MY 4 A’s OF SHOT PREPARATION

I came up with the 4 A’s for preparing for a short game shot which I thought was quite neat, here they are:

Assess- Read the lie and the situation, taking into account all the factors that influence the shot

Anticipate- Only when you have a clear plan should you move to the next A and make some practice swings trying to anticipate what type of swing and intensity you need to make the plan work

Act- When you have the right feel you should be completely ready to play. This means just play and no more thoughts, they belong in previous stages. Get over the ball and just do it.

Accept- This for me is really important for two reasons. You have an opportunity to learn from what just happened, did you get the flight and roll correct? Did the ball break as you imagined? Controlling your reactions is also so important.

Try the 4 A’s and dont move on to the next A unless you have completely finished the previous one, this is the huge key to a quiet mind and decisive action. Preparing for a shot and “thinking play not swing” is a big key for on-course development when I work with players.

Try some of these golf specific conditioning training exercises during the winter 👍💪👌

 

This first exercise helps us understand and work on winding and coiling into our trail side during the back swing motion for a right handed golfer. As our hips and shoulders turn my lead shoulder works down and around over towards my trail side, while my trail pocket goes back towards the wall behind. My weight naturally transfers to the inside of my trail heel and inside of my trail leg creating resistance from the ground up, and been now in an ideal position to transition for the downswing.

The second exercise helps work on the transition movement of the trail side. Having a band in my trail hand we can see my trail wrist is set my trail arm is folded. When I make a short back swing motion and pull down on the band, this makes my trail side drop creating some torso side bend to my trail side while my trail knee drives towards my lead leg this transfers weight from my trail side to the lead side naturally. With a certain amount of side bend and rotational lateral weight shift during the downswing helps improve swing, low point and impact position.

For this final exercise, we are training more of the motion post impact where my lead leg is extending and weight is approximately 85% to 90% through my lead side. The trail leg will push away from the ground while the arms remain extended during the follow-through.

INSTAGRAM

Golf specific dynamic exercises

LOWER YOUR SCORE - WITH BETTER GREEN READING

Compared to the full swing there has been little written about the short game and also many golfers avoid working on this area of there game. A putt is probably looked at as the simplest shot form played in golf, but the most important shot form when lowering your score. Not every golfer has the talent or the physical capability to make repeatable putt stroke like a tour professional. As every golfer has the possibility to improve there short game and through this save a hand full of shots.

1. Putting
Green Reading
The most commonly talked about thing when reading greens is that its just down to experience and time to learn to judge the breaks and slopes on the greens. This is not entirely true there is a method and a easier way to read a putts. So here are our two wonderful tips

Find the Zero Break Line.

As seen here in the we are looking for the zero break line, this is the line that has no break also its the only line on a slope that you can putt straight upwards or downwards. The line stretches out across the hole about one meter radius from the hole, this line will help identify the position where the ball will begin to roll. Generally by every pin position on a green you can find the fall line, as the Greenkeeper should find a area on the green that has a slight consistent planer break (a flat surface that maybe on a angle) one meter radius of the hole. When you think of hole 1 at your home club there you will most probably find usually 3 to 5 allocated pin position areas on every green dependent on the size of the green. So when you have found the fall line the following points are highlighted:

-You will know in which direction the ball will break.

-You will find out where the easiest putt to play is (under the hole up hill)

Every top tour pro and there caddies will receive from the tournament officials a green plan card that competitors can note down where the Zero break lines are around all likely pin positions on all greens. As this information can become useful when playing into greens as the pros can position the ball in the best possible position around the hole. So you yourself can make a note of the pin positions and zero break lines in you course plan book!!

The spider effect

From the "spider effect" that maybe seen above. All putts on the one side of the circle break from left to right and on the other side of the hole putts naturally break from right to left. through this knowledge a clear decision can be made whether the putt is to break one way or another when a difficult putt lies near to the fall line. So by knowing how the putt falls and breaks in the last meter will give you a better understanding in how the ball enters the hole. By putting this method into practice this will fore sure help reduce putts and improve your score.