By Adam Kushner, Director of Golf, Berkeley Hall
Yes, golf is an individual sport, yes, the ball is stationary, but golf is a sport and we need to treat it more like other sports. At any given range across the globe, you will find junior after junior beating balls and working with their swing instructor. Many of them will have their phones out videoing every other swing to make sure that all of the positions are just right. After a bad day, they are sending a video to their instructor wondering what mechanics went wrong today, after they felt so good during the lesson the day before. Golf instruction is vital to the success of a golfer, just like learning the correct shooting form is vital to become a great basketball player, but sometimes we get too wrapped up in the looks and forget about the results.
Growing up, I played all of the usual sports, basketball, baseball and football. I was lucky enough to play for some great coaches throughout my youth, and everyone of them preached the importance of fundamentals. Each practice we would use the first 30 minutes to work on fundamentals. Most of my practices were two hours long the final 90 minutes of practice would be putting those fundamentals to use. How many golfers do you think spend 75% of their practice time in game like situations? From my experience, not very many.
Ask yourself, how many perfect stock 7-irons did you have the last time that you played and then ask yourself how many stock 7-irons that you hit on the range the last time that you practiced. It is time to change the way you practice and improve your scores, not your picture-perfect swing.
Next time you put in a practice session, I want to challenge you to spend 25% of your practice time on things that you and your coach are working on and then pretend that you are on the course and put yourself in a variety of situations. Practice hitting high and low shots, practice getting out of trouble, give yourself a 6-foot breaker to win The Masters, and see how close you can pitch it from a downhill lie to a tucked pin. I believe that with solid fundamentals and practicing like an athlete, not a robot, you will see better results the next time you tee it up in a tournament.
By Adam Kushner, Director of Golf, Berkeley Hall
