The winter time is great to finally incorporate a pre-shot routine into your game that you can stick to and help you under pressure.<\/p>\n
Many of us play most of our golf at the same course and we become guilty of selecting our club halfway down the fairway. Then we come up 20 yards short because we haven\u2019t factored in the lie, wind and temperature from the last time we played a shot from a similar spot.<\/p>\n
One of the keys with a good pre-shot routine is to make sure that, regardless of the shot you have, it\u2019s the same. So it\u2019s the same for a full swing, short-game shot or even a putt. We become self-conscious about taking too much time but, if we can get it right, we can get it down to a very manageable time and it will help save us time as we\u2019ll be hitting better shots.<\/p>\n
Sometimes we\u2019re playing well and there\u2019s almost a bit of a false sense of security. We\u2019re just walking up to it and hitting some good shots but then, all of a sudden, we hit a bad shot and it\u2019s like, why have we done that? And sometimes it\u2019s not a bad shot.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve struck it well and it\u2019s just offline and that might be because we haven\u2019t really paid enough attention to what the wind\u2019s doing or where the slopes are or our alignment. A good pre-shot routine takes all of these into account all the time.<\/p>\n
Pay attention<\/p>\n
Firstly, analyse the lie. If it\u2019s bad, we might not be able to hit the shot we want to hit. We might not be able to carry the distance that we need to carry so we need to take that into account.<\/p>\n
Ask the questions that that the golf course is asking you. What\u2019s the weather like? What\u2019s the temperature? Is it hot? Is it cold? Is it windy? Is it humid? Because not all shots from the same place will require the same golf club on each day.<\/p>\n
Also, analyse your landing area. Is it going to land on a down slope? Is it an up slope? Is it uphill? Is it downhill? All these things come into question.<\/p>\n
Your new routine<\/p>\n
Once we\u2019ve answered these questions and we\u2019ve selected our club, make your practice swings away from the golf ball, so we\u2019re almost behind the ball. Too many people look at where they aim, stand to the side of the ball, make some practice swings and then step into the ball.<\/p>\n
So make your practice swings behind the ball, two is ideal, stand behind the ball, and look at your target where you want the golf ball to finish. If you were to really look at it and analyse it from behind, you\u2019d be ever so slightly left of the ball\u2019s target line as this is where we\u2019re standing.<\/p>\n
Then pick a spot a couple of inches in front of the ball, which is in line with that, and walk into it with your eyes on that spot. So you aim the club face at that point, because it\u2019s easier to aim the face at something that\u2019s two inches in front of the ball, than it is that\u2019s 150 yards away from it.<\/p>\n
Then, once the face is in position, get your feet together, and have your feet and your clubface all matched up. So then when you take your set-up, your body is aligned.<\/p>\n
A lot of people build their stance and then put the clubface in, the face is the important bit and then you build your feet around that point.<\/p>\n
The pros<\/p>\n
It might not look like they have a routine but they\u2019ll have built this in over the years and it will look very natural. Some, like Justin Rose, have a very premeditated process while others do it as more speed but everything they do is the same. Then, when they come down the stretch, they can repeat that.<\/p>\n
Some players, when they\u2019re feeling it, will noticeably more and more practice swings. We all feel the nerves, whatever level we\u2019re playing at, but a sound pre-shot routine will only help with this.<\/p>\n
About Ged Walters<\/p>\n
Ged is a Golf Monthly Top 50 coach and one of the leading teachers in the North West. For more tips follow Ged on Instagram \u2013 gedwaltersgolf<\/a><\/p>\n