I started having regular golf lessons around six months ago. Was happy with what I was doing in my lessons but dissapointed that it wasn’t translating to the golf course. In Mid January I brought this up with my coach who told me I was undoing the good work from the lessons, subconciously reverting back to my “safe” (ugly) swing on the course.

The solution he said was NOT to play golf – at all – for a whole month!!! Spend a month training every day if possible to cement the work in building a more reliable action and see what happens. All my mates told me I was mad, after all what was the point of NOT playing the game we all love??

Well I am commited to becoming a better golfer so I spent from the middle of January to the third week in February hitting 40 balls at least five times a week, the first three weeks were the dreaded cone drill and the last two weeks were with the resultant swing.

I found a steady improvement in tempo and ball striking, gained alot more confidence over the ball and at the end of four weeks was very keen to play. The first two nine hole practice rounds showed that chipping and putting were rusty as anything, but once a little feel started to return in those areas things have improved greatly.

In the last two weeks I managed to have threee nine hole rounds scoring 20, 21, then 24 points. the 24 points won me the twighlight comp last thursday then I came third in Sundays stroke comp with a Nett 68.

In one week I have dropped from 32 to 30 handicap, something I havent been able to do in the preceding 6 months.

So if you are a high handicapper like me and you are serious about making inroads into better ball striking this is a strategy worth discussing with your coach. I was very sceptical but at the other end was so happy I stuck to it!!!

Big thanks to Chris West at The Range at O’Halloran Hill for taking a different tack with respect to Golf tuition to help me make some solid progress.

Food for thought for the high handicappers, just thought my little story might help some other High markers feeling frustrated with their progress.

Foxy.

Good to hear fox. Keep playing well and drop that HC.

Great Idea for alot of High Handicappers aswell. Has worked very well for playing partners of myself.

Play Bogey golf. If your off 25 you dont need to par every hole, so why play for a par! just play for a bogey. His game has improved dramatically!

I actually havent been on the course in a fair while. I head down to the club and usually only use the practice facilities. If time is not limited, I reckon getting some course time is still a priority, but solid practice is also a must if you want to improve!

I would say that the critical factors are expectations and confidence. If you have too many expectations about what you will achieve on the golf course, and they are ruined by too many thoughts about the swing and the mechanics, then I’d say you’re better off sticking to the range and practice fairway. If you go out without too many expectations, then I don’t think it matters whether you play on the course or not.

Bob Rotella talks about training and trusting. Training is what you need to do to improve your game … it is the learning, the practice, the thinking about swing mechanics. Trusting is what you need to do on the course to put the training into practice … you no longer think about the mechanics because they are ingrained enough to trust their effect. Being in training mode affects confidence, trusting is confidence.

I’ve been through this before, and I’m going through it at present after some lessons changed the way I think about the swing. When I’m on the course in training mode, I can’t score. In fact I’m worse than before the changes. But it’s only a problem if I expect too much. You need to get to trusting mode to be able to score well.

The worst thing is to fail to go through with the training process because of the short-term confidence loss. It’s the best way to cause the mind to give up and revert to old, poorer habits.

I think it’s really important if you are in a “deep” training mode, and you go out on the course, that you persist with the new swing thoughts. Don’t place scoring above the learning until the new swing becomes more automatic.

Bob Rotella talks about training and trusting. Training is what you need to do to improve your game … it is the learning, the practice, the thinking about swing mechanics. Trusting is what you need to do on the course to put the training into practice … you no longer think about the mechanics because they are ingrained enough to trust their effect. Being in training mode affects confidence, trusting is confidence.

That’s it in a nutshell!!

Those starting out young or picking up the game (as I did) later in life can benefit from this approach, learning the correct motions from a blank slate rather than having to UNLEARN years of bad habits…..

& I thought you were only coming for the snags & beer.
It’s a credit to you foxy & I can see you are really starting to “get it”.

I too would tell you to stay off the course if I was the pro giving you lessons at a driving range:)

I too would tell you to stay off the course if I was the pro giving you lessons at a driving range:)

LOL, except that during the time off not a single lesson was had…......

The idea was to cement what had already been learned in to the swing.

And at seven bucks for a bucket of balls no one was getting rich off little ‘ol me! :-)

It is commendable that you are commited enough to stay off the course and cement the changes…well done!

Thanks for the kind words guys, Tim where’s my favourite cook gone?? :-)

The thread is more about putting a little outside the box thinking to newbies to the game, rather than flogging a dead horse on the course, if your not getting results this method worked for me and may well do for others too.

I’ll be up next week.

Bit of a follow up on this little story.

Since the start of this thread I have dropped down to 27 handicap, so I have averaged a stroke a week decrease.

Since the “month off”, practice at The Range has become habit, Supervised Practice (group session) every Thursday night with singular practice on Tuesdays and Saturdays.

Usually hit 40 – 70 balls on Tuesdays and Saturdays and around 160 – 200 balls on Thursday nights, so far from hard yacca but is making big differences in confidence and connection.

As my coach says “Perfect practice makes perfect”.

Can’t recommend this approach enough for anyone who, like me, was struggling to make solid inroads with their golf game.

Once you keep the tinkering with the swing OFF the golf course and play with what you have on the day things get a little easier, I was guilty of trying to fix swing issues as I was playing – impossible to do and try to score at the same time.

Hope this might help anyone looking to turn on the light upstairs!!!!

Foxy

starting my lessons i told myself i wont play a round til i finish my 5th lesson. But the temptation was too much, i couldnt do it. I dont know how you could give up playing for 1 month. I didnt even last one week.

My pro mate said pretty much the same thing that your coach said to you. I’d gone from ~22 h’cap back out to 27. Rather than stop, I cut right down and left the scorecards at home for a couple of months. It provided good opportunity to go out and hit a few balls at a more relaxed pace, focussing more on analysing the shots than the result. About 3 weeks ago I felt that things were starting to pull together again so I started scoring again. Massive difference. In five games I’ve pulled out my three best 18 hole scores and also improved my PB scores on both front and back nine. I can only hope it lasts, but at least now I know what to do if things go haywire again.

I’ve also stopped going to the driving range in favour of hitting a few practise drives in a non-scoring game. Lessons learned from a botched shot on the course seem to sink in much harder than they do on the range.

Bit of a follow up on this little story.

Since the start of this thread I have dropped down to 27 handicap, so I have averaged a stroke a week decrease.

Since the “month off”, practice at The Range has become habit, Supervised Practice (group session) every Thursday night with singular practice on Tuesdays and Saturdays.

Usually hit 40 – 70 balls on Tuesdays and Saturdays and around 160 – 200 balls on Thursday nights, so far from hard yacca but is making big differences in confidence and connection.

As my coach says “Perfect practice makes perfect”.

Can’t recommend this approach enough for anyone who, like me, was struggling to make solid inroads with their golf game.

Once you keep the tinkering with the swing OFF the golf course and play with what you have on the day things get a little easier, I was guilty of trying to fix swing issues as I was playing – impossible to do and try to score at the same time.

Hope this might help anyone looking to turn on the light upstairs!!!!

Foxy

Look down the barrel, pick it up, pump it, mean it.

Member of the Golfers against H.I.L.A.C society.

Go The Fox!

I’ve also stopped going to the driving range in favour of hitting a few practise drives in a non-scoring game. Lessons learned from a botched shot on the course seem to sink in much harder than they do on the range.

This is what helped me more than anything else. Getting out on the course when things are quiet and playing two or three balls. I agree lessons learned here really seem to sink in.