I read this on Monty's site recently and thought it would be great to pass on...
Ich habe dieses vor kurzem auf der Seite von Monty und dachte es wäre interessant...
A bit of savvy on the golf course can go a long way … I'm not the longest hitter in the world and I'm certainly not the strongest. Yet, in 2005 and again last year, I had a second-place finish in a major.
How did I do it? I kept the ball in play and my judgement of distance was mostly very good. Above all, though, I utilised my 20 years of on-tour experience.
When I am playing in a tournament, I will start thinking about a round the evening before. As I explain in the set of tips I have prepared for Telegraph TV, I will picture where I want my first tee-shot to land, because that opening drive can set the tone for the round. I also look ahead to other difficult shots I will have to play and rehearse them in my mind's eye. What this does is to help you feel comfortable when you come to stand over the ball.
As you may have guessed, I'm not the type to rush from pillar to post in order to spend time on the practice range. If I have a particularly early tee-off time, or if I have been held up on the way to the course, I sometimes don't go to the range at all and opt instead for a few swings and a few putts.
When I do visit the range, I hit two shots with every club in the bag, starting with a wedge. Plenty of others- Vijay Singh for one- will be working on something technical but all I am trying to do is to relax before I am called to the tee. I do my work at The Wisley rather than at a tournament site.
During the course of a round, you will see a lot of amateurs teeing up any-old-where and usually in mid-conversation. Not so the professionals. They take infinite care, with someone like Bernhard Langer rarely satisfied with his first attempt. Because I play with a slight fade, I stand as far to the right of the tee-box as I can and will often ask my playing companions to move back accordingly. I then take aim down the left of the fairway and wait for the ball to fade back into the middle. Players who favour a draw will do the opposite.
Where professionals and amateurs differ, hugely, is in the importance they attach to length. Amateurs will come into the clubhouse after a round and you will hear them comparing notes on their longest drives and what they took to the various short holes. Professionals, on the other hand, are less interested in how far, and more interested in how many.
When I play a short-hole which, say, I could reach with a good eight-iron, I will often hit an easy shot with a six. As a rule, most of the trouble will be at the front of the green and it makes absolutely no sense to risk coming up short. Even if a professional does have the occasional flight of fancy with regard to clubbing, he has a caddie to remind him that there is no point in taking risks. I discuss every shot with my caddie, Alastair McLean, and it obviously helps the confidence levels that we are never at odds when the time comes to play a shot.
Poor Alastair. He was a pretty useful golfer himself but he's more or less stopped playing now because he finds himself 'thinking' my game rather than his.
Amateurs do not usually have the luxury of a regular caddie and it is maybe because of this that they will often tune into advice from anyone and everyone. This applies particularly on the practice ground where, no matter the level of the players, there is always a lot of technical chat going on.
My old coach Bill Ferguson, who knew how I am apt to hear every cough and sneeze on the course, used to tell me to wear earplugs- one of the best pieces of advice I ever had. I remember once inadvertently tuning into some fellow professionals talking about the extent to which they pronated their wrists and I immediately started wondering where my hands were on the backswing. It was deadly!
Another key piece of advice I was given in the early days- and it is one which I have taken rather longer to digest- concerns the importance of moving on from a mistake. We can all get hot under the collar after a bad shot because that's what this game does to you. The important thing is to keep the repercussions to a minimum. If you have hit into trouble off the tee, you have to forget about a birdie and think instead of how you can save your par.
Tiger Woods is a great one for turning potential bogeys into pars or better, usually by dint of a single putt. My own theory when it comes to holing the putts which really matter is that you stick to your usual routine and do as I did with the six-footer I had to win the 2004 Ryder Cup. You talk yourself into making it.
by Colin Montgomerie
Blog
