Pete Styles – PGA Teaching Pro
When you're learning to play the game and golf there's going to be huge pressure on you to get the right swing technique to improve the way you hit the golf ball. That's undoubtedly an area that you'll definitely focus on but what about the mental side of the game is that something you're focused on as well. and here are some of my favorite tips for relatively new golfers are starting to play the game to try and improve their score. So Tip number one would be all costs try and avoid penalty shots you might consider well you get the odd penalty shot on the round of golf at the moment but that's a physical thing because I slice the ball into a water hazard. So how can I mentally think to not get penalty shots. Well you can think differently about how you play the hole you could think differently about the club that you use off the tee and you can take a less risky line to the fly ball lying to the course management approach to try and play away from those penalty area so looking on the tee for the out of bounds fence or the water hazard and then using your mental skills to choose the right club the right line then hit the right shot with your physical skills, but if you're aiming for very difficult goal shots close to water hazards going for greens that you shouldn't be going for trying to cut doglegs on corners then your physical skill lets you down certainly get the penalty up to actually getting penalty shots could be a mental issue.
So let's try and cut those out as much as we can. All there is I'd like to focus on would be to make sure that every hole that you get to is a fresh challenge so rather than thinking of golf as a eighteen hole four hour marathon slog think about breaking down each hole into a fresh challenge so we finish whole Number one we arrive on the hole number two and in a way we can forget about what happened on hold the one we put our bag down we assessed the hole as a completely fresh challenge we choose an appropriate club and we play hole number two same again we get to hold a three part hold on the two behind us walk to threshold number three and take that as a new challenge and to that end I'd also like you to consider my third mental game tip would be that when you get to the halfway house and when you get to hold the nine that you avoid adding up the score card some golfers the whole way round will be doing mental arithmetic looking at the scorecard working out where they are under over their handicap. Now for some golfers that works but for others adding that extra level of pressure of knowing exactly where their score is could sometimes actually bring their game down a level they actually play with lower score because they're thinking too hard about the score they're going to try and make all the fact that about to beat their best score or they might shoot that handicap if only they could par last or if only they could shoot a good number on the back nine. So just try and avoid doing the maths and take each hole as a fresh challenge and avoid those penalty shots and I think those tips will help you become mentally stronger and improve your got skills.
2018-08-22 Pete Styles – PGA Teaching Pro
When you're learning to play the game and golf there's going to be huge pressure on you to get the right swing technique to improve the way you hit the golf ball. That's undoubtedly an area that you'll definitely focus on but what about the mental side of the game is that something you're focused on as well. and here are some of my favorite tips for relatively new golfers are starting to play the game to try and improve their score. So Tip number one would be all costs try and avoid penalty shots you might consider well you get the odd penalty shot on the round of golf at the moment but that's a physical thing because I slice the ball into a water hazard. So how can I mentally think to not get penalty shots. Well you can think differently about how you play the hole you could think differently about the club that you use off the tee and you can take a less risky line to the fly ball lying to the course management approach to try and play away from those penalty area so looking on the tee for the out of bounds fence or the water hazard and then using your mental skills to choose the right club the right line then hit the right shot with your physical skills, but if you're aiming for very difficult goal shots close to water hazards going for greens that you shouldn't be going for trying to cut doglegs on corners then your physical skill lets you down certainly get the penalty up to actually getting penalty shots could be a mental issue.
So let's try and cut those out as much as we can. All there is I'd like to focus on would be to make sure that every hole that you get to is a fresh challenge so rather than thinking of golf as a eighteen hole four hour marathon slog think about breaking down each hole into a fresh challenge so we finish whole Number one we arrive on the hole number two and in a way we can forget about what happened on hold the one we put our bag down we assessed the hole as a completely fresh challenge we choose an appropriate club and we play hole number two same again we get to hold a three part hold on the two behind us walk to threshold number three and take that as a new challenge and to that end I'd also like you to consider my third mental game tip would be that when you get to the halfway house and when you get to hold the nine that you avoid adding up the score card some golfers the whole way round will be doing mental arithmetic looking at the scorecard working out where they are under over their handicap. Now for some golfers that works but for others adding that extra level of pressure of knowing exactly where their score is could sometimes actually bring their game down a level they actually play with lower score because they're thinking too hard about the score they're going to try and make all the fact that about to beat their best score or they might shoot that handicap if only they could par last or if only they could shoot a good number on the back nine. So just try and avoid doing the maths and take each hole as a fresh challenge and avoid those penalty shots and I think those tips will help you become mentally stronger and improve your got skills.
