The positive formula

Posted under The positive formula

A 13-year-old girl who took lessons was taught what to do and how to do it, and after several instruction periods she began to hit the ball naturally and quite well for a novice. During one of these lessons, she played a drive that sliced to the right quite badly.

“Well, what happened there?” I asked. “Oh, my club just got off the beam,” she replied. “Please let me have another ball.”

This incident proves the value of having a plan and understanding that plan. Here was a girl who did not get upset because she happened to miss a shot. She knew exactly what caused the error, and all she wanted was another ball to prove that she could drive a straight shot. This attitude in golf can be developed only when the person has a positive approach to the game.

My advice to anyone who is a newcomer to golf is this: Don’t rush your way into the game. Golf is a game that you can play and enjoy all your life, but you must take a little time to learn the few things that one must know. There really is so little to learn that it’s a shame to miss the boat. Don’t get all bound up physically and wound up mentally, because golf is not that difficult.

How to practice
After you have clearly acquired an understanding of what to do and how to do it, the next thing is to put what you have learned into practice. Therefore, the golfer should go to a practice area and start getting the form he has studied into effect. This should be done on a small scale at first, the player starting off with a #7 iron and playing short shots to a distance of from 30 to 50 yards.

When the weight shift, hand action, and body pivot can be executed successfully, longer shots may be attempted. As the results obtained become consistent, the player should gradually work his way up the scale of clubs, practicing with a #5 iron, then a #3, and so on. In starting to work with the woods, he should be sure to start with the #4 wood, taking the #3 next, and gradually working up to the #1 wood, the driver.

The reason for starting with the more lofted clubs is that it gives the player a chance to perfect the footwork and weight shift operations first, then the body pivot, and finally the hand action. With the less lofted clubs, a #2 iron or a #1 wood, for example, the field of operation as far as the hands are concerned is very limited.

What might produce a fair result with a more lofted club often results in a complete miss with the less lofted club. For this reason, it is wiser to use the more lofted clubs in learning. As satisfactory results are produced, confidence is developed and progress becomes faster.

On the tournament circuit, the professionals practice from one to two hours daily. They hit between 100 and 200 shots before actually going to the first tee to begin their game.