'I'm A Single Figure Golfer Looking To Get To Scratch And This Is How I'm Getting Competition Ready'

Over the last few months, my practice has been solely focused on making swing changes. As winter began, I knew I needed to put a shift in on my swing to hopefully crack the habits that could become the handbrake on my progress.

So I made a plan to go deep on one move at a time, starting with my inside takeaway. And so far, it seems like things are heading in the right direction. There’s still a way to go but as we make a chilly crawl towards spring and the beginning of the competitive golf season, my sights are lifting out from the weeds of winter work and towards performance-based practice.

Here’s my 3 step plan to get performance ready as a single figure golfer who wants to get to scratch:

Dial In My Distance Control

After a winter of getting the reps in, it’s time to get those distances dialled – from putting to pitching to full swings – so that when I’m out on the course and I find myself with a particular yardage or length of putt, I can give myself a good chance of getting close.

I’ll be starting with full swings to get an updated sense of how far I’m hitting each club, especially as I’m hoping there might be a little extra juice in the tank after making these changes.

I’ll work my way up through my bag, noting down my carry yardages for each club. And keeping an eye out for those cracker and clanger shots too – getting a benchmark for how far my bad and brilliant shots go, so that I can allow for that yardage window when I’m on the course.

Then I’ll focus on my pitching from 30 - 100 yards, following Dan Grieve’s pitching system. When I look back on last season, pitching was an area of my game that let me down – often leaving those feely (rather than full shot) yardages short and giving myself a lot of work to do with a long putt. That’s why I’m keen to get my pitching distances dialled and have a system to follow, so that I can feel confident I'll have a chance of getting close…or at least closer than before.

I’ll also be dialling in my distance control when it comes to my putting, so that I can get my feel back after those frozen greens and do my best to two putt tops when I’ve got a card in my hands.

Focus On Target Over Technique

As I’ve been working on my swing, I’ve spent the majority of my practice hitting balls in a net. This was so that I could focus more on the move I wanted to make, rather than worrying about where the ball went. It was helpful to take that pressure off – judging the process more than the outcome of each swing – but my goal now is to balance working on my technique with target focused sessions too.

I’ll need to stay on top of those swing changes but my sessions will shift to testing my target accuracy. That way I can build my ability for hitting the target I set myself and practice my pre-shot routine before doing so – visualising the shot I want to hit and making sure that my alignment and setup are on point.

When it comes to a range session, I’ll work on this by picking a specific target, like a tree stump at 100 yards or a 150 yard flag and see how close I can land my shot. I’ll also keep an eye on my start line and finish point, so I can build awareness of shot shape and how the conditions of the day might affect that, like playing with wind off the right, for example.

When it comes to short game, I’ll set myself the challenge of finishing my shots within a certain yardage around the pin – getting closer as I do. For example, this might be 3 ft when I’m chipping but 10 ft when I’m hitting a 50 yard pitch shot. The goal with this is to see how my shots hold up under that pressure to perform.

Build My Repeatability

Repeatability is something I’ve longed for in my golf swing and that I’ve been inspired to work on after seeing this video on Bryson DeChambeau’s YouTube channel.

In the video, Bryson puts a junior golfer through their paces by setting targets and shot shapes to hit and then repeat on demand. Only when each shot is executed a set number of times do they move onto the next.

After I’ve spent time working on Step 1 and 2, I’m going to challenge myself with a similar repeatability-testing practice routine – executing specific shots at set targets and distances. For example, hitting a straight shot to the 150 yard flag up the range five times in a row. And then doing the same with different clubs, distances and targets.

I can already feel that this is going to be hard but a rule that I’ve set myself for this golf season is to make my practice harder than my play, so that when I’m on the course, I can trust that I’ve done the work off of it.

Follow Jess’ golf journey on Instagram and YouTube.