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Practice Strategies
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This is a simple concept for golfers who have a tendency to "hit and rake" when they are on the range. While a "rapid fire" range session can be a bit addictive, and no doubt fun, it is not the best method for creating lasting change. That said, a great rule for combating this is to make sure that you slow down and rehearse the movement/drill you are focusing on after every 4th ball. Bringing some added awareness to your movement is not only a great test, but it will make sure you are in the right state of mind for performing "mechanical" practice. Remember, effective practice is not only about "quantity", but "quality" as well.
Tags: Practice Strategies, Beginner
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There's a real simple concept for helping you avoid some of that repetitive robotic practice.
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So if you're the type to just kind of hit and rake and rake and really just get focused
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on where's the ball going, what was the contact on that one.
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When you're trying to work through specific positions and you need to get a little bit more
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body aware, I'll give a real simple rule, which is every fourth ball I want you to take
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a step back and do a couple practice swings just focusing on slow motion and just focusing
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on the awareness of the movement.
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Once you've done a couple reps in slow motion focusing on the awareness, then you can step back
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in and hit a few more golf balls.
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But if you're the type who falls into the pattern of hitting ten or so golf balls in the
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span of a minute, you need to occasionally slow it down so that you can actually test what
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your brain is absorbing and what your brain is learning.
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So I've got five golf balls here, as a quick little demonstration.
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This is what I'm talking about.
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Sometimes I'll see, okay hit that ball, grab another one, didn't like that.
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Maybe not even look at the target, you can see that's hard for me to not do.
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Okay, that was a little better, but a pull, not even watching, get up here.
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You can see my quality of contact is actually going down because right before I swung on
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that ball, I had to think to myself what the heck am I doing?
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So instead of going all the way before, I'm going to stop at three because that wasn't
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really productive practice in any sense unless I wanted to test myself and just see what
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my automatic pattern is.
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But now I'm going to get into a little bit more of my release thought right now.
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So going through in slow motion, kind of getting that was decent.
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Now I'm going to try.
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I might even because I just did a few slow motion ones, yep, I'm going to do a nine to three.
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That had more of the ground contacts and trajectory that I'm looking for.
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So now that I have a little bit more awareness, I'm going to try to apply it to a full swing.
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Got a little caught there, but overall you get the sense of the pattern and what you want
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to avoid.
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If you need to put a little timer on yourself or just keep reminding yourself after
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every few balls, go back to whatever drill or whatever concept you're working on.
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If you're doing mechanical practice.
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If you're doing target and shot shaping practice, then it makes even less sense for
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you to fall into that robotic practice mode.
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So be aware and be diligent with the time you spend over each golf ball, not just the
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quantity.
