Chapter 1
Just Look at Yourself
How You Learn and Think Determines How You Should Practice and Play
When I meet a new student, I always like to start with a discussion about how we as people learn motor skills. Golf is not a subject like math, it is something you must do and experience. Golf is not something to be figured out, I can’t teach it to you…but it can be learned. I credit much of my teaching success over the years to one of my earliest mentors and friends, PGA Master Professional and 1991 PGA Teacher of the Year, Mike Hebron. His first book “See and Feel the Inside Move the Outside” is the first Masters Thesis to be accepted by the PGA of America. I read his thesis as a teenager and spent countless hours with him over the years and that knowledge formed my understanding of learning and serves as the foundation for how I communicate and teach today. Scientific studies show that 83% of what we think is visual information. “Seeing” the picture correctly in your mind is key to the whole learning process. If you’ve been on the lesson tee with me very long, you’ve heard me talk about picturing what you are trying to do. My teaching partner, Jimmie Bullard says that “Thinking Golf is Stinking Golf”. I can’t agree more, as we all know…the more we think, the harder we try, the worse we do! I often remind students that a picture is truly worth a thousand words. The problem is that our minds instinctively move to analyze (words) and break things down and we end up trying to “fix” our golf swings. This naturally destroys the learning process and usually ends in frustration. We need to stop thinking in terms of “fixing” an existing motion (do this, don’t do that) and consciously be self-aware and move our mind to the process of “learning/seeing & feeling” a new swing motion. This change in perspective is crucial to your improvement, because when you are out by yourself practicing, you have an opportunity to be either your own best coach or, more often than not, your own worst enemy. Golf is a mental game...and how you think and learn, that the process is important!
During my first lesson with a new student, I like to introduce the Triad of Learning. Simply put, you have to See It, to Do It! You have to Feel It, to Repeat It and you have to Understand It, to Take It to the Golf Course. We talked about the importance of pictures above, but how exactly do you do that? Simple...Watch yourself! We use video on the lesson tee, but you can use a mirror at home or your shadow outside to check yourself. When working with golfers, I am constantly putting them in the correct position and having them see where they are. Just Look at Yourself! You can see if you are in the correct position. If you don’t know where the right positions are, then it’s time for you to take a lesson!
Part of seeing things goes right to how you aim and align the body. During your practice sessions, always take the time to aim at a target. Lay clubs on the ground to help make sure you feel comfortable in the correct address positions. Keep in mind, what you think you see is not real....it is a perception! If you start slicing the ball to the right, you will naturally start aiming to the left. If you build this compensation into your game, you will only make matters worse. Two wrongs do not make a right...but it will ingrain the mistakes and make them permanent! Always practice with at least one club on the ground to insure that you are actually aiming correctly at your intended target. You cannot make a “good” golf swing from a “bad” starting position and still hit the ball at the target!
Second, you have to feel it to repeat it. Keep in mind that when we are changing the swing motion that we often feel awkward and uncomfortable. That is OK. What you feel is not real….it is also a perception! Uncomfortable is not wrong, it is simply new and different. And, according to Arby’s...Different Is Good! Also, too often golfers focus on what contact “feels like” when we make impact with the ball. The problem with focusing on impact is simple…contact is an effect, not a cause. If you hit the ball in the center of the clubface, it’s going to feel good and if you don’t, it’s going to feel bad! There is no useful information there that will help you hit the next shot better. Golfers need to focus on three things when out practicing and playing. First, golfers should focus on which muscles are stretching and when. Second they should focus on pressure and weight displacement and lastly they should focus on a big fancy term called proprioception (where the body is in 3 dimensional space). First, you need to focus on what your muscles feel like as they stretch and release during your swing. Stretching is not about how much, it is about when and where. Focus on muscle feels during your set-up as well. “Do you feel athletic/ready?” should be a guiding thought as you prepare to hit each and every golf shot. Second, focus on pressure and weight displacement (what is pushing on what, and where). Feel specifically how your body weight (pressure) moves back and through, not just from right foot to left, but where the weight is moving (pushing down) within each foot as you move through the swing motion. Also, most importantly and probably most difficult Focus on Light Grip Pressure! When we are out practicing and playing we instinctively grip the club tighter and tighter shot after shot without realizing it. I am constantly reminding students to simply relax. Remember the harder you try (gripping the daylights out of the club is simply the brain trying harder), the worse you do!! We all know this, but we still do it! It is instinctive and we humans are creatures of habit. The last thing we can feel is proprioception, which again simply means that we know where our body parts are in 3 dimensional space. This is the most challenging for most people as often times we think our body is one position, but it isn’t. When you look at yourself, be sure to associate that visual picture with what you are feeling in your body at the time. You will double or triple the speed in which you learn and thus change your golf swing. We must be students of our own golf swing! We must be self-aware of what our body is feeling during practice and identify the difference between new, correct motions and old, inefficient ones.
Practice swinging with your eyes closed. I highly recommend practice swinging and even hitting balls with your eyes closed. This forces you as a learner to be more aware of what you feel in your body as you seek to balance yourself throughout the swing motion. As you swing, turn your thoughts inward paying close attention to the feel of relaxed hands and a rhythmic arm swing while feeling light and balanced on your feet. Hitting balls on the range this way also helps promote trust in oneself and body.
Do the Drills! Practice the drills that you learned during your lessons. And do them often. Drills reinforce correct feels and force you as a learner to master the new motion. Most golfers really don’t practice the drills they learn from their pros. They do them for 10 shots and that’s it. YOU CANNOT RELEARN MOTION THAT FAST! Tour pros do them for hours. Be patient with the process, because Process is Important! There are no shortcuts! The fastest way to creating and feeling the correct new motion is to go through the learning process correctly and doing the drills! If you really want to accelerate learning, you must connect a visual picture with a physical feel. You will learn both faster and easier!
You see learning is actually the process of (self) discovery where information is coming in from the eyes and body. It is about the flow and direction of information. Consider for a moment, a sponge and water; the sponge is the brain, and the water is information. When you as a golfer associate pictures and feels as you practice, information is flowing into the brain and the sponge naturally, effortlessly absorbs the water. You don’t have to do anything to help the sponge absorb it…you simply need to pay attention and stay out of its way. Too often golfers “think” too much and simply try to tell their bodies (in words) what to do. Imagine squeezing that very water out of the sponge that was absorbing it just a moment ago. Information is flowing out from the brain just as the water is squirting from the sponge. And the harder you squeeze, the more water comes out; just like learning golf. Information/learning go backward. I like to ask students…”Have you ever learned anything when information is going OUT of your brain?” Think about that for a minute. This is how golfers attempt to practice and learn. Is it any wonder that you haven’t improved, if the whole time you practice is by telling your body what to do? How well has that worked for you in the past? Are you learning as fast as you would like? Focus on what you see and what you feel and you will discover that you will learn much faster. And, isn’t that what you really want? There are no shortcuts to learning a new swing motion. A fundamentally sound swing must be earned through proper practice. Swing changes take time to feel comfortable and to master.
I would like to recommend that you make practice swings an important part of your learning process. Remember...Process is Important! I have a simple rule…If you hit a poor golf shot, take two correct practice swings before you move on! This may sound too simple, but think for a minute the last time you were out on the course or range. Consider the last bad shot you hit…the first thing you did was to slam your club on the ground in disgust, say a few choice words to yourself (maybe out loud!) and quickly move on to hit your next shot, because you wanted to fix your golf swing! Right Now!! Your brain immediately went to hit (fix) the next shot before the last shot even hit the ground! STOP!!!!!! Stop right there!!! Don’t go any further!!! DANGER!!! DANGER, Will Robinson!!! This is where golfers make that critical mistake and stop learning and start thinking and forcing their swings. You are fighting your instinct here and it is not easy. Take a moment to clear your mind and ask yourself…why did the ball just do that? Then take a couple practice swings (seeing and feeling) so that you can “find your swing” again and get back on track to trusting the motion and yourself! Keep in mind…you can find your swing…you can lose your swing…but you cannot fix your swing! We as golfers always seem try to “fix” it or “figure it out”. Think about that for a moment…have you “fixed” your golf swing so that it never misfires? Has it ever worked in the past? Maybe for a day; but have you ever permanently fixed it? Of course not! Remember, the more you try to “fix” it goes right back to the old adage that the more you think and the harder you try…the worse you do! You already know this! However, I watch golfers spend countless hours on the range practicing trying to “fix” something that isn’t broken. They simply haven’t found the freedom in the motion, the correct rhythm and balance as they swing…because they aren’t paying attention to what their bodies are telling them. Their brain is too busy telling their bodies what to do for them to learn. In the end golfers struggle for hours, wasting time and energy only to get more frustrated at their lack of improvement because they aren’t learning effectively.
To improve long term as a golfer, you need to understand why the ball flies the way it does so that you can understand your swing and find it consistently. Good players do this when they practice and the best players do this every shot, on the course or during practice. But first, you must understand the basics of “why” the ball curves and flies offline. Learn and understand the 3 Ball Flight Laws and you will go a long way to understanding and permanently improving your golf swing. Please, please, think about what you are trying to do….before you go out and do it! Remember...Process is Important!
Visually Check Yourself
Focus On Stretching & Feeling Pressure in Practice Swings and Drills
RELAX Your Hands
Do The Practice Drills
Lay Club or Other Aid on the Ground to Insure Proper Visual Alignment
Take 2 Practice Swings to Find Your Rhythm & Balance
See It Feel It Understand it
Lastly, you must Understand It to Own It & Take It to the Golf Course. “It” is the golf swing…your golf swing. You must understand the WHY…period! No ifs, no ands, and no buts! Why does the ball fly the way it does? That will explain what you have to do to hit the ball straight. The good news is there are only 3 factors that primarily contribute to ball flight. Where the CLUB FACE looks controls starting direction (85% of where the ball starts is controlled by the face), the CLUB PATH or the direction the club swings during impact controls curvature (hooks and slices) and finally the CLUB ANGLE or the up and down motion of the club through impact determines proper contact (fat or thin shots and heeled or toed shots). There are only 3 Ball Flight Laws and You Need to Understand Them! They are relatively simple and they will be discussed in detail later. The first golf book I ever read at age 10, I got at the Independence, Iowa public library. I liked it so much, that I kept it. I told the librarian I lost it and paid her the replacement cost. It was written by Jack Grout, an old teaching pro at Scioto Country Club in Columbus, Ohio. I still have this book today. The beginning of the book is all about ball flight laws. I studied this book and the ball flight laws religiously at age 10 and they have served me well ever since. These laws serve as the bedrock of my foundation as a golfer and teacher. If you learn to watch the ball, it will tell you what you are doing in your swing…period. You simply have to ask yourself…why? Would you like to know the title of the book??? Let Me Teach You Golf As I Taught Jack Nicklaus. Is it any wonder that I kept this book to myself and studied it and formed my own game around it?
