The Thing You NEED to be Practicing, (that you most likely aren’t)

NOT ONE player in my history as a coach, when asked what they’re working on, has ever responded,

“I’m working on my SITUATIONS, and understanding ODDS, and what to do in certain circumstances.”

Yet, every round of golf requires these sort of split-second decisions.

As a competitive golfer, you need to know when to SELL THE FARM and go for it,

and when to RETREAT and pull back your forces, knowing that there are other battles you will have greater odds of winning.

You improve at what you train, and the odds of these sort of moments can be learned

-just like poker-

and you can improve your ability to make the right decisions more regularly.

1. My first (and best) piece of advice is to watch professional golf on TV, PUTTING YOURSELF IN THE SITUATION of the player you’re watching.

“What would I do from here? What are the things I should consider? What’s the risk-reward of each decision?”

These are the things that should be going through your mind with INTENTIONAL TV watching.

2. Number two, when playing, drop a couple balls down whenever you arrive at any shot that has a “decision” moment to it.

See what happens as you play each one out.

Do this enough times and you’ll gain a feel for what and when to go for it and when to lay back.

3. Increase your skill set. More available shots=more options in the moment.

The more you practice your curiosity on what happens when you do X, the more you’ll learn your game and what to do when.

Growing as a player is absolutely about improving your physical game. Hitting longer straighter drives, closer iron approaches, and making more putts are massively important to the score. But perhaps the differentiator, when you arrive at the upper ends of the competitive game, is whether or not you know when to apply pressure, or ease off, when to go for it, and when to not.

Tiger woods was the absolute best at this, and his record shows that. Not only was he superb from tee to gree (usually), but he rarely made course management errors. Which only made it that much more difficult to beat him.

-Michael