In this video, you will undergo a pre-course test to evaluate your current driving skills in golf. You’ll learn to measure your performance using a scoring system based on three criteria: hitting within a 40-yard-wide gap, consistently straight shots, and solid contact. This method ensures you can objectively track your progress as you follow the drills over several weeks. By retesting in weeks three and four, you will witness your improvement numerically. Clay emphasizes the importance of real-world testing conditions, including considerations for wind effects, and motivates you to follow the plan for noticeable improvements in your driving accuracy.
What's Covered: Establish a baseline score for your driving accuracy using a 40-yard gap and three-criteria scoring system.
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Video Transcription:
Hey, it's great to have you here today, and what we're gonna do in today's drill is gonna be a pre-course test. We're gonna see how good your driving is currently, and we're actually gonna put a score to it. So it's one thing to hear some cool information, you get excited about it, but when you put it into use, it doesn't really make you drive any better.
As we do this course, we're gonna track your improvement the entire way. So you're gonna see your scores go up. We're gonna put real numbers to it. So not only do you like the ideas, you can see that you're improving. The way we're gonna do this is I want you to go to the range that you normally hit at.
And I wanna pick a 40 yard wide gap. Now, it doesn't have to be perfect, be a little bigger, a little smaller, that's okay. But I'm gonna pick, go to the same spot when you retest this in week three and week four. But I'm gonna pick out a flag pole and a tree trunk or something that's gonna be in the same spot every time.
That way you're using the exact same width gap every single time. Make it as close to about 40 yards. Your best judgment of what 40 yards is. We're gonna hit 20 drives, and we have to have three criteria be met. To have a successful shot. So for example, I hit 20 drives and half of them are good. I hit 10 that meet this three criteria.
My score is a 10. If I improve on my score, I might get a 12 or a 13 next time. Many players might start out at only getting one or two as their score the first time they go through this, but you'll see as you go through this course and you retest in week three and week four, you're gonna see that score of one or two go up to four or five, six or seven.
You're gonna actually be able to see that it's improving. So here's the three criteria. Number one, we're gonna pick that 40 yard wide gap, and we're gonna see if the drive goes into that gap. Now what it means, you can pick, the ball ends up so it rolls out and stays in the gap the entire way. You can just pick where the ball lands.
I'm fine either way. Just keep it consistent from week one to week three, week four. That way we're really testing the same thing. That's the first criteria. So I have to hit a drive. Is it going into that 40 yard wide gap? If it's left of it, or right of it doesn't count right off the bat. Unsuccessful shot number two.
I gotta keep it in that gap the entire way. What I mean by that is if I'm hitting a big slice and it starts 20 yards left of the gap and then slices big time and ends up in the gap, I'm not gonna count that. I want relatively straight hit shots. All the data I have shows that the more curve you have on the ball, the less consistent you're gonna be with your driving.
So we're really seeing, are we hitting the drives the way we need to here? So that's the second criteria. It's gotta stay in that 40 yard wide gap the entire time. If I'm thinking about my golf ball, I'm just drawing a straight line to the left edge of the gap, a straight line to the right edge of the gap.
And if I'm starting outside of that, it's too much curvature on the golf ball. It's like a little triangle. You can kind of imagine it like that Again, doesn't have to be perfect. Use your best judgment. But if it's borderline, I probably wouldn't count it. It'd be a little bit strict on yourself. You're gonna improve a little faster if you do that.
And the third criteria is it has to be relatively solidly struck. So if I hit a worm burner or a popup, or I just really hit a bad shot, don't count those. So if I pop one up and it happens to stay straight and go in the gap, we all know that's not really a great drive. That's okay. We're just not gonna count it.
So hit your 20 balls. Count how many out of 20 were successful. Started in the gap. End. Up in the gap, and relatively solidly hit. Okay, everybody's gonna have their own little criteria on solid. So a 20 handicapper may have a very different criteria than a tour player, and that's okay. Just use your best judgment.
We don't have to be that scientific with it. We just wanna wait, get a score. I'm gonna count how many shots I hit out of the 20 that meet those three criteria. That's gonna be your baseline or starting score. And as we go through this course, we're gonna retest it a couple times and see those numbers go up.
Couple other things to keep in mind here. If it's really windy that day. So if I have a 30 mile an hour wind in my face, my scores are gonna go up quite a bit. In a 30 mile an hour wind your dispersion, or how big of an area that your ball's gonna end up in, almost doubles versus no wind. To add a little bit of insult to injury here, when it's 30 miles an hour downwind, it only gets about 30% tighter.
So it doubles into the wind. It improves downwind, but it's not nearly the benefit downwind. So it'd be nice if it worked the other way around, but it doesn't. So. Only reason I wanna mention that is if you do this test and it's a perfect day and then you come out next time and it's just terrible conditions, there's a huge wind in your face, you're probably gonna score worse.
Another thing here is this is what I believe in. I believe you should be able to test something. Not only is it a good idea, but when I actually measure, when I put a score to it, I need to see those scores coming up. A lot of coaches will get a little bit nervous putting a test to it like this 'cause they're afraid, well, what if it doesn't work out?
What if people don't score better? I'm confident enough that if you follow the drills exactly how they're laid out, you will see your scores go up, not only in week three and week four, but as you repeat this and keep on trying to get better, you're gonna see those scores steadily improve. So the more times you do this, the better your scores are gonna get.
All you have to do is follow the drills exactly like a late amount and you're gonna have fantastic success. Alright, let's go ahead and get started. Can't wait to hear about your starting score.
