"Let The Club Do The Work"

Some time ago I heard one of the accomplished ladies in our club berating herself after shanking a fairway wood shot. “Silly,” she scolded herself, “let the club do the work.”

At the time I didn’t really know what she meant. “How can the club do the work,” I said to myself. “Surely we’ve got to do the work; the club is merely an extension of our hands and arms and only does as much as we make it do.”

Now, however, I appreciate better what this lady meant. She was really referring to the fact that what we try to do in golf is “swing the club” rather than “hit the ball with the club.” All our energy and attention should really be concentrated on getting that club swinging as freely and accurately as we can. The club is the thing that does the work – that connects with the ball and propels it on its journey. We have to become master “club-swingers” rather than “ball-hitters.”

That might sound subtle, but it’s immensely important. The moment we think about “hitting the ball”, we will almost certainly try to force the club in the wrong way. We will use it to “whack” at the ball instead of swinging it through the ball. The nature of the two actions, and the results, are quite different.

While I don’t always succeed, I nevertheless now try to approach each shot conscious of only one thing: swinging the appropriate club at the appropriate speed through the ball. In other words, I concentrate on getting the club in motion and letting it do the work.

Not Too Tight!

You’ve probably often heard it said that you mustn’t grip the club too tightly. It tenses the muscles of the wrists and arms and prevents you swinging properly.

Legendary player and coach Ernest Jones had this to say about tension and its effects on golf: “Tenseness is the insurmountable barrier to swinging, because swinging implies a free, easy rhythm, which can never be achieved in the face of tenseness.” Again, “If there is tenseness in either the hands or the arms or in the legs, it will absolutely forestall the swinging action at the start.”

This morning I put that advice to the test. I keep a 9-iron in the lounge to practice rhythm and swing, and this morning I concentrated on altering the tension in my hands, wrists and forearms and seeing the effect it had on a free, swinging action. I started out swinging the club back and forth, not worrying too much about posture. I simply wanted to establish a smooth, rhythmic, pendulum kind of half-swing with the club.

Then I deliberately loosened my grip so that it was barely strong enough to control the club – about a 2 out of 10 degree of firmness. Gradually, as I swung the club back and forth, I increased the firmness of my grip until it was about 6 or 7 out of 10, and watched for changes in the motion of the club in the process.

The results were striking. There is no question that when my grip was most relaxed, the club swung freely and easily. I had the sense that the club itself was the main thing (rather than my arms and hands trying to hit something with the club). The moment I began to increase tension in my hands and forearms, however, the nature of the club’s motion changed. It didn’t swing so freely or easily, eventually becoming quite rigid and somewhat jerky in its movements (corresponding more exactly to the movement of my hands and arms). Furthermore, its swing plane changed and became more erratic.

This little experiment left me with no doubt at all that the advice “Hold the club just securely enough to assure control of it throughout the stroke”, is good advice. Try the above exercise yourself and I think you will agree.

Releasing the Club

Recently I came across a statement that's helped me understand what my wrists ought to be doing in the lower part of the golf swing. It spoke of "releasing the club into the back of the ball."

This makes better sense to me than the conflicting advice I've read and received elsewhere about what to do with the wrists in the downswing. One school of thought in golf stresses the importance of consciously cocking the wrists during the backswing (either early in the process, gradually, or at the end of it), while another argues that there shouldn't be any conscious effort to break the wrists at all - it should happen naturally as the backswing reaches its conclusion. Be that as it may, practically all schools of thought recognize that there is at least a momentary cocking of the wrists at the high point in the backswing.

The question is, "What do you do with these cocked wrists after that - in the course of the downswing?" Again, there are some say that you shouldn't try to do anything. Any conscious effort to manipulate the wrists, they claim, is going to get you into trouble. Let the natural, centrifugal force of your downswing cause your wrists to unhinge at the correct place on their own accord.

Then there are others who say that the key to power in the impact zone is the deliberate action of the hands and wrists whipping through the ball. "Give it everything you've got" in that zone, some people advise. And generally that means wrist as well as arm and hand action.

Whatever position people take, they generally agree on this: the later the application of power in the downswing the better. It's in the "hitting zone" between the feet especially where power needs to be applied. The aim is to have the clubhead accelerating into the back of the ball at the point of impact. If power is applied too soon in the downswing, then its almost certain that the club won't be accelerating still when it contacts the ball, nor will it reach its maximum speed just beyond the ball. Somehow or other, the wrists are involved in the correct application of power at the proper time.

I've tried various approaches to using (or not using) my wrists in the golf swing, all with little success. But this idea of "releasing the club into the back of the ball" has me excited.  It's not about whacking the ball with the wrists at the point of contact, but of maintaining the cocked position of the wrist until just before impact. At that point, there is a deliberate "letting go" of the right wrist (for a right hander) so that it is no longer held in a cocked position. That releases the clubhead "into the back of the ball", ensuring maximum acceleration and perfect timing.  

This action of "letting go" or "releasing" the clubhead into the back of the ball is a very distinct action - very different to trying to force it through the ball with a "wristy" hit. You simply keep your right wrist (for a right hander) in its cocked position until the impact zone, and then "let it go". The momentum (centrifugal force) associated with your swing will accelerate the clubhead through the ball naturally, giving that pleasing "wooshing" sound that accompanies a powerful, well-timed shot. Try it and see if it works.

A Sub-Conscious Action

“A good golf swing should be performed sub-consciously.” That’s what the authors of the book (and the golf training programme) The Swing Factory argue. And it's not just their belief; many other golf writers and experienced players will tell you the same thing.  

But what do they mean by that? Often we are robbed of the benefit of good advice because we don’t fully understand key terms people use. This is surely a case in point. What does the term “sub-conscious” mean in regard to the golf swing? If we don’t understand that, we won’t understand, let alone come to practice, this important piece of advice.

A conscious activity is one that occurs at the level of our awareness, and usually involves deliberate thought and action on our part. We are aware of what is happening, can understand what is happening, and can even control it to some degree or other. Moving the cup on my desk forward an inch or two, for example, is a deliberate, conscious action. I look at the cup, see where I want to move it to, and then deliberately apply force to it so that it moves to the spot where I want it to go. That is all very conscious, very intentional.

Compare that to the simple act of picking up a fork to eat. When it comes time to eat dinner, we don’t have to think about picking up our eating utensils. It’s something we do reflexively. In most cases we’ve done it for so many years that we don’t even need to look where our knife and fork are. We simply reach out, grasp them, and put them to work without even thinking about it. That’s a sub-conscious action – an action that is taking place without conscious, deliberate thought, action or decision. It’s taking place through motions that are below the level of consciousness. They just happen without us having to think about them.

That’s what people have in mind when they talk about the golf swing becoming a “sub-conscious” action. They are talking about it becoming something so natural, so instinctive, that we don’t have to think about it. We don’t need to remind ourselves to “get our hips out of the way,” or “begin to unwind from the bottom up,” or again, think about “having an even tempo.” It just happens, fluidly, naturally, without any conscious thought on our part. When we reach that state, it’s likely that our golf will become much more consistent.

As desirable as that sounds, how do we get to that point? Again, it’s helpful to think of analogies. How did we reach the point of being able to pick up a knife and fork to eat a meal without thinking about the action consciously? The answer is, by practice. If we could remember way back to when we first began to use a knife and fork, we would remember how clumsy it felt at first, and how our first efforts to put our fork in our mouth took concentration. There were often mistakes along the way, and food smudges on our faces to prove it. But with time – and often not a lot of time – that simple activity became something natural to us. It was awkward at first, and required deliberate action at first; but with time and repeated practice, it became something that was just part of us.

That’s true of any action. For the golf swing to become a sub-conscious action that we perform instinctively, smoothly, repetitively we’ve got to practice it. At first we’ve got to discover where the club should be in different parts of the swing; then we’ve got to place it there (repetitively) in slow motion; and then we’ve got to practice the movement and get the feel of the rhythm by constant practice. In time, we will be able to swing the club in the same way without thinking about it.

Focus on the Target

This past Saturday I really muffed a putt on the last green. I was only about two metres (6 feet) from the pin and ended up nudging the ball at least 30 cm (1 foot) wide of the hole. What was the problem? I was so intent on getting my stroke dynamics right that I didn't even take a serious sight on the hole.

Afterwards it occurred to me that this was a perfect example of focusing on something other than the target. I've read of this tendency in various books on golf, but this experience brought the reality of the problem home to me. Once again its a reflection of how important the mind is in golf. What absorbs our thinking at the moment of playing the stroke is bound to influence its outcome. If - as in the case above - our thoughts are occupied with matters of technique, then there is every possibility that the all important matter of where we are trying to hit the ball will be missed out altogether.

What's the solution? Forethought, routine and simplicity seem to be the answer. Forethought is where it really begins. One good golf teacher says, "Do your thinking before you attempt to play your stroke". That's excellent advice. All consideration of the type of shot you want to play, the club to use, the precise target you want to aim at, needs to be done before you address the ball and attempt to swing the club.

Routine is a great aid to doing this. Going through the same set of actions in preparation for every shot, and getting to the point where we do that automatically for every shot, is one of the keys, the experts tell us, to playing consistent golf. And that's particularly so in pressure situations. Having a standard set of actions - sighting the shot from behind the ball, deciding on what club to use, the exact target point for the shot, getting alignment and aim correct etc. - this sort of standard, repeated procedure is a great help.

Last of all, and perhaps the most important, simplicity at the point of making the stroke is essential. By that I mean keeping the mind focused on a simple, single thought at the time. Different people have different "swing thoughts". Whatever our particular one is, it should be a simple, single statement. Too many thoughts destroy the cohesiveness and smoothness of the swing.

I know that I've wandered a little away from my original theme - focusing on the target - but in a sense, failure to do that is a symptom of a larger problem. It's the result of becoming over absorbed with details instead of keeping things simple at the point of making the stroke. And forethought and routine are essential to making that happen. 

Playing Smart Golf

Tommy Armour was a well-known golfer and golf coach in an earlier era - the 1930's-50's. After helping thousands play better golf he captured the essence of his basic "on the tee" instruction in a book How To Play Your Best Golf All the Time. Old the the book may be (it was first published in 1956), it contains a great deal of wisdom.

At the outset, before he begins to talk about grip and posture and other basics, Armour stresses the importance of tactics in the game of golf. Many people fail to score as well as they might, he says, because they don't play intelligent, smart golf. "Play the shot you've got the greatest chance of playing well," was one of his adages, and another, "Play the shot that makes the next shot easy." Once more, "Every golfer scores better when he learns his capabilities."

One fault Armour pounces on is the tendency to "go for the green" with a big shot, or a difficult shot. Nine times out of ten, he argues, you will find you have over-estimated your capacity. It is far better to play within yourself, and guarantee that your next shot is an easy one. 

I made the blunder of going for "a big shot" this past Saturday. After two great approach shots on a par 5 hole I was well within range of the green. In fact, the choice I had to make was between a nine iron and a pitching wedge. I chose the former, thinking that I would be clever and land the ball near the pin positioned near the edge of a tricky, sloping green. The pitching wedge would have landed me a little short, but on a far safer part of the fairway-green fringe. But no, I had to go for the big shot, the winning shot.  

And what happened? I hit the ball sweetly, but it was fractionally off target. Rather than landing on the green proper it hit its raised shoulder and cannoned off to the side at near right angles. That left me with a very difficult up-slope chip onto the green surface to the nearby pin, a chip that I scuffed not once, but twice. That was enough to jangle the nerves and put me off my putting when I did eventually get the ball near the hole. What should have been an easy par 5 turned out to be a horrendous 9!!!

Armour's advice is worth taking. Don't go for the heroic shots if there is an element of risk in them. Instead, aim to play the shot that you know you can play well, and that will ensure that your next shot is an easy one.

Forceful Effort

This past Saturday I paid the price for using "forceful effort" instead of "effortless force" at the Wyndham Golf Club's infamous "Elbow" hole.

The hole dog-legs to the left and has traps on either side. On the left hand side is the local race course track, and on the right, the stop bank for a local river. Both are out of bounds and spell an instant 2-shot penalty.

Early on I used to fall foul of the right hand side stop-bank trap. My beginner's slice habitually saw my tee shots soar over the populars and beyond the bank. This past Saturday, however, I hooked my first shot and pulled it onto the race track. And I know why I did it! It was that mental thing again! Knowing the dangers of the hole, and trying to compensate for the buffeting southerly wind, put me on edge. I was over-anxious and "forced" my shot. My timing was up the pole and the result a disaster. My second shot off the tee wasn't much better, although it did manage to curl in the wind back onto the fairway.

That's what happens whenever I try to "force" a shot instead of relying on technique and rhythm. It has been well said that golf is not a game of "forceful effort" but rather of "effortless force." I think I know the difference. When my mind is in the right space, and I'm feeling relaxed and confident about a shot, I can more often than not slip into that seemingly effortless groove of swinging easily through the ball. There is effort there, but you hardly notice it. The whole swing is connected and flows smoothly and easily. And the ball typically flies straight, true, and far.

Under pressure, however, and when the jitters strike, rhythm seems to go out the door. Instead of that smooth, easy swing through the ball, there's the deliberate attempt to hit  - or worse still, hack - at it. When that happens the swing loses its connectedness and typically, force is applied too soon. What is more, it is the force of leverage rather than centrifugal - the force that makes for a smooth and effortless swing. Little wonder the results are predictably disastrous. 

Staying calm and playing smoothly and rhythmically when faced with a very long or challenging hole is one of the hurdles I've still got to conquer.  

Relax!

One bit of advice that I've found hard to implement is to "relax" as I set up to play a shot. I can recall my first golf teacher back in 2000 telling me to address the ball as though I'd been playing golf for fifty years. Great advice; just mighty hard for a beginner to do.

Recently I've discovered that body posture has a good deal to do with how relaxed or otherwise I am when I address the ball. If I try too hard to get the correct spinal angle, straight back, and bent knees - not to mention getting the buttocks thrust backward for balance - I invariably tense up. What is more, I find it nearly impossible to have that "nice, easy, smooth and relaxed swing" that is so much commended from such a position.

Recently I've been studying The Ernest Jones Method of playing golf and have been struck by Jones's insistence on a more upright stance. It was his opinion that most golfers bend over too much. He advised an easy, minimal adjustment of the body angle when swinging the club.

I've tried it this past week and certainly found it easier to stand to the ball in a relaxed manner. That in turn has helped me swing the club in a more relaxed way. The initial results are mighty encouraging - a score of 39 for a nine hole practice round this past Monday (my previous best was 45). The test will come when I've next got a full competition round. I'm eager to see what happens.  

Finding Our Tempo

The best tempo for us to swing the club at is apparently something very personal. It relates to our temperament, state of mind and health, and to our physical capabilities. Just as one person habitually walks slower than another, so that same person is likely to have a slower golf swing tempo than the other.

How, then, do we discover our unique and natural tempo? Once again The Swing Factory has something to help. It suggests the following exercise:

• Assume the correct address position
• Extend both arms horizontally in front of you with palms facing each other. The distance between your hands should be the same as the width of your shoulders
• Move both arms upwards together to just above head height and bring them down again.
• Repeat this motion several times, first without a club in your hands, and then with one
• be sure that the motions is smooth and easy, without any undue (or forced) effort being required
• Be sure the motion is a genuine swing of the hands and the arms from the shoulders

THE SPEED YOU MOVE YOUR ARMS IN THIS EXERCISE IS THE SPEED AT WHICH YOU SHOULD SWING YOUR HANDS AND ARMS IN THE GOLF SWING ITSELF. (p. 204)

Transferring this tempo - rate of action - to your natural golf swing is something that requires disciplined effort. It's an exercise we need to repeat over and over, and then deliberately apply it to our swing.

Much Too Fast!!

The Swing Factory makes the comment that most golfers swing much too fast. You've probably heard that before - I know that I have. Here's the full quote from the book:

"Most golfers swing much too fast to retain control over the delivery, so the point of their release and the shape of their swing is subject to constant variation." (p. 202)

That makes sense. The point at which we release power in the swing is important. And so too is the shape of the swing - something that apparently is closely related to power release and tempo as well. "Tempo and swing shape are indivisible" the book says (p. 202). So if we are swinging too fast, we are going to lose the control necessary to be able to release power through the wrists and hands at the right place, and our swing shape is going to vary from one swing to another. Instead, power going to be unleashed in a mighty heave too soon, and our swing shape is going to change constantly. And that's not what we want.

"You cannot standardise the shape of your swing and the point of delivery until you have a constant tempo." (p. 202). Hmmm! That DOES make good sense to me.

It's That Mind Thing!!!

Experienced golfers constantly tell us that the mind really matters in golf. In fact, most of our problems in trying to play the game consistently, they say, spring from problems with our mind.

Take this problem of releasing power too early in the downswing. This happens because we allow the thought of power - rather than swinging the club - dominate our minds.

I find this to be the case especially when I get into the rough. Seeing the ball nestled in the long-ish grass instinctively makes me feel that I have to hit it harder to get it out. What's happened? My mind has focused on the matter of power, not swinging the club. And the result? Almost always the tendency to "whack" the ball instead of swinging naturally through it.

Or to put it another way, I tend to focus on getting power out of the swing instead of the sequence of actions necessary for a smooth, effortless swing.

Yep! the mind sure does matter.

Looking Up Too Soon

I've been dogged with the problem of looking up from the ball too soon - or, as it is sometimes said, "lifting my head too quickly." I came across a most interesting explanation for this in The Swing Factory relating it to problems of tempo and rhythm.

Lifting the head, the book says, is a reflex reaction that happens after you have released power in your shot. You sense that you have discharged the force you want to apply to the ball, and you look up to see the result.

Lifting the head too early, according to this theory, is the result of releasing power too early. "Hit early and you will look early; hit late, and you will look late," the saying goes.

This comes back to tempo. An even tempo allows us to release power at the right time - in the hitting zone between the feet. If we do that, we will find that we are lifting our head at the correct time as well - after impact, not before.

More on Tempo

This matter of tempo is so important - and so difficult to implement - that I want to write more on it. Even if I'm the only one that benefits, that's okay.
Back to the book, The Swing Factory, that I mentioned in my last posting. The big thing about tempo, it insists, is that it allows you to develop power in the right place. The place for that power is in the impact zone - basically, between the feet. The tendency for beginners like myself is to release power too early - to "hit from the top" in other words. That's because we tend to think in terms of "hitting the ball" rather than executing a smooth swing. In our nervousness, we hurry the down swing (or through swing) and release power too soon. As a consequence, we fail to time the shot - and much worse as well.

If we can think of tempo rather than power - that is, of the pace of a smooth, even swing rather than force imparted to the ball - it enables us to build a swing that naturally imparts the power at the right place. In a true swing of the club, the maximum acceleration and speed will occur exactly where it should, at the point of impact. That will result in perfect timing and maximum distance.

So the key thing is to think of swinging the club, and doing so in an even, repeatable way. And the key to that  is developing a smooth, even tempo. Try to hit it too fast and you will almost certainly impart power too early and your shots will be erratic. Develop a steady, even tempo and you will be focusing on swinging the club and not hitting the ball.

The Big Three

After I'd finished my first golf lesson back in January 2000, the golf professional who had been teaching me wrote three words in capital letters on the lesson record he gave me. They were TIMING, RHYTHM AND TEMPO. These three things, he said, are "the big three" of good golf.

To this day there's something elusive about all three of them. Try to get someone to define "rhythm", and you'll most likely get a vague and woolly answer. Much the same is true with the other two "biggies" as well. I'm a scientist at heart, and love clear definitions. Knowing exactly what a word means helps me. And that's the case with these three.

When I started playing golf in earnest a year or so ago (I had merely dabbled on and off before that), I began to read books on the sport from our nearby library. One of them, The Swing Factory has the best discussion of "tempo" that I've come across. Let me distill some of the things I found helpful.

I can't recall that the book actually defined the term, but I had enough know-how to realise it had something to do with speed. I've a dictionary before me as I write, and it defines the term as "a characteristic rate or rhythm of activity; pace." In golf that relates to the pace at which we swing the club.

On this The Swing Factory has many good things to say. The first is that tempo is the key to a consistent golf swing. It describes it as "the master regulator of the entire system." That is to say, the overall cohesion, smoothness and effectiveness of a swing is governed by the rate at which we swing the club.

How does that work? Like this, the book goes on to say. "The right tempo enables the sequence of the swing to occur in the correct order with perfect timing." If the tempo is too rushed, you don't have time to move your arms, hips, shoulders etc., in the way they need to. Alternatively, if the tempo is too slow, the swing becomes disjointed and loses its smoothness. Movements which should flow easily from one to the other become frozen, or broken, and the stroke as a whole loses cohesion. The result is almost inevitably a loss of timing, and certainly, of consistent repeatability. The most repeatable actions are those that flow smoothly and naturally. Jerky, disjointed ones are likely to wobble all over the place.

That's enough for now on the importance of tempo. More next time.

What's This All About?

I'm a relative newcomer to golf - at least, to serious golf. I first held a club in my hands over twenty years ago when my younger brother, Richard (Dick), a gifted golfer, encouraged me to have a swing with an 8 iron in the back paddock of our parents life-style block in Fairlie. Always a lover of ball games, I immediately enjoyed the challenge of trying to hit that tiny white ball where I wanted it to go. However, I didn't pursue the game as such till nearly 15 years later.

Since shifting to Wyndham in 2008 I've joined the local golf club and have really fallen in love with the game. I love the exercise it provides, the technical challenge it presents, and the fraternity of people that it creates. I'm still a high handicapper at this point, and am not phased about that. But I do want to get better.

I've had some lessons from a golf professional in Invercargill, our nearest city, and also milked the brains of the seniors at our club. They've been helpful, and I continue to try to apply what I've learned from them as best as I can.

But what I like doing most of all is reading good books on golf, gleaning from them the wisdom of great teachers of the sport and masters at the game. That fits with a lifetime of study, research and teaching - I  guess I'm a born student and enjoy nothing more than reading, thinking, writing and teaching.

The last of these - teaching - is what has led to the creation of this blog site. In all the work that I've done over the years in soil science, pastoral ministry and theology, I've always wanted to share with others what I've been able to glean from my studies. I don't claim to be an expert practitioner of all that I've found helpful - if that were the case I'd be a single figure handicap player. But I do love to share with others what has been genuinely helpful to me. It seems selfish and wasteful to keep the gathered gold all for myself. I want to scatter it around.

That's what I plan to do in this blog site - share with others the lessons I've learned both from personal experience "on the links", and more importantly, what I've learned from others that is truly helpful "for the links." Most of these lessons are of a technical nature - that is, they relate to the actual playing of golf. But some of them are personal and practical. Some of them are even "spiritual". I'm a pastor by calling, and see golf as very part part of my life in Christ. There's a great deal I learn from practice and playing that relates to the deeper issues of life, and from time to time I will share these lessons as well.

I hope you find this site both helpful and interesting. As I say, my purpose in writing is simply to share insights I've gained along the way to becoming a better golfer. If you've got anything to add to what I write, feel free to do so. I'm still very much in the infancy stages of learning and welcome any help people have to give.

Blessings,

Andrew Young