Jun 7, 2017

Take a Trip to the Woods....

Murray, how on earth is a trip to 'the woods' going to turn me from a 90 shooter into a scratch golfer?? Well to be honest, it probably wont but I want to share with you a little story of how taking my game to the woods helped me become a scratch golfer.

I grew up playing a local parkland course in the town I live in. The practice area was about a 10 minute walk from my house. Between my house and the practice area was a 400 yards stretch of dense woodland. Every time me and the boys headed there after school, we would drop a ball at the entrance to the woods and have a competition of who could get through the woods in the fewest shots. As you can imagine, uneven/poor lies were common and shot shaping/creativity was essential. With a choice of about 4 clubs (changed every time depending on which clubs we took to the practice ground) we began to plot our routes. High draws, low fades, around trees, between a tight gap, we learnt them all. Assessing certain lies to see if the high approach or the low approach was the best bet. Now, your probably thinking, what good did this do to your game?? Well, inadvertently we were learning about club face and club path relationships needed to perform such shots. The environment demanded that we must start our ball on line if we wanted to just miss that certain tree. We were learning club face control.

How can this story help your game. Next time your on the driving range or preferably, the golf course. Try and imagine your own forest in front of you. Try start your ball towards the right edge of the green and make it draw back to the target. Try hit the low approach shot that runs up to your target. Oliver Morton based at Archerfield Performance Academy posted this brilliant 50 shot check sheet to follow. Give this a try next time you find yourself on the range. This can also be applied on the golf course.