Michigan Golf Journal May 2020

Golf Tips Playing golf is problem solving. You spend strokes to improve your position – taking the greatest opportunity for gain while taking the least risk necessary. At a minimum, a player should be able to predict the general direction the ball will go and be able to predict about how far it is likely to travel. The closer you get to the green, the more important this becomes. Distance without directional control is a liability to your game. Understanding how to control the direction of your golf ball is as important to your golf scores as understanding how to operate the steering wheel of your car is to your health. If you cannot create both right and left ball flights, you most likely are not reliable at creating straight golf shots. The majority of golfers, even those who play regularly, are not highly skilled at creating both right and left ball flights predictably and reliably. Because a player is not skilled at both right and left, it is difficult to find straight. In very few cases in my experience did I find that a player did not have the physical skill to create both right and left ball flight reliably. In almost every case, the inefficient player had a bad concept of how to do it. Once the concept is understood it is very easy to train the movements, for most players. A skilled teacher can identify in minutes the cause of a ball flight problem. Usually the retraining is not difficult, it just requires thought and repetition until it is normal. It is amazing how much more fun golf is when you learn to create some degree of efficiency at it. Do not spend a lifetime trying to develop the perfect swing. Repeatedly tearing it apart and putting it back together differently with no real gains. There is no best system for all, only a best system for you. Work at developing a way that is understandable to you, makes logical sense, is adjustable to the varied needs of the game, and fits your capability. A skilled coach can help you to put that together and help you to understand why certain approaches work for you and why others do not. Then work at becoming an outstanding operator of YOUR system, through thoughtful practice. The system that was put together for you, built around your skills. MGJ Golf Tip: Problem Solver Golf Tips provided by Dave Kendall Academy in Ypsilanti