Golf's biggest problem

[JustOne]

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Quality!

 

[drawboy]

They do not have to get up at 6.30am drive to work, do 8/12 hours come home and help the kids with their homework, do the ironing,cooking,cleaning all the things 99% of us have to do to make a living.

You've got a car? by gum, you're lucky.
I used to have to walk to school carrying all 8 kids on my back, then run to work. I used to arrive for work 10 minutes before I left the day before..............

TSK........

 

[kid2]

Concentration and self belief!

Golfmmad.

I believe this sums it up pretty much.
A pretty good swing helps too.

Obviously, you have to have a swing that hits the ball roughly where you want it to go in the first place.
It doesnt have to be a thing of beauty either, as long as it works for you.
Then having the concentration on every shot to make your body swing the club the way you want it to and having the confidence to know that...
"If I swing like this, the ball will do that."

If you watch the greats down through the years, Nicklaus, Palmer, Norman, Woods etc, they all had that confidence, self belief and complete focus during the shot that made them hit the great shots time after time after time.

The tricky bit is getting the swing in the first place.
As has been mentioned before, how can you be consistent if you keep changing your swing.

Sure, take some lessons and practice as much as you can, but make it quality time. 25 balls with full concentration is better than 50 lashes at the driver.

So I'd say find a swing that you can be confident with to hit the ball where you want it to go and practice concentrating making that swing on every shot.

Good luck

I agree as above.

Does anyone else think that, unintentionally, the groups that we play in are partly to blame and make concentration more difficult??

Nearly every single one of us said that one of the main things we value in our golf is good company and the banter that brings.

For a handicap golfer that plays once or twice a week, it becomes very difficult to be able to switch on & off the concentration when it's our turn to play.

How many times have you been stood over the ball and still have a smirk on your face from the joke or story your playing partner has told you. Or were holding back a laugh after they had just topped one 10 yards into the pond and are now beating their bag Basil Fawlty style??

I completely agree with both of these posts......
And on both counts i have experienced them all....

A question for you Bob.....Its something that may be on some peoples minds
If the majority of Club players struggle with a Left to Right ball flight would it be more beneficial for them to not fight that flight and try and work with it instead....

Im not saying that the have to slice the ball all the time but rather work on there fundementals and if there swing path is out to in and produces a workable fade that they can confidently call on then enjoy it....

Maybe there are too many players trying to change a half decent out to in path that is pretty repeatable to the distance eating draw flight just because they think that its better for them....
I have an out to in path as you know but the last 3 outings i actually felt more comfortable playing at the left side of the course and allowing for the flight. I used to take dead aim at the centres of greens and my targets but iv been scoring better and getting better results the other way..Now i dont hit banana shots but the ball would move maybe 5-10 yards in the air which is managable i think.

Just a question for some to ponder on!

 

[richart]

They do not have to get up at 6.30am drive to work, do 8/12 hours come home and help the kids with their homework, do the ironing,cooking,cleaning all the things 99% of us have to do to make a living.

You've got a car? by gum, you're lucky.
I used to have to walk to school carrying all 8 kids on my back, then run to work. I used to arrive for work 10 minutes before I left the day before..............

Many a good tune played by an old fiddler eh Bob.

 

[Imurg]

99% of golfers approach each shot differently so how can they be consistent, a good pre shot routine would take a chunk of most handicaps.

As long as it doesn't take forever. The longer it takes the more you think....

 

[pokerjoke]

Concentration and self belief!

Golfmmad.

I believe this sums it up pretty much.
A pretty good swing helps too.

Obviously, you have to have a swing that hits the ball roughly where you want it to go in the first place.
It doesnt have to be a thing of beauty either, as long as it works for you.
Then having the concentration on every shot to make your body swing the club the way you want it to and having the confidence to know that...
"If I swing like this, the ball will do that."

If you watch the greats down through the years, Nicklaus, Palmer, Norman, Woods etc, they all had that confidence, self belief and complete focus during the shot that made them hit the great shots time after time after time.

The tricky bit is getting the swing in the first place.
As has been mentioned before, how can you be consistent if you keep changing your swing.

Sure, take some lessons and practice as much as you can, but make it quality time. 25 balls with full concentration is better than 50 lashes at the driver.

So I'd say find a swing that you can be confident with to hit the ball where you want it to go and practice concentrating making that swing on every shot.

Good luck

I agree as above.

Does anyone else think that, unintentionally, the groups that we play in are partly to blame and make concentration more difficult??

Nearly every single one of us said that one of the main things we value in our golf is good company and the banter that brings.

For a handicap golfer that plays once or twice a week, it becomes very difficult to be able to switch on & off the concentration when it's our turn to play.

How many times have you been stood over the ball and still have a smirk on your face from the joke or story your playing partner has told you. Or were holding back a laugh after they had just topped one 10 yards into the pond and are now beating their bag Basil Fawlty style??

I completely agree with both of these posts......
And on both counts i have experienced them all....

A question for you Bob.....Its something that may be on some peoples minds
If the majority of Club players struggle with a Left to Right ball flight would it be more beneficial for them to not fight that flight and try and work with it instead....
Maybe there are too many players trying to change a half decent out to in path that is pretty repeatable to the distance eating draw flight just because they think that its better for them....
I have an out to in path as you know but the last 3 outings i actually felt more comfortable playing at the left side of the course and allowing for the flight. I used to take dead aim at the centres of greens and my targets but iv been scoring better and getting better results the other way..Now i dont hit banana shots but the ball would move maybe 5-10 yards in the air which is managable i think.

Just a question for some to ponder on!

Im not saying that the have to slice the ball all the time but rather work on there fundementals and if there swing path is out to in and produces a workable fade that they can confidently call on then enjoy it....





Have you been watching me play?My game is like this,however i had my first proper lesson the other day[videod] and the pro said i had probably reach my handicap limit hitting it this way.He got me hitting it more from the inside.I dont know if hes right,however i feel a lot more comfortable doing it my way.Maybe hes right and i will have to change.

 

[goldenbare]

Hi all, I've just picked up this thread from yesterday and of course like most others agree that we would all like consistency, we can all par/birdie all holes on our courses at some time.
I think a point to be made is regarding everyone's natural hand eye coordination. We might have all wanted to be pro footballers when we were kids and we all had the same amount of time to hone our skills, but its a fact of life that we had to accept that some of our mates were better than us and in my case not many were worse
Pro golfers come in to the top 5% of people with natural hand eye coordination and would probably do well at any sport they wanted to.
I think that however much we try their is a limit to want all of us can achieve and the mental approach can only work within the parameters of our natural ability

 

[coolhand]

What's really depressing (or alternatively liberating if seen from a certain point of view) is that the elusive goal of consistency seems to be impossible for even the pro’s to find despite having loads of time for practice/coaching.
The outcome of their inconsistency might be less severe in terms of total score but it’s still there, otherwise they’d hit the middle of every fairway, make every GIR and sink every put inside 10ft – golf would be very boring to watch.
Basically their bad shots are less bad and less frequent.

 

[kid2]

Coolhand i think that with that answer you have won Bobs Mars bar
After reading your reply it makes complete sense!