Lack Of Confidence Causes The Golf Shank (Video) - by Pete Styles
Lack Of Confidence Causes The Golf Shank (Video) - by Pete Styles

For a lot of golfers, they might find that the shanking the golf ball not necessarily down to massive technical flaws, but maybe small technical flaws compounded by problems with their mental approach, their mental state. So they might be lacking in confidence and that lack of confidence really manifests itself in making tight golf swings, golf swings that don't resemble the stuff you've been doing in the week on the driving range. It’s not the same as when you get to the first tee on a Saturday morning. Big competition, you got a little wedge shot into the first green, and suddenly that shank creeps back into your game.

And you think well I’ve not been doing that all week. So we need to consider how we can try and improve your confidence out in the golf course. The first thing is to make sure that you have had some good quality range time in the week before. So if you've got a big game coming up, try and spend about a week before standing on the range really working out the technical issues. So if you do have some technical issues within your swing spend some time on the driving range trying to eradicate those. So you really get confident that you can strike the middle or even the toe side of the golf club just to avoid anything getting too much into the heel. Then when we go on to the golf course, we always want to change the mindset from thinking about it being a very important competition and every shot is very important. We've almost got to go with this, I've got nothing to lose attitude. Knowing that if you do start shanking it, you're not going to win the competition anyway. So you might as well go with this nothing-to-lose attitude. Try and make good quality swings each time and just focus on striking the middle of the ball every time. The other thing you could consider doing is actually spending some time on the golf course. Away from the driving range, but on the golf course but potentially on a slightly easier golf course. So a golf course where if you were to shank it, it wouldn’t actually put you in too much trouble. So if you're going around the golf course, there's water down both sides of every hole and you shank it straight in the water that will really damage your confidence. But if you've got nothing over there, maybe just grass or another fairway for example, and if you were to shank that ball, it’s not going to put you in too much trouble. But when you set up to the ball, you have a bit more confidence. You have a bit more belief that you're actually going to start looking towards hitting the ball on the green rather than worrying about what the hazard is over here. So work on those three elements if you can to help improve your confidence and your focus on striking the ball well. And hopefully when you go out on the golf course next time and you are under pressure you’ll have more confidence and less shanks. 2016-07-08

For a lot of golfers, they might find that the shanking the golf ball not necessarily down to massive technical flaws, but maybe small technical flaws compounded by problems with their mental approach, their mental state. So they might be lacking in confidence and that lack of confidence really manifests itself in making tight golf swings, golf swings that don't resemble the stuff you've been doing in the week on the driving range. It’s not the same as when you get to the first tee on a Saturday morning. Big competition, you got a little wedge shot into the first green, and suddenly that shank creeps back into your game.

And you think well I’ve not been doing that all week. So we need to consider how we can try and improve your confidence out in the golf course. The first thing is to make sure that you have had some good quality range time in the week before. So if you've got a big game coming up, try and spend about a week before standing on the range really working out the technical issues. So if you do have some technical issues within your swing spend some time on the driving range trying to eradicate those. So you really get confident that you can strike the middle or even the toe side of the golf club just to avoid anything getting too much into the heel.

Then when we go on to the golf course, we always want to change the mindset from thinking about it being a very important competition and every shot is very important. We've almost got to go with this, I've got nothing to lose attitude. Knowing that if you do start shanking it, you're not going to win the competition anyway. So you might as well go with this nothing-to-lose attitude. Try and make good quality swings each time and just focus on striking the middle of the ball every time. The other thing you could consider doing is actually spending some time on the golf course.

Away from the driving range, but on the golf course but potentially on a slightly easier golf course. So a golf course where if you were to shank it, it wouldn’t actually put you in too much trouble. So if you're going around the golf course, there's water down both sides of every hole and you shank it straight in the water that will really damage your confidence. But if you've got nothing over there, maybe just grass or another fairway for example, and if you were to shank that ball, it’s not going to put you in too much trouble.

But when you set up to the ball, you have a bit more confidence. You have a bit more belief that you're actually going to start looking towards hitting the ball on the green rather than worrying about what the hazard is over here. So work on those three elements if you can to help improve your confidence and your focus on striking the ball well. And hopefully when you go out on the golf course next time and you are under pressure you’ll have more confidence and less shanks.