One of the things I always try and absorb from great players is everything they do apart from from hitting the ball. I love to watch how they behave on the first tee in comparison to high handicappers and I love to watch them on the range.
The average range junkie pays almost no attention to the fundamentals. So many golfers regard them as something you learn right at the beginning of your lessons and then just ignore them – preferring to concentrate on the latest swing “tip” they saw in this month’s golf magazine. And of course they’ll dump that “tip” for next month’s great new idea.
But watch the good guys and they do something very different. They concentrate on almost nothing but fundamentals. They stand with their coaches making slight adjustments to posture, stance and ensuring that their feet, hips and shoulders are all pointing the right way.
Here is some of my footage of Tiger practicing at the Ryder Cup. Hank Haney stands behind and they make occasional slight adjustments. But every shot is a very measured strike.
It’s the same with Rory – he makes sure he gets the range bay with the mirror behind him and concentrates on these basics. Despite playing off +6 and winning the silver medal at the Open it’s the basic simple stuff that he works on.
During the pre-round interviews at the Open this year watch the way the pros are practicing. Very simple actions accompanied by simple instruction from their coaches.
It’s far too easy to overcomplicate the swing. Concentrate hard on the basics and it makes ball striking vastly easier. But if you get the basics wrong it makes it very hard to make a clean strike no matter how good your swing is.
And what’s the second thing to learn from Rory?
The speed he putts. He gets his line walks up and strikes the ball. He hasn’t learnt how to worry about putting yet. He doesn’t hover and dither and let doubt creep in. Granted he missed a few short ones this week but it was this same attitude that helped him to a 61 at Royal Portrush. It’s putting feel that goes first as we age. We allow our doubts to creep in and ruin what should be a simple part of the game. We slowly learn how “hard” it is.
I watched the great Tom Watson two years ago at the Seniors Open in Royal Portrush and his putting was woeful. Embarassing. A legend of the game who I bet could learn more from ten minutes watching Rory putt than he ever could from a coach these days.
They concentrate on almost nothing but fundamentals.
true true Scratch
this is the mantra of professional baseball in America
and certainly the key to a successful golf game