The Loop

Make The Turn Weekly Challenge #25: Worst Ball Workout

September 02, 2014

If you care about your game, chances are you've spent hundreds of hours practicing or playing by yourself. Over time, it can become difficult to find ways of getting more out of a weekly practice session or late 9 after work.

As the son of a club pro, I literally spent my childhood living at the golf course. During the summer months, If I wanted to play golf, I had get up early and go into work with my Dad. Wake up was 6 a.m. and there were a number of times when I needed extra incentive to make it out of bed. Dad's favorite means of motivation was often a cold glass of water in the face, which surprisingly, I found to be pretty amusing. It still remains a fond memory of the fun we had getting ready to go to the golf course.

No matter how early our day started, I never missed the opportunity to go to the course and practice. Once I was there, however, I was tasked with staying busy until the shop closed and it was time to head back home. I'd often putt for hours in the morning, pretending I was about to win the Masters or U.S. Open. By noon I had hit every shot you could imagine, re-gripped some clubs or put "whipping" on a few wooden heads to help lessen Dad's workload.

Not until 2:00 were juniors allowed to tee off and have the run of the course. It was excruciating for me to wait to play each day, and my father patiently put up with years of me trying to break this rule. I often had someone to tee it up with, but there were many times when it was just myself, going around as many times as I could before dark.

Without the fun of competing against friends, I found simply keeping score alone to be pretty boring. This is when I came across this week's exercise in the form of the "Worst Ball" workout. I'd say no other exercise makes you fight for a good score more than this, and it's a practice every competitive player should really spend time doing.

If you think you're pretty good, this is a great drill that really puts your game to the test. Commit to spending at least 9 holes grinding out the best score you can, and you can count this challenge as complete.

Benefits

Practice Under Pressure

Identifies Weaknesses

Reveals True Skill Level

Jeff Ritter is the CEO/Founder of__ MTT Performance__. The program operates out of Poppy Hills Golf Course in Pebble Beach, Calif. Follow him on Twitter at @mttgolf