The Season Approaches, Part 2: You Want Me To Practice What?
With many leagues starting up this week we wanted to offer some thoughts and support for getting your golf game off to a good start this season. In our second installment our thoughts shift to practice. What's the first thing you do to get going after a long layoff?
We all love to hit the driver at the range and then perhaps spend a little time trying to make the 10,15, & 20 footers on the practice green....But do you realize how important our short games are? Since the average handicap on TGR is around 20, its pretty safe to say that most of you miss far more greens then you hit. So, what clubs should we be practicing as the season approaches? You guessed it , our WEDGES! How do you save par when you miss a green on a par 3? You need your WEDGE, hopefully only once! Now its not easy for everyone to pracice wedge play because many of us don't have access to facilities with a good sand and chipping/pitching area (this is one of my biggest pet peeves about our great game). If you don't have access to a practice facility that has a good area for this you really should be doing two things:
1) Use some of those balls in that bucket to practice 10 or more shots with a wedge in your hand picking out targets on the range, and
2) Hitting some wedges off the back lawn which probably looks an awful lot like the rough at your local muni right now.
So with only 2 days left before my League Opener, I'm focus on my wedge play.
For many of us; we are just getting out for our first swings of the year. As much as we want to get out and start honing our swings, the body and the muscles used for the golf swing need to get loose, and in some cases used to a work load again. No one is saying to stay away from full swings when getting out on the course. Just don’t worry too much about technique for that first round or two. Take that time to simply swing away and let the body get used to swinging (often perhaps) again. So loosen up, but don't focus on results.
Pay more attention to detail with your WEDGE play. Work on setup and making good contact. Developing feel with this club early in the season is the place to start. Your wedge technique and swing will kick in if you trust it!
Best of luck to each of you as you start competition in your league. And if you don't have a tour or league to play in, set up an account and start one today. It doesn't get any easier to run a league than with our open format and scoring system, so there really is no reason to put off getting something started. We're here to help you every step of the way.