What’ s Your Summer Golf Training Plan?
By Nick Duffy and Zach Parker, BGGA Senior Coaches
Once school is out for the summer and you have several months to dedicate to your golf game, be sure to have a plan for how you’ re going to get the most out of your game during this time.
Your summer training plan should be all about maintenance and tournament prep. You should have done all the technical work required in the lead up to summer. If you’ re playing summer tournaments, you shouldn’ t be making swing changes and overhauls in your game.
The most effective way to train for big events is to play into the events. It will allow you to be comfortable and in a competitive frame of mind. Don’ t spend three weeks training for a big event.
Think about building a schedule with a strategy of knowing you have four or five days in between each event and what you want to achieve in those days. The first day or two could be going back to the priorities you’ ve worked on with your coach the entire year, evaluating where you are and then creating playable fields for the weekend.
After each event, look at your statistics to see what parts of your game you should be working on before the next event. Track the modern statistics and not just greens, fairways and putts. Those don’ t really tell you much. Keep stats to determine your weaknesses. You can make your practice schedule reflective of that. If you had a tournament in which you hit it well, chipped it ok and putted poorly, your training should have more time putting, not as much time chipping and less time on ball striking.
Don’ t just monitor your statistics during the summer. A player needs to be tracking their stats throughout the entire year. When you evaluate your statistics, it’ s important to not just look at a snapshot of one weekend but the trends throughout the entire year or season. That way you’ re building a program that improves your game overall and not just one area.
To make the most of your summer break, there needs to be a clear plan and build your game around what you want.
If you’ re really in that competitive frame of mind, your training needs to prepare you for the rigors of that. Continue to stretch, do your fitness, but also work on your course management and the way that you’ re going to score even if you’ re not playing your best golf. Playing week in and week out teaches you how to play the game, not how to swing.