“You can hit a two acre fairway 10% of the time and a two inch branch 90% of the time.”

Don’t think about a shiny white golf ball right now. Mental translation…think about a shiny white golf ball right now. You’ve heard the story, the golfer (not you) is playing the fifteenth hole and he always hits his golf ball into the water, even when he tries not to. Despite his best efforts to avoid hitting his ball there, his golf ball is attracted to the water like a powerful magnet. The one thing that he so desperately want’s to avoid, he seems to have absolutely no power over.

Why?…Well imagine for a moment with a marker in hand you were going to draw two objects on a white board. The first item is a “golf ball” and the second item is a “don’t.” Which one is easiest for you to draw? Your mind will have a great deal of difficulty trying to imagine what a “don’t” looks like. Whereas imagining and then drawing a golf ball is relatively easy in comparison.

Here’s another example, don’t think about Tiger Woods. It’s difficult isn’t it? You know what Tiger Woods looks like so trying not think about what Tiger looks like is difficult for your mind to achieve. Your mind thinks in positives not negatives. In other words it’s programmed to focus on what you want not what you don’t want. So when I say don’t think about an orange, it simply focuses on an orange.

So how does this work for you and your golf shots? The next time you go out to play golf focus on exactly what you want from each and every golf stroke you make. Make sure your golf shot is achievable and realistic for your skill level. Before you play your stroke imagine with as much detail as you can how the particular shot you are about to hit will behave. Picture the flight of the ball and exactly where you want it to go. 

Play the “where to go” game not the “where not to go” game. You will dramatically improve your golf confidence and consequently your performances by developing your “where to go” skills. Playing golf will definately become a more positive experience for you, because you will be removing the mental roadblocks that get in the way of you playing to your potential.

Give it a try and let me know how you go.

Until next time.

Lawrie Montague

“A good mental game won’t overcome poor impact physics”

Developing consistency and confidence in your golf game begins by firstly developing a better understanding of how the golf club’s design influences your golf balls behaviour. Each golf club is engineered to very fine tolerances and has been built to help you to gain a level of control over trajectory, curvature and ball speed. Your job is to use the golf club correctly, which is to say use it in such a way that you strike consistent golf shots that you’re satisfied with…most of the time. But this as you already know is definately a challenge given the amount of conflicting information you have to sift through to find the best way for you to use the golf club correctly.

In my last post I described the three success factors of the pro golf swing (PGS).  As a reminder they are;

• A Pro Golf Swing produces a high degree of control over the golf balls trajectory
• A Pro Golf Swing produces a high degree of control over the golf balls curvature
• A Pro Golf Swing produces a high degree of speed as the golf ball departs from the club face

We all want to hit the ball better and learning how to apply the principles of the pro golf swing will definately help you to develop consistency and confidence. Following are the pro golf swing principles that I believe will help you to strike the golf ball more solidly and consistently leading to more confidence on the golf course.

Principle # 1 - Control the angle of the golf shaft as it strikes the golf ball.
Controlling trajectory begins by understanding the relationship between the head or striking end of the golf club and the handle or holding end as the golf club strikes the golf ball. There are three conditions that the golf shaft can be in as it strikes the ball. The shaft can lean forwards towards the target, it can have no lean, or it can lean backwards away from the target. When using an iron or a wood we ideally want the golf shaft leaning slightly forwards as the golf ball departs from the clubface.

How do you do it?
Practice punching your golf shots by trying to hit your golf shots as low as possible using a seven iron without moving your upper body towards the target until the golf ball has left the clubface. Practice hitting golf shots under low tree branches and bushes and focus on hitting the ball before the ground. You might have noticed that PGA tour professionals use the punch shot quite often when they hit their approach shots into the green.

Principle # 2 - Control the clubface angle as the clubhead strikes the golf ball.
The clubface can be in one of three conditions as the golf ball is struck. It can be open to the target line, square to the target line or closed to the target line. It is helpful to know that the golf club should not be square at impact but actually slightly open. The reason for this is that there is a very important distinction that you should be aware of. Rather than thinking of impact as the time when the club comes into contact with the golf ball, think of it as two distinct times in your golf swing – impact or collision and separation. When the golf club makes contact with the ball the clubface should be slightly open not square, and during the time that the golf ball is in contact with the clubface it “squares up” and the ball departs or separates from the clubface.

How do you do it?
The key to achieving this is to make sure that your hands when applied to the handle are positioned so that the pressure is behind the handle rather than on top. The best example I can give you is to imagine that you are pushing a shopping cart or lawn mower and think about where your hands are positioned on the handle. The strongest position for your hands is behind the handle when applying pressure to move the object forward. This is no different on a golf club where the objective is to apply pressure to the rear of the golf ball. If you want to hit stronger and longer shots, make sure that both hands are rotated slightly behind the handle of the golf club.

Principle # 3 - The accelerating golf club should decelerate as late as possible.
A golf club at the start of the downswing accelerates, achieves peak acceleration and then decelerates until it stops. Every golf club swung by a human being does this. You may have heard commentators describe how pro’s “accelerate through the ball” which is a nice thought but actually it doesn’t happen quite like that. In fact the golf club is slowing down as it comes into contact with the golf ball and for some golfers it’s slowing down quite rapidly. The key is to reduce the deceleration so that it happens as late as possible.

How do you do it?
Make short backswings with a full and complete wrist cock. Swing your arms back to about 9 o’clock with the clubhead pointing directly upwards. From this position swing the club to the finish position and create a loud whoosh sound on the target side of the golf ball. As you whoosh your golf club swing into a perfectly balanced finish position. The key to this practice method is to only focus on developing the whoosh in front of the golf ball rather than at the golf ball. Now transfer the feeling into your golf swing by still focusing on creating the whoosh in front of the golf ball.

Practice developing the pro golf swing principles and incorporate them into your golf swing. With some consistent practice you will start to notice improved results leading to more consistency and golf confidence.

Until next time.

Lawrie Montague

“Reverse every natural instinct and do the opposite of what you are inclined to do, and you will probably come very close to having a perfect golf swing.”  – Ben Hogan

When you think about the professional golfers who play on the golf tours around the world what do you think of? For some of you, you marvel at the prodigious distances they hit their drives. For others, its their remarkable skills around the greens. But for many, the attraction is their golf swings and the effortless and seamless power and accuracy they generate that facinates many of you.

Is there such a thing as a “pro golf swing?” Do the tour pro’s that make their living striking golf balls down fairways and putting them into golf holes have some secret?. I personally don’t believe they do. If you think about it, there are literally thousands of professionals competing in small to large tournaments around the globe and the one thing we can be absolutely sure of is that no two golf swings are exactly the same. What there is is a Tiger Woods version, a Phil Michelson version, a Lorena Ochoa version and so on. They are all different in style, and they all function differently because their styles are different.

 

 Some golf swings are shorter than others, some are faster than others, and some are radically different than others. Of course the reason behind this is very obvious, we are all shaped differently. We have two hundred and six bones in our body and roughly six hundred muscles depending on the expert you listen to. There are thirteen major joints in your body that move within three dimensions making every golf swing totally unique. When we move our bodies to swing a golf club the amount of flexibility we possess in and around our joints will have a significant effect on how we move our golf club, not to mention our physical strength as well.

Tall and thin golfers will swing the golf club quite differently to short and round golfers who will swing it differently to strong muscular golfers. So as I said, there isn’t a “pro golf swing” as such, however I believe that there are pro golf swing principles that every professional golfer and competent amateur golfer practices and develops. Now this is where confusion reins, simply because these principles are packaged up and learned in very different ways.

There are three primary elements involved in the playing of golf. (not including the golf course, type of equipment and weather etc)

• There is the golf swing you use
• There is an impact with the golf ball
• There is a resultant ball flight

Now every element is as important as every other, but the preference of the golfer will dictate how they are learned and practiced. Some golfers will focus on developing the style of the golf swing more than focusing on how the golf ball is impacted or how it flies. Some golfers will build their golf swing around controlling the impact conditions with the golf ball, and some will work mainly on improving their golf swing by focusing on manipulating the flight of their shot through “swing feel.” They are all reasonable approaches, just coming from different philosophies and strategies.

So the pro golf swing can be thought of as any golf swing that can do the following three things consistently;

1. Produce a high degree of control over the golf balls trajectory
2. Produce a high degree of control over the golf balls curvature
3. Produce a high degree of speed as the golf ball departs from the club face

So Tiger Woods and his fellow professionals can all control trajectory, curvature and ball speed. In my next post I’ll explain how they achieve these three critical factors and how you can learn to develop them in your game.

Until next time.

Lawrie Montague