Paul will share his thoughts with us periodically as he travels from venue to venue via his blog below so be sure to visit this page regularly to see what imapct Paul and Instinctive Golf Coaching is making.
My First Blog from 'The Tour'
SUBMITTED BY PAUL AFFLECK on 18 APRIL 2009
Hi Everyone,
It's been a very hectic last few weeks of airports, hotels and golf courses,
so it's felt like I was back playing on the European Tour!!! The reality
is I've been coaching on tour and even though many of the players' faces
have changed since I last played on tour in the 2000 season, it's been
amazing to say hello to many of the same faces as well.
It appears that the more things change the more things stay the same and the
European tour is certainly a case in point. So many of the same caddies
are out on tour as from my day, alongside the familiar faces working for
the tour and behind the scenes on the physio bus and making the players'
travel arrangements.
So what's the latest news from the tour and who looks like the new Tiger???
Well, things have moved on quite dramatically for the players in terms of equipment
advances and technology. There are a few players taking there own TRACKMAN
out on tour and measuring all their distances and spin rates. It used
to be case not long ago that the equipment manufacturer's rep would just
stand next to you as you trialled a club and just eyeball any improvement
the club made, now it seems like 'old hat' to do that and the players
have access to very specific distance and spin rate results.
I can thoroughly recommend the use of TRACKMAN to anyone seriously interested
in improving their golf and would certainly advise anyone to find out
where they can get a session on this system.
There does seem to be a younger element to the tour now (but maybe that's just
me getting OLD!!!.) There are perhaps 10 to 15 really young guys with
very good looking games, and quite a few of them are British or European. Check
out, Horsey, Willet, Goya, Benson, Ramsey and Grace.
One of the most alarming things I noticed was the way in which the majority
of guys still practise. There's still a strong culture on tour of 'one club'
practise, hitting the same shot time after time to the same target. Looking
back, it was something I did a lot of and perhaps because I did it I can
recognise the worth that type of practise gave me. The reality is it has
some worth, but if I was going to advise anyone on tour as to what sort
of practise they should be doing it would be along the lines of 'one club,
one shot' at a time.
If you think about it, we all marvel at Tige'rs great attributes to play this
game. The most outstanding attribute I think he has is his mind and his
ability to focus when playing badly (for him). When we play golf, we have
perhaps 70, 80, 90, or 100 (depending on your score) opportunities to
focus on the shot we want to hit. That process from arriving at the ball
to deciding the shot you want to hit, to hitting the ball, lasts around
45 secs to 1 minute. So if you shot 75 last weekend you would have had
around 75 minutes to really concentrate on your golf.
The ability Tiger has is to really use this time well, to have a great routine
that brings calm into his mind and a clarity that brings a commitment
from him for the shot he's chosen and a confidence to bring it off.
WHERE DOES THAT COME FROM?????
Well, I think it comes from a certain amount of time Tiger spends practising
in a way that makes his routine and focus stronger and so enables him
to trust himself more and thus have more confidence to hit the shot.
When I used to practise on tour, it was very much a 'scrape and hit' type practise.
What do I mean by that? Well, simply put, I used to scrape a ball towards me,
hit it in the general direction I was hitting in and then do the same again.
Generally I was working on a swing feel and what I hoped was I was 'ingraining'
the feel so that I would 'perfect my move' and thus my swing.
I think there is some place for this but I think it's more through habit than
proven results that most players still practise like this. It would be
a great experiment to ban all tour players from 'scraping and hitting'
for 1 month and only allow them to hit 30 shots per practise session,
'scraping and hitting' and follow a strict one club, one shot policy for
the rest of their practise and see if their results changed for the better!!!!
In fact that's inspired me so much I'm off to hit some shots and work on my golf
game rather than my golf swing!!
Good golfing.
Paul
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