By Tim Stone - Head Teaching Professional, The National G.C
Keep your head still. Brace your right leg. Keep your left arm straight. Take it away smoothly. Turn your shoulders. Transfer weight. Hit down on the ball. Follow through. Don’t look up. Swing to balance ...
How many things do we need to think about to hit a good shot?
Considering the golf swing is over in about 0.9 of a second, we are pretty foolish if we think we can do multiple things in that time.
Unfortunately, most of us are so wrapped up in different swing thoughts that we no longer have the capability of swinging the club with any feel or rhythm.
When we consciously try to move a limb, we subconsciously switch on the muscles in that limb. When a muscle is switched on it tightens and becomes stiff. A perfect example of this tightness is when you grip the club too tightly. The tight grip causes tension in the arms making it impossible to take the club away smoothly. It also increases your chances of an injury.
To demonstrate this, think about the simple act of walking. We do not consciously think about lifting our leg, and then extending our foot forward, transfering weight onto the front foot; then lifting our back foot off the ground and bringing it forward in front of the other foot! We just walk! It is a subconscious movement that we are comfortable doing because we did it consciously when we were young, and did it over and over again until it became a subconscious movement. If you began to think about each and every movement required to walk as you actually did it, walking would suddenly become a lot harder!
Unfortunately golfers like to do what psychologists call “getting in the way of ourselves”. This basically means not letting our body perform what it has been trained to do. How often do we remark how easy it was when we have a great score, yet how difficult it all felt when we played badly. It seemed easy to play well because we were not trying too hard, but rather just letting it happen.
You may have heard this referred to as being “in the zone”. When we are “in the zone” everything feels easy. We don’t worry about our swing, we don’t seem to feel the wind, and we just let things happen. It is almost as though we are playing golf without realising it!
This is obviously how we always want to be playing golf, and therefore we need to look for ways to achieve this feeling every time. You will very rarely find a good golf professional play a round of golf while concentrating on the mechanics of their golf swing. They will usually focus on things that distract their mind away from swing thoughts such as rhythm, breathing, target and shot shape, rather than mechanical thoughts such as keeping your head down or keeping your left arm straight etc. Thinking about mechanical movements will stiffen your body and not let your muscles do what they have been trained to do.
Keeping this in mind, this is why it is extremely important to have an effective pre-shot routine. Many of us are aware of pre-shot routines, but seldom perform one. Or if we do, we are not entirely sure about what a good pre-shot routine should include. A pre-shot routine, is exactly that - a routine we perform before hitting a shot; something that will allow us the best chance of getting into “the zone” and hitting a great shot.
Everyone will have a slightly different pre-shot routine. Talk to your localTeaching Professional to discuss what elements your pre-shot routine should include, and improve your chances of playing your best golf!
Tim
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