Golf technique

There is no getting around the need to have good technique to play our difficult sport well. Given the great variety of shots we need to play, the more technique the better. Ben Hogan even said once that there isn't enough daylight to practice all the shots you need to.

This space has, over the years, devoted a large part of its offerings to technical suggestions. In the background, though, lurks the notion that we keep hearing from the playing professionals that you can't think of technique when you're on the course playing. Technique is for the range. When it's time to play, think about getting the ball in the hole.

Golf is art. Every golf shot you hit is a work of art that your technique allows you to express. What you are going to do is more important than how you are going to do it. Hopefully, the "how" was taken care of during practice.

Learning how to put aside thoughts of technique is a mental skill. You need to be able to keep your mind moving forward and concentrating on each succeeding present moment that is part of the process of planning and hitting the shot. If you can do that, there is no opportunity for the doubt-generating thoughts of technique to arise.

Two exercises, which are explained on pages 15-18 of my latest book, The Golfing Self, show you how to attain that state of mind. I don't think I'm saying too much when I say that training your mind is just as important, and takes just as much devotion, as learning shot technique.

I know from my experience, and you probably do from yours, that during your best rounds, assessing the situation, picking your shot, and hitting it are so easy that it seems like you're hardly thinking about it. Everything just flows.

If you train your mind properly, that can be the way you always play golf.


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