How to maintain momentum / consistency in a round.

mtcowdog said:

I can relate. I need to improve consistency. I have streaks where every shot is solid and I am a par machine hole after hole. And then boom.

For me the main thing I (think I) need to do is continue to entrain the swing. Simple, repeatable, over and over. In the heat of the moment if I have to think about the swing, I'm looking for trouble. And that's still where I am at. Bad habits creep or jump back in. I realize I am overlooking the mental aspect, but if I can take thinking about the swing in such detail out of things, I will take a huge source of tension off my game.

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I can relate to this. For whatever reason I start thinking about not getting too flat, not coming over the top, etc. instead of just swinging, and it causes all sorts of merry hell. Misses appear on me during rounds that I just don't see during practice.

Golf is hard. We all struggle with consistancy. Normally for me bogies or worse are caused by some sort of mental mistake wether it's overlooking wind or lie or not being fully committed to the shot. Often my alignment gets out of whack so every time I'm on the range I'm using an alignment stick to train my body and eyes to set up square. It takes a lot of work to be consistent at this beautiful game!!

SkiBumGolfer said:

I can relate to this. For whatever reason I start thinking about not getting too flat, not coming over the top, etc. instead of just swinging, and it causes all sorts of merry hell. Misses appear on me during rounds that I just don't see during practice.

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Sounds like we are in a similar place. I am committed to nearly daily practice, and check-in lessons to make sure I'm not entraining more bad things. Over the season I hope to see a measurable trend where the boom moments decrease in frequency and magnitude!

mtcowdog said:

Sounds like we are in a similar place. I am committed to nearly daily practice, and check-in lessons to make sure I'm not entraining more bad things. Over the season I hope to see a measurable trend where the boom moments decrease in frequency and magnitude!

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Me too! This time of year my practice time is pretty lax due to not enough daylight after work, but this weekend we get daylight savings back so you can bet I'll be practicing more often during the weeks now.

The other night on Feherty, Jordan Spieth talked about how he looks at a round in 6 hole segments and tries to keep each separate from another to keep his consistency and plan on track. I've never thought about doing this before, taking a round and breaking it up in 6 holes, but going to give it a try. I'm always looking for a way to avoid those bogey strings or the 2 blow up holes in a round. Something to consider.

Having short term memory in golf is hard, let's be honest. Even the Pro's have some issues with consistency. When my game is on, and I'm playing well, my mistakes usually come from me not committing to shot 100% and taking it for granted. Other issues come from improper alignment.

Breaking 90 is having all 5s and one 4. Need to focus on keeping the ball in play and trying shots you can reliably execute. Bad shots will happen but don't make it worse by trying something that has a low chance of success.

I been thinking about this topic and to be honest there is just no cure. I mean sure we can all suggest all the common and usual answers. Don't over think, forget about the last bad shot/s, don't worry about the score, one shot at a time, lessons and practice, tempo, practice the right way with the correct efforts, keep a positive attitude, make smart choices, play within your means, etc, etc, etc.

I've done this all and still practice the gist of those suggestions but truth is that while any of those (if not done) can indeed hurt and cause poorer play. However, none of it means we wont still have blowups and none of it means we will stay consistent. On can have the right attitude, understand how to let things go, and pay attention to all those things mentioned and still fall apart. Repeating the good swing is just something imo that one can only do so many times before he fails at it. Sure when one has a similar more specific miss they can seek a fix for that miss. But misses change and are not always the same. And many times its several different kinds of misses. One can know very well how to swing their swing with any club in the bag and make them all work well and yet simply fail to make that good swing enough times to stay consistent for long enough periods of time. It just is what it is. Some people are simply able to repeat their good or close enough to their good swings very often while others just cant seem to do so as often. All we can do is keep trying.

rollin said:

I been thinking about this topic and to be honest there is just no cure. I mean sure we can all suggest all the common and usual answers. Don't over think, forget about the last bad shot/s, don't worry about the score, one shot at a time, lessons and practice, tempo, practice the right way with the correct efforts, keep a positive attitude, make smart choices, play within your means, etc, etc, etc.

I've done this all and still practice the gist of those suggestions but truth is that while any of those (if not done) can indeed hurt and cause poorer play. However, none of it means we wont still have blowups and none of it means we will stay consistent. On can have the right attitude, understand how to let things go, and pay attention to all those things mentioned and still fall apart. Repeating the good swing is just something imo that one can only do so many times before he fails at it. Sure when one has a similar more specific miss they can seek a fix for that miss. But misses change and are not always the same. And many times its several different kinds of misses. One can know very well how to swing their swing with any club in the bag and make them all work well and yet simply fail to make that good swing enough times to stay consistent for long enough periods of time. It just is what it is. Some people are simply able to repeat their good or close enough to their good swings very often while others just cant seem to do so as often. All we can do is keep trying.

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And here is the ultimate truth boiled down to one simple statement.

Short term memory, avoiding quick sand and making the longer par putts are key for me

Playing good golf is really about how good your misses are and having a very short term memory.

I had 2 consecutive double bogies on the 3rd and 4th holes yesterday and had to quickly put those holes behind me. I wound up shooting 2 over for the day with a couple missed 4 footers. When I was younger being 4 over par after 4 holes would have resulted in at least a high 70's because I would have dwelled on how unlucky I was with those double bogies(buried lie under the lip of a bunker and 1 yard short of my approach shot clearing a water hazard). My ability to forget the last shot and actually play one shot at a time is a big reason why I have very few blow up rounds.

The best players in the world tell you their answer all the time... "one shot at a time!!!"