EP4. Why Consistency Is A Myth And You Need To Know What You've Got Today

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Transcript

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Welcome to the Mind Caddie podcast, the show that helps you improve your golf by improving the way you think. All of the ideas you hear in this podcast have been used by major champions and golfers at all levels and brought to you by the coach who taught them, Karl Morris. We bring you some of the most popular lessons found in the Mind Caddie app, as well as discussions with professional and amateur golfers about how they use their mental game to shoot better scores, so you can learn from others and apply to your own game. I'm Ben, the co founder of Mind Caddie, along with Karl Morris, who has spent the past 30 years working with golfers on their mental games. If you want to learn more, you can download the Mind Caddie app from the app store and access over a hundred audio lessons, as well as scorecards and guided programs. Search Mind Caddie on the app store today. An absolutely crucial element to better scoring is to be acutely aware of what you have today. In the sense that... The idea of consistency, whilst it's a lovely concept, does not bear out in any shape or form through virtually every level of the game. We love the idea of being able to stand there and rifle shot after shot. We think that golf professionals do that, yet my experience, anecdotally, the words of even the best players in the world, it really is from day to day. So important to just notice what you actually do have rather than what you wish you had. I remember having a conversation with Paul McGinley who talked about the time he spent with Jack Nicklaus that it really made a difference to him in the sense that everybody perceived that Jack Nicklaus played every round of golf just fading the ball. But Nicklaus told... Paul McGinley that that couldn't have been further from the truth that on any given day there were days when there would be the fade would be almost a slice that there was a lot of movement from left to right there would be other days where it was bordering on a straight shot and there are even days where the tendency was probably a little bit more from right to left but he had An acute awareness of where he was today and the ability to adjust his decisions based on that. One of the problems that we have is that we, if we've got, if we're playing today with a pronounced left to right shape, and we get on that third hole, that we look down the fairway and it requires a draw from right to left, we try and play a shot that we've probably only brought off once in practice in the past half a dozen weeks or so, so that the decisions that we make... The shots that we take on do not match the current abilities that we have, the skills that we have today. So one of the recommendations to, that I have to really tune into this to help you is to go to the range and what I call, take what I call the 10 ball straight test. Very interesting exercise. Or you simply just go to the range and you stand there, you've done your warm up, you've got your body moving, but then what you do is you take a six iron or a five iron, mid range, something like that. And without any conscious thought or in any way trying to manipulate his swing, just hit ten shots with the intention of hitting them dead straight. Pick a target on the range and attempt to hit them bullet straight. Now of course you won't do that. There's Mo Norman apart. There's very few people who manage to hit the golf ball perfectly straight. What you'll find is that when you take the ten ball straight test is that some patterns will emerge. You'll start to see. One of the best things that you can do with the ten ball straight test is pick a distance out into the tarp, It's on the range in the distance, clear target, but also put an alignment stick in the ground, maybe 10 or 15 feet in front of you and monitor with the straight ball 10 ball straight test is what actually is happening. Are your are your golf balls predominantly starting out to the left of the stick? or to the right of the stick. Are they pretty close? If your golf balls are starting out pretty close to the alignment stick, that would suggest that your swing very much is neutral and you could indeed go out there and aim to play a bunch of different shots because if your golf swing is pretty neutral, it is pretty easy to play fades and draws. If the ball is starting out significantly to the right. that suggests more of a right path to the left, more of a left path and a fade pattern. If you, if you stand there and of those 10 shots that you hit. That seven start to the left, significantly to the left and fade, fade in the fly. Well, that is what you have today. It's essential to understand this, not what you hope you've got, what you actually do have. And then when you go out on the golf course, you base your decisions on that. Curiously, if you take the 10 ball. 10 ball test and there is really no pattern in the sense that you're pulling a few, you're pushing a few, some are starting left, some are starting to starting to the right. The paradox of that is then when you play on the golf course, what my suggestion would be if there's no discernible pattern is that you then take that knowledge and you aim in the middle of the fairway. If you aim in the middle of the fairway with an erratic dispersion pattern, if you pull it a little bit or push it a little bit, you're still going to be on the golf course. Same with aiming at the green. Aim everything if you've got an erratic dispersion pattern. If the 10 tests suggest it's erratic, again, aim at the middle of the green. If you pull it, if you push it, you've still a chance to hit the green. The problem is, if you've got very erratic ball flight, and then you try and pick specific targets, you try and play fades, and you try and play draws specifically to certain elements, certain angles on the fairway, or certain... portions of the green. So really to reinforce this is about an awareness exercise. It's an understanding of the inherent flexibility of the body, the inherent unpredictability of the game. But what you can start to do. Is get far better at predicting what you're going to do and then base your decisions on the golf course on that and come off the golf course, come off the round knowing you may not have played great golf in terms of ball striking, but my goodness, you've really thought your way around the golf course so well, because you've been aware of what you have rather than what you wish you had.