Slow-Motion Golf Swings

Golf is a game of constant maintenance and correction. Once something works, we want to find a way to keep it working. We also know that eventually we will ease out of our groove, and we have to find the way back in.

One very good way to do both of those things is with slow-motion golf swings. The golf swing happens so fast, and out of our sight, that it’s not really possible to know exactly what’s going on. By slowing down, we can feel clearly what we are doing right and what we are doing wrong.

And that’s the whole point - to feel what is going on. We can’t see what we are doing, but we can feel it.

The feels we are looking for are the ones that bring the club back square and on plane, and return the clubhead to the ball with the desired impact geometry, and, hopefully, with a good amount of speed.

The best way to teach your unconscious mind* what those feels are is to practice swinging slowly.

The slow-motion swing allows you to verify the feels of what you are doing right.

If anything gets out of whack, you can sense it right away. That is feel of the wrong movment. Even though it might be your habit, it needs to change.

If you need to make a correction, its feel might be odd, but because the slow swing allows you to carefully monitor what is going on at all times, you’ll know it’s right.

Maybe you’re working of a slight change. Practice it in slow motion first, to make sure you’re doing it the way you want to, and you’re not still doing what you’re trying to get away from.

I’m not saying that there is now no reason to have a lesson, but there is a lot you can diagnose yourself so that when you get that lesson, it will be fine tuning, rather than going back to basics.

Pay your money to learn what you can’t figure out by yourself.

The first time I heard about this trick was on a Golf Channel Playing Lessons With the Pros episode featuring Brad Faxon. He said he, and other touring pros, did this all the time at the range, for the very purposes I described above.

Now that it’s rainy weather and you don’t get to play much, and it gets dark early so going to the range after work isn’t really an option, try working on slow swings at home. Get a lesson and spend the winter getting everything in your swing lined up right.
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*Most people use the term “subconscious mind”, but my psychologist friends say “unconscious mind” is correct.