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If there is one thing that comes up most often in lessons I give to any level of player it concerns the difficulty in changing from an existing technique that is not providing satisfactory results to one that makes you a better player. This could include work on putting and all the facets involved with making putts (stroke mechanics, green reading ability, speed control, routine, mental approach), work on swing mechanics (how to hit every shot better and more consistently), short game technique (all types of pitches and chips, bunker play, shot selection, visualization), and a general approach to practice and playing that allows the player to raise the level of his or her game. Why is this so hard to accomplish? If you are struggling, are you alone, the only one who doesn’t seem to “get it” even though intellectually you understand exactly what you need to do?
In my many years of teaching I come across a full slate of personalities who volunteer to pay me for help. I emphasize the word “volunteer”, for that fact is given short shrift when people like Brandel Chamblee chastise instructors for leading the players they are working with down what Chamblee would consider the “wrong” path. No one forces a golfer to seek out help. This is not a situation comparable to a cult where philosophies and beliefs are forced upon attendees who may or may not have chosen to join up and buy in. Players seek help because they need it. Most players, from the poor to the average to the better than average to the excellent still feel the need for someone who is focused on understanding the technique aspects of the game to give them advice and guide them on a path that will lead to improved results. Why else would any Tour player have an instructor? In every case the player involved could beat the instructor easily in a heads up match, and quite possibly could hit every individual shot discussed better than the instructor, especially under pressure.
It all comes down to ideas and direction. It is human nature to seek out those who purportedly have expertise in a field in which the player is determined to improve. Judging from the “top teacher” lists it would appear that whatever “expertise” we are talking about has little to do with the instructor’s ability to use that technique themselves, especially under pressure, since most (not all) renowned instructors, if they ever did compete, don’t compete anymore. And we all know that golf is much easier to talk about than it is to play. I don’t think that there is any debate as to whether or not it is a good thing for a teacher to play competitively. How could it be a bad thing to test out in real life what you are espousing in theory? I have always thought that if I can’t do what I am teaching then my students are going to have even more trouble. So can you say that a teacher who doesn’t play is not a good teacher? No, I don’t think so, but I do think you could say that the teacher in question would be better if they spent time working on his or her own game and then teed it up to see how things worked out. One thing is for sure, it is hard to play and post scores. Exempting yourself from that slowly makes the game seem easier. Lots of stuff sounds great until you have to hit in in play off the first tee.
The difficulties in changing techniques are universal. If the player has achieved a modicum of success, whether it is a hack or a tour player, the brain has already decided that an important item has been achieved: you are now OK, and will not embarrass yourself when you go out to play, especially in uncomfortable and pressurized situations. The human condition (which is quite helpful in allowing us to stay alive and happy) is to seek out and preserve the status quo, and that would refer to anything that allows us to set up to a golf shot, hit it, and find it. No shanking, whiffing, topping, skulling, or, in a tour player’s world, no rounds where the ball goes out of bounds, in the water, misses multiple greens, and shoots 80. The brain sees that result (or lack of poor result) as a good thing, and will stubbornly resist efforts to change it, even though intellectually it understands perfectly (if the instruction is good) that change should lead to improvement.
The swing takes only a second between the first movement of the club and when it impacts the ball. There is only so much that can go on in the brain between the takeaway and impact. It is a certainty that no one can think through their swing and make sure they do everything correctly or even that they incorporate all the changes they need to make, especially if there are more than a limited few. Unfortunately, especially for the non-tour player, there are always too many things to think about all at once (essentially) to allow all those things to happen in any given shot. The less accomplished you are as a player the more items there are that need attention, and as we just said you don’t have time to address everything that needs addressing. So you practice and play and try to incorporate new ideas into your swing and your game, but it is a real struggle. Do you try to use the new information when you play on the course or do you reserve that practice for the range and then try to clear your mind when you play?
I could ramble on about this forever (I spend lots of time discussing this with each student, as the application of the knowledge I try to impart is just as important as the knowledge itself), but instead I thought I might list a few things regarding the incorporation of change that I have learned over many years of both playing and teaching.
1. Yes, try to take your lesson out onto the course. If you are in the process of a swing change in order to improve you are going to get where you want to be much faster if you buckle down and try to make correct swings on the course. An empty mind will produce what is familiar and expected, which in your case is not what you want. Change has to be conscious. There may be some suffering involved as you wrestle with exactly how to apply the new information, but you have to keep your chin up and soldier on.
2. Try to boil down what are probably too many thoughts into a usable few. This is a universal effort that all players have to make in order to make a swing change and eventually trust it under pressure. If you have 3 or 4 things you want to do differently in your backswing, practice them as much as you can with the idea in mind that in the end you want to have all the thoughts coalesce into what is suggested by a one-thought trigger that could be an image, or a phrase, that will suggest and include all of the 4 individual things you decided you needed to do to make your backswing more functional.
3. Make your mechanical thoughts motion oriented instead of static or position oriented. It is a good idea to know where you want to be at any point in the swing, but it is imperative that you develop an image and a feel for how you move into and through the positions in a motion. When writing and talking about the swing Hogan spent a lot of time comparing the action of hitting a ball to that of throwing a ball in a “combination underhand and sidearm” motion. There are at least 4 illustrations of sidearm throwing action in “The Five Lessons”, and you can see him emphasize how the lower body leads that action in the short clinic he gives at the end of the Hogan vs. Snead match on Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf.
4. Do your drills, but always try to remember what it is the drill is designed to get you to do and then try to put that into play in full swings. I see too many people become enamored of drill work and spend too little time hitting the shots they are going to face when they play.
5. Do your drills correctly, no matter how long it takes to get it right. If you don’t have your teacher there to make sure you are getting the idea and finding the right form, then be sure to use your camera to check out your progress. There are always multitudes of ways to screw up a drill, and if you practice it with bad form it is not going to help you.
6. Practice on the course. This is easier for some than it is for others, but if you have the chance to get out onto the course by yourself with a few balls and no one behind you to bother you this is by far the best way to incorporate change and get comfortable using new techniques in a playing situation. This is also hugely effective with the short game. If you can get to a green out on the course with no one pushing you and hang out for a while hitting shots (I like to take five balls with me and just keep walking around to different spots) it is very effective practice.
7. Keep track of what you are doing on a daily basis, or however often you get to play or practice. After a while you will have a body of notes to look back on so you can begin to discern patterns in your learning curve. It is not hard to forget some things that seemed promising, especially when life intervenes and you have to take time off from touching the clubs. It is nice to have a few short notes on what you were working on the last time you were out.
8. Keep stats on your rounds. It will help you narrow down your areas of greatest need and thus help focus your practice time where it will be most effective. A good example is my friend Lenny Mattiace, who drove the ball well, hit lots of greens and putted well at Q-School, but found that he was not hitting the ball close enough to the hole to make the amount of birdies needed to qualify. His contact is better, but we need to focus on accuracy. Without some fairly detailed notes this fact might have been easily missed.
9. Hit all your clubs when you practice. I see too many people hit a million 7 irons when they are working on stuff, then call it a day. I recommend doing a short warm up before starting into specific practice just as you would go through your bag to warm up before playing. It might take 10 minutes to hit 5 shots with 4 or 5 different clubs, but when you finish you will have hit your driver a few times and your body will be in full swing mode as you get down to your more specific work, which could be just to continue hitting full shots or to go to assorted drills and mirror work.
10. Don’t be afraid to bring out a camera and a tripod. Nobody is paying any attention to what you are doing (they all have problems of their own) so no need to feel self-conscious about having video equipment. Film a couple of swings after you warm up to see what you are up to that day, then decide what you would like to work on. After another while, when you think you might be improving something or are working on a different idea or feel, film again to see what the idea is producing. This will save you a lot of wasted time on the range, and most normal working people have time issues as it is and can’t afford to be spending it doing things with bad form.
11. Stay engaged: don’t let the difficulty of the game get you down. Each shot on the course is an opportunity to put your ideas together and hit a shot better than you have ever hit one before. The ability to concentrate for 18 holes is a rare one and is usually only found in the best players. Give it a try. Try to execute a good swing on every shot. Never give up. Even if you are playing poorly hang in and keep trying to work within the framework of what you know to come up with a workable set of swing keys that will enable you to hit better shots.
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