Ground Forces and Bobby Jones
Robert Tyre “Bobby” Jones Jr., circa 1921, Heritage Auctions
By Thomas T Wartelle, USGTF Member, Washington, Louisiana
Robert Tyre Jones, Jr., or “Bobby Jones,” was one of the greatest competitive golfers of all times. He won 13 majors (4 U.S. Opens, 3 Opens, 5 U.S. Amateurs and 1 Amateur). He was also a very learned man with a degree in mechanical engineering and a practicing lawyer.
Bobby Jones was fond of saying that those who are golf instructors are continuously searching for a new way to say the same thing. I could not agree more! In today’s day and age, we have modern technology to analyze and dissect every movement of the golf swing. I certainly am fond of technology and biomechanical study of athletic movement. However, it amuses me to hear of all the “new” breakthroughs of modern teaching. One such example is the phrase “ground forces.” Today, there are advanced analytical tools such as force plates that can measure the transfer of pressure throughout the golf swing.
Humans have been playing golf hundreds of years. There is nothing new to athletic motion, swinging a stick, and hitting an object. The great baseball player Ted Williams wrote one of the finest instructional books on hitting a baseball nearly 50 years ago. This was long before specialized equipment to analyze motion. Likewise, many decades ago Bobby Jones, among others, spoke about the importance of ground forces to powerfully strike a golf ball. Today, many fine players are examples of using ground forces, which in essence means ample use of the torso, hips and legs while maintaining a stable head or spine. One such Tour player is Justin Thomas, who creates tremendous clubhead speed for a smaller-stature athlete. Like many other Tour players, Bubba Watson is also a fine example of someone who maximizes these forces.
Bobby Jones knew and spoke about ground forces in the 1930s. The same can be said of Ben Hogan, who obviously understood the relationship of the clubface at impact to true ball flight laws and the “modern” D-plane theories. As teachers, we must learn to embrace modern technology; however, we must respect and give a nod to the past, as there really is nothing new to striking a golf ball. As Bobby Jones said, “Those of us who strive to explain the golf swing are continually searching for new ways of saying the same thing in the hope that some new slant will appeal to those who have missed the older explanations.”
As golf instructors, we must continue to learn, acknowledge the past, and push on to the future. This will lead to more growth as a golf instructor.
Taking It From the RangeTo the Course
“I can’t hit the ball on the course as well as I can on the range…I’ve won several U.S. Opens on the range…I’m a scratch golfer on the range but a 15 on the course…” These comments have been made by innumerable golfers over the years.
It’s one of the great mysteries of the game: How can someone hit the ball so well on the practice tee and yet so poorly on the course? Why do people lack the consistency on the course that they have on the range? Fortunately, there are solutions to help our students with this most perplexing of problems.
We must consider that the game as played on the course is completely different than what is happening on the range. On the course, we hit one shot every few minutes, and we’re using a different club each time (except for putting). A normal driving range session consists of using the same club for several consecutive shots, with little or no break between shots.
On the range, most people are using what is called a massed and blocked schedule. Massed means taking virtually no time between repetitions, and blocked means doing the same thing over and over. On the course, that schedule changes to distributed and random. Distributed means taking time between repetitions, and random means that something about the activity changes from repetition to repetition – different distance, direction, club, etc. So right off the bat, people just aren’t practicing the same way that they play the game, not to mention they aren’t practicing on the same venue. In other sports such as baseball and basketball, practice sessions take place on the actual playing surface, but in golf we practice on a practice green and a tee box.
Nevertheless, there are strategies to make practice more effective and mirror what is happening on the course, and we as teachers need to be aware of these. There are three areas that are the emphasis of focus, and utilizing all three are necessary to maximize our students’ ability to take it from the range to the course:
Use a distributed and random practice schedule.
Motor learning research shows us that a massed/blocked practice schedule will give us the best practice results, while ironically, a distributed/random schedule is best for retention of skills and performance, even if practice performance isn’t as good. Most people would think getting into a groove on the practice tee by hitting the same good shots over and over will lead to superior results on the course, but this isn’t the case.
Utilizing a distributed/random practice schedule on the range isn’t difficult. Our students need to change clubs with each shot and take their time between shots. Instead of having the bag right next to them, they can place it five to ten yards away so they have to walk back to the bag each time to get another club. This will help with the distributed portion of a practice session. Around the practice green, this means either using a different club each time, or at the very least, a change of targets from shot to shot.
Visualize on-course situations on the range.
Along with utilizing a distributed/random schedule of practice, it’s extremely helpful to visualize on-course situations on the range. Students should not only “see” a hole or a shot situation, they should also “feel” the situation. In other words, they should mentally place themselves there. Golfers who do this may be surprised at how their on-course mentality permeates their on-range thinking, which may lead to poor range shotmaking, but this is beneficial so they can learn to handle these mental aspects when they play. Some teachers like to recommend that their students “play” a hole or holes on the range, and this is an excellent way to take this to the ultimate level.
Use the same pre-shot routine on the range and course.
Most golfers do not use the same pre-shot routine on the range as they do on the course. It therefore becomes difficult to find a decent rhythm and sense of mental comfort on the course if someone is not using their on-course routine in practice sessions. Golfers on the range tend to rake-and-hit, rake-and-hit, while on the course they take far more time to hit a shot. It’s not necessary to use the same routine for each practice shot, but it should be used at least half of the time.
Golfers who use a distributed/random practice schedule, visualize on-course situations and faithfully use their pre-shot routine on the range and practice green will find that it will become far easier to take their practice performance to the course. Unfortunately, this is not commonly done today, but with our help, our students can be at the forefront of a practice revolution that one day may be commonplace in the game of golf.
…there are strategies to make practice more effective and mirror what is happening on the course, and we as teachers need to be aware of these.
Developing A Confident Mindset
By Dr. Gerald A. Walford, USGTF Certified Golf Teaching Professional®, The Villages, Florida
“Tiger is so comfortable in it because he has done it so much. It doesn’t mean he’s not nervous. It just means he’s able to handle it better.” – Hank Haney, Tiger Woods’ former coach, 2008
Tiger Woods has no distractions, worries, or doubts about his next shot because he has done it successfully so often, he just simply does it. He is extremely confident. His past successes have taught him that that he should be successful again.
Continually missing five-foot putts reinforces in your mind that you cannot make a five-foot putt. Do this often enough and it becomes a belief, a strong belief, and a fear for future five-foot putts. You can continually talk to yourself (self-talk) to continually build up confidence and eliminate the fear of the five-foot putt, but past unsuccessful experiences have taught that you cannot make the five-foot putt.
Self-talk is putting your mind in the future, and the future has not happened. With the five-foot putt facing you, you must be in the moment – not in the future. Unfortunately, the moment is reinforced by unsuccessful past experiences. Continued misses reinforce missed putts and future missed putts.
The one thing that will build up confidence for the next five-foot putt is a succession of five-foot putts that have entered the hole, especially when under pressure. This proves to the mind you can be successful and gain confidence that you can make those putts in the future. Nothing achieves success like past successful experiences. The psychological trick in gaining confidence for making the five-foot putt is to practice until you can make the putt consistently. It is that simple.
Many of the sport psychology books are step-by-step plans of “do this” and “do that” in an attempt to tell the mind to eliminate distractions, and to proceed confidently for the shot or the putt. This procedure often has the player thinking so much about the procedure that his mind drifts from the actual shot. The mental plan is not a mysterious, mystifying, enigmatic and secretive process. It is simple, as we shall see.
How does the player learn to cope with pressure and play instinctively through the subconscious mind? The answer is simple, but takes lots of practice– successful and determined practice.
If players want to get better, they practice. The repetition of the practice ingrains in the mind and then into the body for physical performance. In time, the repetition brings about the desired effects automatically through the subconscious. The desired effect will be learned under pressure situations on the practice range or while playing. Once the desired effect is learned, the player is now ready to perform. In learning, we go through three stages:
Understanding stage: Knowing the skill and what to do.
Practice stage: Practicing the skill until we can do it automatically.
Automatic stage: We perform automatically and with the subconscious.
The automatic stage is when we can “let go” of distractions and thought processes and let it happen.
In order for the mind to have confidence in the desired and needed shot, the player must have built up a confidence for the desired shot or situation through past successful shots. There is a saying among the pros, “Do not attempt shots you have not practiced or have proven to be no problem.”
This is why we practice. We practice to build up the confidence in our mind to transfer to the muscles for proper execution. The shot is in the unconscious mind because we put it there through our learning. If we let the unconscious mind execute the shot, we will be successful, because practice has taught us it will be successful. This is how we handle pressure. We may be nervous and excited, but the skill is in our subconscious if we let it perform.
Great golfers do this, and that is why they are great. Great golfers and good golfers know they are great and they are good. As a result, their confidence is overwhelming. When they are in a difficult situation, they do not think as to how to go about eliminating the pressure, because there is no pressure. They may be nervous and even show nervous or anxiety traits, but when it’s time to play the shot, their subconscious prevails and they execute the shot with confidence and freedom. They know they can handle the situation because they have proven it to themselves. Sometimes, their beliefs are so strong that when a bad shot happens, it is not their fault. It was the wind, or the ball, or the group, etc. They cannot believe that they actually made a mistake.
Now, how do we get to this stage for maximum improvement? As previously stated, it is simple. Practice, practice, practice all types of possible situations that can be confronted in golf, so that when the time comes, confidence prevails in the subconscious mind for maximum performance.
As proper practice prevails, we learn. As we learn, we get better. As we get better, we gain confidence we have proven it to ourselves. Sometimes we fear the situation, and this is okay. It is a fear of the situation that makes us analyze the situation thoroughly, so you know exactly what to do. After the analysis, our subconscious takes over and we execute. There is no fear.
Research by the American Psychological Association has shown that “self-discovery” is perhaps the most efficient way of learning. (Golf Digest, July 2017, Beall). Self-discovery is the natural way to mold your swing to your mental and physical capabilities.
Kids learn by self-discovery. They try and if it works, they keep it. If they fail, they try again with a few changes until they succeed. It’s a trial-and-error process. The procedure is the same mentally and physically.
The older pros never had psychologists telling them what to do. They learned by self-discovery. They knew the importance of sport psychology, although at the time they never called it such. They learned it with their physical learning.
Lee Trevino said, “If a sports psychologist can beat me in golf, I will listen.” This statement has merit. Jack Nicklaus says, “Sport psychologists just tell us what we already know.”
I have studied Zen, and their approach has strong merit. Nike used the old Zen saying, “Just do it.” Zen’s key to learning, in simple terms, was to practice and practice until the move of the skill was automatic, and then forget it. When the skill is needed, let it happen. The skill is there in the body and just needs to be released. Perhaps the slogan should be “learn it and then just do it.” This is what old golf pros did. They learned it and just did it.
When they asked Fred Couples how he aims, he said, “When I am playing well, I do not aim. It falls into place naturally.” This is Zen: “Learn it and forget it. Just let it happen when needed.”
If we are nervous over a shot, our mind is telling us something…listen. Maybe our mind is telling us we are not ready in learning or in “letting go” or “letting it happen.” Listen and then self-correct for the future.
Principles, Fundamentals and Preferences
The golf teaching profession has come a long way since 1989 when the USGTF was founded. Hi-tech tools that weren’t even a thought back then are now commonplace in many teaching circles, such as launch monitors and slow-motion replays complete with computer graphics, and the ability to instantly communicate with students electronically. We also have training aids and training programs that are state-of-the-art.
What hasn’t changed are three aspects of instruction that are important to differentiate, and they are principles, fundamentals and preferences. Before we continue, let’s turn to Merriam-Webster for some definitions:
Principle: “The laws or facts of nature underlying the working of an artificial device.” In the case of golf, the artificial devices are the golf ball and golf club, and the laws are what we more commonly know as the ball-flight laws: clubhead path, clubface angle, solidness of the clubface strike, angle of attack and clubhead speed. These five things are all the ball knows.
Fundamental: “Of or relating to essential structure, function, or facts.” In golf, fundamentals directly impact the ball flight laws. Through experience and observation, we know that there are some fundamentals that must be followed in order to achieve certain aspects of the ball flight laws.
Preference: “The power or opportunity of choosing; one that is preferred.” Preferences in golf are not fundamentals, but they are an individual golfer’s best way of executing the fundamentals.
Proper fundamentals are necessary in order to execute the principles, while preferences are an individual golfer’s best way of executing the fundamentals. Some teachers may confuse fundamentals for principles (a minor teaching flaw), or preferences for principles (a major teaching flaw).
Let’s take the case of hitting an iron shot in terms of principles. The clubface angle must be in harmony with the clubhead path. If the clubhead path through impact is down the target line, the clubface angle must be square to the path. If the clubhead path is to the right, the clubface angle must be angled to the left of the path at the proper angle, and vice versa. The ball must be struck first instead of the ground, so a descending angle of attack is needed. The right amount of clubhead speed is required, and if all four of the previously-mentioned ball flight aspects are correct, the ball must be struck squarely on the clubface.
(If one or more of the ball-flight-laws aspects are compromised, another must be, in effect, “compromised” in order for the ball to finish close to the target. There are endless variations of this and beyond the scope of this article, so our assumption will be a normal well-struck shot.)
As for fundamentals, a golfer needs a grip that will reliably return the clubface square, a ball position and alignment that will promote a proper clubhead path, and a swing that allows the clubhead to give optimal results. For example, clubhead lag, where the lead arm and club shaft form a straight line for the first time at impact, is a fundamental because it allows the ball to be struck first with maximum force, as well as honoring the laws of physics when it comes to levers.
Preferences might include the type of grip to be employed (interlocking, overlapping, or 10-finger), an open, square or closed stance, whether the weight is predominantly on the front or rear foot at address, or steepness or flatness of the swing plane.
An example of a teacher who mistakes a preference for a principle would be one who insists students must employ the overlapping grip. They may also say all their students must use a perfectly square stance, when an open will likely be better in the case of a student who finds more consistency in fading the ball.
There can be a gray area between fundamentals and preferences, so discerning between the two can be difficult, even for experienced and knowledgeable teachers. Bubba Watson’s footwork would never be taught as a fundamental, but it can be said that it’s his personal fundamental – another way of saying preference. After Ben Hogan’s book Five Lessons came out, it was considered a fundamental that the swing plane was determined by a line from the ball to the top of the shoulders. Yet today, we see all sorts of golfers violating this supposed fundamental, including Watson and Jim Furyk, among others.
Some examples of fundamentals that teachers agree on for a good swing are the lower body leads the downswing while the upper body responds (leading to the aforementioned fundamental, clubhead lag); position of the grip determines Clubface angle at impact; pressure shifts to the rear foot during the backswing, and finishing in a well-balanced position on the front foot. Examples of preferences would include a strong or weak grip, backswing path, and swinging smoothly or aggressively.
Teachers almost always should start with examining the principles of ball flight laws as they relate to a non-novice’s game. The student might be hooking, so we know with certainty that the clubface is closed at impact relative to the clubhead path. We might see the grip is in a too-strong position, so fundamentally we should probably change the grip.
We then might see the student doesn’t transfer his weight forward correctly, leading to the arms and hands flipping the clubhead over too quickly. So the fundamental here would be to have the student transfer weight forward, but the preference would be in the how. Some students would fare better firing off the rear foot, while others might feel a pulling of the lead hip.
To summarize, teachers should examine the execution of the ball flight laws first, then ask themselves which fundamentals are being compromised that affect this execution. Finally, they need to figure out which preferences best Benefit that particular individual in this particular instance. Longtime USGTF examiner Ken Butler’s words are particularly relevant here: “Students have many locks. We need many keys to open those locks.”
With novices, most every teacher will start with fundamentals in the belief that this will lead to a more faithful execution of the principles. However, there are times when non-novices need to go back to square one with the fundamentals, depending upon their goals. A 90-shooter who wants to become a scratch golfer really has no choice but to basically start over.
A trend that has returned in recent times is teaching to the ball flight laws. In the video age of the 1980s and 1990s, more attention was paid to technique in the belief it would lead to proper ball flight, but today an increasing number of teachers pay attention to proper ball flight in the belief this leads to proper technique. This is a way of saying that a much wider variety of student preferences are now being tolerated by teachers, as long as they get the job done.
In effect, this is a “back to the future” trend, as teachers in the pre-video age depended upon proper ball flight to determine technique. It’s a trend that well may become a more permanent part of the teaching landscape; time will tell.
Does the Traditional Lesson Still Have Its Place?
USGTF Hall of Fame member David Vaught wrote an excellent article in the last edition of Golf Teaching Pro titled “Teaching Outside the Box,” where he detailed four ways to update your lesson repertoire in terms of offering new ways to provide instruction. It is imperative that teachers innovate and evolve with the times, and Vaught’s article reminds us of the value of doing so.
Vaught’s description of “Pile of balls, a set amount of time, teacher one-on-one with a golfer hoping to improve, or at least enjoy the game more” reminds us that if all we offer is a traditional lesson, we are certain to be left in the dust behind those teachers who embrace newer and more effective ways to impart instruction. This is not to say that the traditional lesson is obsolete, but should only be one part of our overall lesson offerings.
The traditional lesson still has its place, but many students today are expecting more than just observation and dispensed advice by the golf teaching professional. Hi-tech devices such as TrackMan, FlightScope and GC Quad provide invaluable data for both the teacher and student, as such aspects as angle of attack and exact swing path through impact can be detected to the tenth of a degree. Hi-speed video gives us insight into the moving parts of the swing that are too quick for the naked eye to see, where previously we were only left to make our best educated guess based on experience in determining if the student is executing correctly. So if you’re going to give traditional lessons, at the very least you need to have some sort of video capability.
There are teachers who are limited at their facilities, to be sure, but it’s important to reach out to golf courses in your area. Two of Vaught’s ideas, creating a league and having students observe the teacher playing two or three holes, require a golf course. Don’t be afraid to make arrangements with the course! Most golf course managers will welcome you if you approach them and explain it is a win-win situation and you’re not there to take away business from the course pros. In fact, you may be able to enlist the help of the course professionals and reward them accordingly.
What about teachers who are just starting out, teaching at a range-only facility, and may not have the funds for hi-tech equipment? Fortunately, there are still a large percentage of teaching professionals who give traditional lessons without hi-tech equipment, so the beginning teacher may not be at that much of a disadvantage as you may think. But too many teaching professionals get stuck in the rut of offering only a traditional lesson without video or any other hi-tech products, and never update the way they do things. Teachers who are willing to plow their earnings back into their business and make modest investments in technical equipment (e.g. video, inexpensive launch monitor, training aids) can soon separate themselves from their low-tech colleagues and are likely to reap the financial benefits sooner rather than later.
Another traditional lesson idea is the clinic, where a topic is chosen and the teacher imparts instruction to a group of students. Instead of merely handing out advice and correcting a flaw or two in each participant, teachers can create more interest by borrowing Vaught’s idea of competition, where the winner might receive a lesson or series of lessons. Perhaps a reward could also be discounted golf for all participants at a local course, or even a free round for one of the participants. In this day and age, people are expecting more bang for their buck, and we have to make it worthwhile for them.
Yes, there still is a place for the traditional lesson, simply based on the concept of supply and demand. Most golfers believe that their troubles with their games are technique-related, and want to have their technique problem identified with a way to fix it. From that perspective, the traditional lesson can fit the bill. But if that’s all that is offered, a teacher is limited in his or her ability to not only increase revenue, but help their students, as well.
August Last Month to Enter US / CGTF Cup
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