Graham Averill has turned 50 this year and he’s freaking out. Instead of buying a motorcycle or getting a tattoo, he’s decided to try to get really, really good at golf. He started this project as a 13 handicap attempting to reach scratch in a year. He is now an 7.8. Welcome to his midlife crisis.
Can you have too much of a good thing? Ice cream, bourbon and Taylor Sheridan tv shows, sure, but what about golf? Is it possible to play too much? That’s the question I’m pondering as I sit in an airport, finishing up a golf trip with my son and wondering if I’ll be able to schedule a round for tomorrow at my home course.
I play a hefty amount of golf—usually two to three rounds a week with a couple of practice sessions thrown in—which is a lot compared to your average person with a day job. It’s possible that I play too much. It’s also possible that I don’t play enough considering what I’m trying to accomplish.
Let me clarify the question. I’m not wondering if the amount of golf I’m playing is affecting my work and home life. That would be a resounding yes. I’m definitely on the course too much. I’ll work that out in therapy later. I’m wondering if the amount of golf I’m playing is having a negative impact on the quality of my game. Am I playing too much? Or should I play more?
One of the reasons Sam Hahn jumped on board as my coach is because he underwent a similar journey when he was in his 20s. He reached scratch in an expedited timeframe and he did it by giving himself completely over to the sport. He played 36 holes a day, every day. The strokes fell off of his game.
I’ve met a few other people recently with similar approaches. One guy plays two rounds at two different courses every day. Another dude I met bought a simulator and played 18 holes every day on his lunch break. All of these people made massive improvements on their game in a short period of time.
I certainly feel like I’m at my best when I’m at the course constantly, grinding away day after day, but at this point in my journey, just banking sheer volume of rounds isn’t the ticket. The magic sauce seems to be a mix of practice sessions and scoring rounds. Hahn agrees.
“I don’t practice much anymore,” Hahn says, adding that he’s fallen back into an 18 to 36 hole a day groove. “But when you’re still working on big movements like you are, you can’t just play all the time. You have to practice those movements on the range or in the simulator.”
I’ve also come to appreciate taking small breaks from golf during the past six months of this project. I’ve noticed that my game seems to suffer when I get after it day after day without any rest periods. My swing definitely breaks down when fatigue sets in, but more significantly, I have a hard time focusing on the round and the shot at my feet.
Imagine having chocolate cake for breakfast every once in a while. It’s downright whimsical. Now imagine having chocolate cake for breakfast every day. The whimsy is lessoned and you have to start worrying about diabetes. The volume seems to degrade the situation in some way.
I have a friend who swears he plays his best golf after taking a couple of weeks off. The break allows him to reset, maybe even forget some bad habits. He might be right, but he’s not actively trying to get better. He’s just out there trying to enjoy a round with buddies, which is great. But that’s not my goal here. The clock is ticking and taking a couple of weeks off would be counterproductive. More importantly, taking a couple of weeks off from golf sounds terrible. I would be so sad.
But a day or two away from golf activities every couple of weeks seems to help me recharge. I even score better after a brief hiatus. I mentioned the golf trip with my son. We flew to Utah and played two desert courses, The Ledges and Copper Rock. I had to finish a bunch of work before the trip and we had a long travel day to get to Utah, so I went two full days without any golf activities. I was worried about how my swing would hold up, but I played really well. We went into both courses blind, which always makes me nervous, but my swing was in a good place. I had a lovely little fade working off the tees that I could count on to find fairways, my irons were crisp and I didn’t putt like a complete idiot.
I lost some strokes through poor course management (that’s to be expected when you don’t know the nuances of a course), and my long approach shots continue to be just a hair off of target. But I shot an 80 and 81 at courses I’d never played before and had a blast doing it.
The scores were neutral in terms of my handicap, but the situation has helped me answer my question about the amount of golf I’m playing.
Yes, I need to play more.
But I also need to make sure I take the occasional break, so that I can play my best.
Dig deeper into one golfer’s struggle to get better at golf in middle age and read last week’s Scratch by 50 where Graham hits the highs and lows of golf in the same week.
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