More on losing your game!

Stress, Geometry, Chaos Theory

I proposed last week that there is a scientific explanation for the mysterious disappearance that you experience when – for no apparent reason – you lose your game.

Golf Geometry

The disintegration process involves tiny micro-changes that at some point sum up to ruin your swing. This process centers around the original conditions that exist before each swing such as the aim of the clubface and alignment of your body. Based on the laws of motion when the clubface is perpendicular to the path of the club at impact [given center contact] the ball will leave the face with only backspin i.e. a straight shot. And of course if you are going to hit it straight you must aim it straight. But if there is a small difference between face and path the ball will curve off line, too often finding an unhappy resting place. It doesn’t feel any different but at 200 meters a ball with a titled axis of a mere 10 degrees ends up 14m [15.3 yards] off line.

Golf Chaos

Thus mistakes at impact arise from small mistakes at the top of the swing which in turn come from even smaller mistakes at address. As in chaos theory where a butterfly flapping its wings causes a hurricane, tiny flutters at address lead to a game that slowly slips away. Golf whatever else it is, is a game of precise geometry where the initial conditions although small in increment, are very large when you total up your score for the hole - the round – the year – and in the long run, over your golf career

Golf Stress

But there are other tiny flutters that can ruin your swing and strangely enough, they come from your stomach. Research by Professor Mark Lyte and associates at Texas Tech University support the notion that controlling your body’s response to stress is influenced by the correct mix of bacteria in your stomach and intestines – bugs in your stomach cause bugs in your swing. Of course it is no big news that many of the mistakes you make in golf are stress-related and it is these mistakes that throw your ‘first brain’ out of sync. But did you know that you have a ‘second brain’ composed of 100 million neurons embedded in the walls of the long digestion tube known as the gut? These two brains are connected by a direct pathway --a crowded highway crammed with messages. Thus what is happening in your digestive track affects your perception of your world and vice versa.

Byron Nelson threw up before every round and it drove him from the game at the early age of 34. NBA great Bill Russell threw up before games as did NHL goalie Glenn Hall. Stress rules us all and its not always throwing up -- Tiger Woods even when he was in top form often hit terrible shots of the first tee due to ‘nerves’ – and he was the best player in the world.

Conclusion

In golf, small can be very big. When you are playing poorly you may be only one tip away from getting it back again and when you’re playing well it can slip away due to micro changes that you are not even aware of. Stress, geometry, chaos theory – no wonder golf is a mysterious game of a lifetime.

WHERE DID YOUR GAME GO?????

A Mysterious Disappearance

I contend there is a scientific explanation for the mysterious disappearance of performance that golfers experience when – for no apparent reason – they lose their game. The disintegration process involves tiny micro-changes that at some point sum up to ruin your swing.

Small increments that destroy us are well known. Before it was outlawed in England there was a penalty called "pressing" that was carried out by piling small stones, one at a time, on the victim’s chest until s/he was crushed to death. Brutal yes but had you stumbled on a ‘pressing’ you could have figured out quickly the ultimate result. But  stumble on the beginnings of a hurricane and you would not know it because the causes of a hurricane in no way resemble the final effect i.e. small, micro flutters in the atmosphere in South America producing 100 mph winds in Miami. And here-in lays the reason why it is so difficult to predict a hurricane more than two weeks out -- because the cause [the initial system condition] doesn’t look much like the end result.  

And as difficult as it is to predict hurricanes it is even more difficult to predict when your golf game is going south. Suppose your game was like a hurricane where the destructive force began with small flutters. You pay no real attention to these harbingers even though some are things you have been told many times. Still you ignore them because they are not directly related to ‘the Big Dog’ -- your golf swing. Proper breathing, slowing everything you do under pressure, focusing on the target, and things like a correct pre-game practice session are mere pre-swing flutters that most golfers give only lip service. And what of aim? Another lip service item -- 95% of golfers screw up aim -- the same with ball position, weight distribution, and shoulder alignment.  If you are like most golfers The Swing is the Thing – just get up there any old way and hit it – but you’d better hurry just a bit more than usual because there is a hurricane coming.

More next week on the flutters that precede the storm including one you probably don’t know about because it comes directly from your gut rather than your brain.

IS IT TOO MUCH

Hogan Rolls Over in His Grave

“All I did is get on each tee and wait until (Edmondson – his caddy) told me what to do,” said PGA TOUR player Ryan Palmer. “He told me what side of the tee box to get on, and what side he wanted me to be on, what target he wanted me to hit, and it was my job to hit the shot.”

Palmer played well at the Byron Nelson Championship using this approach losing in a playoff but in my opinion being so other-directed is not good in golf.

Takeaway: Self-reliance is a mindset and under pressure you gather information rather than ask for advice.

Jack Burke Jr. –

“A lot of the kids on the tour nowadays hire instructors, so they aren't really thinking for themselves about their technique and how to improve.  They don't trust themselves and when things start going badly, they have nowhere to turn.  In the middle of a round, they can't call their coach to come over and give them a tip.

But they can ask their caddy

Fitness and It's Effects

On the Other Side of Fitness

It seems puzzling that Johnny Miller who won the US Open in 1973 beat everyone including Jack Nicklaus for three years and then disappeared. David Duvall rose to number one then poof, he was gone. Sergio Garcia was a wonder kin but now shows only flashes of his former brilliance. Ernie Els and Phil Mickelson fought for second best for years but now are random performers given their prodigious talent. And of course Tiger dominated for nine years and now he’s abdicated his place at the top.

What is the connecting thread here? Each of these players changed their body drastically – some through injury, and some through intent in the mistaken view that they were providing themselves with an upgrade.

 Changed Body = Changed Game

Els injured his knee, put on weight and lost his touch; Mickelson contracted psoriatic arthritis which can affect your sense of how your body is arranged in space while Garcia, Duval and Miller worked out hard and changed their body distribution of balance – Duval went from schmoo to svelte and lost his feel. And Woods of course changed his body with an intense body building routine that made him look buff at the beach but buff is only good at an ‘after-majors-win’ party. In a counter-intuitive slam life often tosses out, Tigers new upper body strength tore up his knee. And in this ‘muscle is good’ world the Kenny Perry story is not unique. He dropped forty pounds and put on some muscle looking for an upgrade to first class -- instead he lost his game – and he admits it!

"I hired a personal trainer. I actually did last year go from 235 to 199 in weight.  I was working out diligently six days week.  Went to a nutritionist and really watched my diet.  I actually played worse…I was lifting heavy bulk weight and getter heavy.  I should have been working on lengthening my muscles, getting longer, looser, more flexible."

This first-class-to-coach downgrade Perry suffered seems to defy a common sense that says working out is good and all things being equal ‘strongest machine wins” until you revisit the old, but very true adage, ‘if it aint’ broke don’t fix it.” You design your work out/diet to keep what you have once you have it.

Gary Player, the father of the fitness in golf revolution, stayed in shape to keep what he already had. His goal was longevity. Most have to work to keep it while some like Sam Snead were naturally fit for golf. Snead’s famous comment on working out was “I never lifted anything heavier than a petticoat” but he could still kick the top of a door frame with his foot at 70 years old. Tom Weiskopf at 6’3” 190 pounds admitted he couldn’t bench 100 lbs. yet he was one of golf’s longest hitters in the day of mega-long Jack Nicklaus. And the longevity of ‘paunchy’ Ray Floyd as the press called him [even in his 20ties] is the gold standard – from 1961 to 1992 [31 years.] Paunchy Ray won 22 tournaments with his final win in 1992 at the age of 49. He also won on the Senior Tour later that season to become the first player to win on both tours in the same year.

The Takeaway: There are three things your work out should provide 1] you feel better 2] you look better 3] you play better and if you’re a golfer don’t leave out #3.

Next: what actually happens when you change your body.