The winter months are ideal for working on improving your swing so you’ll be ready for anything next season!

This does however come with a few dangers and problems which I see all too frequently, but if identified are easily rectified. A golfer goes on the range with the best of intentions to work on their golf swing. Some have read instruction books; some have had lessons and some perhaps have even been watching Dave Peltz on The Golf Channel!! 

Many golfers start off well but after a few poor shots, frustration sets in and before they know it the last twenty shots have had twenty different swing thoughts and not surprisingly twenty different results. Sound familiar?

When I was younger my main sport was basketball and I was pretty good at it. Back then golf was still an old mans game to me! During this time I was lucky enough to work with some excellent basketball coaches. They taught me how to practice smartly and to make the best use of my time. When I was 14 I started to play golf and at first I was completely useless. However, with lessons & the right kind of practice I improved very quickly. I had turned Professional by the age of 18!

You see the rule in basketball is to make the practice you do much harder than the actual game you play. For example, when we had shooting practice the coaches would put an insert in the basketball ring so that the ball would only just go through. It had to be a perfect shot to score a basket. We would also have a team mate standing in front of you with a foam bar (like the ones used in swimming pools) and they would hit and distract you as you were trying to shoot. It was extremely off putting & sometimes painful!

The thing was though, come Friday when we used to play our matches suddenly there was no insert in the ring. I felt like I could make the shot from anywhere & although sometimes there was a much bigger kid standing in front of me waving his arms about trying to tackle me & put me off, it was nothing like the way we had practised, it almost felt easy! Not surprisingly, as a team we were quite successful.

Unfortunately most golfers practice this great game I love so much the opposite way around. The practice they do on the range doesn’t help them improve at all. The range is wide; they’ve got 50 or so balls to hit from a nice flat lie. If they hit a bad shot they can just pull another ball over from the basket & quickly try again. There is no real

pressure; the only shot with any real consequence generally is the last one.

So this winter be smart with your golf, have a lesson or two, make the best use of your time. You don’t have to spend hours on the range beating balls until March to improve. I promise!

Happy Golfing

Rob Humphrey