WE ALL NEED A BIT MORE CONSISTENCY

I remember a conversation with Sergio Garcia a few years ago, in which I asked the Spaniard what it feels like to be one of the world’s best players.

“For me,” he said, “golf is just as frustrating as it is for you!” I looked at him quizzically and asked how could that possibly be the case, when an hour before he was hitting 300-yard bombs with a baby draw and flighting wedges a few feet past the flag.

“Because my expectations are just higher than yours,” he explained. “You just want to hit the green with that 8-iron, I want to see a specific trajectory, to a specific spot… and when it doesn’t come off, golf is just as frustrating for me as it is when you miss the green. Scoring well isn’t about how good your good shots are; it’s about how bad your bad shots are.”

At his level, a “bad” shot might be 20 feet past the flag, leaving a downhill putt with a load of break, rather than 20 feet straight uphill. At my level (and for LOTS of club golfers!) a bad shot is OB or a shank, or deep in the trees, rather than the light rough. While Sergio gets downcast at a chip that checks up six feet from the hole, I can knife the same chip 60 feet through the green… These score-killing mistakes sap confidence and ruin rounds.

On page 23, long-time TG coach Adrian Fryer has come up with five things you can do to improve your consistency on the course. “If you can improve in these areas,” he says, “you’ll start to find your less impressive efforts ending up closer to the fairway and green – with those true horror shots becoming increasingly rare.”