"I'm practicing everyday, I hit it well on the range but I still don't shoot lower scores"
How often do you here a playing partner or a mate talk about how great his ball striking is but walks In the clubhouse furious that he doesn't beat his handicap? Or that person you see hit a beautiful ball & they have less confidence that a neglected animal?
Most golfers have never actually learnt or even thought of learning how to shoot lower scores and maximise their potential on the course.
Its no accident that top tour players shoot low scores week in week out and I know most of you are sitting their thinking "well if I could play fulltime and practice all day id be good too" where the fact is the higher you work your way up the world rankings the less time you have.
The bigger you are the more tournaments you travel too, then you have media commitments, physio, training, rest, car transfers, pro- am's, sponsors commitments, dinner events and the list goes on. After all these things you pretty wrecked and don't want to spend 6 hours hitting balls on the range.
So how do these guys & Gals do it? Well majority all know how to practice properly and build confidence in their game that can be transferred straight to the golf course. Now before I go any further as with pretty much everything in golf there are no "absolutes" this is based on my own accounts of playing tournament golf, research into the mindset of athletes as well as speaking to & observing what top players do.
Most casual observers would look at tour players on TV and think shit they make it look easy, but id say nearly every golfer out there is unhappy with certain swing traits or parts of their game and are working tirelessly to fix it. Golf isn't about bringing your perfect game to the course every time, its about shooting the lowest score with what ever swing or ball striking you have on that day. Trust me the amount of times I've teed it up during a tournament and spent the first 6 holes searching for that perfect flight or feel as the bogeys tick over, only once not caring about these things would I start to play well.
Don't get me wrong if your a keen golfer, professional or not, part of golfs addiction is working at your game chasing that unachievable perfection that we actually may have already reached at some point but could never have the outside looking in point of view to even know.
I digress, so how do we play the best we can every time we hit the course?
Well it starts with taking a reverse approach to building confidence.
Start at the green and work your way back to the Tee..
Guide to building confidence on the course & playing your best: Practice Routine
Step 1: Practice holing putts from 10ft and in.
Step 2: Practice your lag putting aiming to 2 putts every time
Step 3: Practice chipping from good and bad lies with the intention of holing it and at worst getting it inside 5ft.
Step 4: Practice your bunker shots aiming to get inside 10ft or closer
Step 5: Practice your wedges and pitch shots at numerous distances and different flights aiming to get as close as possible
Step 6: Practice your mid iron shots
Step 7: Practice your long irons
Step 8: Practice you recovery shots, from trees, bad lies, heavy rough, low & high flights
Step 9: Practice tee shots, different flights and clubs
Now you may look at this and think "Yeah I get it you have to practice everything big whoop that's nothing new"
But lets break down a hole scenario and ill show you how this builds confidence in your game.
If you are confident in holing putts from inside 10ft this feeds into confidence in chipping as you know you don't have to hit it close and if you can chip & play bunkers shots without pressure of "I've got to hit it to a foot every time" approach, you will actually hit better chips without tension. Then if you're chipping and pitching with confidence then you aren't worried about hitting greens so you can play much more freely and aggressively with your irons, then if your confident with your recovery shots then you aren't putting pressure on your drives and tee shots because you know your brilliant at recovery - pitching- chipping- putting... is the picture emerging now?
Think of the amount of times Tiger in his prime recovered from the jungle and Phil Mickleson has basically made his career of being confident in shooting a good score no matter where the ball goes.
So Adjust your practice strategies, start at the hole and work your way backwards and build confidence in your game no matter how well you hit the ball. You will find the more you are confident in all aspects of your game then you will actually hit better shots anyway.
Remember its not how good you are on your good day but how good your are on your bad day.