Setting a plan in place
Consider using some of your down time to create a personal golf journal.
Making progress: Setting goals and establishing a timeline gives you a way to monitor your progress at various stages of the golf season.—
As any golfer will attest, disappointment is always potentially around the next corner. This time of the year, a golfer’s disappointments are more often associated with the weather than they are with poor rounds of golf, missed putts or poor golf shots. Using your time wisely is not solely weather dependent. Consider using some of your down time to create a personal golf journal. You will find that a journal can be a useful tool for recording your golf rounds during the season, golf scores, swing thoughts and keys, a practice log, and most importantly, goals. Goal setting is an essential part of any improvement plan. As the old saying goes, “If you don’t know where you are intending to go, how do you know when you get there?” Setting goals and establishing a timeline gives you a way to monitor your progress at various stages of the golf season. If you are achieving your desired results, you will be able to identify them instantly. And if the desired results do not follow, this allows you an opportunity to revise your future practice plans, and massage your progress back on track. I suggest that the first page of your journal contain the answers to these three questions as honestly and in as much detail as possible: Where is my golf game today? Highlight your strong and weak areas and provide examples, details and statistics as often as you can to support your assessment; Where do I want my golf game to be, and when do I want it to be there? Provide long and short-term goals for yourself, and set a timeline for those goals. This gives you a measuring stick and helps you decide when it is time to revise an old plan or start a new one; How do I intend to get there? List the instructional options you wish to use, and how. How many lessons and how often, are you going to use training tools, magazines, books, etc. Emphasis needs to be placed on writing the answers to these questions down in the journal. Experience shows me that golfers are more likely to follow through on their plans if they are written down. Writing your goals down in the front page of your journal provides you with a chance to review your goals prior to each practice session, and will present you with a constant reminder to remain committed and accountable to your plans. Begin your golf journal now while the weather is poor and unpredictable. If you wait until the weather improves, you will be more likely to put it off and hit range balls instead. And would someone please forward this column to Mother Nature—I think she needs to put a plan in place and stick with it!