Written by Gary Buffington, Jr., 20 year Manager of Edwin Watts Golf Shop, Tampa,
former academic All-American Golfer at University of West Florida,
and former Professional Mini-Tour Golfer offers specific advice and
drills for game improvement directly related to what is learned from
the Statistical Outputs of the Golf Addiction Statistics Mobile App.
A
Change in Thinking Never Hurt Anyone
When most players think
of driving, the only thing they think about is fairways hit. How many
times does a player hit it in the short grass? It is easy to see why;
golfers are constantly bombarded by magazines, television, and
infomercials about hitting more fairways. Every week there is a new
“move” or swing thought that will produce more accurate drives.
But, technique is only part of the problem. One of the big problems
is how players think! Driving the ball is not all about how many
fairways a player hits; it is mostly about how many playable drives a
player can hit!
This is where the change
of thinking takes place. Rather than judging a good or bad driving
day based off of the number of fairways, try to judge your rounds off
of the number of playable drives. By “playable” we mean drives
that have a clear shot to the green or pin depending on the
situation. A drive into the water, out of bounds, the trees, bushes,
or usually a bunker is not considered playable. It helps to know your
course. If you are playing at the U.S. Open where the rough is
extremely thick, it might be less playable than a country club where
the rough is mown to just a few inches. If you are great from fairway
bunkers, then these may be playable positions for you. But, this is
where it helps to know both yourself, and the course. But, as a
general rule the fairway is the easiest place to approach the green.
However, this doesn’t mean that there aren’t many other playable
areas to hit from.
So, next time you are on
the course, don’t get frustrated when you miss a fairway. Access
the situation. Is this a playable spot? If so, you have done your job
off the tee! The time to get frustrated is when you are losing shots
because you have not driven the ball into a playable spot. With just
this little change in mindset, players will become more confident off
the tee and free themselves up to have more fairways and playable
drives.
Take
a Second and Think
For
many players thinking is the major struggle that they face in the
course of a round. But, a lot of thoughts can race through a players
mind as you stare down a shot, particularly a tough shot. For most
tee shots, there is always some amount of difficulty to be faced.
There can be out of bounds, water, bunkers, and trees. But, by
adjusting your thought process you can limit your misses and miss the
ball in better places. To adjust your thinking, do the following:
- Identify first where the trouble is and what places you cannot reach the green from. You should rank them in order from most penalizing to least penalizing.
- Now that you know where you don’t want to go, identify where you do want to go!
- Pick the easiest shot to get the ball to where you want.
- HAVE CONFIDENCE IN YOUR PRIOR PLANNING (STEPS 1-4)!
- Hit!
By
adjusting your thinking to this process, many players do something
they might never do during a round. The players that think this way
plan for a missed shot. This allows them to have playable drives even
after they hit a poor tee shot. Just by identifying where you don’t
want to go, the mind now knows what the ball should do. This thought
process is not negative thinking, it is smart thinking! Negative
thoughts would mean thinking only of the O.B. or only of the water.
But, we get out of the negative and end by worrying only about the
playable spots! By doing this more drives will end up in play, and
scores will get lower.
Get
Specific
If I
had a nickel for every time I have heard a golfer say I am aiming at
the pin or toward the fairway, I’d be rich! Too many times golfers
just aim at the fairway or towards the flag. But that is not good
enough. What if a player is misaligned to the left center or right
center of the fairway? Their margin of error just got smaller. In
order for players to hit the best shot possible, they have to get
specific with their target. They should pick out a tree, steeple,
house, window, bunker, or a patch of grass to aim at. By narrowing
your focus down to a smaller target, the amount of error decreases,
and more shots are on line. Just by aiming at a specific target or
spot, players can hit better shots and lower their scores.
Two
Ball Worst Ball, a Drill for Driving
This
is a great drill for improving driving accuracy and developing a feel
for missing shots in a good place. The next time you go out and play
a round of golf, test your driving! You will need two golf balls for
this drill. On each hole, hit two tee balls. Pick the worst drive
and play from there. For the rest of the hole you should only play
one ball. The second ball is only needed on the tee!
Once
you have played a few holes, you will be able to see the many
benefits of this drill. For starters, the extra drives give you extra
practice. But, if the first drive is good, you won’t want to hit a
bad second tee shot. This extra pressure will help the drill resemble
tournaments, matches, anything that might make you nervous over the
tee shots. Lastly, if you can complete the drill and not increase
your score very much, then you can have a lot of confidence in your
ability to place your tee shots. Try it for yourself! Did your scores
increaseby playing your worst drive? If they didn’t you are driving
it great!!
