Always Play Golf For A Reason

Tour Players have remarkable levels of concentration when they play, far more than you and me as regular players do.

And they should concentrate too, it's how they make a living, support their families and finance their lifestyle.

An amateur I was talking to about this recently said "I'd concentrate if I was that good too".

But has he got it back to front?

Top players have always played competitive golf, and more often than not for high stakes. Just about every tour player was a child phenom, club, county, national honors leading to collegiate golf careers; followed then by several years of cutting their teeth on mini tours, Q Schools and the like until they make it…or don't make it in most cases.

The stakes therefore are high nearly every time they have teed it up from about 10 years old onwards

They know the benefits to concentrating on their performance, they will have learnt the hard way how poor concentration can cost them dearly.

So how can you and I build this into our game?

Well you probably aren't suddenly going to start playing for a living, which could be an expensive mistake! No, but you can start to raise the stakes in all the golf you play. If you do then your social golf will become better and your competitive golf will become better too.

And the reason is because you'll get used to concentrating better in both situations. Like tour players, you'll be able to hit better shots and make better decisions more often, you'll have developed the skills needed to play with concentration.

Here are 5 simple adjustments you can make which will have a dramatic influence on your game just by changing a few of your habits.

And the good news is these are unbelievably simple ideas to adopt.

Practice putting from 3 - 4 feet, commit to making 9 in a row, and when you can do 9 in a row raise the challenge to 18 and 27 and so on.

When you are practicing your chips, always aim to make it. Set yourself a target of holing 2 or 3 or 4 chips before you're finished.

Play all your golf with buddies for some sort of wager. One you are comfortable with, but high enough stakes to make you fight to win.

If you can play with better players then you should, and compete with them, you'll find out what you need to do to get to the next level in your game.

Enter competitions, and if you do already then look for comps at other courses, or put your name down to play for your clubs team - this is a great way to play match play against players of similar standard to you and often at some great other courses.

So there you go, 5 really simple ways you can improve your concentration, and you'll see the results in all the golf you play - it answers the age old problem of so many players who can play well socially but struggle with a card in their hand.