On behalf of MyGolfingGoals Academy, I would like to wish all a wonderful Thanksgiving Day.
In celebration of this wonderful holiday, I would like to offer all golfers out there a delicious pie. Yes, this is a bit on the corny side - but not if you’re trying to reach your true potential as a golfer.
Please check out the MyGolfingGoals Peak Performance Circle that I’ve developed. This is to help players understand that it is not all about the golf swing. Please make sure to incorporate a plan for 2010 that involves attacking each category of this circle!
Try to spend some time, the next time you go to the driving range, working on coming up with a pre-shot routine. Here’s a quick video from Tiger Woods, on the importance of a pre-shot routine:
DJ Gregory proves to us all that anything is possible if you have a dream… and that if you fall, get back up, learn from your mistakes and try it again!
Here’s a bit of Bill’s Achieving Greatness With Goals Part 2 article… click here to view the entire article online at www.GolfFitnessMagazine.com.
I’m going to once again remind Golf Fitness Magazine readers that human beings in general are goal-oriented, goal-driven creatures. Every single day of our lives we move from one goal to the next, even though the goal may not have been written out or planned. Some of our goals are simple, like turning off the light before we go to bed.
In the last issue I stressed the importance of knowing what you want. I challenged you to take the first step toward finally realizing your true potential by coming up with your very own crystal clear goals. In case you missed it, some of the simple criteria in coming up with your own goals are as follows:
The goal(s) you set for yourself must be your goal(s) and not a goal that someone else wants for you. This is important because if you do not have a burning desire to achieve the goal, then most likely you will not put forth the effort or do what it takes to achieve the goal.
Your goals should be specific. “I want to become a better golfer,” or “I want to be stronger,” are not specific. “I want a six handicap,” or “I want to be able to do thirty pushups and run five miles” are specific. Being as specific as you can will keep your vision well defined.
Choose a goal that is realistic, and pick a date on which to complete your goal. For example, “I would like to increase my driving average by 20 yards, within 90 days from today.”
Write your goal(s) down. Remember, if it’s not written down, it is a dream, not a goal. Dreams rarely come true; well-planned goals almost always come true!
Based on the goals that you have come up with, write your very own mission statement to keep you motivated when things may not seem to be going your way.
Very exciting stuff! Now that we have a clear vision of what we want or where we want to go, we are ready to take the important next step.
Two major, major recommendations I have for those parents out there that have young children playing golf competitively:
Only Demonstrate Positive Emotion & Encouragement… especially when in a competitive environment! A major problem I see when parents are caddying for their kids, or watching their child from the sidelines at a golf event, are the emotions parents display. Kids are masters at reading emotions, and their parents are the first ones they look for after a good shot or bad shot. If a parent throws their arms up in the air, and gives facial expressions that read “I can’t believe he missed that short putt” or “How could she have hit that ball in the hazard” then the child will grow up with a fear of hitting bad shots. As much as you care, want your child to play well, and want to let out an “Ewww!” or an “Oh no!”….. or even a “@#$%”, DON’T! As difficult as it is, swallow your pride and show as much encouragement as you can muster up! If you continuously show a positive spirit, and only demonstrate positive emotion, your child will know nothing else… and follow in your footsteps! Remember… fearless golfers are dangerous golfers… so don’t ever let your young boy or girl think it’s a horrible thing to hit a bad shot!
Learn To Read Greens… take a short-game clinic, or short-game lessons for yourself. If you plan on reading your child’s putts, you better actually know how to read greens yourself. Green reading is an art in itself, and takes lots of practice… but it’s critical for you to learn if you’re going to be telling your child where to hit their putts. Your child could potentially have a wonderful putting stroke, but if you keep giving him or her the wrong read (telling him or her to aim the putt in the wrong spot), then they will unintentionally start pulling or pushing putts and think the problem lies in their putting stroke or ability to make putts. But in reality, the problem lies in his or her parents ability to read greens. Remember, if you give someone a bad read, they will actually have to do something wrong to make the putt… not good!!!
I recommend attending a Dave Pelz short-game golf school or clinic. They do a wonderful job at teaching you to understand green reading and give you some great tips on how to read greens. You will also learn some really simple and fun shots around the green that would really improve your child’s game and yours!
Click here to find a Dave Pelz clinic in your area. _
Here’s a bit of Bill’s Achieving Greatness With Goals Part 1 article… click here to view the entire article online at www.GolfFitnessMagazine.com
How many of you actually sat down on January 1st and made a list of New Year’s resolutions, or things that you really wanted to accomplish this coming year? Probably a large percentage of you… if not this year, you have at some point attempted to do so in your past.
What gave you the desire to come up with your New Year’s resolutions? What gave you the motivation to want to sit down and write out on paper the things you wanted to change about yourself, or the things you wanted to accomplish in the coming year?
I’m going to go out on the limb and say that it’s just plain old human nature to want to improve… want to get better than we are right now. We see others succeed and in turn want to do the same. We dream of winning that big golf event down at the club, or someday being the longest hitter in our Saturday morning golf leagues. Or maybe for those golf professionals our there, you dream of someday winning on the LPGA or PGA Tour, or the World Long Drive Championship. Whatever your dream may be, please go ahead and answer question number two for me. How many of you have looked at those New Year’s resolution today? Hmmm… how about this week? Ok then, how about this month? If you answered “I have” to two out of the three questions above, I’m sure you are better today than you were on January 1st. If not, I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t even remember what those resolutions were in the first place.
I’d like to introduce you to the ULTIMATE WEAPON FOR SUCCESS in LIFE and ON THE COURSE.
This great tool has been used by some of golf’s best: Nicklaus, Hogan, and Palmer to name a few. Actually, this secret weapon is used by every single successful person you have ever read about or even heard of. This weapon is called goal setting. Goal setting is used to conquer armies, win major championships, or even just to simply look great at the beach. The ability to set goals is something every one of us already possess, but if practiced and developed will help all of your dreams come true.
I just got back from a long practice session with one of my professional players. We were working on distance control with his long pitch shots, and fine tuning his pre-shot routine.
Our session consisted of setting up five golf balls at 30 yards, five balls at 40 yards, five at 50 yards and five at 60 yards. Every single ball, our purpose was to execute a perfect pre-shot routine. To give you some idea of what his pre-shot routine consisted of:
See the shot you want to hit! (Stand behind the golf ball on line with the hole for a minimum of five seconds. Here is where the player needs to see the entire shot he or she wants to hit)
Feel the shot you want to hit! (Take a practice stroke to feel the shot you’ve chosen)
Hit the shot you want to hit! (Once the player gets to the ball, all there is to do is hit the shot with confidence)
This pre-shot routine is incredibly simple, and it helps a player feel completely committed to the shot at hand, which allows for a confident golf swing! On average it took this player roughly 25-30 seconds to see it, feel it, hit it on each shot… and about 10 minutes to hit all twenty golf balls that we set up. Simple enough right? Every single shot hit had a purpose, and every shot was hit with confidence.
Hitting golf balls next to us was a husband and wife couple that were also practicing long pitch shots… each had a bag of golf balls (maybe sixty balls in each bag). Before we got done with our twenty golf balls, both the husband and the wife had already finished each of their bags… between the two of them hitting about 120 golf balls in 10 minutes.
When everyone went to pick up their golf balls, the professionals balls were very tightly packed next to the hole and took about thirty seconds to pick up. The couple had their golf balls spread throughout the entire putting green, and took them about five minutes to pick up. The couple was admiring how well the professional was hitting her pitch shots and decided to practice quicker to see if they could improve their shots at a more rapid pace… didn’t quite happen!
Remember that professionals get to that level through disciplined and organized practice sessions. Make your next practice session full of quality golf shots and challenge yourself to make it as easy as possible to pick your balls up!
