Hacker to single figure update - A severe case of mid-round meltdowns

Post by Kevin Paver who is part way through the challenge of a life time - To go from hacker to single figure golfer in just one year

I’m Kevin Paver, and I’m currently 3 months into my golf challenge. For those who don’t know about the challenge, I’m aiming to reduce my handicap from hacker (21+) to an official low single figure before the last club competition of the year (in less than twelve months), and writing about the journey. It sounded like a good idea at the time!

In the past three months, along with Ryan Metcalfe (my golf coach), we’ve dealt with most of the issues with my poor golf swing; and there were many!  To briefly explain, I had poor posture, a poor takeaway, no shoulder rotation, club was too laid off, had an excessively right of target club path and if all that wasn’t enough, I had excessive hand use!

This sounds quite severe I know, but my swing was in a rather poor state. Most of my problems came from bad advice, tips from magazines offering new swing movements that I didn’t execute correctly AND a massive lack of awareness for what was actually happening during the swing.

It’s been a hard three months. We’ve worked on removing all the old habits that I had, and replaced them with lots of new ones that will hopefully give me a much more consistent and repeatable swing. It’s taken lots of practice, lots of drills and lots of swinging the club at home (despite the odd looks from my wife) to get somewhere near. The good news is that my swing is starting to feel really consistent at the range and is resulting in some consistent ball striking.

Before and after swing (Feb 2014)

All sounds good right? So I must be shooting some good scores now?

No, not even close!

Here’s the problem I’m having right now, and I imagine many of you have had / still have the same issues.  Taking this solid, consistent, repeatable swing onto the course.

My issue is mid-round swing meltdowns! For example, two weeks ago in the monthly medal competition, I was +1  gross through the first 6 holes. Then, I had a bad tee shot that was then followed by a calamitous number of poor shots. This continued until I left the hole with a triple bogey. I then managed to follow this with two more on the next two holes! Once this bad shot happens, the only thing I can think about is my swing. This is golf suicide! The more I think about what I’m doing during the swing, the worse it becomes.

So, my current challenge is mental focus! I’ve now realised how crucial this is during a round of golf.

I’ve started talking with David MacKenzie from golfstateofmind.com to try and help me with this. We’re working on developing a shot routine, something that is the same every single time regardless of how much pressure is on the shot. This is what the guys on tour are so good at. Also, he’s helping me focus on my rounds one shot at a time. Oh, and here’s the big one…

“DON’T FOCUS ON THE SCORE”.

This one is the toughest, especially given the challenge I’m currently undertaking. How do I not think about that? It makes sense though right? If I’m focussing so hard on ‘I’ve got to score 85’ (or whatever score I’m looking for) I’m putting so much pressure on myself that I will simply buckle.

Hopefully my sessions with David will help and I will soon be able to manage that tiny little control centre between my ears and start getting close to the scores I need!

Wish me luck!

Kevin.

You can keep up to date with kevin's challenge by visiting www.hackertosinglefigures.co.uk and subscribe. You can also follow me on Facebook  or on Twitter @KevinPaver

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