In basketball your free throw routine never changes.

Three dribbles. Two spins. Let it go. Every single time. Doesn't matter if you're up twenty or down two with three seconds left. Same routine. Same rhythm. Same shot.

You train that routine thousands of times so that when the pressure arrives you don't have to think. You just go.

Golf needs the same thing.

In golf everything changes. Your swing thought this week is different from last week. The wind is different. The lie is different. Your mood is different. You're a living organism and every day you show up slightly different than the day before.

But your pre-shot routine has to stay the same anyway.

That's the discipline. That's what makes it work.

The routine is your anchor.

When everything else is shifting — the swing, the conditions, the nerves — the routine is the one thing that stays constant. It's your signal to your body and your brain that it's time to execute. Same trigger. Same response. Every time.

That's cruise control. That's ego off. That's all of it — built into one consistent sequence before every shot.

Mine looks like this.

One practice swing beside the ball. Step in. Look at the target. Waggle. Let it go.

That's it. I've tried going without practice swings to speed up, to stay more target focused, to get out of my own head. Sometimes that works.

Find yours. Not mine. Yours.

Maybe it's no practice swing. Maybe it's two. Maybe it's a specific waggle or breathwork. Whatever it is — own it. Repeat it. Train it until it's automatic.

Because when the pressure comes — and it always comes — you don't want to be thinking about your routine.

You want to already be in it.

Play well,
Mark

What does your pre-shot routine look like? Hit reply.