‘MY FOUR-POINT MASTERPLAN FOR PROPER PRACTISE’
For many golfers, winter is a time where more balls are hit on the range than on the course. Bad weather and new year’s resolutions combine to convince us that this year it’ll be different. This January we will fix that slice, we will add 10 yards, and by the time the clocks go forward our game will be in perfect shape to hit the course. That reminds me of a story from last year.
After golf came back, halfway through the first lockdown, I headed to my local driving range, my usual sigh replaced by an overwhelming excitement to hit balls again.
I set up with a basket of 100 balls and a 7-iron. As is often the way when you’re a leftie, I was facing the guy next to me, who’d arrived at the same time. We exchanged a bit of chat about it being good to be back and set to work hitting balls. What unfolded changed the way I practise forever.
The first thing I noticed was his noise. He was harrumphing so much, he was actually getting out of breath – and getting through his balls so rapidly. I decided to take a step back, to line up my mat and assess the flags on the range (this is a lie, I wanted to see what on earth was going on).
The man next to me can’t have been more than 25, fit, in the prime of life, but his practice session was rapidly descending into an army boot camp. For about two minutes I watched him pick up balls, swing like hell, swear at himself, reload and go again. “Come on! You can hit this club!” he raged, as another ball slammed into the bay wall.
He was totally self-destructing, clearly expecting immediate perfection but doing absolutely everything to make even a half-decent shot impossible. It was quite a sight… and I saw a lot of my own mistakes in him. Right before my eyes, this guy was actually getting worse at golf.
By the time he had hit his 100 balls, I had hit 23. After he had left, a broken man, I took stock of what I’d seen and tried to analyse the mistakes he’d made that I was often guilty of myself.
The challenge we all face on the range is how to make it as much like a round of golf as possible. Unless we’re working on a specific drill, hitting dozens of balls with the same club doesn’t prepare you for anything, and it leaves the other 90 percent of shots you need sorely neglected. Whatever we’re doing, we need to have an aim each session.
My bay neighbour didn’t aim a single shot nor pick a single target in the 10 minutes he spent in that bay. For all he knew, half of his shots might have been bang on line, he just didn’t know where the line was!
He also never stepped off the mat. Not once. As soon as he saw the ball not doing what he wanted, he picked up another, not even waiting to see where his previous had landed or taking a second to use the information that ball was giving him. He was learning nothing.
And can you guess how many different clubs he used during this breathless self-annihilation? One. And the club? Yep, driver. One hundred shots with a driver, arguably the most difficult club in the bag. Perhaps he was new to the game and thought there was a different range for iron and wedge shots. Or maybe, like so many amateur golfers, he was kidding himself that aimlessly bashing a ton of balls with a club he only hits 13 or 14 times in a round will lead to his lowest-ever score.
But the most destructive thing he did (and which we all do), was expect too much of himself. This was the first day back after lockdown. He won’t have hit a ball in anger in eight weeks and because he topped that first ball, he thought it was all a waste of time. The angrier he got, the less care he took, the more tense his swing became and the worse the result.
So, with my remaining 77 balls I devised a practice plan… I’d do entirely the opposite of everything he’d done and I would work to four key rules.
Rule No.1: 100 balls is too many. Taking my time with 50 or even 30 is a far better, more focussed approach.
Rule No.2: I would step off the mat after every shot – it gives you time to reset and instils a commitment to a pre-shot routine which will really help consistency on the course.
Rule No.3: Every shot must have a purpose and the ultimate goal should be to make the driving range as much like a hole on the course as possible.
Rule No.4: And as soon as I’d hit a perfect shot with a club, I would take a mental picture of that ball and put the club back in the bag for the rest of the session. I wanted to leave thinking every club is in good shape.
So, there you have it. My Golf Practice Masterplan. We’re not professionals and we can’t spend hours on our game every day, or even every week. But a disciplined, focused half-an-hour spent with 30 balls might be all you need. Better practise means less practise.
The thing is… if I died now it would really spoil the evening.” The delivery was as crisp and perfectly-timed as all of his lines – the voice so familiar to anybody who had watched golf over the years. Peter Alliss was in his element – surrounded by friends and family, some sitting with him at a table laden with food and drink, others standing close-by. Everybody listening as the great man held court. It was the evening of an Open Championship week – Royal St George’s in 2011 perhaps – and the Tuesday or Wednesday since, once the golf got underway, you would barely get time for a Pot Noodle before bed, so late were the finishes of our broadcasts.
Here then, before the serious stuff began, was a chance to relax and have a team get-together. One of the houses rented for the week provided the venue and everyone involved in the BBC’S coverage was invited. Plus a few more besides. Peter was having such a good time – as was everybody else – and he simply recognised the opportunity for a funny line. Yes, one tinged with a dark humour, but that would never stop him.
I actually wrote about Peter in this magazine last year as I wanted to say something before the end of his career. I was very complimentary – though simply truthful – to the extent that when he saw the resulting article, he phoned up and asked for the best address to send the cheque to.
But I see no harm in repeating the sentiments now. If ever there was a person who deserved a repeat performance in the golfing media it is him. And besides, it is also better to write at a distance – when you have had time to reflect and are not speaking in the immediate aftermath of somebody’s departure when you talk of them only in reverential tones.
He certainly could have cantankerous moments – I am prone to a good few myself. He also cared a great deal about the skill and art of commentary and might grow impatient with those who didn’t quite understand that there were rules to the grammar of sports broadcasting.
There were also some who would tut at one or two lines over many thousands of hours of commentary at which they took offence. And no, Peter was never one to step carefully along the politically correct tightrope. The sharp and clever line, the quick wit was too good to be dulled by the myriad sensibilities of a modern age. But there was never for a moment any ill-feeling behind the words.
You only have to watch the end of his acceptance speech into the World Golf Hall of Fame to see that he simply liked to make people laugh. And how, despite his image as being part of the establishment, he enjoyed cutting through the pomposity and saccharine coating which is often thickly spread over American golfing occasions.
In recent years, we spent a lot of time rueing the loss of live golf on the BBC. All of us – Ken, me, Peter – knew that commentating on highlights was far less enjoyable than live coverage. And it also meant that Peter was denuded of his real powers. The opportunity to talk over the incidental TV shots between the actual golf shots, the chance to tell stories – to take time to enjoy the tournament and everything that came with it. To observe and remark upon life, which was his real skill.
You could think of sports commentary as if you were watching in the pub, with somebody sitting alongside you offering an accompaniment. If those voices talk too much, or bang on endlessly about stats and facts then you would eventually look at your watch, yawn and make your excuses. Whereas if that voice is coming up with interesting and witty observations, all delivered in warm and comforting tones, then you might settle in for an hour or two more. And even offer to buy some crisps. I often prefer to recall not the moments when we were commentating on the back nine of a Major Sunday – hugely enjoyable though those times were. I think instead of when the microphones went down, when the commentary stopped and when we all sat for a while in the box at Loch Lomond or Wentworth, Augusta or St Andrews.
Peter had opinions on everything and a great deal of knowledge on most of those things. But what he had above all was charisma and charm – the ability to amuse and engage as he held forth on some matter or regaled us with a story from the Portuguese Open in the late 1950s. So many of the great voices of sport have stilled now – voices which kept us company as we watched or listened over the years.
I am sad that he has gone, but I am so glad that I had the chance to work with Peter Alliss. And if you watched golf, you were there as well. Sitting at that table as he entertained us all.