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Bad Golf – a Fact Rather than a Failure

Running your golf brain effectively is not about completely forgetting your bad play – it’s about handling it effectively so you can learn from your mistakes. Remember that playing your best golf is a process and as such it has its ups and downs: when you’re playing good you think you’ll never play badly again and when you’re playing badly you are sure you never play good again – and neither one is true!

Thus while you should give yourself permission to acknowledge bad golf memories you should also make sure that the bad is entered into your memory as a fact rather than a failure. Research shows that the brain has two storage bins or as Daniel Goleman says “the brain has two memory systems, one for ordinary facts (System I) and one for emotionally-charged experiences (System II).”  Thus the rule is what you emotionalize you immortalize. And while a strength/weakness profile is fluid and ever changing, a fully emotionalized failure is an event that is with you forever. The message is clear: be careful what you make immortal!

 

The Storage Bins

What control do you have over the storage of your golf events? It’s all in the label. There are three markers that in combination determine whether an event is a System 1 or System 2: [1] the intensity of the experience [2] the duration -- how long it lasts [3] the number of times you repeat it.

 

Some events even though they occur only once are System 2’s because of their intensity: The Kennedys assassination and 9/11 are two and if you are a golfer it’s hard to forget Tiger Woods winning his first Masters or Jack Nicklaus's last major victory in the 1986 Masters.

 

These neural footprints are made indelible and instantly available for recall because of the heavyweight emotions you have attached to them. 

 How to Use the Marker

 

Use the three markers to flag every good shot: make it intense by getting excited; make it last by replaying it mentally after the shot is completed – run the good-shot tape again as you travel between shots; and rep it by replaying  it again and again after the round.  Do the opposite to mark the bad shot as a fact.

 

 

Putting Technique

Be Wary of the Forward Press

     Every time Phil Michelson plays well on TV my lesson book is filled with students putting poorly. It’s not because Phil can’t putt, it’s because it’s hard to copy his technique i.e. The forward press of the putter where the hands move toward the target to start the putting stroke. Unless you’re an expert, it’s a dangerous move that can lead to bouncing putts and off-line pushes .

      Most putters have a tiny bit of loft—usually 3 or 4 degrees—built into the face of the club. This is designed specifically to make the ball pop into the air for a brief moment at impact, so that it clears the turf and then quickly lands and rolls smoothly toward the hole. If you didn’t have any loft on your putter, you’d pinch the ball into the turf at impact, and the subsequent rebound off the ground is exactly what causes a putted ball to bounce and skip down—and usually off—the target line.

     The problem with forward pressing is that, if done incorrectly [and it’s very easy to screw it up] you’re effectively taking that natural loft off the putter by pressing your hands forward at address and then allowing them to stay forward at impact. Not only will you generally de-loft the putter face at impact, but you probably won’t do it consistently. You may manage to manipulate the putter head into a good position on some of your putts, and then jam the ball into the green on the others. In other words, your putting game will be all over the map, which is probably the worst thing possible for building confidence.

    To make things simple for yourself, I advise you to forget the forward press and focus instead on keeping the cup in your trail wrist as I am doing in the photo. To make a smooth stroke, practice with your lead hand behind you while stroking some 15 footers

  Keep the cup by using a soft rocking motion of your shoulders.

Quiet hands are the key to good putting. The clubhead swings past the handle because it is moving at a different speed due to a heavier head. This happens naturally if you keep the cup and stroke the ball with no manipulation.

And be sure to shield your eyes when you see Phil Michelson putt lest you be tempted to copy what only he can do well.

 

Are You A Good Player or Bad Player?

WHICH ARE YOU?????

You can learn a lot by comparing the same swing position of good and bad players. Below is Ryder Cup player Boo Weekley, one of the better ball strikers on the PGA Tour.  There are several things to note that are instructive.

 

 [1] Because Weekley started his downswing by transferring his weight to his left side, he simply continues the process until the weight is on the outer rim of his front foot toward the heel of his foot.

 

[2] The second thing to note is how fully released his core is – Boo is thick around the middle but still makes sure to keep his mid-section moving freely through the ball. Please remember: The core is the drum major in the weight flow parade.

 

[3] As part of his full body rotation, Weekley keeps his right shoulder chasing his left, assuring that he will not ‘run out of right arm’, an error that our amateur has fallen prey to. When this young player stops his shoulder rotation and simply hits with his arms, the trail arm is also stopped and that causes the club to wrap around the body, per Photo 2.

 

 

 

In addition to the arm wrap this golfer is on his toes, a sign he’s had trouble shifting his weight to his left foot to start the downswing. Weight on the toes triggers the neural program for jumping and to prevent falling over he will snap his spine upright – he’s now wrapped tight.

 

Note also how his chest, pelvis and shoulders appear frozen- the only body part he used to hit the ball was his arms and that’s not good enough when you play in the Honda pro-am at the very difficult Champions course at PGA National. 

A few years ago scientists discovered the mimic gene -- it controls our ability to learn by copying using a major tool i.e. the visual system. The morale: be careful who you watch.

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FEEL THE HEEL

 

A good golf grip activates the muscles you want to use in the golf swing while an incorrect grip encourages use of the wrong muscles.

 

By placing the grip under the heel pad, you free your wrists to hinge properly throughout the golf swing. To encourage the correct thumb length, take your grip with your arms fully extended in front of your chest and close your left hand [opposite for lefties] around the club handle. You should find that your left thumb falls slightly to the right of the top of the handle.  This places your wrist square to the clubface, which is important because when centrifugal force straightens your arms through impact, your wrist joint, elbow joint, and shoulder joint seek alignment.  Therefore the clubface must be set at address to prepare for the inevitable alignment of those joints.  (Note: Ignore the markings on the grip - they are not meant as guides for your hands).  

 Your target thumb [the thumb of the highest hand on your grip] plays a major role in the rotation of the clubface through impact. In addition to its anchoring capabilities, the position of your top thumb on the club handle determines the direction in which force is applied to the shaft during your release and therefore how much the face of your clubface will rotate through the impact. When your thumb is on the top of the shaft at address, the pressure exerts down the middle of the club shaft reducing clubface rotation through impact -- and unless there is compensation, you'll hit a fade or a slice. With your target thumb down the back of the shaft the direction of the force causes your clubface to rotate aggressively through impact imparting the characteristic spin of the draw shot.

         I use the medium thumb because it best fits the swing length I want.

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WEEK SEVEN

Below is the seventh week of your ‘When to do What” improvement calendar. You should spend this week thinking about your past golf shots – not simple reminiscing but something far more powerful – creating a bin of best shots that you’ll use to improve every swing you make in the future.

Greg Norman describes his Catalogue of Best Shots: "You want to file the good ones away for future reference. That way you'll be able to bring them back as part of another reinforcement technique--visualization. You envision the ideal shot, in detail. Then you recall successful similar shots from your past and draw confidence from those earlier successes. I can think of favorite shots for every situation I face and I call them forth each time I play."

You should compile a Catalogue of the Best Shots you have ever hit, just as Norman does.  Write down one for each club -- the best driver, the best wedge, where, when, how did it feel?   Further enhance your catalogue by listing best shots in challenging situations -- in a tight match, against a heavy cross-wind, over trees...  Then when your plan calls for a high five-iron, you can mentally reference your Catalogue of Best Shots and relive it as you retrace it. Science tells us that the central nervous system can’t tell the difference between a perfectly imagined/recalled experience and a real one so if you learn to recall the image of the most perfect five iron you ever hit with full imagery and then, with the feeling fresh in your imagination, let your body execute the current five iron free of any verbal conversation or instructions.

Vivid imagery is a skill a player can learn and I will cover this as part of next week’s colander.  In this regard choose your representatives carefully.  The most effective images are multi-sensorial -- shots that make you recall the rhythm of the swing, the sound of contact, the sight of the ball in flight, or any other feature that’s makes the memory vivid.  Whenever you play, be on the lookout for better shots with sharper images that are better than those currently in your catalogue.  Replay your best shots in your mind until you burn them into your memory.

  When your catalogue is complete, and your recollection vivid, you’ll have a brain stocked with the images necessary for you to play your best golf.  All you have to do is step out of the way.

Best drive

Best putt

Best sand shot

Best trouble shot

Best long iron

Best middle iron

Best short iron

Best chip

Best pitch

And so on

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Unfolding Process

Week 6:

 

    In a game where score is a benchmark of success it’s surprising how many golfers believe that their score is in direct relation to how well they swing the club; good swing = good score; bad swing = bad score. This concept excludes the idea of scoring well when you are swinging poorly, a must skill in a game where the best ball sticker ever, Ben Hogan said he expected to make only six good shots a round. Of course Hogan’s concept of good was a bit different than everyone else but none-the-less the point stands – the swing ain’t the only thing!

    This week cultivate the concept of golf as an unfolding process: As you progress from the tee, where by rule, all positions are equal, you either increase or decrease your positional advantage until you hole out -- the ultimate positional advantage.  This is the same process for every hole you play and to maximize your performance you need to develop a plan that maneuvers the ball to favorable positions just as the good billiard player controls the cue ball to run the table.  Thus the strategy for scoring golf is POSITION and those who consistently gain positional advantage consistently score well.

    POSITIONAL ADVANTAGE

    Like your swing concept, your golf game will never be any better than your concept of what a good golf game should be. If your concept of the game is hitting pretty shots, having fun or hitting it farther than the next player then you will focus all your energies toward your goal and scoring will become an afterthought.

    You may not even be aware that you're doing this and if somebody asked you, you'd say that score is most important, but subconsciously your priorities drive your behavior.  Scorers prioritize for low scores and use the swing as a vehicle.  How the shot effects their position is the important factor for scoring.  This way they keep a clear mind that can focus on their most important goal -- scoring.

 

If you can get on the golf course this week focus on the process of your play rather than your swing. If you’re snowed in watch one of the many tournaments on TV, pick a player and after you’ve watched them play, track them on PGAtour.com where their round is outlined shot by shot. You’re not looking at their swings but how they position the ball around the course.

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