Builders take great time and care to ensure a building’s foundations are stable and correct, otherwise the building can’t be developed correctly. So it is with a golf swing. You can identify a good golfer by the way they stand to the ball, likewise a golfer with poor posture is identified as one who limits their potential.

Ground force: why great golf swings start from the feet Continue Reading→

Run and Hit -Pitching

Around the green create a shot easy or more difficult to a specific target.  Using 1 ball, you must hit 10 shots to that same target.   Before hitting each shot you must run around the green.  Once back at the ball, run through your full pre-shot routine prior to hitting each shot.   After you have hit your shot pick up your ball and start to run around the green again.  Repeat 10 times.  It is important to note the quality of shots early in the drill compared to the last half of the drill.  Do they drop off?  What can you do to help deal with the lack of breath or the heart beating more quickly?  Allocate points in relation to where the shot finishes.  5 points if you hole out, 2 points if the ball finishes within 1 club length, 0 points if outside of 1 club length.

Repeat this drill a various stages of you practice.

Problem Not knowing what to practice.

Solution Know your game and devise a practice plan.

To be intentional in your training assumes you know what it is you are going to practice. In this instance the player isn’t even really sure what to practice.

Nothing wastes more time than wondering what to practice. During the session the internal voice is asking whether you are practicing the right thing or not. This doubt will undermine the quality of the session and fail to cement any learnings from the session.

The easiest way to determine the areas of your game most in need of development is to collate statistical data from your game and to analyse it.

Generally there should be approximately a 60:40 break-up of time with 60% devoted to short game (putting, chipping, bunkers and pitching up to around 60 metres). There should then be a slight bias toward the areas of the game which are showing up as statistically in need of development. This certainly doesn’t mean an ‘all the eggs in one basket’ approach as that would be unbalanced.

What are the strengths of your game?

Which are the areas in need of development?

What is the priority in practice for you for this month?

Source Peter Knight

Been practicing hard but not showing the benefits of all that practice when you get to competition? This is extremely common and it occurs with players of all levels, from Tour players to high handicappers. Frustrating isn’t it!

How would you like to ensure that your efforts in practice are transferred to the golf course, especially in competition? Of course that is what every golfer wants.

One way to ensure value from your practice sessions is to avoid making the errors outlined below by first being aware of them and following the advice

Problem #1 Practicing without a purpose

Solution: Be Continue Reading→

Coin Drill

Place 2 coins on top of each other an inch behind the ball on the target line.  Three inches in front of the ball place 2 more coins on the target line.  Your putting stroke should cause the putter to miss the coins behind the ball, and then hit the coins in front of the ball after you have hit the putt. This drill will immediately get you hitting down on your putts instead of scooping them.  You will start to see and feel the ball roll better.  Your contact will also become more solid on the putter face.

Good Function

The Deep stabilising muscles of the trunk form a muscular cylinder surrounding the lumbar spine and pelvis. The deep stabilisers help control the position and movement of the trunk. The mover muscles are more superficial, they are the muscles you use to move your body.

The Deep Stabiliser muscles:

• Work at low intensity for long periods of time
• Generate tension to support and stabilise rather than move the body
• Contract before you move to support the body’s position
• Turn on in a similar way no matter what way you are moving
• Keep the spine and pelvis optimally aligned to maintain a neutral spine or ‘good posture’ position

The Mover muscles:

• Work at high intensity for short periods of time
• Generate force to move the body and change its position
• Contract at the time of movement to cause the movement
• Move the trunk and limbs
• Work differently depending on what movement you are doing

The deep stabiliser muscles only work at about 5% of their maximal contraction, but stay on for long periods of time. As they contract, the stabilisers don’t move your body much, if at all. They tend to apply tension and support structures rather than move your body.

When you think of moving, the deep stabilisers contract before any of the muscles that actually cause the movement. This pre-contraction prepares your body for the movement by supporting and stabilising the trunk to provide a stable base for movement.

A stable base makes for mechanically efficient movement or static postures. Imagine a crane being positioned on a solid concrete slab versus a sandy beach. The crane on the concrete slab is much more easily controlled by the driver who can be more accurate as the crane picks up and sets down objects. The crane on the beach will be much less accurate and take more effort getting the objects placed exactly where it wants them. The deep stabilising muscles of the body provide the stable base for the mover muscles to move the trunk and limbs.

The mover muscles are the ones which move your body. The mover muscles generate a lot of force and fatigue quickly. They turn on and off rather than staying on like the stabiliser muscles. You can easily work your mover muscles by moving your body against resistance such as the quads, hamstrings or biceps. In the trunk the mover muscles include the rectus abdominis (the six pack) and the obliques. These are the muscles you work with exercises such as sit ups or crunches.

Poor Function

The Deep Stabiliser muscles:

• Begin to turn off and on rather than staying on
• Contract after you move and so can’t support the body’s position as effectively
• Are less able to keep the spine and pelvis optimally aligned to maintain a neutral spine or ‘good posture’ position

The Mover muscles:

• Work at high intensity for longer periods of time to compensate for poor deep stabiliser muscles

The deep stabilisers change the way they work when pain is present. They no longer contract before you move to prepare or stabilise the trunk, they react to the movement. This can lead to injury. The movement muscles try and compensate. As mover muscles, they contract strongly and start to move the body, other muscles then pull on to counteract this movement. The body is working much harder to stabilise and using much more muscle activity than it needs to. This results in tight areas of the body which feel great when massaged out, but the tightness returns again. If your back pain behaves this way chances are you have trouble controlling your deep stabilisers and the pain arises from the compensatory strategies of the mover muscles.

Screening

A number of screening tests can indicate poor control of the core. There are a couple of quick tests you can do at home. If any of these tests give you pain, do not continue any further testing and see an appropriate health professional.

The active straight leg raise

Lie on your back and lift one heel about 10cm off the ground with your knee straight. Compare how difficult this feels compared with the other side. If one side is harder than the other, or both sides are difficult, you could have some issues with control of your core.

Source High Performance Golf

Just like the golf swing, there are basically only three things that make the ball go on line or off line: the path, the position of the clubface and the quality of impact.

If you have control of your path, then you have control of your initial direction; if you have control of your initial direction (with a putt), you can then let the green do the work (in a full shot, you let the spin do the work). The way I teach putting and the full swing is to focus on these three principles.

People forget that the quality of the strike is everything in putting. Within a fraction of a second of hitting the ball, you know whether or not you have struck it on the correct line. It’s instinctive; you feel it off the putter-face.

Another thing people tend to forget is that there is a vertical as well as a horizontal sweetspot on every putter-face. The ball is 1.68 inches in diameter, so the sweet-spot on your putter needs to be 0.84 inches above the ground to strike the equator of the ball, which is your goal. You want to get the sweet- spot of the putter meeting the sweet- spot of the ball.

And you can see that when I match the sweet-spots, the putter is raised up a little. In other words, the putter has to be released on the up as it works through impact in order to strike the equator of the ball. The whole of the putter – i.e. head, shaft and grip – has to be released (not ‘blocked’ or manipulated) as it swings up through impact.

Continue Reading→

“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”  Marcus Aurelius

This implies that fears hold us back from having and showing the confidence that would otherwise be ours.Questioning our confidence is quite normal, particularly when we are attempting something we haven’t tried before. I can recall the first time I competed in golf
tournaments, the first time I coached; there were plenty of doubts…at times they are still there. Certainly having a greater level of confidence would have been handy at the time but the important thing is that didn’t stop me from pursuing those activities.Confidence is having a level of certainty that you are capable of achieving whatever it is that you set out to do

What holds you back?  Causes of low self-confidence: Continue Reading→

Many club golfers kick start their swing incorrectly by swinging the club back on either of two incorrect swing paths – that is whipping the club too far inside the target line or letting the club drift outside the line.   These are the only takeaway faults you can make and they are a major contributor to hitting poor shots because if your takeaway path is not straight, or on the correct path, this then sets in motion a chain of events where your downswing and through-impact positions mirror what occurred in the takeaway.  The degree in which the club is out of an ideal path is reflected in the severity of the mis-hit. Continue Reading→