When visualization is not enough.

Finally got to play again after a long (week and a half :) ) break.

Golf is a fun ol' game. I thought I was going to able to report a break-through and give y'all the secret to consistently getting spectacularly low golf scores. I think I actually heard the Golf gods laughing as I was going around.

I did ok. I shot a 94'ish. 94'ish because I got to play the round by myself, and the course was wide open so I was hitting practice balls as I was playing and I admit to getting confused as to which was the play ball and which were the practice balls a couple of times.... (possibly another reason for the Golf gods' hilarity.)

But I did learn a couple of things I'd like to share.

First, don't - repeat DO NOT - read a bunch of golf tips right before playing a round. And do NOT even THINK about trying them out on the course. It will mess you up! I know you've probably heard and/or read this advice before, but it bears repeating. Specially for us kinetic golfers. It really gets in the way of feeling our way around the game.

Let's be clear on something: all the tips I've read were excellent tips, and I'm sure if I practice them on the range first they would make a positive difference. But trying them out during a round is a big mistake.

But here's the other thing I learned: I'm sure you've always heard that you can't make a shot if you can't visualize it. This is true. I hope visualizing the trajectory of your shot is already part of your pre-shot routine. The discovery was that there's one more step for us kinetic golfers: we have to tie that vision to a "feel" for the shot.

For me it went like this: I picked my target, I visualized what the ball flight to hit the target would look like. Before addressing the ball, I imagined the swing that would result in that ball flight, then I practiced the swing to fit the feel. As I was addressing the ball, I rehearsed that feel again. Then I took the swing.

Try it. Try not to look surprised when the ball follows the exact trajectory  you envisioned! :)

Let me know how this works for you.

Posted via email from Kinetic Golfer