Ray Floyd Amateur Struggles

WEBVTT

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Hey golfers, in this video, we're going to talk about Ray Floyd's advice for

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either

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your amateur golfers or your pro or scratch golfers.

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So Ray Floyd has a really good book on course strategy, and in it he has kind

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of a top 10

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list.

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I added a few extras of my own, but he has a top 10 list of challenges that

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either your

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amateur or your professional golfer need to overcome if they're going to really

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maximize

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their scores.

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So we'll go through those and perhaps they'll give you some perspectives that

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might help

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you avoid some of the most common pitfalls that really impact your score.

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So again, Ray Floyd's top 10.

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First, with amateur problems, one of the most common issues we'll see is under

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clubbing

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or basically playing for your best shot.

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So a way to overcome under clubbing is to ask yourself the question, could I

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hit this

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10 yards past the pin?

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If the answer is no, then I'm really playing for my best shot, which in certain

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scenarios

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might be right, but as a general rule, that's probably wrong.

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The other way that you can overcome that is if you take a club that would hit

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it to the

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back, not the middle of the green, but the back two thirds.

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So in between the middle of the green and the back edge, if you basically pick

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the number

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that would go to there on a good shot, that would probably give you more of an

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average

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shot to the middle of the green.

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Number two, swinging too hard, especially with your short irons.

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So this is a target game, or amateurs are often surprised at how far pros hit

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it, but

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how relatively calmer or more in balance or easy it looks like they're swinging

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, especially

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on the short iron.

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So focusing on having more of a cruising three quarter finish instead of a big

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wraparound

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finish can help with your overall consistency, which helps with hitting those

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irons closer.

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Number three, automatically aiming at pin.

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We talked about in the aiming section and how I completely agree with that.

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Depending on your skill level, you might want to be aiming more for the fat

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part or the

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middle of the green.

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If you're a high handicap golfer, basically if you're 100 yards or further away

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, you should

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just be aiming for the green and ignoring the pin.

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Yes, aiming at the pin might give you more of a highlight reel, but it also

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give you more

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doubles and triples, and those can really have a big impact on your average

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score.

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Hitting a club based on distance, not the situation.

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I see this a lot where on the course golfer is just laser the pin and whatever

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the number

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is, they're going to grab that club.

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They don't necessarily factor in the slope, they don't factor in the wind, they

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don't

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factor in the elevation, the grass, if the ball's going to spin or not, they

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don't factor

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in where it's going to land and where it's going to run.

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They just grab the club based on the number, and while that might be okay if

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you're shooting

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over 100 as you get into more of a, you know, in the 100 to 80 zone, picking

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the right club

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and hitting it the right distance is a fast way to give yourself easier and

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better recovery

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shots around the green.

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Number five, missing greens on the wrong side, so amateurs rarely understand

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how penalizing

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it is to short side yourself.

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It can be as much as a quarter to half a stroke per whole, so if you imagine

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that, if you short

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sided yourself and we took the upper numbers, if you short sided yourself on

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every whole,

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that would cause you to shoot about nine strokes worse than if you had missed

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it in the fat

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side of the green.

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So that's a full category of scoring just from choosing a better target so that

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you miss

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it on the appropriate side.

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Number six, trying for too much out of trouble, so I often find in trees, golf

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ers will try

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to, they'll look at these really small windows that oftentimes, if they don't

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pull it off

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successfully, it's going to leave them the same shot.

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Sometimes if you were to simply just punch it back in the fairway and you

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executed that

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shot appropriately, that would gain you a full stroke in terms of strokes

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gained.

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So while it's fun again to try to hit those hero shots, we want to look at kind

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of the

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probability, and if we can't pull it off seven out of ten, I think that you're

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probably biting

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off more than you can chew, and if pulling it off doesn't gain me at least half

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a stroke

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or three-quarter of a stroke, like if it doesn't move me significantly up in

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the zones, then

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it's probably not worth it.

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Next one, number seven, having no sand game, and we'll tie that in to number

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eight, having

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no recovery shot.

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So I put those as kind of like the recovery where, you know what, bad shots are

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going

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to happen and sometimes you're going to miss it in the wrong spot, even if you

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aim correctly,

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that can either put you in trees where now I have to have good recovery skills

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of being

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able to punch it or curve it, or at least having one simple 40-yard and 100-

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yard kind

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of punch recovery shots, or be having no sand game.

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So this is where a lot of amateur golfers, if they do miss it in a bunker

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because I'm

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not understanding the technique properly, they tend to either leave it in or

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blade it over

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and those bunkers turn into triples and quads really easily.

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So I have a whole course on how to navigate the sand game, but at the very

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least you need

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to make sure you have a sand game.

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Number nine, misreading or not reading the lie or the wind.

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That's part of why when you're choosing a club, we're not just going to shoot

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the gun

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and go based on the distance, but we're going to use that do method of looking

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at distance

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elevation, which is kind of the lie or slope, as well as the wind.

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Those are the three big factors for choosing which club you're going to hit.

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Number ten, under reading break on putts.

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I would also add to that under reading uphill downhill.

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One common thing that I see for a lot of amateurs is they hit a downhill putt

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too hard and then

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they get there and they just realize they hit it too hard and then they leave

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the uphill

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putt too short, as opposed to factoring in and having a really good commitment

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to how

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hard you're going to hit it.

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When it comes to reading and under reading putts, the same skill applies to

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left to right

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or right to left.

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I often, I agree with him, I often see amateurs under read the putt by, let's

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say, at least

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half, maybe even more.

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Practicing some breaking putts and learning to be able to visualize or using a

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strategy

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like Aimpoint or the math in order to be able to really see how much a putt is

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going

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to break can have a big impact on your ability to get the putts into more of a

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makeable tap

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in zone.

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Now, a couple others that I add would be fake aiming safe.

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That's one of my kind of big pet peeves and it basically comes down to

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pretending that

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I'm aiming but still looking at the hole and kind of guiding it there.

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So if there's trouble right, I aim left but then I'm secretly trying to push it

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back

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to the target instead of confidently swinging like I was on the range at a

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target that is

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different from the flag.

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The best way to overcome that is to practice aiming at different targets and

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not always

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aiming at pins when you're practicing on the range.

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Number two, on my side, changing swing thoughts, each swing.

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So I often see amateurs will, they won't come up with the plan during the warm

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up or

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on the range.

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They'll basically be making it up as they go along and each swing, they are

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trying to

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change the thought to kind of get this perfect ball flight rather than working

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on the mental

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game of being able to commit fully to that swing thought.

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I like to have the same swing thought throughout the day unless it's just not

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working at all

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but I'm not going to make that decision after one bad shot.

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I'm going to make that decision after a sequence of bad shots, maybe four or

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five bad shots

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in a row.

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That'll change a little bit but one recipe for inconsistency is changing your

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thought

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every single swing and I see that a lot with higher handicap golfers.

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And then number three is trying to hit the right shot versus the comfortable

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shot.

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This mostly applies around the green where I see golfers kind of like think I

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need to.

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I should hit this high because I'm short-sided but I'm not really comfortable

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hitting high,

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I'm going to chunk it in the bunker or blade it over if I do but they'll still

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try that

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shot.

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So that's where I give the goal of seven out of ten.

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If you can't at least pull it off seven out of ten times in practice, you

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probably have

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no right or it's not smart for you to try that shot on the course yet and there

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's probably

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a carryover of trying it on the course, you know, just playing casually by

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myself versus

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trying it on the course in the middle of a tournament or club championship or

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something

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like that.

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So hopefully these help you identify common areas that you might be struggling

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with and

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that you could potentially kind of recognize where you're more likely to fall

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into some

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of these pitfalls.

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You probably don't fit every single one of them but if you highlighted one or

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two and

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you made that a goal the next time you go play that's going to help you and

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over the

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course of the season you could probably work on all of them and once most of

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them become

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automatic you'll quickly find that your scores have gradually improved.