I firmly believe that keeping your mind in check as you swing is more important than having the best swing technique. I have a book coming out soon on that subject, but I'm not here today to plug my book. I'm going to give you an experiment to try.
The next time you go to the range, take only your 7-iron and your driver. Get warmed up, loose, then do this:
Every time you swing, think of nothing but a loose, graceful swing with the same tempo and the ideal 3:1 rhythm. If you haven't figured that out yet, see this post first.
Do not worry about where the ball goes or what kind of contact you get. Just keep your mind on that rhythm. Avoid trying to correct some technical point if you don't hit a great shot.
There are two technical points you do need to be aware of, though.
1. Set your grip pressure loose at address and keep it loose throughout the swing. Consciously avoid clenching your hands.
2. Start down from the backswing with a body turn and let your arms and hands come into the picture when it's their turn. They follow. Do not let them lead.
Hit maybe ten shots with your 7-iron and switch to your driver for about three. Repeat.
Again, your only goal is to feel that loose, rhythmic swing before you step up to the ball. How to do that in your mind is a tricky thing, because you can be concentrating on it intently and turn it into a technical thing. It is, but you can't think it is.
Stand there for a moment and feel in your mind the gentle backswing going upwards and the matching swing downwards and through the ball. Feel the rhythm of it, the grace of it. Then step up to the ball and swing with that same feeling in your mind.
The last thing on your mind should be hitting the ball. I would like you to both see the ball and forget that it's there, at the same time. That sounds odd, but you can do it.
It will help a lot if, when you're hitting the 7-iron, to put it on a tee--a really short tee, just enough so the ground is not an element in striking the ball.
If you have errant ball flight or mishits, it's because your mind wandered. Do not try to fix a physical swing technique. The correction to make is in your head. Feel that flowing swing and copy it. That's what you're learning to do here.
It will take a great deal of mental discipline to avoid reaching back for a technical fix. That's a good thing to learn, too. Controlling your mind on the course is how you hit good shots, and you know that, but do you ever practice that? Probably not, because no one has shown you how. That's what I'm showing you now.
Here is what I think you want out of your golf swing. You want to step up to the ball, address it, take a look down the fairway, and just make an effortless pass at the ball and see it fly straight and far in the direction you want it to go.
You can have that swing if you train your mind to be doing the right thing when you swing. This experiment teaches you what that right thing is.
Try it.
My new book, The Golfing Self, now available at www.therecreationalgolfer.com, will change everything about the way you play.
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