Happy New Year!
Planning for the up-coming golf season
January is a time for thinking ahead to what we want to do and achieve in the coming year. For golfers, this will often be a lower handicap or finally beating a specific score barrier. Whatever your targets for the coming year, I hope to able to help you achieve them.
Having a target is a good starting point if you’re serious about improving your game. A target will give you a focus and something to aspire to, and it will also give you a means of measuring your progress.
What should your golfing targets be for 2018?
While specific targets will vary from golfer to golfer, they should, however, always be realistic and achievable.
Also, golfing targets will fall into one of two categories: Outcome/Result targets and Process targets.
Outcome/Result targets: These are obvious in golf, examples being; breaking 80 for the first time, lowering our handicap or winning a specific competition. Such targets are black and white; we either succeed or fail.
Process targets are less obvious in golf. Examples of process targets are: committing to your pre-shot routine, making and sticking to a game plan in competitions, trusting your swing on the course. Process targets are less about success or failure, but rather more about making progress. They’re not as easy to measure as your score or handicap, but you can monitor how well you do across the season, for example by rating yourself with a mark out of 10 after every competitive round.
While an Outcome target can be good for motivation, my immediate focus is on process targets. I feel that if I can stick to them then I’m giving myself the best chance to achieve the outcome target. I also know that they’re solely under my control, unlike a target of winning a specific competition for instance.
So, thinking ahead to the 2018 golf season, yes have a handicap or score target in mind but, more importantly, think about your own process targets that will help you get there.
Setting your targets for the new golfing year is the first step. The next step is putting together a plan that will help you to achieve them, and I will look at Planning for Improvement in my next blog.
To learn more about my philosophy in golf visit my philosophy page here. To book a lesson with me click here.
