golfrewind.com

After doing some reading of my favorite golf books as well as some new ones to my library, I felt it important to share with you all a very basic concept that is quite often ignored by the golfing culture.

It starts with a very simple question. Why do you practice?

If you are like most people, your answer will fall into a category of mechanics or seeking out to perfect a particular part of your game. Yet, most of you who are out there flailing away at golf balls, or trying to knock the ball close to the hole around the greens, have absolutely no clue about what you're REALLY trying to do. An average conversation with you would go like this:

"What are you trying to fix?"
"My swing."
"What part of your swing?"
"The part I'm doing wrong."
"What are you doing wrong?"
"I don't know."
"How will you know when it's fixed?"
"I'll hit the ball straight."
"What if the ball goes wrong again?"
"I'll have to fix it."
"Fix what?"
"My golf swing"

(I took this conversation from "Extraordinary Golf")

Even if one has been told by an instructor what their problem is, they still may not FEEL what is wrong. They may have the knowledge of what it is ("I saw it on video..)", but rarely does this make a connection with the feel. It's a blind spot in your swing. No matter how often someone tells you you're doing it, you can't sense it happening at all. This is why almost everyone makes a %2000 better pracitce swing than the one they strike the ball with. More on this later.

What's even more striking about this, is you may have just had a lesson with a professional and do exactly as he/she told you to do. But that doesn't necessarily make the perfect ball flight now does it? But what do we base our successes on? Ball flight. What an odd thing to be doing to yourself, basing your success on something that isn't even what you're working on.

So you may be saying, what is your point Steve? I don't see any other way of improving than to fix what we think is wrong.

I've spoken at great lengths before about "Awareness". It's a strange animal to most of you, whether you know it or not. Some of you may think you've got it. "I know what's going on. My teacher told me I'm comming over the top and to do these drills." or.. "I read in that one thread of Redgoats that my tush was comming off line." But that isn't awareness, that's data. No program runs on data alone. You have to know HOW and WHERE to apply that data. And if you are not able to diferenciate the RIGHT way to do it from the WRONG way to do it... you can never hope to fill the void. You can never know what DATA should go WHERE. The program needs input.. and random thoughts will create random shots. Not even going through a checklist of ideas will fix the problem.. cause we all know there's more than one problem to be fixed.

How many times have you gone to hit a bucket of golf balls without trying to fix anything? How many times did you go to the driving range intending to create a different shot than straight, or perfect draw/fade? How many times did you go to the driving range and simply ask yourself the question, "What was that like?" It's a whole new world when you can do this. It's a new awareness. So there's that thing your instructor told you about. Well, try doing it WRONG. What does it FEEL like when you do it wrong? What would it feel like if you did it totally the opposite way? How well can you perform the opposite way? Make yourself AWARE OF THE DIFFERENCE!!!

"The essence of physical learning is developing distinctions, becoming aware of the differences between two actions and recognizing the consiquences of each." Again, another quote from Extraordinary Golf.

This is such a fundamental aspect of learning that it's comical to not realize when you aren't doing it. Here you are trying to learn something, and this basic understanding is not even close to your goal.

One last thing that I feel needs attention. I often speak of the other word "Intention". It is a fundamental part of the connection between concious thought and action. If your intention changes in mid course of an action, the results will be erratic at best. But your intention is closely tied to your awareness. It is in a cycle of perfect learning that both must be used.. it goes something like this.

Thought -> Intention -> Subconcious -> Action -> Feel -> Awareness -> Evaluation -> Decision -> Thought

And the cycle repeats itself with EVERY SWING.. including your practice swing.

Most often, we circumvent this natural progression and in effect.. black out. That cycle looks more like this:

Thought -> Intention -> Subconcious -> Action -> Thought

And this cycle repeats itself... sometimes within the same swing. Most commonly one time for the backswing and one time for the forward swing. Without the awareness, and evaluation, how can one hope to discover the correct thought and intention to have the next time? You may perform cycle #2 on the backswing and cycle #1 on the forward swing. This requires a substancial amount of brain power and causes you to loose the ability to evaluate your first thought and intention. Yet somehow, since it was your first thought and intention, most likely you base it's success on the final awareness and evaluation.

Rather confusing to both you and me.

So next time you go to the practice range, don't just seek out what is right... seek out what is WRONG so that you can properly identify it and know when it's happening at a later date. Of this, I think Ben Hogan was the master. Constantly tinkering to find out what does what so that he can use it at a later time. No one dared tell him what was right and wrong. He dared himself.

Good points.
I've always thought the average person hitting balls was training in bad habits instead of fixing them.
Go to the range with a goal to fix something. If you don't know what it is or know how.................see someone that does. Kinda like trying to self diagnose a medical conditon. Go see a doctor. In this case the doctor is a golf professional.
Foget the hype and latest this and that. LISTEN to the person that knows!