10 Patrick Cantlay

Narrowing your focus on short putts and ‘being there’ in mind as well as body on the range are among the World No.10’s top tips

1 Beating a slice

Strengthening your grip a little is one obvious way to improve things a bit. Beyond that, it’s important to complete your swing so try to really think about following through to a full finish, rather than thinking too much about just impact. That could really help get your club travelling on a better line through the ball.

2 Reading greens

If you’ve got time, then always read putts from the other side of the hole too. It’s hard to always see it from 30ft away, but going round to the other side, where you can get a good look from perhaps ten feet, can really help you see what happens in that critical final six feet, and help you work out where the ball is going to be dropping into the hole from.

3 Match play

Think of each hole as an individual match – it’s very different to stroke play. The key thing is to not give trivial holes away. You’ve got to make them win holes rather than giving holes to them.

4 Next shot after a shank

It’s not something I really think about, so I don’t really know. I suppose standing a little further away might be one thing to try.

5

Holing out from three feet The first thing is just hours and hours of practice. Other than that, really narrow your target down from just the hole to something much smaller – perhaps a blade of grass or a blemish at the back of the hole. In terms of a target on those short putts, the narrower your focus, the better.

6 Increasing power

Tension is a real power killer. I see a lot of golfers really tensing everything up when they’re trying to hit further, when actually just the opposite is much more likely to help. Lots of golfers could hit it further by relaxing a little more at address and getting rid of all the tension they mistakenly believe they need to hit it a long way.

7 Bunker play

Set-up is the big thing – a lot of golfers set up to bunker shots in too similar a way to normal full shots. For bunker shots, I would recommend flexing your legs a little more and getting more weight on to your lead leg. That will get you bringing the club back into the ball a little steeper.

8 Better ball-striking

There are many things that could be holding you back, and I would say practice is the key. You really can get better the more you do it. Narrowing your focus can really help, so try focusing on just a part of the ball at address – maybe just a single dimple – to really concentrate the mind.

9 Creating more wedge spin

You’ve got to get the ball first and one way to improve your chances of doing that would be to move it back a little in the stance. Not too far, but just far enough to improve your chances of getting ball rather than ground or turf first.

10 How to practise

Just by ‘being there’ in terms of concentration on the range. Twenty minutes where you focus on every shot is far better than standing there for two hours and hitting ball after ball without really focusing. Every shot counts on the course. You’re practising to improve, so you should really think in terms of every shot counting on the range as well.

1

This is a very conventional address position. You can always tell a player by their hands – Erik’s are like porcelain on the club. He actually reminds me of Rory in many of his positions. In terms of alignment and posture, this is as good as it gets.

2

He tends to set the shaft plane a little steeper in the backswing, which is common. His hips initially start turning until he gets his hands about hip high, and then they stop. It’s all upper body rotation. He does sway his upper body, so his spine tilts a few inches right.

3

This is a model position at the top. From here, his shaft plane lowers – he kind of ‘corrects’ it to get him back on track. The whole swing is like a seesaw effect; he’s pressed it hard on one side and he’s going to chuck it across on the way down.

4

There’s a tremendous amount of uncoiling going on now and his hips are well ahead of the game. His rotation into the ball is fantastic – it’s like a column just unwinding. There’s no pelvic thrust as he comes down; no forward motion of the pelvis at all.

5

He stays well behind the ball as he’s coming into it. He’s very athletic in the way he extends the arms. It’s a very powerful move. The thing that strikes me is how he’s got the club shaft and the body rotating on the same plane.

6

He finishes with relatively high hands and they’re quite a long way from the head, which is fine. He looks comfortable and balanced and he retains a good posture right the way through to his finish. The seesaw effect is complete.