When I was in college, I had a coach tell me that practice doesn’t make perfect, as the old adage suggests. Rather, “appropriate practice makes perfect”. He explained that if we are throwing a football the wrong way over and over again, we have taught ourselves how to throw a football—yes—but we have successfully learned how to throw the football incorrectly. Golf is no different. In every round, you are hitting the golf ball roughly 80 or 90 times, and sometimes more! So, it is important to make sure you are practicing ‘appropriately’.
Today, there are many golf academies that teach golf (of course, here at the shore, they are a bit of a drive!). Those golf academies use a host of high tech gadgets and gizmos to help you improve your game. Of course, these experiences cost a lot of money and are designed for the higher end golfer. Bio mechanics and motion analysis are two of the more popular, high tech approaches.
At Cape May Par 3 & Driving Range, we offer video lessons to help you improve your golf swing. Essentially, you can see what your swing looks like (in addition to ‘feeling’ and ‘hearing’ the swing as you do it). After several swings are taped, the video is loaded into a CD or sent to you via e-mail with a few tips on it. In a complete video lesson, once James – our full time golf teaching professional – has the video of your golf swings, he will use lines, dashes, and dots, as well as slow motion and voice-over to show you your current positioning and where you should be at every point in the swing. You can even send James your own video from a remote location. Neat, huh? I think once you try it, you will realize how valuable this type of experience is in improving your golf game.
By a Cape May Par 3 Golfer