Sometimes you’ve just got to laugh. If you have a bad day on the golf course watch this advert and it will definitely change how you feel.

Just Chip It Out!

“Marketing is what you do when your product is no good” – Edward Land

I’ve got to be honest with you and get something off my chest. I get really annoyed at the obvious exaggeration and fabrication being sold to online golfers. You know the golf advertisements I’m talking about – the ones that make outlandish and totally unreasonable claims about the amount of improvement you can make in just a couple of weeks, or even less by using their method.

In this article I want to share with you the rationale behind why you shouldn’t believe in this fiction, and instead understand a rational alternative approach to golf improvement that is based on sound principles of learning; the same principles that you have used in developing many different skills in many areas of your life.
Do you remember when you learned to drive a car? It’s possible that you learned to drive a car with the assistance of one of your family members. They probably took you out to a location where you had plenty of open space so you could drive the car without the fear of hitting something.

The first thing that happened is that you discovered that you’re very alert and cautious when you began to drive; and you probably found it difficult to manage steering the vehicle at the same time you were attempting to change gears and operate the accelerator and brake pedal.

You see it isn’t easy for a human being to do more than one thing at a time. Many claim that they’re excellent at multitasking, but a raft of research doesn’t back this up. We are less effective when we have our mind focused on trying to perform more than one activity or skill at a time – and learning golf is certainly no different.

So when you think about it, to learn a new way of swinging a golf club that incorporates changes not only to your current golf stroke pattern, but also to your golfing set up and stance in two weeks or less, and perform them better than your current skill level doesn’t make much sense.

I recently attended a golf instruction conference in Asia where one of the guest speakers was Brian Mogg, a PGA golf instructor who runs a golf academy in Orlando in Florida. Brian told us the story of how the Korean professional golfer Y.E. Yang won the 2009 PGA Golf Championship by outplaying Tiger Woods over the last few holes, which was a culmination of a significant amount of work they did together.

Yang was recommended to Mogg as someone who could get his golfing swing on track and ultimately improve his performances on the golf course. So over the course of more than a year the two of them worked together whenever their respective schedules allowed, and slowly but surely Yang started to trust the changes that he and Mogg had put into place.

Mogg explained that the changes to his swing meant that in the beginning Yang’s performances were less than stellar; but Yang was a very committed and persistent student, something that is essential to any golfer contemplating changes to their existing golfing swing technique.

Mogg went on to say that it actually took Yang a full ten months before he started to play better than before. This was many hours of instruction from where they began, and many thousands of golf shots hit on the practice fairway and the golf course.

This is the real truth behind changing your golfing swing. It will require many trials and feedback over an extended period of time, and just like driving your car, which seems easy to do now, getting your golfing swing to perform where it seems easy to do will require commitment, persistence and a careful and well planned approach.

It won’t take two weeks but it doesn’t have take many months either. The single most important key is to understand what you need to do to improve your golfing swing. You see you must begin with an end in mind. What is it that you would like to do with your golfing swing that you presently can’t do with it?

Are you trying to get your downswing more on the ideal plane? Or possibly you’re working on a better shoulder turn, either way, what you need to focus on is what is most important. A ‘how to’ approach is useless without a ‘what to’ approach. The distinction is to understand what you must do before you learn how to do it.

At my golfing school I always begin working with a student by asking them what they would like to do with their golf shot that they currently find difficult to do. Once I know what they want to achieve with their ball flight, we can work out how to change their swing.

Remember, before you start changing your golfing swing, begin by determining exactly what you want it to do based on what you want your golf ball to do; then go to work with your PGA golf instructor to develop an effective method for achieving that goal.

You will be able to improve your golf swing, no doubt about it, and although it won’t take two weeks (or less), it will improve and change faster than if you simply try to change your swing without understanding what your end goal is, and how you plan to get there.

Can you think of a better way of getting better?

Until next time.

Lawrie Montague