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Carol has been playing golf for five years, and still can’t break 100. Golf is not the most important thing in the world to her, what with three kids (two teenage girls and a husband), and a part-time job, but it does mean something, and she definitely would like to play decently. She has seen some of the women who started when she did get better; some, like her, have gotten a little better then leveled off; others have simply given up. Carol doesn’t want to quit; she wants to improve and enjoy the game. She feels as though she should be able to do it, if only she could get some help and get on the right track. She has taken lessons, been to a couple of golf schools, plays with the ladies groups twice a week, and even practices when time permits. The game, however, continues to mystify her, and she is beginning to believe that she simply doesn’t have whatever it is that it takes to be good at golf. She has signed up for a lesson with Wayne somewhat reluctantly, as she has heard that Wayne is a “technical” teacher who promises no quick fixes, a teacher for “serious” players. But Carol has spoken with beginners Wayne has been successful with, and has found out on her own that there really are no quick fixes, (at least none that have worked for her), and that if a “serious” golfer is one who would like to work hard with the idea of learning the right way, she now falls into that category.
Wayne: So, Carol, how’s it going? Tell me a little about the state of your game.
Carol: Well, I’m pretty much at a loss. I’ve been shooting over 100 ever since I started, and I don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel. I can hit the ball pretty straight, but that’s not saying much since it goes basically nowhere even when it feels like I hit it solid. I mean, what’s going on when every club in the bag seems to go the exact same distance? I could play the whole round with a 3-wood, a seven iron, and a putter. I can’t hit a driver, I can’t hit a fairway wood off the ground, forget the long irons, forget any iron if the ball isn’t sitting up just right, and around the green I’m even more inconsistent.
Wayne: O.K. Let’s do this. I want to watch you hit a few balls with a couple different clubs, then I want to ask you some questions so that I can tell just how you’re thinking about what you’re doing. You see, concept in golf is everything. When you step up to hit a golf ball you have certain ideas about what you want to do and how you want to do it. Some of these ideas you have been taught, or have read, or simply have overheard them from another player. Others, your brain has worked out on its own, and you may not even realize you are thinking in any particular fashion. But the fact is that you are doing something, and there is a reason, conscious or unconscious, for just about everything you are doing. Your goal is to hit the ball a certain way, and your brain will instruct your body how to solve the problem of just how to go about doing that as best it can given the information and experience you have accumulated over time. If we can figure out where your information is either lacking or incorrect, then we can give your brain a chance to tell your body the proper way to go about the task. The game is hard enough as it is: if you have the wrong approach in the first place you have little or no chance to make the proper motion and play the game well at all.
Carol: O.K. I’ll hit a few six irons.
Carol’s shots are the usual assortment of mishits one would expect from a player of her level. First, a couple of “fat” shots, where she hits the ground behind the ball before hitting the ball. Then, as the brain instructs the body to avoid the ground, a few “tops”, where she pulls her body and arms up away from the ground and catches the middle of the ball with the leading edge of the club and either rolls it or sends it off on a low line drive (a classic “skull”). Eventually, she gets “under” one, and, picking it off the ground, bloops it out there about 75 yards.
Carol: Well, that was pretty indicative of what I usually do. It could be any one of those shots at any time, and I have no idea why any of them happen.
Wayne: O.K. then, let’s spend a moment on your grip. Tell me what you know about gripping the club.
Carol: I try to get the V’s pointing to my right shoulder, and I try to hold it as lightly as I can.
Wayne: Where did you get the idea that you were supposed to hold it so loosely?
Carol: I don’t know, I guess I’ve always heard that you were supposed to hold it like a bird.
Wayne: Have you ever held a bird?
Carol: No.
Wayne: Well, unless the bird is dead, it probably doesn’t particularly want to be held. So, while you wouldn’t want to crush it, you would probably have to grip it fairly firmly so it wouldn’t fly away. Here, watch me hit this shot. (Wayne drills a hard punch shot and holds his finish). How lightly do you think I could hold the club and still hit the ball that hard?
Carol: Not very lightly.
Wayne: Exactly. There are shots where the club needs to be held gently, around the green for soft pitch shots, for example. But on most full shots the grip needs to be firm enough to strike the ball hard without the club turning in your hands. If your hands are positioned on the club correctly and you are exerting pressure on the club with the correct “pressure points”, you will feel like you have a very firm hold of the club while still being able to feel the weight of the club in your hands. Your wrists will still be flexible, and there will be no unwanted tension in you arms and shoulders. It’s a very secure hold with a lot of feel. I know it sounds contradictory, but that’s what makes mastering the grip so difficult.
Now, you watched me hit that shot, right? You saw that divot I took, right? So tell me, should you take a divot, and if so, where does the divot start?
Carol: I see the pros digging up the ground on T.V., so I guess you’re supposed to hit the ground, but every time I hit the ground it’s a terrible shot. To tell you the truth, I don’t really try to take a divot at all. I just want to get under the ball and get it up in the air.
Wayne: So in your mind, on shots where the ball is on the ground, the club is landing just behind and under the ball and lifting it up. Here, watch me hit another shot. I’m going to mark the edge of the ball closest to the club with two tees, one on each side.
Wayne strikes an iron shot, then directs Carol’s attention back to where the ball was resting. The divot has been taken an inch or so in front of the two tees.
All right, how did that happen?
Carol: (Looking very puzzled); I don’t know. The divot is in front of the ball. How did that happen?
Wayne: Think about it. The ball was back here, and the divot starts up here. So, did I hit the ground first, or the ball first?
Carol: Obviously, you hit the ball first, and then the ground.
Wayne: So which way was the club moving when it hit the ball, up or down?
Carol: Down.
Wayne: And why did the ball go up if I hit down?
Carol: It must have been the loft of the club.
Wayne: (Demonstrating the impact position): And where are my hands at impact?
Carol: They’re in front of the ball, not back like they were at address. I always thought that address and impact were exactly the same position. This is all amazing to me. I’ve never even thought about trying to hit a ball that way.
Wayne: And why do you think the ball goes so far when I hit it?
Carol: I don’t have a clue. Everyone says that if you swing easy, the ball will go far.
Wayne: And does it look like I’m swinging easy?
Carol: I would call it graceful, but not easy. The club is really moving when it strikes the ball.
Wayne: I couldn’t have said it any better. The ball goes far because the clubhead is going very fast when it hits the ball. For a full shot, the hitting attitude is one of extreme aggression. In other words, if you want it to go somewhere , you’d better go ahead and swing at the damn ball. When you hear good players talk about swinging easy, what they’re really saying is swing smoothly, but let ‘er rip through impact. You need to get up and try to knock the hell out of it. Most beginners are way too concerned with making contact at first, then making the ball go in the right direction. What they end up with is a motion that is less of a swing and more of a guide, or a steer. Their subconscious thought is to guide the clubhead to the ball, then steer the ball to the target. We’ll learn how the body moves to get the arms and hands into position to strike the ball hard, and if you make mistakes, we’ll fix them up. But you must address the ball with “evil intent” and make a forceful, aggressive, athletic movement. You’ll find that the harder you are able to hit the ball, the straighter it will go, simply because it takes correct positioning and sequence of motion, in short, a better swing, to make the clubhead move faster through impact while still striking the sweet spot of the clubface.
I’ll also bet that you thought that in order to hit the ball straight the clubhead should swing straight through the ball and follow the target line as long as possible, and that the clubface should stay square for as long possible after it strikes the ball.
Carol: Now that you mention it, that’s exactly what I thought. Is that wrong too?
Wayne: Fortunately, those concepts are most definitely wrong. And the reason I say fortunately is that if you think about it, your poor conceptions regarding the most basic aspects of hitting the ball have been basically incorrect. If you had been using the proper concepts and still were as bad as you have been, you would have good reason to be depressed about your chances of ever being any good. But since you have never given your body a chance to try it the right way, you don’t know just what your potential might be. So instead of being annoyed at spending so much time on the wrong track, you should be excited about finally getting on the right track. I think you will start to make some tremendous progress once we spend some time incorporating your new conceptions into good mechanics and correct feel.
This won’t happen right away. Every shot you’ve ever struck up to this point has been approached with the wrong idea of how to do it. Your brain has just learned a new way to think about it, but your body remembers only the old way. It will take quite a few repetitions to retrain the joints and muscles simply to do some of these things at first, then even more work to eventually be able to trust the motion when you care the most about doing well.
Carol: You know, you’re right. On one hand, I can’t believe that I’ve been so far off base, and that no one has ever told me about any of these things. But on the other hand, it’s like you said, what chance did I have trying to do what I was doing? Now I think I can really get somewhere with this stupid game.
Wayne: You have a good reason to feel that way, and you’ve already made the big first step in the long process.
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