Stan Struggles On

If you have read my articles in the past you might remember Stan, my imaginary student. I know I’m doing well with Stan the character when I’m asked “Hey, Wayne, is that a real guy?” Or, “I think you’re writing about me again, aren’t you?” The truth is that Stan is kind of an “everyman”, or, as it were, an “every-student”, and I draw from my daily experiences on the lesson tee when I give Stan his voice. I’m a little hard on Stan, partly because he’s so stubborn, and partly because it seems like he just doesn’t listen, as evidenced by his seeming total lack of retention of the things I tell him. He is like most golfers who desperately hope that they can make the game easy, and that maybe there is one tip out there that will cure them forever and make them good. It is almost too painful to believe that years of practice and hard work might be necessary to play a passable game.

Stan is not a regular lesson taker: those who come to their lessons on a consistent basis (with not too great a period of time in between appointments), especially guys like Stan who get so easily distracted and misdirected, tend to see greater progress. Stan likes to come every now and then, with the emphasis on “then”, and it seems as though we come close to having to start over every time. I find this more than just a bit annoying (although getting paid for it tempers my displeasure) and sometimes I let Stan know in no uncertain terms what a knucklehead he can be when it comes to golf. He does have a good sense of humor, however, and certainly can take a bit of busting, and almost takes a perverse pleasure from my barbs and insults, realizing that I am on his side and only want to encourage him to do what it takes to improve. I also know from experience that golf is incredibly hard, and that I am not exempt when it comes to having made my share of bonehead decisions while searching for my best game, and thus always temper my lectures with my own tales of lunacy. That being said, let’s listen in to my most recent foray with Stan, the wandering golfer.

To fill you in on recent events, the last time I saw Stan was just under a year ago, and I spent a good deal of the lesson espousing the virtues of competition, encouraging Stan to go ahead and tee it up in a few tournaments to see how he was progressing. My point of view on the matter is that if a golfer never puts any stress on his game by getting himself into a situation where he really cares how he plays (a tournament, money match, or anything “uncomfortable”) he will never really know how he is coming along, and certainly won’t find out what he needs to work on the most. I cajoled Stan into entering his Club Championship, but, as is usually the case, I didn’t hear back from him with any results. When Stan called to make the appointment I didn’t have time to catch up, so the first thing I wanted to do when he arrived was to find out what happened.

Wayne: Stan, what’s up? It’s nice to see you. So, how did it go?

Stan: How did what go?

Wayne: What else would I be talking about? The Club Championship!

Stan: Oh, that. Well, I took your advice and tried to qualify.

Wayne: Yeah, and…

Stan: Well, it was 36 holes, and I really wasn’t used to playing like that.

Wayne: Playing like what?

Stan: Playing like, you have to knock the ball in the hole, and follow the rules, and keep a real score. Playing like that.

Wayne: It’s a little bit different, isn’t it?

Stan: You could say that. I never thought I would be nervous over a one-foot putt, but on the first hole I could hardly pull the putter back. I thought my heart was going to jump out of my chest and flop around on the green. My ball was no more that 14 inches from the cup! We always give each other those putts in my normal game. I can’t remember the last time I putted from 14 inches. Suddenly, I wasn’t sure if I could make it. The possibility of missing made me want to throw up. And it was only the first hole, and it was for a par! I couldn’t see how I was going to make it through the round, and there was another round to play after this one!

Wayne: So, did you make it?

Stan: Yeah, I stabbed it in, and when I got to the next tee my heart was still pounding so hard I was short of breath. Now I have to hit my drive, and I can barely stand up. I’m thinking, “What the hell have I gotten myself into?” Then I started cursing you. All sorts of crazy things are running through my head. “Why am I here?” “I could be at home watching the game”. “I hate this game”. My stomach actually started to hurt. And I was even par!

Wayne: (Chuckling) it’s not quite the same as kicking it around with the boys on Saturday morning, is it?

Stan: Are you kidding? I hated the feelings I was having. But, I have to tell you, I found something inside of me that didn’t want to be defeated by this stupid game. I couldn’t let myself quit, and since I had a long way to go I figured I had better just suck it up and keep hitting the ball. I really had to talk to myself to snap out of what my brain was doing. I felt like I needed someone to slap me across the face and tell me to stop acting like such a wuss.
Wayne: And did you get through it?

Stan: Yeah, amazingly enough, I got through the round and even shot a half decent score, then I actually practiced a bit after the round and played a little better the next day. You could say it was a bit of a revelation. I could tell, though, after I was done, that I wasn’t nearly as prepared as I should have been if I expected to do well. Just about every part of my game was lacking in some major respect.

Wayne: (Nodding) And that’s exactly why you put yourself through that. It’s the only way to find out what to work on next! I’d say you crossed a major barrier here.

Stan: Well, maybe, but how do you stop getting so nervous and worked up?

Wayne: You don’t, really. You just lessen the amount. My heart still beats too fast on the first tee and on hard shots, as well as on most short putts. I practice hard on my technique so that I can feel as confident as possible over any shot I face. When the pressure is on, though, it’s not like you can pretend it’s not there. If the results mean a lot, you’re going to feel it. But isn’t it a great feeling when you pull off a shot at a crucial moment, or you execute a really hard shot that maybe you hadn’t hit before?

Stan: Yeah, there’s nothing like doing well at something as hard as this damn game, that’s for sure. After the qualifier was over and I got into match play it was much easier. There’s something about keeping score that makes me uneasy, or I guess you could say I’m just more than a little scared that I’m going to make a stupid mistake and blow my round. When I played the match it was like half the deal was how well my opponent played: it wasn’t all on me. I realized how dumb I’ve been to play the way I always play, with gimmees all over the place and never really following the rules. I think it would make a big difference if I were to take my rounds a bit more seriously whenever I get the chance to play.

Wayne: You’ve really hit on an important point there, Stan. To have a chance to compete well and improve your game you have to practice the things you need to do when you have to keep score, right from the start of the set-up routine down to how you manage your everyday rounds. Most people are too lazy to do this, and almost always feel out of sorts when the gun goes off and every shot counts.

Stan: You can certainly put me in that category. I’m probably more guilty than most. But I can see now how I was fooling myself into thinking that I was doing better than I really was.

Wayne: OK then, now that we’ve figured out that you need a lot of work, what did you see out there that stands out as something you need to work on?

Stan: You mean besides everything?

Wayne: (Laughing) Just pick something that was especially bad.

Stan: Well, this might sound stupid, or too general, but I just don’t hit the ball very well. My irons aren’t crisp, and my driver is short and crooked.
Wayne: So, your swing’s not quite perfect yet.
Stan: Very funny. You know, you may not think I pay attention to your ranting about what I have to do to get better, but I do. I was just hoping that for once you might be wrong about this stuff and that I could find it without all the suffering.

Wayne: Nope, sorry, you have to suffer. Unless you’re Fred Couples you can’t be good just because you want to be. I think the most important breakthrough is when you start enjoying the work: you realize that since the suffering is actually beneficial it’s not really suffering anymore. It starts to be fun to get out onto the range or the course and wrestle around with it, and even though it’s too big and slippery you keep trying to get your arms around it and control it a little bit. And all the ideas and tidbits of information you pick up from whatever source make heading out to practice even more exciting. It’s a sickness, really, but kind of a good sickness.

Stan: I have started to practice more lately, but I always worry that I’m getting off on the wrong track. I really don’t see you enough, and in between times I’m a sucker for infomercials.

Wayne: Trust me; you’re not the only one. It’s amazing how convincing those things are.

Stan: Thank you for saying that. I was starting to think I was just a moron.

Wayne: Look, there is a science behind that kind of selling, and you can bet that when that amount of money is being spent, like maybe half a million for one of those half-hour jobs, not to mention the air-time, you better believe they know how to push the right buttons.

Stan: I’m listening to these people who take 10 strokes off their handicaps in a month and they sound so convincing, and then these teaching pros, guys I’ve heard of or have seen on The Golf Channel, are telling me that it’s the greatest thing ever, and it’s like, “Man, I’ve got to have one of those! That sounds perfect for me.”

Wayne: So, have the 10 strokes magically disappeared?

Stan: Sure, and I’m going to enter Q-School this year, too. I’ll tell you what I do have, though. That little piece of PVC and foam I paid $80 for, (the Inside Attack or something like that), makes a great door stop. And that Swing Magic thing, you know the one where your right hand pumped back and forth like you were loading a shotgun, that thing cleans my toilets like a charm! My neighbor got hammered at a party we had and wouldn’t stop knocking stuff over, so we put a Swing Jacket on him and calmed him right down. And that SAM 2000 plastic circle thingy came in handy at Christmas. We made it into the biggest wreath you’ve ever seen and stuck it up on our roof.

Wayne: Well, I’m glad you’ve gotten your money’s worth out of them. If you’re ever wondering if any of those things really work the kind of miracles they show on TV just give it a year and see if you can find one being used by anyone.

Stan: Why don’t we forget about swing trainers and infomercials and take a look at my swing?

Wayne: That’s why we’re here. Go ahead and hit a few. How has your ball-striking been lately?

Stan: I’ve been hitting my driver pretty decent, but my irons are either high blocks to the right, or I’ll flip hook trying to get it not to go right. I can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong.

Wayne: How long have we been working together?

Stan: I don’t know, 3 or 4 years maybe?

Wayne: Don’t we see the same things every lesson?

Stan: Yeah, I guess so, but I thought I was getting better at the stuff we were working on. I figured this must be something different. Whatever it is, I can’t feel it at all.

Wayne: You can’t feel it because you do it every time you swing, and you’ve been doing it that way forever. There’s one thing I want you to understand, and that is that when you hit the ball poorly you are making the same mistakes you always do. We’ve seen it a million times, and we’ll see it again when we look at these swings. Your swing has a pattern that you are comfortable with, and unless you change it from the beginning you won’t be able to change it at the end when you hit the ball.

Stan: What’s that supposed to mean?

Wayne: It means that when you take the club away by rolling your left arm the clubface fans open and the shaft gets flat and your arms get way behind you. As you get to the top you lift your arms to gain height, and by that time your right arm is so far behind you that the shaft crosses the line by a mile. When you start down you need to re-route the shaft back onto the plane so you drive your right elbow inward, but it’s hard to figure when to stop shallowing the shaft so it gets “stuck” way behind you. You’re left with the hands coming in high, the clubhead coming at the ball too far from the inside, while your legs stop rotating so that you can flip the clubface over at impact to keep the ball from going dead right. Your approach doesn’t allow you to hit down and trap the ball, and you either block it or start it right and hook it. That’s how you swing, and the first thing you have to do is understand what your pattern is. In order to really fix the thing you have to start from the beginning and improve your backswing. One thing I have realized recently is that trying to change something late in your swing, say, for instance, you would like to clear your left side better, is never going to happen if the mistake helps you hit better shots.

Stan: How can a mistake help anyone hit it better?

Wayne: If the mistake fits in with the rest of your mistakes it forms a pattern that hits better shots than if you mixed early mistakes with something better at the end. In other words, if your club approaches impact from the outside and a proper release would hit the ball 50 yards to the left, it would then be more effective to hold the face open through impact. This is not ideal by any means, but a slice that ends up somewhere close to where you are aiming is more desirable than a pull that goes out of bounds. You would have to have the club approaching the ball more from the inside so that a proper release, where the clubface closes constantly through impact, makes the ball go straight instead of way to the right. Your brain will allow you to change the way you come through the ball when that change actually hits a better shot. It is a natural athletic tendency to default to something that produces a decent result. So, you have to fix the backswing in order to make a better forward swing, and you have never really fixed your backswing. We need to make the whole thing better, which is what you found out when you teed it up in competition, and I’ve been trying to explain to you for years that you need to work harder and get more consistent help to truly improve.

Stan: So then explain to me why we work on impact so much, like all those half-swing punch-shot drills you always torture me with?

Wayne: Those are “just in case” drills. If your hands never experience what it feels like to hit the ball correctly, meaning trapping and compressing it from an on-plane approach, they will more than likely continue to scoop, flip, or block the way they have always been forced to release because of the rest of your unfortunate movements. Working on impact drills makes you familiar with what has to happen at the bottom of the swing: having this clear in your mind helps make sense of all your takeaway, backswing, and transition work. You need to “connect the dots”: better positions will not automatically lead to better impact. The hands still need retraining because they have actually been helping you by releasing incorrectly. The club needs to approach impact better in order for a correct release to work, and in order to change your approach you need to change a bunch of other things, starting right at the beginning. It is much easier to make a better half swing than it is a full swing, and by paying attention to your form you can critique yourself and learn without me being around all the time. Besides, once you learn to hit a solid punch you’ll want to do it all the time because it will feel so much better. The harder part is putting that type of strike into your full swing.

Stan: I hate to admit it, but I know you’re right, and you’ve been telling me the same things since I’ve known you. I guess it just takes me a while to get it, but I’m tired of treading water. I love the game and I want to take it to another level.

Wayne: You’ve already taken the first step. Now, let’s take some pictures of your swing and see what we can do with this today.