Sir Nick Faldo rebuilt his swing with David Leadbetter over a two year period and then went on a Major win streak. This 4 part series shows you all of the fundamentals that Nick Faldo worked on to develop that Major winning swing that would hold up under all the Major pressure.
In this video (Part 4) Nick show you all his tips and tricks for around the green. Including the bump and run, bunker play, putting and putting drills. These are a continuation of the changes Nick Faldo made with his swing following on from part 1 – the setup fundamentals, part 2 – downswing, full swing and Nick’s favorite drills and part 3 – Driver, Fairway woods and irons. This is what made Nick Faldo’s swing so repeatable.
This video is from an old VHS tape called Nick Faldo’s Golf course
PART 1: https://youtu.be/LjVr_SFK0FI
PART 2: https://youtu.be/Eky7KtAWbRQ
PART 3: https://youtu.be/2GrXZ78r-gc
PART 4: https://youtu.be/sSHB4XyGiP0
Bonus Material: https://youtu.be/5WQJB9Doymo
00:00 Introduction
01:40 Around the Green
04:35 Bunker Play – Sand Shots
14:00 Putting
This is part 404 of an old Nick falo VHS golf lesson if you missed part one two or three I’ll put links in the description this video is on the short game and putting enjoy the six green of valderama is a beautiful par three this is an ideal
Spot to show you some chipping and bunker shots around the green well what did you think of those Dave well the technique looks relatively simple there Nick and uh obviously you’ve got a good pattern going to the shot there and must be a lot of feel involved in these shots yeah actually
Try to get my right hand as the field Club I use my left as just to guide it through the the stroke but you get the feel of the right hand almost as if you’re feeling the distance rolling a ball towards the hole luckily I can chip them better than
That do you uh change clubs or do you tend to stick with one Club Nick well we’re about 20 uh yards or so from the pin here and I think the most important thing I try to do is get the ball onto the Green in those first couple of yards
And then get it rolling like a putt I almost read it like a putt you know I stand behind picture the shot I get The Brak and then and my target area is is here just a yard or so onto the green and you know I move it a little bit back
In the stance and work very much with just hands and arms and feel it forward so we’re just trying and get it on a yard or so there we go yes the ball really hugs the green and rolls up doesn’t it yeah and I think
As we as we work closer as we get closer to the pin we can change club and then it really does become F you’ve got to come up picture the shot you’ve got to see your lie be able to get the the club Behind the ball nicely obviously we’ve
Got a lot of grass we need to go for shorter irons we use eight irons and wedges and and then we can hit down on it a little bit more but on the longer shot like this very much a fuel shot in the right hand very much like a long pad
Okay there we’ve now moved to the back of the green we’re only 15 18 ft from the hole Yeah we hadit a good shot in and we’ just gone off the back of the green and this is a shot that a lot of amors are afraid of because really all
We’re trying to achieve is a simple little stroke backwards and forwards throw the ball onto the green we’re downhill to the hole and we just want to let it roll now one thing I’ve used over the last couple of years i’ I I actually use my putter grip and I think this
Helps me because all I’m trying to achieve is a little stroke backwards and forwards I’m not trying to help it at all with my wrists and Loft it onto the to the green very much a pendulum type stroke then yeah we work very much with setting this angle with the arms and the
Shoulders and keeping that all in one unit going backwards and forwards move the ball quite a long way back I’ve got a nine9 here as I said all I’m trying to do is just Loft it a couple of yards onto the green there we go it’s a very dead shot isn’t
It it doesn’t roll much yeah we’re trying to just put enough hit by changing your grip that helps because you you’ve reduced this little bit of wrist action you know if you come out too too much wrist action you’re going to hit it too hard so with the dead
Wrists we can get a nice see I can hit that quite firm and the ball’s only gone a couple of feet past the hole exactly now you’re using a N9 here are you Nick that’s right I think you can again feel a shot we’re going downhill obviously uphill you can
Go quite as low as even a six9 obviously if you just trying to get it to run that one yard and then up the hill just trying not one in for you nearly this is the shot obviously the pros are looking to ha aren’t they yeah I think they they certainly don’t
Want to feel they’re going to ever drop a shot from this position they they they’re only 80 ft from the hole and with a bit of that we get one in there we go very good this is part of the game that a lot of amors are very scared of David let’s
Get you in here and explain the technique of Bunker play well you said made those look easy neck and we’ll see if we can do that for the viewers first of all I think it’s probably a good idea to describe the sand wedge there because many golfers
You know think they can get away with a a poor sandwich but you find most of the pros are very particular about the club that they use I think importance is is getting the right amount of Bounce you know this is how measured how the the bottom of the Leading Edge is below
Sorry the bottom of the back Edge is below the Leading Edge and this of course when you strike the sand enables you to hit down on the ball and then the club will lift itself out of the sand for you you don’t want anything that’s too sharp where the the club just keeps
Going down right yes I think it’s important to uh understand the fact that this is really the only shot in golf you don’t actually have to hit the ball the ball is riding out on the sand you used the sand as a buffer and you and that’s
How we get our spin right and it’s really not as scary as most people make it out to be right now let’s uh let’s set up to it here certainly the first thing you’re going to do is set yourself a little bit open you can see the way
Nick sets out there he’s got his feet his knees knes and his hips and his shoulders aimed probably about 30° left of the flag for this length shot which is probably about uh 40 ft he’s placing the ball just forward of in his stance there here we go draw a line sort of
Here we go I’ll just draw a line in this direction so you can see where the ball is position in relation to his feet and how open he is standing now the important thing in setting up to the setting up to the ball is to grip the club correctly when Nick
Grips the club there you’ll notice first of all the face is open but he actually opens the face and then grips it it’s very important that you must not under any circumstance just open the club face otherwise it’ll return closed so the club face has to be opened initially and
Then the hands placed on the club okay so the club face is set slightly open in fact the club face almost looks slightly to the right of the of the target of the flag now Nick’s feet are just approximately a little narrower than his shoulders now as he swings the club back
We we’ve assumed he’s buried his feet in for good balance as he swings the club you can see the wrists do hinge and he is not attempting to swing the club outside here he’s swinging the club on the line of his body now we’ll notice as we swing
As he swings the club back the wrists of hinged fully and he’s in a position where he can now simply allow his hands and arms to release through the ball there so he’s going to look a couple of inches behind the ball there keeping his eyes focused on that spot rather than
The ball and we’ll see uh the full flowing motion of his swing here yeah important that we we keep the extension so many amers hit down and expect just the explosion to send it out we’re not trying to hit a lot of sand I’m trying to enter a couple of two inches behind
The ball and come out probably two or 3 Ines so I certainly don’t want to go deeper than that you’ll notice too when Nick plays this shot how well he stays down the flex in his knees stays very very constant so we do not want to stand up
On the shot at all through the ball otherwise this is where the blade shots come from so Nick can get fairly aggressive with this shot as well but as long as he makes contact with the sand and keeps the club accelerating through he is certainly not going to hit the ball too
Far I also find that keeping your keeping your base still if you use too much leg action if you try to help the ball out with too much leg action you know you’ve moved your your Center forward and that going to cause you to thin it so keep that right knee firm in
That one position and really just use your hands to pull the club through the ball there we go after the relative straightforward bunker shot we now have a variety of L to show you and we start off with the uphill lie where the problem we have
Faced here is really we have a wall of sand in front of us so a number one rule is we’re going to have to hit the ball a lot harder we won’t need quite so much open face because the ball is already on the UPS slope so we not going to have
Too much problem in getting the ball up and really we don’t want to hit too far behind it either because we’re going to have to take a lot of sand and we’re going to have to fall pull through the shot and be very aggressive on this one
So let’s see how we can play this same setup and everything a little bit squarer on my club face and the club is going to be entering the sand on a sort of a level basis I’m not going to try help it up at all I’ve got to H into the
Sand and blast a lot of sand away and send the ball up just to repeat this shot once more remember I’ve got this wall of sand in front of me I don’t need to release the club at all I can hit it in quite firm holding this left wrist
Solid okay I’m now in the back of the bunker on a on a down slope as you can see a very different problem to the the up slope that we faced before this time as you can see I’ve got to try and get my body into the same angle as the as
The line so I have to get myself well forward and my shoulders down a little bit because what I’m trying to do is Chase the club through after the ball keeping it down if I’m back on the same normal level as you can see the club will enter right in
The back of the ball and you’ll probably thin it out again the club the balls rather going to come out a lot lower and run as we saw with the uphill shot that comes out a lot higher and will always stop so again I’m opening myself
Up the club place is On Target and I want to pick it up a little bit more this time cuz invariably you’re going to have the back Bank in front of you so pick him up and go through keep your head down all the time and let’s follow through after this
One stay up there ball the amateur’s nightmare the plug lie that really isn’t as difficult as you think and with a lot of amate watch playe you certainly don’t have to go in there as if you’re trying to kill snakes really all you need to do
Is have a short sharp thump through the sand and then this occasion you don’t need to follow through what we’re trying to do depending on the length of the shot on a shorter one we can have the club face open and all we’re trying to do is have a nice thump going down
Through the sand as you can see I’m just trying to keep that and just remove that sand from in front of me The Stance is very similar just a little bit more weight on the the left foot we can set the club a little bit more on the back
Swing cuz we’re trying to get down steep into the ball again we go in probably 2 in behind and then down and through and you stay there if you keep your eyes there don’t lift up trying to help it up in any way just stay down and pop it
Out from this plug L again if I require to make the ball run further imagine it’s going to go past the pin this time all I simply have to do is from that original Club face position is just to close it a little bit back to square in
Fact and again this the same downward stroke and popping it through and it should run a lot further perfect we’ve covered the real basics of chipping and bunker shots as you can imagine there are hundreds the variation is enormous let me show you how I practice now wherever they lie let’s go
And play them an easy one at last there we go well that’ll be a nice one to win the Volvo Masters Nick I hope I can do it as easy as that let’s talk a little bit about pading shall we yeah this really we want to work on the
Basics and give everybody a good idea of how to get a simple repetitive stroke exactly so we start from I think just from 3 feet to give you the right picture of what we’re trying to achieve and that’s a nice pendulum action with the shoulders and the arms nicely
Relaxed forming this angle where we can keep the club just going backwards and forwards online there we go put one there I want to just take him back and through simple as that on target do you have your eyes in relation to the ball neck well I think uh a simple exercise to
Do is to uh take your address get yourself comfortable give another ball here well I use I’ll use this one here and I pop it right up on the bridge of my nose and if I release it there we go that’s where he landed and that’s directly over your ey line both
Vertically and in between your vision as well so that’s a great indication and a nice easy tip to get you positioned every time on the PS most people uh really are a little tentative and as they go coming through they start to follow and they start to
Peep at the hole if you can pick a a small Target a little spec behind the behind the ball and as you go through you keep your eyes on that Target all the time and you can see how well the club head then goes through to your
Target this is one little drill you can do quite simply six T’s placed wider than your putter head and the idea is just to give you a guideliner coming back and through the ball correct ly if obviously if I bring it in too far inside I’m going to hit this T and I’ll
Be thrown offline so I want to go back and through keeping the putter head nice and low and slow and also a good tip is to whatever distance you go back you also go through this will keep you accelerating through the ball add a couple more got anything to add to that David
No I think it’s very important that people understand that on these little pets there the pter certainly does work pretty much straight backing through but as we’ll see when we get into the longer Pets the pter does tend to work a little inside well this is another little
Effective drill that we use Nick let me just place this shaft under your armpits here stab me there we go all right now what this really indicates is how the shoulders work in the swing you know we find in many cases golfers tend to take the pter back with the shoulders and
Move them in an incorrect fashion especially going through the P if we can just illustrate this sck if you can swing it back for me and as they swing through a lot of this happens so very important to get the feeling that the left shoulder is going down and up there
We go very much like a pendulum you can see the motion here so this is a very effective drill and uh you can either use just a plain Shaft or say a two or a three hour to help you to do this now Nick’s just going to practice putting to
A te which brings to mind that this is an important thing to work on when you’re working on your Technique don’t worry about the hole just work on patting to a te then one doesn’t get too frustrated with missing the p and put all your concentration into the
Technique there we go very easy that promotes a very good shoulder motion well without a doubt there are many individual pting Styles but the thing that all great pters have in common is feel and this is one drill that we’ve developed to help you to get
The feel simply we’ve put some te’s out at 10t intervals and simply by putting to each tea it helps it develop the feel that you need in order to hit the put a certain distance yeah we’re really not worried about Direction too much it’s really trying to obtain the feel and you
Just put at these at random and it’s uh by doing it just once it teaches you a little bit of muscle memory and certainly a lot of fuel another simple way of doing it is to putt them onehanded we recommend that you use your right hand as this really
Is your F hand your left is your really your guiding hand and again you can just let this flow nice and freely and send them down to whichever Te You Wish and then one more little idea which is which is very good is once we’ve got our Direction after you’ve taken your aim
Take a good look at where the te is and then shut your eyes and remember that and hit it through to the tea using your right hand again to feel the pter going through to the Target you feel your P grip very light on the club neck yeah I
I I use a slightly overlapping grip but I try to keep as much pressure out of it as possible can I just pull that out of your hands and see there we go you see most people tend to strangle the P thereby losing feel grippy it nice and
Lightly really gives you the sensation of the poter head doesn’t it that’s right you want to spend a little time just feeling your poter head on your practice stroke you all you doing is feeling the weight of the Putt and feeling the putt ahead and then we come
Back into the putt and let it go nice and freely through to the hole that was a better one that’s it for part four in the series but I’m adding a bonus video on specialty shots next I’m too lazy to go back and call it part
Five now so we are calling it a bonus watch for that shortly or see the link here if it is done thanks for watching
