Golf Tips

The end of the golf season is the perfect time to assess your performance on the course, and begin setting goals for the upcoming year. Here are a few specific recommendations:

1- Write down everything.

2- Be realistic in your assessment of your play this past year. Analyze your strengths, and identify obvious weak links in your game. If you feel your short game lets you down time and time again, then make a commitment to devote more practice time to chipping and putting than to hitting balls.

3- Figure out how to turn your liabilities into assets. For example, if you feel you don't hit the ball far enough, quite possibly you don't turn fully on your backswing. Lack of flexibility could be the culprit, so one goal could be to improve this by hiring a trainer, or beginning a stretching routine every day.

4- Have two goal lists: short term and long term. Each one should have 3-5 attainable, specific, tangible goals. For example:

Short term:
*I will practice 2 days per week for one hour.
*I will play 18 holes one time/week
*I will stretch each morning for 10 minutes
*I commit myself to being my own best friend on the course

Long term
*I will increase my shoulder turn by 20 degrees this year
*I will enter the club championship this fall and play to win
*I will lower my handicap from 18 to 9 by the end of the year
*I will commit to a necessary swing change, be patient as it takes shape, and work on it throughout the year ONLY on the range.

Sit down over the next week or so and try doing this. Having some tangible, specific goals written down can be a great motivator for change and it gives us direction in our pursuit of excellence.