Ray Floyd Pro/Scratch Struggles

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All right golfers, part two of looking at Ray Floyd's strategy, this time we're

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going

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to look more at scratch or pro golfer problems according to Ray Floyd.

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So again, top 10, adding a few or one of my own, but these are definitely more

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advanced

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than the amateur problems, but can often derail you and cause you to shoot high

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70s versus

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the low 70s.

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So number one, becoming impatient and trying to force birdies, golfers have

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kind of shared

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in press conferences after rounds when they made bigger improvements, oft

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entimes their

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scores, especially when it comes to winning majors, winning tournaments, stem

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from being

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more patient rather than trying to force low scores.

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What usually happens, birdies happen from a law of statistical averages, like

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if I give

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myself enough iron shots, I'm going to hit a certain percentage of them close

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enough,

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and if I give myself a certain number of putts, I'm going to make some of them

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all my good

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days.

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I'm going to make more, and that's when I'm going to shoot really low.

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But when you start forcing birdies and aiming at every single pin, you start

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bringing in

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more costly misses and you bring in more of the bogeys and doubles.

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So having patience is one of the fastest ways, and playing more conservatively

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is one of

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the fastest ways to lower your scores.

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It's not always as fun in the short term, but because it doesn't create as much

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of the

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kind of adrenaline and excitement, but overall, it's kind of like being a

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professional poker

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player instead of always trying to hit the big hand, knowing when to fold them

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and knowing

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when to play safe, knowing the odds.

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So that leads directly into number two, which is playing overly aggressive,

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basically challenging

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every single shot, trying to hit it right down the line, right at the pin, ram

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the putts,

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all those things statistically lead to bigger misses, and again, even the best

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in the world

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only make four or five birdies around on average.

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So it's very easy by playing aggressively to bring in a couple doubles.

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If you have two doubles, that quickly evaporates any chance of shooting under

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par unless you

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have more than four birdies, and that's unlikely for most of us.

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Changing the swing and not playing a stock pattern, what that basically means

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is looking

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at your normal pattern, let's say you were going to hit a fade, and let's say I

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had you

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hit ten fades and it would have a distribution of a certain size.

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Now let's say I had you with the same club go back and forth and instead of

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hitting ten

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fades, you're going to do five fades, five draws, and you're going to kind of

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go back

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and forth.

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Now, instead of the overall circle being this big, you might have more shots,

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so it feels

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like I'm playing safer, but the overall dispersion might get bigger.

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So having a stock shot that you're going to hit in every scenario that you can

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other

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than when it doesn't fit, or training your non-dominant shot to be just as

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accurate.

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Like let's say with your fade, you average five-yard variance off the target,

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but with

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your draw, your eight yards, well if you can get that draw down to eight or

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down to five

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or six yards, then going back and forth can potentially work for you like Tiger

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Woods

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used to do.

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But if not, playing one stock shot is probably a better approach for giving

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yourself more

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consistency, more repeatability.

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Okay, next, dwelling on a shot that you've already played in the process videos

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, we

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talk about basically like saying in the moment, being more sensory.

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If you're dwelling on a past shot, then your mind is preoccupied and it's hard

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to be fully

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focused and therefore not fully committed.

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So you're going to hit a shot where you're kind of going through the motions,

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but emotionally

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and mentally your brain is still in the past, or in the future trying not to

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recreate what

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you're dwelling on in the past.

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So learning to let go emotionally, we got another video for giving you some

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basic strategies

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on letting go of emotions to help you move on to that next shot.

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Thinking about score too much, especially in the middle of a hole, that takes

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away from

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the shot is the shot that can often lead to becoming impatient and trying to

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force birdies

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or playing more aggressively because you'll start feeling like I have to start

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making it

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happen instead of just hitting good shots and letting it happen.

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Anticipating future holes is similar to dwelling on a shot already played.

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Future thinking and past thinking, both take your mind away from where your

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body is which

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is in the present.

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And the zone, the flow, the great performance is tend to happen when your mind

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and your

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body are aligned and they can only be aligned in the present moment.

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So if you're anticipating future holes, you can't be fully focused and fully

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committed

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on the shot at hand and that ultimately is going to impact your score or impact

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the shot

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you're about to hit.

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Under pressure, we tend to find golfers either do one of two things.

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They either rush so they hate the feeling of being uncomfortable and so they

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just try

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to get it over with and so they skip steps and oftentimes by rushing, they

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start revisiting

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steps in their mind like am I really aimed, did I really get committed and that

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indecision

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leads to bad shots?

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Where some golfers become too slow under pressure, they start kind of changing

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the cadence of

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their pattern and spending more time and that throws off their rhythm and then

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they feel

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like they kind of have to rush the actual execution because they were so slow

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in the

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planning and the process.

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So keeping to your normal cadence will help with shots especially under

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pressure.

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Practicing with no purpose, I'll generally refer to this with my students as

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getting

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exercise versus training technique or skills.

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So you want to make sure that every practice has some focus that you are

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training a skill

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or training a technique.

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So I'm in a 100% alignment there and good players fall into that same pattern

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of just

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hitting good shots but not really be being focused or deliberate.

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I remember talking to a on the cusp, so a golfer who was kind of in the top 20

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and his

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coach basically said that he was studying the top golfers at the time.

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This was a few years ago so the Jordan speed, the Rory's, you know John Roms

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and what was

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described was basically the top golfers had this intensity and focus even

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during practice

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where the 20 to 30 world ranked golfer would tend to kind of mail in some

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practices, sometimes

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go through the motions and that carries over.

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If you're not fully focused when you're practicing, it's going to be hard to be

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fully focused

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when you're competing.

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There's a famous Seals quote that you don't rise to the occasion when pressure

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hits, you

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fall to your training.

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So you want to train so that it will show up on the course and that really

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boils down

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to having a purpose with every time you practice.

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A common one I've seen especially more recently is some Tour pros neglecting

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their short

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game as they start working more and more on trying to improve their full swing.

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So trying to hit those iron shots closer can lead to, you know, I'll just do 10

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, 15 minutes

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of short game rather than you know when they were really good and they were

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doing a minute

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or sorry an hour, two hours of putting that kind of stuff.

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So keeping a schedule and keeping a target for the week as far as what you need

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to practice

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can help you from avoiding certain areas.

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You want to touch on all of your pieces if you are a competitive golfer.

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Next one on Raise List was being overly meticulous, tightening up or trying to

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be perfect.

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So those kind of fit into a similar category as far as I think of kind of

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changing your

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pattern or playing golf swing versus playing the golf course.

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There is a time to work on mechanics but there's also a time to become athletic

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and an artist

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and kind of go take the process you've trained and try to hit the beautiful

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shot and not

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necessarily hit the most perfect technique.

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Especially in this day and age where we have really good video and 3D force

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plates and

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ball flight data, it's easy to kind of focus on chasing the numbers versus

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chasing the

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fields and building a swing that you feel like is repeatable and one that you

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can trust.

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So I agree with him trying to be perfect is a fast way to prevent progress.

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Now that's for pros.

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For amateurs, they're trying to be perfect.

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I often find golfers will try to perfect things rather than take a step forward

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.

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So oftentimes I'll see a golfer and let's say we're working on some sequencing

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and as

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a result they're getting some better swings, their body is moving better but

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now they're

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hitting some thin shots that they're not used to because they're using more

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lower body

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and getting into a shallower position on the way through.

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Instead of just accepting that I'm going to hit a few thin shots for a couple

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of practices

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and then as I've done this more I can layer in a secondary thought where the

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sequencing

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might be 80% of my practice and 20% might be a little arm release or something

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that will

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clean it up.

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I'll try to perfect it before they're really ready.

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So I agree with him here.

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It's important to try to be the best you can but knowing that trying to be

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perfect is ultimately

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going to limit your potential.

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And then the one more there of forgetting to have fun and be grateful.

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That can lead to adding on top of the shot.

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We talked about kind of in the execution phase about how mentally adding onto

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the shot takes

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away from the simplicity of the approach of trying to hit one shot at a time.

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And so oftentimes remembering that this is a fun game and we're out here by

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choice even

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though it's hard we can still have fun and we can be grateful for the fact that

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we get

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to spend time outside and having more of that appreciation mindset ultimately

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takes away

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some of the stress, some of the attachment of my identity to how well I'm

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performing

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and that'll allow me to commit to my process.

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Ironically committing to the process leads to better outcomes but overly

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focusing on

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the outcomes can sabotage your enjoyment and it can force you to either rush or

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change

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your timing of your process, change your focus level, change your attention

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level.

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All those things can lead to poor contact or poor shots.

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So in full agreement here, Ray Floyd has a great list.

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If you're a competitive golfer, run through the list, maybe highlight one or

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two to focus

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on each round or each week.

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These can be really good mental performance goals that you can add while you're

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working

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on some technical skills.

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We add these anytime we're going to practice on the course or play in a casual

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round.