Month: November 2017

Golf Training Aids

Golf training aids. The first thing you have to realize is that the people who come up with these things are in business to make money.

Once you understand this, you can understand that no training aid in the world will give you any lasting improvement regarding your golf swing. You can achieve temporary results, no matter how many repetitions you do.

Reality says that once you get on to the golf course you will do what you do naturally, no matter how good you feel about your training aid. Sooner than later your natural authentic golf swing will surface.

There is no substitute for good practice; practice that incorporates a solid understanding of grip, setup, and takeaway fundamentals. Solid fundamentals yield solid golf shots. Solid fundamentals as applied to your own, unique, individual, authentic idea of what in reality powers your golf swing.

You cannot do what you cannot do. No matter how hard you try. Your move is your move. Your golf swing is your golf swing. No training aid in the world can teach you this, it is only yours to discover through understanding a few things about your own golf swing framework.

Strength golf training aids are great. Build up your golfing muscles. It takes strength to swing a golf club. Even a little improvement in strengthening golfing muscles will yield good results.

Practice rhythm and timing which becomes a good tempo. Learn to release the club head at and through impact.

Understand your alignment as you set up to your golf shot. Pay attention to where your shoulders and hips are aiming. Then take the golf club away from the ball parallel to your set up lines at address.

Then go ahead and swing!

 

Playing Real Golf

Playing Real Golf

playing real golf
Playing Real Golf
Keys to teaching the golf swing
Ball Flight All That Matters

Played Shore Gate Golf Course down near Cape May New Jersey today, 11/12/2017. Played the white tees at about 6700 yards, 45 degrees, cart paths only, course was wet and played long.

What I shot is not important. What is important is that I was playing real golf.  I played one ball, and tried to grind it out as if I was playing in a championship. Counted every shot, penalties, no take overs, putted everything into the hole.

The numbers themselves are not important; they are what they are. What is important is that I write down on the scorecard every score for every hole. This brings the reality of what you shoot into focus. It brings the abstraction into the what is in the here and now.

Playing golf this way may not be a championship, but the mindset becomes the same. I put my head into a tournament situation and played every shot as if it meant something. I played the ball down, played like I had to shoot a score. I felt as if I was playing tournament golf, playing real golf.

We as PGA professionals make so many concessions on an everyday basis, as regards rules and trying to get patrons to enjoy the game, that is is becoming vitally important to me personally to revisit the true roots of the game, the true spirit of the game, and to play golf the way it was meant to be played.

I need this experience of playing golf the way it was meant to be played to replenish my sense of duty to the golfers who I meet on an everyday basis, whether members, guests, tournament players, or green fees. Playing real golf, no matter where it is, can only enhance my experience as a golf professional, and can only make me better as a player and a better professional.

It was a struggle today, but it felt good. I may not have a US Open game anymore, but calling myself out and putting that pressure on myself every time I go out on the course to play is worth the effort. Since golf is 99 percent in your head anyway, why not play in my own reality. Make the entire picture a tournament picture. I am playing real golf.

Every round I play from here on in will be a tournament round. Every shot I hit on the course will be a tournament shot. I have to learn to play real golf again. It is very important to me to do this. I have to revisit that sense of goodness, well-being, and continuity that comes from playing one ball into the hole.

No more practice for me. Just grinding it out as if every shot I play is in the US Open. No one else has to know what I am trying to accomplish. All that matters is that I am pitted against myself as I experience a round of golf and as I experience the golf course.