SMALL CHANGES BIG IMPROVEMENTS
Getting better at golf can be a daunting prospect. Lessons, new gear, hours on the range … it all adds up, both in terms of money and time. However, there is another way to improve.
The marginal gains theory is all about making small, incremental improvements which, when added together, make a significant improvement. Its pioneer, Sir Dave Brailsford, summed it up as “the one percent margin for improvement in everything you do.” And while Brailsford used it to drive unprecedented success for British cyclists, the principle translates into any walk of life … including golf.
Golfers can reassess their approach to their equipment, technique, fitness, strategy, psychology, preparation and more to make a host of small changes that add up to some serious improvement.
This feature has been created to help you do just that.
We are not suggesting you go as far as Brailsford in examining how different pillow types might affect your sleep; but by breaking your approach down into a series of small wins, you might just find the success that bigger ambitions denied you.
#1 DEAL BETTER WITH BAD WEATHER
Most of us hate playing in bad weather, but that negative attitude tends to spill over into a poor performance. Reassess how you approach the wind and rain. Great bad-weather players tend to look at adverse conditions competitively, knowing that if they take a better attitude to the weather than the rest of the field, they have instantly given themselves an advantage over them. It’s a much healthier and more productive mindset. In doing this, adjust your expectations for the day. Give yourself three or four extra shots on your handicap; see a long par 4 as a par 5. This makes hitting your goals more attainable, and more enjoyable.
– Karl Morris
#2 FIND A NEW RESPECT FOR PUTTING
Improving your putting is one of the quickest ways to make a marginal gain – after all, cutting out just one three-putt will do it. But many golfers don’t focus on this part of the game because of the way they view putting. A round with plenty of holed longer putts is ‘streaky’; putts drop through luck, not skill; putting is a ‘dark art’.
If this sounds like you, face the fact that good putters gain their reputations because they putt consistently well, and that in itself proves strong putting performance is down to more than fortune.
Remind yourself of the skill needed to hole a putt. Commit to improving your ability to read greens, a genuine skill that makes a holed putt feel a lot less like a fluke. Gain a new respect for putting and your performance will rise with it.
– Karl Morris
#3 DEVELOP YOUR GAME BY SWITCHING THINGS UP
A simple marginal gain you can make is to avoid the familiarity that dominates most
