There's that word again - perfection.  Though as good, or should I say great, or maybe invincible as Tiger is - he's far from perfect!  Nobody in this game is perfect.  Yet, we still hear every week Golfers that write to us or tell us how inconsistent they are.  And again, we need to know what are the standards for consistency and inconsistency.  So when you say - 'I'm too inconsistent' - what are you basing this on?  What standard of excellence are you comparing your desire to hit the ball well in your quest to break 90 or 100?

Are you trying to be as consistent as Tiger?

An email the other day basically said - "When I go through my PLAN and Rehearse my Swing the way I should, I hit about 80% of my shots to where I want the golf ball to go.  However, I don't always swing as well as I Rehearsed and the ball doesn't go where I want it to."

So what this golfer is saying is that they're not consistent enough, although they're hitting about 80% of their shots where they want the ball to go. Is it fathomable to expect to hit 100% of your shots where you want the ball to go?  Of course not, but you already knew that!  So is 80% of your shots good enough?

If you were trying to break 100, can you do it with hitting 80% of your shots where you want them to go?  Let me put this in as simple of a term as I can - yes.

If you were trying to break 90, can you do it with hitting 80% of your shots where you want them to go?  The answer is still yes.

Though, I know that there are some Golfers out there reading this that are saying - "There's no way you could break 90 hitting only 80% of your shots where you want them to go!"

Well, in the Golf Made Simple tradition of never hiding behind Theories and Assumptions - rather let's improve our golf games using a Results Based Approach, let's look to see if it's possible.

Tiger Woods is the best - there just can't be an argument here.

So far this year, Tiger has hit his Driver in the left rough 14.2% of the time and in the right rough 18.1% of the time.  So what's the point?  Well the point is that the World's Greatest Golfer - possibly the greatest Player to ever walk this planet is missing the fairway to the left or to the right a whopping 32.3% of the time.

So if my math is correct and in Mr. McNamara's 9th Grade Algebra class, this wasn't always the case - but Algebra never made sense to me anyway - Tiger is hitting the fairway only 67.7% of the time.  Now, I doubt that there are many times when Tiger is trying to hit the ball in the rough - so it's safe to say that the world's best Player is hitting the ball where he wants it to go at a lower than 80% rate.

So if Tiger is hitting the ball where he wants it to go only 67.7% of the time and he's by far - which might be an understatement - the best Player in the world, what percentage of shots must you hit where you want it go in order for you to break 100, 90 or even 80?  Though please take in consideration that Tiger is breaking 70 and he's well below 80% consistent!

Hitting the golf ball well on the golf course probably ranks as high on the scale of important things as oxygen is to breathing.  There's no doubt about it.  And when Golfers come to see us, we want you to hit the golf ball better than you ever have before.  And I'd say that Golfers start hitting the Golf ball more solid than they ever have within the first hour of working with us.  Oh, and again this isn't a Theory or Assumption - this is based on the Results we track starting with the very first 10 golf balls you hit, along with the feedback and comments we've received by more than a few low single digit handicap Players that have come to see us - so yes, I know for a fact that every Golfer that comes to see us hits the ball more solid after the first hour.

But, and this is a big but -

The choice is up to you if you want to continue hitting the golf ball more solid.

I say this because the comments that I wrote about at the start of this Golf Improvement Weekly are 100% true comments written to us.  And the sad part is that this isn't an isolated case.  We hear it every day!  And I'll say it again - 'Monkeys celebrate their bad shots more than they celebrate their good shots!'

Tiger is focused on the 67% of his shots that are good.

The Monkey is focused on the 20% of their shots that are bad.

And if you're not happy with hitting your shots well 80% of the time - you'll never be satisfied with your ball striking - therefore you'll never think your swing is good enough to break 100 or 90 or 80 and you'll be constantly tinkering with it to make it better.  And tinkering leads to the acquisition of compensation.  And compensation equals inconsistency.  So the more compensations you acquire as you tinker - the more inconsistent you become.

So my conclusion in analyzing the email we received about the Golfer not being happy with hitting 80% of their shots where they want the golf ball to go is either they're expectations are far out of whack with reality, or maybe the real problem is this Golfer is not making his PLAN and Rehearsing their swing 100% of the time.

Maybe the problem is that when they don't go thoroughly thru their PLAN, that's when they don't hit their shots well.  And I could tell you that if you came to see us, then the problem might not be in your golf swing at this point because you hit the ball more solid after your first hour with us and progressively improved your ball striking for the next 3 days!

And if you're hitting the golf ball well 80% of the time you rehearse your swing - we now know that an 80% success rate equates to a very good golf swing.

So the next step is to decide if it's your expectations that are too high or if you're truly 100% committed to your PLAN on 100% of the shots you take.

The Monkey will start tinkering with their swing if they're not 100% accurate

The Player will start with a reevaluation of their expectations and a reinforced commitment to their PLAN

Go ahead, Be a Player!

Regards,

Marc Solomon - Your Instructor For Life