Monday, January 6, 2014

Find Your Golfing Potential

You know you leave strokes on the course, maybe too many, but you still hit the ball pretty well. Want to find out how good your game really is?

Play eighteen holes solo, under these two rules:
1. You may take as many mulligans as you want, but only one per shot location. Then you have to move on.
2. If you take a mulligan, you have to play your next shot from where the mulligan ended up. You can't take a mulligan on your mulligan.

What this will show you is how good you are if you hit every shot up to your potential. True, sometimes your mulligan won't be very good, either, but that's wrapped up in your potential. It includes a few misses. Everybody's does.

The second shot should be hit with a more relaxed mind, though, so it should be a better shot almost every time. You also might realize that you didn't think though the first shot as well as you should have.

When you're finished with the round, the score you tally up is the scoring potential you have. The shots you took mulligans on are the ones you need to practice to get there. Note that often it will not be your shot-making technique that failed you, but your mental processes--you made a wrong decision, or your mind was not fully present when you made the stroke.

Finally, part of being a better golfer is perceiving yourself to be a better golfer. If you shot a mulliganed score of, say seven strokes below what you normally shoot, then think of yourself as being that much better, because you are, and work on making that score a one-ball reality.

Do this exercise once a month or so. It's a better appraisal of your game than all the stats you keep during the round.


Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

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