Instruction
Dr. Gupta: The Secret To Finding YOUR GAME
Though it is not the modern way, the truth always lies beneath that which is immediately graspable. And it lies further than one’s natural and customary reach.
You struggle to find your game. You have it in practice. You find it on the range. You have it on the practice green.
But you lose it on the course.
Why?
The reasons are varied, but let’s discuss one fundamental possibility. Perhaps one you have not explored. For it deals NOT with tips and tricks, but a dissection of the matter at hand.
Could it be that the game that you are attempting to play in the practice area is NOT the same one you attempt to play on the course?
Could it also be that the game that you are attempting to play on the course is NOT the same one you attempt to play in tournaments?
Could it be that the “goal posts” are being moved without you being aware of it?
I will explain.
How long has it been since you asked yourself why it is that you play? Is it perhaps time to have a SINCERE conversation with yourself about the source of your joy as it relates to golf?
You see, before you can work on your game, you must figure out which game it is that you are attempting to play.
Perhaps in the practice area you are attempting to play golf. You are using a club to advance a ball to a target. You are working on mechanics. You are working on trajectory. And all various manners related to the wholly innocent activity of ball advancement.
But could it be that when you enter a tournament or a match that the game suddenly changes?
Could it be that while you play golf on the practice ground, you play the winning-vs.-losing game in the tournament?
Could it be that while you play golf on the practice ground, you play the don’t-embarrass-yourself game in the tournament?
Could it be that while you play golf on the practice ground, you play the I-must-redeem-myself game in the tournament?
Could it be that while you play golf on the practice ground, you play the I-must-raise-my-Official-World-Golf-Ranking game in the tournament?
Could it be that while you play golf on the practice ground, you play the I-must-keep-my-Tour-card game in the tournament?
At this most delicate juncture in this conversation I will tell you fear not, for I am NOT about to judge you. I am not about to tell you what you should or should not do. This is an epidemic in the world of performance and instruction and it is not my way.
I have no interest in advising you to refrain from playing any of the games above. I simply ask that you discover for yourself, honestly and sincerely and without fear of judgment or reprimand, which game it is that you play.
I will state in a purely clinical and non-judgmental way that if you play any of the games above, or your personal flavor thereof, that you are not playing the game of golf. Once again, I reiterate that I am not asking you to abandon any of those games in exchange for the game of golf.
I am simply stating that if golf is what you practice and golf is what you train for, it is golf that you are improving at. But if in the tournament you are not playing the game of golf, you might as well be playing the game of soccer.
You see, athletes often lose sight of that which is fundamental. And given the culture in which the athlete finds himself, it is completely understandable why he would lose sight of the fundamental.
The fundamental, the secret, is to discover for yourself:
- Which game is it that you are really playing?
- Why is it that you play?
All across the world, from the professionals to the amateurs, the game is no longer a game. The game has not been a game for a very long time.
The game has become simply a vehicle. A vehicle for gain. A vehicle for conquest. A vehicle to fill the emptiness a man feels. A vehicle for man to settle the scores of his unrequited dreams.
The game has been a clothes line upon which man has begun to hang his dirty laundry.
And, as such, the game is no longer the game it was intended to be.
Perhaps if you were willing to return to the game that first attracted you to it, you could play it beautifully once again.
Perhaps if you rediscovered the fact that the game is meant only to be played and not to be used, you could play it with aplomb.
Perhaps if you returned to the game in its wholly virgin form you would discover that all the demons that have frightened you belonged to all the other games you brought with you, and not the one spawned their existence.
Perhaps…
The LPGA Tour is kicking off its 2026 season this week at Lake Nona Golf and Country Club in Orlando, and the pros are dealing with something most Florida golfers rarely face: freezing temperatures.
“It’s colder here than in the UK at the minute, which is a first,” said England’s Charley Hull during Wednesday’s media day at the Hilton Grand Vacations Tournament of Champions.
Even Lydia Ko, who lives at Lake Nona, seemed surprised by the cold snap. “We’re pretty much getting to below zero in celsius here, which maybe in other parts of the country they would be thankful, but when you’re in Florida it is a little bit of a surprise,” she said.
If the world’s best players are adjusting their games for cold weather, recreational golfers should, too. Here’s how to play smart when the mercury drops.
Understand What Cold Does to Your Game
Before you change anything, you need to know what you’re fighting against. Cold air is denser than warm air, which means your ball won’t fly as far. Period.
Hull noticed this immediately during practice rounds at Lake Nona. She mentioned hitting a gap wedge into the 18th hole during a previous win but needing a 4-iron during Tuesday’s practice round. That’s a difference of four or five clubs for the same shot.
Action item: Expect to lose 5-10 yards on every club in your bag when temperatures dip below 50 degrees. Plan accordingly and don’t be stubborn about club selection.
Layer Up Without Restricting Your Swing
Hull admitted she wore three pairs of pants during practice. While that might be extreme for most of us, staying warm is critical to playing well in cold conditions.
Your muscles need warmth to function properly. When you’re cold, your body tightens up and your swing gets shorter and faster. Neither of those things help you hit good golf shots.
Action item: Wear multiple thin layers instead of one bulky jacket. Look for golf-specific cold weather gear that stretches with your swing. Keep hand warmers in your pockets between shots. And don’t forget a good hat because you lose significant body heat through your head.
Take More Club Than You Think You Need
This is where ego gets in the way of good scores. When it’s cold, the ball doesn’t compress as well off the clubface. Combined with denser air, you’re looking at serious distance loss.
The pros at Lake Nona are dealing with a course that measures 6,642 yards but plays much longer this week. If they’re adjusting, you should too.
Action item: Take at least one extra club on every approach shot. In temperatures below 40 degrees, consider taking two extra clubs. It’s better to fly the ball to the back of the green than to come up short in a bunker.
Adjust Your Expectations on the Greens
Cold weather affects putting in ways most golfers don’t consider. The ball is harder and doesn’t roll as smoothly. Your hands are cold, making it harder to feel the putter. And if there’s any moisture on the greens, they’ll be slower than normal.
Ko mentioned that she still sometimes reads the greens wrong at Lake Nona despite being a member for years. Cold weather makes that challenge even tougher.
Action item: Hit putts more firmly than usual. The ball needs extra speed to hold its line on cold greens. Take a few extra practice strokes to get a feel for the speed before you putt.
Embrace the Mental Challenge
Hull said something interesting about cold weather golf: “I like the mental toughness of it.”
That’s the right attitude. Everyone on the course is dealing with the same conditions. The player who stays patient and doesn’t get frustrated by the extra difficulty will come out ahead.
Action item: Lower your expectations by a few strokes. If you normally shoot 85, accept that 90 might be a good score in 40-degree weather. Focus on solid contact and smart decisions rather than perfect shots.
Warm Up Longer and Smarter
This might be the most important tip of all. Cold muscles are tight muscles, and tight muscles get injured easily.
World No. 1 Jeeno Thitikul revealed she’s been protecting a wrist injury that bothered her late last season. Cold weather makes those kinds of injuries more likely if you don’t prepare properly.
Action item: Spend at least 20 minutes warming up before your round. Start with stretching, then hit easy wedge shots before working up to your driver. Keep moving between shots on the course to maintain body heat and flexibility.
The pros at Lake Nona this week will adapt and compete at the highest level despite the cold. You can do the same at your local course by following these tips and keeping a positive attitude.
PGA Professional Brendon Elliott is an award-winning coach and golf writer. You can check out his writing work and learn more about him by visiting BEAGOLFER.golf and OneMoreRollGolf.com. Also, check out “Playing Through” now on R.org, RG.org’s partner site, each Monday.
Editor’s note: Brendon shares his nearly 30 years of experience in the game with GolfWRX readers through his ongoing tip series. He looks forward to providing valuable insights and advice to help golfers improve their game. Stay tuned for more tips!
Brooks Koepka is back on the PGA Tour, and whether you love him or hate him, the guy knows how to win when it matters. After his LIV Golf stint, the five-time major champion returns this week at the Farmers Insurance Open.
What makes Koepka fascinating? He doesn’t fit the mold. His swing isn’t textbook. He doesn’t obsess over mechanics. Yet he’s won three PGA Championships and two U.S. Opens, regularly making it look easier than guys with prettier swings.
So, what can average golfers learn from someone who treats the game so differently? Quite a bit.
Stop Overthinking Every Shot
Koepka describes his approach as “reactionary” rather than mechanical. While most tour pros grind over swing thoughts, Brooks sees the target and hits it. No mental checklist.
This might be the most valuable lesson for weekend golfers who’ve watched too many YouTube swing videos.
How to actually do this:
On the range, hit five balls where you stare at the target for three seconds prior to addressing the ball. Don’t think about grip or stance. Just burn that target into your brain. You’ll be shocked at how pure you hit it when your brain focuses on where the ball is going instead of how you’re swinging.
Next time you play, give yourself a rule: Once you pull the club, you’ve got 15 seconds to hit. Koepka is one of the fastest players on tour because he doesn’t give his brain time to sabotage him.
If you feel tension in your hands at address, you’re trying to control too much. Koepka’s grip pressure is famously light. Loosen up until the club almost feels like it might slip, then add just enough pressure to hold on. That’s your swing thought: soft hands, see the target.
This approach works better under pressure. When you’re standing over that shot with water left and OB right, the last thing you need is a mental checklist. See it, feel it, hit it.
Play to Your Strengths (Even If They’re Not Pretty)
Koepka uses a strong grip that wouldn’t pass muster in some teaching circles. But he’s built his game around what works for him, elite driving distance and recovery skills. He doesn’t try to be someone he’s not.
Here’s how to build your game like Brooks:
Look at your last five rounds and figure out where you’re actually gaining strokes. Bombing it off the tee, but can’t hit greens? Lean into it. Play courses where distance matters more than precision. On tight holes, grip down on your 3-wood instead of trying to thread a driver through a keyhole you’ll miss seven times out of ten.
Koepka knows he can scramble, so he’s not afraid to miss greens. If you’re deadly from 50 to 75 yards, start leaving yourself those distances on the par 5’s instead of going for them in two every time.
Know when to take your medicine. Koepka in the trees at the PGA? He’s punching out to 100 yards, not trying to bend a 6-iron around three oaks. You’re in the rough with a flyer lie and water short? Hit your 8-iron to the middle and move on. That’s not playing scared, that’s playing smart.
Save Your Best for When It Counts
Here’s a wild stat: Koepka’s putting average in majors is often more than a full stroke better per round than in regular events. He elevates when pressure is highest.
How does an amateur tap into that gear? It’s not about trying harder, it’s about caring differently.
Here’s what actually works:
Decide which rounds matter to you. Club championship? Member-guest? That annual trip with college buddies? Circle those dates and treat them differently. Koepka doesn’t care much about regular tour events, but majors? That’s when he locks in.
Two weeks before your big round, change your practice. Stop beating balls mindlessly. Play nine holes in which every shot has consequences. Miss the fairway? Hit from the rough on the next hole too. Three-putt? Twenty push-ups. Koepka’s practice intensity ramps up before majors because he’s rehearsing pressure, not just swings.
Develop a between-shot routine that resets your brain. Koepka is famous for his blank expression after bad shots. Try this: After any shot, take three deep breaths while walking, then find something specific to notice, a tree, a cloud, someone’s shirt. That’s your reset button. By the time you reach your ball, the last shot is gone.
The Bottom Line
Brooks Koepka’s return reminds us there’s no single path to success in golf. His “substance over style” approach proves that results matter more than looking good.
You don’t need a perfect swing; you need a reliable one that holds up under pressure. You don’t need to hit every shot in the book; you need the shots you can count on. And you don’t need to play great every time; you need to play great when it matters.
Welcome back, Brooks. Thanks for the reminder that golf is ultimately about getting the ball in the hole, not winning style points.
PGA Professional Brendon Elliott is an award-winning coach and golf writer. You can check out his writing work and learn more about him by visiting BEAGOLFER.golf and OneMoreRollGolf.com. Also, check out “Playing Through” now on R.org, RG.org’s partner site, each Monday.
Editor’s note: Brendon shares his nearly 30 years of experience in the game with GolfWRX readers through his ongoing tip series. He looks forward to providing valuable insights and advice to help golfers improve their game. Stay tuned for more tips!
Blades Brown made a big impression last week in the California desert, and not just because he’s only 18. He put up numbers that would catch any weekend golfer’s attention. Most of us won’t hit 317-yard drives or find 86% of our greens in regulation, but there’s a lot to learn from how Brown managed his game at The American Express.
Here are three practical lessons from his performance that you can use on your own course this weekend.
Step 1: Give Priority to Accuracy Over Distance Off The Tee
Brown’s driving stats are impressive. He averaged almost 318 yards off the tee, ranking 12th in the field. More importantly, he hit 76.79% of his fairways, tying for fourth place in the tournament.
Think about that ratio for a second. Brown could have swung harder, chased more distance and tried to overpower the course. Instead, he played smart golf and kept his ball in play.
Your Action Item: Next time you’re on the tee box, ask yourself a simple question before pulling the driver. Do you need maximum distance here, or do you need to be in the fairway? If there’s trouble lurking or the hole doesn’t demand every yard you can muster, take something off your swing. Grip down an inch. Make a three-quarter swing. Do whatever it takes to find the short grass. Brown’s approach illustrates that fairways lead to greens, and greens lead to birdies. He made 22 of them last week, along with an eagle.
The math is simple. When you’re hitting three out of every four fairways like Brown did, you’re giving yourself legitimate looks at the green with your approach shots. That’s when scoring happens.
Step 2: Commit To Hitting More Greens
This is where Brown really separated himself. He hit 62 of 72 greens in regulation, an 86.11% clip that tied for first in the entire field. Read that again. An 18-year-old kid tied for the lead in one of the most important ball-striking statistics in professional golf.
How did he do it? By keeping his ball in the fairway (see Step 1) and giving himself clean looks with mid-irons and wedges.
Your Action Item: Start tracking your greens in regulation. You don’t need a fancy app or a statistics degree. Just mark down whether you hit the green in the regulation number of strokes. Par 3s in one shot. Par 4s in two shots. Par 5s in three shots.
Once you know your baseline, set a goal to improve it by 10%. If you’re currently hitting five greens per round, aim for six. The beauty of this approach is that it forces you to think strategically about club selection and shot shape. Brown’s strokes gained approach number was positive (0.179), meaning he was better than the field average. You don’t need to be perfect. You just need to be on the dance floor more often.
When you hit more greens, you eliminate the need for heroic short game shots. Brown only had to scramble 10 times all week, and he got up and down 70% of the time. That’s solid, but the real story is that he rarely put himself in scrambling situations to begin with.
Step 3: Minimize Mistakes And Stay Patient
Here’s the stat that jumps off the page: Brown made only three bogeys all week. Three. In four rounds of professional golf against the best players in the world.
He also made just one double bogey. That kind of clean card doesn’t happen by accident. It happens when you play within yourself, avoid the big miss and trust that pars are never bad scores.
Your Action Item: Before your next round, decide that you’re going to play boring golf. No hero shots over water. No driver on tight holes just because you can. No aggressive pins when there’s a safe side of the green.
Brown’s performance shows us that consistency beats flash every single time. He didn’t lead the field in any single strokes gained category, but he was solid across the board. That’s how you post numbers and cash checks.
Give these three steps a try. Your scorecard will thank you.
PGA Professional Brendon Elliott is an award-winning coach and golf writer. You can check out his writing work and learn more about him by visiting BEAGOLFER.golf and OneMoreRollGolf.com. Also, check out “The Starter” now on R.org, RG.org’s partner site, each Monday.
Editor’s note: Brendon shares his nearly 30 years of experience in the game with GolfWRX readers through his ongoing tip series. He looks forward to providing valuable insights and advice to help golfers improve their game. Stay tuned for more tips!
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snowman
Jan 26, 2015 at 3:01 pm
Good stuff to ponder. Many of us play to challenge ourselves to score as well as we can and we sabotage ourselves with tension when trying too hard. I suggest everyone that plays should seek to play without / minimize tension… Everyone I play with, especially me, has more game than they can deliver when they are under stress (self-imposed) or otherwise. Tension will reveal/exacerbate your weaknesses/flaws in your game. For “serious” golfers, it seems almost unnatural to play with a carefree attitude but it’s worthwhile to “try easy” to do so.
Jafar
Jan 26, 2015 at 11:20 am
This asks a good question to help clear your mind before a round or before a shot even.
J
Jan 25, 2015 at 12:37 pm
Golf is mentally tough. Thanks for the update. Your articles are essentially the same drivel repeated over and over. It’s starting to sound pretentious.
Knobbywood
Jan 25, 2015 at 4:12 pm
If your reading comprehension is so bad that all you got out of that article was “golf is mentally tough” you sir, should refrain from commenting not only on this site but any situation that requires your input or opinion on anything written. The world would have far less useless drivel floating around if you and people like you had more self restraint. Thanks!
J
Jan 26, 2015 at 4:00 pm
And you sir should stick to the topic. Plain and simple. Your opinion has no greater value than mine and simply because you disagree doesn’t make you in any way, shape, or form more intelligent or enlightened. As a matter of fact, those who choose to assign an intellectual value to a subject solely governed by opinions is in fact showing his or her own lack of critical thinking and intelligence. You should refrain from engaging in conversations with people in general if your only ability to do so is to personally insult someone whom you have no personal experience with. You made yourself look like a moron. I may have made myself look overly critical and perhaps harsh, but I believe the truth should be spoken with as few words as possible. It makes for better understanding. Now run along, you’ve overstepped your abilities junior.
Andy
Jan 27, 2015 at 6:15 pm
You two would probably hit it off over a beer if you didn’t know each other, so let’s leave the negativity aside and contribute to the discussion. I forgive you both.
charles lee
Jan 25, 2015 at 3:43 am
great article!! really makes you think differently and question yourself therefore discovering new things about your self or old stuff about yourself.
Ken
Jan 24, 2015 at 9:57 pm
Huh?
B
Jan 24, 2015 at 1:44 pm
I have found that I play my best when I start out playing the course but soon change my focus to try to catch someone, or overtake someone, or to word it another way – I try to take something (a position) away from someone…as-in coming from behind to take away their position. It’s a feeling of me starting out getting the feel for the course (like a the race track), and then it changes over to me being the hunter and all others ahead of me with a better score/position (imaginary or not) are my prey. If I’m in the lead I imagine that there are [still] others I must overtake.
other paul
Jan 24, 2015 at 11:34 am
Better then your first article. You try to sound to spiritual when you talk.
I think it is the fear of failure and embarrassment that makes us play different all the time. I play my best alone. Personal best with friends is 86, personal best alone is 78.
Knobbywood
Jan 24, 2015 at 4:38 pm
Trying to sound spiritual? Lol come on buddy that’s reaching a little… I feel bad for your spiritual life if this is “sounding spiritual”. He simply has a different stlye that the other writers…Anyway I think this article is a complete breath of fresh air and I loved it, keep it up.
Kapil Gupta MD
Jan 26, 2015 at 10:31 am
Thank you for the kind words, friend. Continued success to you . . .