One Thing the Average Golfer Can Take Away from Maja Stark’s Incredible Sunday
It is important to strive to hit the ball better, and with that, hit more greens in regulation. However, the reality is that the vast majority of golfers will never have enough time carved out of their busy schedules to put in the practice necessary to reach the levels they wish to achieve. So don't get frustrated with your game. Perspective is everything, especially when time is limited for most of us to improve our individual play.
Moving Day at the Amundi Evian Championship: Keep Trusting in the Good
Golf is a game of streaks, both good and bad. Anyone that has played the game, for any length of time, understands this to be true. Sometimes, after a streak of really good play, golfers start to look for the other shoe to drop and the good to come to a screeching halt. It’s in our nature as humans to almost feel as though good things can’t last forever, and with that pattern of thinking, we almost conjure up the bad to sneak in.
Getting Through Rough Patches in Your Game
We all go through moments where we doubt ourselves and our game, even the pros. The week prior to the 2022 KPMG Women's PGA Championship, In Gee Chun seemed to have had some doubt about her game. As it was reported after her win, In Gee had one of those chats with her sister, that chat that many golfers often have, where the purpose of their playing came into question. It came down to asking herself what she really wanted out of her golf experience.
Maintaining Momentum in Your Game
Is there a trick to riding momentum when you are in the early stages of gaining it? Or what about a way to break out of a downwards trajectory and nerves start to creep into our game? In either case, what is happening is something that is generally outside of our norm and can happen during a single round or even a stretch of days or weeks…both for the good and the bad. I have had many students over the years go through both great runs and bad ones.
How a Match Play Mentality Can Help You In Any Format
When discussing the mental game, and strategy in golf, and having a mindset conducive to scoring our best, experts often say you should have a “One Shot at a Time” mentality. When grinding during a match play event, that train of thought is absolutely one that is often found in a winner.
The Art of the Bounce Back
We see it often: after taking a double bogey or going out in a few over, a Tour professional will suddenly find it within themselves to rebound in a big way. Most at that level have discovered the art of the bounce back. This is actually something measured in professional golf. Bounce Back (also known as Reverse Bounce Back) is a stat that measures how a golfer recovers after a bogey or worse to make birdie or better on the next hole.
What You Need to Know to Keep Your Game Sharp at 50 and Beyond
For many golfers that have long had dreams of playing at the highest level, age 50 can mean a new beginning. I even hate to call it “Senior Golf” anymore as 50 no longer seems to be a marker of one’s game getting over the hill…quite the contrary in many cases.
What You Can Learn from the Game’s Best as they Make Final Tune-Up’s
What are the things the pros are focusing on during their prep, and what you can learn from it? Much like I spoke of back in April, at The Masters, each player has a unique and specific way that they lay out their practice schedule. In general terms however, we see many follow a playbook similar to below…
The Art of Patience in Golf
Regardless of where your golf game is, you need to learn to exercise the ability to stay patient. Whether you are a world-class golfer, a brand-new adult player or a highly competitive junior, you need to learn to be patient in this game. If you don’t, it is very, very hard to imagine that you will have any kind of real, and lasting success playing.
Stay Committed to the Process
Where players like Marina Alex excel is in their commitment to a process and working a plan to reach certain goals that they set for themselves. If there ever was a “secret sauce” in golf, it is in this fact. To improve your game, you must have a plan to create a pathway to reach the goals you set for yourself. You must work on those things deliberately and diligently, but you must also remember to have fun with it while doing it.
Play to Your Strengths and Accept Your Weaknesses
John Rahm is as consistent as he is because he has complete control of the clubface. His backswing is short, which is a hallmark for consistent ball strikers, and his unorthodox move in setting the club at the top, and how he transitions down from there, allows him to keep the ball in front of him and in play the majority of the time.
Free Up Your Mind, Play Better Golf
Have you ever noticed this? While on the course, you drop a second ball, perhaps out of frustration, or maybe simply because you want to try to “figure something out” and you stripe it? A shot that comes off the club like a thing of beauty. Sometimes we call this phenomenon “our second guy/girl.”
Determined and Decisive: What Scheffler & Smith Have in Common
Scheffler and Smith have been phenomenal to watch the past few months. Both players are showing the same type of composure and mental toughness that the game's greats are known for. Much like a Tiger or Jack in their prime, Scheffler and Smith are both confident and decisive once a decision has been made on the shot to play.
Prepping for a Test of Endurance: Augusta National Golf Club
With Tiger remarkably making his comeback this week (a feat that almost seemed impossible even a few short weeks ago) a lot has been made of the idea of his being prepared, physically, to make his way around the course for 72 holes. For many players, being prepared for this tough test is something that is weeks, and even months, in the making.
The Keys to Maintaining Positive Momentum
The lesson we saw from Atthaya in these moments was her ability to gather herself and keep the good outcomes coming. Part of honing that ability to gather yourself after a slight trip up, during an otherwise good stretch, is to recognize that moments like that will indeed happen.
Shift Your Strategy For Success Like Anirban Lahiri
Anirban Lahiri is the 322nd ranked player in the world and the leader heading into the fourth round of The PLAYERS Championship. In his 15 years as a playing professional, despite close calls, he has no wins on the PGA Tour. “I was hitting my irons horribly before this week,” said Lahiri in a post round chat with Todd Lewis. In asking Anirban, what he might equate his success so far this week to, Lewis got an answer that some may find interesting… “I changed my swing weight in my irons by 1 and ½.”
Find Your Flow in Each Round
Every round is unique, and every round has its own flow. The difference between a great score, good score, or poor score is how you manage the flow of that round. Several factors come into play and are required for you to own the flow of your round, and most of those have to do with shots on and around the green.
On Tough Days Focus on Some Classic Tips from The King
I’ve been lucky enough to play Bay Hill on 10 occasions. One of the things that has always struck me with the layout are the number of holes that you really need to be cognizant of the lines you choose to hit your drives and approach shots on. Add wind into the mix, like we saw on Saturday, and you’ll need to be even more careful. With those two situations in mind, a strategically demanding course, and windy conditions, I would suggest these two classic tips, that came from the King himself, Arnold Palmer…
Practicing Mindfulness in Golf
In golf, if we keep thinking about a mistake we made on a previous hole, or project how our score will turn out at the end of the round, our minds become filled with images of the past or future. It’s as if we’re daydreaming. Lacking mindfulness of the task at hand leads to poor decision-making before the shot and distracts us while we’re swinging.
How to Tackle a Tough Course: A Strong Mentality
Shane Lowry, like others that tend to play hard courses well, usually equate that success to mindset. “You gotta take both the good breaks and those bad breaks on the chin and just move on…just shot the best score you can” Lowry said in a post 3rd round interview. With Shane’s thoughts in mind, I wanted to give you a few tips on how to play tough courses well, or at least better than your playing partners.
Plan, Prepare and Execute
On Saturday February 5th, at the AT&T Pebble Beach Po-Am, Beau Hossler and Jordan Spieth moved up to the top of the leaderboard with a 65, and 63 respectively. One of the things that stuck out most to me with their play in the 3rd round was the extreme planning, and preparation that went into each and every shot, followed by extreme trust and execution. Find out what you can learn from Jordan and Beau...
A Mental Fitness Quiz: How Do You Stack Up?
At some point, your mental fitness needs to be evaluated and if areas of weakness are identified, then a pathway forward, to become stronger in those area, needs to be planned out. In the interest of providing golfers a first step in doing this, I turned to one of the most renowned golf mental coaches in the game, Dr. Joe Parent.
Staying in the Moment is Everything
“I just wanted to hit one shot at a time…I know that sounds cliché, but we spoke about that early in the day.” This was a post final round comment from 2022 Sentry Tournament of Champions winner, Cameron Smith.
We hear this thought a lot in golf…One shot at a Time…Staying in the Moment…Staying Patient. Lets talk about this...
The Little Things We Tend to Forget
Playing good golf never happens by accident. There are countless things that go into being able to post a great score on the card. Many times, golfers tend to forget some of the little things…things that at the end of the day could be attributed to a stroke or two added to that final total.