As I watched the final round of The Players Championship, I was reminded of an important lesson about playing competitive golf. As Lee Westwood struggled in most areas of his game, he demonstrated a moxie that should inspire most players. I watched him hit poor shots, then respond with clutch recovery shots. He hit his ball into the pond or a sand trap only to respond by working his magic to reduce the damage. Westwood showed that as a professional golfer, actually any golfer, it is important to never stop grinding during a challenging round.
Continue readingUnforced Errors In Golf
When I was watching The Players Championship on the weekend, congrats to Justin Thomas on the win, I was impressed by the stellar play. Conversely, I watched some challenging shots that I thought could have been avoided. Regardless of what I think, the roller coaster round is a natural thing for most golfers as we accept wayward shots as part of the game. Yet, I was a bit concerned by one of the announcers who stated that one of the players just committed and unforced error!
Continue readingLearning To Hit A Punch Shot That Lowers Your Golf Scores
As an amateur, learning to properly hit a punch shot is important to keep our golf scores low. This type of shot is designed to fly close to the ground in order to avoid obstacles that would impede our progress. Generally, this takes for in the way of branches, because we hit a wayward shot, from trees that suddenly decided to get in our way. Regardless of the obstruction, learning to hit a punch shot is very important to ensure we can extricate our ball out of difficult situations with the least amount of strokes.
Continue readingGetting Ready For Golf Season
It is about that time of year when my golf juices really get flowing. We just had two days of double digit highs and the snow has receded by at least half. This generally means that it is time for me to start looking at the season ahead. But hold on a moment, it is still at least 4 to 5 weeks before golf courses in my area will be open for business. This timeline leads me to wonder what I should do that will slowly prepare me for my first hit of the season!
Continue readingEliminating Silly Golf Mistakes
Every once in a while my round of golf is nothing but a comedy of errors. I seem to lose focus and make silly mistakes that I should definitely avoid. As a lower handicapper, I should have command of my game such that making pointless avoidable mistakes should be second nature. Unfortunately, that is not always the case and my frustration level rises every time I add strokes to my round. Interestingly, there are a few very avoidable mistakes that are more common than most; Rick Shiels brings these to light for us so that we can improve our scores and lessen our frustration.
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The Grateful Golfer 