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There are a lot of distractions on the golf course and coaches do not have many opportunities to talk to players during a round of play. How do you teach your golfers to remain focused and manage themselves around the course?
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There are a lot of distractions on the golf course and coaches do not have many opportunities to talk to players during a round of play. How do you teach your golfers to remain focused and manage themselves around the course?
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Mike Cason
Floyd Central High School
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It is very difficult for young people to control their emotions, especially when they are under pressure during competition. I have ready many golf sport psychology books on the subject and use a ten-part lesson that we teach to our kids during the season. Techniques to remain calm and focused need to be learned just as much as the physical part of the game. I tell my kids that if I can’t ell by watching them how they are playing, they have been able to control their emotions and will play better golf.
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Joe Ledbetter
Silver Creek High School
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We talk a lot about picking out your target and focusing on placing the ball where you see it going. The idea is to hit away from trouble. The course is a continual march through disasters. Golf is a game of misses and whoever can miss the best usually wins. Our motto is “What’s My Target.” That triggers the player to block out all else except making this shot.
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Dave Lobeck
Providence High School
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Throughout the season, in any round they’re playing, I try to get them to really focus on hitting greens and hitting fairways. The biggest challenge is trying to get them to put away the driver and sometimes hit more conservative shots that put them into play. We also have a format when we practice that takes their golf score and adds penalty shots for missing fairways and greens. Everybody wants to hit the long ball. The best players know when to use power and when to use accuracy. We also want them to stay on an even keel. When I see kids getting upset, we don’t take that well and we try to get kids to relax and try to be almost robotic in their approach to the golf round.
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Kelly Thompson
Jeffersonville High School
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At the beginning of the year during practices I put them in situations where things can go bad, whether it’s the shanks or they mentally can’t putt or chip around the green. They all go brain dead at one time or another. I tell them to calm down and take it one hole at a time. They have a bad hole they take it to the next hole and they start getting bent out of shape. I give them some tools to bail out when their game is not at its peak. I teach them to go back to fundamentals: check your grip, your stance and go over basic issues, what’s going on in your head. High school kids are the worst at emotions. Most, when they’re bad they take it to heart. I tap myself on the head and they know what I’m talking about.
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