Golf's Longest Walk
61From The Practice Tee To The First Tee
One of the great mysteries of golf and a topic that is often brought up to me by my student, is why is it that we can hit the ball perfectly on the driving range before a round of golf and 10 minutes later when we are on the golf course, feel as though we have never held a club before. How can our golf swings go from feeling like a rock solid machine to an unfolding lawn chair is just a few minutes. Well, to be honest with you, I don’t know the complete answer to that one, no one does, but I might have some ideas on how to make the transition from the warm up session on the range to the first tee be a little easier.
The first thing we need to understand is what happens on the practice tee. In my opinion, we must realize that there are two different ways of approaching the driving range. There is the practice sessions on the driving range and there is the pre-round warm up session on the driving range. And they are about as different as traveling by car or plane. But both are critical to understand and work into our games if we are to begin to reach our potential as a golfer.
The practice sessions on the range are there to improve our golf swings. We might have our head full of many swing ideas, work through different sections of our golf swing by breaking it down and work on drills to improve the structure of our golf swing. All the while, we may not be too concerned with the exact ball flight or even the solidness of the strike. For the main goal is to improve our golf swing. If we do not countless hours in this area of practice, we will never improve our golf swings and keep repeating the same poor fundamental moves. We will be stuck. But the critical thing to remember is that there is a time and a place for this, and that is on a day when you are not playing golf or immediately after we have completed a round. But NEVER before a round of golf and especially before a round of completive golf.
So how should we approach to pre-round warm up session on the practice tee. Well, this is the time to begin to climb in to that competitive/focused state of mind that we will need to be in to have a successful round of golf. Our mental approach needs to shift from thinking of mechanical thoughts like wrist cock, swing plane, spine angles etc, and move toward things like rhythm, slowing down your physical movements/thinking/breathing and visualizing the shots you will need that day. I like to tell people that instead of warming up with swing thoughts, try warming up with you senses. With your eyes and your feel. The feel in your hands, the feel of the club, the feel of the strike. Use you eyes to center in on the target. Always pick a tiny target. This approach on the warm up tee begins to get our body and mind prepared to play a round of golf.
So remember, there is a time for the mechanical oriented practice sessions, but it is not 5 minutes before we are called to the first tee. That should be save for a non-playing day or after the round. At this time, our practice should be about rhythm, feel and target oriented shots. If we learn to embrace this pre-round technique, that walk from the practice tee to the first tee will be strong and confident. Try it a few times. I think you’ll see some serious results.
Remember,
If you control the clubface, you control the ball
Dave Wesley
Clubface Golf
