Successful Golf Practice Is An Art That All Golfers Need To Master
by Don Saunders
A lot of golfers are very dedicated to their sport
and practice for hours on
end, however a amazingly high number of golfers do not really know
exactly they should practice. If this seems unbelievable then just spend a
little bit of time following golfers on the practice range and see how many
you can spot who appear to be attempting to get rid of balls as quickly as
they can using as much strength as they can muster.
The secret to playing golf can be found simply in
your ability to correctly
swing the club and, while this is only one of the skills you need,
mastering
this one will take you 80% of the way to becoming a successful golfer.
The problem however is that the golf swing is a complex thing and
controlling it first means understanding itand all of its components.
In simple terms mastering the golf swing needs not
just physical strength
but also considerable mental agility and the key is to develop your own
natural swing by adding a great deal of thought into your practice
sessions,
without of course going too far and slanting your practice session too far
in
favor of thought.
A successful golfer is somebody who understands that
golf is not only a physical but also a mental game and who can get both
into the correct balance. All too many golfers unfortunately either view
the game of golf as being only a physical pursuit in which strength wins
through or treat it as an almost exclusively mental exercise putting in
much too much mental effort and too little physical exercise.
For the novice the answer lies in getting
professional advice and learning not simply how to play golf but, more
importantly, how to practice golf. Additionally, what you should be
practicing and how you ought to go about it should be determined by your
experience and skill as you work up from being a beginner through to an
intermediate and perhaps to a professional golfer. For instance, if you are
just beginning then you really ought no to be trying out the finer
techniques of the game which you see the professionals doing but ought to
be focusing your attention on getting each element of your basic swing
right before you do anything else.
Although this article clearly cannot go into detail
about exactly what you should be practicing, here is some advice on what
you should be including in every practice session.
1. Before you begin you have to know exactly what you
wish to practice and have a definite goal to aim at.
2. Start every practice session with several short,
soft iron shots and slowly work your way up through your set of clubs until
you arrive at your driver. Do not try putting real power into your shots
until you are happy that your swing is smooth and has a fluid rhythm to it.
3. regardless of what you are practicing, concentrate
on reaching a fluid rhythm because this is the secret to proper
coordination and hence timing.
4. Make sure that you have a target to aim at to help
build your self confidence. It is all very well and good to concentrate on
improving your distance but doing so without accuracy simply provides you
with a false sense of security. Once you get out on the course it is not
going to be much good if you can drive the distance required but end up out
of bounds because you are unable to also get your ball to fly in the
direction you want it to.
5. Finally, remember that, whilst direction and
distance will always be essential goals in any practice session, you must
also learn to attain a correct sense of balance and so do not concentrate
so much on reaching the best distance with accuracy that you neglect to
test out various different positions while practicing your swing to get
your best position for that perfect sense of balance.
Donald Saunders has been writing articles on a
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