tons of practise and still a bad round!

hi all
i know that is a silly question but can you overdo your pracise
or do we have to accept that sometimes we have our off days!
it was my works competition yesterday and have practised or played everyday for the last 2 weeks.
i played 9 holes on saturday afternoon and and scored 41 hit everything solid.
i stretched and hit 50 balls on the practise range and felt great.
got on the 1st tee no nerves saw it was a dogleg left loads of trouble on the right so i go with 3 wood and hit a screamer to leave pw to the green hit the green and 2 putted for a par(nett birdie) and from there it was down hill i didnt hit a fairway till the 15th!
my irons were fat thin hook fade and lost count of how many putts i missed!
how i scored 30 stableford point beats me though i did play some good recovery shots

__________________
cheers slats
"Golf can best be defined as an endless series of tragedies obscured by the occasional miracle"

Everyone has there off days! Golf isnt about how good ur good shots are, its how good your bad shots are! Keep practicing and you will soon see a breakthrough in competition golf!

thanks ricky
just gutted that i didnt play my best game although we did finish second overall!

This is where the short game comes into play! If your not hitting it great you need a good short game and you will still play to or around your handicap.

Depending on ones physical condition and the amount/type of practice it is entirely possible to be worn out prior to the match but it is also possible you had a bad day. My guess is that your the best judge of which one it was and how to correct it in the future.

hi bob
think you hit the nail on the head think it was one game too many in short time.
sometimes more is less!

Ian,

I think you may have been subconciously wound up. This often happens to me and then the round becomes worse on every stroke. Its the old story of being relaxed on the tee. Then when you go to the range you hit them like perfection and scratch your head. We expect too much, whereas if we go with an attitude of less expectation, we get better results

rob
what you say is absolutely correct.
but i honestly went into the round feeling confident and played great from the 15th and parred 3 of the last 4 holes!
silly game but i love it!

Im guessing you played great on the last few holes because the early part in the round you was trying to figure out what was going wrong? When really nothign was going wrong, its just your timing was slightly out, you kept on trying to figure out what was wrong, then 15th you thought oh im not having a great round and i havent got a great score so you just did your natural swing with no swing thoughts, and played great!!

Your timing only needs to be out by 100th of a second and you will miss hit the ball! Your swing looked no different!!

But keep practicing. The more you practice - the luckier you will get!

whats so bad about a 41 JOHN DALY does it quit often hahahahaha no really that's better than 95% of golfers out there, if your doing that good a lot of it is the mental game, and that's harder than swinging the golf club

our golf pro told me off for hittinh too many balls! he told me to practise not hit balls, he says a bucket of 50 balls should take an hour to hit, it takes me around 10 minutes, this includes a smoke break!

Here are some thoughts and actions that help me in these situations:

When moving to the ball we have a bottle of confidence that is empty, we need to fill it with positive thoughts by using our pre-shot routine. If the bottle has any room left for negative thoughts they will fill it, then self doubt creeps in.

Carry out a checklist of your pre-shot factors, such as:

1) Examine the lie of the ball to determine what shot is possible

2) Asses the wind and other factors that will affect the flight of the ball

3) Designate your target

4) Calculate the correct yardage and club selection.

Once the bottle is full and you have a clear picture how to play the shot complete your routine that allows you to trigger your golf swing into action.

With a well rehearsed pre-shot routine you can make the process habitual and learn to get into the "Zone" that blocks out negative thought processes.

__________________
Best Regards
Brian

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Funny o'l game!

Howdy Stranger,

Slats, I don't think you can over practice but I do think one can practice the wrong areas.

Recently read two more of Dr Bob's books. They are quite informative and relative to this post.

Golfing is a game of confidence and Golf your Dreams (title names are not quite right Ian).

Practice breeds confidence. To achieve, one must be prepared to work hard, be committed to a process and more importantly be patient.

Slats, you gotta have effective practice routines/plans.

I know how you are feeling my last 11 rounds I've gone out .1. I recently had a playing lesson. An interesting point was made by Coach. He said realistically a person will have 1 or 2 good rounds out of 10. The other 8 will be grinders.

I'm coping with my poor form by thinking - the change is coming. Be patient and committed.


Nicole

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VP

hi brian
very nicely put!
in hindsight i think the preshot routine was a little rushed.
we were being pushed by the group behind and the weather wasnt helpful heavy rain and thunder is slightly distracting!
ive got to ingrain my routine so as you say it becomes second nature!
cheers

hi nicole
think i will have to read dr bobs book again!
im having a break at the moment and working out a practise regime for the winter months(no more saturday mornings slogging up and down muddy fairways)
my biggest disappointment was putting the work in and then not getting the reward in the round.
one of my playing partners inadvertantly did me a favour.
after another poor drive on the 14th i overheard him say "he's not as good as he thinks he is"
didnt hear that on the 462yd 15th when i was on in two!
he's made me even more determined to improve my game over the winter and then kick his arse next spring!

__________________
cheers slats
"Golf can best be defined as an endless series of tragedies obscured by the occasional miracle"