Pete Styles – PGA Teaching Pro
If you've ever opened a golf magazine or watched a tutorial on You Tube, the internet or even had a golf lesson you'll understand that the physical motions in the golf swing are not particularly easy. As golf coaches we spend a huge amount of time trying to get people to get the club in the right position swing in the right way. So we're trying to understand the physical motions of the swing and we know they're not easy but that really is only half of the battle because as a golfer gets better and improves their swing improves. The guy on the golf course they realize that swinging the club is only half the battle here a lot of the game of golf is a mental issue and golf is is mentally difficult unless we have really clear strategies to deal with things and you see a lot of golfers that that that swing the club well hit the ball really nicely on the driving range can't score for toffee out on the golf course because the mental difficulties that they have I think the first thing I would encourage you to be when you can't play on the golf course from a mental stand point is be patient be patient with yourself and with your game because you're not going to go out there and shoot the course record every single time you're not going to hit the golf ball perfectly.
You might even hit the ball as well as you did just twenty minutes ago on the driving range before you went to tee off to be super super patient or the road I would encourage you to focus on is looking at looking at each hole as a fresh challenge so when you arrive on the tee blank out what happened before and think OK this is me now this is my challenge to try and play this hole as best as I possibly can and then when I finish this hole put that one to bed go on to the next hole and treat each one as a challenge. Rather than just thinking I can I've got four hours of constant slog and mental pressure here before I actually finish this down around the gulf and then I'll have a op and see what I get try and take each holds a little mini challenge on itself and see if you can improve your score that way and one other thing which I think is a good mental challenge or a mental goal or target for you so. It's to try and avoid taking any penalty shots in around the golf course. Golf is hard enough but when you start adding on extra shots for hitting random shots as you go round that's that's a whole other problem and I would always argue that if anyone is you know sort of scoring a hundred or above that's probably five or six penalty shots in every round of golf from either losing golf balls or going in water houses or taking unplayable lies now if you can think about how can I manage my way round this golf course to avoid any penalties so if there's water hazard play away from if there's a bounce bounce play away from it. If there's an area where there's long grass and trees that might make the ball and playable again play away from it use your course management to avoid any penalty shots and if you can do that and hopefully the mental challenges of the game become easier as you improve the physical challenges as well your score should improve.
2018-08-21 Pete Styles – PGA Teaching Pro
If you've ever opened a golf magazine or watched a tutorial on You Tube, the internet or even had a golf lesson you'll understand that the physical motions in the golf swing are not particularly easy. As golf coaches we spend a huge amount of time trying to get people to get the club in the right position swing in the right way. So we're trying to understand the physical motions of the swing and we know they're not easy but that really is only half of the battle because as a golfer gets better and improves their swing improves. The guy on the golf course they realize that swinging the club is only half the battle here a lot of the game of golf is a mental issue and golf is is mentally difficult unless we have really clear strategies to deal with things and you see a lot of golfers that that that swing the club well hit the ball really nicely on the driving range can't score for toffee out on the golf course because the mental difficulties that they have I think the first thing I would encourage you to be when you can't play on the golf course from a mental stand point is be patient be patient with yourself and with your game because you're not going to go out there and shoot the course record every single time you're not going to hit the golf ball perfectly.
You might even hit the ball as well as you did just twenty minutes ago on the driving range before you went to tee off to be super super patient or the road I would encourage you to focus on is looking at looking at each hole as a fresh challenge so when you arrive on the tee blank out what happened before and think OK this is me now this is my challenge to try and play this hole as best as I possibly can and then when I finish this hole put that one to bed go on to the next hole and treat each one as a challenge. Rather than just thinking I can I've got four hours of constant slog and mental pressure here before I actually finish this down around the gulf and then I'll have a op and see what I get try and take each holds a little mini challenge on itself and see if you can improve your score that way and one other thing which I think is a good mental challenge or a mental goal or target for you so. It's to try and avoid taking any penalty shots in around the golf course. Golf is hard enough but when you start adding on extra shots for hitting random shots as you go round that's that's a whole other problem and I would always argue that if anyone is you know sort of scoring a hundred or above that's probably five or six penalty shots in every round of golf from either losing golf balls or going in water houses or taking unplayable lies now if you can think about how can I manage my way round this golf course to avoid any penalties so if there's water hazard play away from if there's a bounce bounce play away from it. If there's an area where there's long grass and trees that might make the ball and playable again play away from it use your course management to avoid any penalty shots and if you can do that and hopefully the mental challenges of the game become easier as you improve the physical challenges as well your score should improve.
