Inside a Charles Barkley Range Session | Undercover Lessons | Golf Digest

Watch 11-time NBA All-Star and TV analyst Charles Barkley unveil his new-and-improved swing in this range session with Golf Digest 50 Best Teacher Stan Utley. Known as a good talker, Barkley proves he’s also a good listener, showing off the changes he has incorporated from lessons with Utley. Then, Barkley puts his athleticism to the test when he’s asked to make a swing correction in real-time.

Filmed in August 2022.

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I like carrying my own clubs I do I I try to do as much as possible what kind of clubs do you have I got the pings I’m a ping man now all right which ones did you get uh first of all I got shout out

To Auburn got Auburn colors on my club what do you warm up with well that’s a good thing you said that it’s so funny you said that um I’ve actually tried you know I hear you hear people talking about the process all the time and one thing I’ve tried to do

Better is not just go straight for the driver I used to go straight for the driver cuz that was the hardest thing to hit so now I try to actually hit not a ton but a few Weds just so you’ve been playing a lot I’ve been playing every day every day you

Know say the good thing about my job well the good thing about my job is the salary uh the second good thing about my job is I get four months off you know when basketball ends I’m off from mid June to Mid October and I play every

Single day I love love it and the one thing I love about golf is every course is different the scenery is different I love that it’s not bad here in Aspen no it’s my first time and I love it so when you’re playing tell me about

The shots that give you the most trouble well I had the worst short game when the the last time we got together I was really struggling I was hitting everything skinny or fat and you said well what are you thinking about I says well I’m just trying to hit the

Ball a certain distance and you said to me he says you said the first thing got to move is the club head on chips she said you said if you move your body or your arms you’re going to hit it fat of skinny I said that’s what I’m doing and

You said to me when you take it back the first thing got to come forward is the club head and that sounds so simple and now when I’m over a chip like I’ll take that one 365 days a year so now when I’m standing over a chip I’m just

Saying that’s all I’m thinking get that club head moving first so so when you’re playing now do you struggle with mid irons long irons drivers or you feeling pretty comfortable all the way around I feel comfortable but I I just think to myself Club head Club head Club head that’s the

Number one thing I’m thinking now like when I go back that’s all I’m thinking about now that one wasn’t a good one which is fine now that was a good one so the one thing you always talk to me about is don’t overreact to hitting a bad shot everybody hits bad shot

Everybody hits bad shot but for some reason amateurs and stupid people like myself you go crazy when you hit a bad shot like I watched golf yesterday and some of the guys were hitting bad shots they don’t like okay you hit a bad shot go find and hit it

Again and that’s that’s the number one thing I try to say to myself I call it Mis misunderstood expectations like people who work for a living and are not trying to pay their bills with their golf game should have her lower expectations all right let’s get something longer okay see all those

Chips I’ll take those those are acceptable so that red pin out there that second one’s probably 155 or 60 yards that’s a good Target for what’s crazy about your thing I can’t believe how far the ball goes when you hit is solid cuz like normally I would never hit a 9 hour and

Try to hit it 140 150 and now I can hit it 140 150 it’s crazy how far the ball goes when you actually hit it I have students all the time ask me H H I just don’t hit it far enough yeah how can I hit it farther yeah swing faster swing

Faster but the problem is we tend to swing this end fast and not in fast so you sped up the club head when we worked on your swing well cuz I didn’t understand it cuz it’s kind there’s two stupid things about golf hit down and make it go

Up and which is like how do you hit it down and make it go up and the second thing is speed up the club head you’re thinking swing the handle faster and it’s to swing the club faster and like when you say it to me I was like okay

That makes sense it doesn’t make sense but it makes sense uh you know like cuz like normally you say if I want this to go faster I’m swinging this faster and it’s the other way around it’s the other way around yeah and like if if you if

You make a swing let me show you this and I think we talked about this but this is something I keep getting more clear in my mind set up to the ball and just swing back to here so that’s the farthest away from the target the club head ever gets the

Rest of the back swing the club head gets closer to the Target okay so what me and you and everybody else struggling in golf does is we swing the club head this way and then we swing the grip that way before we swing the club head back that

Way that makes sense so when you when you said I’ll never forget you said you mean you want me to take my wrist and throw the club backwards that was our moment cuz I’d been saying that for like 45 minutes about I’m a slow learner well it’s it’s so

Counterintuitive yeah it’s and I still work on it myself like our brain gets focused on the target yeah but the target is not the direction the back the downswing starts the downswing starts away from the Target and that’s just a different way of saying swing the club

Head that I think you caught on to and that’s freed you up you know I owe you an apology because people people ask me all the time how I fixed your swing and I’ve been telling them I didn’t fix your swing cuz your swing’s still

Bad I said I gave you a swing all I did was I got rid of The Yips but the trth my swing is bad the truth is your swing is good now I don’t know what you’ve been doing other than working your butt off but you had hit a shot that wasn’t

Straight yet and the one thing that you have going for you that regular humans don’t have the same skill is you have great hands like you grew up with that basketball in your hand and you knew everything that you needed to do probably with both hands to

Make it spin off the backboard yeah backs spins well understanding the relationship of what the hands do to the club phase and how you can make the club face do what you want it to do to make the ball do it even if it’s not on purpose your

Hands understand so you swing nicely now but your hands help you get the club face on that ball Square I’m amazed at how solid and how Square you’re hitting it when it come to hitting it farther one of the fun things you told me was you were so sick of little bitty people

Hitting it past you yeah all these golfers are like this tall Rory Ian poter Ricky Fowler Jason day Xander shley they’re all like this they hit the ball further to me and it pisses me off don’t get mad guys not anymore though not anymore that’s the best one I

Hit that’s up here at this altitude at 88,200 FT that’s about 160 yard 900 nothing wrong with that let’s try a 500 so do you notice any issues from one club to the next like if you’re playing a 190 yard par three or something the thing I got to learn

Is just swing the club don’t try to hit the ball just swing the club let the ball get in the way and you got to trust it i’ actually don’t even mind that shot I came across it a little bit but that was hit it’s a smash draw

And one thing I talk about what you say all the time just hit good shots uh if it goes too far is it go left or right just hit a good shot and then you can then you work on your short game uh I don’t get upset like that shot

Right there I hooked it a little bit but I probably just got to get up and down a good shot sometimes is meaning you hit it solid flushing it feels good so like that one was skinny and out to the right a little bit yes so relative to sequence sequence meaning

Our body is small and rotating on a little circle compared to the hands the hands are at the end of the arm so the AR the hand circles bigger the club head circles giant mhm so on that time instead of all the circles matching up at the right time your hands were ahead

Just enough to thin it and leave the face open the one before that you smashed the club head past your hands and that’s why the club head was a degree and a half closed and it went to the left now the one where the club head passed your hands was faster okay you

Hit it farther and I have a saying that says best questions wins in golf you always direct the first question to the ball meaning you hit a shot and you say ball what happened yeah so you hit that shot thin and to the right so now we got

Some other questions we can ask why did it go to the right did I aim to the right did I swing to the right was the face open I would say your face face was open cuz you were out of sequence and your hands were too far forward okay

Well that’s not a big deal you don’t have to reinvent your game cuz you caught it th the bad the bad shots are way easier to accept when you have a good guess on why that’s that’s kind of the topic of understanding what the ball feeds back to you

The challenge as a coach is when you’re hitting them as good as you’re hitting them I don’t want to say much right a coach sometimes can over Coach I agree with that from a basketball standpoint so if I was going to coach the fact that that’s a little thin I would say

Send the club this way with your wrist earlier okay in the downswing feel like your wrists are throwing it that way so your hands aren’t pulling this way so fast like that so you’re pulling down just a little bit faster than you can catch the club head up so if you release

The club head backwards with your wrist it’ll Circle earlier and faster not too bad that wasn’t solid but that’s I can play that you can play that so what we got here we got a seven wood which is the greatest thing ever that’s my favorite Club you know what I call my

Seven wood my scoring wood I love my seven wood the problem is with me though I use it a lot cuz I can’t drive it very far I love my seven wood I never even thought I would like a seven wood but I really

Like it a lot sure is easier to hit than a five Iron your body is moving amazing so did you get both hips done got both hips done you lost a bunch of weight you look good I still got a lot to go I gained 92 I’ve only lost 50 I got 40 more to go yeah but you you’ve done great yeah it’s getting

There that’s about as pure as you’re going to see a ball hit yeah I like that one hyra so what about these other woods so let me see this four hybrid and see if it’s shorter so your longest iron it’s a four right I think is a five five excuse me so you

Got a five iron and a four hybrid so that’s a good blend so your hands are a little ahead meaning you didn’t send the club head with your wrist early enough oh one one of my definitions is a golf swing is a flinging activity of a weight on the end of a

Stick on a tilted Circle so a flinging activity requires Levering I love to ask people what’s the last lever in the fling what’s the wrist people all the time talk about hands hands grip wrist fling okay so your hands on the thin one was going too fast for your wrist to fling the

Head the one that you ped your wrist released the head early enough little thin but pure yeah that last little thing you said to me struck a cord that four hybrid goes almost as far as that seven wood it’s amazing when I’m with you how something

Simple you say to me like oh that’s the what I’m missing I’m missing that little fling there it is that is I I concentrated on the fling you’re hitting this club 225 that’s about right the interesting thing is this club’s going about as far as the seven but flying flatter yeah

Yeah the seven goes in the air a little better all right let’s see the three-wood all right let’s let this thing fly brush the ground we’ll see how far this three-wood goes It goes far that’s more like 260 yeah I uh I’m loving my Woods do you use your three

Woods off the tea very much depends on the hole okay sometimes yeah if it’s 400 or less I use this interesting yeah 400 is my magic number on whether I hit the driver or not man so nice that’s smoked well I’m really concentrating see I got a pace standing come and hang

Out with me all the time CU that last little touch you told me really got me Swinging now I think we’re getting close to if I come to play I get shots that’s the best one I hit all day so that flew 260 yes and perfectly

With a slight draw not a hook there a difference between a hook and a draw y’all that’s right that’s differ between a cut and a slice all let’s see this club our favorite club now which which driver did you get let me see that head oh you got the max that’s what I

Got well the max is hot but it’s the most forgiving one ping makes so we got members on the other end aim over to the r a little bit aim over to the right let’s see let’s scare the members easy now come on like working here see it

Now smash so that Creeps in every now and then so I have to fight that every now and then my old swing so I have to re refresh myself breathe make a practice swing take you ever do a practice swing I should probably do that look here fling fling the head faster

Earlier back back here is where you want to fling the head fast there you go snap it early backwards good miss you call that a Miss that’s a smoking hot draw you’re just barely on the front of that tea box well I didn’t get accomplish my gold I want to see them people

Scatter I’m not going to get you fir stand all right man you’re only hitting a 320 look at these houses up here these people got some cash I bet you think you can’t live here on the side of a mountain unless you got some cash you might need to come

Get a spot up here I I don’t have that type of cash I don’t the only way I get that type of cash if I go to live and I’m not going to live I’m staying with Turner I love you guys at Turner easy all right one

More drive and let’s try some short game okay man you guys to know you’re a hell of a teacher that little thing that’s amazing that c it catches you up that’s perfect that’s so straight Charles that is perfect you hit it up on their TV

Bock that’s a good one to finish on you having fun that’s a good one to finish On