Did you happen to watch The Player’s Championship on Saturday? If so you witnessed Kevin Na’s per-shot routine, which was at times was tortuous to watch, is something you can learn from. The first thing is I have to give Na credit that he didn’t hit a shot until he was ready to swing. Whatever doubts were in his mind, he wouldn’t pull the trigger till they were gone. And that’s an important lesson to learn. If you are not committed to your
swing, target, and club selection, you are dramatically reducing your chances of hitting a good shot – which is why a pre-shot routine is so important. Most golfers think the pre-shot routine is just the number of practice swings you they take, the number of waggles, etc. But that’s just the physical part. The mental part is just as important – probably even more important – getting yourself set and committed to the shot before you start the physical part of your routine.
Joe Laurentino
News - The Negotiable Golf Swing
What You Can Learn from Kevin Na’s Excruciating Pre-Shot Routine
Bubba Watson’s Win at the Masters Shows the Golf Swing is Negotiable
It was an exciting finish to this year’s Master’s and watching Bubba swing the club is obviously evidence that the golf swing is negotiable – it may not be pretty or a move you can teach someone, but there is one thing you can learn from it. Bubba said he never took a lesson – so we can consider him a self taught player. And I don’t think there is anyone on tour that curves the ball – while playing normal shots – as much as he does. What Bubba learned is how to make the club (clubhead path/clubface) work to make the ball do what he wants it to do and the degree he’s looking to do it. He obviously has a great command of the ball flight laws – something he learned on his own, but certainly it’s something everyone can learn. And once you learn them – and practice them through self discovery – you will be much closer to mastering and controlling your ball flight.
The Earth is Not Flat and Impact and Separation Does Not Exist
Practicing the Full Swing
Now we are in the part of the practice program that I see golfers spend most of their time. This is for two primary reasons; the short game areas are often lacking and let’s face it, it’s more exciting to many of us to rip a driver on the range than it is to make a 10 foot putt on the putting green. And I don’t really subscribe to the statement “drive for show, putt for dough”. The fact of the matter is that if you are hitting it in the trees and OB off the tee, I don’t care how good you putt, it will be impossible for you to play your best golf.
How to Create an Effective Practice Session for Chipping and Pitching
I’m not going to get into the particulars of the setups and techniques to hit chips and pitches (you can watch one of my videos here ), the only thing I will say is to approach chips as little swing and pitches as slightly bigger swings, meaning they both have a backswing and finish position, and require some body rotation and arm swing, just like the full swing.
But this blog is about how to be more effective with practicing these shots. There’s no mystery that you can hit the ball great, but without a good short game, you’ll never be able to take advantage of the great ball-striking days.
Making the Most of Your Practice Sessions (Putting)
This is Part 1 of “Making the Most of Your Practice Sessions.” In my last blog I laid out the time frame if you had only one hour to practice and the ration of practicing to playing. It’s important that we start close to the hole and work our way to the full swing when working on all aspects of the game in a single practice session. I recommend starting from the hole (putting) then work your way to chipping, sand, etc and finish with the full swing. The reason for this is if you start with the full swing, you may never get to the short game.
How Much Practice Do You Need to Become a Better Golfer?
So what’s the ideal practice plan? While it can differ from student to student here are some general guidelines if you have an hour to practice. If you are REALLY serious about improving your game, ideally for every hour you play you should practice close to the same amount of time. So if you play nine holes and it takes 2 hours, you should try to practice 2 hours. I know that’s a lot, but it gives you an idea of the ratio of playing to practicing, but I think if you can spend 50% of you time practicing that would be great. So in the same scenario, that would be 1 hour for every 2 hours of playing. So here’s an example of how I think you can effectively use 1 hour of practice time:
The Danger of Taking Only One Golf Lesson
Recently a student called me in dire need of a lesson, and unfortunately I wasn’t able to do the lesson the day the student was requesting. In the meantime, I was asked to watch a video of a lesson he had taken at a resort when he was on vacation. It’s pretty much become the standard, at resorts and golf schools, to either give a student a DVD of the lesson or to email the student a link in which they can view the lesson. Fortunately this was the latter so he emailed me the link, clicked on it, and viewed the lesson. This was at a very reputable golf school.
Crossing the Bridge from the Driving Range to the Golf Course
A few weeks ago I wrote a blog on how my son Quinten was getting coached and learning new techniques for his position as an ice hockey goalie and how the things he was doing in practice were not being done in a game situation. So this blog is kind of a part two/follow-up from that one.
Incorporating Your New Swing Changes onto the Golf Course
I continue to observe learning physical skills, other than golf, and how to humans improve at those skills and how I can help coach my students in golf. In particular, I have been observing my 9 year old son, Quinten. In the past year he has started to have an interest in playing sports – hockey in particular..
