Pete Styles – PGA Teaching Pro

Having confidence and being a good ball striker really is a classic chicken and egg scenario in that, to be a good ball striker you might need to have confidence; and certainly to have confidence you are going to need to be a good ball striker. We often see that as you self-perpetuate, and then when a golfer goes out on to the driving range before they play, they click a few shots away. And if they strike those first 5 or 10 shots well, the confidence swells inside them to get the feeling like this is going to be my day, to go out on to the golf course and hopefully they just keep ripping it. First, green knock it in there with the 7-iron, get to the second green get a 6-iron thing, oh this is definitely my day, knock a 6-iron on that, by the end of round, they are hitting 3-irons on to the green, ripping that drivers, ripping that three, what doesn’t matter what the lie is like, that ball striking it just better, better, better because they started off well.

And then conversely maybe in the very next day, golfer goes out on to the range expects the same sort of thing, hits the first couple, a bit necky, a bit towy, a bit thin goes out on the golf course with no confidence, stands over that 7-iron, shanks it sideways into a bunker, goes on to the next hole, 6-iron again, tops it across the floor. And that confidence just erodes as that ball striking erodes in one drive to the next.

So how do we change this cycle if we are not striking it well, how do we change it round so we get confidence and really confidence has to come first and you have to have trust and belief in your own ability to strike the ball well. Often what we have seen in terms of a technical aspect when a golfer lacks confidence is they don’t commit to the shot, they don’t get through the ball very well. So we see a golfer setting up, aiming downhill on a 7-iron in hand and I make it swing to the top and I doubt myself, I don’t believe what I am going to achieve so I stay on my back foot, my lower half, locks out, my hands and arms start to get tension and pull it, and I am going to hit through the ball really badly with no confidence, don’t produce a good ball strike, setup to the next ball with even less confidence than I had, and maybe even worse ball strike.

If on the practice range before you go and play, you can work on the idea of firstly completing your backswing that’s quite a big part of getting confidence is complete your backswing. Then drive into your left hand side, have confidence that moving left is going to help you hit down on the ball and get a good ball strike, keep your hands and arms nicely extended as you stay down so your head is going to stay down, your hands and arms nicely extend, you rip through the hitting area and then balancing the follow through position. And if you can convince yourself to complete your swing, move across, stay down and follow, the hope is then that will break that cycle of negativity, that will improve your ball striking which themselves perpetuates improving the confidence and then we get back on that positive role again, better ball striking, more confidence, so on and so on. So try and improve your confidence to improve your ball striking.