Over the last few months, my practice has been solely focused on making swing changes. As winter began, I knew I needed to put a shift in on my swing to hopefully crack the habits that could become the handbrake on my progress.
So I made a plan to go deep on one move at a time, starting with my inside takeaway. And so far, it seems like things are heading in the right direction. There’s still a way to go but as we make a chilly crawl towards spring and the beginning of the competitive golf season, my sights are lifting out from the weeds of winter work and towards performance-based practice.
Here’s my 3 step plan to get performance ready as a single figure golfer who wants to get to scratch:
Dial In My Distance Control
After a winter of getting the reps in, it’s time to get those distances dialled – from putting to pitching to full swings – so that when I’m out on the course and I find myself with a particular yardage or length of putt, I can give myself a good chance of getting close.
I’ll be starting with full swings to get an updated sense of how far I’m hitting each club, especially as I’m hoping there might be a little extra juice in the tank after making these changes.
I’ll work my way up through my bag, noting down my carry yardages for each club. And keeping an eye out for those cracker and clanger shots too – getting a benchmark for how far my bad and brilliant shots go, so that I can allow for that yardage window when I’m on the course.
Then I’ll focus on my pitching from 30 – 100 yards, following Dan Grieve’s pitching system. When I look back on last season, pitching was an area of my game that let me down – often leaving those feely (rather than full shot) yardages short and giving myself a lot of work to do with a long putt. That’s why I’m keen to get my pitching distances dialled and have a system to follow, so that I can feel confident I’ll have a chance of getting close…or at least closer than before.
I’ll also be dialling in my distance control when it comes to my putting, so that I can get my feel back after those frozen greens and do my best to two putt tops when I’ve got a card in my hands.
(Image credit: Jess Ratcliffe)
Focus On Target Over Technique
As I’ve been working on my swing, I’ve spent the majority of my…
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