Start ripping the pages from your Golf Shot menu

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Have you ever gone to a restaurant that has a menu that is as thick as a book? There are more than 100 options and you browse through the pages to make a decision, but you are not confident that something like that will be good. How can the chefs perform that many dishes well?

Unfortunately, those are many games from golfers. They add more and more dishes to their menu and when it comes time to cook, the flavors fall flat.

(in this beautiful metaphor, the dishes are golf shots)

I want you to walk through a few concepts to give you specific examples of what I mean. I will talk anecdotally about my own game and some other ideas, but my main purpose here is to change your thinking.

I want you to be the restaurant that has only a few dishes, but know how to make it and do it well.

I tried them all

For most of my time as a golfer, I was under the assumption that I had a huge arsenal of shots and techniques at my disposal.

Draws, blurs, punches, flopshots, bumps and runs – you know the list.

I never really thought about analyzing my performance of all these recordings, but if I had, I would have noticed that I was not very good at any of them under pressure. Of course I could pull them in the backyard or on the driving range, but when I only had one chance to do it right, the results were lagging behind.

In retrospect, this is one of the main reasons why I had more blow-up holes and placed double bogeys (or worse).

What I finally understood is that if I simplified things and destroyed all the pages of my menu, I would become a much better golfer.

The One Trick Pony

I recently completed a full evaluation at a facility called Golf & Body NYC. I write down the experience in a separate article, but they put my golf swing through all the latest tools such as Trackman (a popular launch monitor) and GEARS (a CT scan for your golf swing).

We talked about the current state of my game, the goals I had and then I went through a ball-striking evaluation.

I make some unorthodox movements in my swing and have a very extreme in-to-out swing path. That became clear to their chief instructor after seeing my numbers on the launch monitor. We also discovered why I am also a functional ball-point.

I asked him what he thought of everything, and his answer was "you look a bit like Mariano Rivera – you only have one pitch, but you are good at it."

Of course he was joking because I am not nearly as good as a golfer because Mariano Rivera was a pitcher. But it speaks to the concept of simplicity, implementation and results.

Almost every shot I hit on the golf course becomes a draw. My swing is unable to move the ball in a different direction. It is almost impossible for me to fade unless I do something that feels very bizarre.

I have one swing. I don't change it at all in almost every situation. Whether I'm hitting my driver or a 50-yard pitch shot, I'm not trying to do anything else.

Why am I now a much better golfer than I was before? I believe it is because I am fully committed to doing something instead of partially committed to doing ten. I feel comfortable with what I have, I especially know what to expect, and that makes my head clearer about the ball.

What am I talking about?

Instead of speaking in general terms, I would like to go through a number of specific shots and situations to illustrate what I mean. I will talk anecdotally about my own game, but I hope you can find a connection to your game.

Working the ball in both directions

I am biased, but I don't think recreational golfers should hit draws or fades on command. The idea that you have to shape your shot based on the fairway or pin placement sounds sexy, but in reality I think you're wasting shots if you use that strategy.

One of the greatest myths there is, and I fell victim to it myself, is that you will eliminate a side of the golf course with a certain shot shape. If you look at the scattering dispersions of most golfers, they are missing enough on both sides of their goal, regardless of the shape of the photo they are taking.

For example, you would assume that I would miss almost all of my goals on the left because I draw the ball, but I miss a lot to the right if my face has too open an impact. I have measured my game on different devices for tracking strokes and found that I miss fairways and greens equally on both sides.

My advice is to try to stick as well as possible with one shot form. There are PGA Tour players who have earned millions of dollars and won major championships in a single form – I think it can work for you too.

Punch Shots

I play a lot in windy conditions since I live near the water. I can't do any of those cool shots that you'll see on TV during tournaments.

If you play a shot in the wind, spin and track are your enemies.

A nicely executed shot keeps the ball low and also reduces the spin on the ball. Although I can play those photos on the practice tee, I have noticed that I tend to hit hard or crochet the ball too much in a real round. It requires muscle memory outside of my normal gait, and I don't think I have enough time to make it work.

So you know what I do to solve this problem? I use more club. If my standard shot requires a 7-iron, I take a 4 or 5-iron, the lower loft on the club ensures that the spin and trajectory are only lowered.

There is no need for a nice solution or another technique. In general, I can reliably achieve better results with what I already have.

Wedge Play

Part of the beauty of golf is that there is no good way to hit. That is also a part of his curse.

Let's say you're 20 meters shorter than the green and the pin at the back. Some would say that a real golf artist would have several shots at their disposal – they could bump and run a club with a lower loft like 7-iron, or throw a wedge backwards.

In theory, none of these shots are particularly challenging to perform. But I would say that if you have to go through the process that you have to choose between multiple recordings, you raise enough doubt in your head to remove them regularly.

So I would like to tell you everything about the beautiful wigshots. You don't need a flop shot. You do not need a one-hop stop wedge.

What you do need is a technique that makes you feel comfortable and that can usually get the ball on the surface (even if it is 20 feet away from the hole). I see so many golfers who cannot achieve this one goal, and it wastes shots. Fortunately, they are easier to earn back than tee shots and approach shots.

I cannot tell you what that technique is for you. You may need help from a professional to find it. But what I want to think about is simplicity. You can get good in one kind of wedge shot, good enough that when you stand over the ball, you are almost certain that you will hit the ball neatly enough to hit the green. If you can get that far, I guarantee that your scores will drop.

Doesn't this sound like fun?

When I've tried to give this kind of advice to golfers, I will inevitably get some recoil. Some will evoke nostalgic feelings about how the game should be played with style and artistry. It sounds great, but I've been around the thousands of golfers right now, and I haven't come across many who can actually play like that.

What I do see is that there are many golfers who are paralyzed by fear and complexity when they get over the ball because they have so many conflicting thoughts. That is not a fun way to play this game.

It is difficult to do it in both ways in golf. I know that most of you want to find ways to lower your scores; I believe that the pursuit of simplicity is the right way for almost everyone. Feeling the burden of all your options does not make you a better golfer.

So if you feel that your game is like that menu with all those dishes that aren't going to taste so good, then start crawling out the pages. Take a good look at your game and think about what works and what makes you most comfortable. Go there.

It is inevitable that you encounter situations on the course that make you uncomfortable, that is part of golf. You want to face those circumstances with what you have the most confidence in. You will not be successful every time, but the trick is to get a little better at avoiding those big mistakes.