The Best Offense is a Great Defense!

As we embark on the NFL and College Football, I thought it might be interesting relating those game-plans to golf. In football and in golf, you are trying to control as much of the environment as you can. . We have all heard the saying, “the team became one dimensional.” Football teams and coaching staffs scheme to take a portion out of teams as we saw with Kansas City in the first game against New England. They were committed to keeping Tom Brady off balance and on his gluteus maximus. In the second game of the season, we saw Denver do the opposite to Dallas, where they committed to keeping the running back to single digit yards for the game. In both of these circumstances the offenses became “one dimensional” and the defenses won the day and eventually their teams won the games. In golf the goal is similar. All of our goals should be to take one side of the golf course out of play. If you play a right to left ball flight, you must learn to miss left and not right. If you play a left to right ball flight, you must learn to miss right and not left. For an example, to the left is an image of #8 and if you are a left to right player of the ball, aiming at the left side of the fairway bunker using a club that will leave you short of it is the smart play. If you hit a good shot, you are in the middle of the fairway, a “bad shot” with your shot pattern, you may end up in the bunker, a “bad shot” with the opposite ball flight you are going back to your bag. If your ball flight is right to left, playing at the left edge of the right bunker in the rough is the smart play. That will put your preferred ball flight into the fairway and a “bad shot” with your shot pattern will leave you right of the water, in the fairway where a “bad shot” with the opposite ball flight, you may need a hound dog to find your ball in the wetlands. The key to this approach is to find your preferred and most natural ball flight and make sure that you are doing things in your practice sessions and rounds of golf to make sure that the contrary ball flight doesn’t sneak into your patterns. If you take this approach to your practice and the way you manage the golf course, you will see your scores lower, without having to change anything in your swing! Happy hunting and I hope this helps you enjoy your journey around the golf course!