Who Fired That Shot?

There is a theme that is repeated over and over, legion in number, on golf forums. Actually there are numerous such repetitions covering other issues, too, but in particular we point to, "What should we do when the swing doesn't seem to be working today?"

The "answers" come thick, if not fast. Everything from "Just quit and walk in," to "Go back to basics." In between, we see things like "Well, the pros often can be seen on tour taking half swings with a 6 iron while waiting to hit, since they have trouble like that too" or "Get yourself a 'choke shot' so you can keep playing."

While reviewing such comments, we regularly resist the urge to grab a pitching wedge and spilt a few heads in the hope that someone will ask the question, either out loud or to themselves, "What am I missing in the meaning of this kind of patter that intimates such helpless feeling? Why do we keep asking the same questions?"

To begin with, if your game won't survive a night's sleep, that should be the first clue that something is unfinished or out of kilter. If you had to treat driving your car, dressing yourself, or any of the other things you do regularly or frequently, with such a question, surely you would stop yourself and ask, "What's the problem here?"

At the risk of offending a few people and their furtive answers, those who may be trying to help, but lack enough information to do that, while trying to do it anyway, here's our take.

If your swing is not working, it only means that you haven't finished your most effective learning and built a bridge between your skills and your habits. If your habits were well developed, such occurrences would be so infrequent as to go unnoticed. On a day when your swing is not working to your liking, that bids for a more careful approach to the information you need and the utilization of that information in learning and development of your game, though there is the outside chance that something already learned is in need of repair. The extent and severity of the symptoms, however, would tell you whether you were in need of habits, or in need of reinforcing something already in your possession. Unfinished habit development would show in the entire game. The repair issue would be less severe and more transient. Neither of those is ominous, mysterious, or insidious, but just a matter of putting a proper, accurate, effective plan into your portfolio and proceeding to manage it well.

We've been doing that with players for 30 years, even though only a few have been paying attention. More recently, the number is growing. Why? Because all of a sudden, it is dawning on players that their thinking has been truncated into no more than a 3% conscious mental function when what they need is to add and understand the 97% non-conscious mental activity - at least well enough to inform the building of habits and stop the process of trying to survive on skills alone.

This, by the way, is, by all available evidence, the most formidable underlying reason that the observable performance standards in the game have hardly moved in the last century, even with the marvelous advancement in high tech equipment and in the understanding of swing movements and skills.

If you can soak that into your thinking and not be ready to advance your knowledge, skill and habit development, then it would be a good time to take up tennis, badminton, ping pong or bowling.

There is plenty that can be done, so when you are ready, let us know.

Wishy Stroke

Love that comment from a commentator at the current Las Vegas affair (they don't show them talking so it's hard to know which one said it). We suppose a "wishy stroke" is nothing more than a bad putt, brought on by the likes of anxiety. Who says the pros never have any of that (anxiety)?

Some day soon, we hope that the golfing world will take full recognition of the relationship between the mind and the body, so that all can move another notch forward with their games and find a new level in understanding who they are and why and how the mind and body work together successfully.

That is all for now. We return you to your regularly scheduled trivia.

If you are interested to know, give us a shout.

A Thought Worth Notice

Jesper Parnevik, after firing 61-65, was asked about the space between his last win in 2001 and his low scores in the first two rounds at the Valero Texas Open. Rightly or wrongly, after a bit of discussion, he noted that most sports give you a good result if you work harder at them, but golf is the only one that can leave you in worse shape if you work harder.

We are inclined to agree with that. Without going into all the reasons, we think what he means is that golfers start making too many changes and thinking too much. Understanding those two elements of the game is critical. Why? Because change within a refined set of physical motions as golf requires needs a lot of time to settle in and become habitual. Continual changing denies that result. Numerous changes really show that the one doing the changing does not have a reasonable grasp on what needs to be accomplished, so the regimen becomes one experiment after another. That will never find the finish line.

On the thinking side, if one keeps rattling the brain, simply put, it will rattle the hands, arms, legs and back, not to mention the brain. If you think that's good for your golf, we know a shrink you can visit.

Jesper is right. Let's hope he doesn't start making more changes after the first two rounds.

The "What Are They Thinkng?" Department

In the last two days, we have read or heard several comments about the importance of having good hand-eye coordination for golf. Our question is, "What are they thinking and how are they placing that value on something a blind person can do?"

We don't deny that hand-eye coordination, generally speaking, is a good thing, or that it borders on necessity for some sports, like baseball, tennis, hockey and basketball. However, we will steadfastly hold to the view that it is not important, at least not in the sense it gets talked about, for golf.

Why? Because the ball is not in motion. All the other named sports have an object that is in motion, which does need hand-eye coordination. But a blind person can hit a golf ball. Clearly, by definition, that player is not in the game, if hand-eye coordination is required.


The only reason to "need" it is when one must be able to see the movement in the object s/he wishes to "hit." A golfer can set up, close the eyes, swing the club and make pure contact. For a tennis player or baseball player that would be unlikely if not impossible.

Make no mistake. We are neither denying nor downplaying the value of hand-eye coordination, just calling on the gurus to stop telling people it is either important or necessary for golf.

Backspin by the Press

Here's a good one for you. Read the headline. Then check out what he really said.

Notes: Finchem Disappointed in Tiger
By Associated Press - August 22, 2007

HARRISON, N.Y. -- PGA TOUR commissioner Tim Finchem's news conference Wednesday at The Barclays opened with a question about Tiger Woods' decision to skip the first event of the four-tournament FedEx Cup playoffs.

"Obviously, I'm disappointed with his decision," Finchem said. "It's not a decision that I like to see him make, candidly, any week of the year, but he doesn't play them all. ... From the standpoint of the sponsor here, the fans in New York, it's certainly a negative. You know, I would like to see it the other way."

It is misleading to say the Finchem is disappointed "IN" Tiger. From a news media that is constantly looking for anything that is sensational, or if it is not spicy enough, make it sound that way no matter what the truth is, it is not surprising that they would seek to mislead us into believing that Tiger is a disappointment and that Fichem is upset with him.

Reading the article, one can clearly see that is not true. Finchem's disappointment lies in the concern that even though Tiger is a free man, it will likely make a difference in the interest taken in the tournament.

After that came another news article (we lost the source) that made it sound like Westchester will now show The Tour the door since Tiger was not there. We don't know if that's true or not, but it certainly is far-fetched, not to mention short-sighted.

Our take is that there is no one coming or going that knows Tiger, his needs and desires, better than Tiger. He's who he is and does what he needs to do. And that's that. If others see him as the king of the golf world, without whom the kingdom falls, so be it. Even kings need a vacation once in awhile. Ask any king.

More Applause

The ladies are rockin'. Two weeks ago, Karen Davies, from Scottsdale, AZ won the Tennessee Womens' Open at Bear Trace in Crossville, TN. The runner-up there was Lisa DePaulo from Austin, TX.

Yesterday, it was turn about, at Pinehurst, as Lisa won the National LPGA Teaching Division Championship and Karen, the defending champion, was runner-up. They have to be on the classiest list of players out there right now.

If that were not enough, last time out, Lisa and Karen teamed up in the LPGA team championship to win that one, as well. We give both of them kudos for their performance and especially for the consistency of their play. They clearly know how to do it.

The Magic of New Golf Clubs

A top notch instructor and friend in Australia sent me a couple of rather formidable questions.

"Why is it that people really think they play better with some off the rack stuff that is suited to bugger all people? Why is it that they may score better for a couple of rounds and then the magic wears off?"

That's heard a lot, too, isn't it? I wonder if there is a golfer alive who has not had some variation of the experience that prompts the question. New putters used to be my thing. And up until more recently, even Arnie used to haul five or six out to the putting green before playing to see which one would work best that day.

We call it the "distraction factor." Anything new requires a different focus of attention from the usual. That takes the mind away from mechanical issues for a moment or two, and that's when things get better. Never mind that it's an unfinished form of the principle. It will work in the short term. The moral is that we could go through golfing life changing our equipment every other day (disregarding the cost, of course) and likely play better until that drained us of money or pleasure.

The sad part is that no one bothered to check into the principle lying behind that phenomenon. Most players keep on trying to think about what they are doing while they are doing it - which is a procedure containing several fatal errors.

A new piece of equipment stops, or postpones that kind of thinking for a day or two, till the player becomes accustomed to the "new" and it is now "old," so it's back to the same "old" kind of thinking.

What makes that "fatal" is the mismatch occuring between thinking and acting. We can think much faster than we can act, which in nature's scheme, inevitably produces either a balk or "hot pursuit" trying to catch up. Either of those is ultimately fatal. Oh, of course, we get away with our misses, even teach people that's a desirable way to go, but it is a "wounded" way to go.

So all us clever folks thought up what can now be seen as a "tic-tac" solution - get a new set of clubs. And the rest of the story is, where this message is concerned, it makes no difference if they are "fitted" or just off the rack, since it's not the clubs. Its the NEW in our minds about the clubs.

If that's not an elongated way to face a problem, then we've missed something somewhere.
Cheers