Randy Smith on Consistent Contact | Swing Expedition with Chris Como | GolfPass

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Chris Como meets up with Randy Smith, the all-time leading PGA of America National Award winner. Chris and Randy dive into golf swing technique and discuss things such as ball position and club path that can help amateur golfers of any handicap.

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Randy Smith on Consistent Contact | Swing Expedition with Chris Como | GolfPass

when you say royal oaks in many places you go they’ll say randy smith’s there you can’t put a value on what randy means to royal oaks country club he’s the heart and soul been here since the very beginning he genuinely loves what he does bingo face not handle and all that i look at a player and i look at a especially an elite player and i want to know more about what is the real problem i do not like to see this thumb sticking outside a grip his goal is for his students to enjoy the game and become better golfers he makes you better he doesn’t try to change you as a player he just makes what you have you know a lot better there’s rules in everything rules in life rules in soccer and there’s rules in golf he’s almost like a father figure always helping you along not necessarily teaching you you know everything about golf but just life in general [Music] [Music] randy you’re a legend in the teaching world you’ve worked with players of all skill level recreational golfers major winners help kids come from junior golf all the way to the highest level what’s some of the stuff you see for let’s say the recreational golfers that you that would really help their game every player that we see i ask a question and the question is how much time are you going to be able to put into this if we do something how much work are you going to be able to put in recreational player is going to be you know if i can get them to be honest he says maybe once a week two or three times a month well that makes you rerrack a little bit you got to go a little bit different direction on on how you’re going to approach them because you’re not going to treat them like you’re just starting them out so you got to do some different things there’s some things that are very important that you have to do with a player to get them on the right track you have to identify what their misses are and what they dislike mhm you know knowing what they dislike is the biggest thing they come out and says “i want how many times i know you’ve heard it how many times you’ve heard a player come out?” now i love it when that 18 handicapper walks up and i said “okay what are we going to mess with what’s your problem?” i need to be more consistent i said “you already are you’re consistently not real good now.” consistent in what ball flight contact i i can’t slice it anymore i hate it and then my door opens you know those things are very important okay so let’s start there okay i’m a recreational golfer randy i want to be more consistent with my contact the key thing is to be able to get the ball on the club before they get a bunch of turf on the club or better than that get some turf on it period you know a lot of pickers and hang back here and trying to help it and explain the fact that this club doesn’t respond to lift there is no loft on the very leading edge of this golf club and you can’t lift it in the air with that you’ve got to impact the ball and a little bit of turf in a downward strike especially with an iron to get some spin on the golf ball to get some lift on the golf ball and there’s a few things you can do to promote that of a downward strike with an iron well i got an eight iron here can we start with maybe some things to focus on on on some of the shorter irons that have that ball first hopefully get some turf after contacting the ball type impact you bet all right all right now first shot i want you to hit i want to see the lift in the air get the thing up in the air i’ve got an eight iron i’ve got to hit it up high because i don’t understand i bought the loft on this club too some version of yeah just lift yeah lift that ball up in the air i want to see you do it welcome to my world right there you go you know we get out in the dirt a little warmer day we’d be out on the tea and i would mark a line with a linement stick and scrape it in the ground now get the player to make a mark in front of the line after they’ve struck the ball well that sounds pretty easy if you take and put this ball right about here okay we want impact here we want to get the divot on this side so we’ll use it this way so you can hit this on this side all right now what this will do you do a lot of practice swings because you know they just keep going they keep hitting back here they keep hitting back here i said “move it move it move it.” in fact let’s move it all the way up to here mhm okay and i want to see that swing where you make a total move to get to this side mhm okay i’d rather see that sure the forward motion okay if i’m going to take this stick with this thing on the end of it and i am going to make a mark on the forward side there has to be some motion back down the lower body the left hand side there has to be a step there has to be reloading of the left foot to have a downward strike and it’s also very very difficult to go in front of the line laterally because when you go laterally you slide so much you end up picking it anyway so to hit the ground normally you see the left side turn a little bit out of the way so you accomplish two things at once there you’ve got a little motion back into the left side you’ve got a little rotation back through the golf ball it felt wildly different than the the hangback lifting version just trying to get that impact in front of this seam like you mentioning my body reacted that the whole air quotes weight shift just happened on its own just as a reaction to trying to get the club to bottom out i think that’s the best way once you see your divot on this side right there oh my goodness oh that’s almost too good and this is when you have this seam behind it if i were to do that motion i would hit the seam back it’s a little elevated let’s do it right here and let’s give you a little room because you know you’ve got to get in there this is pretty intimidating right here on the way in and like for for people trying this at home let’s say they don’t have a mat like this they could put like a little towel behind the ball right sure sure something just to kind of like you know don’t roll it up lay it flat lay it flat and that way you can see if you impact it the thing that’s really kind of important about this too is you know in ball position if you’re going to get a little better contact you know and you’ve been hitting behind it and lifting and lifting and lift got to get the ball in the air where are you going to move the ball if you keep hitting behind it where’s the average player what are they going to do they’re going to move move it where back back okay they move it back and guess what they do they move further back here to go get it yep so i’ll also i’ll take that ball position and i’ll run that ball position up y to where they have to go chase it a little bit to go get to it absolutely that makes sense i remember that a little up and that one there you go there you go felt better and so you got back down into the ball there much much better but that’s one thing that the average player can do is please don’t be running the ball position back to where your miss is right let’s change the miss all right that felt that felt a lot better you’re teachable you’re flat teachable that was awesome randy take us back in time and share with us something that you know now you wish you had known back in the day you know the first three maybe four years i was thinking i was kind of teaching golf as as an assistant golf professional back in those days okay you know i kind of went through it and i was teaching a little bit of what what i knew but i don’t think i asked near enough about what they wanted or what their desires were i wish i’d done more of that back then to find out what their particular problem was instead of teaching them a golf swing randy we’re talking about a lot of things that can help the recreational golfer a lot of people struggle with that over the top move slicing it what’s some good drills you have for that particular fault a slicer is probably that’s one of the most critical errors and everybody feels terrible about it so you you got to be careful with them a little bit but most people do a kind of an in over pull the handle type cut which i’m sure you can show us right here what we’re talking about and there’s the finish back there on the back foot right well the one thing we need to do obviously he’s he’s got the the path of the club is is desperately over the top it’s outside the path line going back to the left and to get anything back on the golf ball the instinct says “open it up and lift it up.” so they’re falling back now you need to change where the path’s going the back swing is important obviously but the back swing is not really the issue i almost like to get the forward swing on a better path that maybe is a little more to the right to correct the back swing now to do that you know we few things we can do and this is been my go-to forever is just a basic alignment stick in the ground okay and if we put the stick in back here we embed it in the ground all right that ball’s right about the top of the golf ball i’m hoping that that ball is directly underneath that stick okay now now chris go ahead and swing under the stick through the ball let’s see if it draws a little bit is that true just the sound i was looking for and now you just by putting this in okay let’s kind of look at it from the bad standpoint put the ball back in there chris yeah there we go i’m going make sure i’ve got this pretty much directly above that ball yeah so if i had done that other swing yeah now my hands would be in jeopardy right here we come now at this point you’re really going to back up to get on it well this is a barricade what a great way to practice this dick staying here gives you a feel it’s kind of a ghost effect so if you walk over here on the other side after doing this for you know 10 to 15 minutes and feeling what you know a hook feel is more square contact walk away from it take what your sensation was and recreate it over there without the stick what about people who maybe hook the ball too much they’re not slicers they’re actually curving it too much to the left drop kick yes buried behind them shaft underneath flipped it over hooker exactly boy that’s a scary one isn’t it i want you to hop up here i’m going to take my little handy dandy swimmer swimming here you go ahead and you let’s show the show the audience out there what that shot really looks like we’re gonna go way way from [Music] inside there it is oh my goodness now the funny thing is when you’re making that swing you’re coming back to the golf ball right here the club’s up here and i’ve got to make a strike at it and the club is dropped in this area back here okay why do i always flip it well you’re going to do one of two things if you continue on that path you’re going to head so far right you can’t find it but right about here the instinct takes over to get it back to the target and we never can gauge that enough so the biggest key is to get the get the shaft out of the top what i call out of the top you know a lot of times we’ll get people to swing left you’ll see the hands go out there but where’s the shaft it’s laid behind them so the whole key is to get the whole shaft over this direction and i’ll use this right here back in this position right here okay yeah that’s pretty good now your job is to get the shaft out over it good all right so you’re saying the problem is sometimes when people try to swing left exactly and they’re still this is when people talk about being stuck a better play player talked about being stuck that’s it it’s that motion and when they talk about getting the club in front of them it’s what they’re doing when when you’re trying to miss the go ahead and set it back up again okay swing it back up to the top all right at this point right here how many times have i told i’ve got to get you to swing left swing left and what you alluded to was this right here okay i’m swinging left but we got a shaft that’s laid down behind now at this point there’s not much you can do it’s still going to show a big old right path when you go in because you can’t correct that late so the key thing is and you’ll feel it in the wrists here a little bit too it might feel almost a little throwy just a little throwy this way that combined with you now starting to turn your lip side back out of the way now we’ve got to shaft the whole thing on the top side of the plane okay now here’s what we can do to kind of help that with this swimming yeah all right go ahead and set it up there all right here we go i’ll give you plenty of room to go back bingo that was better bingo i stayed down i might have had it a little bit high on you each student’s going to be a little bit different especially with where you’re having to judge where the back swing is the whole key is to be able to get the the whole shaft over here not just the hands to get that thing going to the left great stuff randy fix the slice fix the hook awesome i think that’s going to help a ton of people who are watching i hope so thinking about the average player the player that’s recreational you know they get up on a tee and they’re just “okay i’m going to swing i’m going to hit this ball i’m going to hope that it works out but if they have a little idea and could control the ball flight just a little bit better you know i i tell you what it makes golf a lot more fun okay say for instance you’ve got a guy that he’s facing a dog leg gle i mean he knows the ball fades he he’s worried about this that and the other we got to know where to swing the club and what the face is going to do okay so for instance if i take this down the line right in line with your target okay now if we’re practicing we have this in the ground obviously okay we want to try to get the path of the club in their mind to be on the left side of this okay so make a practice swing preferably without the ball there you go just make it left of it we’re going to have the path going left of this and you can see this pretty clearly right sure you’re aware of it yep okay now say for instance this player is a bit of a slicer and he’s been working on it i want you to set up the same way okay now let’s release it to the right side boom beautiful that should produce a draw if in fact the club face is doing what it’s supposed to okay if you’re swinging left left of the stick the heel needs to lead the heel needs to lead heel needs to lead and your path is going left of the stick could promote and should promote a little bit of a left right ball curve gotcha so if i’m a person who hooks it then i might want to have that feeling of the club head’s going left of the stick i’m going to use the seam of this mat again and the heel is slightly beating the toe and keep going there’s your fade now on the other side the draw ball the guy’s you know he’s doesn’t like that slice and knows he’s trying to draw it we’re going to go right of the stick on the path out toward me and then the toe is going to win the race at the bottom and here’s a real good way you bring it up too just go ahead and put it on that seam all right if this part right here that heel okay this end beats it across this line beats that toe across that line and the path matches back this direction keep turning to the finish you’re probably going to have a left right ball flight okay and this is for the guys just sitting there trying to change something change his ball flight control his ball better especially off the te all right now set it up again the path is working more to the right we want to make sure that the toe slightly wins that race out here let it go ahead and release then you create a ball curve right to left got the ball ball curved left to right the key is i think this because again people will visually jump on something okay i’ve got to swing the club this side now they may swing it this side and have a problem if you can get the path going this way and then the heel slightly winning that race you’ve got a pretty controllable uh left right ball flight same thing with the draw it’s an awesome visual to try to get this side of the swing the club face at impact to match whatever down swing plane that they’re creating absolutely because you know what one of the biggest things in golf that’s been forgotten for the average player especially is what that club face is doing randy you’ve seen so many golf swings over the years do you have a a favorite swing number one would probably be the byron nelson golf swing oh awesome uh he transitioned equipment and the modern swing versus the old swing it was just beautiful to watch and probably the overall favorite was lee trevino oh man that’s i mean the things he could do with his hands the things he could do with a golf ball and the way he presented himself while he was doing it uh amazing to watch hard to beat lee travina some of my favorite experiences in golf is just to watch him on a range he had a lot to do with me even really teaching the game because of things i learned that really a lot of those things aren’t in the book randy we’re bringing in a player you’ve worked with for a long time paul haley to help us out with this next segment tell us a little bit about your relationship paul and i have been together in some fashion since he’s about 8 years old to be honest with you i’m very proud of him uh winter on the cornferryy tour kind of went in a little bit of a dry spell is now making a marvelous rally and and playing some really good golf out there and paul as you can see is not the stereotypical 6’1 225 pounder paul had very low swing speed he was running 105 106 that kind of holds you back a little bit you know speed is one of the big components if not the biggest component of distance and it’s like for the the regular player the average player that plays everybody can pick up distance and it’s just kind of how you go about it because if you get a little speed in your golf swing your contact’s going to improve what are some of the things you all have done to increase that club head speed lifting my left heel going back was a big one because my fault was always not being able to load up enough going back kind of getting stuck over my left side maybe getting ahead of it a hair and then having to stop throw the hands at it and just losing a lot of speed so with the left heel coming off the ground i feel i can make a much bigger turn kind of weight on it gives me a lot more time to come down you know i’m not very concerned about where the club is at the top mine goes a little past parallel but just gives me more time to kind of deliver that speed at the right spot first of all i think paul made a very concerted effort to swing the face faster okay and to hit the ball further just the intent of just going faster so many times we get on the golf course we’re just trying to guide the thing around and not make a mistake we want to keep it in play keep it in front of us we’re doing everything we can well to play at his level he can’t be out there playing defense all day long and if he can pick up some yardage and pick up some d his approach clubs go from maybe a six iron or a seven iron down to an eight n iron that makes the game a lot easier so attitude and i think that’s the one thing that paul’s embraced as much as anything is the attitude i almost swing this thing faster then we put the ingredients in him lifting his left heel does several things paul why don’t we demonstrate that a little bit just in slow motion there you can just work it back and work it through when that heel goes up okay he lets his heel go his body weight gets to the right okay now restrict that hold that foot down and watch what happens here see you can see the tension’s even built up in his shoulder right here now then he’s got to come out of this and turn he’s almost got to go too far back to hit a driver in drivers we want to be able to take a full rip and work upwards and explode through the golf ball explode basically off the ground where our arms get real long real extended and a lot of heat on them that’s one of the biggest things i’ve seen he got a bigger mo a bigger move to the right hand side the minute he started lifting that heel off the ground it’s also funny you know the first time you do it people think their heel comes off like that and the first time you do it it really comes up like that it probably so it takes a while to trust how much you can really get it going i call it relieving the left foot pressure okay it’s just relieving the pressure on the left foot i can do this all day and just kind of do all kinds of things i can lift my heel but if i haven’t relieved the pressure on the left foot we’ve got to be able to relieve it and get to the right just a little bit more to get a full load on it we do that we have a little natural extension of the right side kind of gets up a little bit which makes it so much easier to load downward to explode through it i learned this a long time ago from a very good baseball player michael young and i asked him after he raised his club head speed from 122 to 129 in three swings i said “what did you do differently?” he says “man i tell you what everything got a little quieter on that 129.” he says “the biggest thing i felt was the tension level in my hands and arms went to nothing.” so he could let go of the club that is a huge ingredient you cannot go into this tight tied down tight the minute you start tightening up it goes right into your arm shoulders nothing can move at the speed you want it to move with i feel like when i’m swinging well that first thought is to get that club out that way there’s no holding angle there’s it it just literally feels like i get to the top and that’s the first mold and then that goes all the way to the finish i kind of call this the hammer and the nail theory yeah okay paul bring your club back down here and let’s look at the heel real quick okay just hold it up there right here i i envision that as a hammerhead the head of a hammer right here go ahead and set it up there we’re going to sneak back here and i’m going to put a nail in that nails on the plane basically the swing swing it up the top for me but okay now i don’t want you to do this real hard obviously on cold day with my hands here it might hurt but i want him to deliver that hammerhead and remember where it is it’s on the heel i want to hammer head right square on top of that and i mean boom now i want watch what his left leg does now paul don’t hit me what’s that left leg do to deliver power i mean there’s so much drop right there planting and then straightening you bet and it happens automatically yeah basically the ingredients of the speed for paul number one’s an attitude that i can do this and swing the club face faster face not handle and all that you want to swing that guy faster number two would be for paul his left heel comes up he relieves pressure on the left foot number three light light light number four release it as much as you can as early as you can we see you hit some shots this season it’s great basically he started out a year and a half ago he’s running he could get it certain days up to 106 107 and he’s so straight and he’s such a great player but all of a sudden we kind of been messing with this a little bit and paul’s accepted the challenge to get it longer and he has popped it up 115’s your fastest club head speed right hey that’ll get it done that’s that’s that’s still moving it you ain’t a kidding it is and it’s it’s a big improvement it really opens up a lot of absolutely a lot of things when you’re getting in a lot closer to the green to hit shots love that drill that taking the hammer that’s on the bottom of the club and smacking on something just a nail randy great stuff love it thanks buddy you got it thanks paul thanks chris