What Not to Do, Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles
What Not to Do, Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles

So we’ve talked a little bit now about what you can learn from the better players, what you can learn from watching the best players on the television. You can absorb their attitude, their approach and course management skills from how they play. But there are a few things you got to be careful of.

These guys are very, very highly skilled. One's like a highly tuned racing car, so they need an awful lot of information to go into their heads, they can process the information very quickly and then they can go ahead and produce a good skill at the end of it.

Now if you’re at the golf course and you throw in all these information into your head about wind directions and slopes and lines and club selections and what did Tiger say about this and what did Pete say about that and then you stand there and you just stand there with a ball and you freeze. Paralysis by analysis.

You stood over the golf ball and you just can't take the club bat, you've almost got the yeps, that's going to be no good for your game.

The amounts of time I've seen people on the golf course throwing the grass, looking at the GPS and the bush mill to get the distances and they stand there and they hit three inches behind the ball and the ball goes here.

There's no point to that. You have to still allow your natural skill, your natural ability to flow. So beware of the paralysis by analysis. Likewise when you’re potting, don’t be measuring the distance and the break and how much it’s going to curve three feet left or right and then you get the break perfectly right but you leave it six feet short or you knock it eight foot passed the hole.

Focus on what's the biggest priority, what’s the most important. The biggest importance when you're hitting a full swing is the ball strike. Just get a good strike.

If you’re picking a spot, get the pace right; if you get the pace right, even if you misread it, you'll still be one or two feet left and right. There's no point having too much information, too many sort of things that you're trying to copy what the best players do, if you then don’t get the basics right.

So the last thought just before you pull the trigger is just get a good strike. The last thought just before you pull the trigger on a spot is get the pace right.

Get your fundamental right. Get the golf ball moving in the right direction and then everything else will help a little bit more just to be a bit more consistent around the golf course without too much information overload.

2012-06-01

So we’ve talked a little bit now about what you can learn from the better players, what you can learn from watching the best players on the television. You can absorb their attitude, their approach and course management skills from how they play. But there are a few things you got to be careful of.

These guys are very, very highly skilled. One's like a highly tuned racing car, so they need an awful lot of information to go into their heads, they can process the information very quickly and then they can go ahead and produce a good skill at the end of it.

Now if you’re at the golf course and you throw in all these information into your head about wind directions and slopes and lines and club selections and what did Tiger say about this and what did Pete say about that and then you stand there and you just stand there with a ball and you freeze. Paralysis by analysis.

You stood over the golf ball and you just can't take the club bat, you've almost got the yeps, that's going to be no good for your game.

The amounts of time I've seen people on the golf course throwing the grass, looking at the GPS and the bush mill to get the distances and they stand there and they hit three inches behind the ball and the ball goes here.

There's no point to that. You have to still allow your natural skill, your natural ability to flow. So beware of the paralysis by analysis. Likewise when you’re potting, don’t be measuring the distance and the break and how much it’s going to curve three feet left or right and then you get the break perfectly right but you leave it six feet short or you knock it eight foot passed the hole.

Focus on what's the biggest priority, what’s the most important. The biggest importance when you're hitting a full swing is the ball strike. Just get a good strike.

If you’re picking a spot, get the pace right; if you get the pace right, even if you misread it, you'll still be one or two feet left and right. There's no point having too much information, too many sort of things that you're trying to copy what the best players do, if you then don’t get the basics right.

So the last thought just before you pull the trigger is just get a good strike. The last thought just before you pull the trigger on a spot is get the pace right.

Get your fundamental right. Get the golf ball moving in the right direction and then everything else will help a little bit more just to be a bit more consistent around the golf course without too much information overload.