Palying Golf In Con Competitive Situations

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Playing a lot in con-competitive situations

Complement that with competitive play.

Fast improvement in technique and coordination and feel comes from NOT playing for score.

There should be no pressure - just joy of hitting and focus on feel and comfort. If you're not comfortable hitting and feel tension somewhere, your technique is not correct.

Technique can improve by itself if you don't force it too much and just focus on your comfort and hitting the ball cleanly and consistently. You need many hours on THE COURSE without playing for score and without pressure. Your body WILL adapt and find the most comfortable technique.

You also need to play for score so that you learn how to play golf competitively - there are lots of tactical and mental lessons to be learned. Your strokes must also become more efficient in the round and you'll also be forced to adapt them more.

The problem with playing for score mostly is that you constantly play golf under pressure, in time deficit and off balance and that creates havoc with your technique and fluidity of the strokes. Your movement is not fluid and coordinated and takes a lot of effort out of you.

The key is to find a balance between playing and keeping score and just hitting balls.

If you're in your first years of learning golf, I would suggest at least 80% of the time just hitting without any pressure and any competitive situation - and around 20% of the time playing rounds and scoring.

Note: When I say just hitting it doesn't mean that you just hit down the middle of the range for 2 hours. It means that you have a purpose with every shot and you work on something.

All this is done in a "practice mode" where you just focus on consistent EXECUTION of your swing.

Even later I would still suggest at least 60% of your golf practice and play to be playing in non-competitive situations and drills.

When I was a student and had lots of time to play golf, I used to just hit on the range 3 to 5 hours per day during the week and then I would play a tournament during a weekend.

My ratio of non-competitive to competitive play was probably around 9 to 1.

This allowed me to develop all the strokes really well since I could focus on my feel, comfort and technique and was not pressured or rushed. The tournament play taught me how to play keeping score without damaging my technique.

And even if some of my shots broke down slightly during rounds, I could "find" and "repair" them again with many hours of free hitting in the following days.

If you play for score too much, you don't get a chance to "repair" your technique. It gets uglier and less effective - since you hit with lots of tension in your body and with a mind that's not calm.

A calm mind produces calm and steady strokes while a hurried mind produces hurried strokes.

Another plus when just hitting is that you can extend the sessions and you can work on the specific part of your physical game which you are lacking.

So the most effective way to develop your game in all areas (technique, physical game, strategy and the mental game) is to find the right balance between playing in non-competitive situations and playing and keeping score.

Have a very high percentage of playing in non-competitive situations in your first years of golf and gradually focus more on playing and keeping score.

But always keep a high ratio of playing without pressure where you can work on your swing and tactics which will help you develop effortless and fluid technique and movement.

2008-2012