The post This major winner’s gameday diet inadvertently added a stroke to his game appeared first on Golf.

The post This major winner’s gameday diet inadvertently added a stroke to his game appeared first on Golf.

Some of the very best golf teachers on the planet are at Pinehurst Resort this week for GOLF’s Top 100 Teachers Summit. You can access all of their insight by signing up for the livestream. But lucky you, we’ll also break down some of what you missed right here. (For more on the Top 100 Teachers Summit, click here.)

It was easy enough to discern that something was very, very off with Louis Oosthuizen. Slightly harder was figuring out what that thing was. For months, the former major winner had dealt with a maddening stretch of inconsistency, and yet nobody was quite sure why.

After diving into the data, Oosthuizen’s coach, Justin Parsons, and physiotherapist, Marnus Marais, noticed a concerning trend. In the morning, the 39-year-old’s scores were nearly a full stroke better than in the afternoon. Sure, some of that could be due to course conditions, which are generally easier in the morning than in the afternoon, but the data set was large enough to suggest there was something else at play. Even more concerning: the data seemed to suggest that the closer to contention Oosthuizen was on the weekend, the worse he’d perform — with a particular weakness appearing on the back nine.

“On the back nine, there’s a change,” Marais said at GOLF’s Top 100 Teachers Summit Monday. “There’s a change in focus and a change in shot execution. It just doesn’t make sense what’s happening in the middle of the back nine versus the end of the back nine.”

Parsons and Marais soon began theorizing how the time of day was affecting Oosthuizen’s game so significantly. Soon, Marais and Parsons remembered one of their client’s most particular idiosyncrasies: his diet.

Fitness

“I noticed that Louis was a shot worse from an A.M. point to a P.M. point,” Parsons said. “He doesn’t like to eat. He’s never liked to eat during the course of play. So for a morning round, he has breakfast, and then he’s ready to play and pretty much fueled for the day. In the afternoon, he has breakfast, and then he normally starts warming up around midday or whatever. So we just saw this big decline and this big dump whenever he plays, so I said to Marnus, we’ve got to do something about this.”

Marais began researching the best course of action for Oosthuizen, who was steadfast in his reproach for mid-round snacking, and stumbled upon a unique solution.

“After working with Louis, I know he doesn’t like to eat. We always try to meet players where they are. So trying to convince Louis that he had to eat a PB&J or a turkey sandwich or whatever on the course is not a battle I am willing to take on,” Marais said. “So I just suggested, let’s just try this amino acid drink, which we can easily mix in with his hydration.”

As Marais explained, an amino acid drink would provide many of the same energy-boosting benefits of consuming food on the golf course without, y’know, actually consuming food.

“So I explained to him what was happening and I explained to him what could be the reasoning for his inconsistency down the back nine. I explained to him that the amino acids are a protein broken down and they’re easily assimilated by the body. And let’s just try this, let’s just take this drink at the turn and see what happens.”

Oosthuizen was initially hesitant, but eventually relented. Almost immediately, the results were obvious: in 2021, Oosthuizen had one of the best (and most consistent) seasons of his professional career.

“It made a significant difference, I think,” Marais said. “Everybody on his team, we all saw significant improvement from him taking that.”

The post This major winner’s gameday diet inadvertently added a stroke to his game appeared first on Golf.

The post Why one top coach says the driving range is a ‘dangerous’ place for golfers appeared first on Golf.

The post Why one top coach says the driving range is a ‘dangerous’ place for golfers appeared first on Golf.

Golf is a confusing, complicated game. And when things go wrong, it’s only natural to do what most of us do in confusing, complicated situations: Try to figure them out.

For many golfers, that means heading to the driving range. Working through a big bucket of golf balls as a way of troubleshooting the cause of what went wrong, and how to fix it. Except, at least according to one coach, that might be exactly the opposite of what you should be doing.

Justin Parsons is one of the best coaches around. After years studying under Butch Harmon, he now works out of Sea Island and coaches Harris English and Louis Oosthuzen, among others. He’s also the most recent guest on Claude Harmon’s GOLF.com podcast “Off Course” (which you can subscribe to on iTunes right here).

Instruction

And Parsons says golfers should be wary — very wary — of spending hours on the driving range.

“I think think the driving range is one of the most dangerous places for golfers to live.” he says. “I’ve probably spent far too many hours of my own time trying to perfect things.”

Why you should fear the driving range

Parsons says the reason why is because of a lack of consequences. When you hit a bad shot on a driving range, it doesn’t matter. On a golf course, it obviously does. When golfers put themselves in an environment where the bad shots don’t matter, their games won’t necessarily improve.

“It’s one of the least accountable places there is as a golfer,” he says. “At least on the putting green, you can ‘I holed this many putts from six feet’, or you can do chipping games; it’s very, very hard to quantify your behavior on the driving range. We fall down this trap of trying to be absolutely perfect on the driving range, forgetting that the driving range has absolutely nothing to do with the golf course.”

The range can, of course, serve a purpose. It’s good for ironing out your technique, and for warming up. The problem comes when you treat it as a solution to all your golf problems. It’s not; when you have an issue in your game, you’re often better off figuring it out on the golf course.

Listen to the full episode below.

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The post Off Course with Claude Harmon: Why Northern Ireland produces great players appeared first on Golf.

The post Off Course with Claude Harmon: Why Northern Ireland produces great players appeared first on Golf.

Tour Coach and Sea Island instructor Justin Parsons discusses the differences between growing up and playing in Northern Ireland versus the United States on the latest episode of Off Course with Claude Harmon.

The post Off Course with Claude Harmon: Why Northern Ireland produces great players appeared first on Golf.

The post Off Course with Claude Harmon: Why the driving range is a dangerous place for golfers appeared first on Golf.

The post Off Course with Claude Harmon: Why the driving range is a dangerous place for golfers appeared first on Golf.

Playing can be more important than practicing on the range according to Tour Coach and Sea Island instructor Justin Parsons.

The post Off Course with Claude Harmon: Why the driving range is a dangerous place for golfers appeared first on Golf.

The post Off Course with Claude Harmon: Whether golf instruction helps or hurts players appeared first on Golf.

The post Off Course with Claude Harmon: Whether golf instruction helps or hurts players appeared first on Golf.

Tour Coach and Sea Island instructor Justin Parsons says 95% of his students think that golf instruction actually hurts them and discusses why with podcast host and fellow Tour Instructor Claude Harmon.

The post Off Course with Claude Harmon: Whether golf instruction helps or hurts players appeared first on Golf.