Things didn’t go my way this year. I could complain and get down on myself, but time for pity is over. I have never had a year where I hit more golf balls in my life and have had worse results.
Obviously, I need to make changes to what I am doing to see progress. Here are three that I am implementing right away.
Mindful practice including taking time off from playing rounds and ingraining what I would learn in the lesson.
I would often get a lesson, practice a day or two and then head right out to the course and get away from what I was doing in the lesson or the follow up practice sessions because I was getting frustrated on the course. I’m not giving myself enough time to absorb and implement what I am being taught thus I am not getting the swing change in and thus not getting the result I want.
Practice more, play less.
I enjoy reading about youth development practices in hockey and soccer in Europe versus what we do in the United States. One concept that has slowly made its way to youth soccer academies here is the ratio of practice to games. In thinking about how I want to get better I can’t shy away from a philosophy that works. There needs to be more focus on practice for me than rounds, this is a massive problem when the weather gets nicer out if I go to the course I just decide to sneak out and play versus focusing on practice.
Be mindful of when I schedule a lesson.
I wasted money on lessons this year. Not because I didn’t like my instructor or anything like that but because sometimes, I would go in there before a competition or a trip and ended up brushing up what I was taught because I didn’t want to change too much before that competition. Or if I did it before a trip, I wouldn’t have time to work on what was being taught before I headed out of town for work.
On the flip side of this I also didn’t schedule a lesson to even use as a check in during the end of the season and played horrifically bad golf once I changed my grip and was dealing with injury. I didn’t see the point of going in there because I wasn’t 100% but because of that I developed a couple of bad habits in my swing that could have easily been corrected instead of continuing to play shitty golf.