Having a solid short game, will help to keep your score down. However, having a great short game can really improve your score. Many golfers struggle on and around the green. How many times have you seen a player hit a good drive and iron shot, only to lose shots closer to the hole. Today, we have some tips regarding the thought process and visualisation of short golf shots.
When approaching the ball near the green, there are a number of questions you can ask, which will provide you with a clear frame of mind going in to the shot. These will narrow down your focus and enable you to approach the ball with confidence, knowing exactly what you need to do. So, before every short-game shot, ask yourself the following:
Where does the ball need to land for the shot to be successful?
How is the lie of the ball going to affect it?
How high will the ball travel in the air?
How is it going to react when contacting the ground?
Where on the hole will the ball drop in?
Having assessed and answered these questions, you can build up, in your mind, exactly how the shot is going to pan out. If you are thinking it will take too long for you to process this information and other players will be waiting, why not do it while other players are taking their shots? The more often you go through the process, the more efficient you will become when using it.
The next step of visualisation, is to imagine the outcome of your short-game shot. This will take you through the positive thoughts of seeing the ball travelling towards and in to the hole. It may seem like a silly thing to do when you first start using this technique but it really does help and programs the body in to the actual mechanics of the shot, before stepping up to play it. Plus, no one else is inside your mind except you, so the other players will never know what you are doing. Just take a few seconds and picture yourself taking the shot and how it is going to go in.
This technique will really help when improving short-game shots. A quick assessment of the five questions above, followed by a visualisation of the outcome, will go a long way in producing great, accurate short-game shots.
