September Pro Tip - Practice

Practice! Practice! Practice! Practice makes perfect according many individuals who have made it to the top of their respective sports.
Babe Didrikson Zaharias said: “A couple of hours of practice are worth ten sloppy rounds.”
NBA Basketball star Larry Bird tells it this way: “I don’t know if I practiced more than anybody, but I sure practiced enough. I still wonder if somebody, somewhere, was practicing more than me.”
Tennis star Ivan Lendl commented: “If I don’t practice the way I should, then I won’t play the way that I know I can.”
Legendary baseball player Pete Rose has said: “My father taught me that the only way you can make good at anything is to practice, and then practice some more.”

To get good at or better at anything, practice is a key component. If you haven’t read best selling author Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, he proves the point with very specific examples. Top golfers and other professional athletes spend much more time practicing than they do playing. Do you? Do you practice at all? If not, now is a great time to start. It doesn’t take long. Many golfers expect to shoot their best score or close to it every
time they play. This is an unrealistic goal, especially without a good practice routine. Practicing keeps the body loose, helps reduce swing thoughts, builds muscle memory and gives you feedback on your swing.

Spend the most time where you play the most shots. Chipping and putting account for roughly 50% of your shots. Therefore you should be practicing them for at least half of your practice time. Practice chipping out of a variety of lies with different clubs to different hole locations. Pay attention to how the ball reacts out of each lie. Use your hand eye co-ordination. Focus on where you want the ball to land and hit it there. Don’t
focus on the hole or you will struggle to control where the ball finishes. For putting, get comfortable making putts from four feet away and closer. The more you make on the putting green, the more comfortable you will be making them on the course. Remember to keep you head still.

Block Practice vs. Random Practice. When learning something new, it is often valuable to start off with block practice. Block practice is practicing the same thing over and over, using the same club to perform the same shot towards the same target. This form of practice helps build muscle memory and comfort with a new skill. It is the most common form of practice. The problem with block practice is that it in no way emulates what happens during a round of golf. This is where Random Practice fits in. Random practice involves changing clubs, targets and flight patterns with each shot. Many people who do Random Practice pretend they are playing a round of golf on the driving range. This is a more effective way of practice for those who are not trying to perfect a new skill.

Regardless of how you do it, my message to you is practice! Without it you will only ever be mediocre at whatever it is you are trying to master.

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