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Alex Elias  As the No. 2 junior player in the state of Rhode Island, Will Dickson acknowledged how the pressure began before he even arrived at Georgia Tech. Dickson said, "The pressures and expectations started to build in high school. I sort of stopped practicing the way I always did. My Dad and I used to go out onto the course by ourselves every single day growing up, and I wish we had continued doing that all the way up until I went to college."
"That was a really special time I had with my Dad, but the last couple years of high school, I was kind of on my own. Looking back on it, I didn't really practice and prepare the way I always did growing up. That's one of the biggest regrets I have. I wish I could go back and do that over again," said Dickson. Reflecting on his first few years at Georgia Tech, Dickson said, "I certainly built up these expectations and pressures before I even got to school and then when I got to Georgia Tech, I knew that I had to play really, really well. I quickly felt way too much pressure and continued to go down this struggling path for the first few years." In a year in which many people saw COVID-19 as nothing but a detriment, Dickson's one word to describe 2020 was "opportunity". Dickson elaborated, saying, "It was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. I really do believe COVID was such a huge opportunity for me to get away from everything in Atlanta and at school, clean my slate and start fresh." Dickson was able to re-find a joy and love in the game, rather than solely golfing to try and win a collegiate tournament. Dickson said, "That time almost freed me up to be a kid again. If you want to succeed at the highest level, then you need to be freed up on the golf course. Having experienced a number of ups and downs, Dickson passionately said, "I feel like I can look back on this time as something I can use to help others. So many golfers go on a straight line from junior golf to high school golf to college golf, but the thing is everyone struggles or falls eventually. If a young kid is going through a tough time, then I can help him as I know what it feels like to be at the lowest of low. It was a long road, but I got through it and I am so appreciative of the fact that I can hopefully help someone in the future."
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Alex Elias  Courtesy of Jon Cavalier (@linksgems) Often amateurs recognize their miss, but may not understand the reason behind it. How important is it to understand your own swing?
Understanding your own swing is vital. When I started learning to teach at a higher level, I went and worked for a guy named Jim McLean at The Jim McLean Golf School in Miami. A process that we all learned in our training was the process of helping a person understand how to improve. The first step is you have to know exactly what you're doing. You don't need to know every single inch of your swing, but you do need to know what you do correctly, and also what you do incorrectly. You also then need to know what to do instead. That's why typically I will look at PGA Tour players in the video analysis part of a lesson and I will show somebody this is what your club face looks like during this part of the swing and here are four examples from the PGA Tour of different positions you could be in. Understanding that, you start to see the gap and notice the differences between you and world class players. Then, you need to figure out how to bridge the gap and that's where the lesson really comes into play. If you have a good instructor, they should give you the proper drills and training aids to try and bridge the gap. So, you have to know what you do, right and wrong, you need to know what you need to do instead, and how to bridge the gap between where you are and where you need to be. You really need the total picture in order to get better at golf. When a player isn't taking a lesson, how should their practice be broken up? As far as practice goes, there's the long game which basically makes up your driving, long-irons, mid-irons and wedges, the full swings you'll hit over the course of the round, and then there's the short game: putting, chipping, pitching, shots from the rough, and bunker shots. I think that should be practiced 50/50. I think the best use of your time when practicing would be with a Driver, 8 Iron and then shift to short game. If you can drive the ball in play and consistently get the same draw or fade, then after that you need to be able to hit all of your irons the same way. I picked an 8 Iron, you could pick a 7 Iron, but you want to get comfortable making good contact and compressing the ball. You could essentially do that with one club and you'll have a good feel for the entire bag. Then, the other half can be spent with check-ins on the different chips and pitches based on the course you always play and then some touch control for distance. I think distance control is the hardest part of short game. Most of your time with short game should be focused on making sure the ball is going the distance you want. Alex Elias  (https://www.instagram.com/p/CS9bdTgrH3a/) Following your first season the Korn Ferry Tour, what advice have you received?
Morgan Hoffman told me, 'Don't try to change your game to play like other people. What you do well is what got you there so just try and get better at what you do well. If you're a great driver of the ball and everyone's hitting iron off the tee, but if you feel more comfortable hitting driver, then hit driver.' What is the biggest difference between collegiate and professional golf? The biggest difference is that everybody's better. The worst player is better. The best player is better. The average score is lower. Obviously, I went to Yale and we didn't play against the best teams in the country, so it might be different for others, but on the Korn Ferry Tour all these guys went to the best schools and are the best players from each class year. It's definitely a bit of a change, going from college where you can play your B-Game and win to if you're playing your B-Game, then you're missing the cut on the Korn Ferry Tour. Recently, I read that your motto was "Control the controllables", what does that mean to you exactly? It was my first time ever playing four round tournaments and it's such a long stretch of golf, where so much can happen, so if you're thinking about it like that then it's overwhelming but if you take it one shot, one moment at a time a time it becomes much easier. What are a few goals you have set for next season? Less bogeys. That's obviously a very simple way to say play better, but most of my bogeys come from hitting poor shots off the tee or into greens, so limiting the mistakes in those two aspects would be big for me. |
