% for a five-handicapper.

I see a lot of golfers trying to help the ball up in the air with long irons because they’re looking down at a pretty flat clubface, which means their weight stays back. You want to get your weight moving forward through the shot, so you’re hitting down and striking ball then turf.

I like to use a drill where you get a feel for shifting your weight back and through by stepping your left foot back towards your right foot as you swing back and stepping towards the target with your left and then right foot as you swing down and through (vice versa for left-handers).

This is an exaggerated version to build the right feelings. Then you can just lift your front foot as you swing back and lift your back foot as you swing through. For your actual swing while hitting shots, you want to feel the pressure transfer into your back foot as you take the club away, then once the club goes out of view you start moving your weight back to the target to really get through the ball.

There are also clubs that can help you. Hybrids and lofted fairway woods are more forgiving and produce a higher ball flight than long irons. I think most golfers would benefit from using these clubs for this type of shot, but you still need to get your weight forward. Anything that makes the game easier is a good thing.

3. Pitch shots inside 75 yards

These are the types of shots you’ll face a lot – whether it’s attacking for birdie on par 5s and shorter par 4s, or scrambling for par on long par 4s or if you’ve been out of position – and the difference to your score between a good or bad pitch can often be two strokes or more.

The Shot Scope data reveals that the average 20-handicapper only hits the green 49% of the time from 50-75 yards. You’re usually missing greens from this kind of range because of a poor strike.

I have a system to help with distance control and strike. For a standard pitch, I want the ball to be relatively central in my stance, and my feet relatively narrow, with the hands slightly forwards.

If I want to change the length and trajectory of the shot, I put the ball a bit further forward for a higher shot and a bit further back for a lower shot. As I want to hit the ball a bit further for each ball position, I would increase the width of my stance to allow me to make a slightly bigger swing.

You can build your feel and calibrate your distances to each of these different set-ups by doing a ladder drill where you use one swing length and gradually increase the width of your stance to hit the ball slightly further each time. Do this with the three different ball positions and you’ll have a wide range of different pitch shots that you can hit simply and consistently.

4. Long approach putts

Reducing three-putts is vital for saving shots. The average 25-handicapper has 5.8 three-putts in a round, while that’s 3.5 for 15-handicappers and just 1.5 for five-handicappers. A big part of avoiding three-putts is lagging long-range putts to easy tap-in range, and distance control is key to that.

Speed is so crucial when putting. We want a constant and consistent swinging clubhead to control speed. The last thing we want is a swing that’s too short and accelerating through the ball, or too long and decelerating. I like to use the leapfrog drill.

Give yourself a long putt and try to hit one ball a third of the way, the second ball two thirds and the final ball all the way to the hole. You do that by keeping the same tempo but changing the length of the stroke. Consistency and control also come from striking the putt out the center of the face – and that gets harder as the putt and the stroke gets longer.

A good drill for this is to use a tee gate just slightly wider that your putter head. Hit puts with the ball in the middle of the gate and if your clubhead passes through then you’ll strike the ball out the middle.

5. Holing-out inside six feet

The shots saved and lost here are more obvious than anywhere else, because we’re all expecting to hole them and one shot has definitely slipped away if you don’t. Shot Scope data shows that from 3-6 feet a 20-handicapper is only holing 55% of their putts, a 10-handicapper is 65%, and it’s still what most people would consider a surprisingly low 76% for scratch players. You’re not going to hole them all, but you want drain more than your fair share.

It’s all about alignment. As we get closer to the hole, alignment becomes more important. I took my son to the BMW PGA Championship. He got some balls from the players and every single one of them had a line on it. The idea of the line is to aim it where you want your ball to start, and then you align the putter head to the line on the ball.

If you hit the ball squarely then that ball will start on-line, roll end over end and go in the hole if you’ve aimed it in the right place. This also gives you great feedback because a wobbly line shows you haven’t struck it squarely and a miss with your intended start line and good speed indicates a misread, which you can learn from.

Amateur golfers often wonder how best to use their time before a round or organise their practice in general.

Turning up and machine-gunning through a bucket of balls is something you should never do on the driving range, but sadly so many amateur golfers totally neglect their short game in favour of more time with big stick in hand.

But, if you want to cut your handicap in 2026, you need to flip the script. Our short game clinic and ultimate putting improvement guide are a great place to start, as they provide top tips from expert coaches, but you still need a clear routine to follow.

In order to help you put together a consistent and effective 30-minute short-game practice routine, we reached out to a Top 50 Coach with more than 30 years of experience helping golfers to shoot lower scores.

Below, Keith shares how committing to half an hour of practice time can seriously sharpen up your short game...

30-Minute Short Game Practice Routine

Short Putting

When faced with a short putt, focus on a specific point at the back of the hole, commit to a ‘followthrough and hold' position and be more conscious of where your follow-through ends.

It's a bit like a full swing – if you focus on where it needs to finish, the journey can take care of itself. Avoid anything too technical just before you play.

A simple drill to narrow your focus is to reduce the size of the hole with tee pegs to get you really focused on the centre of the hole – two at the front, just wide enough to get the ball through, and one at the back as a target.

Instead of trying to hit the hole, which is just over 4ins wide, focus centrally on something as small as the stem of a tee peg. You then have 2ins either side in case you pull or push it.

Here, our intention is to hit the back of the hole. So, hold the follow-through and be aware of where the putter finishes. You will find you accelerate to that point, which will help you to keep the putter face on line and squarer for longer.

Long Putts

In preparation for your round, and assuming that you are comfortable with the mechanics of your putting stroke, you need to create a feel for, and rapport with, your target.

A great drill for long putts is to look at the hole while swinging the putter backwards and forwards in your practice strokes.

This builds your natural awareness of the distance to the hole through your eyes and is more effective than staring down at the ball with an occasional look.

Our eyes are pivotal when it comes to aiming and judging distance. If you're throwing a dart or rolling a ball on a bowling green, your eyes are the most important thing. We all have an in-built skill to judge distance through our eyes.

Try and get away from worrying about the length of your stroke too much. Instead, stare at that target and build up a visual for what a 40ft putt requires. When you take your practice swings, stare at the hole and swing the putter.

You're not actually analysing how you're swinging that club. Rather, you are analysing subconsciously through your eyes how far away the hole is. So, establish a rapport with the target and then step straight in and execute.

Ball Above Your Feet

It's important that you don't just practise your chipping from perfect lies, as you'll get all sorts of lies out on the golf course. It's therefore important to learn how to manage slopes.

When the ball is above your feet, keep it simple. Stand a bit further away as it becomes a slightly flatter action, and get right down to the bottom of the grip to naturally shorten the club.

Now you've factored in that the ball is a few inches above you. Also, lower your hands slightly so the toe doesn't dig into the slope.

Now, just make the usual move with the torso as you've taken care of impact by gripping down. Favour the balls of your feet with your weight as it's easy to sit into your heels due to the slope. Finally, allow for the ball to move a little left.

As with any awkward lie, focus on maintaining stability for a decent contact. Be realistic with expectations and what constitutes a good shot from this lie.

Ball Below Your Feet

This lie is quite awkward. You don't want to put your weight on your toes because it will feel like you're toppling down the hill, so people generally sit in their heels, which straightens the spine angle.

It's almost impossible to get the club back to the ball properly then. Instead, tilt a bit more from your hips to lower yourself a little and hold the grip at full length.

You need to get the shaft as tall as possible to avoid the heel making contact with the slope, as this can flip the toe of the club over.

Lob Shot

This is a risky shot as it involves additional moving parts. You can stand slightly open or square if you're more comfortable.

Many golfers tend to complicate things and, if you're a bit worried about a shank, opening yourself up means an across-the-line hit, which increases the risk.

This is one of the few shots where you don't want the club releasing via rotation of your forearms.

Try and keep your glove's logo pointing skywards so it stays above the other hand. This will keep loft on the clubface.

Hinge your wrists to get the club steeper in the backswing and to create an aggressive angle of attack for added height and flight.

Push down on the butt of the club with your gloved hand to promote the hinge motion. It's a longer swing, so commit through the ball and keep the upper body rotating into a full-ish finish.

Greenside Bunker Shot

The only interaction you have with the sand as you prepare to play from a bunker is through your feet, and this will give you your first impression of what that sand is like.

Then it's about securing your stance – it's a longer swing than a standard chip and you don't want to slip. How much you lower yourself into the sand with your feet (top left photo) will automatically set your divot's depth – the low point of your swing.

I would then recommend the line drill, which is all about whether or not you can direct the club onto the desired point of impact in the sand behind the ball. Can you hit that spot with a bit of energy and keep the energy going?

You won't get any better feedback than this. If you hit one fat, it will be behind the line. If you don't hit the line at all, you know you've thinned it.

The depth of divot will also highlight how you are swinging it. So, practise your ability to hit a certain point by drawing a line in the practice bunker and trying to make contact as close to it as possible.

Chip And Release

This is all about ‘collecting' the ball, with the follow-through and finish position crucial.

Stand tall with the toe of the club more in contact with the ground than the heel. Adopt a narrow stance with weight favouring your lead leg, ball slightly back and hands down the grip.

Take enough loft to carry any fringe or obstacle, but with the strength of loft to give you your desired roll/release. Then rock your shoulders, with hands and arms simply moving with the shoulders.

Having the toe down minimises contact with the ground. It won't impact your follow-through unless you decelerate, hence why rocking the shoulders is pivotal.

Not everybody can ‘get' the feeling of the shoulders going up and down, so think about moving the V of your forearms. It's all about getting your forearms going backwards and forwards in that V, with minimal hand/wrist action.

Improved ball striking can be often be achieved by focusing on the fundamentals, in particular the preparatory aspects that occur before you even start the golf swing.

This was the advice that Golf Monthly's instruction lead, Baz Plummer, received during a golf lesson with Former World No.1 Lee Westwood, but it's also a common theme shared by the best PGA Professionals around the world.

Some of the best ball striking lessons talk about the importance of the perfect golf grip, but this is often the root cause of common faults for amateur golfers.

The transformational impact that a neutral golf grip can have on your ball flight is amazing, as realised by Golf Monthly's content director Rob Spedding in a recent golf lesson.

As Rob explains below, a simple $10 training aid used by World No.1 Scottie Scheffler, that was leant to him by his coach in a recent lesson, had an immediate impact and improved the quality of his ball striking...

Improving My Ball Striking One Lesson At A Time

“Look at that – that’s going to fly!’ My coach, Joshua Mayo, is filming as I swing at the start of my lesson and he sounds mildly impressed. I have to admit I am too, as I’ve just flushed a seven iron 150 yards in almost the right direction.

‘‘I can see that you’ve taken on board what we talked about in the first lesson, trusted what I told you and have been putting it into practice,” he says. “Your posture is way better and your swing is smoother. Not bad.”

Golf completed for Mr Spedding? Of course not. This is just my second session with Golf Monthly Top-50 coach Joshua – based at Windmill Leisure Golf Centre near Bristol, UK – and truth-be-told this fleeting moment is probably as good as it’s going to get today.

Due to a number of reasons too mundane to go into here, I’ve left almost two months between lessons one and two. Which is way too long.

In between that I have been semi-regularly hitting both the range and trees, bunkers and the deep rough on the left-hand side of Lansdown Golf Club in Bath. And while Joshua says he can see improvement, I am much less sure of this than he is.

The Lesson

As a quick recap, that first golf lesson delivered a few home truths. It started with Joshua taking a look at me on set up and quickly diagnosing that I was going to have to work on my hunched, tense and, as a result, wildly inefficient posture.

He also got me to work on my rotation on the backswing – providing me with drills to do at home and when I’m practising.

I’d love to say that I’ve been sitting with a golf club across my chest and rotating whilst watching Widow’s Bay on Apple, but I haven’t. Like physio prescribed exercises for chronic Achilles problems and flossing, drills at home are optional right?

The posture tips, though, I have taken on board and have tried to be far more mindful about how I hold myself before striking the ball.

Of course as any high-handicapper knows, thinking and doing are two different things and, usually, the thinking means the doing goes to pot, especially out on the course..

Which brings me back to the mildly impressive strike at the start. The next hit is wild, and the next, I bring it back, and then it’s a hook, followed by a topped hook, then a hook off the toe… If there’s one thing I’m currently consistent with then it’s inconsistency. Although I am at least consistently hooking.

“The trick for new golfers is to not be hard on yourself,” explains Joshua.

“Improving really really does take time as there are so many elements to work on. Here at the range during a lesson we can work on, among other things, swing dynamics, posture, alignment, ball striking, your grip and aim.”

“And out on the course it’s getting it off the tee consistently, distance control with different clubs, chipping, putting, bunkers and, of course, game management and controlling your emotions. To be honest that can add up to at least 18-months of lessons!”

The Grip Fix

I mean, I’m pretty sure I’m in this game for the long run so that sounds fine (if a little expensive!) and there are clearly no quick fixes. But how about a quick fix Joshua?

“Let’s take a look at your grip, tell me how you set that up.”

I tell Joshua that I use an interlocking grip and try to position my left hand so that I can only see a couple of my knuckles. So far, so good, but when I set up Joshua notices a problem straight away.

“Two knuckles is good, but you have a strong grip, which leads to an closed club face on ball strike and partly explains why many of your balls are heading left," he explains.

Of course, strong doesn’t mean ‘good strong’ in this context. (Although I do still have a tendency to throttle my club to death.)

Rather, as a right-hander, my hands are too far to the right when gripping the club. (A weak grip would mean my hands were too far to the left.) The goal is a neutral grip.

Joshua reaches into his bag and grabs something that he thinks will help. It’s a training grip favoured by no lesser talent than our very own Joe Ferguson. Oh, and it's also used in every practice session by world number one Scottie Scheffler!

“A neutral grip means that you're holding the club primarily through your fingers, with the line between your thumb and forefinger on both hands pointing towards your right shoulder, and as you said, just two left knuckles visible. And relax – pressure should be about six-out-of-ten,” says Joshua.

“Using one of these grip trainers can help set your hands in the right position and, hopefully, starts to help build muscle memory so that it’ll eventually become natural without the training aid.”

With the training grip attached I start to hit balls. Surprisingly, a reasonable proportion of them head in a much straighter, less left, direction than earlier.

“That’s exactly how I’d script it for a golfer going from a strong to neutral grip,” beams Joshua.

On the Trackman screen he shows me some of the data that’s been collected during the lesson – my strong gripped shots show closed club face angles – facing to the left at anywhere between five and 25 degrees.

With the neutral grip, the higher angles decrease. A couple even get close to, gulp, zero and the ball flight looks decent.

“Establishing a neutral grip is foundational,” says Joshua. “It’ll help to remove over-compensations in other areas of your swing and help simplify your swing substantially.”

I’d be lying if I said that I hadn’t already been aware of some of the information Joshua has imparted to me over the last 45-minutes. (I do read stuff on this site and watch our videos, honest).

I am surprised, though, to find myself so in awe at how much practicing with advice from someone who really knows their onions appears to yield real-time improvements.

Like the game itself, the learning is becoming addictive. Obviously, I book my next lesson before I leave Windmill Leisure and order a grip training aid from Amazon as soon as I’m in the car.

Going to practice without a plan and machine-gunning through golf balls are examples of things you should never do at the driving range, but sadly so many fall foul of these common mistakes.

Golf Monthly's instruction lead, Baz Plummer, recently had a golf lesson with Former World No.1 Lee Westwood, who explained that he would take at least three times longer than the average amateur to hit 50 balls in practice - simply because he has a clear plan and process.

If you want to cut your handicap in 2026 and shoot lower scores on the golf course, it's time to ditch the rapid 100-ball range session - but what should you do instead?

PGA Pro James Jankowski has coached more than 3000 golfers and helped them to improve their game, so trying his trio of 5-minute fixes would be a great place to start.

As James explains below, three simple drills (continuous step, trail arm only and putting separation) can help you to improve your long and short game in time for the business end of the golf season...

James Jankowski: My 5-Minute Fixes

Fix 1: Continuous Step Drill

The ‘continuous step' drill aims to improve swing sequencing, coordination and rhythm by linking multiple swings together without stopping.

Start the swing by stepping to the trail side (above), then step toward the target before the backswing is complete to initiate transition and pressure shift (below).

Continue stepping through into the finish (below), then flow immediately into the next swing.

Performing four or five swings in a row trains the body to move in sequence without manipulation or hesitation.

You can do this with practice swings or by hitting balls consecutively. It develops a more athletic motion by synchronising feet, lower body, torso and arms while improving balance, timing and flow.

Fix 2: Trail Arm Only Drill

The ‘trail arm only' drill helps organise the structure and motion of the trail arm as you swing.

At the top, the trail arm naturally works into external rotation to help support the mass of the club and position the arm for a stronger, more functional delivery. This creates better structure without excessive tension or lifting.

From here, you learn to synchronise the arm swing with the body pivot, rather than throwing the arm independently from the top.

Because the trail arm is supporting the club on its own, poor sequencing is immediately exposed.

The drill promotes better timing between the arms and torso, improving transition, delivery and overall strike consistency.

Fix 3: Putting Separation Drill

When you putt, the goal is not to keep the head perfectly still but to separate shoulder motion from head motion so the head remains fairly stable during the stroke.

This demands the right blend of shoulder tilt (up and down) and shoulder turn (rotation around the spine).

Too much turn tends to move the head laterally; too much tilt causes the head to rise or dip.

Getting these two movements right improves strike consistency and clubface control.

A good way to train the correct motion is using an alignment stick across the shoulders, focusing on moving the torso while the head stays centred and quiet.

Gianfranco Zola was a hero of mine growing up. As a huge football fan, I was in awe of his skill, finesse and ability to terrorise defences - which is quite something considering I am not a Chelsea fan.

As a fanboy of the Italian star, I have always been stunned by his limited World Cup footprint and saddened by the unfortunate circumstances that restricted his playing time for the Azzurri in the biggest competition on the planet.

At the World Cup in 1994, the last time the tournament was hosted in the United States, Zola was substituted on for Italy in a knockout match against Nigeria.

Sadly, he lasted just 10 minutes due to being sent off for a foul on Augustine Eguavoen - on his 28th birthday no less.

He never represented Italy in the World Cup again and thus one of the greatest footballers in Premier League history failed to realise his full potential on the greatest stage in the sport.

When flicking through the Golf Monthly magazine archive recently, I was pleased to find a 1999 'star lesson' featuring Zola himself - which allowed me to embark on a nostalgic journey while also learning a thing or two that could improve my game.

As we head back to the United States for the 2026 World Cup, it seems like a fitting time to share the article in all its glory - unedited and unfiltered to capture the true nostalgia of a football legend being helped with his golf game in just the same way as you and I.

These tips from the December 1999 issue of Golf Monthly magazine, which were given by PGA Pro Gavin Ryan at the London Club, certainly stand the test of time and can still help other amateur golfers to shoot lower scores and cut their handicap in 2026...

Gianfranco Zola's Retro Golf Lesson – December 1999

To the majority of Golf Monthly readers, Italian superstar striker Gianfranco Zola will need little or no introduction.

Since moving from Italian side Parma to join Chelsea in November 1996, he has set Stamford Bridge and the Premiership alight with his silky skills, fancy footwork, dazzling array of free kicks and his sheer passion for the game.

And who could forget his spectacular winner for Italy against England at Wembley two years ago?

In his first full season in England Zola was voted Player of the Year, and another highlight was scoring the winning goal for Chelsea in the 1998 European Cup Winners' Cup final against Stuttgart.

So, all in all, you could say that he has adapted reasonably well to playing football in England.

Gavin Ryan's Pre-Swing Analysis

The first thing which struck me upon meeting Gianfranco Zola was how physically fit and flexible he is.

He is not a tall man, but he is incredibly strong – built like a bull, all muscle and not a millimetre of fat in sight.

He is also incredibly supple, which is one reason why, although he is a 13-handicap, he has huge potential.

Despite some idiosyncrasies in his swing, he is a decent ball-striker and putts well. And although he isn't as sharp around the greens as he is around the edge of the penalty area, it's only feel which is lacking.

As you would expect from a top athlete, Gianfranco's set-up is well balanced and very good, in general, although there are several minor flaws present.

For a start his hands are a little too far behind the ball at address and his feet and toes are just a little too square. Ideally, I'd like to see his feet splayed by about 10 degrees or so to help him turn back and through.

Gianfranco allows his left arm to bend too much on his backswing and as he starts his downswing, he tends to slide too far forward with his hips before overcompensating by hanging back on his right side through the ball.

The result is an incomplete finish position and leaked shots to the right.

Gianfranco Zola's Lesson

1. Splaying left foot at address provides room to turn

My first change to Gianfranco's set-up was to flare out his left toe at address, so that instead of, aiming at, say, 12 o'clock on a clockface, it now aims at 1 o'clock.

The purpose of this minor adjustment is to make it easier for him to turn through the ball.

One reason why his hips slide too much at the start of the downswing is because they cannot rotate.

Simply by turning his left toe towards the target by a couple of inches, he will be able to clear his hips far more effectively.

2. Hands level with ball creates power at impact

As I mentioned in my initial analysis, Zola's hands are a little behind the ball at address. This causes a couple of problems.

Firstly, it makes it difficult for him to create a wide, one-piece takeaway on the correct plane and, secondly, it makes it extremely difficult for him to return the hands ahead of the ball at impact in order to exert pressure and power.

3. Repairing a broken spoke – adding width to the swing

I explained to Gianfranco how important it is to retain the width in his left arm during the backswing in terms of creating power and consistency.

Because of his flexibility, he was able to feel the "stretch" in his backswing as I asked him to focus on keeping his left arm extended as he swings the club away.

The end result is a shorter, more compact, but much more solid, position at the top of his swing.

4. Creating more pressure at impact

Because of faults earlier in his swing, Gianfranco has a tendency to fall back on his right foot through impact and "flick" at the ball with his hands and wrists to get it moving forwards.

To help him feel the sensations associated with a more powerful impact – one where the weight is on the left side and with the hands slightly ahead of the ball to apply more pressure – I physically manipulated him into position and simply asked him to recreate it at impact for real.

The end result is much more power and leverage through the ball.

Gavin Ryan's Post-Lesson Summary

As I expected, the amendments to Gianfranco's set-up had a knock-on effect to the rest of his game in the form of a wider takeaway, better weight transference back and through and a vastly improved impact position, where his weight now moves with the direction of the ball, not against it.

Obviously, it helps if you are as fit and flexible as Gianfranco, but acknowledging the importance of the basic fundamentals is a good lesson for anyone to learn.

Looking at this swing sequence now, it's clear that Gianfranco has the potential to be a really solid single-figure player, especially as he's just as common a sight on the golf course these days as he is at Stamford Bridge!

If he commits to the changes, he can go low very quickly, indeed.

The Golf Monthly archive is a gold mine of brilliant reads, documenting a journey through the history of golf dating back to our first issue in 1911. Take advantage of over 100 years of invaluable tips from the best tour professionals and coaches in world golf, by subscribing to the online Golf Monthly Archive.

Increasing distance is a goal for many amateur golfers, perhaps because the data tells us that hitting the golf ball farther is one of the most effective ways to cut your handicap in 2026.

However, adding distance off the tee is not a straightforward task. The best driving tips can help, of course, but there is also a key movement that golfers need to make that is linked to increased power and boosted clubhead speed.

Coiling in the backswing is crucial for generating energy to then release it in the downswing - and any golfer can learn how to do it.

If you can master this you are on the path to unlocking huge distance gains, so we asked Top 50 Coach and PGA professional Andrew Jones to break it all down for you.

Below, Andrew uses decades of experience to boil down a complex topic into simple and actionable tips that will make a difference to your game right now...

How To Coil In The Backswing For Huge Distance Gains In 2026

To coil effectively, there has to be resistance. First, you need a nice stable base to turn from, then it’s about resistance between your shoulder and hip turn, represented by the two alignment sticks in the image above.

As you turn, you’re looking for a ballpark figure of about 45° rotation in the hips and around 90° of rotation in the shoulders.

Another key to coiling and storing power is keeping the right leg braced and loaded. Straightening it as you turn back can be a real power leak.

You will create resistance by keeping the right leg flexed to turn against in the backswing. This restricts hip rotation to help create the difference between shoulder and hip turn, which generates coil and power.

Your arms are important, too. The triceps in your left arm should be nicely loaded at the top.

Another power leak is allowing the left arm to bend or collapse so you lose that tension.

It’s important to retain that left arm tension by maintaining a straight left arm as you rotate back, as your muscles will then be ready to contract and unwind to release all that stored energy back into the ball.

A very big shoulder turn isn’t necessarily a sign of power. If there’s no resistance, perhaps as a result of the left leg coming off the ground too much and the left knee moving across too far, you could turn beyond 90° but generate little coil and power.

Jon Rahm is a great example of a shorter but really powerful and loaded-up backswing.

Remember, we’re not all made the same and some of us are more flexible than others. Take care not to try and find positions beyond your body’s range of movement.

It's not everyday that an average high-handicap golfer gets the chance to receive a golf lesson from a former World No.1 and Ryder Cup legend, but that was the fortunate position I found myself in at Close House recently - when Lee Westwood agreed to help me with my game.

I benefited hugely from a winter golf rebuild that allowed me to utilise the off-season, with some pretty impressive results, but there is still plenty to do in order to cut my handicap in 2026.

Golf gym exercises helped me to gain a 106% power boost, while swing work and custom fit golf clubs have given me the tools to break 90 for the first time - but I was excited to hear what advice Lee Westwood could give me to supercharge my progress.

The tips in this video and article are absolute gold for high-handicappers, shared by one of the greatest European golfers in history.

His simple strategies and solutions to common faults could help you to shoot lower scores this season... they certainly did the trick for me!

5 Things I Learned From My Golf Lesson With Lee Westwood

1. Preventing A Slice

Like most high-handicap golfers, I struggle with a slice off the tee.

This doesn't always occur, as evidenced in the video of my lesson where I flushed one down the middle, but when the common fault rears its ugly head the results can be rather unpleasant.

As Lee Westwood explained, there are a few red flags that can cause a slice for an amateur golfer.

"They often don't get behind it enough in the backswing and then they try to pull the club through.

"That means they are always continuously holding the face open and never allow it to square by releasing the club".

I asked the Former World No.1 if he could share any advice for amateurs who wanted to banish a slice, either through practice on the range or on the course, and he gave a brilliant answer that will help many to achieve just that.

"I normally think about it as synchronising the arms with the body on the way down. Most people go with their body too fast, so wait a little bit at the top (of the swing) and allow your arms to come down before your body starts doing anything.

"The hardest thing in the golf swing is that your arms separate from your body on the way up, so at some point you have to reconnect on the way down. The easiest time to do that is in the first part of the downswing. Just let them reconnect and then turn.

"Most people get to the top and then go with their body, which leaves their arms way behind and means the club never squares up. The result is a shot that starts right and goes right".

2. Alignment

After finding the middle of the fairway I had 145-yards in to the flag on the 1st at Close House.

With Westwood watching on, I was hoping a little adrenaline was going to help me penetrate the wind and find the putting surface - but once again an old foe fought back and I never started it on the right line.

Alignment is a bit of an achilles heel for me, and other high-handicap golfers, but Lee Westwood gave a couple of great tips to improve in this key area.

"A problem with the modern game is that most people won't hit on a grass range. They might hit from a mat, or in a golf simulator, but that means you can't learn from your divots. It's a bit of a lost art, reading your divot to tell you what your swing is doing".

My divot was slightly from the inside and pointing a bit to the right, but it was square as opposed to thin. That meant that I had squared the face, but my alignment was slightly off. That's a problem that I can fix before I even touch the ball, as Lee explained.

"If you make a mistake in the first part, to do with your posture, setup or alignment, you have to make compensations somewhere else in the golf swing - then you've got two mistakes rather than one.

"The best way is to pick something on the ground about three or four feet in front of you. This can be a blade of grass or an old divot.

"It starts on the range. Most people will go and hit a bucket of 50 balls, pulling each across and hitting it. I will never do that.

"I would put the ball on the ground, stand behind it, line up, walk in and set up to it. All the time I'm grooving it and drilling myself, but it might take me three or four times longer to hit 50 balls than it would an amateur".

3. Bunker Play

When I have previously had lessons on how to hit shots from the sand, like a particularly poignant example of tuition in a deep revetted bunker at Turnberry Golf Club, the key points were getting a good wrist hinge early and committing through the sand.

The general premise of that lesson aligned with the tips that the Majesticks GC Co-Captain gave me in a greenside bunker on the Lee Westwood Colt Course, but I also needed to address a couple of other issues.

"It starts off with the setup. You want your weight more in your lead side and you want your ball position further forward because you've bumped your weight forward. You also need to open the clubface".

After two attempts, I barely got out of the sand. That was no reflection on Lee's tips, because as he correctly pointed out there was another significant issue with my entry point into the sand.

"If it drops off the face (and barely gets out of the bunker) it's likely that you pulled the club face across - taking all the speed out of the clubhead.

You will see in the video that the divot left in the sand by my shot, compared with the one next to it from Lee's shot, are completely different - and he expertly explained why.

"You see I've made a big splash. You leant, pulled across and your divot was very narrow and thin. Mine is big, like a dinner plate. When you use the bounce on the club it will prevent it digging.

"See how it's stayed shallow, but I've taken a lot of sand because I've used the characteristics of the club as they were meant to be used".

4. To Putt Or Not To Putt?

I think we could describe my short game as inconsistent - at best. The shots that worry me the most are often the ones that look the easiest, with no danger and plenty of green to work with.

In that scenario, like the one I found myself in at Close House in the video above, I question myself over and over again about which club to take, what style of shot to play and how I might execute it.

This results in a lot of indecision and usually a poor effort regardless - so I asked Lee Westwood to help me with some pro advice.

"I would putt it, so I'd also advise you to putt it - there's nothing in your way. If you take out a sand wedge or a lob wedge, you have to factor in spin and what it's going to do when it lands on the green.

"There are more variables if you are going to chip it, whereas you know what it's going to do if you putt it".

Once we had determined that putting was the best course of action, the 25-time European Tour winner talked me through an important point about speed and break.

"When you hit the putt, the fastest it's moving is at the start and it doesn't swing as much when it's moving fast. All the curving will be done as it slows down".

After picking my start line and highlighting the point where it will start to break more on the green, I hit a putt that got me closer to the hole than any chip I could reasonably have produced. Result!

5. Fundamentals

One of the biggest takeaways from my golf lesson with Lee Westwood was that I needed to seriously focus on the fundamentals.

These are simple changes - like using an alignment stick to practice on the range, ensuring my setup position is more athletic and my stance is a little wider, or that my shoulders are not wide open at address - but they take work to become habit.

Making adjustments to the elements I can control, like all of those examples before I have even touched the golf ball, will help me to cut my handicap and shoot lower scores - and I am certain they will also help you to do the same.

You might not even know you are doing this, but one simple posture mistake could be killing your ability to consistently strike the golf ball out of the middle of the clubface.

Grooving the correct posture is just as important as ensuring you have the perfect golf grip or a straight left arm in the golf swing - but so many golfers neglect this crucial aspect of the set up position.

As Top 50 Coach Russell Covey expertly explains below, so many amateur golfers head out onto the golf course or arrive for lessons with their PGA Pro with common posture faults - many of which centre around an incorrect chin and shoulder position.

Thankfully, the fix is fairly simple. With the guidance of Russell and his decades of experience coaching golfers of all abilities - you can make strides in this criminally overlooked area of the golf swing and cut your handicap in 2026...

This Posture Mistake Could Be Game Over For Your Golf Swing

This is a typical, very common hunched position I see, where the shoulders are drooping over the ball, along with the chin, which has sagged down.

From here, it's incredibly hard to rotate the torso and create the necessary range of motion for a powerful, centred strike.

If you're concerned you've slipped into bad habits with your posture, get someone to take a photo of you addressing the ball from down the line - this will really help with identifying the issue.

With most golfers, we're looking for a 90˚shoulder turn. If your chin is too far down and your shoulders are drooping over the ball, it makes it very hard to work your lead shoulder beneath your chin, which is a good way to think about it.

In the image above, I'm addressing the ball properly through the upper spine with good setup fundamentals.

There is clear space for me to rotate correctly and engage all those big muscle groups, allowing the levers of my arms to stretch out and create a nice, wide motion.

Think of a goalkeeper trying to save a penalty. He or she would adopt this very dynamic, very athletic position, like they're ready to pounce.

In the goalkeeping position feel the sensation of how springy you are on the balls of your feet. This will help you to stop getting trapped on either end of your feet, i.e., your toes or heels.

You may want to try feeling this position, as it can really help with your golf swing. If you can get used to achieving this athletic posture – as shown in the image above – you will develop a more consistent and more powerful motion.

Many golfers fail to give putting the full attention it deserves. They might receive conflicting advice on putting improvement, leading them to focus on the wrong things or overcomplicate what should be fairly simple.

I've coached more than 3000 golfers in my career, helping them to improve their putting, but there is not single 'perfect' way to putt.

So, in this article, I share the 7 key concepts I consistently see in great putters – ideas around set-up, movement, green-reading, speed control, aim and the mental process that will help you better understand what really drives performance...

7 Things Every Golfer Can Do To Putt Better On The Course

1. Set-up essentials

In the putting stroke, ideally I want to disassociate the legs, core and head, leaving the shoulders, arms and torso to create the motion. My set-up should help to make this as easy as possible.

I let myself fall slightly forwards, almost rounding into posture, rather than simply bending at the hips.

I relax the spine and shoulders with no arm tension. We will all look different due to body proportions but I aim for the arms to hang naturally. Without a putter, my hands should brush somewhere around the knees.

You don't need your weight to be on the balls of your feet necessarily because you're not shifting pressure around in your feet.

If you have it slightly toe-side, that will encourage the legs to stay pretty quiet. If weight shifts towards my heels, the legs tend to become more active.

My fellow PGA coach David Orr has a great expression: “Putting posture is not good posture.”

Traditional ‘good posture' creates too much muscular tension in the shoulders, lats and upper back, whereas in putting I want those areas to stay soft and free to move.

2. Understanding movement

The putting stroke is a coordinated movement, not a robotic one. Robots often have one degree of freedom while humans have over 200!

I don't want to isolate movement to one or two joints – I want the upper torso, chest, shoulders, arms and hands to work together. The arms should swing in sync with the pivot of the upper body. There is no need to lock the arms to the body.

I see many golfers trying to create connection through muscular tension. This is not what great putters do – they appear ‘connected' through impeccable coordination and timing but it is often not connection in the literal sense.

A good putting drill to feel this is to get into a relaxed posture without a putter and let the arms hang. Face your palms towards each other and attempt to maintain the space between them while keeping the palms opposing.

This requires coordination of the arm swing and pivot. You may benefit from placing an object between your hands to feel how to maintain that spacing. Avoiding tension is key.

Rocking the shoulders doesn't mean isolating them, it means everything moves together. The arms swing, the torso tilts and turns, and the shoulders respond as part of that motion.

3. Work on speed control

The key concept here is simple: to hit a putt further, the putter requires more speed at impact. I am not just trying to make a longer stroke, I am making a faster one.

The speed of the stroke determines its length. So, rather than thinking about how far I take the putter back, I focus on the pace of the stroke.

On both longer putts and shorter putts, I look to control pace rather than trying to create a specific stroke length. The further I want the ball to travel, the more speed I need at impact, so the entire stroke must be faster.

This starts in the backstroke. The faster the putter moves away, the further it will travel (a longer backstroke) and the more speed it will generate.

Across different putts, your tempo should remain reasonably similar. A consistent stroke time across varying putt lengths and green speeds is a basic theory that can certainly help you.

However, this is not rigidly true as stroke times do show some variance in great putters, but the key idea is that the pace of your putting stroke should dictate the speed of the ball.

Finally, your practice strokes should match the feel required for the putt that you are about to hit.

4. Become more adaptable

Simply put, speed is distance over time. You can learn to visualise this with the following drill.

Place two alignment sticks down, one at the top of a slope and the other at the bottom. The distance between them can vary – perhaps start at 10ft and then move to 20 or 30.

You now have one fast putt and one slow putt. Many speed drills for putting involve hitting similar-length or similar-direction putts, which does not reflect the demands of real on-course play.

Start with a downhill putt and try to stop the ball at the opposite stick. Before you execute the stroke, try to picture how long the ball will take to arrive at its destination.

Downhill, the ball should take longer because it is travelling more slowly. As you begin to understand this, you should be able to adjust the pace of your stroke accordingly.

Next, move onto the bottom stick and make an uphill putt, back towards the other stick.

Again, picture the time it will take to reach its destination. Uphill, the ball will arrive in less time and travel faster. You should adjust things here via a faster-paced practice stroke appropriate to the putt, and then execute.

You'll quickly begin to understand the difference in time it takes for the ball to reach its target, thus developing your adaptability.

5. How is your aim?

The first element of consistent, accurate direction is aim. There are many ways to aim the putter well and it is not one-size-fits-all.

Rather than telling you how to aim, I'll give you a few ideas here.

First, try using a lined ball versus a blank ball to see which gives you the best results. Be empirical, this does not have to be the same for every putt.

Another option is what I call a perpendicular aim, simply asking if the face is square rather than trying to point a line at your target.

For some, that's a much clearer way to aim. I would encourage you to trust your spatial awareness; aim is not always about matching line upon line.

I like to line the ball up from behind then match the leading edge square to that line. Think of it like aiming a gun. You align it in the same plane you're looking from, not across yourself, as that is far harder.

6. Green reading

Green-reading is about interpreting slope and understanding how it will influence the ball's roll.

Everyone visualises putts differently. I might focus on the entry point and work backwards or see the entire path. Others visualise forward or in reverse, identify key points along the route, or picture the whole putt.

Generally, you'll be able to work out a slope by looking at it from beneath it. Now you need to picture the curve.

The key part is creating a clear picture of it to predict the start line. Most golfers can visualise reasonably well but often have a poor concept of the start line relative to that curve and hit the putt differently.

It's interesting how few club golfers will actually use any training aids on the putting green while elite amateurs and pros use them all the time – it doesn't have to be too technical but I would strongly recommend practising with feedback tools such as ghost holes (circular discs) or string lines as they are very effective.

7. The mental part

Clarity is the starting point. Before you do anything, you need a clear picture of the shot – how the ball starts, breaks and finishes.

Once you've created a picture, your focus and attention move entirely to the task. Stand behind the ball and visualise its journey.

Then make a few practice strokes to match the pace and build a feel for the movement, picking up any key kinaesthetic sensations.

During this phase, you should have a strong interaction with the target and a clear sense of how the ball should roll.

For these few seconds, this putt has your undivided attention, rather than the consequences of it or what other players are doing.

As for practice strokes, these can be next to the ball, behind it or, for some, even unnecessary – whatever works best for you. I know what works best for me.

Once you step into the ball, take a final look at the target, bring your focus back to the ball and let the stroke happen with no manipulation, no overthinking and no fear of the outcome – trust in the process and commit to the picture you created.

I recently attended the PGA North tournament at Sand Moor Golf Club and saw the top professionals put on a short game clinic.

Not only did they execute greenside bunker shots exceptionally well but it almost looked as though they had their golf ball on a piece of string.

The check and grab was impressive in itself, but seeing the ball zoom back three or four feet to nestle up to the side of the hole inspired me to learn how to generate spin out bunkers.

So, in a bid to improve my horrific short game, I reached out to Top 50 Coach Keith Wood for the sort of expert advice you can only get from someone who has coached at the highest level of the game for more than three decades... and it was pure gold!

You don't have to be a scratch golfer to achieve more spin either. If my typical high-handicap short game can improve with Keith's tips (and it has), then I am sure there is also hope for you to start zipping the golf ball around the green...

How To Generate Spin Out Of Bunkers

1. Better Wrist Hinge

There are many dynamics required to deliver a successful greenside bunker shot but creating more spin on the ball starts with the steepness of your takeaway.

Don't be afraid to really hinge your wrists – think of both thumbs up as you take the club back.

You need a steep angle of attack into the sand to not only create spin on the ball but also height on the shot, which is essential for any high-faced traps.

2. Simple Line Drill

A simple drill to really improve impact is to draw a line in the sand and practise hitting the line, initially without a ball.

This tells you if you're in control of your impact point. Remember, from bunkers you are not aiming to hit the ball but a point behind it, so just practise thumping the line. You want the club to enter the sand on the line – that's the start of your divot.

3. Speed And Commitment

Through impact and into the follow-through you need commitment and speed.

Don't stop at impact. You need an element of smooth speed through the ball and on into a purposeful follow-through. The sand will impact and resist the club's speed so you have to combat that.

This is key... you need speed to generate backspin. The important part is where the speed comes from. It has to be a combined effort, mainly through a rotation of your upper body.

You'll see in the image above that my arms haven't travelled to a normal full-swing follow-through as I have held the clubface open, but my upper body is committed and faces the target.

Shanking the golf ball is one of the most emotionally draining and fury-inducing experiences on the golf course, but it happens to all amateur golfers at one time or another.

Struggling with a persistent shank isn't something you should tolerate, however, as Top 50 Coach Ged Walters has a simple drill that can eradicate this annoying issue from your game.

Ged Walters has over two decades of experience as a top PGA professional, coaching amateurs and professionals to shoot lower scores and now he can help you cut your handicap in 2026 with something most golfers have in their bag - a water bottle.

In this article, Ged explains the cause of a shank (knowledge is the key to mastery) and how to carry out the simple drill that has helped so many amateurs to improve their ball striking confidence...

What Is A Shank In Golf?

A shank occurs when the golf ball hits the part of the clubface where the shaft meets the head. This is called the ‘hosel’ of the club. As the loft increases, a larger gap protrudes forward alongside the leading edge.

This can cause a very unpredictable ball flight, with some shots pinging off at a 45 degree angle and others, while not necessarily significantly off line, don’t travel very far at all.

This is a common problem for high-handicap and beginner golfers, but this can be avoided by understanding a few simple aspects that occur before the strike.

Why Am I Shanking The Golf Ball?

In the image above you can see that the head of the club is behind the hands and it almost looks like the butt of the grip is going to hit me on the leg as I swing the club through.

The hands are too close to the body and the club is being delivered too much from the inside, which means the path is ultimately too much from in-to-out.

That presents the hosel towards the golf ball and can lead to a shank.

It’s a common misconception that a shank only occurs when the path moves from out to in, as this evidence highlights the opposite can also be troublesome.

Fix Your Shank: Water Bottle Drill

To fix an out-to-in path, which can lead to a shank, often amateurs go too far the other way and produce the same fault with an in-to-out path.

This is one of the best golf drills for those who suffer with a re-occurring shank - and it' super simple. I have used with hundreds of golfers over the years and it always produces positive results.

Set up a water bottle next to your golf ball, on the right hand side, then set up as you normally would to hit a shot.

The task is simple, don’t hit the water bottle.

By having an external task, your brain is distracted from the path issues and instead focuses on delivering the club correctly on the inside of the water bottle.

The body is moving in a much better fashion at this impact position (image above).

The weight is moving forward and there is an appropriate amount of rotation. The hands are more on the correct path, not moving too much in-to-out or out-to-in.

When trying this drill some amateurs tend to over-do it and hit off the toe, so get a few reps.

Practicing with a plan such as this helps you to avoid one of the seven things you should never do at the driving range, allowing you to make use of the instant visual feedback provided by the water bottle and say goodbye to that horrid shank for good.

I recently had the pleasure of playing 18 holes at the magnificent Moortown Golf Club, with Top 50 Coach and PGA Professional Ged Walters... who taught me an invaluable lesson about strategy on the golf course.

I found the middle of the fairway and was ready to attack the pin. I puffed my chest out, grabbed the club from my bag and set off striding towards my golf ball. After all - I had just gained a 106% power boost thanks to winter golf training that had helped me shoot my best ever score.

Thankfully, Ged stopped me in my tracks and shared a few home truths about why being aggressive is never the play, regardless of recent triumphs.

Ged has decades of experience coaching amateurs and professionals to improve their golf game, but this simple lesson is one he has given over and over again to high-handicap golfers just like me.

With a much clearer (and more sensible) plan in my mind, I actually made a par - so I asked Ged to share the invaluable lesson in order to help you shoot lower scores in 2026...

You only have to look at the latest Shot Scope data to see that the average 20-handicap golfer hits around 14% of greens in regulation, which equates to less than three per round.

I currently play off a handicap index of 20.8 - so it turns out that taking on the pin from 160+ yards would not have been the most sensible strategy in order to build a good score.

However, despite the likelihood of high-handicappers even finding the green from the middle of the fairway being pretty slim, many don't have a Top 50 Coach in their ear on the golf course and therefore get suckered into taking dead aim.

On most golf courses, greenkeepers will tuck pins behind bunkers, close to hazards or in the proximity of run-off areas in order to provide a little protection to the greens - so an aggressive approach (particular when it's misguided) can lead to big scores and plenty of frustration.

As I referenced earlier, as evidenced in the image above, Ged and I encountered that exact scenario during our round at Moortown Golf Club in Leeds.

The pin is tucked just behind that front greenside bunker, potentially creating an almost impossible short sided shot should we find the sand.

The latest Shot Scope data also tells us that a high-handicap golfer comes up short of the green between 59% (20-handicapper) and 69% (25-handicapper) of the time with their approach shots - which makes the danger of that particular bunker all the more real.

So, with 163 yards to the middle of the green... what's the correct strategy to play the next shot? Top 50 Coach Ged Walters was on hand to guide me through it and now shares his decades of expertise with you!

The task here is simple - just hit the green. Forget about the pin position and focus on the shot needed to hit a specific yardage.

If you can find the middle to back of the green, and leave yourself two putts for a par, you will finally be able to cut your handicap in 2026.

As you can see in the image above, I am aiming away from the danger. The left side of the green is fine, because if I come up short, long or left I will be leaving myself an easy enough chip shot.

I've used the alignment stick in the image to reference my adjustment, but the clear message is that right is dead. You must avoid that at all costs, but you aren't going to do that by being terrified of hitting it there.

Pick a safe line and target, know your number and commit positively to the shot. There is NEVER a time to be aggressive on the golf course, especially as you are not a tour player who is playing for big checks on tour.

The percentage play should always be your strategy, as minimizing errors throughout your round will be far more valuable than the odd flukey birdie because you landed it one yard past the trap and rolled up towards the hole.

To be honest, some of you might not even have the length to reach the green from 163 yards. In that case, you'd be better working out where to leave the golf ball so that you don't have to even consider the bunker on your chip shot that will come next.

Baz's watch told him he had 182 yards to the back, so I advised him to take enough club to hit that number. We know that amateurs, particularly high handicappers, often come up short.

If he hits the number, he is on the back of the green. If he is short, he might be in the middle of the green - but whatever happens he should be looking to play towards the left side of the putting surface.

The reality is this - if you find that bunker you could be making a seven or eight. If you avoid it in the right place, the worst you should make is a five - so get the idea of flighting one in close to the flag out of your brain (for good)!

Whether you are a beginner or a more experienced golfer, I'd wager that most of us have suffered with a slice at some point - and many will still be fighting that extreme left to right shot shape today.

There are many drills to cure an over the top swing and banish a slice, but this one really resonated with me as it uses an item I've got packs and packs of underneath my kitchen sink.

In fact, I'm fairly confident most of you could fetch a couple from your homes right now and head to the driving range to practice this one for yourself.

So, what are you waiting for? By listening to the expert advice of Top 50 Coach John Jacobs, who has coached as a PGA Professional for more than three decades, you will quickly neutralize your slice, helping you to cut your handicap and shoot lower scores in 2026...

The image above shows a common pre-impact slice position. It's a common mistake that plagues your golf game – caused by that ‘over the top' movement we often talk about.

You can see how the swing path is working too far left, and my attack angle has become very steep.

My shoulders have effectively beaten the rest of my body to impact, and I'm going to end up using them to drag my arms across the ball, hitting that yellow pad and producing a horrible heel strike as a result.

The shape will be strong left-to-right – which is a very weak shot with high spin.

You can groove a better swing path with this simple drill, however, using an everyday kitchen item found in homes all around the world.

Pop a couple of sponge pads down to create a channel. Notice, in the image above, how you can see more of my left side, with the right side still comfortably tucked in.

My pelvis has opened, but my shoulders are still a little closed. There's a misconception that the shoulders need to be square at impact to produce a centred strike with driver.

They don't. In fact, that would be rare in a top player. Think of the lower body as leading the order into the downswing. The club is inside the green pad here on approach.

My exit line in the image below is perfect. The extension is good, with the left side of my body clearing through impact.

I've also maintained a perfect posture in the golf swing, so that it's similar here to what it would have been at address.

There may be other reasons behind your slice, but this simple drill could provide the fix and help you to achieve a stronger and far more penetrating ball flight.

A useful ‘feel'

This is one of the best ball striking lessons for amateurs. The downswing is a bit like a race.

Try to feel as if your lower body starts the race from the top, using your hips to shift and turn and leaving the shoulders behind. Then it's the job of the hands and forearms to square the face at impact.

Bernd Wiesberger demonstrated incredible patience and resilience to claim a ninth DP World Tour title at the 2026 Volvo China Open recently, five years on from his last professional win.

The Austrian pro, who represented Team Europe at Whistling Straits in the 2021 Ryder Cup, dominated the Volvo China Open field with his expert short game, ranking 1st for Strokes Gained: Around The Green, and also ranked 2nd for Strokes Gained: Tee To Green in China.

In order to help you play better golf in 2026, we asked the serial DP World Tour winner to share his best practice tips or habits that can slash your handicap and help amateurs to shoot lower scores (especially in medal competitions).

1. PRACTISE EFFICIENTLY

I won't generally hit balls for longer than half an hour. At some point you get an overload and then it's actually detrimental to your progress, so I try to break it up into different segments (a plan that helps you avoid one of the seven things never to do at the driving range).

It's fine if you work on technical things, but then I want to bring some kind of challenge into it or break it up completely and go and do some short game to reset my brain.

If the sessions get too long, you'll lose focus and then you're also losing the ability to improve.

So try and add some structure to your practice. My game certainly improved when I approached it with little tasks and a lot of variation, with the bottom line of trying to improve what I wanted to achieve on the course.

2. MEDAL PLAY

It's a game and the freer you are in your approach, the more relaxed you'll be.

Obviously, there's always that aspect of being focused on what you want to do, but you can't be focused for four-and-a-half hours, so you need to detach a little bit in between shots.

Again, I think practice can help you to break it up into segments. You want to start working a bit more towards how it would actually work better in competition play and bring that into your practice.

I like to work on my ball flights, all sorts of shapes. In the short game, I don't want to stand over six-footers for too long.

Don't make it too one-dimensional. Have fun combining the whole aspect of the game into practice sessions and that will transfer into making stroke play more enjoyable.

3. THE WARM-UP

Club golfers can try and do too much just before a round.

You're not going to learn anything more about your game or improve your technique in the 20 minutes before your tee time.

I will hit a set number of balls towards certain targets. I won't have an alignment stick down as that's something I do on Tuesdays and maybe Wednesday mornings.

I'll start with the shorter clubs, progress to the longer ones and will always finish with the tee shot I want to hit on the 1st – I will picture a target and the shape I want to hit.

Everything on the day is purely in preparation for tournament golf and there is nothing more on the technical aspects.

In the last ten to 20 minutes, even if you sit down with a cup of tea or coffee and just try to relax, that's fine. Maybe set yourself some goals for that day, hit a few putts to get some touch and then head off.

4. WORK ON THE OBVIOUS

It's no secret that the biggest chance to improve for any golfer, pros or amateurs, is 150 yards and in.

If you get really good around the greens, especially as an amateur, get a good feel for your putting and actually spend some proper time on it, there's so much room for improvement there.

And be honest with your yardages. We work endlessly to discover how far the ball is travelling on a certain week, but club golfers consistently come up well short of not just the pin but also the green.

Be more realistic about your distances and what you can achieve with each club.

5. LEARN FROM THE BEST

I will often watch videos of players who I love seeing swing the club – for example, Ernie Els and Freddie Couples.

If I struggle with my strike, I focus on two things. First, it's rhythm, especially in my transition, so I will try to hit big slices and big hooks and then tighten it down. That helps me with my strike.

I want to be able to move it both ways and, if I have a target, especially on a particular flight, that helps me to commit to the shot a lot better.

It feels like a lot of younger players have gone too one-dimensional in the way they see their shots.

I would say it is beneficial to practise being able to bring your flight up or down and shape it towards certain flags. That also helps me keep my strike tight, especially with the irons.

There are many situations on the golf course where club golfers rely on their iron play to find the right position on the fairway, set up scoring opportunities or escape trouble – but often they come unstuck by making poor decisions or being imprecise in their execution.

Flushing an iron from the middle of the fairway is a great skill, and one that will help you cut your handicap, but being able to hit a range of different iron shots can actually help you to shoot lower scores in 2026.

Most high-handicappers like myself, trying to break 90 for the first time, will fall foul of the same common mistakes - so I reached out to a top PGA pro with more than two decades of experience for his expert advice.

In order to help you and I reach that elusive milestone, Top 50 Coach Ged Walters shared 7 shots every high-handicapper needs to master and offered a crucial reality-checking tip that can help you to avoid a common scorecard killer...

1. Safety shot off the tee

If you are planning to hit a safety shot off the tee with an iron, you need to commit to achieving this via a centred strike.

So often, amateurs intend to use this shot as a fairway-finder only to then miss the fairway and leave themselves a long and difficult second shot into the green.

Your weight should slightly favour your lead side at address, with ball position just forward of centre for a mid-iron and below your collarbone for a long-iron.

Your tempo should be committed but not too aggressive, focusing more on a centred strike and finding the correct landing zone than distance.

Setting a tee in the ground ahead of the ball is a great way to practise a ball-then-turf strike. You're aiming to smash the tee out of the turf instead of thinking about making contact with the ball.

2. Taking your medicine

For the majority of players, there will be times when they put themselves in positions out on the golf course where they really don't want to be.

Here, I am blocked out by the trees, which are obscuring my route to the flag and interfering with my swing. Instead of being a hero and taking it on over the water, the sensible shot is to play out and try to get up and down from a better spot.

Playing the hero shot is foolish, especially for high-handicappers, as it rarely pays off and often brings a scorecard killing number into play.

This play helps to take a potentially big number off the cards, so pick a line that allows you to see the green for your next shot and from a yardage that you like.

Your lie in this situation will dictate the type of shot you play and the club you select. The correct strategy is to avoid as much of the danger as possible, limit the damage and trust your short game to bail you out.

3. Ball above or below feet

When the ball is below your feet a common mistake is to simply adopt your normal set-up position.

This causes you to lose balance and lean forwards, which then leads to excess body movement as you desperately try to rescue the shot and get the clubhead down to the ball.

To make consistently good strikes from this kind of lie, you need to bend your knees more to lower your centre. You can also widen your stance and feel like the handle is closer to your legs at set-up, with the resulting shot likely to have a fade shape to it.

When the ball is above your feet, people often end up hitting the ground well before the ball. To address this, stand taller and ensure you grip down lower.

The shot is more likely to have a draw shape to it, so adjust your aim to suit. Maintaining posture throughout is really important whether the ball is above or below your feet, as without this your chance of a solid strike is slimmer.

4. Downslopes and upslopes

When playing a shot from a downslope, it's important to match your shoulders, hips, knees and feet to the angle of the slope as much as possible.

The alignment stick shows how everything matches up to the slope, creating a solid, stable base from which to swing the club.

Widen your stance to help you retain balance and move the ball back towards the trail foot to encourage ball-first contact. You will also require more loft as the ball is going to launch lower off the face.

You need to match the slope and adopt a wider stance on upslopes too, but your weight will naturally favour the trail side more.

Ball position can return to centre, or slightly forward with woods, and the natural launch pad created by the ground means you can take less loft.

5. Low punch shot

Shot selection is all about conditions, but when the wind is up and into your face, the last thing you want is to send the ball up high as it will almost certainly stall and fall.

The low punch helps you to manage the trajectory and spin, allowing you to achieve a good carry distance without sacrificing control.

To hit this shot, use a three-quarter backswing and around a half-length follow-through, maintaining pressure in the lead foot as much as possible throughout.

Take a little loft off by getting the hands forward, and move the ball slightly further back in your stance.

6. Fairway bunker shot

In terms of body position and weight distribution, this is going to feel very similar to a typical iron shot, but the key difference is the unstable surface.

To create the best possible conditions for a solid strike, shuffle your feet into the sand a little to help boost stability through impact. Don't dig in as you might for a greenside bunker shot as you don't want to lower your centre too much.

This can cause you to hit the sand first, whereas, just as from the fairway, you want ball-first contact in a fairway bunker.

Grip down slightly and set 70% of your weight distribution on your lead side, retaining a stable head position throughout the swing. The lip of the bunker will determine what club you hit, but don't be too greedy and risk leaving the ball in the sand.

7. Pitch-and-run shot

Yes, this is more of a short-game wedge shot, but it can still be played with an iron.

At set-up everything is much closer to the ball than for a full shot. The handle of the club is higher, my feet are closer together and weight distribution is 70% in favour of my lead side.

Control is the focus here, because you are attempting to flight the ball around half to two-thirds of the distance required before it pitches and releases onto the green.

You would only play this shot if you had good ground conditions in front of you, as a wet or uneven surface can lead to unpredictable results. If you aren't confident enough to play a flighted wedge, this shot is a great alternative.

There could be a multitude of reasons why your ball striking is not as consistent as you would like, but having a poor posture is almost certainly towards the top of the list for many amateurs.

Often, the issues that result in poor contact start before hitting the golf ball - but by making a few simple alterations you can play better golf in 2026.

With the help of PGA professional and Top 50 Coach Keith Wood, who has taught golfers for more than 30 years, you can identify your posture problems and address them (pardon the pun) with actionable tips that will help you cut your handicap...

How To Perfect Your Posture In The Golf Swing

Think of posture as the axle to a wheel – or the centre to your swing. Get it wrong and the swing becomes inefficient and challenging.

This image (below) shows a good posture - the optimum back angle supported by enough knee flex to counter the tilt. This is good for balance and stability, and allows you to make the best use of the ground through your legs.

A good tilt also produces good arm hang, directly under the shoulders. Get this right and it will have a positive effect on the mechanics of your backswing.

My arms are hanging roughly vertically and the club comes out at an angle through the hands. This automatically sets my wrists in a position where they can create some angle in the backswing by hinging.

See how complicated poor posture looks in the image below.

The spine angle is too upright, my arms are hanging too close to my legs with minimal wrist angle and my weight has shifted into my heels, creating a sitting position – hardly a dynamic base from which to prepare for an athletic move like the golf swing.

Problems at impact often stem from a bad start at set-up. In the image (below), you can see a poor impact position with the pelvis tucking under and moving towards the ball.

There is no body rotation through the ball and the hands are too high at impact, which makes it extremely difficult to square the clubface.

Balance would also be challenged in this kind of move as the whole body shifts towards the ball and onto the toes of the feet. Achieving a centred strike is almost impossible and the dreaded shank becomes highly possible.

The final image from an aerial view is a simple visual of where your weight should be when addressing the golf ball.

If you have the correct tilt from your spine angle, and the optimum knee flex to balance that tiIt, as in the first image at the top of the article, then your balancing point will be where I have laid my golf club on the ground.

This balancing point should be under the balls of your feet (not in the heels or toes) and in an athletic position from which you can perform efficiently.

As amateur golfers, we often fall foul of common mistakes on the golf course that cost us precious shots... and putting is no exception, according to PGA Pro and putting guru, James Jankowski.

James Jankowski has coached more than 3000 golfers in his career, helping amateurs and top professionals to improve their putting and shoot lower scores.

James also contributed to our expertly-curated putting improvement guide, which is a great resource if you are looking to fire up the flat stick and cut your handicap in 2026.

In this article, James shares three common putting mistakes that he sees time and time again from amateur golfers and offers an actionable strategy to banish them from your game for good...

Mistake 1: Set-up

There are plenty of things we can control before hitting a putt, like selecting the best method for how to grip a putter or mastering a solid and dependable set-up.

A good set-up allows the upper body to move independently from the lower body and core.

When golfers sit too much into their address position, with too upright a posture and too much tension, that separation becomes difficult and you can overuse your hands and arms through the putting stroke.

How to fix it:

Instead, try tilting forward more from the hips – more than with any other club in the bag – and allow your arms to hang naturally underneath your shoulders with plenty of space.

This should be relatively free from tension, with a relaxed posture, almost like you're falling/rounding forward. From this position it becomes much easier to disassociate the torso from the lower body, core and head.

A sound putting stroke relies on synchronisation and co-ordination, not on locking everything together through muscular tension.

Mistake 2: Synchronisation

Synchronisation is encouraged through proper acceleration and timing. When the handle and clubhead move together, the wrists remain relatively quiet, which stabilises the stroke.

Again, it is not about locking the wrists through tension, but about quieting flexion/extension through co-ordination. If the acceleration is too harsh or late/early, separation between the handle and clubhead increases.

How to fix it:

Try this synchronisation drill to co-ordinate your stroke. Take your normal grip but lift both thumbs off the club so the handle rests in the fingers at the back of the grip.

Now swing the putter back and forth, keeping the thumbs off. Now learn to co-ordinate the motion; keep the handle and putter head moving together without too much separation.

Mistake 3: The Backstroke

Many golfers fail to create enough speed in the backstroke.

As a result, the stroke becomes too short and they try to compensate with late acceleration and an exaggerated followthrough. Impact in golf is not a hit, it’s a collision.

How to fix it:

To produce consistent strikes, build speed through the putting stroke and use the club's momentum through impact.

Speed begins in the backstroke. If the backstroke is too slow or too short, creating speed during the transition and using momentum in the strike becomes difficult.

Focus on making the backstroke quick enough so that it becomes long enough and simply transfer that speed smoothly in the transition and cruise through impact.

Getting better at golf as an amateur takes a lot practice, perseverance and resilience - but there are also a number of steps high-handicappers must take to improve their scoring (that many currently ignore).

As the golf season starts, you will surely be looking for ways to cut your handicap in 2026 - but did you know that much of that success (or failure) will come down to what you do before you hit the golf ball?

Ged Walters is a PGA professional and Top 50 Coach with more than two decades of experience coaching golfers just like you to improve their golf game.

After teaching countless lessons and witnessing the common mistakes that plague high-handicappers, Ged decided to share his wisdom in order to help you foster better habits that will slash your handicap this year...

1. Assess The Lie

The lie is the most important thing that amateurs should check before hitting every shot. It's what dictates whether or not you can select your 150 club from 150 - or not.

Lots of amateurs play the same golf course over and over and they will walk up to their ball with a club already in their hand or an idea of what they are going to hit in their mind before they get there.

The tendency is to think you should play the same shot you might have played from a similar spot or distance on that hole before, without even assessing the lie, and that error can be very costly.

So, if you've got lie ‘A’, which is the perfect lie on a lovely tight piece of turf, then you have scope to choose whichever shot you want.

If you have type ‘B’, where the ball is sitting up in the first cut or short rough like a gooseberry, you don't actually know how much grass is underneath that golf ball.

We don't know how high it is off the soil. So in an ideal world, you would go somewhere reasonably close by where you didn't disturb the golf ball and put your golf club on the ground to see how far up the face the grass reaches. You then get an idea of what you’ve got underneath it.

Once you've got that information, you can adjust your ball position accordingly.

If the ball is sitting up I would generally suggest putting the ball position a little further back in the stance, with weight more forwards on the lead side, allowing you to catch the ball earlier in the swing arc and increase your chance of a centred strike with irons.

When you've got lie ‘C’, the sort of in-between scabby one, you need to do a little investigating. As long as you're not in a depression, you're okay to choose your normal club because you can get full contact on the golf ball.

Most high handicappers have chosen their club 20 yards from the ball. They're pulling their club out of their bag while they're pushing a trolley.

Very few put their bag down and stop to answer the questions the golf course is asking - but by assessing the lie you can save yourself crucial shots.

2. Test The Conditions

The next thing all high-handicappers should do before hitting the golf ball, which they often do not, is testing the conditions.

Wind strength and direction both have a significant impact on the flight of the golf ball, so you should definitely be calculating distances in the wind with the help of some basic information.

As a ballpark formula, one mile an hour of wind into your face will hurt your distance by one yard. So, if it's a 15 mph wind into your face, then you will likely come up at least 15 yards short if you do not factor that into your club selection.

If it's downwind, one mile an hour helps half a yard. So, a 20mph helping wind would help you to hit the golf ball 10 yards longer than normal.

You can work out the direction and of the wind by throwing up some grass, and while you can’t check your weather app during competition you can check the forecast before you go out to give a rough indication of wind strength.

While on the course, you should also use other methods to gather this information - particularly if you are in a sheltered location or playing a course that is heavily tree-lined.

Focus your attention on the treetops, because as the ball reaches peak height it will likely be affected by whatever is going on up above that treeline.

Lot’s of people just look at the flag, but this can be misleading. Use all the available information to do some basic calculations before hitting your shot and you will notice much more consistent results.

3. Check Your Grip

This is the only point of contact with the club, so nailing your golf grip is a great way to improve your ball striking. A lot of high-handicapped golfers don't have a functional grip.

The reason I say functional is that I don’t believe there is a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ grip, it’s about matching it to your swing profile and technique.

The textbook would tell you that Jim Furyk's grip was ‘bad’. But it was functional.

When you are working on your grip on the range, it doesn't have to be 'textbook' looking. But if you're hitting really poor shots, changing your grip is a way to see significant improvements in your ball striking.

I would advise seeing your local PGA pro for some advice on this aspect, as it’s very individual and extremely important, but once you have done that, take a few seconds before each shot on the course to check you have nailed the fundamentals of your ‘functional’ grip.

4. Be Precise With Your Aim

If you think about the one thing that moves the golf ball, it is the club face - which is why finding a centred strike with irons is so important.

If we aim the club face in a position that is not relative to our target, then the chances of us hitting the golf ball in that direction are drastically reduced.

Lot’s of high-handicappers will step into their shot, place their feet shoulder width apart, look over the shoulder at their target and think they have aimed correctly.

The thing is, when you look over your shoulder, your shoulders turn. Therefore, when you return to look at the ball, you are miles off where you think you are aiming.

That leads to amateurs questioning why they are hitting it off to the right, but in reality they are actually aiming that way.

A better routine is to place the club behind the ball, pointing the face towards your target, before you step in to take your stance.

You can also use a blemish on the ground, an old divot or a particular blade of grass in front of you that is on your intended line to help you align effectively.

This small change in your routine will save you shots around the golf course by actually allowing you to hit the golf ball where you intend too.

5. Flare The Feet

The knee joint is a hinge, so it only works in one way. Relative to how flexible the individual is, having your feet square at setup can restrict how much hip rotation they can achieve.

This often leads to swaying and a lack of stability of the body, which then becomes a variable in whether or not you're going to hit the ground way behind the ball as you struggle to control your low point with any consistency.

Flaring the feet out slightly sets the knee joint on an angle, allowing the hip to rotate with greater freedom.

This makes it easier for you to stay more stable and keep your weight forward for longer in the backswing, helping you to move the weight forward in the downswing rather than having that sway and timing issue.

By simple adjusting the position of your feet before you hit the golf ball, you’ve mechanically given yourself a much better chance of getting into the right positions in the golf swing - and ultimately improved your chances of hitting better golf shots.

Creating good habits as an amateur golfer can help you to see long-lasting improvement, according to a tour coach with decades of experience at the highest levels of the game.

Nick Bradley is a renowned tour coach who has worked with an impressive list of pros including Justin Rose and Sir Nick Faldo. He also expertly analysed the top players in the game and shared things amateur golfers can copy from Scheffler, McIlroy and others - helping you to improve your game this season.

As an expert in the golf instruction field, Nick describes how collecting data, holding your teacher to account and making no excuses with your practice sessions are three great habits that can deliver the gains that many amateurs miss out on.

Many amateurs fail due to not following through on the third habit, sometimes falling foul of seven things never to do at the driving range, but by following this process you can shoot lower scores and cut your handicap in 2026.

Below, Nick Bradley explains each habit and how it can help your game, while I share how I have adopted the process as part of my winter golf rebuild...

Habit 1: Collect Data

Learn to take basic statistics when you play or get some of the apps that do it for you. I think without the feedback on your golf and how you actually play the game, it then makes my second point more difficult to do, which is to know what to work on.

You should be noting down things like the number of fairways hit/missed, and where you missed them (left/right), but also the number of three-putts and putts missed from inside 4-feet - as these things will start to highlight useful patterns.

Understanding what aspect to work on without collecting the data is difficult as you've got nothing to point towards. Once that data has informed you, go and find a golf teacher with a good reputation.

Now, I'm going to put a caveat on that, which is, and this is where I think amateurs do go wrong, you need to remember the golf teacher is a consultant.

They are there to improve your condition, but make sure you go to them with at least six rounds of data to steer your tuition in the right direction.

How has Baz applied habit 1 throughout his winter golf rebuild...

I have collected basic data in each round throughout my winter golf rebuild and shared the findings with my coach, head pro at Sand Moor Golf Club Alex James.

This helped to inform our lessons and the direction of travel with regards to my improvement plan, but it also helped me to track progress and set goals throughout the process.

Habit 2: Hold Your Teacher Accountable

Start by asking how many lessons it will take for you to get to the target you have set.

Roughly, I mean, we won't be holding a gun to their head, but an idea of a realistic timeframe to achieve the goal.

Amateur golfers are really poor at holding teachers' feet to the fire. You're paying the money.

If you go have your wall done by a bricklayer, you're not going to accept, "Oh, just do it the way you want to in whatever timeframe you want, mate. No problem."

Go to a golf teacher with a good reputation and then say, "Look, this is what I want to improve upon. Can you do it? And, how long do you think it will take in your experience?

Then, it’s easier to say, "Ok, I'll pay for three lessons now. Let's go."

How has Baz applied habit 2 throughout his winter golf rebuild...

Since I started working with my coach, Alex James, I have always felt a strong partnership and an investment, on his part, to help me improve as a golfer.

Alex was very clear what he felt was achievable, based on a certain level of commitment from me over the winter, and he duly delivered the results - helping my to hit driver over 240 yards (as a 22-handicapper) and shoot personal best scores on the course.

By having an open and honest dialogue throughout, I have certainly improved as a golfer due to the positive professional relationship I have developed with my coach.

Habit 3: Make No Excuses

If you've got the information, work hard and diligently at it.

You need to go back to the golf instructor after each lesson with it almost overdone.

It's far easier to bring someone back if they've overdone something because it was their inherent pattern anyway.

But, if they never get close to the thing, you haven't got there. So, my point would be, whatever you're told to do, go back with it slightly overdone and then the learning has happened.

How has Baz applied habit 3 throughout his winter golf rebuild...

As you can see in the video above, I made a commitment to put in the hard yards on the range. This had been missing in my pursuit of progress in recent years and I often wondered why I wasn't getting better - but in truth I wasn't working smartly.

Many amateurs fall at this hurdle. They will have lessons and then not actually follow-up and practice the key teachings, so see limited progress.

By going back to Alex with updates on how my practice had developed in the week between our lessons, this helped to personalise drills and differentiate the plan moving forwards.

After working with a vast array of PGA Professionals to curate the ultimate short game clinic, one thing became clear... keeping it simple is always the best approach.

Mastering the fundamentals can help you avoid the 7 most common mistakes amateurs make around the green (which you can see in the video below) and will give you a great plan to use in practice - also avoiding one of the 7 things you should never do at the range.

Ged Walters is a top PGA Professional and Top 50 Coach who has helped amateurs and professionals to improve as golfers over a two decade long career, but he stills sees far too many players overcomplicating the short game.

In this article, Ged shares his expertly crafted no-nonsense approach to short game fundamentals, focusing on three key but simple aspects, which aim to demystify the chip shot technique and help you to get up and down more often from around the green...

1. Controlling Tempo

A solid short game is all about controlling tempo, maintaining structure and nailing the fundamentals. Your arms move in a straight line in the backswing, keeping the body as quiet as possible with minimal rotation.

Then, in the downswing, the chest turns through as the arms keep swinging down the line of the white cane in the ground here. Don't speed up as it's hard to control distance then. Rather, keep a nice fluid motion and focus on controlling tempo.

In terms of the perfect grip, ensure the hands are slightly turned in and the arms hang naturally. The left hand should sit more on top with the grip running through the middle joint of the index finger and the base of the little finger.

The right hand mirrors this, with the left thumb under the pad of the right thumb when both hands are on the club. Don't grip tightly as this kills greenside control.

2. Setup

Ideally you want a narrow stance for a short-game shot, as you aren't looking to generate tons of power. Your weight distribution should favour the lead side, with around 70% of the pressure going into that lead foot.

It should remain there throughout the swing. For a standard chip, the perfect ball position should be central in your stance, but this can vary depending on the type of shot you're looking to play.

If the ball position is further forward, the clubhead will come into impact with more dynamic loft; if the ball position is further back, it will have less loft and a lower launch.

3. Maintaining Structure

Maintaining structure with the arms is key to keeping width in the radius of the swing. If your radius breaks down, tops, thins or fats will come into play. Keeping the connection between the arms is crucial throughout the swing.

As you can see, I am using two alignment sticks here to create an ‘X' shape, crossing over near my wrists and running up my arms and under my armpits.

This is the correct arm structure that you need to maintain, focusing on keeping that triangle between the arms and shoulders consistent throughout the swing.

Use this alignment stick drill in practice to bed in good habits around the green.

What I Learned From Playing A Round Of Golf With Ged Walters...

I've had the pleasure to play a number of rounds of golf with Ged Walters, frequently leaning on his extensive coaching experience and expertise to improve my own game.

In our most recent visit to the course, Ged gave me some great advice about a transformational short game shot I never knew I needed. This lesson drastically improved my ability to get up and down and improved my historically disgusting chipping technique.

Essentially, this shot required me to be a little bit more brave in trusting the loft on the golf club, but once I had practiced it I found I was able to change the club I was using to alter the shot trajectory without needing to alter my technique!

I've broken the technique down, below, into a step-by-step guide for you to try yourself...

• Take your most lofted club
• Stand slightly taller and closer to the ball than for a normal shot
• Set up with a narrow stance and weight 70% on your lead side
• Open the clubface a fraction but keep the shaft in a neutral position (minimal shaft lean)
• Take the clubhead straight back and through, similar to a putting stroke, committing with speed through impact

The science behind the perfect driver launch angle isn't a 'one-size-fits-all' formula, but spending time getting it right for your game can lead to a significant increase in distance and it's a great way to cut your handicap in 2026.

Perfecting your launch angle is a common theme among the 20 best driving tips and drills for amateurs, but there are many variables to consider including clubhead speed, driver loft and, of course, your technique when swinging the golf club.

So, in order to help you understand the formula a little better, we asked expert PGA Pro James Jankowski for his advice on this important topic.

James has coached over 3000 golfers, helping amateurs and professionals to improve their game and shoot lower scores, so follow his tips and drills below to add distance off the tee (even as a high-handicapper)...

Formula For The Perfect Driver Launch Angle

With the driver, the ball should be teed up so the club travels upwards at impact. This upward angle of attack creates a good launch with controlled spin to generate maximum distance.

The formula is simple... the slower the clubhead speed, the more loft and spin you need to keep the ball in the air long enough to carry a good distance.

This is why a 90mph swing speed will struggle to launch an 8° driver.

Similarly, many hit their 5-wood further than their 3-wood as the extra loft keeps the ball in the air longer. With driver, use the loft built into the club to launch the ball.

Many golfers try to help the ball into the air by leaning back, which causes problems with consistency and strike quality.

Instead, the right shoulder should move down towards the right hip early in the downswing.

How To Achieve It: The Drill

Try this drill to produce the right move. Swing to the top, then rehearse the halfway-down position (right side image - above) where the right shoulder lowers towards the hip, the right elbow stays flexed and moves in front of the torso, and the clubhead is inside the hands.

Repeat a few times, then return to the top and swing through at about 80% speed. This shallows the club and sets the ideal delivery for a high-launch.

To understand where the swing's low point occurs, place a scorecard 4-8ins behind the ball.

The goal is to feel the club brush the scorecard, then rise into the ball, creating the low point behind the ball to generate an upward strike. This gives you a clear sense of the correct launch conditions.

You may also notice that many good players’ heads move slightly back through impact—this simply helps counter the club’s direction of travel and is not a conscious move.

Getting your launch angle right isn’t about chasing a number, it’s about matching your technique and equipment to your speed.

Focus on creating an upward strike, use the loft available to you and practice the correct movement. Do that, and you’ll start to see more carry, more consistency and better results off the tee.

Chunking chip shots... we've all been there. You step up to the golf ball with a clear plan in your head, but the same soul-destroying fault strikes again. Your ball has travelled a matter of feet, if you're lucky, and your pride has taken a bit of a beating.

Improving your short game is a great way to cut your handicap in 2026, so let's start with this common mistake that plagues the game of high-handicap golfers.

In this article, Top 50 Coach Alex Buckner delivers a short game clinic that focuses on improving your contact with the golf ball around the greens, helping you to get up and down more often.

Alex currently coaches PGA Tour player Marco Penge, who ranks among the top-40 golfers in the world according to the Official World Golf Rankings, so is the perfect person to help you sharpen up your short game...

Golfers who ‘chunk' their chips – the dreaded heavy contact – have a tendency to get their low point too deep.

I see many poor chippers hunched over the ball; they become very low and ‘push' their arms, legs and body down, moving the low point into the ground.

When players adopt this very low and bent position, it's often because they think it gives them greater control, but in reality, it simply makes it easier for the club to enter deeper into the turf.

By standing higher at address, you will prevent yourself from reaching down into the ground and it becomes much easier to clip the ball away cleanly.

Note, in the image below, how my arms are straighter with my hands pointing down. Because of this, you can stand a little closer to the ball.

Notice also, in the image below, how tall I've remained throughout the shot, returning the shaft at the same height and angle.

To achieve this, make sure you don't lose height in the backswing and then push from the ground up on the downswing. Keep your thumbs pointing to the ground at impact.

If you grip down, as many top players do to improve feel and control, don't bend too low when doing so. Bend too low and you're back to square one, making it easy to push the low point too deep into the ground.

What Does 'Chunking' Mean In Golf?

Chunking in golf is when you strike the ground significantly before the golf ball. This can also be referred to as 'fat' or 'heavy' contact, usually leading to the ball travelling a very short distance and not reaching your intended target.

Hitting chip shots fat is a fault you have to get rid of if you want to improve your handicap and scoring, so following Alex's expert advice is a must in the 2026 season.

Sometimes as amateur golfers we feel like the best players in the world are totally unrelatable, with little chance of us replicating their elite talent on the golf course.

While elements of that might be true, there are certain realistic lessons that amateur golfers can learn from the best players in the world - you just need the help of an expert tour coach to break it down for you.

Whether it’s avoiding one of the 7 things you should never do at the driving range or understanding how to achieve a centred strike with driver, finding the invaluable teachings in the games of top tour professionals (that you can actually use as an amateur) is not an impossible task.

So, in order to help you find 5 ways to cut your handicap in 2026, we reached out to tour coach Nick Bradley for his expert guidance on the matter.

Nick Bradley has worked with some true legends of the game, like Justin Rose and Sir Nick Faldo, but has also supported countless amateurs to play better golf in his decades long career.

Below, Nick analyses five modern day giants in the game of golf and shares one thing that he loves about each of their games.

He doesn't just stop there, however, as he also explains how any amateur golfer can learn from that specific example - improving your chances of shooting lower scores and improving on the course…

1. Scottie Scheffler

There is no mystery behind why Scottie Scheffler is so dominant. His club face stability through the golf swing is exemplary.

His swing is very up and down, so his face is going to be so stable for much of the golf swing and avoiding the deviation that can creep in with a swing that is more around the body.

You see him on the driving range with his grip training aid, making sure the left and right hand fit together for the perfect golf grip which leads to the face being in a good position.

We know based on the latest data that 85% of the golf ball’s orientation is determined by the face position at impact, so it would make sense for amateur golfers to spend the majority of their practice time working on controlling the clubface and improving the quality of their ball striking to achieve a centred strike with irons.

Scheffler is so good because he works diligently on the fundamentals - something amateur golfers can sometimes neglect.

2. Rory McIlroy

The first thing I like about Rory McIlroy is that he is incredibly mobile and flexible, almost hyper-mobile in fact.

For most amateurs, improving flexibility and mobility is a great way to preserve your golf swing over time. If they are sitting at their desk in the office all week or aren’t particularly mindful of flexibility and mobility, they can tend to lock up a bit which doesn’t actually help the golf swing.

Secondly, I believe McIlroy to be a better driver of the golf ball than a wedge player, which in my opinion is down to his grip and the way he sets the club on the way back relative to plane.

If amateurs wanted to drive the ball better, they would do well to look at McIlroy’s position at the top of the backswing.

His radius bone, his forearm and his wrist are in a straight line. If amateur golfers could match that 45 degree angle, all of a sudden they will say goodbye to that weak club face and start to square the driver better at impact.

3. Jason Day

Jason Day is playing some really nice golf this year, but it’s his pitching action that I really love - It’s a ‘no fuss’ technique.

Jason Day’s setup when pitching really embodies that ‘less is more’ attitude. If you add too many variables, like too long of a backswing, too much wrist set or steepness in the plane, most amateurs sadly don’t have the skills to make that work.

Instead, copying Jason’s example, amateurs would benefit from placing pressure on the left side, not allowing too much shaft lean and using their torso as the engine.

What I mean by this is that the torso moves back and through, with the arms just going along for the ride.

This helps to promote a shallow strike through the ball, an increased spin rate and much better short game shots as a result.

4. Tommy Fleetwood

Tommy Fleetwood isn’t an incredibly big guy but his efficiency of club movement is excellent.

His swing sets beautifully on plane, which is not coincidence as he is an incredibly hard worker on the range and in practice. He always has the sticks in the ground representing plane when working on his swing.

But, many amateurs make a common mistake when setting up this type of practice drill because they don’t create the right angle for the alignment stick.

The correct angle is representative of the lie angle of the club you are practicing with. So, if you are using a club that is 61 degrees, you need to mirror that with the training aid.

Tommy’s action is a small, fast circle - bang, bang. But, that comes from repetitive and disciplined practice and amateur golfers could take a leaf out of his book in that regard.

5. Bryson DeChambeau

We’ve already covered a number of technical elements above, but the thing I love most about Bryson’s game is actually psychological - his sheer optimism.

Nick Faldo told me that when he was competing, his only contract that he held with himself was that no matter what happened with the last shot he would just keep visualising great shots for the next one.

In my teaching, I have something called counter imaging.

We are all guilty of being on the golf course and seeing a bad picture. If short right is a water hazard we obsess over that, but instead you should be seeing long and left as the goal with a re-framed positive attitude.

When you look at Bryson DeChambeau, the bottle isn’t half full - it’s positively brimming.

His optimism is a great example in a game where we fail far more than we win, even at the top level. Your mindset is something you can control and Bryson’s attitude is a good one to replicate.

Putting a score together takes practice and its own strategy – it doesn't just happen of its own accord.

Avoiding the 8 common mistakes plaguing your game can help you cut your handicap in 2026, but as well as technical alterations you also need to think and play smarter.

By utilising a different approach, like the pro scoring shot strategy to calculate the appropriate lay up on a par-5 to ensure you have a shot that you have practiced and feel dialled in on over a risky long-iron into the green, you can lower your scores.

It's all well and good boosting your clubhead speed over the winter, so that you can bomb it off the tee, but on certain holes a more strategic approach will always win.

In this article, Top 50 Coach and PGA professional Keith Wood utilises more than 30 years of coaching experience to help amateur golfers understand how to build a better score on the golf course.

Keith has worked with some of the top names in the game, including Major Champions Seve Ballesteros and Sir Nick Faldo, so he is the perfect person to educate us on what it takes to shoot lower scores.

As well as sharing how Keith would strategically play an example par-5 hole at Salgados Golf Club in Portugal, he also explains how the scoring shot strategy can help amateur golfers immensely to play to their strengths with a wedge in hand...

1. Eliminate Pressure

The hole in the image is a par 5, but I've already decided to use three shots to reach the green.

Why? Well, there's a bunker down the left at 250 yards and, as the hole turns to the left, it narrows with a river running up the left and a lake to the right.

I would be mad to try and thread a driver through the tight section of fairway, bringing the bunker and water into play.

It's great to have a simple formula for hitting long drives, but it's equally as impressive to know when it's appropriate to use that skill (or not).

Most club players will reach for the driver as the hole's par-5 status suggests distance is a must, and therefore they need to try and smash it as far as possible.

In our heads, a 500-yard par 5 is very tempting. You picture yourself hitting a fairway wood in from 240 yards before two-putting for birdie. Be honest, though – how often does that really happen?

Instead, I've taken the pressure off by hitting a safer fairway wood or hybrid off the tee to get me to the largest area of fairway. From here, I then have options...

2. Be Realistic

I'm in a perfect position now, with options to still go for the green in two, if tempted, or to lay up to a perfect wedge distance. The green may just be in reach but the hole continues to narrow in, with the lake close to the right side of the green.

Par-5 greens are often smaller, as here, and don't tend to receive a long club too well.

Therefore, this is a simple decision for me, and one which I made on the tee anyway! I haven't changed my strategy and am hitting a mid- to long-iron into position for an easy wedge into that small green.

I can practice getting dialled in from inside 100 yards with this club on the range, so why not use it?

Think about it – which is your favourite wedge and the distance from which you are confident to play?

Of all the clubs in your bag, there is no excuse for not knowing how far your wedges carry.

We all have a rough idea of how far our 7-iron travels, but you need to be very precise on how far your wedges carry. Knowing your wedge distances will save you lots of shots.

3. Be Smart

Even if I had hit it in the fairway bunker off the tee, all is not lost. There's not much of a lip to clear and you can still play out for position, but choose your club carefully.

Don't just reach for a hybrid to get as much distance as you can or, at the other end of the spectrum, take a sand iron just because you're in a bunker, then leave yourself too far back.

You need to choose a high enough loft to easily clear the lip but a strong enough loft to leave you your desired distance into the green for your next shot.

Practise your fairway bunker shots so you know how they differ from greenside ones and how much the resistance of the sand will take off your distances.

There are other adjustments that you need to factor in, too, such as swinging a little smoother to maintain your footing and balance.

Laying up requires just as much skill and concentration as any other shot. I often see golfers being careless and rushing their lay-ups because it doesn't involve playing to the target of a green, thus costing them the opportunity to save a shot or two.

4. The Scoring Shot Strategy

Can you hit a precise wedge shot? This is what the hole now looks like (below) after playing well within yourself and without attempting any spectacular shots.

If you had taken on the green or just hit it as far down there as possible, the likelihood is that you would leave yourself a fiddly chip or bunker shot or even put one in the water.

Even for the elite player, it's hard to control a shot from 200+ yards. All the trouble on this hole is generally left and right and you've now taken that out of play.

There will be par 5s where you can take it on and give it a go without getting into too much trouble, and I'm not saying that you shouldn't get the driver out, especially if it's a big strength of yours.

But this way, you are giving yourself the best chance to walk off with a par – or maybe even to hole a putt for a four by mastering the scoring zone.

Work your way back from the hole and lay up to the yardage that you prefer with your wedge. Most of us won't want that ‘in between' pitch shot, so think about your favourite wedge and what yardage a full shot with that club looks like.

5. Open Your Eyes

Stop guessing and start paying attention when preparing to putt!

When you're approaching the green, study the contours. You will get a great perspective of the slopes and run-offs as you walk towards the putting surface, which will differ from your view once you're standing on it.

It's amazing how our brains quickly forget, so use your walk wisely to have a look at your putt from both sides and to see where the low point is. You can have a very good idea of what your putt is going to do before you even get your putter out.

This sounds obvious but you can help yourself by paying more attention on your approach shot – don't short-side yourself!

Whatever shot you are playing into the green, there are flags to go for and ones where the middle of the green is the smart play, even if you finish 25ft away from the hole.

You're certainly good enough to get down in two on a 25-30ft putt, but is that the case when you are chipping across three different grades of rough?

6. Refine Your Game

If you play the same course often, stand at the back of the green and look back down the hole. It gives you a completely different perspective and often opens up a clearer visual of hazards, elevations, safe areas, contours etc.

It's not always about playing safe as it's also exciting to pull off shots that you dream of.

There are holes to play safe, tough ones with little margin for error where you need to stop forcing it from 150 yards, and easier ones you can attack.

If you're going to take holes and shots on, you need to know you can pull that shot off, that you've practised it and it's not your first attempt!

And don't obsess over par. If you play off 18, you can add one shot to every hole. Imagine if you started a par 5 and told yourself it's a par 6. The pressure's off and I believe you'll then make more gross pars.

The latest Shot Scope data tells us that anyone from a 15-handicap or higher averages a six or worse on a par-5, so making smarter decisions could help you to rapidly improve your handicap index.

7. Know Your Strengths And Weaknesses

If you took a drone view of your game what would it highlight? What is your consistent shot shape or your favourite fairway-finding club off the tee? What shot do you fear the most? How is your short game? Are there areas of your game where you are strong or weaknesses to build on? How's your strategy? Do you have one?

The best players in the world know their strengths and weaknesses, sometimes playing to them, managing them and, above all, developing and improving those weaknesses.

You can do this too! If you're not a long hitter then you can play smarter, sharpen your short game with the our short game clinic or become a better putter with the ultimate putting improvement guide – there are a multitude of ways you can improve and shoot lower scores if you know your game well.

Next time you play ask yourself over every shot, for the whole round, have I played this shot before and can I pull it off? What's the probability of success? Have I practised this intended shot before?

Be honest with yourself. If you have doubts, then make sure you have a plan B; a safer, more reliable option. It's not negative or boring, it's just smart. Try it next time you're on the course and you might be surprised at the results.

Let me start by saying that I am a relative newcomer to the game and desperate to reduce my high handicap - but can some home truths from a Top 50 coach stop me being, well, crap?

I’m clearly stating the obvious when I say that golf is hard. You all know this – whether you’ve been playing for decades or have only recently picked up a package set you’ll find the game fantastic and frustrating in equal measure. Quite often in two consecutive shots.

For me – a man who sits bang on the average age for a golfer in England at 53 – I think the ‘hardness’ of golf is exacerbated by the company I keep.

The people who furnish Golf Monthly with words. They are all good golfers. Some are quite simply brilliant players and at least one, I’m sure, was born in a clubhouse and raised by a pack of feral club members.

Even the GM team members who claim that they’re terrible are way, way better than me. My handicap – which I’ve had for just around a year now – is at least 20 points behind the next worst golfer.

When I play a round with them I watch in awe as they do things like hit a ball a long way. And straight.

Many of them have even got better recently. Social Media editor Johnny Percival had lessons after he lost lost 20 yards and his game fell apart, but things have since recovered for him, and Jonny Leighfield who had his first lesson in 20 years with pretty impressive results.

I could let this get me down but, of course, I know that I can do something about it which is why I’ve found myself at Windmill Leisure, on the outskirts of Bristol in south west England, with Golf Monthly Top 50 coach Joshua Mayo gripping my head. Don’t worry, it’s consensual.

Joshua Mayo is a well-respected PGA professional who has helped countless amateur golfers just like me to improve all aspects of their game. He is also recognised as one of the Top 50 Coaches in the UK, so I know I'm in safe hands... literally!

Home Truths From A Top 50 Coach Improved My Golf Swing

The head hold isn’t the first thing that happened, but is a consequence of Joshua spending a good 30-minutes assessing me in the bay.

I’ve been hitting my 8-iron as inconsistently as ever and, it won’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s spent time with a decent coach, my problems start before I’ve even hit the ball.

After watching me address the ball, Joshua takes my place in the bay and replicates how I look as I prepare to hit.

It ain’t pretty – I appear to resemble the hunchback of Notre Dame trying to strangle an iron while stuck inside a box. Hopefully Joshua is exaggerating for effect…

“We definitely need to start with your posture,” explains Joshua. “The goal will be to improve your efficiency, getting your body to work with your clubs and, eventually, seeing you hit balls where you want them to go.”

So, first up is addressing my posture as I address the ball.

Like many of you I’m sure, I find myself tensing up as soon as I start thinking about hitting – my arms lock straight and my shoulders clench together - which is one of 8 common mistakes that many amateurs struggle with.

“Let your arms relax,” says Joshua, “Let them hang naturally. By thinking 'straight', you’re just adding tension.

Now, stand straight, engage your core and then soften your knees with a soft bounce. Finally, hinge forward from the hips and keep your spine neutral.”

It feels different to my usual set up but I feel more stable and, importantly, relaxed. I swing and the 8-iron sends the ball dead straight and 187 yards, Well, maybe not just yet. After a few more hits, we move onto another issue.

Years of running, and resolutely refusing to stretch, mean that I’m more Yogi Bear than yoga.

With the flexibility of freezer-stored Blu Tak my rotation into the back swing is a horror.

Which, at last, explains the head handling. As I rotate, Joshua holds my head in place so that, rather than following the club backwards, I keep looking at the ball. He then pulls the club further behind my shoulders than I thought was humanly possible.

My back and shoulder muscles complain a little, but being physically manipulated in this way does hit home how timid I usually am with my backswing. Note to self - do some of the best golf exercises to help with that.

Joshua eventually lets go of my noggin and I’m allowed to sit down. Admittedly, this is for another golf drill.

Joshua gets me to sit with a club across my shoulders as I rotate my upper body as far as possible, keeping my head still and my lower body pinned down.

This seated rotation drill, he says, isolates and engages my large torso muscles needed for a powerful swing. And, of course, I can do it at home.

Finally, Joshua gets me to swing the club backwards and forwards rapidly, aiming to clip the top of the rubber tee, all the time concentrating on my posture, keeping my head in position and really pushing the backswing.

“Carrying out this drill means that you’re practising your full swing,” explains Joshua.

“I want your swing to become a big, smooth full circle. You need to reframe your thought process to ‘swing the club well’, rather than ‘just try and hit the ball’.

Trying to control the impact point causes the errors. Trust the physics of the swing to return the club to the ball. The more we do this, you’ll move from being a timid, tap-tap-tap down the fairway golfer to a player who hits with confidence.”

After my first hour with Joshua, I feel like I’ve discovered a lot more about my golf and, of course, realised I’ve got a lot of hard work ahead of me if I’m going to improve even just a little.

I do hit a few more balls with the 8-iron and we look at the results on the Trackman screen. I catch one just right.

“Not bad, you’ve hit that two clubs further than the average club golfer,” says Joshua. I’m not sure I believe him, but obviously I’ll be going back for more as there's a lot more he's going to have to do help me improve.

The latest Shot Scope data tells us that there is a clear correlation between adding distance with driver and lowering your handicap, so this should be a priority for all amateur golfers looking to improve their game.

The average driving distance for a 20-handicapper is 222 yards - which is the closest measure to my index.

To reach my goal of playing off 15, I need to add at least 14 yards on average (234 yards) - which I managed to thanks to a golf improvement plan that helped me hit driver over 240 yards (as a 22-handicapper).

Over the winter I have been working hard on increasing my clubhead speed as part of this golf improvement plan that has delivered a 106% power boost - so I can vouch for that fact that this advice really works... especially if you are a high-handicapper.

PGA professional and Top 50 Coach Ged Walters has been coaching for more than two decades and has worked with a number of top local, national and international instructors, including Adrian Fryer and Jeff Ritter, to develop his practice as an elite coach.

With his extensive experience helping amateurs you too can cut your handicap in 2026. Below, Ged shares his wisdom on adding distance with driver... including a great tip for avoiding the biggest driver distance killer for amateur golfers.

1. Centred Strike

Let's start with the king of all power tips... ensuring a centred strike with driver.

Hitting the centre of the clubface, or very close to it, will help to optimise ball speed – a significant factor in how far you hit it. Unfortunately, a lot of club golfers have no idea of their strike location.

Sometimes, even if they think they’ve hit a good shot, it has actually come out of the heel or toe and brought the gear effect into play, with the head twisting around its centre of mass, leading to unwanted curvature.

To better understand where you’re striking it, use one of my 10 best golf drills.

Spray some dry shampoo or foot spray on the clubface. Hit a dry golf ball, then see where the mark has been left. This will help you to understand what good strikes feel like to boost your chances of added distance.

2. Grip

Remember this point... your hands release the energy in the golf swing.

You can make the best turn in the world or create incredible swing speed, but if your hands don’t release the energy, the golf club won’t flow or accelerate through impact.

Mastering the perfect golf grip is key to increasing distance.

A lot of club golfers who have a strong grip struggle to hit a driver effectively, often producing low snap-hooks, as the clubface shuts down and de-lofts the club in the downswing.