Back to the Farm

Although I no longer have the farm and have was absent from the game till last year, I have i have managed to get to a place where I have more clarity about the golf swing than ever before.

Having reviewed where my head was at five years ago its interesting to see where my focus was.

My quick review of those posts reveal that I was very impact focused and did not really have a solid holistic view of the swing.

Last year after time away from the golf, I started anew  and rebuilt my game.  It was a challenge I started the year in shooting in the 90’s and ended the year occasionally in the 60’s.

It was a positive journey and I think at the end I finally figured this game out.

I’ll to write a bit each day to share these revelations.

Building the Golf Pre-Shot Routine

So I am running out of time, I have been cleaning out the cobwebs of my golf brain and have one more practice day before I have to play a competitive round.  So its time to stop tinkering and pull together a pre-shot routine that I will stick with regarding how well I play.

The pre-shot routine, i.e. all the subconscious moves, thoughts and looks that are in essence the computer code for your golf swing. Ideally this code will be an well planned flow of thoughts that evaluate the shot, build trust, and set the motion and rhythm of your swing.

For most this code is simply a mystery. It’s a potpourri of everything you have ever heard about the golf swing. It is this flow we run in order to be brave enough to swing.

When I was a golf teacher, I observed that my students would turn an entire concept into one word and then slap that on the end of their process. Only when I realized this, did I understand the importance of the code. It is this control system that I had to change if my students were to improve.  I had to attack the foundations of my students beliefs, as opposed to focusing on what I believed or saw them do.  So if your pro talks position and visual comparisons he is unaware of the relationship between your code and your movement. He or she is simply not going to make dramatic or lasting change.

Unlike many, I don’t believe in muscle memory. I think muscle memory is really another way to get at this subconscious flow.  Doing something over and over again with a failed plan, will aways create a failed result.

Not until I started to focus on what is that student thinking in order to move the way they move, did I start to unlock my students core beliefs that were the root cause of their ineffective movements.  After identifying these beliefs, the strange moves my students made were somehow logical. When I replaced their core beliefs with a better understanding of what they should be trying to do physically and why, they would change their software and the swing would improve, even without a visual position reference.

When this magic happened, I knew I would never again allow myself to use visual comparisons or my own theories when teaching or playing.

My focus shifted to, what should I be thinking to maximize the chances for successful execution?  Understanding how and why things work is all that matters.

So from this point forward “why?” became the only thing that I focused on.  When I hear a pro say line up the Vs, to set the grip, I know they have no depth of knowledge, they are simply parroting old wives tails, they do not know why things work.

Once I realized this, I become a much more effective teacher. My teaching goals shifted, I now wanted my students to come to me with their inspired realizations, i.e. their ideas. The ideas that would become their new core beliefs. When this happened, they would have great retention as they now owned their core belief. These core beliefs had a chance to serve as the foundation for their future.  Far better than a new word slapped on to a bad program.

So given that I have a pretty well developed sense of what I am supposed to do. When I build a routine that I need to rely on, I add at the end of my already well developed situational awareness and visualization code, a series of visual check points similar to that of a pilot’s pre-flight check list. Each point meant to develop a sense of trust that a certain aspect of the swing is going to happen since I checked it to make sure it was not over looked.

Today, I was assembling those points.

1. Set left hand grip in the “Flat Left Wrist, Fully cocked wrist, Club face same as Flat Left Wrist, Fully extended position. Then don’t change it.

2. Set the Right Hand Grip in the fully released, right arm fully extended, shoulders parallel to target line position. Then don’t change it.

These too check points set the range of motion of the hitting unit. As long as the arms are allowed to fully extend then the action of the hitting unit will be correct. The hitting unit being the connected assembly of the arms, hands and club.

3. Rehearse the rhythm of the swing, Load, turn hips to target, fire right arm.

4. Target orientation

5. Go.

This lets the grip be built functionally and firmly and allows me to trust that the hand action will happen, if the tempo keys are allowed to happen. Not building your grip around a setting of the range of motion and the true path of the grip, will leave much to chance.

A key point that must be learned is that the hands ride a lever and the fulcrum point is between the clubhead and the grip.

To visual is this. Grab a club mid at the mid point between the grip and clubhead. make the swing and watch where the grip goes. It goes down and out going back, then in and stops at the left leg. Your hands have to create that levered path, but most people are try to make the hands follow the path of the fulcrum point.

So setting my left hand at the down and out extreme, and the Right in the post stop and release, allows me to create the levered path the hands need to take.

What to focus on when Starting Over again.

Living in Vermont means every year, you need to start over. When I commit to building a golf game again, there are a few things that are always relevant.

• Building the Strength of the Hitting Unit
• Rhythm and Balance
• Building from Short to Long
• Clean up the Range by Chipping to a Target

Building the strength of the hitting unit: The hitting unit, which I define as the connected arm, hand and club assembly.  How the grip is built is an integral part of the assembly of the hitting unit. It’s amazing to me, that no one has taken the opportunity to really explain the construction of the grip correctly. Lots of people have described the look of it, the proverbial  “Vs” and hold it in your fingers, etc. But why is it that the club is held that way?  How does it relate to hitting the golf ball? These questions you simply can’t find answers to in the vast realm of golf literature. Which has had few interesting and valuable contributions since the 1940s.  The telephone really killed the age of written communication. Maybe as man tries to tell his story in 140 characters of less writing will make a come back.

Getting back building the strength of the hitting unit.  I think that there is a minimum strength level your hands and arms need to achieve to execute the swing effectively. So to build strength I use weighted balls and free weights to make swings. I assume that it I can make the swing with a twenty pound free weight, then making it with a golf club should be easier. The slower the the better when using the weights.

Rhythm and Balance: Another essential to work to master is Rhythm and Balance. Grinding a tempo into you mind is key to effective speed control, good balance is essential to execute your swing at speed, and repeat it reliably.  Balance is really about leg strength and core strength.  If the legs and core are not strong enough, then they can not support the golf swing.  Medicine balls and hiking are typically what I use to work these.  http://www.jumpusa.com/plyobook.htm , is a great resource for plyometric exercises.

Hiking in the mountains nearby is far less boring than running.

Rhythm is best grooved by hitting balls different distances, working from short to long keeps one from trying to overpower the swing. Just trying to hit the ball as far as possible will not develop a repeating swing with reliable tempo. Learning to hit every club from 0 to max distance is a great way to groove a proper sequence and understand how to swing in rhythm.

Building from Short to Long: Building from Short to Long always works for me. The benefits of practicing this way are tremendous. Rhythm, distance control, body awareness, target focus, and scoring all are enhanced by if.  For example, after just five practice days this year I played my first round, I chipped to inside 5 feet every time I missed the green, unfortunately that was like 12 times. But despite a horrible tee to green day, I still managed to shoot an 81, with four doubles.

The level of confidence developed by having practiced with every club every distance you will face is invaluable. It is a great feeling to be able to not only know the distance, but to have a grooved automatic rhythm for that distance. Having this with multiple clubs is a huge tactical advantage. The terrain and conditions might call for a lower or or higher shot, by grooving all clubs all distances, the problem is not one of “What do I do?” but “Which flavor is the best fit?”  By always practicing this way, all those part shots are current in muscle memory.

Clean up the Range by Chipping to a Target: Since I practice at home on the farm, there is no one to pick up the range. So since I have to clean up the balls anyway, I take the opportunity to chip all the balls to a target. This is awesome practice for your chipping and pitching around the green. The lies you get on a hayfield that has been mown close are far worse than what you find on any course, and as I have various levels of rough, it gives you a chance to practice from the worst lies.

Practicing from the most difficult places makes the golf course seem really easy. Plus during the clean up you get to tie in your visualization to the target and all the shots are different.

So instead of having a short game that is super rusty, you end up with one your can’t wait to use. All of the practice methods I use are to build a game that is awesome form 120 and in. Since you hit full shots the same way you hit short ones, your long game improves as you build short game skills. Plus pressure is taken off your long game as you know that if you miss you know you can recover. On short holes where your approach is inside that 120 yard zone, birdies are much more likely.

I find that if my short game is really sharp, then my long game just has to not make the big mistake. By taking a less aggressive mind set with the long game, its more likely that I will swing with better rhythm.  So it all builds on itself.

Training for an event when your game has been dormant

I have been is low intensity period of my Golf, and was asked a few weeks ago by my father to play a tournament with him at his club.  I gladly accepted, despite not having played a single round of golf in 2011.

That meant, time to train.  I guess I could simply have not trained and played poorly, but I have found that the most frustrating thing in golf is knowing that you can do something and not being able to execute it.

So time to break out the mower and prepare the range for practice. I mow the range to be only twenty feet wide to set a very high premium on accuracy.

The invite came 18 days ahead of the event so I challenged myself to see how much progress I could make in 18 days.

So where to begin.

I strongly believe in the build from shorter to longer shots.  So I set up my range with targets every ten yards.  I start day one with the shortest club and then try to hit it ten yards, then twenty yards, etc. out to its maximum distance.

I do this because I think you need to be able to hit every club every distance from 0 out to its maximum on demand. I figure that the only way to learn to do this, it to practice that way.  I then made the plan add another club to the routine each day.  So day one: 60 degree sand wedge, then day two: 60 and 54 degree sand wedge, etc.

After hitting the balls. I chip then all to a target.  I know that this plan if executed will lead to good distance control, a solid short game, and reveal at what power level the swing is breaking down.

Welcome to the Golf Farm

The Golf Farm is a quiet place where I can focus on grooving and simplifying my golf swing. The Golf Farm blog is where I am sharing some thoughts on the swing that are not the normal visually comparative stuff that clutters the golf writing landscape.