Top Takeaways From My Lesson With Dan Grieve

Earlier this week, I had a lesson with Dan Grieve and I’ve come away with so many nuggets of gold that I want to share with you. So in this video, I’m sharing my top takeaways – focusing on Release 1 & Release 2.

Dan’s YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DanGrieveGolf
Dan’s Book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BD8LL151/ref=nosim?tag=eae06-21
Dan’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dangrievegolf

Thank you to Woburn Golf Club for letting me film in the beautiful Tavistock Short Game Area. What a paradise!

👋 I’m Jess – after cutting my handicap from 34 to 9 in a year, I’m sharing how I’m working on my golf game. Subscribe to join me for a new video every Saturday.

🎥 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jessratcliffegolf
📱TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jessratcliffegolf
📝Newsletter: https://breakingpar.substack.com
⛳️ Practice Plan: https://jessratcliffe.com

0:00 Intro
1:23 Release 1
7:28 Release 2
11:47 Outro

so yesterday I was very lucky to have a lesson with Dan grieve we had a group lesson and then I also had 20 minutes one onone where I could take Dan my biggest short game struggle and he helped me fix it I really feel like I’ve Come Away with so many nuggets of gold that I want to share with you and so in this video I’m going to share with you my key takeaways focusing on release one and release two and then also where I had that 20-minute lesson that one-on-one with Dan where we worked on that soft Landing shot out the rough you know where you’ve just missed the green you’re thinking oh I really want to get this close but I can’t I can’t putt it I can’t play a chip and run here I’m going to have to land something in there softly but we’re in the rough my question was how do I play that with that softness so I can get a little bit more consistent and a little bit more accurate with it and Dan really helped me with that so that video is going to come out through golf monthly but I’m also hoping that I can share it with you here on my channel but in this video I’m going to focus on release one and release two and the takeaways those light bulb moments that have really clicked for me both from what I took away from the group lesson with Dan but also where he helped me one-on-one with what I was personally struggling with and where I’d maybe gone a little bit off track when it comes to following the checklists in his book so he got me back on track and I’m going to share how with you now focusing on release one to get started with here in the Woburn short game area the Tavo area in the sunshine so the first thing we worked on was release one the Chip And Run and for me the biggest takeaway here was actually my takeaway so I can get quite active with my hands in my takeaway this is something if you followed my channel for a while you’ll know is is present pretty much in all of my my golf swings long game short game Dan noticed this straight away that I was very active with the hands and so the feel he gave me and the drill he gave me to get the feel right was to really feel like I’m taking the club away starting that takeaway with my left shoulder and I feel like I’ve been working on this but if I’m honest I think actually what I’ve been doing is thinking about too much of the shoulder blade so feeling like the shoulder blade is is taking me away rather than actually the shoulder which gets more of this rotation going on so the drill that Dan gave me to do was put my hands out like this put my arms out take my hands like this and just feel that movement really feel like I’m sort of pushing this away and feel that feeling in the shoulder to create and initiate that takeaway the start of the back swing then on top of that Dan also gave me a visual to make sure that I don’t get too active with the hands to feel like I’m swinging the club under a coffee table so really feeling like the hands stay quiet the shoulder drives that takeaway under the coffee table and then it’s just a case of rotating through but of course starting with a solid setup and I was actually quite happy because I did get an out of 10 for my setup again I’ve been working hard on this following Dan’s book Dan’s content and so for that release one setup we’ve got that close stance like this and again Dan did a little test which I don’t think I’ll be no failed be able to do where you knock a ball and it goes between your your heels like that so it’s a balls width there and then almost having that’s awkward to do a a club there so we’ve got the foot flared skinny stance we’ then also got slightly flatter wrist than the other shots that we’ve got cuz we don’t want as much sort of of the low hands going on here so coming in but another key takeaway which again was just a reminder for me was not to get really tense with that not to get really stiff in the arms but to still feel those triceps tucked that softness in the arms but just that little bit of a flatter wrist going on so that then driving away with the shoulder under the coffee table we can just rotate through hopefully so I’ve got my 50° here I wanted to use this one and I’m going to go to this pin here where we’ve got a little bit of a bank going on so we don’t want it to run too much which is why I’m going to go 50 rather than a 9 iron because if we do catch this slope and really get that down slope she’s going to be gone so I’m going to really try and give this a go but focusing more and executing the technique Less on absolutely dialing in the distance control but you know to get it close would be nice so I’m coming in skinny stance weight left setting that pivot line and then I’m just going to feel the shoulder under the coffee table and rotate through and let’s see what we can do here I felt I got a little bit above the coffee table there and I just didn’t give it enough so again you see this is something where if that was a nine I possibly could have run on like a lot more but it also could have run to the side a lot more so I’ve just got to be confident going to get this up on that bank I’m going to aim almost for the line of that other pin behind it try and land it on there knowing that with the 50 we have got less run so we’ve got to give it a little bit more umph to start with land it further up there than we would do a nine that felt better go on go on yeah I’m happy with that that I’m happy I’m happy setup wise I just feel that once I’ve checked the the the sort of checklist off of following that setup getting that right setting the pivot line skinny stance under the coffee table driven by the shoulder and rotating through when that when that setup is there you just don’t have to do anything else to manipulate it I think I was being quite handsy with chip and runs and especially with the other shots are released too which we’ll get on to I could just feel myself getting a bit too active having to save something whereas with this it just feels simple once we’ve got these setup fundamentals down we then just make the move we don’t have to do anything to save it through the swing so I say this having stuck only one of the three close so let’s try and uh get a little bit bit closer or possibly just match what we just did there Landing this on that little bump in the green and letting it run hang on I’m going to check myself we’re going to take this seriously thought I was a bit wonky there so it’s coming in making sure we got skinny stance weight left soft triceps tucked and then just under the coffee table and rotate that’s was a bit clean I wouldn’t be annoyed with it if I was on the course but I feel like I could have done better but again I think this is the key to all of this is that when that setup is there the freedom to possibly not hit the the shot perfectly is so much greater the margin for error is so much wider than if for example I’d got really handsy there even more than normal I’d be fighting thinning that I’d be fighting maybe hitting the ground behind it rather than natur there that’s a case where although come off thin the reason it’s short is not necessarily down to the setup or even down to the technique it’s just that I didn’t give it enough to get there and you feel like yes maybe it had a bit of you know cleanliness to it a bit of a clean hit but again it’s more just my confidence of feeling like I can stand over these shots having dialed in what I learned yesterday and get them closer than those so I wouldn’t I wouldn’t be upset if I had them on the course especially the second one but I’m going to work on this now and try and get them closer and then shift on to release two so when it comes to release these two the first takeaway or checkpoint I guess that I’m going to look for is to make sure that I’ve got a green light lie so Dan talks about this in it being something that again we can actually play this shot from where we can feel like we can sort of brush the grass rather than maybe it bounce off if it’s a little bit too bare and it’s just not got that green light to it where we know we can play this shot with confidence so once we’ve got that green light then the checklist coming in once we’ve got setup again the feeling for me to setup wise I’m getting getting weight here but I’m not coming over it with the chest I don’t want to be ahead of the ball because that’s going to create too much of a steep swing down swing into the ball and we don’t want that for the soft Landing we want this to feel more release to it and my challenge with this shot as you might have seen in the last video that I did where I was sharing how I was learning Dan’s work is I can over release I can be a bit too much release three than release two so I really want to work on this technique I really want to get out a bit more dist from this shot but also have that softness to it that soft Landing to it where when I’ve accidentally crept to a release 3 you get the softness but you don’t necessarily get the distance because it goes quite high so for me the key in trying to create more of a release two than a release three and it’s a work in progress this is fresh so I might still be a little bit more three than two but we’re going to give it a go the feeling is that when the club drops my chest picks it up I think that’s the a bit where I’ve been stalling out I’ve been getting to the top of my back swing letting the club fall but then maybe letting my hands overtake a little bit too much I’ve been letting it fall but not picking up the club with my chest and really then coming through to finish the swing I find that actually I can be quite static over it and I want to be a bit more bit more fluid not swayy but just feel like I’m getting that sense of I’m not just here and letting the club come through which again is going to create more of that release three a bit more of that early release coming in here which I’ve actually got a little bit of in my long game but we we won’t get into this we know long game short game very separate so the focus is in that takeaway which again my feeling is the shoulder replacing this shoulder to get that good turn in the takeaway and back swing and then Club drops and chest picks it up so I’m really trying to get through the ball a little bit better again these might Edge on a three rather than a two but it’s a work in progress this is this is what I’m working on so we’re going to go green light lie we’ve got this pin back here so again I’m looking to land this probably kind of a nice little soft one halfway onto the green there cuz we know it’s going to run off and we know that we’ve also got something behind it so we don’t want to go running too too far past let’s see what we got oh yeah landed it where I like oh go on okay I take it that was nice could have been a little bit of a three but we’re working on it it’s a work in progress so let’s try again just to get maybe a bit more of that chest through it I was a little bit stalled on the chest there might come out okay as an outcome of the shot but I could feel that that’s the key I think Having learned these feelings yesterday of knowing what that back swing should feel like and therefore what the the drop and down swing should feel like when I now don’t do it and I’ve gone back to my bad habits of maybe getting a little bit too active with the hands not turning enough with the upper body I can feel it which is a positive and this is all practice it’s all trying to get these dialed in putting this into action to build confidence in this shot and take it to the course so I’m going to go shoulder to shoulder Club drop chest picks up and let’s try and to get bit more of that feeling rather than getting a bit too this I want to finish finish through there a little bit better or could be possibly possibly the best one yet so I’m going to keep practicing especially with that release to I’m determined to crack that nut and I think I’m knocking on the door but I’m not quite there yet so I’m going to keep working on it and I’d love to hear in the meantime what’s been something through Dan’s work maybe you’ve come to his short game school here at Wen read his book or watched his content what’s been that one takeaway one thing that you’ve put into practice in your short game your favorite thing that has just made such a difference to your short game especially when you’re out there on the course I would love to hear in the comments below and I’ll see you there