It is the perfect time of the year to sit down over the festive season and to reflect on your golf game from 2024 and go through all the aspects of the game. Break them down into the following sections Driving, Fairway woods, Hybrids, Long Irons, Mid-irons, Wedge Game, Pitching, Chipping, Putting and your Course Management. Rate each category honestly one to ten and this is a great starting tool to help you to set your goals for the 2025 season. If you improve the weaker categories of your game only by one or two levels, it will alone make a huge difference to your overall scoring in 2025. Focus initially on the two weakest areas of your golf game and maybe make a plan to meet your local PGA Golf Professional to get help with understanding your current technique and they can show you a more effective consistent technique that will improve this area of your game.
This is exactly what I did this time last year myself, I decided I was going to focus on rating every department of my own golf game. My main strength is I hit the ball a long way and my straightest club in my bag is my driver when I am playing well so I always generally end up leaving myself a lot of half or three-quarter wedge shots into greens and also a lot of chip shots which was the weakest part of my own game. I started to think about my technique and look at videos of myself and this is what I discovered.
With my chipping and my wedge game I always took a big deep divot because I had quite a steep angle of attack. After a lot of thinking I decided to reduce the amount of wrist hinge I used in my wedge game. For all full and three-quarter wedge shots I roughly halved the amount of wrist hinge I used to use and with my chipping around the green I completely removed my wrist hinge. What did this do ? Well, if you remove your wrist hinge then you simply can’t use your hands as much in the swing so you end up hitting the ball from rotating your body. This technique also shallows out your angle of attack and gives you a much more consistent strike, all while reducing the speed of your swing which is perfect for shorter chip shots. I brought my chipping from a three out of ten to about an eight out of ten now. In fact, now I look forward to hitting a chip shot and my confidence has gone through the roof. I played a PGA tournament only last Tuesday in Lahinch and finished second place with a 67 in severe strong 45-50km winds mainly because of my chipping and putting. On a windy day you will hit less greens so you are going to have to rely on your short game. So, focus on your weakness and turn them into your strengths in 2025.
My second weakness this time last year was my putting mainly because I felt I could see too much of face rotation on my putter in my stroke. I played a tournament earlier this year and I left it so frustrated because I had played so well tee to green, but I had my usual 35 putts. On my long drive home, I spent the time thinking what could I do to reduce the amount of face rotation I had in my putting stroke. I had an eureka moment when I taught about what if I turned my top left hand facing in the opposite direction with my palm now facing forward. Surely then the face couldn’t move as much. I couldn’t wait to get into the shop and test my theory that evening and sure enough it seems to work. Now initially it felt alien and terrible, like any change does however from experience I knew I would get used to it especially if it proved to work. I did also find moving to a thicker grip and longer 38-inch putter also helped further with this new method of gripping my putter. Again, roll on a year later I have just had the best season of putting I have possibly ever had.
What I have noticed from making the changes to my technique is, better results follow when you move to a more consistent technique. You can go to a driving range and practice for months and get slightly better, however if you go to your local PGA Golf Professional and find a better more consistent technique for the weak areas in your golf game, even with less practice you will see improvements. So, I highly recommend using this Christmas period to evaluate your own game and rate every aspect. Then sets your goals for 2025 and work on improving your technique in these areas and the world is your oyster to what you can achieve in 2025.
