Golf Digest senior writer Alex Myers is on a one-year mission to see how good he can get at golf through daily training, practice and playing. Read more from his “Late Scratch?” series here.
There was a bit of confusion among fans and members of the golf media packed around Merion’s first hole on Sunday afternoon of this year’s U.S. Amateur Championship. They all certainly expected to see Jack Whaley there, just not so early.
The second round of the championship match between Whaley and Jay Leng Jr. was scheduled to start at 2:05 ET, but the 22-year-old Englishman and his dad/caddie Andy walked onto the first tee at about 1:50. Did the FSU senior make a mistake? Was he worried about pulling a Garrick Higgo at the PGA Championship? Maybe he was simply jacked up on Coca-Cola?
The answer, as I learned from having Jack as a guest on a recent episode of The Loop podcast, was none of the above. And his reason for the early entrance can actually double as a lesson for all golfers of all skill levels.
Don’t overdo it
We’ve talked about this before, but warmup sessions before rounds are really just for that: warming up. You want to get your body loose and ready to play without tiring yourself out. And in Jack’s case, this was especially true after a grueling week at Merion that consisted of him playing 156 holes. So the young man was plenty loose before that final tee time and he decided to stick to some putting before starting his round with rain in the forecast.
“I went onto the putting green with Coach [Trey] Jones, and it was, we were trying to dial in my speed control and get me more confident on the green again,” Whaley told Golf Digest. “Because it felt as if the greens slowed down a little bit with the moisture on the greens.”
Makes sense. But then Whaley cut that session short. Why?
“I just felt like we kind of nailed it on the putting green, and I was like, right, that’s it, I’m done,” Whaley said. “I’m ready to go.”
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Whaley wound up waiting on that first tee, but his decision to go there earlier than expected for the biggest round of his life certainly paid off. Starting two down after 18, he won four of the first five holes of the afternoon and putted lights out on his way to a 4-and-3 victory to become just the third Englishman to win the U.S. Amateur.
“I almost wish we teed off a little bit early just so I didn’t have to stand there for 15 minutes, but it doesn’t matter, it’s all done,” Whaley said with a smile.
Don’t be afraid to move on
Waiting on that first tee may have been a bit awkward, but it didn’t chip away at the confidence Whaley felt from that short putting session. Had he continued putting for another 10 minutes, perhaps, he would have felt the same, but he also would have risked losing the good vibes he had. Why wait when you’re feeling ready?
On the flip side, like many golfers, I’m guilty of hitting too many of the same shots on the range when I practice. Once something clicks like it did for Whaley on the practice green that day, I don’t move on.
Instead, I rely on repetition because I like the feeling of getting in a groove. But that’s not the most efficient way to practice. And there are definitely times where I eventually hit one that takes me out of that groove and causes me to rethink what I’ve been working on. It’s amazing how quickly you can feel lost again—even on the range or practice green.
Phil Inglis
“ I think you get diminishing returns pretty quickly, especially in block practice,” golf psychology coach Josh Nichols says. “There’s value to block practice if I’m making bad contact, and I need to get to a point of proficiency where I can hit the ball solid. But then I will stop once I can kind of get like five out of 10 or seven outta 10 solid. Then I need to stop and I need to move onto the next thing.”
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You don’t have to hit every ball in that large bucket. And, like Whaley, you don’t have to use every last minute available to you in a pre-round warmup to practice. In fact, Nichols, who made the finals of the 2017 U.S. Mid-Am Championship, thinks practicing too much of something—even if you’re doing it well—can be detrimental.
“ I think too much of the wrong practice sends a signal to your brain that quantity equals better,” Nichols says. “But I think the gains that you see are offset by a kind of illusion. You build up this false, fragile sense of confidence that’s based on quantity and that will hurt you more in the end than what little extra gain you had by doing a higher quantity.”
Have a practice plan
Earlier this year, Sam Weinman wrote about how the driving range can actually make you worse and did a Mind Games video that explains why more practice doesn’t always equal lower scores. He also—with the help of tour pros and coaches—explained the concept of deliberate practice. Which is what Nichols preaches as well.
”When I’ve been at my best, I’ve stuck to a very strict plan, right, usually something I’ve written down on my phone,” Nichols says. “The most important thing is I’ve decided this before I get out of my car. Because at the course you can start doing who knows what and getting distracted.”
There have been multiple times this year ahead of an important round when I’m not feeling particularly confident with my game that I’ve told myself I’ll just go to the range a bunch to get back on track. Sadly, it’s not that easy.
Sure, practice can lead to improvement, but you need to have a better practice plan—both to make sure you’re working on the right things and to keep yourself from working too much on those things. There’s no telling how Jack Whaley’s golf career will turn out, but clearly he’s already figured that out.
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This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
