Re: Practice: Purpose and Method

It certainly does...

I am extremely confident of hitting my ball into the trees...!!!



Cheers

Re: Practice: Purpose and Method

Those bloody trees Scrags

Re: Practice: Purpose and Method

Mate, if it wasn't a two stroke penalty for every tree I'd have to cut down, I'd carry a chain saw every time out.....

Re: Practice: Purpose and Method

In which case I'd suggest you are practicing the wrong things

Having waited until this thread spontaneously developed a sense of humour may I throw in my two happorth?

If as a result of your practice you are moving happily and rapidly along a continuum between beginner and grand slam winner (or even just improving slowly ) then there's a fair chance that you are practicing the "right things".

If you are not improving then knowing that "The Game of Golf consists of playing a ball with a club from the teeing ground into the hole by a stroke or successive strokes in accordance with the Rules." will not help you find out what to practice.

So unless you are preternaturally talented or believe that trial and error will eventually give you a consistent high level game then I'd go with Nicole and practice what my coach or other mentor tells me.

Re: Practice: Purpose and Method

OR! Just accept that the shortest distance between the teeing ground and the hole always passes through the body of a large tree.

Re: Practice: Purpose and Method

Hello!

I believe it is a fact that the majority of golfers suffer from a slice. This slice is not as powerful as a draw. It can cause havoc in a wind. Especially a wind that is travelling in the same direction as a slice.

To use Martin's methodology, anyone can become good at playing with a slice. They have to. They can't hit anything else. Hence, they practice hitting a ball to a target with a slice and become proficient at it. Aim left and the ball will finish straight. Even some top golfers do this. Yesterday at Loch Lomond I watched Colin Montgomerie attempt to hit a fade (the pro's version of a slice!) on a par 3 200 yards long to a pin that was tucked hard left, with the wind off the left.

Colin Montgomerie will hit a fade 95% of the time, even if the wind, pin placement and hole shape calls for the opposite.

He has become very good at hitting fades and is one of the best golfers in the world. He has practiced sending a ball to a target with his own method and got great results out of it.

I would say that he is mentally very strong as well. How many people do you think he has come across in his life that have tried to convince him to hit draws more often. He's a pro. He MUST have the time, expertise and help (if he wanted it) to be able to learn how to hit a draw with more consistency, but he does not. He is happy with his method and it has brought him many accolades.

He is brave. "This is how I play golf", he says to himself, and others, purely by continuing to play as he does.

If he ends up winning a major, it will be so sweet for him. He'll have done it his way, flying in the face of all that have mocked or belittled him.

If he doesn't, he will take on the crown formerly held by Mickleson as probably the best player never to win a major. This is a crown invented by the media, and will not matter to him. He has achieved much by playing the game his way. I'd be happy with that.

The problem for the majority is finding the strength of character to play the game their way. If one cannot hit a draw, don't try to hit one on the course. Position yourself in such a way that every shot suits your next shot. Colin does.

This is Martin's point (I think! Apologies if I've got it wrong, but it's fun to write this anyway!)

And I agree. I hope the above goes some way to helping others understand it. It's an example of someone practicing the same thing and getting good enough at it to compete and win on the world stage, many times over. Wow.

I focus on Monty for the example, but he is by no means the only one that plays this way. Vijay is another that springs to mind. He ain't bad either!

As humans this is, however, a rareity. Why? Ego. This is not an insult. I suffer from ego without even realising it. Ego will always want what we do not have. If we hit it left to right naturally, we want to be able to hit it right to left. If we hit it high, we want to hit it low. Consequently, we are not practicing how to do one thing exceptionally well, but are now splitting our time into segments and trying to practice something which is not natural to us. We are now spending a smaller proportion of the time practicing what we do naturally, therefore what we naturally do can never make us as good as we can be. I refer back to Monty's par 3 above. He knocked in a fade, went long as he had to make sure he cleared a trap. He made bogey. His demeanour may not seem like it sometimes, but over a 20+ year career he has come to accept his limitations that sometimes, his way is not always the best way, but his way will give him so many more chances to be good. He is strong.

"In order to be a better player, I need all the shots in my bag"............go talk to Monty, or Vijay. Vijay won't even hit a draw at clinics. He'll stripe fades all day long.

Jack of all trades, master of none. Now we come to the true masters. Tiger, Nicklaus, Jones. These are the men over the course of 100 years or so of golfing history that have had every shot in the bag. Much as we hate to admit it, it's all natural to them. It must be, otherwise they wouldn't be able to get the best out of it. They simply have the luxury of being able to get the best out of what they have, and what they have is more than the average Joe.

Via natural selection, the right thing said or done at the right time, luck.............the variables are never ending. We can never truly say whether talent or hard work has produced what these men can do. Only a combination of the variables that go together to make up who they are. Everyone is different, and there must be a "top", just as there has to be a "bottom". Where so many people come unstuck is by trying to copy how any one person does it. Especially those at the "top". They have got there by doing it "their way". So be it if "their way" also includes a draw.

Ego wants to be able to hit the shots Tiger does. He wins in style. There is no shot that he cannot play, hence he plays with so much more freedom than anyone else. We all wish to emulate that. It's part of the natural human hierarchy. But we are different from Tiger, Jack and Bobby. We must accept this. Only once this acceptance has sunk in can we begin to appreciate what it is that we are good at, and use that to become better and who knows, even succeed and win with it.

Re: Practice: Purpose and Method

Neil,

A very detailed and well put opinion, thanks for that. I am not quite convinced it is the same opinion as Martin's though.

I cannot disagree with your analogy of how players like Monty ET Al learn to live with a slice, fade, hook etc, they do and we see it all the time, I have played games many many times where players hit the ball way way right or left so that it can bend back into the fairway, mind you it is not a style that would suit me as it can have a high failure rate and is tantamount to accepting a flawed method, guess my ego would be offended by me accepting that. Monty is something a bit more special than the likes of us handicappers though and nothing in his game seems badly flawed other than the doubt gremlins that get to him.

I may well be wrong here, although I have yet to be convinced. Where my view differs from Martin's is that I would advise someone learning or wishing to improve to base their practice on a set of swing principles that have been established by the professionals of the game over many decades as conducive to a sound repeatable swing. Now in saying that I accept that we all have our personal limitations, body types and natural abilities and will need to make the best of what we can do with them.

I don't believe anyone is arguing whether practice is important or not, just what you practice and how you learn by it.