Feb
13

Playing a round to break the 100

Posted under Swing Improvement by Swinger

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

A close friend of mine who I know reads the blog on a regular basis took me for 9 holes yesterday. He has placed a fairly challenging task at my door. For ages now he has been telling me that he can play golf but unfortunately he struggles with getting a good score and has never actually broken 100. So after seeing what I was up against I have agreed to help him break the three digit barrier.

Now this is a little more difficult than it sounds as he is a lefty and everything is backwards. However I have no doubt in my mind that I can help him and within a few months I will have him break 100.

The things I have noticed about his swing and his game are as follows:

Lack of confidence in his driver and his woods. A fantastic set of golf clubs in his bag but a mental block means he misses out on a lot of distance by not using his driver off the tee and his fairway woods on the fairway. The one time he did use his driver it went a very long way but very left of the target.

Inconsistent setup. This was something that I bit my lip on till we got back to the club house because I wanted to make sure I was right, the setup he has to the ball is good but there is a slight movement in his stance before he swings the club. This is causing the ball not to go as straight as he would like it to.

The grip it and rip it mentality. When getting himself into a position that he struggled to get a full swing or a clear line of sight at the target he would go for it anyway. This is something I learned a while back, that it is often a good thing to get out of trouble with one shot than get in even more trouble. I used to think “MUST GET CLOSER TO THE GREEN!” the problem was when if that shot got me closer to the green then I would be in even more trouble. Playing the game using your mind to work out shots, to play sensible golf will bring the score down.

So those are the three main areas that I will be working on with him over the next few months and the aim which I think is more than reasonable is to get his score below 100. I have advised him to check out the Golf Instruction Manual that I have used in the past to give him a good heads up on the things he will be needing to work on.