Looking for recommendations on 'Letting it happen'

Albatros · June 20, 2006

...or 'Getting out of your own way!'

I'm looking for what you other WRX's do mentally(and physically) when on the course. I have a tendency to want to really feel that my hands are working together and that I'm hitting the right positions in my backswing. If those positions feel 'off' it screws me up mentally and I tend to get even more mentally involved in my backswing. Now, I realize that the reality of what's going on with the swing and the feel can totally contradict each other, and that I can still hit great shots when it doesn't feel perfect. But most of the time it messes with my head and you can guess the result - inconsistency.

So, I'm wondering what you do when getting out on the course when your swing may not feel right? It may even happen in the middle of a round when you had a great front nine and then the groove you had disappears.

How do you just forget about what you feel and let the natural athleticism and the swing(that you've grooved)take over?

Hopefully this makes sense. Thanks for your replies.

taylormadefan · June 20, 2006

TARGET TARGET TARGET.

If you focus on target, and I mean really focus and fill your mind with it, your mind just goes blank right before you pull the trigger. It's a great feeling. I like to keep a swing thought for my practice swings, but once I step up to hit the ball, all I think about it is target.

It takes a lot of discipline to do this. And you've got to practice it. I split my range time 1/2 working on mechanical things and the last half simulating on course conditions, going through my pre shot routine and hitting to VERY specific targets.

If you get the Golf Channel I think you should really watch Geoff Ogilvy's Playing Lessons from the Pros. He talks about "chasing good feelings" early in his career, but he finally realized that every day you get up and feel different, so just go out with what you've got. I thought it was one of the best editions of PLP I've seen. He might be the ultimate feel player, he aligns, works the ball, and swings all by feel.

Albatros · June 21, 2006

TARGET TARGET TARGET.

If you focus on target, and I mean really focus and fill your mind with it, your mind just goes blank right before you pull the trigger. It's a great feeling. I like to keep a swing thought for my practice swings, but once I step up to hit the ball, all I think about it is target.

It takes a lot of discipline to do this. And you've got to practice it. I split my range time 1/2 working on mechanical things and the last half simulating on course conditions, going through my pre shot routine and hitting to VERY specific targets.

If you get the Golf Channel I think you should really watch Geoff Ogilvy's Playing Lessons from the Pros. He talks about "chasing good feelings" early in his career, but he finally realized that every day you get up and feel different, so just go out with what you've got. I thought it was one of the best editions of PLP I've seen. He might be the ultimate feel player, he aligns, works the ball, and swings all by feel.

Just saw the Ogilvy episode of Play Lessons. Man, I do everything excatly opposite of they way he does. Its amazing to me that he hits the ball so well, and on target, buy just 'feeling' the shot. If I could find a way to incorporate any of that, I think it would help, but it would be a complete 180 for me.

I'm also thinking of ordering Zen Golf or one of Rotella's books ont he mental game to see if I can apply some of that to my approach to the game.

USNHack · June 21, 2006

I'm also thinking of ordering Zen Golf or one of Rotella's books ont he mental game to see if I can apply some of that to my approach to the game.

Zen Golf is a great book and you can apply the principles in others sports and everyday life as well. The coach of the University of Arizona girls softball team picked it up on a wim and after reading it had all his players read it as well and claims it was a factor in them winning the college world series this year.

lysaght68 · June 22, 2006

Albatros,

Have you given the book/CD Tour Tempo a try? Are you familiar with the concepts advocated by the author? One of the points that the author makes is that if your tempo is sufficiently quick enough (by far most amatuer golfers make the mistake of swinging too slowly and mechanically) and you can groove a swing to the 3:1 tempo (3 = start of backswing to set at the top - 1 = set at top to impact) it's actually very hard not to swing the club well. I've been practicing to the sound cues provided on the CD that comes with the book and my iron striking in particular has been much better. During a recent round I was beside myself on the front nine, started out with a double and it just got worse from there. Before and during every shot it seemed I was trying to remember everything that I know about the golf swing, I shot a 55. On the 10th tee waiting for the goup ahead to move on I tried to empty my mind and practice swinging the club to the 3 sound cues that I had been listening to on the Tour Temp CD (swing, set, through). On the back 9 after choosing a club and aligning to the target the only thing I thought about was swinging to those three sound cues, I finished with a 37 on the back and I cannot remember ever having a better ball striking nine holes. During the 10 years I've been playing I haven't played a round in which I've been able to come back from the abyss and salvage such a brutal starting round. In the one round since then I shot an 85 using that same strategy for every full shot, I would have broken 80 if not for 2 drives hooked OB and 3 very poor short wedge shots.

The beauty of swinging to a tour-like tempo is that it is so quick there is no time to consciously try to achieve certain positions and you have to swing very smooth/quick/fluidly to be able to meet the sound cue requirements. It seems from your description of your swing that you have a very detailed understanding of what needs to happen to produce a great shot, but that you fight being overly technical and focusing on more than one swing thought. Based on my experience with Tour Tempo as well as numerous positive reviews of the book/CD, it seems to me that it might be worth a try if you haven't already. Especially considering that you seem to prefer some type of swing thought (I do as well), focusing solely on the rhythm of 3 sound cues might be just the ticket if your swing goes a bit haywire.

Albatros · June 22, 2006

Lysaght,

That sounds pretty cool. It does seem like my best rounds have always been free of swing thoughts and the swing felt very fluid. I've already ordered Zen Golf, but it sounds like this may focus more on tempo than the mental aspect - and I need both! So, I'll pick up the book/cd and see if it helps.

Thanks!

Albatros · June 30, 2006

**Warning: Blatant Endorsement Forthcoming**

OK, so I haven't recieved my Zen Golf book yet. But I did get TourTempo on the 26th. At first, I found it interesting but didn't give it much merit. Lysaght gives a pretty accurate description of TourTempo above so I won't go into it in detail.

I was hesitant at first because it basically wants you to swing to a certain tempo and timing, which is typically much faster than an amatuer(12 hcp) like myself. I didn't think this would help me much because my instructor had worked on me increasing my start to finish swing speed for a while but it didn't work for me and I never got comfortable with a fast backswing. But TourTempo eases you into this process by having you make 1/4 swings to a really fast tempo, 3/4 swings to a tempo slightly slower than the 1/4 swing tempo, and then you move to a full swing tempo that is again slightly slower - but still quite fast compared to the average player. This is the tempo that the pros have as explained in detail, and quite well in both text and video.

So, since the 26th I've been wearing my iPod listening to the swing tone keys and practicing the drills into a net in my backyard. Well today, I went to the range at lunch and I was absolutely PURING IT!. Today was about a 2 club wind coming from right to left and somewhat head on.

I wasn't wearing the head phones but just trying to work on the timing of starting, setting and swinging through. From PW to driver, I was hitting boring shots that stayed on target and tailed off slightly at the end to the left due to the wind. It was the best day I've had on the range in a LONG time. Considering I've been having ball-striking problems lately, this was awesome.

Now I know that this WILL BE a temporary gain as is usually the case will all new swing tweaks. But I think this will really help with one of my big problems which is thinking about mechanics during the backswing. With this faster tempo, I don't have time to think about them, and the result was clean strikes. So, if I can keep even 1/2 of what I had today moving forward, I will definitely lower my handicap.

I don't have a round coming up for a another week, so I won't be able to see how it does on the course for a while. But I may be an anomoly in that I typically hit better shot on the course than on the range, so I'm extremely positive on this after the first week.