Salvaging A Bad Round
By Jack Moorehouse
Everyone has bad rounds—even the pros. Maybe you're tired. Or you've had a long layoff since you last played. Or, it's just not a good day: Whatever the reason, you're not getting it done. You're shanking drives, flubbing approach shots, and missing short putts. Days like that hurt your ego and your golf handicap. But they don't have to be a complete waste of time.
In fact, days like that can be productive. While you should save major swing changes for the practice range, you can do things during a bad round that will help your game. Some of these things are physical. Some are psychological. But they all give you an opportunity to put your game back on track. And what you learn might just lower eventually your golf handicap.
1. Turn Your Thinking Around
First, turn yourself around mentally. That's often harder than correcting your swing faults. But if you don't turn yourself around mentally, you won't turn yourself around physically. You'll continue to hit bad shots. Put the day in perspective. It's not the end of the world. And you still may be able to salvage something from the round.
2. Work On A Fundamental
Working on a fundamental helps on bad days. Often, when you're playing poorly, golfers have too many swing thoughts running through their heads. Instead of focusing on their targets, they're concentrating on their hands, theirs hips, and/or their legs. That's too much thinking. Instead, focus on one thing, like making a complete shoulder turn, and work on getting that right. Think of the round as an extended golf lesson. Sometimes all it takes to salvage a bad round is one good shot.
3. Follow Your Pre-shot Routines
If you're having a bad day, chances are you're missing putts. One way to change that is to follow your normal pre-shot putting routine, even though you're discouraged about how you're playing. Also, follow your pre-shot routines on your drives and approach shots. Pre-shot routines prepare you mentally and physically to it. They're one of the first things players abandon when they're having a bad day.
4. Break The Cycle Of Bad Shots
Often when golfers are hitting bad shots, their concentration wanders. When their concentration wanders, they hit more bad shots. It's a vicious cycle. Hitting bad shots also erodes confidence. Losing confidence is the worse thing that can happen to golfers. To break the cycle of bad shots, slow yourself down and concentrate on hitting every shot well. Focusing on every shot when you're playing poorly isn't easy, but it's the first step in restoring confidence, as I've mentioned in my golf tips. It's also a key step in turning around your round.
5. Play Within Yourself
Sometimes golfers try to do more than they can do. They try to hit shots they either haven’t practiced or aren't capable of hitting, like a 300-yard drive. All of a sudden, they find themselves playing poorly. As soon as golfers see themselves playing that way, they should re-examine what they're doing. If they're trying to play beyond their capabilities, they must re-group, slow their games down, and do what they're good at.
These golf tips don't exhaust the list of things golfers can do to salvage a bad round. But they're a start. Playing badly doesn't mean golfers can't learn something about their games or themselves. They can. They need to think of these rounds as extended golf instruction sessions and work on executing the fundamentals. That can help turnaround their play and keep their score—golf handicaps—in check.
Jack Moorehouse is the author of the best-selling book "How To Break 80 And Shoot Like The Pros." He is NOT a golf pro, rather a working man that has helped thousands of golfers from all seven continents lower their handicap immediately. He has a free weekly newsletter with the latest golf tips, golf lessons and golf instruction.
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