The Struggle
Golf is full of surprises.
In fact, it would be more weird if golf was totally predictable than if it was pretty random.
I guess that’s why golfers say they love “boring golf”.
But the randomness and surprises of golf aren’t the issue. The issue is when you expect golf to be predictable.
Yes, sometimes you have stretches of play where you have a pretty good idea of where the ball is going to go. But those are easy to be mentally prepared for. It would be a much better mental exercise to be prepared for surprises. For when the ball isn’t going where you want to go.
My coach Robert Linville tells me that whenever he asks a player “what are your goals” they almost always say “I just want to be more consistent”.
And his response is always “you mean you just want to be better at golf”.
The Solution
So we need to put the notion of trying to make golf totally predictable. And instead we need to build a foundation that can handle anything that golf throws at us.
As Josh Waitzkin says in his book The Art of Learning,
“When hit with such surprises, if you have a solid foundation, you should be fine. Tactics come easy once principles are in the blood.”¹
What does he mean “principles in the blood”. I believe with “principles” he’s referring to the basic skills, the fundamentals of the game. And with “in the blood” he’s referring to having internalized and ingrained them so deeply that they hardly need to be thought about anymore.
Which leads me to believe that practicing the fundamentals should be the #1 thing we practice. Every practice session should start with a check-in on the fundamentals. Grip, Alignment, Posture, Ball Position.
This accomplishes two things:
- Helps them never get too far off.
- Ingrains the “principles into the blood”.
A great way to do this is to work these into your pre-shot routine in some way. Like how Adam Scott or Scottie Scheffler always check their grip in their pre-shot routine. Or Jason Day and Justin Rose check their alignment.
And then doing that on every shot in a practice session.
So coming back to where we started, the fact that golf is full of surprises isn’t scary. Just like a storm on the ocean isn’t scary to a skilled captain of a ship. His processes and his fundamentals are ingrained to where he simply acts and executes.
While golf is full of ups and downs, you can be steady.
One thing for you to work on this week:
To-do: Make checking your fundamentals a required start of every practice session. Incorporating Grip, Alignment, Posture, Ball Position into your pre-shot routine will solidify these.
Sources:
- Waitzkin, J. The Art of Learning. p. 238 (paperback)