On The Tee with Hank Johnson

WILL YOU BE A BETTER GOLFER A YEAR FROM NOW?

Are you getting better or worse at golf? Do you want to be a better golfer a year from now? If so, what do you need to do in order to accomplish this general goal?
First you have to be more specific in terms of exactly what you need to improve. You need to define your strengths and weaknesses. Next you have to develop a plan to improve both!
1. The best basis for your plan is statistical data on your overall game. Not keeping up with your stats is like trying to run a business with ever looking at any financial data. If you just depend on “how you feel” about your game you will eventually fail! If you are not using Shot by Shot, go to www.dewsweepersgolfshow.com and sign up today!
2. Next, you need to make a doable improvement plan for this year. Your plan needs to include some realistic goals and an action plan to accomplish them. You also need to be diligent in monitoring how you are actually doing in carrying out your plan from day to day. Keeping a diary of your activities is the best way to be sure.
3. It’s important to keep a long term view of improvement in golf. Golf games just don’t seem to change quickly. If you’ve been operating without any real structure it will take some time to get things back under control and moving in a positive direction. The key is to stay at it on a consistent basis.
4. If you have a teacher, include him/her in the planning process. If you don’t have a teacher you should consider starting to work with one. A qualified teacher can help you in a number of ways. Schedule regular lessons to build in some accountability and to make sure that you are not spending time and energy working on the wrong things. It’s amazing how many golfers are out there on their own working hard to solve the wrong problem.
To be successful in golf, you have to have a plan and follow it. Otherwise you will probably just keep repeating the past over and over.

ARE YOU A BETTER GOLFER TODAY THAN YOU WERE A YEAR AGO?
In golf, you’re either getting better or getting worse. Very, very few players just stay the same. You have to continually review results to know which direction you are moving in. Here are some ways you can do that.
1. If you set goals at the beginning of the past year, review your performance against them. Did you improve in the areas that needed work? Did the areas where you were strong stay that way?
2. Review your statistics. Did you hit more fairways and greens? Did you have fewer putts? Did you make more birdies? Did you have fewer blow-up holes?
3. Which way is your handicap trending, up or down? The USGA GHIN Handicap system can tell you. It can even give you your trends for the year.
4. What about your performance in the same tournaments you played in the previous year? Did you do better or worse? You can even go back several years to do this comparison.
5. Did you win more bets with your buddies than last year? You probably don’t keep formal records on this but you know because there’s money involved.
6. Were you able to qualify to get in the tournaments you played in the previous year? How about special teams at your club or course? Did you qualify for the same things this year that you did last year?
7. If you made any equipment changes? Did they help your performance or not. You need to be brutally honest with yourself about this subject. It’s hard to accept that you may have invested in new equipment that not only didn’t help you but actually hurt you. Tour players deal with this reality all the time.

Taking the time to review the year will help you avoid making the same mistakes again this year.

Goal Setting
Establish your golf goals and action plan
Now it’s time to establish your golf goals and action plan for the next golfing season.
For clarification, consider these definitions:
Goal: The end or final purpose which a person aims to reach.
Action: An act or thing done; a deed.
Result: Consequence, outcome, or effect.
Obviously you need goals and an action plan to accomplish them in order to produce the result you want. Goals without an action plan are just dreams that have very little chance of coming true. Why not just focus on the results you want? Because results are out of our control! The belief that results are under our control shows a fundamental lack of understanding about competition. Therefore it’s far more productive to use your actions to progress toward your goals and let the results take care of themselves.
Here are five tips to help you stay action focused:
1. Focus on concrete, specific actions. For example; Do your training and conditioning routine at least three times each week to improve your strength and flexibility.
2. Set daily and weekly goals as stepping stones toward your goals for the year. For players who are easily discouraged this concept greatly increases the chances of maintaining a high level of commitment.
3. Set hard goals rather than easy ones. The best goals are ones that challenge you but don’t discourage you. You want them to be “just out of reach but not out of sight”.
4. Keep your goals clear and positive. The focus of your goals should be on “doing“ rather than “not doing”. Us humans just don’t seem to have a “no, no button”.
5. Get regular feedback on your progress. This is where Shot by Shot is really going to help you as you move into the New Year.
These are five very basic steps to achieving an action focus. Use these principles and you’ll be able to change the natural tendency to worry about results into an effective ability to get the job accomplished. Staying action focused will help you become much more effective in getting the results you want from your golf game. Champions who have discovered the secret of high level achievement stay action focused and expect to succeed. They don’t “worry” about the end results. They focus on their actions and let the results take care of themselves.
Remember, goals without an action plan are just dreams.
Hank Johnson, PGA