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Warning: Deeper Thoughts On Higher Handicappers
1. Thought: Free your mind from being consistent.
Here's an abstract:
Percept Mot Skills. 2005 Oct;101(2):365-72.
An analysis of players' consistency among professional golfers: a longitudinal study.
This study followed the performance of individual professional golfers who played from 1997 to 2000 on the Professional Golfers Association Tour (PGA Tour, N=35), ...evidence suggests that variability in player performance is more the rule than the exception for players on the three American professional tours.
So what does this say? It says even the pros have variations.
Since so much of the game is "lucky bounces, unlucky bounces, unfortunate or fortunate days" hoping for a truly consistent game is not realistic.
2. How to break 100
Dave Pelz Putting Bible and Short Game Bible describes where the most strokes are taken, it 100 yards and under. So focus here.
3. I've given up the scoring game
If you are going to ignore your short game, you probably are going to go backwards on your ability to lower your scores.
4. The Power Swing
What is the power swing? This is the full swing off the tee or outside 100 yards to the green. I am a video tape junky. Now, I have always tried to put a little effort into the power swing, but my power swing when I started, would make grown men cry. To make myself feel better, I would video tape my friends (90-120 range), and even the better of them would have serious swing problems. Even the ones with coaches.
5. Why Are My Friend's Powerswings Not All That Good?
I believe that there has been way too little looking at the "average" golfer and their problems. Since I have a sample size of 10 friends on video tape, I am seeing two possible segments:
a. Friends that have a good powerswing but a really bad short game. (1 friend).
b. Friends with a poor powerswing, and a mediocre short game. (9 friends).
6. What is a poor Power Swing?
If you have never read "Extraordinary Golf," you are missing one of the most important golf book to ever come out for describing the habits of poor golfers.
To distill Shoemaker down into words that I believe are better than his own. There are two types of swings:
a. The throwing swing--pretend that you are throwing the club down the fairway. This is the swing all good professional use.
b. The hitting swing--what we do when we have a golf ball in front of us and we try to hit it. This swing is death and is the bain of us high handicap golfers.
To prove this Shoemaker shows pictures of high handicap golfers hitting a ball, then throwing the club down the fairway. Guess what, horrible swings go to beautiful swings when you are throwing the club!
I went down to the local liquidator, bought 10 clubs, went to the local soccer field and video taped myself throwing a club. Bingo. My swing is brilliant. However, as with most of Shoemaker’s students, put the ball on the ground, and the problems all come back.
It is the act of hitting that causes so many problems. The secret is that some of us are genetically wired to use a throwing swing and some a hitting swing. You need to find out where you fit. You need video tape to do this. I would suggest that you tape your swing. Tape the act of throwing a club. Compare.
So what is the problem with a "hitting swing?" The problem is inconsistent contact. The beautiful thing about a throwing swing is that it is a shallow arc (at the bottom of the swing) so your chunks and your thinned shots go down tremendously.
7. How To Program The Mind
VS Ramachandran is a world famous neurologist. In Phantoms in the Brain, he describes that the best athletes must allow themselves to unplug the conscious and allow the subconscious to take over. We call this "muscle memory" in golf, but it is really brain memory. He has shown that visual simulation is very important for this task. Therfore, just the act of watching good swings compared with your own may be helpful. Another reason to get Cswing software and/or V1 Home.
1. Thought: Free your mind from being consistent.
Here's an abstract:
Percept Mot Skills. 2005 Oct;101(2):365-72.
An analysis of players' consistency among professional golfers: a longitudinal study.
This study followed the performance of individual professional golfers who played from 1997 to 2000 on the Professional Golfers Association Tour (PGA Tour, N=35), ...evidence suggests that variability in player performance is more the rule than the exception for players on the three American professional tours.
So what does this say? It says even the pros have variations.
Since so much of the game is "lucky bounces, unlucky bounces, unfortunate or fortunate days" hoping for a truly consistent game is not realistic.
2. How to break 100
Dave Pelz Putting Bible and Short Game Bible describes where the most strokes are taken, it 100 yards and under. So focus here.
3. I've given up the scoring game
If you are going to ignore your short game, you probably are going to go backwards on your ability to lower your scores.
4. The Power Swing
What is the power swing? This is the full swing off the tee or outside 100 yards to the green. I am a video tape junky. Now, I have always tried to put a little effort into the power swing, but my power swing when I started, would make grown men cry. To make myself feel better, I would video tape my friends (90-120 range), and even the better of them would have serious swing problems. Even the ones with coaches.
5. Why Are My Friend's Powerswings Not All That Good?
I believe that there has been way too little looking at the "average" golfer and their problems. Since I have a sample size of 10 friends on video tape, I am seeing two possible segments:
a. Friends that have a good powerswing but a really bad short game. (1 friend).
b. Friends with a poor powerswing, and a mediocre short game. (9 friends).
6. What is a poor Power Swing?
If you have never read "Extraordinary Golf," you are missing one of the most important golf book to ever come out for describing the habits of poor golfers.
To distill Shoemaker down into words that I believe are better than his own. There are two types of swings:
a. The throwing swing--pretend that you are throwing the club down the fairway. This is the swing all good professional use.
b. The hitting swing--what we do when we have a golf ball in front of us and we try to hit it. This swing is death and is the bain of us high handicap golfers.
To prove this Shoemaker shows pictures of high handicap golfers hitting a ball, then throwing the club down the fairway. Guess what, horrible swings go to beautiful swings when you are throwing the club!
I went down to the local liquidator, bought 10 clubs, went to the local soccer field and video taped myself throwing a club. Bingo. My swing is brilliant. However, as with most of Shoemaker’s students, put the ball on the ground, and the problems all come back.
It is the act of hitting that causes so many problems. The secret is that some of us are genetically wired to use a throwing swing and some a hitting swing. You need to find out where you fit. You need video tape to do this. I would suggest that you tape your swing. Tape the act of throwing a club. Compare.
So what is the problem with a "hitting swing?" The problem is inconsistent contact. The beautiful thing about a throwing swing is that it is a shallow arc (at the bottom of the swing) so your chunks and your thinned shots go down tremendously.
7. How To Program The Mind
VS Ramachandran is a world famous neurologist. In Phantoms in the Brain, he describes that the best athletes must allow themselves to unplug the conscious and allow the subconscious to take over. We call this "muscle memory" in golf, but it is really brain memory. He has shown that visual simulation is very important for this task. Therfore, just the act of watching good swings compared with your own may be helpful. Another reason to get Cswing software and/or V1 Home.
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