What do I do now?

[LowPost42]

I find myself in an interesting place.

I've made a few realisations lately and don't quite know what to do with it or where to go with it, but I thought I'd share here.

I'm certain that, coupled with good fundamentals and efficient practice of those fundamentals, that golf is a brain game.

I draw a lot on my experience with basketball (20 years or so as player, coach and referee) and can see a lot of parallels. Good fundamentals drilled properly allow a player to rely on athleticism to perform.

I've often heard that you can't hit a shot thinking mechanically. It certainly applies to basketball. Any time I'm thinking about what my body is doing, I can't hit a shot. The minute I focus on the target (back of the rim or corner of the backboard) shots start falling or coming close. I've found that even while shooting, I'll find that upon releasing the shot, I'll have a feel for its 'makeability' - which fingers were involved in the release - and be able to subsequently call make or miss (granted, lots of times I call out and it goes - just another vouch for the ability of the subconcious to make shots for me).

I find the same thing in my golf swing. I'll make a swing, and upon completion, I'll be aware of things that were 'off' in my swing. Now, I find that as long as I get my arms into position and make sure I turn all the way through, there's nothing to think about. But fat one, and I'll immediately feel that I either 'held back' and didn't transfer my weight, or stopped turning; and I'll be conciously aware of it.

Now, I've had long stretches of ball where I just 'target focus and shoot', and short stretches of golf where I just 'target focus and swing'. In basketball, some of my best stat days (triple doubles [pts, rebs, blks], and plenty of double doubles [pts, rebs]) came when I was ball focused on D and hoop focused when shooting on O.

I've even got a couple golf memories where I was completely target absorbed (eagle from 145 out, 12" and 10" to the pin on two different par 3's) and simply swung the club. Each of the above instances the ball flight is NOT what I had envisioned (interestingly, the first two were pull-slices and the second was a half-thinned screamer), but still ended up near the target. I wasn't trying to do anything in the swing, just trusting myself to turn back and turn through.

Part of this has been sparked by an article on the Tour website talking about how the 'off season' is coming for most and how a game breakdown and re-evaluation is in order. The first part of the recommendation was things like 'putting, short game, short irons, mid irons, long irons, fairways, driver.' Then it suggested going even deeper like '3 footers, uphill, downhill, left to right, right to left, double breakers'... and even into the swing for things like 'setup, takeaway, halfway back, top of the swing, transition, downswing, impact, throughswing, finish'...

Quite a statement on how the golf swing is taught. When I first started golfing, I assume I was very baseballish in my approach. I remember being told that I was too bent over (and I was - but I was trying to get my arms off my gut), and I had a gigantic hip slide and hit with my arms and hands a lot. I wasted quite a bit of time trying to figure stuff out on my own. I bounced around from theory to theory and got caught up in the little detail things in the swing - things I can look back at and realise that they're either a) inconsequential, b) largely uncontrollable, or c) taken care of automatically if other things are performed correctly (good fundamentals).

It has occured to me that solid fundamentals remove the need for swing thoughts. It removes the need for being an 'active participant' in the golf swing. A good setup position and fundamentally sound movements in the swing allow for things like a brainless/golfer 2 swing to work.

I've learned that a second set of eyes is most helpful in pointing out little things. I had no idea I was a 'reacher' until it was pointed out to me. It could very well be that it has been pointed out to me before, but inconsistent ball striking will help you listen to advice

I'm certain that this reaching (in order to circumvent my gut) caused some problems, especially when coupled with standing too upright. So moving to truly relaxed and hanging arms (tension free) have made a huge difference in the passive arms area - now that they're in a fundamentally sound position.

I'm sure this is starting to get closer to a ramble. It seems to me that overthinking the swing is necessary if your swing is complicated. If you're out of position early and often. If your fundamentals are poor. I'm not saying I've got it all figured out and I'm going to shoot 72 tomorrow (as a 23 handicap). Rather, as a 23, it seems to me that solid fundamentals coupled with a strong target focus may be a good way to play. This is my intended direction. The quandary that follows is the conversation I had with myself the other night. I had time to get out for 4 or 5 holes, to go and work on my fundamentals (proper setup, turn back, set arms, turn all the way through). Then it occured to me to work on this, perhaps a range trip would be better. Then it occured to me that since I really only needed to ensure my setup was good, and that I turned all the way through, perhaps I simply needed to spend some time going through those motions at home. Then it occured to me that while that's a good idea, perhaps seeing the resultant ball flight may be good. Then I waffled between trying to simplify the practice (work on the body movement) or hitting balls to a target (as at the range I would also be working on my PSR and being target oriented). Ultimately, I came to no decision. Drawing on my basketball experience, hammering balls focused on proper body motion is akin to shooting a ball at a wall focusing on your motion. Perhaps I need to augment this idea - hit 15 balls focused on my motion, take a small break, then hit 5 balls focused on my target and trusting my motion. Rinse and repeat. I'm all ears as to an efficient way to get a body motion trusted.

The other issue is that I've gotten quite used to 'nit picking' my swing - but I think I'll be leaving it alone for a while and do more along the lines of monitoring my fundamentals. So what do I focus on now?

Now, I know I'm going to take a little heat for posting this message and then struggling to implement. But it's easy to make some realisations - it's that implementation that's a little tougher.

[Martin Levac]

Re: What do I do now?

The motor cortex works best when the ego doesn't interfere. The ego, the conscious self, works best when it deals with purpose and goals.

When we learn something new, we teach the motor cortex to execute it by first executing the movement slowly and by repeating it several times. This is the learning period and the ego does interfere with the motor cortex in order to teach it what to do and how to do it. But when it's time to execute the movement at full speed, the ego must not interfere with the motor cortex otherwise it will slow it down or worse, introduce mistakes in the execution. Ever hear of the expression "it's become second nature to me"? This expression implies that no thought goes in the execution of the deed because it has been learned and practiced to perfection. Well perhaps one thought "do" or a more complex thought "do this" or an even more complex thought "do this like that".

You see, the ego requires validation before it can continue to its next thought in the chain. The motor cortex doesn't need validation for every little detail, it simply executes. It is for this reason that the ego works best when it deals with purpose and goals. It sets a goal, tells the motor cortex to execute, waits for it to finish, observes the result and validates. If we had to do that for every single motion we execute during the swing, we'd have a hard time finishing it in time for dinner. Not only that, we'd surely introduce errors in its execution because of the inherent doubtful nature of the ego.

Good teachers know about all this and don't bother the student with deep analysis. Not at first anyway. Instead, they know what to say to produce the intended result without having told the student how it works.

The motor cortex needs to know how it works before it can execute it. But it doesn't need it explained every single time. Once is enough. It doesn't have to learn it explicitly and verbally in every detail, it can learn how it works simply by executing it. It can handle it. Alternatively, the eyes are the most effective path to the motor cortex. Monkey see, monkey do.

[ubizmo]

Re: What do I do now?

As a friendly terminological assist, "Id" is a Freudian term for the unconscious mind, repository of repressed sexual desires and the like. I suppose Freud would agree that you should keep your Id out of your golf swing, since if you don't you might get arrested.

[Martin Levac]

Re: What do I do now?

Thanks for the correction, I'll edit my text so it's clear what I mean.

[BrianW]

Re: What do I do now?

As a friendly terminological assist, "Id" is a Freudian term for the unconscious mind, repository of repressed sexual desires and the like. I suppose Freud would agree that you should keep your Id out of your golf swing, since if you don't you might get arrested.

But then again, Freud never hit 5 shanks in a row, did he?

[LowPost42]

Re: What do I do now?

But then again, Freud never hit 5 shanks in a row, did he?

My PB for S in a row is 3 while playing, 3 while practicing full shots, 8 while practicing half shots, and 12 while practicing chipping.

[BrianW]

Re: What do I do now?

I think if most of us stood on the edge of a green with a ball in our hand then tossed it at the hole we would be pretty good at getting it close. When we have a stick thing with a lumpy bit on the end and have to bash it to the hole it gets a whole lot more difficult, probably because the stick thing is not part of our anatomical make up and more difficult for our motor cortex to make offset calculations for.

Now lets consider the stick thing was a tennis racquet and we wanted to hit a ball moving towards us to a particular sector of a tennis court, how would we go about that. We would probably not start considering how we rotated our hips, or shoulders, or elbows, or wrists. We would consider the path the racquet took to the ball, the speed that we moved the racquet and how we needed to rotate the face to achieve the required shot. We would also have set a spatially aware image of the target in our mind.

The norm in golf would be to concentrate on how we stand, grip the club, align ourselves, make many complex and inter-related body movements that progress us towards swinging the stick at and through the ball.

Maybe we could learn something from other ball games and release ourselves from our golfing straight jackets

[oldwease]

Re: What do I do now?

Excellent post - sums up the torment that most golfers go through in this game.

I think you're right when you say that everything starts and ends with good fundamentals. I always think of my own experience in the music world. You learnt to play instruments to a high standard by endless repetition - to the extent that scales, etc, become totally automatic. At first, your brain thinks 'what comes next, where should my fingers be?' then, one magic day, you just walk up to play the instrument and those scales are so fast and fluid your brain actually moves on elsewhere. That's the 'eureka moment', the point at which you realise all that practice has paid off and you can be quite good at this. (You also find, incidentally, that if you let the conscious brain 'reimpose itself' when playing those fluid passages, your accuracy and fluidity break down.)

It's the same with golf, as far as I'm concerned. The problem is, though, that in golf there's more than one way to do things hence the endless temptation to meddle with what you have. Looking back, that's been my biggest error over the years. Even if I've been hitting the ball great, I'm still a sucker for thinking 'if I change this, I may get a bit more.....'. What I should be doing is focusing on the scoring side solely, course management and so on.

For the past couple of years, I've really not looked at all of these 'new magic move' articles in magazines and elsewhere. Who cares what Tiger's great secret is? Good for him - it surely doesn't apply to me and my game. So, I now just stick to my game and the key points that I have in relation to that. Sure helps....

[Neil18]

Re: What do I do now?

Hi all,

Two things stick out at me from this thread so far:

1) Lowpost is absolutely correct when he says that golf is a brain game. He's in a good place at the moment (although somewhat confusing at times!).

Although good fundamentals are, well, good, that alone does not allow a free flowing, effortless but powerful swing to happen.

Good fundamentals (please let's not start another debate on what fundamentals are) are only useful when coupled with a correct mental image of the swing.

By this I mean, for example, that one can swing the club in a horrible way easily when it's built upon poor fundamentals. One can then change posture grip and alignment but still swing the club in a poor manner.

Good fundamentals don't mean anything if a body engages the wrong muscles/motion at the wrong time. Then it doesn't matter how you stand.

2) Something BrianW wrote in his post set off an alarm bell in my head. Something about tossing ball to a hole on a green accurately, then making the task difficult by placing a club in ones hand. He said that:

"........the stick thing is not part of our anatomical make up and more difficult for our motor cortex to make offset calculations for".

True.

This is why taking a proper grip is so important. A proper grip should feel as though you've only got one hand on the club, and that the club simply becomes an extension of the left arm.

When gripped correctly, the club feels like part of you and is instantly more controllable "feelable" as a result.

The grip, for me, is the biggest fundamental people get wrong. It's the most important fundamental. It dictates how the body swings the club to get the face square at impact. To illustrate my point above, one can change the grip to a good one, but the body can still try to swing the club the "old" way because that's what it's used to, and that's what we see in our minds eye. That's why when we go to have a lesson, a pro may change a fundamental from poor to good, but then we proceed to get worse because our body is trying to swing the club in a manner that doesn't match the fundamental. We quickly slip back to our old routines.

In summary, a changed fundamental will point the body in the right direction, but if the brain tries to move the old way, the changed fundamental is made redundant. The mental picture of the swing must also change to make best use of the fundamentals employed.

1) Get the grip right.

2) Get the mental imagery of the swing right.

Lowpost, in terms of making sure your fundamentals are correct at practice, then forgetting them and playing to a target, you are spot on. Even with flawed motion, thinking of your target will greatly increase your chances of hitting it. It won't happen every time, but it will happen more often than thinking about your left arm, right foot, or what's for dinner.

As creatures of habit, we must practice hitting to a target, as well as all the necessary moves to allow us to hit to a target. Two separate things to practice there, but neither should be neglected.