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The Golf Fix: THE PLAYERS (43:50)

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Michael Breed, host of the Golf Fix offers up a special, full web-exclusive episode to honor THE PLAYERS Championship. Watch the Golf Fix Mondays at 7 and 10PM ET.

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-It's our Players Championship Special. Ernie Els is gonna teach...

-It's our Players Championship Special. Ernie Els is gonna teach you how to release that club. I'm gonna show you how to get out of the rough and might even play a couple of holes at the Stadium Course. It's our Players Special. Let's do this. -The Golf Fix with Michael Breed. Brought to you by SkyCaddie. -Welcome to The Golf Fix. I'm still muscling through these cold there but things are started to get a little bit better. Big details. We are sounding even better so I appreciate that. We appreciate you watching. You want to get in touch to us? Very simple. Our email address is thegolffix@golfchannel.com <mailto:thegolffix@golfchannel.com>. Telephone number 1-800-842-9987. Facebook and Twitter we're over 21,000 which is great news, by the way. And then the videos, send the videos-- thank you very much we're bigger all year. Send the videos to us. That's the way that we're gonna help you the best, so send those videos. Keep on coming. Alright, let's take a little look at what we've got coming up tonight on the show. Teeing off with different clubs. So many times when you go to the practice tee and you're working on your tee shot, all you're doing is just grab in your driver and hit in your driver. Well, you know what, when you play in tournament Players tight conditions, you've got to understand how to tee off with different clubs. We're gonna talk about that. Then also, playing out at the rough. The rough is gonna be-- this is the 5th Major and you've got to understand how to play out of that rough, so that's gonna be something that is gonna be a little bit thicker rough. It's not gonna quite be like what's happening maybe at the U.S. Open or something like that. And then finally, Ernie Els-- Hall of Famer. He's gonna get inducted into the World of Golf Hall of Fame and we're gonna show you how his great tempo and his great release can help you play better golf. But first, let's go over and understand about what goes on when you play a Major Championship. What happens when you play a Major Championship? And, you're gonna find this maybe when you play your member-- member or your club championship or you go out into a golf course-- there hasn't been a lot of rain for a while and the ground is a little bit firmer. The ball is rolling a little bit more. You've got to understand what and how far each club goes. So, when you get to the practice tee, you need to practice teeing off with different clubs. So many of you just go and grab your driver and you just start bashing the driver. Well, you need to understand that that's not necessarily the club that you're gonna hit off every single tee because what you need to do to shoot lower scores is get that ball in the fairway, alright. So, the first thing that I want to talk to you about is tee height, alright. We have broken some tees here. I've got a 4 iron in my hand and I'm gonna go through with three different clubs that you're gonna use off the tee. We're gonna start first with the iron and then we're gonna have a hybrid and then we're gonna finally do a three wood. So, what you're gonna do when you-- when you tee off with an iron, is you basically you're looking to have that and let's-- let's get a real close up here, Savvy. Basically what you're looking is you're looking for what I call the button which is that part of the tee where it turns into the part that holds it. So, the button is just sticking-- let me put that there-- out of the ground, right there. So, you can see that-- now what's gonna happen is, is that by putting that up on that tee, I'm gonna lower that contact point and that's gonna fly that ball up into the air. Now, for me, I normally say a 4 iron is gonna go about 205 yards, okay. When I tee off with my 4 iron because the ball is not landing on the green, I need to know how far that ball is gonna release. So, I might flight it-- whatever it is 205 yards-- 200, whatever the number is but then there's gonna be a roll after that that you don't get when you hit into a green. When you hit into a green, your ball is typically gonna land and it may release a little bit depending on how high your golf ball has flighted. But when you tee off here, this ball is gonna roll a lot farther. So, what you have to do is you have to practice that. Now, what I would suggest as well is when you're tre-- teeing off with a club like this and you're trying to get the ball in the fairway, you're going to abandon the idea of hitting this as hard as you can. A lot of people will get where you got an iron in your hand and what you do is-- you almost take it for granted that you're gonna hit it into the fairway. You need to focus on the shot, alright. So, you're out on the practice tee here. Just figuring out how far this thing is gonna land and then roll. So, I'm gonna hit that shot there. That tee goes flying all over the place. This ball, it flights out there pretty good and then-- and then it got some release and so you're gonna practice. So, I come over here-- come on over here. Here's my-- this is my carry distance right here which is about 206, okay. So, that was pretty accurate to what I said it was about 205. I was pretty accurate with that and then, what I'm gonna do is, don't just abandon it. Find out how far that ball is releasing, so I know that I've got 206 yards with this particular club and I'm gonna count then another 10 to 15 as it rolls along the ground, so I've got 220. so, when I'm out there-- if I'm playing the golf hole and maybe it's 380 yard hole and has a dogleg to it. I know, okay. You know what, my 4 iron goes 206 and the iron is gonna release to 220 and that's gonna be where I'm gonna position the ball. I'm gonna pay attention to that. Now, when they go and they play the term of Players Championship-- when they play the Players Championship, what's gonna-- what they're gonna-- what's going to occur is that ground is gonna be a little bit firmer. It's also gonna slope and as it starts turning away in an effort to avoid that rough which we're gonna get too later on the show. They're gonna grab clubs, not necessarily the driver but they're gonna know. Okay, you know what, I'm gonna hit a 4 iron off this tee or I'm gonna hit with three wood off this tee or maybe a hybrid. So, let's get to the hybrid. Now, the hybrid club-- same concept, okay. We're gonna use the same concept with the hybrid in teeing the ball off. It's gonna be the exact same thing. We're gonna do a little bit of making sure that the button is sticking just above that ground, just the same way. And so many times people are asking me, I don't know how high the tee of the ball up. When I'm teeing off with a different club and I'm gonna get to the three wood in a second. But, when you're dealing with the long irons and the hybrids, you want to make sure that you tee it up just so that the button is showing or slightly above. Once you get it higher than that, the impact point is gonna get too high on that clubface and when the impact point gets too high on the clubface, what starts to happen is the ball sky's up into the air and you lose a lot of distance, okay. So, now this club here should probably go maybe just a little bit farther. This is a 21-degree that I've got right here. This is gonna go a little bit farther. Alright, so let's go on over here. Come on over here to the-- to the simulator here and let see how far this one flighted out. This is-- maybe in a 220's. Yeah, 225. So, that-- that's a pretty good gapping for me. So, I flighted that thing about 225 yards and again that ball that I might hit and roll and all of the sudden now, I'm gonna get to maybe 240, alright. So, with this hybrid-- this 21-degree hybrid, I'm getting 240 and by the way, it just brings up a point. When you're-- when you're spacing your bag out, you want to make sure that you've got a club-- you don't want to duplicate clubs. If I had a hybrid and want the same distance as my 4 iron that would be a problem and so what you want to do is you want to make sure that the gaps make sense, so that's where you're gonna go and see a PGA Professional and get properly fit, alright. Now, the three wood and this is the club that for the most part, you're gonna see players hitting and you will likely hit when you were not hitting your driver. Now when you do that, what we're gonna do is we're gonna tee this ball up and basically what I'm doing with this three wood is I want to tee it up so that I've got about half the ball above though-- the top of the club. So, I'm gonna tee the ball up and you can see that right there I hope, yeah. So, I've got that line right there. You can see that-- you can see this Pro V X line right there. That right there is gonna be right at the top or the-- the top part of the crown of the club right there, okay. So, what I'm doing is-- I'm gonna put that in there and now I've got that set up exactly the way that I want. If you tee it too low, what's gonna happen is that-- well, let's say it differently. When I play a fairway wood or an iron or hybrid off in the ground, I will tend to fade the ball a little bit more because the center of gravity-- the club is higher than the center of gravity ball, so what happens is-- is it tends to have more curve to it. When we tee it up, it tends to go straighter. So, if you got that little fade going on in your shot shape, you're gonna be able to play a straighter shot with this when you tee the ball up because you've lowered the center of gravity and you create more-- I'm sorry. You've lowered the impact point so you create more underspin, okay. Alright, now-- now we got the three wood. Now this one here, I didn't quite hit that one as well as like to have hit that, but that should go in the neighborhood of about 235 in the air and then it will release out to about 250, so-- yeah, there you go. So, I got 230-- 235-- 230. So, that probably that ball is gonna roll out to about 250, alright. And, what you can do as you start to get comfortable with this and I-- and again I go back to this practicing teeing up the ball. Pra-- get used to almost teeing off shot. When you go and you've-- and you're teeing off, what I want you to do when you practice is I want you to pick high targets. If you've got to practice tee that's got trees, I want you to aim up into the hi-- high part-- to the high part of the trees so that you can create a high target there, okay. We'll talk about that a little bit later when we start to play holes and we're gonna get a chance to play some balls. We're gonna play the 16th, we're gonna play the 17th, and we're gonna play the 18th holes. There's a lot of stuff going on. You don't want to go anywhere. It's our Players Championship Special. Alright, let's load up 16th and then the 17th. Alright, when I [unk] this tee here. Welcome back to our Players Special. I told you we were gonna get a chance to play some holes over at Sawgrass and we are gonna get a chance to do that. We're gonna start with the 16th hole and the 16th hole is a par-5. It's 535 yards. Before we go to-- to see what it looks like, what we're gonna do is we're gonna have a Power-of-3 to show you what you need to do to think about how you're gonna play all these holes. So, our Power-of-3 is gonna be a mental, a physical, and emotional. And, we're gonna play the 16th, 17th, and 18-- 18th holes and before I show you this fly by again on the 16th hole, I wanna remind you that maybe the most important part of a basketball game are the last 5 minutes and the most important part of a round of golf is how you finish, particularly on Sunday. Those 16th, 17th, and 18th holes are really critical and no more critical than at the Players Club and what we wanna do is we want to get over here. We want to make a birdie here on 16th, so let's look at 16th. Here's a little fly by at the 16th hole. This is 535-- 536 yard par-5, so you can see right here on the landing area. This is where we have a slight dogleg to the left. That green over to the right hand side, that 17th. This is the 16th green here and you could see there's a little putt bunker there. That flag is located in the back at the left portion of that green. So, as we get to play in this hole, we're gonna keep that in the back of our minds and Players, by the way when they're-- they're playing, they've got a pin sheet. So, they stand on a 16th tee and they're gonna know where that hole is located. Now, how does this help you? Well, first of all, you have to have a mental approach. You have to have a-- how you're gonna deal with this and then the physical and then the emotional. I'm gonna help you through this. So, you get to the 16th hole, you're playing a par-5. This is a reachable par-5 particularly for the Players on the PGA Tour and the mind set is, I've got to make a 4 here. I cannot make a 6 here. So now, I'm gonna put my mind to this-- what am I gonna do? Well, I'm gonna stand up here. I'm gonna-- I got to get a little bit over right to left shot for a right-handed player. That means I've got to hit a draw. So now, the physical part of this is, what do I have to do to hit a draw? Well, we talked last week even about keeping the back to the target a little bit longer so the club can work underneath to create a draw. The other thing that we're gonna do is we're gonna pick high targets. So, I'm gonna pick that target on that-- that high part of that tree out there, practice that swing thought of making sure that that ball has draw to it and now execute. Okay, so this is right at my target. Not really drawing as much as I would like it to draw, but alright so I've got the ball in the fairway here. Now, let's go over here and see what we're left with. So, I've got 277 yards. That little 277 yards shot, I'm gonna have to cream a three wood here, okay. This is maybe a little bit taller than I'm capable of, but you know what, it's TV and as my brother so eloquently said when I had him down to the Augusta National. Why lay up? I'm not gonna fly all the way down here to lay up. So, I've got 277 yards. I'm gonna take that three wood out. Now, I'm right with my script. My script was first get the ball into the fairway. Now, what I've got to do is I've got to make sure that I hit this shot. Again, I'm going to pick a high target and again I'm gonna favor a little bit to the left because I got all the stuff over here on the right hand side that's kinda hard to play out of. It's called water and I don't know anybody that does real well playing out of that stuff. So, I'm gonna take a three wood. If I can squeak this thing on to the green, then that would be a really good shot for me. Oh, boy. Everybody start rooting. Let's start rooting. Let's start rooting. Wow! Hahaha! Okay. That was-- you know what, that was all you guys rooting for me not hitting into the water and I appreciate your well wishes. So, what has happened is-- now, I've done exactly what I want to do. Now, as you're walking up to the green you're thinking to yourself. Okay, I've got to make sure that I make a birdie here. What I don't want to do is I don't want a 3-putt this and I wanna make sure that my focus is I'm going to keep my brain in the moment. It's so easy for you at this point after you were-- after you have achieved the things that you were hoping to do. We wanted to get the ball into the fairway. We wanted to get the ball on to the green and now we're in that spot where it's easy to kind of turn it off and just go to bad and you need to make sure that you continue to stay focus and that's the part of the mental stuff. The emotional stuff is you're really pumped up now. Now, you've done exactly what you're-- you've got to calm yourself down. You've got to take yourself emotionally to that place where I'm gonna deal with this particular situation. The situation that I have right here is I've got about 45-feet for eagle. That's my shot, but emotionally I've got to get calmed down right now and I've got to make sure that I 2-putt. We are going to assume by the way that I two putted it and I made my birdie which is exactly what I did and I knew that you would know that that's exactly what I would do. Some of you might think I might make it and I like those of you that are thinking that way. Alright, we got to take a little break here. When we come back, I'm gonna show you how to play out of the rough. Sometimes, you're not gonna hit the ball into the fairway and you need to understand how to play out of the ro-- out of the rough. -We're back on The Golf Fix. Here's your host, Michael Breed. -Welcome back to our Players Special. I know, a little bit of that information. Sometimes, you're gonna find yourself in the rough. I know. I know. I know. Sometimes. That's why I said sometimes and I need for you to understand how to play out of the rough and be effective at the rough. And, what's gonna happen is that the-- what the players are gonna encoun-- encounter this week is they're gonna get in the rough. This is not U.S. Open rough but this is not a normal rough during-- let's say, a regular PGA Tour Event. This rough is gonna be a little bit thicker and there's a-- there's a lot of things that go into being successful from the rough and for those of you that don't find the fairways often as you might like, this would be a really important segment for you to pay attention too. So, what I'm gonna do here is this. I'm gonna hit a ball and I'm gonna show you what a baseline-- what my baseline information is. This is a 6 iron for me here, okay. So, a normal 6 iron shot. Come on over here with me to the simulator here and we're gonna see what our normal 6 iron stuff looks like. So, here's our normal 6 iron. Normal 6 iron is gonna have a spin rate of about 6400 and the launch angle is gonna be about 2300, okay that's what we want to pay attention too. So, 6400 and about 23-degrees of launch angles-- sorry, not 2300. So, 23-degrees of launch angle and 6400. Now, when I get into the rough and I'm gonna put this down here like this and now we're gonna hit this shot from here and this not one of the worst rough lies and certainly not one of the wor-- the worst rough lies that you're gonna see this week, okay. So now, I hit that shot. Now, come on over here and let see what we get. First of all, my other shot went about 180 yards at 6 iron. Alright, now look at what happens. My spin rate goes from 6400 to 3200. My launch angle goes from 23-degrees down to 21-degrees and my distance in the air goes from about 180 to 160. So, what do I-- how do I know how to play out of this rough? Well, the first thing that has to happen is you have to evaluate the lie. So, come on over here and just look at this. If I have a ball that's sitting down like that-- what we call a bird's nest lie. That bird's nest lie is one where the ball is sitting down like that, you've got to look at that and deal with that totally differently then say if you have a lie that looks like this where you kind of-- you're in the rough but it do-- it's kind of not that challenging. You might have a more challenging situation depending on which way the grass is leaning. So, if I were hitting the ball in this direction this way with the grass going on like that, that's gonna be a lot more challenging than if I'm hitting it this way where the grass is growing with me, alright. So, evaluating the lie is one of the most important things that you can do when you get into the rough. That's why when you see these players and they hit the ball in the rough and they look like they're-- and they're standing over that, they're not looking that going-- boy, this is terrible. I can't believe that I'm-- I'm in the rough here. What they're doing is they're looking at the lie and they're evaluating in their mind. What do I think I can get out of that? What club is gonna be the most effective for me to get this ball to go where I want it to go? Alright, so the first thing you have to do is you have to evaluate the lie and that's critical to being successful. Now, prior to that-- or I'm sorry. After that, once you have evaluated the lie, now there are some things that you need to think about. Let's say we have that bad lie, so let's go back to this bird's nest lie. So, I'm back in this bird's nest lie and my normal-- hahaha, and my normal launch angle with my 6 iron is about 6400. Well, when I just swung normally out of this lie, I got 3200. So, how am I gonna get that ball get back up into the air and maybe create some more distance because when I hit it just dead square, all of the sudden it flights out really low and it doesn't go very far. So, what you're gonna do is you're gonna take the club and you're gonna set it in what we called a 12:15 position and that's gonna be-- there's a straight up and down right here. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna open up that clubface and what does that do for me? Well, one it adds a little bit of loft, so my 6 iron now has a little bit more loft. That's gonna make that go up into the air. So now, I've got the clubface in the proper position. What it's also gonna do is-- typically what happens when you get into the rough particularly if it's long is as the-- because the club is coming down like this, the house will typically will get to the bar before the toe. And so, what happens is the house gets into that rough and it basically stops and the toe just whips around like. But when the toe starts to close, that takes the loft off it. So, when I start with this clubface with some loft, now all of the sudden-- when or if that occurs, now I've got some more loft on the face when I get there, alright. So, the most important thing that you can do is start with this 12:15 position. Now, the other things that you need to pay attention too are as follows. One, I want you to grip down on this club a little bit. So, you're just gonna give yourself about an entry so and you're just gonna grip down just like that so that you got a little bit more control over the club. The other thing that you're gonna do is you're gonna hang on a little bit tighter with the lead hand and as I said before, what happens when you get into this is that grass will grab that hassle and it will shot the face. We need to have a little bit more pull going on here and a little bit more strength with that lead hand. So, I want you to really feel it like you're getting some pressure in those three fingers there on the lead hand, okay. So, the club face is open and now we've got some pressure on that lead hand. Now, the other two things that we're gonna do. One, we're gonna move the ball back in our stance and the reason why we put it back in our stance is I want the angle of approach to get into the ball as close as it can get and get the least amount of grass in there. So, if I'm taking the club and the club is coming along the ground-- if there's a lot of grass in there, it's gonna muffle that. It's almost like hitting it with a pillow case or a pillow over the club head. I want this angle of approach to be steep so I can get the ball first or as close to the ball as I possibly can. That's gonna allow this ball to jump a little bit and then I'm gonna get a steeper angle of attack. So, we grip down on it. We open up the clubface, grip down on it, put that ball in the back of our stance. Now, we're gonna get steep with the shot, alright. So, the clubface is open, balls is back, grip down, steep. Now, what happens when we hit the shot, we come on over here. We should see a couple of things changed. One, we should see the distance changed. That should go a little bit farther, so it did. So, look at our spin-- our spin rate. Our launch angle we got more spin on the ball. We got a little bit-- maybe a similar launch angle but most importantly what we got was, we got solid contact on that shot because we had a steep single of attack. That's gonna flight that down a little bit long-- lower but we have the clubface open, so that gave us a chance to create a little bit more spin rate. Once we get some spin on that ball, now we got a chance to control it and you could see when I get that club getting closer to the ball, my spin rate is gonna go up and that spin rate when it goes up is gonna help keep that ball into the air and let that ball go a little bit farther, okay. That's how you're gonna deal with those rough shots. When we come back, we're gonna go play one of the most famous holes in golf, the 17th hole at Sawgrass. You don't want to miss it. Welcome back to The Golf Fix, our Players Special. So, I told you that we're gonna get out there and we're gonna play the 17th and 18th holes. We just played the 16th hole and we made that birdie that we were looking for and now we go over to 17th. There's a lot to think about but before we get to 17th, I want to remind you of our Power-of-3 and our Power-of-3 is gonna be the mental, the physical, and the emotional part of this. So, I'm gonna deal with that when we get to the 17th tee but I want to do is I want to show you the fly over the 17th hole. At 17th hole is a 139 yards. You feel like you could almost throw it on the green from here and this by the way, this is the look from the cart path that you can get a chance at 16th fairway on the far side there. 17th hole here and that flag is located on the left hand side-- I mean, I'm sorry, on the right hand side of that green. So, that's-- as we're looking back to that tee. There's a little swell in there as well. Alright, so the emotional part on the 16th hole. We made the birdie that we wer-- that we were hoping to make there. That was exactly what we wanted to do. Now, we're coming hov-- over and we've got to walk from the 7th-- 16th green to the 17th tee and we have to control ourselves. Get our minds focus on what we want to focus, so that's the emotional part. We've got to calm the emotion down here. Now, we get to 17th, 139 yards. You're gonna look at where the flag is. The flag is on the right hand side of the green there. Whether you're right-handed or left-handed with-- what kind of shot shape you have, you're gonna pay attention to where you're gonna tee the ball off. Are you're gonna be on the right hand side of the tee or on the left hand side of the tee? The next thing that you're gonna do is this. You're gonna exercise the option to tee the ball off. So many of you when you get to this par-3, you get lazy and you check the ball on the ground and you throw it in there and then you hit in the water and there goes a bad round. You have 4-- 18 times where you get to tee the ball off. Utilize that option. Put the ball on the tee. That's gonna allow that ball to have the most amount of spin that possibly it can have and it's also gonna give you the greatest chance of hitting the ball solidly, so utilize the tee. Okay, so put that into the ground there and getting that button is just sticking out of the ground. That little button of that-- that kept there and now what I'm gonna do is this. I'm sitting here talking with my caddie and my caddie says, "Okay Michael, 139 yards. That's gonna be a pitching wedge." So, I'm gonna go over here. I'm gonna grab my pitching wedge. You got to have a good caddie. If caddie doesn't give you the right stuff, this is where the things happen badly. Now, you at home-- this is one of the most important things that I can tell you. You always want to pick high targets and here is why. When you look up at a high target-- when you pick a high target like the top of the tree, your peripheral vision is not gonna be able to see all these water and all the stuffs. You won't focus on it. If you start aiming at the bunker or you're aiming at the center of the green or you're aiming at the pilot, your brain is gonna see all these water and this shot becomes incredibly more difficult for you. But, when you start picking a high target, what you're seeing is you're seeing all those trees up there. There's no bunkers up there. There's no water up there. There's no trouble or hazards up there. It's just the top of the tree. So, what I want you to do is I want you to pick a high target, alright. So, you you're gonna go back here. You're gonna do your pre-shot routine, whatever that pre-shot routine is, and then what you're gonna do is you're gonna pick your high target. Now, I know that just to the left of that flag, there's a little ridge. It's gonna release that ball down to the-- down to the hole there. So, I also know that I don't need to hit this ball right at the flag. I can utilize the slope on the green to get the ball close to that flag. So, I'm gonna pick my target right there. Now, I get into the physical. So, I've gone through all the mental stuff. Now, I'm going into the physical. Physical is for me, I've got to make sure that I'm rotating my body through that hit. That's what's gonna allow me to keep that clubface square through the hit and if I keep my clubface square through the hit, the ball is not gonna have a lot of curve to it. The other thing I'm thinking is good tempo. I want to make sure that I have good tempo here. So many times when you get nervous, your tempo gets out of whack. So, my practice swing is gonna be smooth and I'm gonna be thinking tempo and turn the chest. So, I've got my target, tempo, turn the chest. So, a good swing in there. This ball is going just a little left to the flag. Wow! That was a lot better than even that I thought it was gonna go. I was going just a little bit to the left of that. So, I've got myself in a pretty good spot here. In fact, I've got 12 feet. Now, if I can end up making a birdie here, I'm well on my way to achieving my goal. Now, we're back to the emotional part of this and the emotional part of this is that's a better shot than I was hoping to hit and boy, am I relieved that that's over. I've got my ball on to the green. I've got that 12 feet. Now, I've got the chance to make a birdie but I know I'm gonna walk away with at least the par there, okay. And so, I'm feeling really good about Fix when I've got that 18th hole in the place. So, I've got to keep my emotions a little bit low here and go up there and deal with the situation. We've got to take a break. When we come back, we're gonna allow Ernie Els to jump in here and he's gonna show you how to get and release that club properly. You don't want to miss it. He's a Hall of Famer. Why wouldn't you pay attention to what he has to say? We'll be back. By the way, this is 5-1/2 minutes for the segment, okay. So, I've got a couple of different strokes that I thought at least I can do. Okay, good talk. Welcome back to The Golf Fix. So, as we headed to break there, I told you that Ernie Els was gonna show you a bunch of stuff. Well, he's actually gonna do the modeling part of it but I'm gonna do the talking through it. He's not with us here. He's got other things that he's gonna do and rightly so. So, when we think about Ernie Els, we think about the golf swing that is incredibly tempoed. I mean, it's one of those swings like Freddy Couples. You can watch all day long and it's a great swing, great tempo, a lot of things that are very good about it. One of the things that I want to talk about is release and the proper release and Ernie has one of the best releases in a golf swing that you can see. He's very fluid, very free. There's not a tight grip pressure to it which is one of the reasons why he's got great tempo. So, let's go ahead and watch this swing and as we watch this, you could just see that's why they call him The Big Easy. It's just a very easy rhythm equal motion. There's no temp-- there's no grip pressure. No tight grip pressure going on here. It's very loose. So, let's go ahead and roll that now. Now, what you're gonna see is he's got a little bit of shift to his right side. Sets the hands brilliantly. The club comes up to the top here. Now, let's just freeze it right on into impact, right here. What I want you to see is the relationship of his glove hand to his trail hand. You can see that his right hand is to the right of his glove hand. Now, watch what happens in the next 2 or 3 frames here. So, let's just go ahead and just run that through a nice release and right there what you can see with his hands is that his right hand is now on top of the left hand. The hands have turned over. The wrist and the forearms haven't cupped, they've rotate it. So, he hasn't broken the wrist down or flip it up into the air. He has allowed the right palm to face the ground and the left palm to face the sky. That's what happens with the release. So, let's come back over here. Well done, Ernie. You've done your work. Your check is in the mail. Alright, so here is what happens. When Ernie comes through the hit and again so much of this is being loose with the grip. You cannot hold this tight and then get this fluidity. It's not gonna happen. So, you have to hold this club loosely to do that. What happens is when he comes through here, he just rotates over like that and you see the right palm is down to the ground and the left palm is up to the sky and when he's in that position the forearms have crossed. What you're doing to at home when you're coming through is you're doing this and the right hand is underneath the left hand. The trail hand is underneath the lead hand and there's space in between my forearms, right there. So, we I come through, I'm going like this. Face is wide open. When I release it properly, the forearms crossed and the face shuts and releases that-- the ball and again, what happens in a shot is the ball-- the club comes down and it hits the face, it stays on the face and then it gets release from the face and so when you release it, you want to release it like that. You don't want to release it like that. That's gonna take-- that's gonna take distance off it. So, I've a got of number of different thoughts here for you, okay. First one, what I want you to do is I want you to get a baseball bat. I'm a baseball player. Anytime I got a chance to swing a baseball bat, it's good. Those of you that are at home, you could see this because the bat is gonna be round, so, what I've got is-- what I want to do when I swing a baseball bat is I want to get-- and any baseball coach will tell you that you want what they call top hand. You want that top hand to get on top of that trail hand. So, a top hand like this, boom! Like that. We want that top hand on top of the lead hand, right. What will happen is we can see that this-- this bat says hammer on it. Why wouldn't you buy a bat with hammer on it, right. So, what I want is I want to take that and as I release that, I want to swing so that I can't see the camera anymore. If I'm swinging through like this and then I can still see hammer, I'm gonna pop the ball up. It's not gonna go anywhere. I'm never gonna hit a home run and I'm never gonna make it to the Majors. We want to get to the Majors. So, what we wanna do is wanna get some top hand like this and you could just practice this just in your house or wherever. Just feeling like that. Right hand is getting on top of that left hand and the palm is gonna go to the ground. That's gonna be one of the things that you can do to help your golf swing. Now, another thing that you can do and you can do this when you're hitting golf balls is take the head cover off your driver. You're gonna put the head cover underneath your lead armpit, right here and keep it together. Now, what's gonna happen is when I keep that under there, my elbow is gonna stay closer to my side and as it stays closer to my side, it has to rotate over like that, okay. You're never gonna be able to get the club to release it like that, okay. And then, keep this in there. The only to do that is to let the forearms rotate over. So, what you're gonna do is you're gonna hit some shots small and just feel that club release and then when you look down, what you should see is you should see the trail hand on top of the lead hand. Every shot, by the way is-- should have a little bit of left movement to it when you release the club properly. Just like that. Now, another thing that you can do when you're done with that drill-- very simple, you're just gonna hit some one arm shots. One arm shots with the lead hand and all I want you to do is I just want you to let this have some freedom. We're not working on trying to hit this ball far. What we're working on is trying to feel what it feels like to let that club release. So, what we do is we do that with one arm, get a feel for that. This is a-- this is a very good drill. You get that feeling of that club turning down and now after you've done these. Now, what we're gonna do is we're gonna hit a shot. Now, what should happen when you do this is, is you should hit a slight draw. You should get that ball to turn a little bit. So, when we go over that simulator, I should see that ball have a little bit of a turn to it. So, I'm gonna make sure I feel that rotate like that and as I hit that, I've got to make sure I get one in the proper lines here-- sorry about that. Take two. This is part of live TV. Alright, so I'm gonna let that release-- oh, it's taking me up now. Now, when I hit that shot. Now, I get that-- the other head covers myself. So now, when I get is I get that forearm to rotate that shot. It's gonna turn to the left, okay. That's what Ernie Els has taught you. You can send your thank you letters to him at the PGA Tour. Alright, we've got to take a little bit of a break. When we come back, we're gonna finish off our round. We're gonna play the 18th hole and let me remind you of that Power-of-3. Don't go anywhere. Welcome back to The Golf Fix, our Players Special. So, now we're on the 18th hole and we're gonna talk about how to play the 18th hole. Remember by the way, I-- you guys, I forgot to tell you this. I made that putt on the 17th right there in the break. It was perfect. The guys in here were going nuts. It was a little bit of a left to right putt and knocked it right into the pocket, so I'm 2-under. I'm having a great day and I'm finished with the way I want to finish. So now, we're on the 18th hole, 476 yards but before we get this fly over, I want to remind you of our Power-of-3 and our Power-of-3 is gonna be the mental, the physical, and emotional. So, I walked off at 17th green and I've made that birdie. I've got to get my emotions in check here because I have to play this 18th hole and I need to play it the best I possibly can. Now, let's talk a look at the 18th hole. As I said, 476 yards. The ocean is on the left hand side. You're never gonna clear that, so you've got to make sure that you end up in the fairway and you're gonna try to swing this wide to the right hand side. Right about where we are here and the reason why is you've got a whole location on the left hand side of that green and as you get nearer to the left side of the fairway, that makes that shot very difficult to approach too. So, what we want to do is we want to get that tee shot to be a little bit more to the right side of the fairway, alright. And, hole locations are going to as I said to you about 17th. They're going to tell you what you're gonna try to do with where you tee the ball off, alright. So, back on to this tee and then what I'm gonna do is this. The one thing I am not gonna do is I'm not gonna hit that ball on to the water. That is not the thought that you want to have in your mind. You don't want to be thinking about what you're not gonna do. What you wan to be thinking about is what you're going to do. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna hit the ball at my target, okay. This is your mental approach. Your mental approach in the Power-of-3-- your mental approach is you're gonna pick a high target in the fairway so that when you hit the ball, execute the way you want to execute it, your golf ball is gonna be where you want it to be. You're not gonna be thinking, hey I just birdied 16 and 17. Nor are you gonna be thinking, hey I just doubled bogey at 16 and doubled bogey at 17. What I don't want you to be thinking is what happened in the past. There's no rear view mirrors in this game. You've got to deal with this right here. You've had to walk from 17th green to 18th tee to get your mind set. Get the emotions back to where you want to be. Now, the mental approach. Where am I gonna put my tee in the ground? Where is my target? What type of shot shape am I gonna hit? This is a little bit of a challenging shot for me. I like to hit a little left to right shot. I left the right shot shape, brings that water into play. So, what I'm gonna do this is I'm gonna move my target a little bit to the right there and I'm gonna pick a high target like I said there. so, I'm gonna pick a high target in this tree line that happens to be this tall tree right here. That's gonna be the target that I'm gonna pick because that's the highest target and that works perfectly for my little fade. So, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna stand up here. Now, I'm gonna get into my physical. The physical is what am I gonna do? I need good tempo and I need to make sure that my body is rotating and that club is pulling across to create that fade. Now, I get in here to my target. Good tempo. Good body rotation. Okay, so this looks like this is gonna be pretty good here. I just want to make sure it didn't go-- it doesn't go too far, okay. So, I found the fairway and fairways are good, by the way. Just-- there's another news flash for the fairways are good. So now, well, I didn't quite hit it as far as I wa-- would have like to have hit it, the wind kind of coming into my face in about 4 miles an hour. I've got 220 yards to go, so I've not gotten exactly what I wanted to get out and wha-- what you're gonna find by the way is when you stand on that 18th hole. I'm a little nervous. I'm 200-par there. There's the last two holes and I've got to get this in the fairway and that water on the left hand side does look like an ocean, so what ends up happening is you might get a little bit tight. So, I got 225 yards to go here, alright. And my caddie is telling me, pop, you want to hit it a little bit of a hybrid and my thought is well, the flag is all the way in the back left hand side of that. I don't need to hit a shot that's gonna go 225 yards. I can get a shot to the right hand side there that's gonna stay below that flag because that flag is all the way in the back, so I can get this thing to maybe 210 and let it release back. So, that's gonna be a 4 iron shot for me, alright. What you want to understand when you're playing is when you've got a flag that's all the way in the back and you will get this when you start using these-- the SkyCaddie's and the different [unk] a or the yardage finders, you're gonna get precise yardages but you want to make sure that you play beneath back flags. You don't want that ball to get passed that flag. So, I'm gonna take a club that I cannot hit. This cannot go to 225 yards and if I play these last 3 holes in 200-par, I have done really well. I'll be very, very pleased. So, I'm gonna take a target that's just to the left-- just to the right of that flag, that's gonna be that chimney on the clubhouse there. I got my 4 iron. It gonna go right on that chimney. Now, that shot there is gonna be a little bit to the right of that chimney and again just to-- it's not in the water. So now, where I've got is, is I've a got a little pit shot. I've got tons of green to work with and this by design again. I took a club that I could not get to that flag and I also made a swing because I'm hitting that left to right shot that can't get into that water. Alright, now, I'll just tell you fast forward. I'm gonna chip that thing up to the co up-- too close to the hole there at the break and then I'm gonna make that putt. So, I'm gonna make a 4, so I just trust. You don't need to worry about it. We're gonna take a little break here. When we come back, my final swing thought, 200-par in the last 3. Not bad for me. Alright, let's do start so get rolling. So, it's 25. We got a draw here. Oh, yeah. I'll get close. Get close-- aw! Welcome back to The Golf Fix. My Final Swing Thought. You know, what I tell you about these last 3 holes is applicable to your game because what I want you to do is I want you to finish strong. The most important thing that you can do and we said that at the beginning was the last 5 minutes of a basketball game. This is where games are determined. This is where golf game success is determined and finishing anything is not an easy thing to do. Finishing is hard. You're tired. You're-- you've have all that history even though they tell you don't think about it, you're thinking about it. You're standing over that putt and you're thinking, wow! I can't believe I shot 8-under today, or wow! I can't believe I shot 32-over. Whatever it is you've got that history. What I want you to do is when you get those last 3 holes and this is what I do with my players on tour. The last 3 holes, I want you to play 1-under or 2-under par and I want you to always think that you're gonna try to birdie the 18th hole because champions finished well. You'll [unk] to win what Tiger Woods said when he came up and win the Masters in 1997, "Finish the race." Jack Nicklaus, always the same thing-- finish the race. Play all those last 3 holes like a champion, okay. I'm Michael Breed. I want to thank you for watching The Golf Fix and let me remind you, go see a PGA Professional.
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Tags:

Ernie Els
PGA Tour
Tiger Woods
Jack Nicklaus
Augusta National
Big Easy
golf swing
tee shot
Major Championship

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Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial

The Crowne Plaza Invitational, held at Colonial Country Club (Par/Yardage: 70/7,054), is the longest running PGA TOUR event still held at the original site. The tournament began in 1946 and the club was built 10 years prior.

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Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial

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