Learn How To Practice

Video Transcript

In this lesson we are going to talk about why amateur golfers generally do not improve very much. The first reason is that in golf there is less sophistication about what training should be, that is how we should train so that out training imitates the conditions under which we are going to compete if that is what is important to us. The first important principal in golf training is to train in game like conditions. This is something that we all violate by going out on the practice tee and calmly and coolly swinging nice and slow and not really having much of a target, just trying to feel things. This does not simulate game conditions very well. You will see in professional baseball, boxing, football and basketball in particular that people try to go at game speed. That is, they look at the speed that they go at in game conditions and the try to practice at that speed. It is no good if you practice throwing a free throw nice and smoothly but you can not do it when the heat is on. So you try to go like the speed you go in game conditions. The other thing is to simulate the target or the outcome and the results you want to see. It is better to practice under difficult conditions, not when there is no left to right wind or when you don’t feel just right or on the side of the range where things are quite with headphones on. It is better to practice like you are going to play. Have a target, set some goals, and be a little more intense than you would normally be, so that it simulates game conditions. Training after all should be training that prepares you to play under pressure.

Dr. Fran Pirozzolo
Baylor College of Medicine
One Baylor Plaza
Houston, TX 77030

Fran Pirozzolo is the mental coach to many PGA Tour Pros and is a performance coach for the New York Yankees. He is also the author of The Putter's Pocket Companion.

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