Golfers, in general, have a unsatiable appetite for anything instructional. They snack on tips and YouTube videos, dine on magazine articles, and feast on anything the tour pros say.
They get so much information from so many different sources, it leaves them feeling stuffed but dumbstruck. Like a Thanksgiving Day hangover.
Perhaps the hardest thing about improving your golf game is learning how to sift out the information that doesn’t apply to you. Because you simply can’t listen to all of it — or even half of it — without getting completely confused.
Just the other day I saw a hot young tour pro saying “slide your hips.” I’ve been fighting that bad habit for years. Most people say the shaft should be pointing at the target at the top of your swing. Now they’re saying left of the target. Open the clubface in the bunker. Don’t open the clubface. The more you read, the more conflicted it gets.
But it takes discipline to ignore entire sections of a magazine. Like going through the buffet line and passing up the fried foods… You know you want it, even though it may not be good for you.
The best way to avoid the smorgasbord effect is to have a clearly defined goal, and stick only to the information that’ll help you in one single area at a time. For instance, you may want to improve your short game. Be more specific… you want to get up and down more often when you miss a green. That means you have to improve both your chipping and your putting.
So forget about all those articles about gaining distance off the tee or hitting a hybred out of a fairway bunker. Don’t go for the full buffet! In fact, stop reading all together and just go out and practice.
One solid hour of chipping is worth more than 40 hours of reading about chipping.
As Andy Heinly says, “practice makes permanent.” So here are a few things to remember when you get out there:
• Keep it simple. You don’t need to master the Phil Michelson flop shot to be good around the greens. The short game is a matter of feel and mental fortitude, so don’t complicate matters. There’s nothing wrong with a meat and potato diet. Just make sure you have a good, solid set-up position for the type of shot you want to hit, and then swing with authority. You’ll figure out how to get the ball close to the hole pretty quickly.
• Zero in on the target. With all your focus on the hole, you’ll be amazed how close you come. But the minute you start thinking about anything else, you’ll find yourself struggling.
• Put the pressure on! Don’t just dump a bucket of balls out next to the green and start hitting the same shot over and over again. Chip one, and then go putt it in. Have a contest with a buddy to see who can get up and down more often. Put a little bet on it. The more competitive you can make your practice, the better you’ll be when it really counts.
• Make it real. Try to replicate the situations you normal run into on your golf course… high ones out of thick rough, low runners from a tight lie, or whatever the case may be. Think about the places where you commonly miss, and practice that specific shot.
The next time you sit down with a golf magazine, approach it like you would a late night buffet. On a cruise ship. On a really stormy night.
If you gorge yourself you’ll definitely regret it later.
