After a hectic week back coaching, I’ve been reflecting on those 42 hours of lessons and it might help your game.
I’ve seen some players struggle with their games and some players play well.
Before I go into that, I’ll let you know that from the age of 12 I didnt go on family holidays. The reason for that was that I didnt want to have any time off my golf, with my friends getting better and it always felt like it took me a few weeks to get my game back in shape.
So, first off, if you arent quite striking the ball as you remember then you are not alone, I would say that this is completely normal. It is not a reason to panic, find some time to hit some balls, play a few 9 holes on your own or with friends outside a conpetitive environment. Maybe look at my upcoming 2 hour playing lessons held at Morley Hayes.
So what has changed since Nov/Dec and how can we get our games back.
There’s two likely reasons….
The first is that, we have dominant patterns. Some of which are not helpful and some of the time we work on reducing those movements. Mark Bull has spoken to me at length in that some patterns are so dominant, that they will never be removed and in doing so can hurt many players.
However, what I have found is that the general swing of the players I have worked with in the last week, have not moved back to their old patterns and actually look to be swinging well, taken on the things we have worked on previously but are still struggling.
SO WHY CANT I HIT THE BALL LIKE I USED TOO??
Don’t Panic
I would say for the majority of the intermediate to higher handicap players, it comes down to clubface awareness. Simply put, the swing is similar, but they lose focus of the strike and the feeling of a poor strike instantly feels like a bad swing. When often they are not the same.
Using facetape, or Dr.Scholl to get the awareness of strike is a really good drill to do after a long break. People have been really surprised whe their poor shots were simply not centred strikes and they leave happy that they do not have to rebuild their swing.
What can I do at home.
One of my favourite ways to increase club awarenss is to do keepy uppies. Get in the garden, hold a sand wedge lower down the grip and do a copy of the Tiger Woods Nike commercial from back in the day
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jG2JYpiM48U
Whose games have improved during Lockdown?
I have seen a few scratch or better players come back, with free er minds, less expectations and simply playing golf for the joy of it, enjoying being out in the sunshine, the health benefits and not obsessing over technical swing thoughts. Something that these players would do well to keep in mind, as the season progresses and games get under their belts.
So, if you are ejoying your golf after the Lockdown and playing surprisingly well, maybe your expectations can ge the better of you just remember Woosah.