Taking Changes to the Course

John F. is a 14 handicap golfer from Upstate New York who has been working on his game over the winter using RECODE, the Lag Popper, and the Tour Tempo tones, along with some online coaching from me. He emailed me today with the following question:

“Hey John – it’s crazy warm here today, and one course opened their greens for the first time since November.

I went out to play, and I feel like I’m immediately back to my old swing, with little width and turn, even with all the work I’ve been putting into practice.

Any tips on how to take my changes to the course?

Or just keep doing what I’m doing in practice and assume that if I keep working on it, once I am also playing a few times a week, everything will synch up? And maybe make sure to use Tour Tempo tones a LOT in practice?

Here is my answer, that I think will help a lot of you out there:

great question

couple of thoughts:

1. completely let go of results/shooting a score/hitting a ‘good’ shot – so, get warmed up with some of the RECODing, then at the course, you’ll need to video your swing and take a look.  then based on that feedback, make/adjust your movement and feel what you need to feel…….later, we will not want to think like this esp. on the course, but for now, you need to take the new move to a ball and not worry about results

2. use the ‘other 3:1 ratio’ – you should use 3 ‘practice’ swing/movements before every real shot on the range or course.  the half life is very short for new movements, so do the 3 drill swings and then hit the ball with the same feel.  🙂

3. see if you can do the correct move with a ball at 50% effort, then 60, 70, etc……

4. hit smaller shots or 3/4 shots and see if you can make the movements work with a ball

5. if you do all of this, you should see a ‘better’ swing and better results (right away, but not on the first few balls anyway)

6. yes, you’ll need to keep working on it and if possible, I like to add real golf club/ball swings to the training.  meaning: do RECODE moves, do Lag Popper moves, & then add some real swings to the equation and use Tour Tempo.  see if everything is in ‘alignment’

Hope this helps!!!!

JN