Pre-Shot Routines

Pre-Shot Routines

If you're not currently using a pre-shot routine, or new to the game and have no idea what one is, you need to create one, which will promote you to shoot lower scores, using visualization. When you pay $50 and up for a day of golf, creating a pre-shot routine will certainly help to add more excitement and consistency during play. Think of it as a blue print in progress. You certainly enjoy the game or you wouldn't keep coming back and the reason for coming back, is to play better than the game before. Sound familiar? My purpose in providing you my experiences, is to help you see just how wonderful this game really is, and to guide you to that next level of play. This is the game of life for life.

The main reason to establish good habits is to influence positive visualization in each shot, from your tee shot down to your last putt. Consistency is the key. In order to accomplish this, you need a routine, that when practiced over and over again on the practice range, will materialize automatically on the course. The result will be less negative thinking, better executed shots, lower scores thereby resulting in more relaxed and enjoyable play. This is what I call your personal blue print to better golf. Wow, that $50 bucks doesn't feel so bad, because now you have a plan!

Now that you're getting an idea of why it's necessary to establish a routine for yourself, let's look at the reason this is such a vital part to successful play with the touring professional. You may not have any desire to become a tour player, yet all players at all levels must have some dependable and repeatable routine they can perform and trust, in order to focus on the task at hand, with minimal distractions to their golf swing.

There are multiple characteristics from one player to another, as there are body shapes, gripping the club, posture, abilities to visualize, stance, swing speed, swings, etc. What we're proposing here is to establish a pre-shot routine that is fairly similar to what most professionals perform, who by the way do this for a living. This purpose is to establish a mindset that is a pre-set habit, creating consistent and focused shot making. It works or the professional tour players wouldn't be using it.

Observing golfers on TV provides you a fantastic visual of their routines. After teeing up the golf ball first, most pros perform a practice swing, which helps you to relax, focus and have a direct intended action upon each swing, thereby steering the conscious mind away from negativity. This is essential in allowing the mind proper time to calculate a good sense of feel for tempo and swing weight of the club, as needed to execute a good shot. This is a learned habit, towards the betterment of anyone's game.

A short list of professionals below, have been observed by me as examples only to demonstrate their particular style. You can take a piece of each of their pre-shot routines, or copy them, or create one on your own. It's purpose is not to make you look cool, but rather to give you examples of a blue print for you to follow every time you step up to make a golf shot. You'll hear me say this several times throughout my book, and that is this game is 90% concentration and 10% perspiration. Remember, we're building a blue print to better golf. Use this — it is life or death to great golf.

As you might guess, there is no #1 way to establish a pre-shot routine. However, one thing that is in common with all professionals is they all have a decisive routine they can count on to keep them consistent. It's what you invent that works for you. Its purpose is for you to have a mental routine, to focus on a process that will produce the same action and reaction throughout your play — Your personal blue print. It is a key factor to better golf. Breathing slowly is vital to relaxation. Use that one technique alone and you'll see improvement. Whatever style you use, will be what you choose to remember and with consistent use, you will have a solid routine in 30 days or less of practice.

Make this a simple, fun and repeatable event in your mind that will become an engrained habit. Some people use counting, while they swing, as a good diversion to negativity. The whole purpose is to create something to overt negativity — this ugly is what robs you from a good round of golf. Some woman say that breathing techniques helped to some noticeable degree during childbirth, so there must be something to that, correct? Let's hit the range and focus your way to better golf!

"When do I realize its working?" You'll see results from your new pre-shot routine, when you begin to regularly pencil in lower scores and the dog stops growling at you when you get home! In addition to all these great tips, I wouldn't feel complete, if I didn't provide you with some form of training aid in addition to my golf tips, so I think a good read to add would be Harvey Penick's Little Red Book , an incredible compilation of over 60 years of knowledge which is at the top of the list in the golf world. Click on that link, to add a fantastic addition to your golf library.

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