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ADAM SCOTT INSTRUCTION EXCLUSIVE
PLAY LIKE A PRO & GETTING YOUR BALL FROM TEE TO GREEN ECONOMICALLY IS THE CORNERSTONE TO GOOD SCORING. OVER THE FOLLOWING PAGES, 2013 MASTERS CHAMPION ADAM SCOTT AND HIS COACH BRAD MALONE REVEAL THE KEYS TO BETTER BALL-STRIKING AND MAKING RECOVERY SHOTS WHEN YOU HAVE LEFT THE PATH BEST TRAVELLED.
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SET-UP AND ALIGNMENT KEYS Adam presets his grip before stepping in to address the ball. This gets him into a position where, when he is over the ball, he knows all the basics are set, which allows him to make a free-flowing swing. Taking the grip before standing into it, he’ll then pick a spot in front of the ball to align his clubface. For Adam, that dictates the line of the golf swing as he uses this ‘marker’ in front of the ball (pic 1) to form a line to take the club back along. Some players will set up with a slightly closed face or an open face but Adam relies heavily on making sure he’s got the clubface aligned to the marker. If he ever gets off with his alignment, that’s the first thing we check. It’s noticeable how Adam sets his left-hand grip early in the pre-shot routine. He’ll stand behind the ball and take hold of the club in just his left hand down by his left side. He’s trying to feel where neutral is and avoid getting too strong in the left hand. So he will preset the left hand (pic 2), walk in once he’s picked his intermediate mark on the ground, align the clubface to the mark and build his set-up around that. Pre-setting that left hand is good for Adam but it’s also good for any golfer. When you’re standing behind the ball, you’re looking straight down the line of the shot. You can set your grip and perhaps visualise the shot better from that position. Adam has altered this process slightly from when he won the Masters in 2013, when he set the left hand more outside his left hip than he does now. It’s still a good position from which to visualise the shot and then step in to make the swing.
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PULLING THE TRIGGER This follows on from the work done behind the ball as Adam has already decided what shape of shot he’s going to play. As he’s looking up, he’s locking onto the target (pic 3) and this is where that pointer in front of the ball is key to the line of the backswing. If he’s going to hit a draw, for example, the mark on the ground is really where he wants the ball to start so it will be slightly to the right of the finishing point. The last thing he’s thinking about is, ‘Where do I want the ball to start?’ That is the last piece of information to trigger the golf swing. If it’s a draw, it’s going to be slightly to the right and he’ll swing it in such a way that lets the club release through the ball – and that’s all done in that preshot routine. But the last thing he’s thinking about is really just the line he’s going to take the club back along. He’s got the target and knows the desired shape of the shot; all that’s left is to look up and visualise it then look back down and swing the club back to produce the shape of shot (pic 4) he’s seeing.
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MASTERING THE HIGH PITCH SHOT This is a technique that Adam has played around with a lot. With a high pitch shot, he’ll put the ball forward in his stance and try to really release the right hand through impact (pic 8) and use the bounce of the wedge, almost having the back of the clubhead hit the ground rather than the leading edge digging in. You want the clubhead to release past the hands (pic 9). It’s almost like a scooping motion through the ball but what you have to do is keep the body moving. Whenever you’re going to release the clubhead in a pitch shot, if you try to feel like you’re scooping it but you also stop turning, that’s when you can easily hit the ball thin or fat. But if you release the right hand in concert with the body rotating, you can control this greenside shot.
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STEAL FROM THE SHARK IN FAIRWAY BUNKERS In fairway bunkers, Adam likes to imitate traits of Greg Norman’s swing. Greg had a very shallow angle of attack through the ball, which enabled him to pick the ball off the surface very cleanly (pic 5), so when Adam gets in a fairway bunker he tries to replicate the look of Greg and his golf swing to make it very shallow through the ball and avoid getting steep. So everything he does is about trying to remove the steepness from the swing. He stands tall, takes a slightly narrower stance and will move the ball a little further forward in the stance to encourage a motion that picks the ball off the top. The swing itself is very much an arm swing that’s more up and down, there’s not a lot of ‘around’ in this swing (pic 6) as he’s picking the golf ball off the top of the sand and not hitting down at it. Adam tries to feel like his arms swing past his body rather than his body being too active through the ball. Key things for achieving that are to stand tall at address and swing very much up-and-down and generate a lot of arm speed through the ball (pic 7), which are hallmarks of Greg’s that Adam tries to picture and replicate. golf australia
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CONTROL YOUR IRONS
The aspect foremost in Adam’s mind with iron play is distance control. Iron shots are all about control and less about distance alone. Driving is geared heavily around distance
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now but proximity to the hole and knowing you’ve developed consistency both signal good iron play. Don’t play for 100 percent power through the irons; instead, 75 or 80 percent should be your standard iron power level. Throttling back will improve the distance you hit your irons and make them easier to control as the ball will be struck out of the middle of the clubface more often. In the sequence here, Adam hasn’t swung
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back very far. It’s almost a three-quarterlength swing, certainly through the mid- to short irons like the one he’s hitting here. Importantly, even though it’s a short arm swing, he’ll still make a full turn with the body yet the club won’t reach parallel with an iron despite the full turn. That’s the control move – and it also stops any wasted motion or any tendency for the club to speed up too much through the ball. So he’ll visualise three-quarter swings a lot through his irons,
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turning his body in unison with the short arm swing and work on about 80 per cent speed for that desired sense of control. Jordan Spieth showed at the Masters what good rhythm and getting distances correct can do for your iron play. Good players aren’t ever going to be that far out for accuracy with irons so if you can gauge the distance, more of your irons shots will finish close to the target. Keeping a passive leg motion is another
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key. Pic 9 shows how passive Adam’s right foot remains during the swing and how grounding that foot helps him maintain his posture through impact and stops the legs from becoming too active. Pic 10 illustrates how he’s ‘covering’ the ball with his chest, which is a checkpoint all swing coaches look for, so he’s not looking up nor stood up and out of his posture, while in pic 11 he’s releasing the club nicely. Earlier, (pics 2, 3 & 4) demonstrate a
smooth takeaway and why it’s important to not rush the start of the takeaway. The quicker you make the backswing, the longer it generally gets and then the more inconsistent the result can be. Look at Inbee Park. She’s not playing the power game but her steady swing shows how her game is built around consistency. She’s very deliberate swinging back from the ball and that approach produces consistent distance numbers with the irons. golf australia
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HANDLING TRICKY BELOW YOUR FEET LIES
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egardless of your height or the degree to which the ball is below your feet, your set-up cues for this play ideally have you trying to act like this shot is a flat-lie situation. So, Adam will increase all the angles of his body. There’s going to be more knee flex and more spine angle at address to help him get down to the ball. He tries to maintain that posture throughout the whole swing, especially the downswing. Because Adam is flexible he can create and maintain those positions, but for the club golfer this shot is all about maintaining that posture throughout the swing, the downswing especially. Adam feels like there’s very little leg movement and leg slide through this shot (pic 1). It’s much more of a big rotation of the torso and a feeling of chasing down and through with the right shoulder (pic 2). The killer move in trying to hit this shot is for the hips to thrust forward into the ball and then standing up and coming out of the original posture, which will result in a thin or wild shot at best and a topped shot at worst.
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More than a World Class Golf Course Twin Creeks is the perfect place to mix business with pleasure. Whether you are looking to host a corporate event, social function or for a new dining experience then let us show you why Twin Creeks Golf & Country Club is becoming Western Sydney's ultimate venue.
Corporate Golf & Conferencing contact Adam Holder 02 9670 8867 | adamh@twincreeks.com.au Weddings & Functions contact Lauren Piper 02 9670 8866 | laurenp@twincreeks.com.au
2-8 Twin Creeks Drive Luddenham NSW 2745 T: 02 9670 8888 www.twincreeksgolf.com.au
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SOFT SPLASH OUT OF THE SAND
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This action is similar to the ball-below-the-feet shot for the feeling Adam is seeking. For anything soft you need loft so he opens the clubface and moves the ball position forward in the stance. His key thought for the soft splash shot – or for any bunker shot he wants to spin a lot – is that he’ll set up to allow the arms to swing up to a full backswing and get into a high position rather than swinging short and around the body. He’ll then focus on rotating the chest and turning it to the left (pic 1) to allow the club to release like it does in the high pitch shot (pic 2). The other key thought is there is no sliding of the legs; the legs are very passive as the chest rotates hard to the left and the right hand releases like it does in the high pitch. Several of those key feelings relate to other shots. The reason Adam rotates his chest hard to the left is so he get the club to strike the sand quite close to the ball without fear of thinning the shot. Focusing on turning the chest to the left allows the bottom of the swing arc to be naturally close to the ball. A lot of amateurs don’t turn through the ball in the sand. Instead they’ll just swing their arms down at it and because of the way they release the club, the tendency is to strike the sand a long way behind the ball. The result is either to catch it really heavy and not get the ball out of the bunker or to be so used to this technique that they’ll stand up and almost top the ball. So a good focus point for any golfer is making sure you keep turning through the ball with your chest.
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Are you the next Holden Scramble Champions? Find out in July! QLD QLD QLD QLD QLD QLD QLD QLD QLD QLD QLD
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PITCH WITHOUT FEAR FROM LONG ROUGH Depending on the grass type – here it looks like quite a fine leaf – Adam will try to replicate something similar to the backswing of a bunker shot where, in his mind, this is quite a ‘choppy’ swing as, unlike the fairway bunker shot, he’s trying to create a steep angle of attack. He won’t make much of a turn with the body going back, so picking the arms up leads to a steep downswing, which is what you want to drive the club down and close to the ball to get it to climb up. If he’s got too shallow a swing – one with too much body turn – the long grass is going to get in the way on the downswing. So he’ll pick the club up and, as with the bunker shot, drop it back down to the ball while still turning his chest. If he gets this chopping motion correct and holds the face open, the ball won’t go left. If you’re close to the green and don’t need the ball to travel too far, a ‘V’ swing – where the path of the club feels like it’s travelling in a V-shaped path – is a good thought. In fact, for that shot you can almost halt the follow through where Adam is here. Pick the club straight up and chop down, and the ball should pop up and not travel very far.
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More than a World Class Golf Course Twin Creeks is the perfect place to mix business with pleasure. Whether you are looking to host a corporate event, social function or for a new dining experience then let us show you why Twin Creeks Golf & Country Club is becoming Western Sydney's ultimate venue.
Corporate Golf & Conferencing contact Adam Holder 02 9670 8867 | adamh@twincreeks.com.au Weddings & Functions contact Lauren Piper 02 9670 8866 | laurenp@twincreeks.com.au
2-8 Twin Creeks Drive Luddenham NSW 2745 T: 02 9670 8888 www.twincreeksgolf.com.au