![]() As you mature as an elite amateur or professional golfer, it’s certain that you will face a decline in improvement at some stage, as growth in your game succumbs to the inertia that comes about by trying to maintain the skills you are already well accomplished in. In other words, what has got you here, won’t get you there. You see it is inevitable that in your pursuit of excellence as an elite golfer that you will need to overcome continual performance resistance that comes from essentially being very good at your well learned and reliable skills. In-fact, you probably spend most of your available time trying to maintain them, but not nearly as much time working on your growth skills, or the types of skills that help you make continual progress. And progress in this case (especially for a tour golfer) is a lower score average over a season. For you to continue to achieve consistent levels of growth in your game throughout your career, you will need to not only focus on your core skills that keep your competitive edge sharp, but you will need to develop, manage and improve the high-payoff skills that drive your score average lower, so you can make more cuts than you miss, and generate more credits than debits. The 3 Horizons of Growth ModelIn this article I’m going to adapt some of the basic features of The Three Horizons of Growth Model (Above) featured in the book The Alchemy of Growth by Mehrdad Baghai, Stephen Coley, and David White, to provide you with a clear and simple structure you can use as a guide to assess your potential opportunities for sustained growth over the next three to six years, without neglecting your improvement in the present. Basically we are going to discuss the concepts of; 1. Par generation as your core golf process 2. The Double your Birdie's to Bogey Ratio as your emerging golf strategy 3. The importance of transformative thinking for long-term growth Using the Three Horizons of Growth approach for golf improvement, it will come to be seen as essential thinking if you are to break free of performance plateauing. You will see that it is imperative that you invest in creative and innovative practice and playing processes that span all three time horizons simultaneously, even if you are struggling with your game currently. To do this you will need to start imagining what you want from your game today, and where you want to take your game in the near future. You’ll discover that this model is a helpful tool for bridging the gap with what you are doing today, and what you should be doing in the near future and what you would like to be doing in the distant future.
So this model will be helpful for guiding your development beyond a season of tournament play, and will help you to stay on top of development areas in your game so you can remain competitive over the long-term. ![]() Your Core Business is Par Generation This might come as a surprise to you, but your core business as an elite golfer is to develop and manage your skills to produce 12 to 15 pars out of 18 per round. That’s right, if you want to be a competitive golfer you will need to achieve and maintain this par standard day-in-and-day-out, throughout your career. Horizon one is the “Extend and Defend your golf ability,” or The Par Generation Level, and represents your ability to develop, manage and maintain your score by leveraging your core golf skills to produce 12 to 15 pars in every round. Extending Your Skills to Defend Par Think of extend and defend as an army extending or pushing into the fray, and then defending their position. Never giving up ground to the enemy, which is helpful to think of as bogeys or worse. Extend and Defend is your core process of par making in each round, and it is a challenging process and not easy to do, but essential as each par you make is gaining ground on your score, and this is precisely how great golfers set up good scores, and also keep their competitive average low over a season. Your extend and defend core skills are primarily your long game skills--such as your tee-shots and your approach shots into the green inside 180 metres or 200 yards. By hitting between 8 to 10 fairways and 10 and 13 greens per round, you give yourself the opportunity to make at least 12 pars each round, which is the starting point for low scoring. Take a good look at world class golfers today (inside the top 100) and you will discover that their long game shot-making ability helps them to produce 12 to 15 pars each round. Yes they have excellent short-games too, that goes without saying, however, the bulk of their pars each round come from their long game shot-making ability, combined with highly developed and skillful putting that allows them to produce less than 29 putts per round. ![]() Emerging and Expanding Your Capability Horizon two is short-game skills that improve your proximity to hole ability from inside 90 metres, or 100 yards of the green. This key to success at this level is increasing the amount of birdies you produce, and at the same time decreasing the amount of bogeys (or worse) you produce. Your goal in every round should be to make twice as many birdies to bogeys at this level. How can you do this? A good question to ask yourself is this; "which one of my skills right now would I need to upgrade that would make it easier to increase my ratio of birdies to bogeys?" The Bottom Line is This... Great golfers hit the ball closer to the hole on average and have less putts, and the best make more birdies than bogeys on average. There is nothing startling about this statement, it is simply a fact. Great golfers know that making more birdies and less bogeys and worse combined with achieving a standard of 12 to 15 pars elevates them to a place where they make more than 60 percent of cuts in a season, plus there's the obvious flow on effects as a result of playing golf at this level. Your focus for improvement at Horizon Two level should be expanding your capability, as in developing skills that expand your potential to score lower, and you should be introducing them into your game now. By just focusing on upgrading one high pay-off skill per year you would notice a significant improvement in your competitive score average after three seasons. Think about it right now, what skills would have to improve to produce twice as many birdies to bogeys or worse in each round? If you don't know the answer to this question, then sit down with your coach and go through your statistics to determine where you need to start, and get to work on it. A Simple Improvement Strategy By just focusing on upgrading one high pay-off skill per year you would notice a significant improvement in your competitive score average after three seasons. Think about it right now, what skills would have to improve to produce twice as many birdies to bogeys or worse in each round? If you don't know the answer to this question, then sit down with your coach and go through your statistics to determine where you need to start, and get to work on it. ![]() Horizon Three - The Transformative Level Dictionary.com describes the word Transformative as undergoing a change in form, appearance, or character; or to become transformed. Horizon three is the level of going beyond the near future and what you currently believe is possible with your game, to a level of thinking where you imagine your game with a lot more freedom. You are imagining a better version of yourself and your game at this level. This is the level of thinking where you are mentally put elements into place you need to become a different version of yourself. It is looking beyond more mundane aspects of improvement like technical skill development, and more towards the development of your self-image, with the confidence you would need to play the game at a higher level. For example, imagine that you produce a seasonal average of 70.5 three seasons from now, and let's say that today your seasonal average is 73.5. How would you be different (besides the obvious better scoring), what other aspects of you would change to be able to achieve this? The person you are today is not the person you will need to be in the future. For you to achieve your goal of playing better three to five seasons from now you will need to become a better version of yourself. You will know more than you know, and be able to do more than you do. ![]() The great news is opportunities for growth are ever present so long as you not only focus on what you are doing with your game today, but also planning for tomorrow. Every great golfer has been able to build a bridge to their dreams, and you can too. So get to work on it today using the Three Horizons of Growth Model to guide you along your way. Best of luck with your journey. Lawrie Montague and David Milne - Pro Tour Golf College A question we get asked frequently is "how can I improve my golf practice skills so I can improve my scoring on the golf course in tournaments?" It's a great question, and in this article we will share some of the many ways we help students in our programs in Perth and Jakarta to Practice On The Edge to play better on the golf course. At Pro Tour Golf College, we developed and use a unique golf training system with our students which comprehensively assesses a golfer’s skills in 6 major categories, and 18 sub categories, from short putting to driving from the tee through to golf course management. We do this to determine a golfer’s skill baseline in each category. ![]() Golf Practice on the Edge Once we know what their baseline is for each skill category we design their training sessions with the explicit intention of helping them to practice right on the edge of their capability. Why is this important? Well, in our experience most golfers we observe on a daily basis really don’t know how to practice to improve the way they play on the golf course. You see, in order to improve your golf score, you need to be able to effectively transfer your golf practice skills onto the golf course, and to do this you need to put your skills under increasing amounts of pressure when you practice. The big idea here is to practice in such a way that your nervous system is continually having to adapt to increased practice pressure demands so that when you have to hit a shot that matters on the golf course, you have more chance of pulling it off. This is what Golf Practice On the Edge means. Golf Practice in the Comfort Zone Unfortunately, most golfers (even elite amateurs and pro’s) display a tendency for hitting golf shots on the range and practice green to easy targets with clubs they have more confidence using, whilst avoiding using clubs they have less confidence in. I’m sure you can see the problem in this approach? Have you developed the habit of going to your local practice range and when you arrive you expect to practice from the same mat or position on the driving range almost every time? We call this Golf Practice in the Comfort Zone. This approach to golf practice is not practicing right on the edge of your capability, it's practicing in the comfort zone, and it will not help you to play better on the golf course. Study the matrix below to understand the important relationship between Challenge Level and Skill Level. You should be designing your golf practice to a level of uncomfortable (Ideal Stress) by increasing the challenge level to put your skills under more pressure, without making it so difficult that you go into the frustration zone. We have seen lots of golfers do this, however with a slight adjustment of target size or shot type, this can easily move into the Ideal Stress Zone. The Greenside Wedge Skills Target Zone Matrix (Below) will be a helpful guide for designing your short-game practice sessions so you are practicing right on the edge of your capability. The following practice routines are some of the routines we use on a weekly basis to push our students into the Ideal Stress Zone where they can develop the skill and confidence to compete on the golf course more effectively. ![]() Pressure Putting Gate Drill When you practice short putts of 3 feet to 10 feet (1 metre to 3 metres), you can make entry into the hole more challenging by placing 4 tee’s equal distance from one another around the edge of the hole just like the 4 points of a compass. The idea here is to build a gate that forces you to putt correct line and speed into the hole, and each time you hit a tee you must start again. Your goal is to successfully hit one set of 10 putts into the hole without hitting a tee. ![]() Pressure Putting Success Zone – Half Circle On longer putts of 15 to 30 feet (5 to 10 metres) from the hole create a half circle success zone behind the front of the hole with a radius of 3 feet (1 metre) from the back edge of the hole to 5 tees set up in a half or semi-circle, and set your goal of getting at-least 70 percent of your putts into this defined success zone. ![]() Pressure Putting Success Zone – Full Circle On extra-long putts of 50 to 100 feet (15 to 30 metres) from the hole create a full circle success zone surrounding the hole with a radius of 3 feet (1 metre) from the edge of the hole to 8 tees set up in a full circle surrounding the hole and set your goal of getting at-least 70 percent of your putts into this defined success zone. The objective with the long putting drills is to stroke a high percentage of your putts from various locations around the green into the success zone as consistently as you can. An Important Point to Remember When setting up and performing these practice routines is to practice from many locations to the target rather than from the same location. Variety is said to be the spice of life and it's also the ideal way to practice these routines. Change the location continually so you have to keep adapting. ![]() Tee-Shot Pressure Practice As you know from personal experience most golfers want to hit their irons and woods further. However, the reality is that accuracy combined with distance off the tee with accurate shots into the green is the basic requirement if you want to lower your golf score. So for tee-shot practice pick targets on the practice range that are a similar width to the fairways at the golf course where you play. For example, the practice net support posts at the back of a lot of practice ranges make ideal target zones for hitting tee-shots. Look for target posts that are no wider than 50 to 65 feet (15 to 20 metres), and when you practice hitting your driver, see if you can hit 7 out of 10 tee-shots into your defined target zone. The higher the percentage of your tee shots that land within your defined target zone, the more likely you are to transfer this skill to the golf course. ![]() Get to work on driving your game from the golf range to the golf course by designing practice sessions that move you from the Comfort Zone to the Ideal Stress Zone. Remember that most golfers are not doing this so you will develop a very real competitive advantage by adopting this approach to your golf practice. Continually change the practice conditions to adapt and grow your skills so you can perform under pressure on the golf course better than your competitors. We wish you the best of luck with your game and appreciate you taking the time to read our article. Lawrie Montague and David Milne - Pro Tour Golf College Perth Western Australia and Jakarta Indonesia ![]() How do top professional golfers like Jason Day and Jordan Spieth make the decisive putts, and hit the pivotal shots when needed to win the big championships, and yet other golfers in similar situations collapse under the pressure of the moment? Do these great golfers possess a special mental toughness gene that allows them to hit great shots when it counts? Maybe they come from disadvantaged backgrounds, like in boxing, where many of the toughest and most successful fighters in history came out of poor city neighborhoods, with little money to their name, and just a burning desire to change their situation? No, it turns out that great golfers like Jason Day and Jordan Spieth historically have come from both sides of the railroad tracks. So the mental toughness factors that elevate their performances on the golf course appear to be accessible to all golfers, regardless of their background. ![]() So let’s explore this topic and take a look at some of the mental toughness habits they and other successful tour golfers seem to possess, and also what types of skills they work harder on to make them less likely to falter down the stretch. 6 Habits of Pro Tour Tough Golfers Being mentally tough enough, or what we describe at Pro Tour Golf College as ‘Pro Tour Tough’ describes elite golfers who we have found possess these 6 habits;
And we have also discovered that it’s this big WHY that makes these Pro Tour Tough golfers push their game harder for longer, because they know that the only road to improvement is accepting that success in golf requires unceasing persistence in the face of adversity. “It doesn’t matter how skilled you are, or how hard you train, if you aren’t tough enough, you won’t win. It’s the reason a lot of fighters who have success at the Olympics can’t replicate it when they go pro – they just aren’t tough enough.” ![]() Pro Tour Tough Golfers Have Better C Game Days Pro Tour Tour golfers have developed a high level of trust and confidence in their shot-making that permits them to cope better than other golfers with the numerous stresses, burdens and trials that makes hitting golf shots in tournaments more difficult to do. Pro Tour Tough golfers perform better than other golfers on the tough days because they have highly developed and effective scrambling skills. All golfers have bad tee to green days, in fact out of every 4 tournament rounds it's possible that 2 rounds out of 4 are tough scoring rounds and great golfers have the best back-up skills on the tough days, and this helps them to maintain a lower C game score average in tournaments. Your C Game is Your Achilles Heel Think about this for a moment; many of the hundreds of amateur and professional golfers who enter tour schools each year are definitely good enough on their day to play on a pro tour, if they could compete with their A and B Game—their best game score average. However playing on the pro tour is not about how good you are on a given day, but how good you are over multiple days. If you play 6 rounds of tour school and 50 percent of those rounds are your C game--or high score average, could you still get a good card? The answer in most cases is nine out of 10 golfers pursuing a pro career fail mostly because their C Game just isn’t good enough. As I mentioned, your C Game is your high score average—the score you have when you are playing poorly. The reality of top level golf is that you will have bad days, and it's on these days that you have to have a great back-up game to keep your score average down. In baseball great pitchers don't just have a fast ball, they have a variety of pitches to help them win games, and you need a great back-up game with a wide variety of shots to help you to score lower, make more cuts and make cheques. Do you know what your C Game average was for last season?... ![]() When Your C Game Average is Too High Your C Game average results from the days when you struggle with your shot-making from tee to green and you make less pars than average, and more bogeys or worse compared to birdies or better. For professional golfers missing too many cuts, it is having too many scores above 74. That doesn’t mean that the best golfers don’t score above 74, they do, but not very often. Let me give you an example. In the 2015 season on the PGA Tour Jason Day competed in 20 tournaments and made the cut in 18 of them. In 72 stroke rounds he scored 74 and above just 6 times, or just 8.3 percent for the season. On the other side of the coin, 46 of his rounds out of 72 were in the 60’s, which is 58.3 percent of his rounds. It's also interesting to note that Jordan Spieth scored 74 and above just 8 times in 88 rounds in 2015. Click on the image below and you will see from the 76 rounds in the table (Includes The Open Championship) that most of Jason Day's scores (Orange line) are below the blue line which describes the par of the courses he played over the season. Birdie to Bogey Ratio - The Key to Identifying C Game Problems Jason Day lead the statistical category Birdie to Bogey Ratio in 2015. This statistic describes the total number of birdies or better a golfer produces over a season divided by the total number of bogeys or worse they produce. Jason Day's Birdie to Bogey Ratio - 351 Birdies or Better divided by 157 Bogeys or Worse for 75 Rounds = 2.24 Also take note that Jordan Spieth ranked 2nd in this important but rarely discussed category. Jordan Spieth's Birdie to Bogey Ratio - 407 Birdies or Better divided by 208 Bogeys or Worse for 91 Rounds = 1.96 You will discover that the Birdie to Bogey Ratio will have real meaning and relevance if you are struggling to make cuts. Analyse your last 10 rounds of golf and calculate your Birdie to Bogey Ratio so you can identify whether you are making enough Birdies and Pars against Bogeys and Worse. We have noticed that the best golfers keep their C Game or high score average down because they make at least 12 pars per round, and they produce more birdies and better than bogeys and worse. And this is how they do it... ![]() Don't Underestimate Your Scrambling Powers to Lower Your C Game Average How do you lower your bogey and worse average so you can make more pars and birdies? One of the main ways you do this is by developing your scrambling skills within 30 yards of the hole. By upgrading your scrambling skills you will give yourself a much better chance of keeping your C Game or high score average down to where you start making more cuts and more cheques. What is Scrambling? The scrambling statistic from 20 to 30 yards (18m to 27.5m) of the hole on the PGA Tour describes the percentage of times a tour golfer misses a green in regulation but still manages to produce a par or better. This is achieved with chipping, pitching and sand skills, combined with short putting within 15 feet of the hole. It probably wouldn't surprise you that in this category Jordan Spieth and Jason Day ranked in the top 5 in the scrambling from 20 to 30 yards of the hole, and what's even more interesting is they also ranked 1 and 2 respectively in the most important statistical category for a professional golfer, Money Leaders. Their scrambling skills around the green combined with their excellent putting skills helped them both to win 5 times, and between them earn more than 21 million dollars on the golf course for the 2015 season. Scrambling is a statistic that matters, and a set of skills to be practiced--especially for professional golfers struggling to make cuts. Scrambling ability is your par saving ability, and it is the set of skills you will rely on the most--especially when you are not hitting the ball from tee to green to your expectations, (which will be more often than you probably think). If you want to be a better and tougher competitor on the golf course on your bad days, then do yourself a favor and improve your scrambling ability. ![]() How to Practice Scrambling If you want to push your competitive score average down over a season so you can make more cuts and more cheques then practice your scrambling skills a lot more often. Practice using random style practice rather than block style by spending more time practicing from all types of challenging lies within 30 yards of the hole, such as from long grass, side hills, bare lies, and from all types of situations in the sand as well. Jason Day and Jordan Spieth rank very high in this scrambling category because they and their coaches know that this is the area that keeps you in the game on the tough days--especially down the stretch. Sharpen Your Skills with a Par 20 Scrambling Tournament Instead of hitting 10 shots from one location when you practice your short-game (which is common), hit one shot from 10 different locations around the green and strive to get your ball as close to the hole as you can. Place some coins, ball markers or tees around the hole with a radius of 7 feet (2 Metres), and take note of how many of your shots out of each set of 10 finish inside the circle. Now putt each shot out with tournament level intensity, and take note of what score you produce against a par of 20. Par for each hole is 2 so achieving par for 10 holes would produce a score of 20. Tour golfers we have tested in this game will produce 6 or more pars out of 10. The key to practicing this game is to hit a combination of chip, pitch, lob and sand shots. Also we have a rule that you should not place the ball for each shot, but drop the ball as if taking a penalty, and then play it from its lie. To be successful on a major professional tour you would typically be scoring 60 to 80 percent when playing this game over 50 holes (5 rounds). Our students at Pro Tour Golf College use a scorecard similar to the one below to keep track of their progress. You should practice this game often and work closely with your golf instructor to improve the individual skills that will enhance your scrambling ability. ![]() The Chip, Pitch, Lob and Sand Shot Are Your Scrambling Tools for Saving Par Since golf is a high mistakes game, the real art of the game is in your ability to manage the inevitable execution, mental and strategy errors you will make better than the next golfer. No two golf shots you hit are ever going to be the same, so most of the time the golf shots you hit won’t end up where you expected them to. Consequently, to lower your C Game, or high score average, you must continually upgrade your chipping, pitching, sand and putting skills. The most successful pros like Jason Day and Jordan Spieth do this, and you should too. So the key question that you need to ask yourself right now is this; “are you currently practicing and developing your scrambling skills enough to help you yield lower C Game scores? If you are not practicing these skills enough, then why? If it's good enough for the best players in the game to practice them often, then why not you. Being Pro Tour Tough is not about possessing some mental toughness gene but rather it's having the ability to keep your score down when you are not playing anywhere near your best. This is the big WHY that will help you to pressure proof your game so you can play your best on your worst days. Lawrie Montague and David Milne - Pro Tour Golf College
Pro Tour Golf College www.protourgolfcollege.com Perth / Jakarta
Does stress affect the way you play? You bet it does and in this super episode of Golf Science Lab host Cordie Walker talks with Dr. Adam Nicholls from the University of Hull in the UK about how to manage it and turn it into an ally that helps you to play your best when you are under the pump.
Enjoy this podcast and make sure you follow Golf Science Lab on Facebook and Twitter and you can visit the website here. http://golfsciencelab.com/ "After all, how we feel on the inside is reflected on the outside. It is in the feeling that provides the most important distinction between cockiness and true confidence is made." ![]() In my work as a performance psychologist in Asia, the conversation about raising self-confidence naturally comes up. I often here athletes tell me, “I know I need to be more self-confident, but I don’t want to be seen as cocky.” Some athletes have said they would rather be unconfident forever than be grouped into the cocky bunch by their peers. In my work, it is clear that cockiness is one of the most disliked traits among aspiring golfers and role models, and many believe there is a fine-line between high self-confidence and cockiness. How can you build true confidence necessary to compete at the highest level but stay humble in the process? In this article, I will share my top tips for setting you on the right path. ![]() What is the Difference Between Self-Confidence and Cockiness? Self-confidence is interpreted by others through our communication style – how we speak, our gestures, eye contact, and body language. The ideal communication style inculcated by eastern philosophy is humble, harmonious, nurturing, modest, and indirect. However, the demonstration of self-confidence in sport is often interpreted and most closely associated with a style of communication in western philosophy, which reflects boastfulness, dominance and competitiveness. It is this form of expression that boarders on cockiness, the polar opposite to the ideal communication style in Asian culture. From this perspective, it is perfectly understandable that the very thought of focusing on training that boosts one’s self-confidence for a high achiever in Asia can be met with a lot of hesitation. It is human nature to make snap judgments of a person’s communication style to reflect high or low self-confidence. After all, how we feel on the inside is reflected on the outside. It is in the feeling that provides the most important distinction between cockiness and true confidence is made. True confidence is an inner feeling of self-belief that comes from a genuine space of knowing both your strengths and weaknesses and therefore the corresponding communication style is genuine, always allowing for qualities like modesty to shine through. Cockiness lacks genuine inner feelings. It is only a mask trying to project a certain image you think others will approve of. In this form, the outward expression comes across as fake, exaggerated or over the top. ![]() Know your Weaknesses as well as your Strengths The most crucial element in building self-confidence is to know your strengths and put a plan in place that makes sure you are using your strengths to achieve your goals. A focus on our strengths is energising and we are typically performing activities we are great at and passionate about. Research by positive psychologist, Alex Linley acknowledges that you can develop from working on weaknesses, however, improvement is only possible when you are also working on your strengths. As a Realise2 practitioner, I have tools I use to identify an athletes individual strength, testing 60 different qualities, which also examines your weaknesses. On that note – true confidence over cockiness is about knowing your weaknesses as well as you do your strengths. This will ensure you have a growth mind-set - always ready to learn and improve no matter how well you are performing and how strong your confidence feels. When we think of genuine athletes with true confidence, Roger Federer, Jordan Spieth, and Steph Curry come to mind. They all have strong inner self-belief, but at the same time they understand their weaknesses as well as their strengths. They know that others have contributed to their success, and they are always open to getting better. ![]() Be Authentic, Be Genuine Once you know your strengths and are actively engaging these strengths in your sport or work, your inner self-confidence will naturally grow. Staying grounded then comes from being authentic in your actions. When you are authentic, what ever you do, you do it with genuine conviction and without pretense. You always keep to your own values and beliefs, no matter what other people may want you to do, choosing to do things in a way that is right for you. Acting from this place will ensure you are performing tasks that are meaningful to you and communicating in a way that is natural, consistent and reflects the qualities you value the most. Get a Crew Spend time with others that value the same things you do and can honestly tell you when you are getting off track. There is no better way to celebrate your success, reflect on your failures, and also maintain authenticity than in the company of those who understand you the best. Follow these steps and you will build true confidence while remaining humble and staying true to yourself. ![]() The golf ranges and practice fairways the world over are full of golfers from novice to expert practicing their golf skills in the hope of improvement. Unfortunately, most will turn bad habits into worse ones because they don’t know how to practice their golf skills to improve. You see there’s a big difference between just hitting buckets and buckets of golf balls hoping to get better, and practicing to improve your game. So let’s get the ball rolling right away by introducing you to a simple definition of golf practice that will help you to understand how you can improve your game; "The purpose of golf practice is to perform golf strokes--or execute specific golf training drills and routines repeatedly, in a deliberate manner, and on a consistent basis, in order to improve a specific skill set that can be transferred successfully to the golf course." ![]() Don't Pray for Improvement, Plan for It So the thing to remember about golf improvement is that when you practice a golf skill you are always practicing it so that you can perform it better and more consistently on the golf course. Now I know that’s common sense but you would be surprised how many golfers just hit balls and almost pray that they will somehow miraculously discover improvement in their game. You can pray all you like, but it won't help because golf skill improvement requires a logical and well-thought out plan for you to improve--not divine intervention. So the following 5 logical steps to golf improvement will definitely improve your golf skills, and help you to transfer them successfully onto the golf course. ![]() 1. Design a Better Golf Improvement Strategy When you practice your golf skills recognize that mistakes will occur often and you should accept these mistakes without judgment or criticism. After all, you are allowed to make mistakes to get better aren't you? Instead of getting upset with yourself, seek expert feedback preferably from an experienced golf instructor who can accurately diagnose technical issues and provide you with helpful strategies for improvement. Now if it's not possible to obtain professional help, at the very least get your feedback from an accurate information source such as a video camera to help you to analyse your mistakes, and then design a better—more helpful strategy for improvement. Don't wing it, or take a stab in the dark at what you believe the problem is. Or worse still, rely on feedback from someone who could know less than you! You need accurate feedback. Accurate feedback is the fuel you need to drive your improvement from the range to the golf course, so it is essential you don’t see bad shots through a negative lens, or work with bad information, rather, always see mistakes as a way to design a better game. Don't react to bad shots by focusing your energy on why you hit them. Use the feedback as your way to redesign your stroke so that you can generate better and more consistent results on the golf course. ![]() 2. Identify 2 to 3 Weak Skills It will be helpful to identify 2 to 3 of your weakest golf skills that you know with improvement would guarantee better and more consistent results on the golf course. You can do this by ensuring that instead of just hitting practice shots with your favorite clubs every time you visit the range, you substantially increase the amount of stroke repetitions you make with your weaker golf skills. Now this won't be fun to do, but it is essential that you practice your weakest skills with the goal of upgrading them because you know that this process with time will guarantee better and more consistent results on the golf course. Practicing your weakest 2 to 3 skills is the surest way to better and more consistent performances on the golf course. 3. Stretch Your Weak Skills to Uncomfortable If you want to play better on the golf course, then you need to embrace the discomfort that is likely through stretching your weak skills into the uncomfortable zone when you practice. What this means is that you have to realize that changing the physical characteristics of a particular skill to improve it will take you at least as long as it took to get it there in the first place. And by practicing... a) Practicing with clubs you aren’t competent with; b) And practicing skills you aren't confident of; c) And practicing swinging a club in ways that you aren't familiar with. This is most certainly going to lead you to make more mistakes and be more uncomfortable. However you should remind yourself that no golfer ever got better at playing golf on the golf course without stretching themselves to uncomfortable places on the practice range. Where there is resistance in your learning, know that you are on the right track, and this resistance is slowly but surely helping you to improve how you play on the golf course. Be persistent, until your weak skills become strong skills. ![]() 4. Stay Away from Short-Cuts Whatever you do, don’t look for short-cuts to improvement by trawling through free golf instruction that you will find on search engines like YouTube and the other video platforms. You will never improve your game using random and jumbled information as this only guarantees confusion, and this confusion will dramatically slow down your improvement process. You must strive to get better by being patient with the improvement process by working conscientiously on improving the fundamentals of your weakest skills, preferably under the watchful eye of a knowledgeable golf instructor. There is no short-cut to success in anything worthwhile, and this is particularly true for improving golf skills. That being said, many golfers today are looking for short-cuts but you shouldn't be one of them. The right course of action is to accept the challenge of being the one golfer who will stay the course and learn your skills thoroughly. The only fast way to golf improvement is doing it better and for longer than the next golfer. ![]() 5. Increase Golf Practice Endurance No golfer every got really good at golf without lots of sweat equity, or hard work and perseverance. To build reliable golf skills on the golf course you need to develop your golf practice endurance, just like athletes do. Develop a consistent weekly golf practice schedule which focuses on building your weak golf skills into strong one’s by working hard on being as deliberate as you can. This means concentrating on each shot like it is the only one you will ever hit. This is not easy to do however, but it is essential. Being deliberate when you practice developing your golf skills increases your capacity to learn effectively and transfer your skills to the golf course sooner. Think of it like this. How many miles must a runner cover in practice to be able to run a marathon in under 3 hours? You would have to think it thousands of miles right? Well, how many deliberate practice strokes would you have to make to be able to transfer your skill/s successfully onto the golf course and be able to execute them confidently? Our suggestion is that fully 70 percent of your available practice time should be invested in improving your 2 to 3 weakest skills with the help of your instructor. You do this by working with a high level of commitment to performing each repetition as carefully and accurately as you can. ![]() Final Thoughts It is never going to be enough to just practice mindlessly hitting balls on the driving range like many golfers do, with the hope that somehow you will discover a secret to better results on the golf course. This is never going to work out for you in the long run and this is not the way expert golfers do it. In the New Year your goal should be to isolate your 2 or 3 weakest skills, obtain accurate feedback from a reliable source such as a reputable golf instructor, design a better way to improve the skills, and put the time in that's required with a deliberate and focused attitude. It is only through focused and intensive effort like this, over a period of many months, that you will learn how to take your weak skills from the driving range, and transfer them into strong skills on the golf course. Lawrie Montague and David Milne - Pro Tour Golf College The Professional Golf Tour Training College for Serious Amateur Golfers One of the biggest challenges you face whilst you sail your way through the rolling seas of golf improvement is to stay true to your course of learning without being side-tracked along the way. Every golfer knows that you have to practice to gain improvement. The idea is simple enough, perform enough repetitions and you increase your potential to learn something to a level where you can perform it in an excellent way, and you don’t have to think about it too much. Mastery Focus Formula As you probably know, most golfers never learn skills to this level, instead they stumble around at the lower learning levels where they think too much about what they are doing, and get a lot less than they expected. Thinking gets in the way of doing, and you need to not only recognize this, you need to do something about it. Tim Gallwey the author of The Inner Game of Tennis expressed it with his simple formula; Performance = Potential – Interference. Basically the formula says that in order to perform to your potential you need to reduce distraction. The more distraction you have—the less you learn—the less you learn—the less you can do. So the worst thing you can do is allow distraction (or interference) to occur in your practice environment. Easier said than done right? The Mastery Attitude If you want to take your golf skill development to Mastery level where you can perform them under any type of pressure, you need to learn how to isolate each shot you hit from the pile, and give it the full attention it needs. You see it’s not enough to just hit lots of practice balls to improve your golf skills, this will never be enough to reach Mastery level. If this were the case, every golfer who practices a lot would achieve Mastery over every skill they practice. Hitting lots of practice shots is relatively easy to do, but hitting each shot with your full attention and intention is difficult to do, and is rarely practiced in our experience.
“Don't think of what you have to do, don't consider how to carry it out!" he exclaimed. "The shot will only go smoothly when it takes the archer himself by surprise.” ![]() Eliminate Practice Bucket Mentality Typically when golfers hit practice balls they hit the balls with a bucket mentality, rather than with a singular focus. They hit many golf balls trying to achieve their practice goal, rather than hitting one golf ball with one purpose many times over to achieve their practice goal. Can you see the difference? A Master archer with a full quiver of arrows always has the mind-set of just one arrow to one target. There is only ever one golf ball--one golf shot--one target. We believe this ‘bucket mentality’ is largely responsible for many advanced and elite golfers who find it difficult to stay in the moment when hitting shots on the golf course. Because they have focused countless times on the many, they can’t focus easily on the one. You should never have the attitude of hitting a bucket of balls (or a bag full of balls), rather, you should have the attitude of hitting one golf ball as precisely as you can, many times over, with full recognition that each golf ball you hit is unique and requires your full intention and attention. This is the Mastery Attitude, or what Tiger Woods described recently in a Time article interview as "Full Throttle.". Here is the link to the Time article that this quote was taken from http://time.com/tiger/?xid=tcoshare Mastery is Not a Mystery, it's 5 Steps When you isolate each golf ball from the bucket and dedicate yourself to ensuring that you execute each stroke in the skill set as precisely as you can--many times over, you will move swiftly towards Mastery. Remember this because it's important; the golf ball possesses no memory. It responds blindly to your commands. It knows no future or past, it simply responds... So if you could make between 5,000 and 10,000 swings starting today with full commitment to executing each golf ball you hit with the attitude that this shot is the only one you will ever hit coupled with accurate communication and support from your golf instructor, just imagine how much better you would be with every skill set you practiced? You would eventually train yourself and your skills to such a high level of competence that getting distracted on the golf course in big tournaments would be virtually impossible. Study our simple and easy to understand Mastery model, The 5 Steps to Golf Skill Mastery;
Use this simple model as your guide to help you to understand the skill development maturation process you go through every time you decide to improve a golf skill. The 5 Steps to Mastery process will guide you from where you are today with your weakest and most important skills to Mastery level. The stipulation is that this will only happen as long as you apply the Mastery Attitude of one ball--one shot every time, and with a level of commitment and intensity like your life depended on it. I guarantee you that with this powerful approach to game improvement in the months ahead you will begin to experience a level of confidence and achievement far greater than anything you could have imagined or experienced previously. So do it today and do it every time. One ball--one time, with the Mastery Attitude, and with The 5 Steps to Mastery process. Lawrie Montague and David Milne - Pro Tour Golf College The Pro Tour Golf Training College for Serious Amateur and Professional Golfers We have a special promotion on for the January 2016 semester that includes 25 hours of golf training per week, accommodation, unlimited range balls and much more.
Contact us today at [email protected] for more information. ![]() We’ve been following the performances of a number of young male and female tour professionals on a number of minor and major golf tours around the world over the past couple of years because we have a genuine interest in seeing them do well, moving ever closer to their major goals. However we’ve been somewhat bewildered of late with some of the comments of these players on social media (who are struggling to make cuts and make ends meet) about how they are going about improving their game. Their approach to golf improvement raises some red flags with us. When your scores are higher than they should be, and your missing cut after cut, working on major swing changes mid-season with your golf instructor might seem like a good idea, but in our experience it isn't. The thing is, many of these young professionals are certainly producing some good rounds in tournaments, but these are being offset by too many bad ones. Too Much C Game and Not Enough A Game The bottom line is that their C Game days (high score average) are outweighing their A Game days (low score average), thus keeping their seasonal score average higher--leading too many missed cuts over a season, and too much month at the end of their money. Golf is a very expensive game to play at the professional tour level, with loads of expenses before you even tee it up. So a tour golfer who does not fully understand how to improve their game when they are on the road, without relying fully on someone else’s expertise is setting themselves up for failure. Many of these young golfers are becoming too reliant on ‘experts’ without fully developing the knowledge, instincts and self-efficacy to help themselves play better on their own terms—especially when the chips are down. Your Self-Efficacy Beliefs The famous Stanford Psychologist Albert Bandura defines self-efficacy as someone’s belief in their ability to succeed in specific situations, or accomplish a specific task. Basically your self-efficacy beliefs determine how you feel, think, motivate or drive yourself, and how you behave. Source: https://www.uky.edu/~eushe2/Bandura/BanEncy.html Your sense of self-efficacy plays a major role in the type of goals you set for yourself, the way you practice golf skills, and the way you play in tournaments. If you have high self-efficacy you will tend to have more “can do” in your attitude, and this helps you to persist and succeed when practicing the ‘boring but important skills, and to spend more time on the practice fairway searching for ways to get better than other golfers will. Basically you become more self-reliant and determined to make progress on your own terms. ![]() Self-Efficacy is Your Can Do Ability So self-efficacy affects every area of your golfing life because it adjusts your beliefs to influence situations confronting you. It also strongly impacts your competence and confidence to exercise your skills when facing challenging times on the golf course. Not to mention that it can affect the choices you make at critical times. An example of high self-efficacy would be that you have the capability to produce good scores and be very competitive in tournaments when everything is going well for you (A Game days). On the other hand, you may not possess a matching set of beliefs and skill sets--a low self-efficacy when your game is not going the way you expect it to (C Game days). This supports our findings that many young amateur by being too reliant on others for inspiration (when things are not going the way they planned), are not developing the necessary high self-efficacy they need when they are playing poorly. They appear to have well developed high A game self-efficacy, but much lower B and C game self-efficacy. In our experience this appears to be a contributing factor separating them from successful professional golfers playing on the same tour. Yes, you most certainly need the expertise of your coaches and trainers to guide you and your game, however you also need to build a strong belief in yourself—especially when you are faced with the tough times you will continually face on the golf course. Your ability to turn bad rounds (C game days) into B or A game days is the master skill to develop as a professional golfer if you wish to have a long and successful career. ![]() Building Practice Mastery Experience The most effective way for you build a better C and B Game and develop high self-efficacy on the golf course, is by building Practice Mastery Experience into your high pay-off skills. High pay-off skills are the skills you need and rely on when you are having a tough day on the golf course. These are the skills that help you turn bad scores into better ones. What Are Your High Pay-Off Golf Skills? You need to identify the high pay-off golf skills in your game. These important skills will have the most positive effect on lowering your competitive score average by maintaining score flow on your tough days. In Practice Mastery Experience process you build a mountain of mini successes by planning and setting up realistic and relevant practice situations and simulations that rival the types of challenging situations you face on the golf course—particularly on your C game days. The idea here is that you set up practice scenarios (on the range and on the golf course) where you can only achieve good results by playing excellent shots from challenging situations. You will build a strong belief system and set of skills to ably manage the inevitable mis timed and loose golf shots you will hit, thus encouraging growth of high self-efficacy. ![]() Practice That's Too Hard On the flip side, if you are someone who sets up your practice situations and simulations way too hard and unrealistically, leading to too much failure experience, then understand that this will weaken and undermine the growth of your self-efficacy. Note: This is especially true if these failure experiences occur before your self-efficacy is firmly established in your teenage years. Practice That's Too Easy Consider also that setting up easy practice simulations that lead to easy success can result in an attitude of expecting quick and easy success when you practice. If you only experience easy success in practice, then you will find yourself easily discouraged on the golf course when you fail to transfer your opportunities into expected outcomes. Practice That's Just Right This is why it is vitally important to design your practice sessions with practice routines that challenge you and stretch your high pay-off skill sets, whilst at the same time not breaking them and undermining your confidence. When you practice your high pay-off skill sets you walk a fine line between creating practice scenarios that are either too hard to achieve or too easy. Just remember to stay on the hard side of the line, where it's challenging but not impossible. A good rule of thumb is your results should generate practice scores of between 20 and 50 percent. The idea here is to practice the high pay-off skills until they get to between 50 and 70 percent, and then make them harder so they return to the 20 to 50 percent range. Then repeat the same process. This approach to practice will help you to develop a resilient and robust self-efficacy which is essential for playing the game at professional level. Developing grit and determination to dig deep during difficult rounds and turn potentially bad scores into good scores requires the ability to produce shots that result in making more pars than bogeys and worse. By practicing in ways that encourage you to be more resilient when you are challenged, you will turn bad events into better ones more often. ![]() Lessons to Learn We know that set-backs are par for the course in golf—especially in professional golf. However there are always lessons that you can learn, and these lessons serve a useful purpose. Success on the golf course only comes from sustained effort, skillful execution of high pay-off skills, and a flexible attitude to set-backs. This is where a well-developed self-efficacy through well designed practice scenarios will lead you to bounce-back more often, thereby assisting you in maintaining your score flow. When you become convinced you have what it takes to succeed, and you do it on your own terms—not someone else’s, you will not only persevere in the face of adversity, you will thrive in it, quickly rebound from your setbacks, and turn C game days into A game days much more often. Lawrie Montague and David Milne - Pro Tour Golf College The Professional Golf Tour Training College for Serious Amateur Golfers In my work, I see many great players convey the hallmark qualities of a perfectionist that unfortunately can be the most dominant factor in sabotaging their potential. It is important to be aware that this trait can become a strength with an understanding of how to shape and adapt this trait in your daily habits. In this article, I will share the different blueprints of perfectionism, how they can influence your game, and the strategies to initiate damage control. Blueprint #1. Personal Standards Perfectionism Characterized by extremely high personal standards for performance, persistence toward goals, and a propensity for neatness and precision. Players who fit this profile are typically hard working and intense. This trait can have positive consequences as it energizes action toward goals without a fear of failure. On the flip side, it is also linked to extreme and obsessive behavior that is all-consuming. ![]() What does it look like in a Golfer?
Finding Balance in your Striving for Excellence
Blueprint #2. Evaluative Concerns Perfectionism This type of perfectionism is linked to the most destructive consequences, including depression, anxiety and low self-confidence. Athletes who fit this profile perceive a great deal of external pressure to achieve high standards and it is people pleasing that drives their perfectionistic striving. There is no room for error in this type of perfectionism, which leads to fear of failure with extreme self-doubt and concern over mistakes. What does it look like in a Golfer?
Switching Focus to Re-calibrate your Perfectionism
Dr Jay-Lee Nair - Sports Psychologist "So simply put, if you don't currently have a competitive stroke average of 70.75 or lower and you enter the European Tour School you, will be automatically donating to the coffers of the European Tour!" ![]() The European Tour over the years is growing to where the number of tournaments and prize money rivals the PGA Tour. With the most recent plan to join forces with the Asian Tour it offers up an attractive proposition to young golfers from all over the world to go to the annual tour qualifying school to earn a tour card, which will allow them to play the following year. But is it way easier said than done! So what are the facts--what is the reality you face when entering the European Tour Qualifying School? How good do you really need to be to earn one of the 25 tour cards on offer? Reality Check Number 1 The first level of reality you need to confront is that there are 3 qualifying stages to play, and it will cost you U.S. $2,043.00 to enter, and there's no refund if you don't progress past the 1st qualifying stage. Also be mindful that around 700 entries are received each year, and that adds up to a US$1,430,100 (That's nearly 1.5 million dollars in entry fees) windfall for the European Tour. Remember only 25 golfers plus ties get playing privileges on the main tour at the end of the 3rd stage. ![]() 1st Stage (4 rounds) Of the 700 who tee it up at 1st stage only 175 ( 25%) will progress to the 2nd stage and join 135 players who have exemption to make up the field of 310. In 2014 there were 10 venues used for 1st stage with the average winning score being -14.4, and the average for the last qualifying spots was -5.1. All 10 venues were spread around Europe. So simply put, if you don't currently have a competitive stroke average of 70.75 or lower and you enter the European Tour School, you will be automatically donating to the coffers of the European Tour! The stroke average for winning at 1st stage was 68.4 per round, which is rather impressive, with -18 being the lowest winning score at a couple of venues and - 2 was the highest score of all the venues. 2nd Stage (4 Rounds) The field of 310 are spread over four venues and at the end of the four rounds only 80 players (25%) get the opportunity to move on to the final stage. The depth and quality of the field is of the highest quality, with a mixture of "young guns" and experienced tour players. That's why the average 4 round score required to get the last spot at each venue is - 7.25, or 70.2 per round. Final Stage (6 Rounds) The final stage has been conducted at the PGA Catalunya Resort in Spain over the last few years. Six rounds over the Stadium and Tour courses. The Stadium course is a much tougher test compared to the Tour course. The 80 players from 2nd stage join another 80 or so players that have exemptions into the final stage. They include those that held a tour card that year on the main tour but failed to finish in the top 110 in the Race to Dubai. Plus those from position 26 to 40 on the European Challenge Tour that just missed out on the 25 cards given to players who finished up the best 25 on that tour. The pressure at final stage of tour school is arguably higher than any tournament as failing to secure a top 25 spot means the player has to wait another year before he can get another opportunity. For those who play well enough to secure one of the 25 cards plus ties, they are guaranteed at least 18 starts on the European Tour. The winning score at European Tour School was - 20 or an average of 68.67 per round by Mikko Korhonen from Finland. The final card T25 was Allesendro Tardini (Italy), Daniel Woltman (USA), and Cyril Bouniol (France) scored - 7 for the six rounds, or an average of 70.84 per round. ![]() The stark reality that the numbers present from the 2014 European Tour School indicate that for any player to have a realistic chance to earn a tour card he has to have a competitive scoring average lower than 71. Not even if you possess a handicap of +1 or the equivalent playing standard at your club will it even be close to the standard required to get one of the 25 cards plus ties on offer. Take note of some important statistics below as they will show you what is required
The 2014 tour is at the stage where only the top 110 will progress to the remaining events after Hong Kong, and of the 27 that got their card at tour school only 12 are inside that 110 position. ![]() Leading the pack is Anirban Lahiri from India with 2 wins on tour and winnings of U.S. $1,594,818.00 with Matthew Fitzpatrick with 1 tour victory and U.S. $1,535,900.00 in prize money. Chris Paisley is right on the bubble (110 on the money list) with U.S. $270,265.00. The above article should give you a more realistic understanding of what the minimum requirements for you to be competitive at the European Tour Qualifying School. Now if you're hoping it's going to be your week, you're going to need at least three of those "it might be my week" wishes for you to have a good chance of getting one of the cards on offer. Now don't let the facts destroy your dreams of being a successful tour player just yet, but this is your reality check, and it just means that you have to be more than ready to compete at any tour school these days. And the reason is simple; there are many amateur and professional golfers the world over who have a competitive scoring average lower than 71 who will be there aiming to secure one of those 25 cards. So let's hope that one of them is you. David Milne and Lawrie Montague - Pro Tour Golf College The Professional Golf Tour Training College for Serious Amateur and Professional Golfers |
Archives
June 2019
|