Seems like talk of changing golf always comes up this time of year. Most likely because the Masters is just around the corner, which signifies the start of the golf season for many north of the Mason-Dixon Line. I have recently seen discussions of rolling back the golf ball or creating a tournament ball.
The subject of bifurcation has come up again, also; bifurcation, a glorified term for having a different set of rules for pros and amateurs. Like amateurs don’t play by different rules already. How many times have you seen mulligans off the first tee or inside-the-leather happy zones? Those same golfers then go in and post scores and receive handicaps. Every time I see or hear such talk, I am reminded of phrases like, “How you going to keep them down on the farm?” or “You can never go home again.”
In the history of golf, the game has never reversed course. The only constant has been the theme that more is better. And judging by the money invested in club and ball design, course conditions and extravagant clubhouses, it must be worth it. Sometimes I think there is more science in the head of a driver than in a NASA rocket. Tour pros are hitting the ball well over 300 yards, requiring courses to be stretched to 7,500-7,600 yards to keep them at bay. Many old and venerable courses can’t hold up to the onslaught. A lot of traditionalists don’t like that and advocate slowing things down. The problem is that a majority loves the long ball, and advertisers provide the siren song for their odyssey.
I don’t see reversing course as an option. Too much money for all concerned at stake. Besides no one wants an old jalopy when a shiny new chic mobile can be had so easily. Slowing it down. I don’t see it anytime soon. That ship sailed long ago.
Those who watched the World Golf Championship at Doral this year saw something very interesting. Adam Scott tried to drive the short par-4 16th hole. His tee shot went just over the green in a bunker. It was a very straightforward bunker shot, on the upslope with a good lie. What happened next was the interesting part.
He shanked his bunker shot. It almost went into the other greenside bunker. It was a horrible shot, in fact, and embarrassing to the point that Scott apologized to his caddie for hitting the shot. Now he is short-sided in deep rough with an awkward stance. Scott was able to shake off the shanked bunker shot and focus on the most important shot, his next shot.
He hit a great flop shot and made par. He went on to win the golf tournament with another great up-and-down on the 18th hole. The most important shot is always your next shot. Once you have played a shot, either good or bad, it is time to focus on the next one.
Dwelling on what we did poorly or letting the previous shot affect our mindset on the next shot is going to produce poor results. Clear your mind, allow yourself to get over the last shot, and then focus on the shot at hand. Adam Scott didn’t let the poor bunker shot affect him; you shouldn’t either.
Recently, I played a round of golf with three friends of mine. The game was put together last-minute. and everyone was rushing to get to the course. We all arrived about the same time, a few minutes prior to our tee time. No one hit a range ball or a practice putt, just walked right up to the first tee.
Of course, as golf teaching professionals, we are not new to this; a typical day includes rushing from the lesson tee or the pro shop to the first tee. Sometimes the shots off the first tee are good, other times not so good. This particular day, one of my friends hit a nice, low-running worm-burner about 150 yards. He proceeded to chunk a couple shots, then finished off with a lovely three-putt for a crowd-pleasing quadruple bogey.
At the next tee box, my friend was heated, upset about his 8 and mad at the world. I calmly asked him what he was upset about (with a straight face I mind you) and he told me he was mad about his score, duh! Of course I knew why he was so mad, but I wanted to point a few things out to him.
I asked if he had a good warm-up session, I asked if he had a good stretching session and if he had a few hours to clear his mind prior to the round. The answer was no to all of the questions. I then put my arm around him and asked him to look ahead and describe what he was seeing. He spoke of the green grass, the sand bunkers, the trees and the bright blue sky. I asked if he saw his office anywhere or anyone asking for deadlines and results.
We talked for a minute about enjoying what the game really is. It allows us to be outside, away from normal working environments. Golf challenges us with all kinds of things, and we need to embrace the challenges. There are worse ways to spend four hours rather than being outside with your friends and testing yourself with all the challenges that the game has to offer. After this conversation, my friend smiled and started to enjoy the frustrations involving the game of golf. He also started playing better! Next time you or your students fall into the same rut, remember: golf is a frustrating game, but you should love the challenge it provides.
Having studied very successful golf instructors for many years, I have discovered one important trait that they all have in common that you do not see with the average golf teacher.
This one thing goes right to the heart of how human beings learn physical motion. For the sake of space and your boredom, I won’t go deep into motor skill learning. The simplest way to understand how we learn motion is to think of how you learned to eat, drive or brush your teeth.
Motor skill learning in its most basic form is repetitive motion that is learned and captured in the nerves that connect the brain to the muscles. Having spent most of the last twenty years helping golf professionals learn to improve their teaching skills, the one thing I have noticed more than any other shortcoming is the lack of understanding how the dynamic of motor skill learning works.
So, what is this one trait? Besides the obvious, which is the ability to communicate well, the one trait is the understanding that human beings learn from feel.
Successful instructors not only verbally explain the motion, but they actually interact with the student by helping them physically make the motion. New or inexperienced instructors spend the majority or even all of their instruction time verbally teaching the student. While all of us that teach the game have the desire to help people play better golf, we need to understand better how humans learn.
Therefore, it is not a lack of caring or effort on the part of teacher. It is simply a lack of education. Either through experience, education or even trial and error, successful instructors understand what the famous instructor Gary Wiren said forty years ago: “A golfer needs to clearly feel and understand what he or she is trying to do. Even more simply put, golf is a game of feel. “
Our main purpose as golf instructors trying to help our students improve is to teach what the motion should feel like. The only truly effective way to do that is to physically move them or the club while attached to them. Teach feel. Some of us can watch and imitate. A very, very small percentage can read it and then translate the written word into motion. But the vast majority of us need to be taught how the correct motion feels. Watching instructors attempting to help their students, I see them way too frequently attempt to talk their students into a better motion, commanding verbally, “Don’t do this or don’t do that.”
Back to our basic motor skill learning. As we make a movement, the human brain is wired to learn motion so as to repeat that motion eventually on a subconscious level. Think of having to learn to use your fork and spoon from the beginning every time you ate a meal. That would make for some long dinners. Try this simple motion. Take your hand from a positon of resting it on a table and use your index finger to touch the tip of your nose. This simple motion has six million possible motion variances; that’s correct, six million. Therefore, one aspect of simple survival for us is our ability to learn motion.
Next time you are giving a lesson, ask yourself, “How much am I talking and not showing?” Understandably, some are apprehensive to physically help their students. That is completely understandable. But an important step of improving your instruction is to get over that fear and just do it. They can’t release the energy of the club head through impact? They have never felt their hands stay solid through impact on a chip or putt? Help them swing the club slowly through impact, teaching them to feel the correct movement. Trust me, the reward and response you get from your students from teaching feel will surprise you.
Everyone has heard phrase about how the world is changing and you have to adapt to the change. For some of us, this might be natural, while for others, it’s extremely hard. Change is everywhere: from the way people communicate, the way people learn, the way information is exchanged and the way information is taught.
For about six years, I have been working with a young man who is a now a freshman in college. The way he likes to communicate is via text messaging. To me, this is somewhat strange. I would call and he would not answer; shortly after he would text me. It took me a bit to figure out that texting was the best way to communicate with him. He would text a novel, but face to face it was hard to get two words out of him. Texting is the way young people communicate.
Think about the options available for college. There are the traditional, daytime classes that are now being overtaken by night, weekend, or online classes. People like online learning because itprovides the freedom to work or take care of a family. The higher educational system has realized that in order to capture market growth, they have had to alter what they offer.
As golf teaching professionals, how are we changing to adapt to our students and their needs? Websites and social media might be the medium through which your current or future students want to communicate with you. They want to text videos of their swings and have you communicate back via text. Some people only like to email. They want to email their swing video to you then have you respond via email back.
To maintain or grow your success as a teacher, you have to modify your approach. Think about the way you have done things in the past and the how your student demographics are changing. Figure out where the gaps are between your style and their learning and communicating methods, then close those gaps. It might be scary at first, but once you embrace the change, you will be happy you did.
Our golf course just added a foot golf layout. For those unfamiliar with this new sport, an individual uses a soccer ball and kicks it down the fairway to a hole about the size of the top of a 55-gallon drum. There are flags in the hole so one knows where the hole ends. Each hole, like with a golf course, is different in length and weaves around trees and hazards. The purpose is to increase revenue and provide a fun outdoor activity to active people. Just like golf, you can play individually or in groups. Based on my observation thus far, it does not require a lot of skill, just a strong foot.
The real question is what is the overall purpose of this activity? Was it designed to expose more people to golf with the hope of creating new golfers, or to add more money into the course coffers? I suspect both, but money will most likely win out. No question we need more golfers, but I’m not sure this will be the answer. I say this based on my own experience and that of some savvy young people in a recent golf camp I conducted. For me, it was pretty dull. Not a lot of excitement. About the equivalent of skipping rocks on a lake.
At my Christmas golf camp, I earmarked one afternoon for all the kids to play a round of foot golf. Ages ranged from 6 to 11. When asked if they liked it, the overwhelming response was “it was okay.”
Not a ringing endorsement. Where it will lead, no one can really say.
We have all heard phrases about working hard to be successful or willing to never quit. There are phrases on t-shirts, posters, and even coffee mugs. The great Ben Hogan said to become great at golf, you need to “dig it out of the dirt,” meaning hitting a lot of range balls. I’m sure your parents or mentors have also reinforced the philosophy that perseverance is the key to greatness.
Even though hard work is important, I believe many of these phrases leave out an important fact. You must love the sacrifice that hard work requires to reach your goals. Let’s think about someone wanting to lose weight and get into the best shape of their life. They can read some nutritional books, buy healthy foods and even join a gym. Doing this might help them lose a few pounds, but unless they love the feeling of sore muscles and the hours of being in a gym, they won’t attain their ultimate goal. They must fall in love with the sacrifice of being a gym rat, sore muscles and all.
In golf teaching, we tell our students they must invest in the work to enjoy the outcomes. I think we need to add into the equation that our students must also love the sacrifice of what will happen to become a great player. Hours working on the range means calluses on their hands and missing out on times with friends. It means getting their body into shape to perform the best it can and knowing they will also be facing a tough mental game. It’s overcoming these challenges that bring the most satisfaction.
It’s easy to tell someone to work hard or that they need to push themselves. As golf teaching professionals, we need to help our students understand the sacrifices that come with becoming great. No one list will be right; no one list will be wrong. Share your challenges and the resulting successes with your students so they embrace the struggle of becoming great, as opposed to just dreaming it.
I’ll begin by acknowledging that this article may seem designed for the better player and I do hope my better players take heed, but I think we, as teachers, should always keep an eye to the future with our beginners. I want them to pursue scratch golf and they must be able to take their “range game” to the course. What I notice, increasingly, are range players who think hard about the motion of their swing in pursuit of “correctness” instead of reliability.
I’ve gotten into the habit of asking myself, “Is that player using their contrived swing or natural swing?” This happens most with the highly trained athlete who has gained some level of success. That taste of success now leads them to want to improve with every practice session or every swing, to be exact.
What do you feel? Is it forced movement? Do you painstakingly place each hand on the club, fidgeting until they feel powerfully melded? Then there is a ritualistic spread of the feet. It is time now to stare at the ball, double- and triple-checking all known mechanics. Now you begin your swing by moving your tense arms away, trying to keep them straight, to create width.
The downswing is a function of dragging the handle into the ball, with as much lag as possible, so that players can jump to the sky and throw their hands at the ball in hopes of getting the clubhead to show back up in front of them.
Now the handle must be quickly yanked left to “saw off” the finish. Lovely.
Does it have to be this way? Does it need to be this way? I believe, as is many times true, we are looking so far away from us for “advanced knowledge” that we can’t see what is right in front of us.
I believe that it is more important to swing naturally than it is to swing correctly. It is not like every swing on TV, the pro tour, is identical. In fact, they are all different. Better players treat their swing like it must always be governed with scrutiny, like it will run amok if they let it go free. I believe the opposite is true.
Control comes from natural movement. Most of the best moves we make while swinging come from allowing things to happen, rather than making them happen.
You hear some of the greatest swingers of the club we have ever known speak of the importance of soft grip pressure. For some players, this notion is unattainable within their “pressured” swing. There is: grip pressure, forced width, pressure into the ground, onto the shaft, at the ball and onto the side of our left foot. Will this contrived, pressure swing hold up under the pressure of competition?
Soft grip pressure, the tube of toothpaste or holding a baby bird, speaks to relaxation and symmetrical movement. Some of that relaxation comes from affirmative movement. In other words, the longer you stand over the ball, the less your chances are of making a smooth swing.
Think of our evidence of natural affirmative movement. Does anyone ever chunk a practice swing? You miss a three-foot putt and make the repeat every time. You kill the provisional ball. You run down the court at full speed, dribbling a ball you never look at. You pull up and rise to shoot a jumper that hits nothing but net. You field a ground ball, look up at the first baseman’s chest and throw a strike that hits his mitt just before the runner touches the bag. How did I just do that? You performed so well because you didn’t bog down the physical act with too much conscious thought.
Why does the opposing team call two timeouts before the player shoots the game-winning free throw or kicks the crucial field goal? It is to break the player’s train of thought and invite in conscious thought. In golf, with so much time on our hands between shots, we must learn to pull the trigger quickly and subconsciously.
In conjunction with the things that every player must learn to be a scratch golfer, I teach my players to be aware of the need for, and work to establish, a “window of opportunity.” This safe haven is where we can perform out of an affirmative, subconscious group of movements.
I ask them to hold the club up in front of them and, while looking at the clubface, softly place their hands on the club. Then posture the club to the ground and approach the ball. With our feet together set the club behind the ball (one thousand one). Then we slide our left foot toward the target and form our ball position (one thousand two). Next we look up at the target as we slide our right foot back and make the width of our stance (one thousand three). Once aligned, we calmly look back down at the ball (one thousand four). As our mind naturally goes to one thousand five, we begin our swing by feeling the middle of our body turn. The left hip is a great area to focus on, moving toward the middle of our stance, to begin the swing. It is important to realize that your arms must be heavy and relaxed, ready to submit to the swinging action supplied by the body. This is how your true, natural golf swing will come alive. If you grab the grip and yank the club back or your arms are tight and tense, you are not really swinging the club in the truest sense. Your hands never move your hands, in a real golf swing. Think about that statement until it makes sense to you and go out a practice it.
This whole action is over within a five count. Many students, myself included, felt rushed, like I was being pushed out of a plane. As I stood hitting balls, I quickly realized that the results were at least as good as the contrived swing and were getting better by the second. Be patient and enjoy the new thought process.
My mental thought went from that of “hurry up” to feeling like “I need to go now.” Now, I know this shot will be over in less than five seconds and I feel confident in my assertive nature. I am not giving myself time to “call timeouts” before I perform the swing.
As I mentioned earlier, symmetry is important to giving your swing to your instincts. Hands need to be relaxed and neutral. If, in your stance, you turn your right foot to the right slightly, then the left foot must be turned slightly to the left. When in a stance, there is a line between my right shoulder and right hip. The same is true on the other side of my body. With my arms hanging in front of me and my elbows pointing at my hip bones (Hogan), my elbows rest on the line between my hip and shoulder on each side of my body.
As I begin, my left hip turns in toward the ball and my right side will swing away together, keeping my right hip, elbow and shoulder lined up. It is then a very natural movement to return toward my address position as I then move through the ball. The same thing that happened on the back swing (hip, elbow, shoulder) will happen again on the left side of my body.
Soon we realize that any excess tension, especially our elbows, impedes our feel and pursuit of our most natural swing. Our elbows act as a natural hinge in a swinging motion, so they must bend in the same way on each side of our body, for our swing to reflect a circular motion. Again, our natural swing takes affirmative motion, symmetry and relaxation.
How will this translate to wedge play? Think of how we see some players on the pro tour struggling to pitch basic wedges. I guarantee that, while working on the “action” in their full swing and forcing their arm movement, they have lost the natural feeling of swinging relaxed, heavy arms. They will have to practice their natural swing for long enough, without trying to make changes every practice session and then their wedge game will come back to a great level.
I realize that some wedge shots require a quick cock of the shaft or a contrived swing to accommodate the lie or circumstance. The point is, we can easily contrive a swing “every so often” to design a shot, but we don’t want to live in a contrived swing.
The same is true with putting. Use the “window of opportunity” you create for your full swing and stay within that time frame to play all shots on the green.
This type of practice will heal a busted golf swing. It will help your tournament golfers gather another valuable level of confidence to take into competition. Although I am initially specific about the pre-shot routine, I know each golfer will make this idea their own and that is the mission to accomplish.
It has been interesting for me to see the changes come about. My grip got a little weaker as a result of the relaxed left arm aiding the “correct” release. I am touching the ground with much more precision, allowing the club to run its course, rather than striking at the ground. The curvature of the ball is much less, as my grip can serve its actual purpose, to build a “tendency” for the clubface at impact.
As I began this article, this advice is most useful for the accomplished golfer who has already put in the time to build a competent swing but, is part also of the necessary learning process for any golfer. Finally, the game in general and everyone who plays will benefit from the quicker pace of play.
Golfers like Sam Snead and Jim Furyk, with vastly different swings, have trusted their natural swing to bring them to the top of professional golf. I believe one day instruction will go away from robotic action and seeming precision, in favor of instinctive athletic movement…the sooner the better.
I was recently in an office waiting for my appointment when a salesman walked through the door. He worked for the local phone book company. I was close enough to hear his conversation with the office manager. She explained that most of their advertising is done via website and social media. From his response, I could tell that it appeared as though he had heard that a few times.
I started thinking about the way that we, as golf teaching professionals, market ourselves. How many do people use the phone book to look up golf instructors? I would guess not many, if any. Websites are a great way to reach potential students, but there is cost associated with it. Social media is free and fairly easy to create. Between Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, an instructor can reach a lot of people.
When giving lessons, ask your students if it’s okay to use their photos and name on your social media page. After receiving permission, tag them in your post, and all their friends have visibility. This is a great way to market yourself without spending money. The only expense is your time. Some of our colleagues like Matt Smith, Jim Perez and Bruce Sims use Facebook regularly for their teaching business. All three of them have been extremely successful in using this marketing tool.
Most of us are independent contractors; we need to constantly advertise to help grow our business. If you haven’t looked into social media, please do. Good luck and happy teaching!
As Yogi Berra once said, baseball is 90% mental and the other half is physical. Golf, therefore, golf must be at least half that, correct? Ah, the mental game! What an all encompassing topic. Everything from our emotions and tactics to routine, visualization, swing thoughts, and much more.
At a recent conference I attended, we were told the pre-eminent swing thought of all elite golfers (professional and amateur alike) in some form or another is always target-based. Apparently and according to some experts, there are studies (I don’t know which ones) demonstrating how this is a fact. In this same conference, a race car driver analogy was given, explaining how the driver only visualizes and focuses on the car’s trajectory or direction; hence, always target-oriented, and golf, like all sports, is no different. Whoa! Back up a little!
I could get into the comparing of sports in how golf combines many postures controlled by the extrapyramidal system, which is only one of the reasons golf is difficult and why only focusing on the target is not always effective. I could discuss the idea of how in golf we have not only our outer eye, but also our inner eye, which helps us visualize things far more complex than the ball’s trajectory toward the target. I could expand on how the game of golf and its inherent actions and inactions are not completely geared as a sport of reaction compared to other sports. It would also be fair to discuss how in most shots our eyes are not directed toward our target, where the ball ultimately should finish. It would also be relevant to discuss how our paradigm of thinking, as espoused to us by many well-known sport psychologists, has been shifted over the years toward narrowing down our thoughts to the target. I could discuss each of the aforementioned and then some, but a SWING THOUGHT FORUM would be far more insightful and beneficial to the world of golf.
We should ask ourselves this question as golf instructors and coaches: Does the idea of focusing on the target as a swing thought help us, impede us, or both? The brain is very complex, as we know, yet in all its complexity, it is our steering wheel. The target is out there as is the race track. Do we need intent or awareness? If awareness, is it heightened awareness or vague?
These are valid questions, because intent and awareness are two different things and can be correlated toward the target or a different stimulus altogether. A keen target focus often leads a golfer toward a series of compensations and golf club manipulations. This was demonstrated years ago by Fred Shoemaker, who wrote Extraordinary Golf. Some may disagree, as he had his students throw a club toward a target with great success. Therefore, perhaps the ball is the problem? The ball is only the problem when we try to hurtle it toward a target. Perhaps now we’re uncovering the real truth. Golfers of all levels around the world can deliver the ball long and straight toward their respective target on a driving range. Introduce a definitive target with the real-world consequence of failure, as awaits us on the golf course, and now we enter the realm of the unknown: the proper swing thought(s).
I look forward to hearing from many of you as this topic is vast and merits much discourse.
