With a tumultuous month of April behind us, golf is being phased back into everyday life. Temperatures are rising, and with coronavirus restrictions being lifted in various regions, many people are dusting off their clubs and heading back to the links. But with such a lengthy delay to the beginning of the golf season, your game is sure to have some rust.

So what is the most important thing to practice when returning from an extended layoff? Here’s what they had to say. Read up, and play well.

Refine your touch around the green through trial and error — the only way to develop feel. Repetition develops rhythm and feel, so grab a wedge and start pitching to a target for solid contact. After 20 to 30 shots, randomize your chips and pitch shots to control distance.  Hit shots that require a higher or lower lofted wedge to hone the shot loft and landing area. 
Next, practice speed of putts uphill, downhill and sidehill from different distances to a hole. Then play a game of “up and down,” hitting a chip or pitch and putting out.
Finally, you’ll need to get your swing moving at full throttle, especially the driver. It’s important to accelerate through impact, but you must also maintain dynamic balance and not hurt yourself.  Start with a smooth swing rhythm, then increase speed until you hear a high pitched “swoosh” through impact. 

The most important thing when coming back is to ease into things slowly, don’t let your enthusiasm override the physical needs of your body. Most of us have been unusually sedentary during the pandemic and our body is not ready for lashing a driver at 110 mph immediately. A measured approach is required.

Find some good all-body stretching exercises you can do before starting to warm up is a primary thing. Next, get some feel back in those hands and start your opening practice session at the putting green, followed closely by some chipping. Then move into the driving range, stretch again and then ease into some wedges before running through the bag. Keep the expectations low, as it’ll take some time to get your eye back in. When you get out there, enjoy and appreciate the beauty of the environment we play our game in. It’ll feel so good after being inside so much. If you hit a couple decent shots, that’s great. Don’t play for score, play match play and have fun!

When returning from a long layoff from golf the priority should be getting your full swing and solid contact back intact while avoiding injury. Be sure to warm up by stretching or taking practice swings to “wake up” their golf motion and their body.
Once your body tells you that you’re ready to start swinging, I suggest staring with a shorter club and less than a full swing. With success, start graduating to a full swing and work your way up through your longer clubs. Balance drills like practice swinging with a more narrow stance and rhythm drills like continuous swings in a row can also help build in some repetitions to help a more speedy successful return. Short game shots can be added in your practice session if you become tired or need a break in between your full swings.

Golfers should also practice patience when returning and enjoy your good shots. A good attitude and appreciation for returning will be a big help when any golfer returns after a long layoff.

Between the winter and the virus it has been an extended break for a lot of golfers out there. If you are going out to play, I would practice gratitude. Be grateful to be out playing. Enjoy the fresh air, the walk and your friends. Lower expectations, don’t care. Just try and find a rhythm again out on the golf course. Set small goals. Try and make two pars in a row or two bogeys in a row. Try and make a putt over five feet. See how many fairways you can hit.

On the practice tee, I would start with your sand wedge. Put a target out about 50 yards and work on trying to hit your target. Focus on contact, distance control and direction. Three things you need for almost every shot. This will be a great building block for bigger swings.

It is often said that “Players don't plan to fail, they simply fail to plan!”

There is no arguing that working on your feel around the greens, full swing mechanics, physical fitness, etc., are all very important when coming back from a long layoff. The fact that there are so many different skills necessary to play good golf makes it impossible to delineate which is the most important. Due to the complexity of the game and all it demands to play well, the most important thing to practice is having a PLAN! 

Choosing the right things to practice, for the right amount of time and in the right way shouldn’t be reserved just for the Tour player. Amateurs should be making specific practice plans in normal times, but especially in our current situation. For example, putting practice should consist of 5-10 minutes working on the stroke with gates, 10-15 minutes on short putts, 10-15 minutes on longer putts and 3-putt avoidance. Drills, competitive games and combines should all be written out in advance and adhered to. This approach is the blueprint for every part of your game. 
The shotgun approach to getting your game back in shape has never worked in the past, it won’t work now. Think of your game holistically to get the most out of your time and be the best prepared when you come off a layoff.

The most important thing a golfer can do after coming back from a long layoff is have patience with both their bodies and golf games.  Especially in a time like this when they have been more sedimentary than normal.  
To prevent injuries from unused muscles and tendons, a player needs to stretch out the muscles more and also limit the full swing reps until the body can handle a normal load.  I suggest a practice routine that consists of 25% full swing practice to 75% short game. Of those full swing shots very few are full speed and as your body gets stronger and more acclimated to those shots you can increase the percentage of full speed swings.  

In most parts of the world where golf practice facilities are closed, I suggest stretching and making full swings at home before you get to the golf course. Start with nine holes and build your stamina up until you can walk 18. 
Please remember a bad day at the golf course is better than a good day cleaning out your garage or basement.  

The only thing that is consistent in this game is….
Wait for it……

Inconsistency!
​
Yes, even pros shoot a 63 and follow it with a round over par.
Furyk once shot a round of 2 over and followed it with a 12 under par round (a 14 shot swing)
McIlroy shot a 62 one week and an 82 the next (20 shot swing)


BUT WHY?Golf is a game with many shots and many variables. 
Everything from;

• Tiredness
• Coordination
• Emotions
• Skill fluctuations
• Small technique fluctuations 
• Strategy
• Environment (wind, green hardness)
• Course difficulty/set up etc

can affect how we play. If you go out to the course angry one day, for whatever reason, and have high expectations for playing well, you are very likely to play poorly.
Hell, even the same shot can cost you more from one day to the next,
Imagine hitting a fat shot that lands 20 yards short – if there is water guarding the front of the green it is going to cost you more than if you did the same shot on an unguarded green.

Due to the the multi-factorial nature of golf, day to day scores can vary wildly.
This should be expected – improving at golf is not as linear as something like learning the piano, where fewer variables are at play.

golf score (pink) versus total average score (green). This player sees a yearly average score decrease of 5 shots, with a high score of 95 and a low of 75.
A yearly swing of 20 shot between your highest and lowest scores is more than normal – even the tour players go through this. But if your average score drops by 5 shots each year, that’s significant!

Luckily, this problem is something that is pretty easily fixable – as YOU are the one that’s causing it in the first place.
Imagine a player is doing all the right things – they are;

• Having good-quality instruction
• Practicing effectively
• Working on things that relate to performance improvements (not random things they found on Youtube)

They are projected to see an average stroke decrease of 5 shots.
But, due to the random fluctuations around this, they have a bad round (which is inevitable), or even a bad stretch.
The below picture shows 3 times during the year (yellow) where a player may “jump ship” and change their process due to a bad stretch, as opposed to seeing the bigger picture (the average).

The amateur who chases their tail all year jumps ship and moves onto something new, thinking that what they are doing is not (or no longer) working and there is some secret out there that they need to find.
Better players do something different…..

What can you do to improve your golf more consistently over a long period of time? Start adding some of these to your life.

• Understand that there is no secret ingredient that will take your game from where you are now to scratch
• Recognize the reality/nature of golf and the fact it is always going to be consistently inconsistent.
• Look more at your average score – and zoom out to at least a monthly average (yearly ideally).
• Work on things that improve performance – as opposed to striving to achieve a “look”
• Be patient with changes – even the best change can throw you off for a short time – nothing new is easy. Almost every change requires reps and practice for the fruits of your labor to be seen.
• Improve your golf strategy – by doing this, you will be able to smooth out a lot of the variance in scores, and lower the average score quicker.
• Stop bounding around between ideas – stick to a methodology that has been proven to work, as well as drills that relate directly to performance improvements – like those in my plans.
• Better techniques mean outcomes fluctuate less when your movement has any inevitable variability – basically, your shots become more consistent, even if your movement is not consistent. This is what the pros do which makes them better.​

In my programs for improvement, I show you exactly how to do all of the above. 
If you tend to suffer with heel shots, toe shots, fats, thins, and tend to miss the target more long/short – The Strike Plan is perfect for you.
I show you how to strike the ball like the pros, creating those great-feeling/sounding shots more often. As a result, you will hit more greens, score lower and just walk off the course having enjoyed it more.

Many years ago, I once took a few of my students to watch a big Professional event in Kuala Lumpur.
My students had only seen these famous players on TV and as you know when watching TV you are only privileged to see those players in the leading groups. The result is that my students were of the opinion that "ALL" professional golfers are "GOOD"!

Well after they watched a bunch of their favorite players "LIVE", the general consensus, was  "We thought that all hit good shots all the time, but in fact, even the players in lead occasional hit really BAD golf shots"!

In fact even today when my students go to watch a professional event, the resounding option is that "They're not has good as i thought!"

So they have warped perceptions.
For example;
Pupil – “I thought they hit every single fairway”
Me – nope, they’re not THAT good.
Fact – pros average around 60% of fairways hit

Pupil – “I though they hit it to 5/10 feet all the time”
Me – “nope, they’re not THAT good”
Fact – pros average proximity to the pin from the fairway with a 7/6 iron is over 30ft. Yes, they “occasionally” knock it to 10ft, but often hit it outside this range too. Also, they miss 45% of the greens from this range

Pupil – “ I thought they hole every 10ft putt they look at, especially on those perfect greens”
Me – “nope, they’re not THAT good”
Fact – pros hole only around 40% of their ten footers – even on the best greens in the world.

Pupil – “wow, there are a couple of guys who shot in the 80’s today. I thought they never shoot that much over par”
Me – “nope, they’re not THAT good. They have bad days like the rest of us”
In fact, during the day we saw;

• Quite a few wild drives that ended on opposite fairways
• Lots of missed putts from inside ten feet
• Half of the players miss the fairway with an iron on one hole
• Dustin Johnson pull his tee shot so far left that it hit a tree, bouncing back into the fairway at just 120 yards or so.
• Some drives that were so far offline that an amateur couldn’t hit it there if they aimed at that spot.

Tiger Wood’s reaction to a tee shot that ended up in the bunker on an opposing fairway. He managed to hit his shot of the day from that bunker
Obviously, as a professional coach who lives this info, I understood this. I had explained this to my players before too. But, for whatever reason, seeing it live in action made it really sink in.
These guys are humans playing one of the most difficult games ever invented.

WHY THIS MATTERSI think I labor this point for a few reasons, namely:

• How it affects your mood
• How it affects your strategy
• How it affects your level of play

For example, if you have unrealistic expectations of what the pros do, when you hit a poor shot it’s tough to “dust it off”. It’s more comforting to realize that the pros make mistakes too, but they get on with it and deal with the next shot in hand, making lemonade out of lemons.
Unrealistic expectations also affects your strategy. If you think the pros are hitting it to 5ft all the time with a 7 iron in their hand, you are going to take on riskier pin locations. This can quickly turn an “average miss” into a dropped shot or more.

EVERYONE IS GOOD

​To flip this argument completely on its head – everyone is amazing at golf.
Just think about it, in order to send a golf ball to our target, we have to;

• swing a small club head around their body while attached to shafts of varying lengths and
  facing varying environmental scenarios each time and
• STILL return it at close to full speed to within an inch of accuracy
• all the while controlling where the 3D club face is pointing to a level so minuscule you can’t even detect it visually
• Getting the club to move through impact in a direction within a few degrees of a target with incredible consistency

It’s incredible that we can do this at all, with all of our moving body parts.

PROS ARE JUST BETTER

​Did you know that, in order to hit a 35-yard-wide fairway at 300 yards, a player has to present the club face within a 3 degree window?
That’s crazy! Just 1.5 degrees right or left and the ball will miss the edge of the fairway.
I don’t know about you, but I can’t even see 1.5 degrees – the thought of swinging a clubhead around our body at 120mph while attached to a 45 inch shaft and then returning it with that accuracy is astounding.

Well, you are right, but they only do it 10% more often (pros average 60% fairways, amateurs average 50%). And their wild shots can be just as offline as an amateur’s.
​
I mean, on one side you could say the pro is more than 33% better the amateur in this example – but on the other hand you could say that they are both pretty freaking awesome.
It’s tough to even see 2 degrees either side, let alone flail a club around your body at full speed and return it back there.

ARC HEIGHT

Just like our club face example, the differences between a good contact and a poor one can be small. Watch the slide show below.

COMPOUNDING EFFECTSSo, with golf, everyone is good, but no one is THAT good. Not even the pros.
As our club face example suggests, the difference between pros and amateurs CAN be as little as;

• Returning the face to a 3 degree window as opposed to a 4 degree window more often
• Returning the club less than an inch more accurately to the sweet spot more often
• Returning the club back to impact with a height variance of less than half an inch (as opposed to 0.75 inches for an amateur)

No one would argue that quarter of an inch or a few degrees is a HUGE amount – but in golf, with such fine margins between success and failure, these small differences ARE huge.
All of these small differences add up with each shot. If dropping just half an inch in height can make the difference between a birdie and a bogey, these effects compound over the course of 72 or more shots.
The pros ARE better than amateurs, but often by a few degrees, an inch, or one mph of speed control (in putting, for example).
But it could be said that it is their ability to consistently control these fine margins, as well as the accumulations of the combinations of fine margins, which make them superhuman.
Where they obviously excel is their ability to do these things at incredible speeds. Not many amateurs will ever swing a club anywhere near 120mph.

Average amateurs swing the club around 90mph – pros are closer to 115mph
Also, their ability to do these things under extreme pressure is what impresses me the most. I can strike the ball pretty darn well – but put me in front of a crowd of 3000 people on a Sunday with 1.5 million on the line and I might just fall into a dribbling mess on the floor.

FUNCTIONAL VS CONSISTENTWe can also look at this problem from the view of functionality versus consistency.
The vast majority of amateurs are actually incredibly consistent – they return the club to almost the exact same spot (within an inch), and return the club face to incredibly accurate degrees.
The issue is , they are often returning the club consistently to poor places. See the below example.

This gholfer was losing 40 yards of carry distance by returning the club to a consistently poor spot.
Better players (scratch players, for example), have figured out most of the functionality – they return the club to the right places. Higher handicappers might be inconsistent, or consistently poor – which requires different interventions.
Professionals have both – they are optimal AND consistent. Their level of consistency may only be 0.25 inch better than that of a scratch or higher hand player, but this combination of optimal AND more consistent really stacks up.

WHAT TO DO NEXT?

In The Golf Improvement Plan, I explore where amateurs lose the vast majority of their shots – Impact!
I believe that The Golf Improvement Plan is a program which looks at controlling the small changes which make the difference. Through using the motor learning scientific research, I show you drills which enable you to close the gap on the professionals quicker than ever.

In The Golf Improvement Plan, we go through these concepts more in depth, showing you;

• How to increase function and get yourself within the ranges of the pros
• How to use the research discovered from motor learning science to increase consistency and refine those differences between you and the pros.
• We even look at techniques which can open up bigger margins for error – allowing you to get away with more, just like the pros
• How to increase distance and consistency with the driver

CLOSING NOTES

The message to take from this is YES, pros are very good – but amateurs are often not far away from good function.
They may just be less consistent by very small margins, for example a pro might be returning the club to a half-inch bandwidth (range of alignment error), whereas an amateur might be closer to a 3/4 inch bandwidth
Amateurs might also be doing the wrong things consistently, such as having their whole range of alignment error 1/4rd of an inch lower than optimal.
Or, amateurs might be using techniques where the margins for error are much smaller – such as having the lowest point of their swing too far in front or too far behind the ball

The true sweet spot on a driver is the size of a pin point and simply CAN'T be made any bigger. There is only one true sweet spot on any driver where you will get maximum ball speed and no twisting of the driver head at impact. Missing this spot by the tiniest amount imparts sidespin on the ball and costs you ball speed and distance.

Myth Number 2: The sweet spot on a driver is in the exact center of the clubface.
I really wish this were true, the sweet spot position varies dramatically from model to model and is often not in the exact center in the face. In most modern drivers, the sweet spot is close to the center from heel to toe, but vertically, it has moved to a position above the center of the face.
This has happened as club designers have been able to move discretionary weight from the face and crown to places lower and deeper in the head due to the use of lighter and stronger modern materials. This weight moves the Center of Gravity (COG) lower and further back which moves the sweet spot higher on the face.
This causes some significant and complicated issues when it comes to optimally fitting you for the perfect driver.
To demonstrate this, you will need just the driver head, If you don't pull the driver head off your shaft, you have no way of determining the exact sweet spot of the club.
So, you have no way of knowing exactly where your driver needs to be struck to produce the longest, straightest shots. But, if you do pull the head and check the COG, you will likely find that it is higher than the center of the clubface and often will tend to be more toward the heel. Why does this matter? Simple.
The max Coefficient of Restitution (COR) on your driver IS in the center of your clubface because the face will flex the most at the intersection of the X and Y axis as this point is the furthest from the edges of the face. In other words, your sweet spot and point of maximum COR often don't line up! 
If some of you are confused about this, think of it this way. The face will simply flex less closer to the edge of the face because it's supported more by the surrounding metal. It's the same as bouncing on a trampoline in the center vs. near the outer edge.
We need the face to flex as much as possible at impact to absorb some of the ball compression to achieve maximum ball speed. That's right, we can actually “over compress” the ball and lose energy transfer, and thus ball speed and distance. Max COR doesn't "spring" the ball forward because the face acts like a trampoline.

In fact, the exact opposite is true. The face needs to deflect so that we can transfer maximum energy to the ball. Think of it as if hitting a marshmallow. It's not going to go very far because all of the energy of the blow of impact will be absorbed by the marshmallow. When the face absorbs some of the energy, more ball speed is a result as there is more efficient energy transfer.
So, now back to this little problem of the COG and the spot where we achieve max COR are not inline. In other words, we basically have two sweet spots and neither is perfectly "sweet". We also have the potential problem for many golfers with above average clubhead speed that the COG sweet spot is in a place where there is more loft than needed for optimal launch conditions.

When you start to realize just how complicated things can get, it becomes very clear that the chances of you buying a driver off the shelf and it being a perfect fit for you is about as realistic as you winning the lottery without buying a ticket.