Monday, March 8, 2010
Patience and focus
Another poor showing in consecutive tournaments had me really evaluating my current effort level with regard to practice and improvement. I spent a few hours last night reviewing in my head how I approach my entire golf game. One of the glaring things that stood out was my complete lack of focus during the round, which I believe is a direct reflection of how I practice. Instead of going to the range and just hitting ball after ball with the simple focus of ball flight, I need to work on swing plane drills and alignment drills. My short game is a very strong part of my game at the moment which is why I'm not posting scores in the 90's. Starting today, fitness, flexiblity and sound fundamentals are going to take point over any type of power lesson or "new" swing thought. hopefully my focus on these things will prepare me for the seasons first major at Sandpiper golf course in Santa Barbara in three weeks!
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Good luck at the Sandpiper Major. We still have yet to have our opening tournaments out here in DC! I'm thinking I'll have to play all of the west coast Majors starting once I'm out there in May in order to compete in the Merit Order.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to patience and focus, I sometimes find myself rushing through shot selections when in tournaments. It wasn't until I read an article last year that made me realize that was how I was practicing as well. I was just hitting balls with out any reason or direction. Thus, I wasn't focused at the range and was not focused on the course.
The article (I wish I could find it for you) mentioned many things that could help, but "practice with purpose" was the one thing I took away from it. Now I spend less time actually hitting balls, and more time thinking about why I need to practice that particular shot, setting up correctly, aligning myself to the target better, and most importantly, adding "focus" as a part of my pre-shot routine. I can't stress how much having a routine that is simple and repeatable was important to me. The best players in the world do it. Why not me? I attribute my gradually lowering handicap to that alone.
Patience will actually be a welcome repercussion of the newly gained focus. Hope that helps!