Review: Jim Waldron Mental Game

[CasualLie]

Pardon the long review, sometimes I get carried away ;)

 

# The hook...

 

Let me start this review showing a video of something unthinkable for me.

 

http://youtu.be/V3Q9SbQHPb4

 

 

Looks like just a typical 8 iron chip. 5 paces on to the green, ~32 paces to the hole, chip down a small hill, green runs up, little left to right. Hit it to about 2-3 feet; not bad, easy putt to close it off. Now here's why this is so significant for me. **1**. I never chip with an 8 iron when playing, no confidence. I've hardly practiced it, not comfortable with it. And in those rare times I try to chip with an iron, I'm choosing 1 of 4/5 techniques I've tried over the years or read about. It's just not my shot. **2**. I literally hit that shot in the video today with my eyes closed.

 

Three weeks ago I spent two days with Jim and one of the "exercises" while working on narrow focus, was to hit a low, short sort of punch shot trying to land the ball on a headcover about 25-30 yards in front. I was just hitting these little shots working on passive thought, focused, but just observing a body part. After 7-8 of these shots, none of them hitting the headcover, close, but that really wasn't the point, Jim says to try it with my eyes closed. I laughed as I thought no way I'll even make contact with the ball. But I stopped laughing, setup, went to my focal, closed my eyes, swing and bam - crisp contact and landed the ball dead center on the headcover. I was shocked.

 

## My swing...

 

Like some others I see in threads, years ago I had my index steadily at 6, was even as low as a 4 for awhile. And then I discovered swing ideas on the internet. First it started with my being convinced it was short game that held me back and I started tinkering with wedge setup, different techniques, and a lot of changing. Then seemingly out of nowhere a two way miss with Driver...more tinkering, more searching, and changing drivers often. It got so bad I played 6 tournaments just teeing off with 3 iron. For years the index steadily got worse. From 6 to 10, then higher, and it was miserable.

 

Then I discovered cargo shorts, really liked the videos and went to see Monte. You can read my reviews working with Monte. It made a huge difference, Driver fixed, wedges fixed, the swing so much more fundamentally sound. But no fault of Monte's, I didn't know how to properly practice, didn't know how to take it to the course. My swing got better, but my scores got worse because mentally I was just a mess. I was way over analyzing on the course and trying to direct body movements.

 

## The Meltdown and Why Jim...

 

I like to play in a lot of tournaments, and I like to play money games with friends with all kinds of bets on everything but total strokes. The two don't go together. The money games hide my weaknesses as I'm a streaky player. In August I played in a group outing, 16 players, six rounds in four days. I finished next to last in total points and near the bottom in every round. I couldn't possibly play worse. I was in near constant search mode, trying to steer every shot, and only when I was so many shots over par that I didn't care would I get on a 4 or 5 hole streak and shoot 1 or 2 under. I even went to one course early to play the back 9 as a warm up, shot 2 over, did some chipping, hit 10 3 woods on the range to rehearse the opening tee shot then promptly put the tee shot on #1 OB. No matter what I tried to get in a groove, it wouldn't work. I couldn't start a round like I didn't care and hit relaxed shots, but get to 12 over and no problem, birdie. The whole trip the most common scenario, hit a 3W OB on one hole, then next hole stripe the 3W 250+ dead center and think "WTF...how can the results be so different! Same shot...same guy!"

 

While I enjoyed the people, the cocktails, and dinners, the golf was just miserable and I decided to pack it in for the rest of the year, no more tournaments. Even though I was 2nd place in points for the season I had no confidence I could track down the leader, no confidence in my game at all. After decompressing a few days, I gave Jim a call. I decided that I would give this one more go, work solely on the mental game, practice better, and then see what happens next year.

 

## Starting with Jim

 

Working with Jim starts with a phone call/interview and Jim is quite generous with his time. After a lengthy call, I decided to go with 2 days of 1 on 1 time and they focus would be the mental game, and perhaps some swing mechanics and short game. Based on our schedules, I had to wait about 6 weeks. So what to do in the meantime? I played in my a few money game, played better, but Jim just recommended stretching and hip exercises, not much else. And that’s about all I did. Hardly played any golf, traveled, did about 30 total minutes of hip exercises...haha!...I actually played more relaxed golf as I just did not care and really couldn’t get worse. Oh, and Jim emails a PDF, about 50 pages, as an introduction to the school, what to expect, some swing theory, and how to ready yourself.

 

The things I think I know going into this: I am so obsessed over this arm swing illusion, and tilt switch, that I am thinking I am probably doing it wrong. What I am really after is how do I know what this meta-awareness is? How can I play golf more sub-consciously?

 

## Two days with Jim

 

Jim teaches at this nice course about 30 minutes drive south of Portland, OR. Truth be told, it is a bit of a pain to get there, but not that bad. So I flew in the night before, and sure enough...being Oregon, it rained. And sure enough, delayed flight with United, so I found myself late at night scraping by for food, staying in the tick-tick in across the street from Hillsboro OR (note to self, fly private next time...it’s closer...kidding). Next day, drove 15 minutes to the course, Starbucks in hand, ready to go.

 

So here was the funny part, reassuring, but unexpected. After helping Jim setup with range balls, chairs, table, umbrella, etc...Jim asks me to take a few practice swings. And the first thing he says “that’s not a swing of a 12 handicap! That looks more like a 4...a few minor flaws, they can be fixed, but very good. Tell Monte he’s done some great work.” And I am like “...uh...thanks, Monte says that too, but here I am.” And Jim figures right there on the fly, well it must be mostly mental game we need to work on so we spend most of the two days on that, and some short game.

 

So here was the rough agenda we went through:

Day One

- About an hour of conversation just to get to know each other, detail my game and experience, and for Jim to reinforce some of the principles about mental game.

- The conversation then focused on what is meta-awareness and some exercises to demonstrate clearly the concepts

- Because my swing was good enough to not get bogged down by fundamentals, we just dove right into how to hit balls with different focal areas

- Without diving into Jim’s trade secrets, we spent the rest of the first morning going over how to settle on a focal point, what that means, evaluating the effectiveness. There are many different focal areas to experiment and we took a break for lunch

- After lunch it was back to working on focal points, including getting to that comfort level of hitting a shot with eyes closed.

- There is much necessary repetition and learning how to be sure you are holding the correct focus while hitting a shot. I went to this “school” prepared to do a lot of slow motion work and conceptual work while not hitting a lot of balls, but I ended up hitting more balls than expected.

- Towards the late afternoon we started to go through a very specific swing routine. Jim has quite a lengthy swing routine in terms of the number of steps, but in actuality it is probably 30-40 seconds. The point is, practice the details until it becomes second nature and then you have something iron clad on the course.

- We only got through about 2/3 of the steps before it was time to call it a day.

- Along the way, we did work a little on the swing flaw I have been fighting for many years, a tendency to sway forward on downswing, combined with a little of that goat move you don’t want. It’s very much the same stuff I worked on with Monte so there is a ton of consistency in swing theories between the two of them (and other instructors).

 

Evening of Day One I drive into Portland to meet a friend and had a fantastic Tapas dinner and plenty of martinis.

 

Day Two

- Some morning conversation reviewing day one and Jim likes to check in on what I found to be the light bulb moments. For me, it was just how quickly I could lock in on a focal point, not think swing mechanics at all and perform. It felt like the missing piece I have been long searching for a long time. Today would be the day to see if it sticks.

- We finished up the pre-shot routine with extra time spent on “stage 5”.

- We went back to focal areas to see about putting it all together, experimenting with other focal areas.

- A little more work on that “sway” and some drills

- We then started getting into the short game starting with chipping. Jim has a very prescriptive approach to all the details of chipping/pitching and what I found most helpful was a very definitive difference between a chip and pitch. For whatever reason in my head I never had this clear and that just contributed to more confusion and making things way more complicated than they needed to be.

- Lunch time

- After lunch we finished up chipping, moved on the chip/pitch, then pitching. This was very methodical, incorporated focal points, switch focal from somewhere on body part to target and experimenting with that.

- Because of how methodical and to some maybe a bit tedious, this took hours to go through and really get nailed down...I needed it.

- And the last hour or so was review and brining it all together....two full days. I was definitely exhausted but at the same time energized by finding a new path that I could really believe in.

 

## Post time

It has been a few weeks and I have not had much time to practice and not enough rehearsals, slow mo, and mirror work at home. But I have a plan for that, still confident in the plan and know how I will be spending my winter. I have only been to the range a few times and played a few rounds of golf. The biggest difference is a dramatic improvement in short game consistency. I have a plan and a routine that I am sticking to and getting immediate dividends including hitting some jaw dropping cut flops that had my partners shaking their heads. The few rounds I have played, I am only working on that focal point and grading myself on how well I am sticking to the plan, doing the meta awareness and not concerned about swing mechanics on the course, not evaluating any shots. And that is going good.

 

Between Monte’s swing help and Jim’s mental approach, I am more excited about my golf future than I have been in a very long time. The private lesson was money well spent. No doubt Jim has a wealth of knowledge and he’s really fun to just sit back and chat with about all things golf. I left Portland with a detailed plan and know it is going to be tedious work but can now see what the path is between practice at home to practice at the range to performance on the course. Now it is all on me to do the work.

 

 

[Milkers]

Great write up, thanks for sharing.

[starsail85]

Interesting stuff , I’ve worked with JW before and got a lot from it . I too need to address the mental side of things , as that effects my ability to physically move properly

[musclefront]

He cured my shanks with a single hour phone conversation. I had them for about 10 years

[Jim Waldron]

> @CasualLie said:

> Pardon the long review, sometimes I get carried away ;)

>

> # The hook...

>

> Let me start this review showing a video of something unthinkable for me.

>

> http://youtu.be/V3Q9SbQHPb4

>

>

> Looks like just a typical 8 iron chip. 5 paces on to the green, ~32 paces to the hole, chip down a small hill, green runs up, little left to right. Hit it to about 2-3 feet; not bad, easy putt to close it off. Now here's why this is so significant for me. **1**. I never chip with an 8 iron when playing, no confidence. I've hardly practiced it, not comfortable with it. And in those rare times I try to chip with an iron, I'm choosing 1 of 4/5 techniques I've tried over the years or read about. It's just not my shot. **2**. I literally hit that shot in the video today with my eyes closed.

>

> Three weeks ago I spent two days with Jim and one of the "exercises" while working on narrow focus, was to hit a low, short sort of punch shot trying to land the ball on a headcover about 25-30 yards in front. I was just hitting these little shots working on passive thought, focused, but just observing a body part. After 7-8 of these shots, none of them hitting the headcover, close, but that really wasn't the point, Jim says to try it with my eyes closed. I laughed as I thought no way I'll even make contact with the ball. But I stopped laughing, setup, went to my focal, closed my eyes, swing and bam - crisp contact and landed the ball dead center on the headcover. I was shocked.

>

> ## My swing...

>

> Like some others I see in threads, years ago I had my index steadily at 6, was even as low as a 4 for awhile. And then I discovered swing ideas on the internet. First it started with my being convinced it was short game that held me back and I started tinkering with wedge setup, different techniques, and a lot of changing. Then seemingly out of nowhere a two way miss with Driver...more tinkering, more searching, and changing drivers often. It got so bad I played 6 tournaments just teeing off with 3 iron. For years the index steadily got worse. From 6 to 10, then higher, and it was miserable.

>

> Then I discovered cargo shorts, really liked the videos and went to see Monte. You can read my reviews working with Monte. It made a huge difference, Driver fixed, wedges fixed, the swing so much more fundamentally sound. But no fault of Monte's, I didn't know how to properly practice, didn't know how to take it to the course. My swing got better, but my scores got worse because mentally I was just a mess. I was way over analyzing on the course and trying to direct body movements.

>

> ## The Meltdown and Why Jim...

>

> I like to play in a lot of tournaments, and I like to play money games with friends with all kinds of bets on everything but total strokes. The two don't go together. The money games hide my weaknesses as I'm a streaky player. In August I played in a group outing, 16 players, six rounds in four days. I finished next to last in total points and near the bottom in every round. I couldn't possibly play worse. I was in near constant search mode, trying to steer every shot, and only when I was so many shots over par that I didn't care would I get on a 4 or 5 hole streak and shoot 1 or 2 under. I even went to one course early to play the back 9 as a warm up, shot 2 over, did some chipping, hit 10 3 woods on the range to rehearse the opening tee shot then promptly put the tee shot on #1 OB. No matter what I tried to get in a groove, it wouldn't work. I couldn't start a round like I didn't care and hit relaxed shots, but get to 12 over and no problem, birdie. The whole trip the most common scenario, hit a 3W OB on one hole, then next hole stripe the 3W 250+ dead center and think "WTF...how can the results be so different! Same shot...same guy!"

>

> While I enjoyed the people, the cocktails, and dinners, the golf was just miserable and I decided to pack it in for the rest of the year, no more tournaments. Even though I was 2nd place in points for the season I had no confidence I could track down the leader, no confidence in my game at all. After decompressing a few days, I gave Jim a call. I decided that I would give this one more go, work solely on the mental game, practice better, and then see what happens next year.

>

> ## Starting with Jim

>

> Working with Jim starts with a phone call/interview and Jim is quite generous with his time. After a lengthy call, I decided to go with 2 days of 1 on 1 time and they focus would be the mental game, and perhaps some swing mechanics and short game. Based on our schedules, I had to wait about 6 weeks. So what to do in the meantime? I played in my a few money game, played better, but Jim just recommended stretching and hip exercises, not much else. And that’s about all I did. Hardly played any golf, traveled, did about 30 total minutes of hip exercises...haha!...I actually played more relaxed golf as I just did not care and really couldn’t get worse. Oh, and Jim emails a PDF, about 50 pages, as an introduction to the school, what to expect, some swing theory, and how to ready yourself.

>

> The things I think I know going into this: I am so obsessed over this arm swing illusion, and tilt switch, that I am thinking I am probably doing it wrong. What I am really after is how do I know what this meta-awareness is? How can I play golf more sub-consciously?

>

> ## Two days with Jim

>

> Jim teaches at this nice course about 30 minutes drive south of Portland, OR. Truth be told, it is a bit of a pain to get there, but not that bad. So I flew in the night before, and sure enough...being Oregon, it rained. And sure enough, delayed flight with United, so I found myself late at night scraping by for food, staying in the tick-tick in across the street from Hillsboro OR (note to self, fly private next time...it’s closer...kidding). Next day, drove 15 minutes to the course, Starbucks in hand, ready to go.

>

> So here was the funny part, reassuring, but unexpected. After helping Jim setup with range balls, chairs, table, umbrella, etc...Jim asks me to take a few practice swings. And the first thing he says “that’s not a swing of a 12 handicap! That looks more like a 4...a few minor flaws, they can be fixed, but very good. Tell Monte he’s done some great work.” And I am like “...uh...thanks, Monte says that too, but here I am.” And Jim figures right there on the fly, well it must be mostly mental game we need to work on so we spend most of the two days on that, and some short game.

>

> So here was the rough agenda we went through:

> Day One

> - About an hour of conversation just to get to know each other, detail my game and experience, and for Jim to reinforce some of the principles about mental game.

> - The conversation then focused on what is meta-awareness and some exercises to demonstrate clearly the concepts

> - Because my swing was good enough to not get bogged down by fundamentals, we just dove right into how to hit balls with different focal areas

> - Without diving into Jim’s trade secrets, we spent the rest of the first morning going over how to settle on a focal point, what that means, evaluating the effectiveness. There are many different focal areas to experiment and we took a break for lunch

> - After lunch it was back to working on focal points, including getting to that comfort level of hitting a shot with eyes closed.

> - There is much necessary repetition and learning how to be sure you are holding the correct focus while hitting a shot. I went to this “school” prepared to do a lot of slow motion work and conceptual work while not hitting a lot of balls, but I ended up hitting more balls than expected.

> - Towards the late afternoon we started to go through a very specific swing routine. Jim has quite a lengthy swing routine in terms of the number of steps, but in actuality it is probably 30-40 seconds. The point is, practice the details until it becomes second nature and then you have something iron clad on the course.

> - We only got through about 2/3 of the steps before it was time to call it a day.

> - Along the way, we did work a little on the swing flaw I have been fighting for many years, a tendency to sway forward on downswing, combined with a little of that goat move you don’t want. It’s very much the same stuff I worked on with Monte so there is a ton of consistency in swing theories between the two of them (and other instructors).

>

> Evening of Day One I drive into Portland to meet a friend and had a fantastic Tapas dinner and plenty of martinis.

>

> Day Two

> - Some morning conversation reviewing day one and Jim likes to check in on what I found to be the light bulb moments. For me, it was just how quickly I could lock in on a focal point, not think swing mechanics at all and perform. It felt like the missing piece I have been long searching for a long time. Today would be the day to see if it sticks.

> - We finished up the pre-shot routine with extra time spent on “stage 5”.

> - We went back to focal areas to see about putting it all together, experimenting with other focal areas.

> - A little more work on that “sway” and some drills

> - We then started getting into the short game starting with chipping. Jim has a very prescriptive approach to all the details of chipping/pitching and what I found most helpful was a very definitive difference between a chip and pitch. For whatever reason in my head I never had this clear and that just contributed to more confusion and making things way more complicated than they needed to be.

> - Lunch time

> - After lunch we finished up chipping, moved on the chip/pitch, then pitching. This was very methodical, incorporated focal points, switch focal from somewhere on body part to target and experimenting with that.

> - Because of how methodical and to some maybe a bit tedious, this took hours to go through and really get nailed down...I needed it.

> - And the last hour or so was review and brining it all together....two full days. I was definitely exhausted but at the same time energized by finding a new path that I could really believe in.

>

> ## Post time

> It has been a few weeks and I have not had much time to practice and not enough rehearsals, slow mo, and mirror work at home. But I have a plan for that, still confident in the plan and know how I will be spending my winter. I have only been to the range a few times and played a few rounds of golf. The biggest difference is a dramatic improvement in short game consistency. I have a plan and a routine that I am sticking to and getting immediate dividends including hitting some jaw dropping cut flops that had my partners shaking their heads. The few rounds I have played, I am only working on that focal point and grading myself on how well I am sticking to the plan, doing the meta awareness and not concerned about swing mechanics on the course, not evaluating any shots. And that is going good.

>

> Between Monte’s swing help and Jim’s mental approach, I am more excited about my golf future than I have been in a very long time. The private lesson was money well spent. No doubt Jim has a wealth of knowledge and he’s really fun to just sit back and chat with about all things golf. I left Portland with a detailed plan and know it is going to be tedious work but can now see what the path is between practice at home to practice at the range to performance on the course. Now it is all on me to do the work.

>

>

 

 

Glad you enjoyed the two day school, C!

 

I had a blast working with you.

 

Have fun exploring the various Focal Points during your testing Process, and remember the key is to stay in narrow focus mode from just before start of th

 

[Jim Waldron]

> @starsail85 said:

> Interesting stuff , I’ve worked with JW before and got a lot from it . I too need to address the mental side of things , as that effects my ability to physically move properly

 

Correct! The mind and the emotions have a huge impact on how mechanics/movement patterns manifest in your body during the swing and stroke. Stress, anxiety, fear, loss of confidence, and a wandering mind all can block good movement patterns from manifesting in your swing, and can create bad patterns.

 

See you in London in May!