The Arrival of Spring brings with is another golf season and another list of ambitious goals from the nation's addicts. Such is the game of golf that for many players simply playing the game is not enough.
If your goal is to break 70, 80, 90 or 100, i have some suggestions that may help.
First put the tasks in perspective. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time! How do you lower your handicap? By dividing the game into its component parts and finding a way to improve each part by a small amount.
Whether at the office or on the course, objectives are best met by setting goals, small steps that when put together, produce big gains. This year, set measurable goals for different parts of your game, score your practice and watch your scores come down. The following are some suggestions to get you started.
1. Keep a practice journal: Set goals for the year and be prepared to track and measure your progress. Design practice routines that can be scored.
Use the putting clock to play up 18 up and down shots. The par could be 36 or 54 depending on your skill level. Set a goal for the year and record your score each time you play.
Pick an imaginary fairway on the range and hit 20 drives. Use your full pre-shot routine with each shot and score a hit, miss right or miss left.
With each iron, hit three shots to three different targets, use your full shot routine and again score hit, miss left or miss right. Better players can hit high, low, fade or draw with each iron.
One the putting green, find a cup on a gentle slope and putt from the four compass points at three, four, five, six and nine feet.
2. Back to basics: Sound fundamentals are non-negotiable! But don't try to copy someone else.
Instead, work with a qualified professional to determine your best starting position. Open shoulders? closed stance? strong or weak grip? There is no standard. Your coach will quickly determine the optimum setup to accommodated your body type, degree of flexibility and relative strength. Ask your coach to show you how to use clubs to form a gird on the ground to indicate proper alignment, ball position and foot position. Your goal should be to never hit a ball in practice from a bad starting position.
3. Practise your mental routine: Have you ever hit a perfect golf shot? We all have, but as golfers we are trained to be aware of and critique our swing mechanics.
The normal reaction to a bad shot is to identify the error and make the appropriate correction before the next shot. This leads to what some experts call conscious incompetence and as the round progresses our performance suffers. I would like you to consider the possibility that all our physical actions, and the golf swing is but one, are a result of our intentions and focus. Therefore our golf swing is a reflection of your thoughts and state of mind.
So, about that perfect shot, if you can create the same starting position and state of mind, you can create the same shot.
Try this. With absolutely no thoughts on swing mechanics, hit golf shots to a balanced finish. Forget about the outcome. Could you hold your finish? Your balance? Were you distracted with unwanted thoughts of mechanics or outcomes? Practise until you can make a swing, to balance, with not mental interference. Score yourself pass or fail and add that to your practice journal.
4. Practise, then transfer: Use if repetitive practice, by hitting the same club over and over is useful in developing a solid swing. But you must transfer that skill to the art of playing the game. Do this by practising like you play. Hit different clubs to different targets off different lies, never repeating the same shot. Use the practice sheets that you have in your practice journal. Here's a great way to remember the difference; when you are practising mechanics there is no thoughts of target, when you are practising hitting the target (golf) there is no thoughts of technique.
5. Up and down: The best players get up and down almost every time when missing a green. You can too. No matter your handicap, it is possible to be the best putter in the world. If you like to practise, dedicated at lease half of your allotted time to the short game. By short game I mean shots within 100 feet of the pin. Remember, your practice must replicate the real game as much as possible. Drop the ball, don't place it. Play the shot and continue until the ball is holed out, keep the score and write it in the journal. Practicing with a friend is a great way to make this fun and competitive.
6. Create game conditions: Many players can hit the shot on the range but can't hit the shot on the course, when it counts. Many times the problem is poor practice habits; the player has never incorporated their pre-shot routine and mental focus into their practice sessions.
Try this one evening. Playing a scramble is the best way to re-create the pressure of the real game, but a scramble with a twist. It's a worse ball scramble. Using two balls, hit two drives,, pick the worst of the two drives and hit two shots from there, continue until the ball is holed out. Each good shot must be validated with a follow up.
7. Par 3: No time for 18 holes? Try this one evening; play the front nine as a par 3 course with each hole playing 100 yards, a par 27 course. Get the score card out and keep score, write the results in your practice journal. Think you can break par? Give it a try. Remember, you learn the game on the course, not on the range.
8. Get your clubs fit: Before you do anything have a qualified professional evaluate the fit of your clubs, from the driver to the putter. Don't adjust to your clubs, have the clubs adjusted to suit you. This can be the single biggest factor affecting your shots. The thickness of your grips can influence a draw or a fade. The lie angle on its own can create a slice or a hook. The proper length shaft can allow you to be comfortable and athletic in the address posture.
9. Get rid of long irons: Even the best players in the world don't hit them anymore. If you are anything like me, you can still hit a long iron. The problem is I hit it so low that i couldn't stop the ball on a lake! This is all about having a playable trajectory. The new hybrids launch the ball so high that we now have a chance to hold the green on an approach. Average players will find them easier to hit than fairway metals because of the shorter shaft length and the smaller head design is really helpful in the rough.
10. Play out of bunkers: I know you hate to hear this; bunker shots are the easiest shot in golf. Find a qualified professional and discover how to hit this shot. First of all, if you do not have sand wedge, get one. Sand wedges are specifically designed for the sand. Their sole configuration is designed to bounce or skip through the sand. Second, get comfortable with sand. With no ball, just swing the club and get used to the feeling of splashing sand out of the bunker. Lastly, imagine that the ball is actually going to float out of the bunker on that little carpet of sand. Now you can try some shots with a ball.
Golf is a great game and a lifetime challenge. Adults tend to look at the task of hitting a golf shot as a logical and rational process, like problem solving.
That's a solid approach to the planning, however the swing has to be discovered or acquired by using the imagination. Try to let the ball flight influence your next swing. If you hit it low, aim at a cloud and try to hit it high. If you have a tendency to slice the ball then do whatever you can to hit a hook. Instead of trying to control your swing mechanics to make a perfect swing, look at each shot as giving you feedback necessary to make the next perfect shot, and so on.
That perfect shot is always the next swing away.