Keys to Perform Your Best

As you return to playing events, do you know the elements that will help you perform your best?  My short answer is using the systems, which means outlining how to take different elements and have them work together with the goal to produce consistent and more predictive results which will lead to a long term positive shift in performance.  The Golf Performance Centers’ 5 Elements of Success help players understand how to build towards long-term success, while gaining short term understanding.  If you are not taking into consideration all the elements necessary to play or perform your best, you may want to find out why they may be important to you and your success.  Amazingly enough, after 25+ years of coaching golf athletes, often we still hear golfers speak in terms of other people’s keys to their success and not their own.  One reason for this is the mentality of the golf “teacher” or teaching players based on methods of comparison with other players and assuming they have equal movement quality and golf swing flaws or patterns.

Most players are being told that a lesson will fix them and do not get the idea of building a plan or system that will produce better results over time.  This does require you to have a growth mindset when trying to improve.  How do you get there?  Simple answer, pay attention to what you are doing.   Assess your game without lying to yourself.  Expose all your flaws in a rigorous assessment, like our Player Development System Assessment at GPC. This assesses all elements of your game and gives you a Player Development Index, a better way of measuring your success!  This will help you create a better practice plan for your success.  You can check this out on Junior Golf Hub.com or download the Junior Golf Hub app.

If you do not have the time to go through a thorough assessment, here are a few keys to performing better. They may surprise you.    

How do these things affect performance?

1-Sleep: when the body does not get enough rest it is not able to function efficiently.  Rest is like having proper air in your tires when you go on a road trip with family.  It doesn’t seem that important, but it can be a huge factor when it comes to gas mileage efficiency.  You need sleep to function properly and to make good decisions.  Not having good sleep patterns is giving up at least 2 shots per round!  Get into a good routine of sleep weeks before tournaments or try to maintain a good sleep pattern throughout your year. Try some meditation before bed!

2-Nutrition: You would think this would be a no brainer, but most golfers fall into “eat to survive” not “eat to perform well.”  We should all think about this one daily.  If your car has no gas, your car doesn’t go. If you put in bad gas, your car doesn’t run well.  If you put bad gas in your car long enough the engine will fail due to abuse.   Having poor nutritional habits will affect your sleep patterns creating a double whammy!  Bad nutrition leading up to performance in golf is like giving up 2 shots a round!

3-Hydration: What you drink the day of playing or practicing will not really help you.  You need to start hydration days before you play especially if it is an important event.  Water is best thing if you are getting all of your essential vitamins from food sources, however if that is not the case (see 1 and 2), drinks that contain sources of vitamins can work, but not as effectively.  Bottom line on this one, start early and often to keep your body fully stocked with water. It makes everything else work better!  If you are hydrating with sugary drinks or beer (21 and older) then you are losing 2 shots a round!

4-Mental preparation: Having a good mental plan and being able to keep yourself in the game by using good mental skills is a key to higher performance.  When you have difficulties with 1,2 and 3 you will definitely have issues with being able to dial in your mental game.  Follow 1,2, 3 and your mental preparation will become much easier.  You will have more awareness, clarity to focus and ability to keep yourself in a calmer state to rebound from bad shots.  Keep expectations at bay!  Being mentally prepared is like saving 3 shots per round!

5-Knowledge: Do you have accurate assessment of your game skills? Do you know if you have limitations that are preventing you from performing the shots you want to perform at the level you desire? This is no different than being in a job or academic environment. When you have better knowledge of a subject you will typically feel more comfortable and will likely do better on your assignment or test.  Golf is same way. Have knowledge of your course or know what you are practicing. This saves shots.  Having a game plan or the knowledge of the task (creating a good yardage book for tournament) at hand will save approximately 2 shots per round!

In conclusion, if you do not have a system for development in place based on measuring lead factors and lag factors of performance, you are guessing and following blindly, ”hoping” for success.  Let us help you understand your strengths and weaknesses by going through our full PDS Assessment.  Once you know where you are, you can get to where you want to go!  Following these keys will enable you to “turn on” your performances more often! 

Enjoy Your Journey!