You know what it’s like: you look forward to your weekly game so much you go out to the range two days before to hit a few balls just so that you can play well or at least consistently.

You end off the practice session, a good one, even more excited about Saturday’s scheduled game. And what’s more its the monthly mug, the one you’ve always wanted to win and know you can if only you can play consistently. This latest practice session has ironed out any and all flaws and Saturday is yours - the rest of the field may as well stay at home.

Saturday comes, you are pumped up, you get there early, hit a few balls, have a few chips and a few putts and are ready for battle. You get on the first tee - quietly confident and just know you’re going to bomb this down the middle. Smooth take-away and you lash into the ball…..Oh no it’s another one of those push slices that have been creeping into your game ever since you were cut one shot. What has happened?

And so the game progresses. Some awful shots, some good ones but all inconsistent. You lose the bet. What to do? I mean obviously pay your bet, but what are you going to do about your golf?

Well here’s a tip. Instead of trying to smash the ball at optimum power 100% of the time take a bit of time to reflect. At maximum effort, or put another way, by trying to get the maximum distance and accuracy out of each of your clubs, what percentage of the time are you likely to be successful? Now before you lie take a look at the stats of the pros. I watch every week and even the winners are not hitting every fairway or every green in regulation. So if those boys are successful between 50% and 80% of the time why do we think we can do better? It’s their job, they do it 24/7 and they have slightly better swings than this writer anyway. And here’s a big secret which Tiger revealed recently: he swings at 80% capacity most of the time. I mean look at these guys at The Open (Carnoustie 2007), most of them took more irons off the tee than they did driver. Why? For accuracy and position.

So where am I going with this? Quite simply learn to play within yourself and keep the ball in play more often. After all a short drive on the fairway is far better than a long shot into the rough.

I teach my students to take a three quarter (75%) back swing and a full follow through. This means you have far more control on direction and the full follow through means you will in fact accelerate through the ball better and will probably get more distance. Your consistency is bound to improve accordingly.

With a 75% back swing it stands to reason that your percentage of “fairways hit” and “greens in regulation” will increase. In fact I am so confident of this I have developed a six week course incorporating the 75% swing and a series of short game drills designed to reduce your handicap by 25%.

It won’t cost you anything to click on the link in my Bio and check it out.

Lawrence Bredenkamp is a qualified EGTF golf coaching professional and takes great pleasure in helping people improve their golf game. Why not head over to Play The Lie where you will find tips and exercises to help you improve your game.
Whilst there take up the challenge to reduce your golf handicap by 20% within the next 6 weeks!