My Golfing Goals Academy

Andy Morse battled the high winds and difficult conditions at TPC of Eagle Trace, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, last week in the Final Stage of The Champions Tour Qualifying School. Because of is hard work and perseverance, Andy finished inside the Top 30 in the tournament, which was good enough to earn his card.

Congratulations to McGolf Learning Center student & instructor, Andrew Morse, for his incredible play this week at the Champions Tour (the Senior PGA Tour) qualifying school. Andy got through the first stage of qualifying by shooting scores of 68-68-70-72.

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.
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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.