Practicing for Scoring (play)

WEBVTT

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Alright, golfers, let's talk about practicing for play.

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So there are different styles of practice, and none is more right or wrong, and

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you just

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want to apply it when the scenario is right.

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So the one that we talk about a lot in this site is mechanics, practicing on

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improving

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your swing.

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So the golf is a very technical game, and the better golfers have better

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technique.

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But working on mechanics is not something you want to do, at least not as far

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as changing

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your mechanics, you don't want to do that right before an event, so there are

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times where

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you want to shift focus.

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So when you're working on mechanics, you're typically not going to have a huge

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target

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focus, but you want to have lots of sensory feedback.

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So whether it's stations, or training aids, or video, things that are going to

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give you

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an increased sense of what you're doing movement wise.

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But that's not always the focus.

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Sometimes we want to work on skill training.

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So skill training is what I would call Goldilocks Zones, or Bandwidth Training.

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Think of it as far as like, we're going to pretend I'm playing basketball, and

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I want

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to work on my free throw shot, and I'm working on getting my, you know, my L's,

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or getting

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my arm in a little bit better of a 90 degree angle, because I used to be

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shooting like this.

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So that's the technique.

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Well, the skill training would be, can I hit the front of the rim?

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Can I hit the back of the rim?

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Can I hit a swish, right?

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So Goldilocks Zones are basically try to do too much, try to do too little, try

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to do

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just right, and the brain is able to figure out that spectrum a little bit

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better.

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You can do skill training working on distances, you can do it on direction,

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working on curve

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or start lines, you can do it on trajectory, working on height, and you can do

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it on contact

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location, either heel toe, fat thin, high low, any of those can be skill

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training.

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And that gives you the tools for being able to be more adaptive, where just the

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mechanics

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might help you be more consistent, but skill training helps you be more

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adaptive, which

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is what we really need when we're handling different lives on the course.

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Now the last thing would be more transfer training.

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So let's say I have a lot of really good skills and good technique, but it's

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just not showing

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up on the golf course.

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So transfer style training would be working more on practicing my routines in

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the process,

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try to make things more automatic.

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So going back to that free throw analogy, it's not just front rim, back rim,

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middle, it's

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now, okay, can I make 10 in a row, and can I make 10 in a row with just a swish

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?

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So I'm adding pressure, one of the keys to transfer training is that the

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practice must

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induce some level of stress or anxiety.

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And keeping score and doing simulations, like, okay, this putt is to win the

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championship,

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or I'm going to do a six foot putt, and if I miss it, then I have to make three

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, four

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footers in a row, or whatever it might be, come up with kind of games or tasks

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all the

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time.

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The best ones revolve around benchmarks related to strokes gained, but really

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you could do

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anything that induces some pressure.

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So working on your routines, either getting really streamlined with picking

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shots or getting

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really streamlined with walking up to the ball and hitting it, that can be

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really good.

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But then to really make it transfer, I want to get used to how my body is going

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to be

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affected by pressure, and so really the only way to do that is to simulate some

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kind of

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pressure during practice.

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So when you're practicing, you want to go to a range with some type of priority

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.

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I like building mechanics first, and then I like doing skill building and

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ultimately

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transfer training, and the closer I get to an event, the more I want to do

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transfer in

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skills.

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Unless I have a big deficiency and I just really need to keep working on my

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mechanics

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because I have more of a long term goal rather than this specific tournament.

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But if I had one specific tournament and one goal to just play well at that

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tournament,

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I would do the majority of transfer training and get really comfortable using

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my pre-shot

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routine.

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That would make it feel a lot more automatic when I'm feeling more pressure

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during the event.