Small change, big gains

I have a confession to make: I don’t read all the instruction articles in Golf Monthly. This might sound like sacrilege and I should obviously qualify the above revelation by saying I do of course look at them in my job as editor, often irritating my colleagues by asking for a headline to change or for pictures to move around. But as a golfer, I don’t religiously read them to try to pick up tips, learn new techniques or find a fix for one of my numerous swing faults.

I have never been, and I suspect I never will be, a particularly technical golfer. I reckon I play my best when I just stand there and hit it with a swing thought that amounts to little more than “look at it, smack it up the backside!”.

I know from talking to readers over the years that quite a lot of you feel the same way. I suspect one reason we don’t invest a lot of time in trying to improve our technique is that many of us are petrified by the enormity of the task in hand. Many golfers, myself included, believe that in order to get measurably better, we have to stand differently, go through uncomfortable grip changes and then incorporate a lot of very complex changes to our swing. Then, and only then, might we start to see any difference in the quality of our play.

What, though, if you were told the way to become a better ball-striker did not require you to undertake a total Faldo-leadbetter-style rebuild of your swing, but instead required little more than adjusting the position of your hands at address? If that sounds like the sort of level of change you could commit to then turn to page 42 to find out more.

The idea of making big improvements without having to radically change your swing might sound too good to be true. However, I do think that there are a number of areas where you can make significant gains without needing to go through a long-winded process which can feel like you have to get worse before you start to get better.

From using statistics and shot-tracking software in order to gain a better understanding of your game to refining your practice time and then developing a more robust mental game, there is a lot that can be achieved and it’s an area of content that we’ll be looking to expand upon in forthcoming issues. Wouldn’t it be great if it wasn’t so damn hard to get better at golf!