Getting better at golf doesn’t require reinventing your swing every season or following the latest tips on social media. Real progress comes from following a simple, repeatable system. That system can be summed up in four words: Process, Practice, Patience and Persistence.
Here’s how to apply each – step by step – to your game.
1. The process
Your process begins before you pull a stick from the bag. Choose your target, choose a shot shape you can execute, and commit to a pre-shot routine that you use in ANY swing. This routine should look the same on the range and on the course.
In course, it also means good process smart decision making. Don’t shoot the rolled pins if the miss brings big problems in the game. Plan your usual loss and choose the clubs that keep you in position. When your decisions and routine stay consistent, your swings have a better chance of repeating.
Action step: Write down your pre-shot routine and commit to using it on every full shot for a full round – no exceptions.
2. Practice
Effective practice is focused practice. Instead of jumping between drivers, wedges and placing every few balls, choose one skill per session. This could be improving your grip, increasing the turn of the shoulders or stabilizing your pace.
Work on that skill with purpose, using slow swings, checkpoints, and feedback. When you feel improvement, try it with a few swings at full speed – but don’t progress until the skill starts to feel predictable.
Action step: Go into your next practice session with a single written goal. If you catch yourself moving, reset and go back to that target.
3. Patience
Swing changes rarely feel good right away. In fact, they often feel worse before they feel better. Old habits are comfortable because they are familiar, not because they are effective.
Expect inconsistencies. Expect good swings mixed with bad ones. This is normal. If you judge progress only by the score or ball flight in the short term, you will abandon changes that actually work.
Action step: Measure progress by the quality of contact or the direction of the start – not the score – during the first few rounds after a change.
4. Persistence
Persistence continues to work on the plan when results lag behind effort. Results may increase temporarily. Confidence can fall. This is where most golfers leave.
Significant improvement requires repetition under pressure, both in practice and on the course. Persistence means showing up, trusting the process, and resisting the urge to “fix” everything after a bad round.
Action step: Commit to your improvement plan for a specific time frame—two weeks, a month, or 10 rounds—before making any big changes.
Takeaway
When Process drives your decisions, Practice targets your weaknesses, Patience gives change time to develop, and Persistence keeps you moving forward, improvement becomes predictable—not random.
Talent matters. The basics matter. But ever-improving players aren’t guessing. They are following a plan and sticking to it. If you do the same, I guarantee you will improve as well.
