You just shot your lowest score in over a year. Do you consolidate or move to the next thing to work on?

[ChaosTheory]

We all know that golf is a quest for continual improvement. 

You just shot your best score in 14 months.   

You have been working on X, and it's coming around nicely.

You could move on to working on Y, which is your next area of weakness.   

Or maybe since you are swinging well, it's a great time to try to find a better _____ club(s).  Right?

Or, should you just ignore all those ideas and instead, for the next few weeks, consolidate the improvements you've made that got you here? 

 

Asking for a friend who never seems to get this right. 🙃

[Hawkeye77]

It’s an outlier, you aren’t that good, the shot you pulled on 12 proves your swing change is a failure, and you just screwed up your handicap for the member guest next week.  

[nitram]

Keep working on X. If you continue to do well, initiate a little Y, without neglecting X. Eventually you will ingrain X and can devote more work on Y. But do you only have two issue holding you back? If so, you are very fortunate . . .

[LeoLeo99]

After shooting your best score in 14 months, it's almost certain that you'll regress to the mean.  It's always a golf fantasy that we will stumble upon some swing thought or piece of equipment that will unlock our secret latent talent to turn us into scratch players. 

[CSagan]

Its always move on to distance wedges, short game and putting.

 

 

[iacas]

29 minutes ago, nitram said:

Keep working on X. If you continue to do well, initiate a little Y, without neglecting X. Eventually you will ingrain X and can devote more work on Y. But do you only have two issue holding you back? If so, you are very fortunate . . .

 

Yep.

[SNIPERBBB]

I'm going to be trying to keep tightening things up. My best rounds usually involve getting away with a lot of stuff  because the course is pretty open  there's only a few holes that really punish a bad drive unless you knock it OB or in the water. 

[Mikey_HACKilroy]

I'd say he should keep playing, and keep working on golf as a whole without letting the highs or the lows pull him off course. If his clubs are old and dusty, that's up to him but I'm a firm believer that clubs should spend years in the bag, not months. Some people ditch clubs in days.

 

Everybody knows the biggest gains are made around the green. Taking 3 shots to get to the Par 4 after guffing one of them up and then one putting is still a Par. Two putting or a good chip and putt is a Bogey. That's not a bad out.

 

There's also something to relaxing and just having a good time. It's playing without letting good results fatten the ego whilst also not letting a bad shot destroy the whole round. Those two things are both killers. Finding a way to keep both out will shave strokes faster than anything else.

 

Finally, your friend shall learn that a double or triple bogey does not need to be "recovered from" throughout the rest of the round. Golf is a mental game. Focusing on negating bad scores or shots inevitably leads to more bad scores and shots. 😄 

I'd love to be a better golfer myself, but I'm not as cynical as some of the folks around here. I feel like top score is a reflection of how good the golfer is at a moment of clarity relative to their current level of skill. Some folks are real Eeyore types, though, who think "I'll never be pro level so why bother trying to get better."

Oh, pooh....
 

[puresurfr]

I think it's time to go shopping....new Driver and Woods and Irons and Wedges and/or putter and definitely new clothes !

[ChaosTheory]

1 hour ago, LeoLeo99 said:

After shooting your best score in 14 months, it's almost certain that you'll regress to the mean.  It's always a golf fantasy that we will stumble upon some swing thought or piece of equipment that will unlock our secret latent talent to turn us into scratch players. 

 

My, uh... my friend's pattern is to have the swing work pay off, and it comes together for 3 very good rounds, then he starts to chase the higher hanging fruit instead of enjoying and cementing the swing improvement.  Before he knows it, it's back to jail, do not pass Go.  This pattern has repeated a few times over the past two years.  After the fact, this guy is not bright enough to realize what happened, let alone to head it off before it happens.  Just yesterday he was spotted on the practice green trying an armlock putter because, you know, that missed 5 footer on #16.

[LeoLeo99]

9 minutes ago, ChaosTheory said:

 

My, uh... my friend's pattern is to have the swing work pay off, and it comes together for 3 very good rounds, then he starts to chase the higher hanging fruit instead of enjoying and cementing the swing improvement.  Before he knows it, it's back to jail, do not pass Go.  This pattern has repeated a few times over the past two years.  After the fact, this guy is not bright enough to realize what happened, let alone to head it off before it happens.  Just yesterday he was spotted on the practice green trying an armlock putter because, you know, that missed 5 footer on #16.

Boring golf = good scores

[ChaosTheory]

1 hour ago, nitram said:

 But do you only have two issues holding you back?

 

Well, no.   It's just a habit to jump to the next one at the expense of attention to the previous one.

Man, golf is hard work.  You have to be a zen master or something.

 

[nitram]

22 minutes ago, ChaosTheory said:

 

Well, no.   It's just a habit to jump to the next one at the expense of attention to the previous one.

Man, golf is hard work.  You have to be a zen master or something.

 

 

or enlist a little patience.

[CSagan]

39 minutes ago, ChaosTheory said:

 

Well, no.   It's just a habit to jump to the next one at the expense of attention to the previous one.

Man, golf is hard work.  You have to be a zen master or something.

 

This is how good golf is achieved. 
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cb6NS_F5xTE?si=GE1l949yZ3U_H1Dl

 

each plate is a different aspect. Gotta give em a twirl every so often. 

Edited March 3 by CSagan

[LeoLeo99]

40 minutes ago, ChaosTheory said:

 

Well, no.   It's just a habit to jump to the next one at the expense of attention to the previous one.

Man, golf is hard work.  You have to be a zen master or something.

 

It's lack Whack-A-Mole for us mere mortals.  

[Jayjay_theweim_guy]

1 hour ago, ChaosTheory said:

 

My, uh... my friend's pattern is to have the swing work pay off, and it comes together for 3 very good rounds, then he starts to chase the higher hanging fruit instead of enjoying and cementing the swing improvement.  Before he knows it, it's back to jail, do not pass Go.  This pattern has repeated a few times over the past two years.  After the fact, this guy is not bright enough to realize what happened, let alone to head it off before it happens.  Just yesterday he was spotted on the practice green trying an armlock putter because, you know, that missed 5 footer on #16.

By "back to jail", do you mean the swing improvement disappears?  And you have to re-engrain it?  If so, then I would do as @nitram suggested upthread, and continue working on the first improvement for longer than your friend did in the past, and see if this time it sticks.

 

At least he gets three good rounds in a row.  I was expecting a prompt regression instead.

 

The avatar is fantastic, by the way.  And oh so appropriate for this hobby.

Edited March 3 by Jayjay_theweim_guy

[PJE]

Just ride the wave or as the choice was presented: consolidate. 
And when things go south again, work on X, Y, or whatever else has come up, Z, A, B,C… 

Golf, at least for me, is an ongoing process so when things are going well, I  just go with it. 

[Pepperturbo]

Tell your friend, he should take a long-break from continual improvement to focus on just playing golf.  See how that goes.

[Christen_The_Sloop]

5 hours ago, LeoLeo99 said:

After shooting your best score in 14 months, it's almost certain that you'll regress to the mean.  It's always a golf fantasy that we will stumble upon some swing thought or piece of equipment that will unlock our secret latent talent to turn us into scratch players. 

 

I think what you are saying is true. One good round does not transform one's game. However, I think transformation can and does happen all the time. The last 5-7 years my swing and approach to the game has slowly evolved. When I was a young man I had a steep swing, took massive divots, relied on timing and rarely took a practice swing before I hit. The result was hitting maybe 7-8 GIR on a good day. My short game could save me almost all the time. I would hit it beautifully for 16 holes. Inevitably I would get off track and blow up.

 

Fast forward to the present. Swing has shallowed considerably (in order to play on the firm fairways of Japan). I'm more mindful of weight distribution, takeaway and shoulder turn - if all of those things are in order, the swing doesn't get off track. I can hit it purely as I've ever hit it, but now I know why. I've got a pre-shot routine that's the same for each shot and regulary hit 9-12 fairways per game despite playing 10% of what I did. That work has also resulted in the short game atrophying. 

 

This winter I've put in work, wearing out the wedges. I've done almost zero work on my swing, but I think as the changes I've made are so simple and effective, my swing has not suffered, combined with consistent weight training, it's probably never been better.

 

All that to say, it depends. If the next thing guy is going to work on is short game, he should have probably already started.

[Zitlow]

On 3/3/2024 at 9:27 AM, Hawkeye77 said:

It’s an outlier, you aren’t that good, the shot you pulled on 12 proves your swing change is a failure, and you just screwed up your handicap for the member guest next week.  

 

Dream crusher. 

[ferrispgm]

Keep working on x until it's comfortable and consistently better.  Then move on to Y.  One or 5 good rounds doesn't mean something is fixed just like 1 or 5 bad rounds doesn't mean what you're working on it bad.  If you have a few months of consistently better play then you're probably ready.  Using 1 round to just progression is partially why people don't get better.

[Rosco1216]

You keep working on X until you’re no longer having to “work on it”, it’s your normal swing now. Then you can start working on Y but always good to keep checking in on practicing with x to make sure you haven’t deviated away. 

[phizzy30]

Keep working on X until you find consistency then move onto Y.  I find that working on something else while X isn't mastered or satisfactory is asking for trouble.

[RoyalMustang]

I approach it like learning a high-level ski turn. There's a lot going on technically and physically. This leaves many, many issues to address. High-level racers may spend months just working on one part of the turn; for example, the transition. It's no different in golf: technique, fitness, flexibility, motor control....it's a puzzle that requires some skill to work through. 

 

All of these potential issues are hurdles. You can't attack them all at once: some will have to be addressed before others. For example, suppose flexibility is a blocker. It needs to be removed before you can be successful at certain swing movements. Once you can learn that movement, something else will be there that was thrown in as a "fix" at one point and now needs to be addressed.  You may not have the coordination for the new movement, which could require training outside of golf. Once that's addressed, you may be able to upgrade your footwork, which will require more learning of movements, balance, and coordination. 

 

I'm of the opinion that constant learning keeps golf fun and lively. I want to improve every day when I go to the course. Practicing is one thing, but practicing with intent to improve my technique yields better results. 

[MountainKing]

All I really let this tell me is what I'm capable of.  Outside of that, I don't put too much focus on extreme's whether it's going low or shooting something ridiculously high.  Just keep plugging away at what you're already working on.

[naval2006]

Golf is so cruel that most of us don’t enjoy the tailwind, we simply get bored and start chasing for something more. Like it’s never enough. 

[jholz]

I leave the golf course with the same advice to myself every time. 

 

1. Ensure you hit the ball solidly every time

 

2. Make sure you take advantage of the opportunities you are given. 

 

Both of these goals remain works in progress. 

[gvogel]

Lowest score in over a year?  I'd break open a bottle of champagne or single malt, and worry about what's next later.