Alex Elias Chris Gabriele is the 1st Assistant Golf Professional at Sleepy Hollow Country Club. Sleepy Hollow is located in Scarborough, New York and is the 62nd ranked course in the U.S., according to Golf Digest. In golf, there are days when a player may be firing on all cylinders, and on the contrary days when nothing seems to be going their way. In fact, these two very different type of rounds may happen one followed by another. For example, Chris Gabriele pointed to Scottie Scheffler, saying, "Scheffler last week followed up a round of 72 with a 62." Gabriele continued, "The ability to take golf one round at a time is a skill. Each round is completely different and sometimes we can make the game more challenging on ourselves by getting in our own way." In response to Gabriele's comments, I reflected on a moment from earlier this summer when I decided to play five or six holes before meeting my parents for dinner at the club. After six holes, I was two under and when I sat down for dinner, I began to wonder: Was I two under because I was simply playing well or was I two under because I knew I wasn't going to have time to play eighteen holes and therefore was playing pressure free? Gabriele responded this time using Dustin Johnson as an example, saying, "I think if more people treated the game of golf the way DJ does, then a lot more people would have fun out there and would be more successful." Gabriele continued by admitting we are all guilty of saying, "Well, if I par out, or if I birdie one of the next three holes", but acknowledged that if golfers can manage to focus less on the scorecard, then they'll play better in the end. While rounds of 72 and 62 are certainly different, rounds of 75 and 75 can be entirely different as well. For example one may record a round of 75 on Friday and say, "Everything was clicking and I was on cruise control hitting every fairway and green," while the same golfer may record a round of 75 on Saturday and say, "That was an absolute grind. I can't believe how many times I needed to get up and down." When Gabriele was asked about this notion, he immediately laughed and said, "Well, that's golf." He then continued, "There are rounds when you may hit six greens and make 25 putts and then there are rounds when you may hit sixteen greens and make 40 putts." In the end, no matter what one's handicap is, every golfer's goal is to improve their scores. Gabriele said, "If you take a handful of different handicaps, they're all shooting different numbers, but they could all have the same problem as they're working their way down. They could be all be terrible off the tee, but the one's with the lower handicap may be hitting one or two less balls out of bounds. It's really knowing your game and understand where you need to improve in order to get down." As a follow up to Gabriele's comments, he was asked what his advice would be and answered, "Go see your local pro and try and get the correct instruction. I see so many guys on the range working alone and many of them are just engraining bad habits. That's how a 10 goes back up to 15." Gabriele continued by noting that while results may not come overnight, "Golf is never ending. You have to stay in it mentally. Trusting the never end progress and always wanting to get better is the only way you'll get better."
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