Possibly The Fastest Way To Improve Your Ball Striking

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Transcript Summary- Alright, in this video, I’m going to help you hit your driver and irons much straighter while improving the quality of your strike. The inspiration for today’s lesson comes from the legendary Peter Kostis, who recently shared six pillars for better ball striking. While I’ve covered many of these ideas separately, Peter presented them in such a brilliant and concise way that I had to share them with you. If you’re new here, make sure to subscribe for weekly tips to improve your game. And don’t worry about remembering everything—I’ve included a free practice guide in the description to make it easy for you to take these lessons to the course.

Pillar 1: Strong Grip Before Weak Grip

If you struggle with a slice, the first step is to adjust your grip. A strong grip—where your hands are rotated more away from the target—encourages a draw, curving the ball from right to left. This not only fixes the slice but also promotes forward movement through impact, improving strike quality. Practice this by exaggerating the strong grip initially and hitting shots that curve left. Once comfortable, you can gradually neutralize the grip for a straighter ball flight.

Pillar 2: Feet Together Before Feet Apart

This is fantastic for improving balance and rhythm. Standing with your feet closer together helps you turn rather than sway, creating a more controlled and centered swing. It naturally teaches you to maintain balance and improve coordination between your body turn and arm swing. Practice this by narrowing your stance and hitting shots in balance—this simple adjustment can do wonders for your consistency.

Pillar 3: Ball Back Before Ball Forward

If you’re struggling with thin or fat shots, start by moving the ball back in your stance. This helps promote a downward strike, allowing you to make better contact. Once you’ve developed the feel for striking the ball first and the ground second, you can move the ball forward to its proper position—about a clubhead’s width inside your lead heel—while maintaining that solid strike.

Pillar 4: Slow Swings Before Fast Swings

Peter’s analogy here is brilliant: If you can’t keep the car on the motorway at 30 mph, how will you manage it at 90 mph? Start with slower, controlled swings to build a foundation of balance and rhythm. Gradually increase your speed, finding a tempo that works for you on the day. Remember, it’s about quality, not rushing to maximum speed.

Pillar 5: Short Swings Before Long Swings

A short, controlled swing can generate surprising power when done correctly. Focus on getting the most out of a short backswing by improving rhythm and impulse rather than adding length. Mastering this creates a solid foundation before extending to a fuller swing, helping you hit the ball farther without sacrificing control.

Pillar 6: Lead Heel Up Before Lead Heel Down

Letting your lead heel lift during the backswing unlocks the lower body, enabling a fuller, more effortless turn. This move has been used by legends like Jack Nicklaus and Ben Hogan and can also help you transfer weight effectively during the downswing. Practice allowing the heel to come up naturally, then plant it back down to initiate the downswing for improved power and consistency.

These six pillars are simple yet effective ways to transform your ball striking, whether you’re working on your driver or irons. Big thanks to Peter Kostis for this brilliant framework. If you enjoyed this video, give it a thumbs up, share it with a friend, and don’t forget to subscribe for more tips. Check out the linked video for more on hitting with your feet together—it’s a game changer! Have a great golfing week, and I’ll see you next time!

Full Transcript - so in this video we're going to focus on helping you hit driver Fairwood and your irons much much straighter and also improve the quality of your strike now I was online the other day and just randomly on Instagram I came across Peter costus one of the legends of the coaching industry and he basically came up with his six pillars for doing exactly that hitting every Club in the bag much straighter and striking them much better now I've introduced many of these separately on my channel but he put it in such a brilliant language that only someone with his experience can I want to share with you those six pillars I guarantee you're going to absolutely love I was blown away by it too so before I get into the M if you're new to the channel for your first lessons of mine please consider subscribing ear videos like this one every single week to try and help you improve your game and as always you never have to remember a thing I'll always put a free download practice guide in the description box below so whether you're looking to hit dri stray or hit your irons better the first thing in pillar number one is strong grip before weak grip what is the difference well I want you if you particular of you're slicing the GOL I want you to learn to get the ball curving right to left at the very first thing because if you can get the ball drawing right to left it promotes so many great things already in the golf swing so when the when a golfer starts to see this ball curving this way in the air they don't want it to finish left so what it encourages them to do is move more and more forward to set the ball more more and more off to the right and side this is great for contact because what you'll see is the more forward you get the more you're going to hit the ball than the ground so creating draws naturally improves your ability to get forward improve the quality of your strike so if I can help you do that you well on the way combine that with the opposite is a slice if someone's slicing it out to the right hand side what do you think that's going to create well ultimately you don't want it to go there so you start leaning back to avoid it going right which affects again look contact distance and strike so the key thing first of all let's get the ball drawing so how do you do this pillar number one strong grip before weak grip this is strong grip move your hands away from the target what this does look as you move your hands away from the target it moves it more into the fingers so that's why we call it strong you've got stronger hold onto it take the trail hand move it look twisting it away from the Target now this is a very very strong grip here and you'll see I can see a lot more Knuckles on my lead hand here and my trail hand is a bit more underneath again promoting a bit of a bit of an arc and a bit of a turnover of the face so when I do this straight away watch what happens to the ball flight as I do this that ball look has beautifully moved from right to left in the air now you start there first enjoy hitting some shots that are curving right to left get used to this I promise you your body will start to move much more efficiently in the down SP to improve the quality of contact once you've done that then you can just gradually neutralize it and move those hands just to straighten it up but that is pillar number one start strong grip before weak grip pillar number two and I use this all the time with my students on a golf course feet together before feet apart why well look when your feet are closer together right if you're struggling this is 100% the plus to start because what it does it helps you to make a turn as opposed to when you feet it apart you Sway and move around too much if you're moving around too much it's very hard to bring that club consistently back into impact so feet together helps you create a beautiful turn it also helps you to do that in Balance because a lot of people they may in a sense turn and go oh I've lost my balance so here now you can for your feet together you can turn and if you lose your balance you could keep going until you start swinging and turning in Balance so it's naturally training a brilliant Motion in your golf swing it also helps look on the way through I see a lot of people just trying to heave the ball well with your feet together you're going to feel and you're going to lose balance again brilliant feedback so what does it do again when you're coming through with your feet together it's going to train you look to naturally release the golf club for impact here and do it in beautiful balance right I use this myself all the time if I'm played a game of golf I may not have them this narrow I might my normal stance will be here with driver and narrow it in because it really really helps me just to kind of learn to coordinate my body turn and my arm swing to create a be beautiful balanced and effortless golf swing let's have a look at this in action so I set myself up look balls on my big toe of my lead foot here get myself set and all I'm doing look this is second swing of the day I'm swinging in balance and this is exactly what I would do personally not just for my students but also for me to learn to hit

straight oh my God it can't be any simpler than that just tapping it down the Fairway let's move on to pillar number three if you struggle to get your balls striking consistent pillar number three is brilliant Great rule ball back before ball forward most of the time if you have got your ball too far forward in your strands what's going to happen you've probably seen it you're hitting the ground you're thinning it you're fatting it along the ground what we want to do is is we want to learn look to strike the ball than the ground one of the simplest ways to kind of get this across if you've been struggling push the ball way back in your stance don't make a full swing at this but move the ball back in your stance get used to look getting the handle naturally striking the ball ahead look of the club head so we're striking naturally look down on the golf ball it's a lot easier to do that if the ball's back in your stance my body look is ahead of the golf ball so I just play some small swings getting that sensation of the club going down into the turf this way versus look when you're if you're struggling it's a lot harder to do this when the ball gets too far ahead so I'm not saying keep it there but I'm saying look if you're struggling push it back spend a few hit a few shots getting the sensation of this impact because once you've got sensation of this look you can then move the ball back into its correct position which is a club width inside your lead heel and look you've learned this feeling you can now move look forward to a place where you want to try and create that feeling right there and what that means is why we have it f slightly further forward eventually is so we can make a bigger swing and we've got more space to really go after the golf ball but start with ball back before you move the ball forward so let's look at this action now when people do this they'll naturally hit it a little bit right to start with but we have to contact First Look at that beautiful bullet down the middle of the Fairway naturally for me it's going to be much much lower because I'm deloft in that Golf Club it ball back before learn that feeling before we then push it Forward take that feeling of this motion here where look hips are naturally ahead handles ahead and then simply we take that feeling and move that closer to the golf ball here and hey prester you've got a much much better strike pillar number four and this my students absolutely love they don't always commit to bit when they do they are so more consistent on a golf course slow swings before fast swings now Peter costus described this absolutely brilliantly when he said if you can't keep the car on the motorway at 30 mph how the hell are you going to be able keep it on the road at 90 mph just brilliant brilliant kind of image isn't it so slow things with for FAS Rings ultimately look we've just done the first put first three pillars in place well if you want to learn this feeling here imagine now swinging and going right this is the feeling give your brain time to get a sense of that so here look we're going to go we we've we've done the ball back we push it now back forward we're going to take that feeling we got back here move it closer to the golf ball so I'm going to swing now at 30 m hour hey PR nice and smooth right so we get and you could play golf just like that to start with you know 30 mph sacrifice distance learn the quality of your contact and remember you got a lifetime to play Great Golf so don't try and rush it yeah so your 30 m hour get that sensation slow swing before fast swings give your body a chance to learn the motion and then look you might go I'm learning this let's push it not to 100 let's go to 50 m an hour look back there's 50 mph bit further an absolute bullet again and what you'll find is is you'll find your speed for that day and that's what you take to the golf course so you've learned a bit of technique in terms of how to strike it and you're learning it by starting slow before you go fast pillar number five and this is a big one short effortless swings versus big effort swings right so what do I mean by that well look at this so here I can do a very short swing look here that only goes let's say a short distance now I'm not going to increase the length of my swing I'm going to keep it short but I want to see this ball go a lot further but in an effortless way without increasing the lens so I'm going to swing to here and that ball suddenly gone much much further what have I changed I've changed the Rhythm and the impulse to that motion so what I've done is is in reality as opposed to losing control by going longer first what I've done is is I've kept the length nice and short and what I'm doing is is I've got this is one Rhythm that would hit a certain distance now what I'm doing is I'm imagining if I want to hit that ball and put produce more energy into the back of that golf ball I don't have to swing longer I can just picture this bang bang bang does that Mak sense right so shorter try to get the maximum distance you can from a short swing before you go longer so look at this one bang short swing that's gone off like a rocket I haven't got track man showing the distance but that has gone comfortably 150 yards with a very very very short swing but with some impulse do that way before you start to go long so short before long so pillar number six and this was a brilliant one from Peter Costas and you will have seen me with doing this with many and many my students left heel up or lead heel up before lead heel down he talks about his brilliant go been played for 400 years with the best players in the world Jack Nicholas Sam Sneed Ben hug and all letting this lead heel come off the ground and then suddenly we've got an epidemic of people saying You must keep it flat on the ground well the reality is is that's great maybe if you're a 20-year-old athlete but for the majority of players allowing this lead heel to come up correctly by the way there's a way to do this I'll show you in a second but allowing this lead heel to come up it does a few things it unlocks the lower body now the lower body is the key for you to make a longer natural flowing motion a lot of people are trying to get their turn look with just their torso and it's hugely restricted if you don't move your feet so notice this what I'm doing I'm allowing my lead knee here to move inwards to let my this heel come off the ground as I do this this lower body moves and it allows me to make a naturally fully turn without hurting myself but the other thing it's brilliant at doing if what goes up must come down so it's a brilliant way also that when that foot comes up you don't want to keep it there it's going to naturally want to come down which again helps you to transer your weight back onto the front foot to start the down thing naturally correctly and through the shot think of a baseball pitchure do they start planted they're up here why cuz if it comes off it gives you something to land into so start with allowing your heel to come up before you keep it down there's not a problem problem with keeping it down eventually if that works for you but to start with get those feet working in such a way that allows the lead heel to come up to make the turn so you've got something to plant down to start that down swing and Away you go you'll see look padrick Harrington turn into sen T you'll see him all the time lead heel comes up helps him to generate power lead heel up to lead heel down and we hit shots like that so six pillars thanks so much Peter Costas for I just to fall on this online it's absolutely brilliant I just had to share it with you because I think succinctly a brilliant way of kind of putting some simple elements into your game to hit driver ster strike your irons much much better hope you enjoy the video give it a thumbs up uh share it with a friend you know this might help and look if you want to see me actually hitting shots with my feet together check this video out right here I do it with driver it's an absolute Game Changer people said it's a game changer check it out and look if you're new to the channel press that subscribe button and the B but until next week have a wonderful golfing week.