5 Ways to improve consistency in your golf game
1. Improve your cardiovascular fitness & body composition. This is a highly misunderstood concept likely due to observing the body composition of some very successful PGA players. It’s true you don’t need to be 7% body fat to be a good golfer and you can even make an argument that you’d rather error on the heavier side. That being said, the focus here needs to be about improving fitness to improve consistency. A PGA player can benefit from improving their cardiovascular fitness and body comp but making changes to something that is arguably already working is where the line is drawn, so it’s up to you to decide if you’re ready for an upgrade. Tour players have grown up playing tournaments and built up their walking and swing endurance from a young age, and continue to do it by actively competing. You may not have been able to compete in tournaments at a young age and don’t have that solid foundation of golf endurance and, “fatigue makes a coward of us all.” There’s no way to mentally tough your way through it. Fatigue increases instability, and decreases focus. Both are no good for golf performance. To give yourself the best chance at a consistent golf round you are going to want to be in good physical condition to fight off mental and physical fatigue, prevent injury, and improve quality ball striking consistency.
2. Stick to a regular fitness routine and fitness based warm-up. You can however use your mental toughness to stay consistent to a planned exercise and and practice routine. In addition to maintaining strength, mobility, endurance; a consistent fitness routine keeps your body from creeping into unfamiliar positions. A pre-golf mobility warm-up is great way to re-assure you that your mobility is ideal and all the correct muscles are “awake” especially at those end ranges of motion that often get neglected by everyday life. Strength in the end ranges of motion as you may know, are crucial to efficient ball striking and injury prevention.
I’m especially talking to you, guy on a golf trip that’s jumping right off the airplane to the golf course. Pain in the body is a sign of inefficiency. While most pain is not debilitating you should absolutely listen to your body when pain comes knocking at the door. A personalized warm-up routine is great for addressing muscle imbalances that cause pain in your body.
3. Practice a regular pre-shot routine. There is a time and a place to pound balls on the range, but warming up for a round is generally not one of them. It is wise to practice just like you play. If you ever wondered why you can be so good on the range and so trash on the actually golf course, your pre shot routine might have something to do with it. In a game, how often are you hitting the same club twice in a row? Your putter is the most likely answer. On the range, how often are you taking a swing and then immediately correcting that swing with the same club? Hopefully not often! The least you can do is mix in another club in between.
I personally like to practice my pre shot routine as if I am playing. First tee, I pick my target. Visualize my feels to hit that target with a practice swing. Take my shot. Second shot I play it off my drive as best I can. Pick my target, pick my club. Visualize the shot with a practice swing. Take my shot. I’ll even mix in a 20-50 range pitch if needed. Then move on to the next hole and do the same thing. Not only does this mentally transfer over better but it will physically transfer over better as well (which is the matchup we are all looking for). Visualizing your shot in your pre-shot routine, controlling your heart rate, body temperature, breathing are all little factors that influence your swing, and need to be consistent to finding your swing on the course.
4. Stick to a regular practice routine. If you want any improvement practice of some sort needs to be part of your weekly routine, duh. Pick a focus point for 30 minutes and put your time in. If you’re stuck on direction hire a coach!
5. Play to your strengths & work on your weaknesses. It’s important to separate practice from play. If there’s a shot you’re uncomfortable with, then you likely shouldn’t be playing it in your rounds. Stick to what’s comfortable, if you practice it enough it will feel right to use when you’re playing. Kiss method: Keep It Simple, Stupid.