Playing the Long Game – Preparing for the Upcoming Season

Happy New Year to everyone. I trust you have had an enjoyable and relaxing festive season. For me it’s a great time to put the suitcase and passport away, catch up with friends and do some coaching at Wembley.

But now it’s time to put the mince pies down and pick the golf clubs up. As we start planning and preparing for the new golf season, I presume everyone’s New Year resolution will be, like myself, to shoot lower scores and lower the handicap. 

For the past 35 years I have used a simple strategy to prepare for the upcoming season. As I am still playing tournament golf all around the world it must mean that it hasn’t let me down yet. Give it a go and you might see some welcomed improvement in your scoring.

There are 4 main elements to the strategy:
• Find the middle – club head control.
• Short game feel.
• Feel for the putter.
• Sharpen the mind.

Find the middle – During the swing a clubhead will have a speed of 90 to 110+ mph. At the same time your body is rotating and changing throughout the swing. That’s a lot of fast-moving parts that need to be controlled so that you can make solid contact with the ball. The only thing connecting your body to the club is your grip. I don’t know of any great ball strikers that have a fundamentally poor or inconsistent grip. A good grip is probably the major contributing factor for producing a consistent path, face angle and low point in the swing to generate consistent ball striking. It allows for a repeatable swing that will find the middle of the club more often.

Short game feel – By hitting your pitches and chips shots with greater control and consistency you’ll be amazed how easy it is to lower your scores. I am continually working on my short game ensuring that this part of the game is always sharp. In professional golf making a soft bogey resulting from a sloppy chip is a bigger momentum killer than missing a birdie putt from inside 10 feet. Having an awareness of the technical aspects of a chip shot, such as how much wrist hinge is required, or using a change in the grip to help control club head speed and length of the swing, will lead to better touch around the greens…….. and therefore, lower scores.

Feel for the putter – Spending a lot of time lining up a ball and searching for the perfect line is a waste of time if you can’t control the pace of the ball. In fact, not having the ability to stroke the ball with the correct pace means that the line almost becomes irrelevant. If I misread putts but finish hole high I am never likely to be more than 3 feet away. However, if I have the same putts but I’m knocking them 4-5 feet past the hole or coming up 4-5 feet short of the hole, as well as three feet wide, now I am probably at least 6 feet away from the hole and no one is going to “give me” those putts. When you start to miss 5ft/6ft putts it’s only natural to start tinkering with your stroke and making unnecessary changes with your technique. Working on distance control will lead to a better feel for the putt, which leads to you reading putts better and holing more putts.

Sharpen the mind – Most students I work with love to hit drivers and long irons on the driving range. I know it’s a lot more fun but if you really want to lower your scores and handicap it’s time to change your approach to practice to a more professional one. Not only do professionals allocate equal time to all areas of the game (putting, chipping, pitching, irons, and driver), but we are also constantly challenging and evaluating our practice time to create playing situations and pressures we would find on the course. There are many drills and challenges that will help you to create or simulate some on course pressure situations which can help lower your scores …… and they can be just as much fun and rewarding as standing on the range hitting booming drives. It’s what all the professionals do so we can keep our game match ready.

Of course, having a practice strategy requires you to actually do some practice. So perhaps try to substitute one round of golf every week or every month with some practice. You can even do it with the same group of friends. 

To book a lesson at michaellonggolf.com and let’s start working on lowering your scores and handicap.