How often have you heard “She is a much better player that how she played today” or “He has such talent and should be playing much better golf than he is”?

When someone lacks the understanding of what they need to play well consistently they, and many onlookers, will often get stuck wondering why they are not progressing when their technical and physical skills would indicate that they should be much better player. This is why the tagged talented players will often be the ones that disappoint as they regularly are the ones that do not understand how and why they do certain things, they just do.

Although this may be beneficial in some circumstances experience and history tends to show us that unless they move beyond their talent it is an uphill battle in the pursuit to maximising their gifts. For this reason alone it is helpful to understand where you sit as a player in your progress to becoming the best golfer you can be and so that those around you – coaches, parents, and other support systems can assist you in the most effective way.

Over time I have tended to separate athletes I work with into three categories. Play. Compete. Win.

Here is how I see each of these categories with respect to golf performance.

Until a player accepts that the game of golf requires time and effort in each of the four aspects – technical, tactical, mental, and physical, it will be almost impossible for them to play the game to the best of their ability or make the most of their blessed talent. Golf may be frustrating, annoying, depressing, and simply unenjoyable until there is a commitment to play the entire game not just perfect their swing.

Play

Play is where the player has an understanding of all of the factors that contribute to their performance from technical, tactical, mental, and physical aspects. They are working on each of these in attempt to thoroughly know themselves and what their needs are to compete at the highest level they can.

Until a player thoroughly understands how they play the game they will find it difficult to compete on a consistent basis at their relevant skill level.

Compete

Compete is where the player is doing all the things that assist them to play the game by integrating all aspects of the game consistently. They are developing opportunities to win and may even be starting to thrive on the challenges of competition. There is a growing competitive spirit.

Until a player tries and works hard in all four areas of the game for each shot on every hole for each round they play it is unlikely that a win will come their way.

Win

Win is where the player takes the opportunities to win and knows the required management skills to get over the line using knowledge of themselves and all aspects of their game to produce a winning performance.

Until a player harnesses all the idiosyncrasies of their win and aims to replicate them in practise and competition, multiple wins will be a thing to dream about. However, it is very common that multiple winners have developed a true understanding of what they need to do to get the win on the board.

By no means am I saying that it is impossible to win when you don’t have everything in check however my role with most players is to get the most out of them which means asking them to push themselves towards consistently maximising each of the four areas – technical, mental, physical, and tactical.

Where Are You?

So, where are you in your pathway to winning?

Most of the articles are aimed at creating an understanding of your game and how to play the game. The mental skills audit in November in addition to the learning from the best in January allowed you to see that these skills take time and effort to develop.

Since it is the beginning of the year it is an opportune time to identify the areas of your game that are going to require work to ensure improvement in addition to working towards mastering one category and moving up to the next category.

Are there outcome goals that you want to achieve?
For example do you want to attain a certain ranking or come in the top 10 or win or beat a particular person? These are goals that involve your performance in comparison to others.

Are there performance goals that you want to achieve?
For example do you want to reduce your handicap or decrease your putts per round or increase the bounce back situations you have on the course (i.e., increase the ability to ‘move on’ from bad shots successfully) or increase your upper body strength or start to plan for a course more thoroughly? These are goals that are your own personal performance indicators of change and progress.

Are there process goals that you want to achieve?
For example you might include a specific training drill in your practice schedule that your coach has given you which targets your putting three times each week or develop a post-shot routine which you aim to follow after each shot to assist with ‘getting over’ shots or go to the gym for resistance training twice each week or start to develop a game plan for courses before you play them by going through each hole. These are goals that are dictate how you are going to make change and progress on your performance goals.

You can see here that the three types of goals help you map out your progress for each of the four aspects – the performance and process goals target the four aspects which then add up to help you influence the attainment of your outcome goals.

Goal setting can be dry however if you are truly committed to learning to play to compete to win you will start by assessing whether you have a solid understanding of what it takes for you to optimise your playing ability which will then give you opportunities to become a competitor and maybe even a member of the winning circle.

Discuss this article in our forums

Join iseekgolf.com - It's Free

Become a member of Australasia's number one golf website today!