HERE is a statement to make you sit up and think! Good-looking swings can hit bad shots and bad-looking swings can hit good shots. Before I go on, this has nothing to do with good or bad luck.Golf, if you did not know, is not one dimensional nor is it black or white. Any decent coach can demonstrate a dodgy-looking technique and still hit a good ball and, likewise, he can then make a visually great-looking movement and totally duff it; both deliberately, I hasten to add. One of the saddest spectacles on a golf course, though, is the man who mystifies everyone in that he has regular lessons, has a great-looking swing but hits very poor-quality shots and plays off a handicap of 20-plus.This poor soul is simply lacking one element in his swing that makes the difference. So what defines a good swing? A good swing is one that delivers the club head into the back of the ball right on the button consistently. If you have a slightly eccentric loop or an extra couple of movements somewhere, but still strike the ball solid and in the right direction, don’t whatever you do change it or let anyone else change for that matter. Many a decent player has tried to make big changes in his technique in order to get their handicap down and ended up sending it the other way. For many players wanting to lower their scores, they would be better off spending 75 per cent of their time working on the 100 yards and less shots. What’s the statistic? Is it something like 60per cent of the shots we hit are played from less than 100 yards out? Is anyone asking how we get the club head to the ball in the right place at the right time? That’s a difficult one, but there is a great drill that can have a dramatic effect. Find a coach who will give you a session on an IMPACT BAG. It’s essential you are shown how to do this because, done incorrectly, it can have some serious consequences.The drill is not a new one; in fact it was very much in fashion back in the 60s.Things move on but nothing changes. For more on golf go to Nigel Burkitt’s website at www.101-golf-tips.co.uk
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WHAT you read today is possibly more important than any bit of golf swing advice or theory you will ever receive. Over the years, I have talked about the player finding the right coach who can communicate simple instruction that works for him or her. I have talked about the importance of really listening to the coach and putting aside your own notions and giving 100 per cent to your half of this working partnership. The next thing I need to tell you is this. Never book a lesson if you have an important golf tournament to play in the near future. When you make changes it takes time to build trust into those adjustments. On the practice range that trust can take place reasonably quickly as there are no hazards, no spectators and no score to post. Coupled to that you have a basket of golf balls so if you hit one poorly, just get another one.The golf course is the theatre of pressure. For some people this is even the case first thing in the morning, playing on their own when no one is around except for the green keepers. Standing there with one ball, a hazardous tree lined fairway and one chance, requires a bucket load of trust in your technique. Having a lesson – half an hour practice in your lunch break the next day – and then stepping up to the tee in competition two days later is guaranteed to get you second guessing what you achieved with your coach three days earlier when your familiar bad shot re-appears. It ruins your confidence, wrongfully undermines your trust in the coach, wastes your money on the lesson in the first place and worst scenario of all, it takes you one step nearer to the dreaded “Carousel of Quack Theory” where everyone onboard fills their heads with quick fix-its and in time goes barking mad. The only exception I would make to mixing lessons and playing important matches soon after is if you are one of the rare, fortunate, breed who has a fantastically healthy perspective in that you see the game bigger than anyone or any event there ever was or will be and there is always another day for glory. If that is the case, you are already a winner. 101-golf-tips.co.uk
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I will start this next blog by asking some great age old questions. Question One: Was mathematics invented or discovered? Question Two: What came first, the chicken or the egg? Question Three: What came first, the golf swing manual describing the perfect swing or the perfect swing itself? The answer to question one is, there is no answer as it usually degrades into a philosophical debate where everyone claims they are right. However the question still remains. The answer to question two is really irrelevant but it may have something in common to question three which is the one we are hopefully still interested in after this ramble into the world of academia. I think I am correct in saying that the egg/chicken scenario evolved over thousands, maybe millions of years into the form we recognise today. It may interest you to know the golf swing has also evolved over the centuries and is still evolving even today. When we talk of evolving, I interpret that to mean adapting, but adapting to what? Lets ask another question. What came first, the swing or the golf club? I think it’s safe to say the club was first on the scene and the swing in hot pursuit. The better players over the centuries are the ones who have adapted and developed a swing that suits the design of the golf club where as the lesser able players over the centuries have tried to adapt the golf club to suit their misplaced and incorrect ideas. So many times do coaches see players investing £300 in a new driver only to witness the player then throw himself at the ball. If they had a better grasp of the technique, they would hit a second-hand 20-year-old bit of kit just as well.The golf club is a weird strange contraption and requires a unique technique to get it to work to its best potential. The more you understand the club the more chance you have of finding that unique swing – the textbook swing in other words. 101-golf-tips.co.uk
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TV experts should carry a “Golfers Health Warning” TV experts should carry a “Golfers Health Warning” A fellow was telling me recently that whilst watching a Tournament from Dubai, one of the swing analysts recommended to the golfing masses that they could all improve their games if they simply kept their “Heads Still” as the pro’s do. His comment was backed up by a slow motion video playback of some Tour Star. Yes it’s true, so many golfers have moving heads and play awful golf; it’s a fact that the head is one of the most talked about parts of the swing. ( Google “Head still in golf swing” and it comes up with 1,680,000 listings ) “Keep your head down,” or put it another way, “Keep your eye on the ball” are statements forged into the annals of golf lore. Virtually every bad shot is followed by the utterance, “I lifted my head / I took eye off the ball.” What’s wrong with everyone, all golfers state it is the problem and even our TV expert said “Simply keep head still.” Nothing to it surely! So, why can’t people do it? People cannot do it because the tip is flawed. It is a “country club” myth. If you go for a lesson and the instructor tells you to “keep your head still,” I recommend you move your head, with your body underneath it, out the building and find another Coach. I must add that there is an exception to this which is for the short shots like chipping and putting, on these occasions we all look for the shot from time to time but it is impossible to look up for a full shot without damaging yourself. So as I said earlier, many golfers have moving heads but it is not the head that is the problem. Something makes the head move and that thing is the body. Your head cannot go anywhere without it being taken. You need to find out why the body is misbehaving. There are two or three reasons I know of. Don’t tackle the symptom, find and tackle the cause. So the TV expert whoever he was, has set back the ambitions of thousands golf addicts around the world for another season. I’ve always said too much TV is bad for you!
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Faulty Programs It is said that 70 to 80 percent of who we are, regarding every day behaviour and how we run our lives and thought processes is put there through social conditioning. In other words we are, on the whole, living our lives by someone else’s agenda, handed down and adapted through generations. There I was thinking I was in charge of my life when all along, someone else is! Ah well! I guess the upside is that any mistakes I make are not my fault. Anyway, I am of the opinion that we are conditioned into thinking golf is a tougher game than it is. I know I was brought up that way by my first boss. I was told that if you don’t hit 18 greens in regulation, you cannot shoot level par. What a contrast to the Swedish Golf Federation who tell their young elite squads that 12 greens in regulation is enough to shoot level par and make a living on the Tour. Obviously, the short game has to be pretty good, but Tour players short games are good; they are brilliant scramblers. Anyway it was this kind of early unrealistic conditioning put into my young impressionable head that formed the hard wiring of a belief system that was flawed. Any wonder that I struggled! Poor results equals drop in confidence, equals loss of self-esteem and there you have it, the game is difficult and if you believe it is, then it is true. What we need to do is find a way to see the game if not easy, then certainly easier. I bet at this point 99.9% of you said, Impossible! See what I mean, you have been told it’s difficult and you won’t have it any other way! It’s really amazing how we accept without question what people tell us and come to that, why should you listen to what I am telling you? Well the truth is, you don’t have to. I cannot make you but don’t you think we have had enough of people telling us what is and what isn’t possible, or the done thing. I am simply questioning the traditional view. It’s like centuries ago when the Church said the Sun revolved around the Earth. In those days, you had to believe it or else you were put to death. (Nowadays, they have much more subtle ways of making you believe what they want you to but that’s another story that would not sit well in a sports blog.) I have heard it said about Tennis and football, and I genuinely believe the same is true about golf, that traditional structured coaching can often coach talent out of the player. I think we golfers pay too much attention to too many details of the physical action that it ceases to be natural and instinctive. Can you imagine how technically complex and awkward it would be if we had to learn how to walk down stairs or brush our teeth by reading a manual and having lessons; we would all end up with rotting gums and living in bungalows. I remember attending a coaching seminar given by John Jacobs a few years back. He stood in front of us, clapped his hands together, and asked us, “How is it I can do that.” The room was silent as we all tried to work out what he meant. He clapped his hands again and simply said, “I can do it because no one told me how too.” So the bottom line is I can’t tell you how to play golf but I can certainly help you find out for yourself how to do it.
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F**k It In the last week Tiger Woods has stepped back on the worlds stage and faced the cameras and a selection of hand picked journalists as he begins the journey back. I never saw the TV but from what I read, he held his hands up and took the blame fairly on the chin. I guess there was not a lot he could do in the circumstances but full credit to him, he did what he had to do,… but was every one happy? NO! Some say he should have done it earlier, others say he should have waited until the end last weeks tournament which was backed by one of his former sponsors. All kinds of people are saying he should have done this or done that or done nothing maybe. Why don’t people get on and do what they should or ought to do instead of trying to be an expert in other peoples lives and situations. We are all great at sorting out other peoples problems whilst often useless at addressing our own inadequacies. I hope for his sake he doesn’t try to pander to his detractors. He might just become stifled to much and lose his focus on what he does best which is play great golf. Living by other peoples agendas is no solution. Woods said he was not only going to address the issues off the course, he was also going to address issues on the course and clean up his attitude. Club throwing, dissent, spitting and swearing being the focus. It suddenly struck me that should he approach me for a spot of counselling, I might have some advice to offer. Before you think I am going to take a stance on the moral high ground, I’m not. Just before Christmas, I bought a book titled “F**k It.” ( Honest, I’m serious) It offers a very refreshing approach when tackling all manner of life’s challenges and is very much aligned to the Zen Buddhist philosophy of letting go to actually get what you are after. There would be a wonderful sense of irony should he read this book and it were to guide him out of the mire caused by the physical activity, aptly described by the title, in the first place. As a footnote, I am reminded of an event years ago when a very well spoken lady from Penrith, whilst having a lesson one day, was relating the terrible game she had had. She told me that she stood on the 18 tee and was so totally disgruntled with the previous 17 holes, she offered up the words “Oh Sod It” (A more polite ladylike way of saying Oh F**K it ) swung the club and yes you guessed it, she nailed it down the middle. So the moral of the posting is, sometimes it is wise to step back from life’s challenges, stop the struggle and let things follow their natural course.
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A question asked a lot of late in the wake of the great mans self perpetuated fall from grace. Every one has, and is entitled to, their own view but as for me I personally feel the game is bigger than anyone. If Woods was never to play again, we would see, when the media hype and speculation settles down that the game is in as healthy a condition as it was before he arrived on the scene. The game has been around for more than 500 years. It is imperfect-able and for many, becomes an obsession. The game is a fantastic vehicle for an individual to express their skill and over the centuries, it has given a huge amount to a huge amount of people, Tiger Woods being one of them. Without question, big corporate organisations need Tiger Woods to drive their brands and increase their market share. No doubt in the forthcoming months, sponsor money may dip but it might just attract other companies to invest who previously felt the “Tiger Presence” hiked up the price too much for them to get a return. Newspapers and media groups aren’t to bothered as they reap the added benefit of selling newsprint whether Woods was “winning majors” or “winning over the ladies.” They will no doubt sell more with the latter due to the publics voyeuristic curiosity when the great fall. So lets assume he is finished, “The King is dead, long live the King.” The golf industry will still drive the business and as a consequence, they will groom and push forward another “Superstar” from a group of brilliant young talent that is already out there. OK, they might not have the extra 1% of flair that sets Woods apart but they will be elevated in the public awareness because of their marketability. We see it every year with the “X Factor” and “Pop Idol.” If the people believe there is an extra special talent out there, the cash will keep rolling in. I have always said that the only man who would beat him would be himself but never thought it would be in this way. His immense psychological superiority and self belief made the opposition feel inadequate which when it came down to the crunch was the difference between 1st and nowhere. Are we witnessing the end of his reign? Will he ever play competitive golf again? We will have to wait and see but does Golf need Tiger Woods? No!
I think the real question is Does Tiger Woods want Golf anymore?
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We live in an age of conspiracy theories ranging from global size Big Political issues which just won’t go away to the more mundane ones which hardly cause a ripple. Well would you believe, here is a conspiracy theory for the worlds golfers. According to some American PGA Guy on the internet, the worlds golf coaches have an agenda which is to keep the game secrets out of the golfing public domain. He cites the loss of ongoing income as the main reason why we, pga golf coaches, don’t give you, the club player, the secret to quality ball striking. If we let you in on the secret, you won’t come for your regular lesson. According to this guy, we coach you in a “way” which makes you dependant on our services because we are dependant on your cash. The “way,” he refers to is what I call “Classical” golf tuition, by which I mean the preferred, stereotyped, “swing by numbers” method used by generations of golf “Pro’s.” It is quite a cynical viewpoint but there is an thread of truth in part of what he says about the stereotyped “swing by numbers” method. It was very much the norm up until the very early 80s when the swing was mechanically taught and constructed bit by bit in the learning process. Thank goodness, things changed about 20 to 25 years ago but like any change, it was a slow process. In the modern day, we now have Pro’s who advise on Diet, Bio / Skeletal Mechanics, Fitness and last, but in my opinion the most important, the Inner game; yep, the old grey muscle. Trust me because it’s fact; you can have a physically honed athlete who eats nothing but nuts and fruit, drinks only “Isotonic” performance fluids and water, is in bed before 9pm every night and has a swing to die for but if the head isn’t right, he will win nothing but “Best turned out” in the paddock. The revolution in acknowledging “psychology in the game” was a slow revolution but it has now become accepted by the Pro’s and plays a vital part of many Coaches repertoire. There are still a few of pockets of resistance in the coaching ranks but the biggest resistance to the new groundbreaking alternative ideas, concepts and coaching philosophies is amongst the club golfers themselves. So the American PGA Guy on the internet is wrong. We are not deliberately keeping something back, in fact the opposite is the case, we are trying to find better ways of getting you the game you are after. What we need though is you, the handicap player, to look at the game in a different way. So for all you golfers out there, here is a thought to leave you with. The game is about 20% technique; don’t put 100% effort into just this 20%.
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