Approach to studying TGM.

[comdpa]

Nice overview.
Do you also have tips regarding in which order these chapters should be read?

Yes, the order is laid out in my post. I believe it is very important to first get an overview of TGM before delving into the details. Remember the devil is in the details!

[comdpa]

Welcome back, Justin. Been missin' ya!

Stick around a while. We enjoy your company and your insights!

Thanks for the welcome home... Hope to be of assistance!

[comdpa]

Below are excerpts from observations over the years...I did think of compiling it into an e-book when the observations got more substantial. I have entitled it "The Disciplined Golfer" because I believe the mastery of the golf swing is akin to mastering a skill like playing the piano and requires discipline to a process of learning. I welcome your thoughts.

The Disciplined Golfer

Golf is deceptively simple, or so it seems. The ball is not in motion like a football. You neither have to worry about someone wrestling you to the ground nor does the equipment require Herculean strength to manipulate. Why then do we have so many problems with the golf ball?

This manual was written to address the disparity between the perceived ease and actual difficulty of golf. The truth of the matter is that golf is both easy and difficult.

Today, we have more knowledge of the golf swing today than centuries past, yet a visit to the range will show that the problems that plagued our golfing brothers of yesteryear still infect the enthusiasts that take up the game each year. If knowledge equals power, we should be better. Yet, that isn’t the case. The key is being objective with information and judge it against a quantifiable benchmark.

Each new comer to the sport will be infected with well meaning advice from friends who can barely hit the ball efficiently. Old saws like “keep your left arm straight” and “keep your head down” are the usual suspects.

Should such simplistic advice were to be the “be all and end all” of a golfer’s problems, then golfers should have no problems playing to a decent level (below 80s).

Take another golfer and prescribe scientifically correct information as part of an improvement program, and his fate won’t be very much different from the new comer described above. Why?

The two golfers above though they differed in knowledge, they were united in a lack of understanding of themselves. Proper information plus a proper understanding of self is like sodium and chloride together – they produce something beneficial. Apart from each other, they are deadly.

Most of us cede control and ascribe our golfing weakness to elements outside of ourselves and control. The magic bullet is not some secret technique, being stronger or even practicing more. The barrier that prevents us from becoming as good as we are capable of lies within.

I am not referring to golf psychology where one pictures the shot before pulling the trigger or deep breathing techniques to conquer stress etc.

You can visualize all you care for, but if you have faulty mechanics, the shots are just not going to happen. If you are 70 yrs old, visualize all you want, you won’t be airmailing your tee shots 300 yards. Visualization must be tempered with a realistic assessment of one’s capability.

What I am referring to is an understanding of how you work. I will be outlining:

1) Beliefs and their impact on perception
2) The role of information and knowledge
3) The relationship between mental know how and physical execution.
4) A process to bridge the gap.

Once you accept responsibility for your improvement and not ascribe it to external forces, understand and apply these 4 principles, then the game that you once thought easy will become easy and you can improve as much as you want to.

Match Play Magic

The key to winning golf especially match play is to have zero expectations.
By zero expectations, I don’t mean to say that one should have a careless attitude about everything.

You ought to have expectations about what you are personal capability, your composure, shot selection – things you are able to control.

What you ought to have zero expectations about are things without your control. Some examples of these things are wind strength, direction, the distance your opponent smashes his drives, whether or not he is able to make his putt; and if you play in tournaments – whether the referee rules to or away from your favor.

If one gets excited (happy or angry) with things outside of one’s control, it can only lead to one’s emotions to the subject to the whims of others (human or otherwise). Sure, you may be able to catch lightning in a bottle twice, but sooner or later the law of probabilities will catch up with you.

After you have assimilated the sections teaching you how to learn, improve as much as you desire; and having a game plan, the next step would be to master yourself, specifically your emotions.

Emotion is defined as a feeling; of anger, peace, courage or fear.

Having a zero expectation about things outside your control is very beneficial. When you have the mindset that anything can happen on the golf course, you cease to have any unrealistic or imagined expectations.

An example of these are, your opponent fluffing a tap in putt and your opponent double bogeying the entire back nine.

If you do not have any expectations, you then cease to have any emotions when things go for or against you. When your opponent does miss a short putt, you do not get excited. When you opponent makes a 60 footer, you do not get excited. When you are able to keep your emotions on an even keel, then you retain control over yourself. Positive or negative excitement causes your adrenal glands to pump adrenaline into your system. An “adrenalized” state can be recognized by a state of short shallow breaths, shaking hands and feet among others.

Instead of the usual antidote of taking deep breaths and focusing on something else other than the match at hand, wouldn’t it be easier on the golfer had the adrenaline not been pumped in the first place? We all know how effective deep breathing is on the course.

The number one killer of match play games is fear. Fear stems from a situation of not knowing what might happen in the future. If you know what will happen in the next minute, then how can you fear? On the other hand, if you know that what will happen next is out of your control and you expect anything to happen, then what is there to fear or defend against? Why fear or worry about what you cannot do anything about?

What should you do then in a match play?

1. Be evenly matched up – which means either squaring off with a person of the same playing ability or taking strokes off a better opponent. Pride leads to a man’s fall.
2. Be clear about your own golfing abilities; of the distance you are able to achieve, the shots you are able to hit etc. Once you have taken stock of these, you are then able to calculate percentages into the shots at hand. Again this is described in preceding sections about your personal game plan.

You should only hit high percentage shots even though this may be nothing more than a 10 meter punch from under the trees to set up a bogey play. In the long run, if you have a solid game plan that requires you to hit your high percentage shots, you will save more shots in the long run and hopefully win more matches.

3. Be non-expectant about the things outside of your control. Some of the worse students I have had used to admit to playing “Hail Mary” golf; that is keep doing what he wants to do instead of what he needs to do and hope and pray things go their way.

Such an attitude reflects cessation of control and without control; you will not be in control emotionally to stick to your game plan and let your percentages work in your favor.

Instead of allowing the situation to cause you to react, read the situation for what it is, adjust your game plan accordingly, all the while making sure the percentages still remain in your favor.

The Practice Swing vs the Real Swing

One of the most frustrating things a golfer can be told is that he has a great practice swing but his score sucks. If you have been in this game long enough, you would surely have heard something along those lines.

Intuitively most golfers assume that their practice swing equals their actual swing; after all they sure feel the same. Well not really. You see quite a few variables change when you actually want to hit the ball for real.

Being Ball Bound

You become ball bound and want to get into positions rather than go through positions
What you feel is not what you are doing
Force of habit comes into play when you exceed your threshold speed.

The golf swing is a series of positions that can be broken down by relating the golf shaft and the left arm in relation to the base of the plane or what some people most commonly refer to as the target line.

These positions are not meant to be arrived at but rather to be passed through. What this means is that you do not consciously try to reach and stop at those positions. It means that
in your practice sessions, you have already identified these positions as well as the transitory moves from position to position. It also means that you have “blended” all these feels into one fluid motion. Then the only thing left to do is to start and finish the swing with the ball merely getting in the way.

Feeling Vs Reality

At the risk of kicking a dead horse, I reiterate again one of the most important concepts in learning golf: make sure you are doing what you feel / think you are doing. Simplistically, make sure you are eating what you think you are eating. Beef and lamb may look the same but they sure taste very different!

Threshold Speed

Threshold speed is the speed where a motion becomes dictated by habit. Remember the flight or fight syndrome where in an emergency, your instincts take over? Well, in the same way, when you subject your golf swing past a certain speed, changes become all but impossible to make. Ever had a lesson where no matter how hard you tried to follow your pro’s instruction, it couldn’t be done? That’s a violation of the threshold speed concept there.

When you started learning how to write, did you do it at full speed?
When you started learning how to cycle, did you do a Lance Armstrong?

Below are three drills that address the three hurdles outlined above:

Hold and Feel Drill
Go to the correct positions in the swing in front of the mirror and allow your brain to associate what it sees with what your body feels. Work your way up from the impact then 1st to the 9th position. When you are sure what you see is what you feel, test yourself!

Move and Feel Drill
This drill is designed to be worked with 2 positions. If you are working with say, position 1 and 2, you want to start with startup and then move to 1 and then 2. Again this drill is to be done in front of a mirror for the purpose of association. Instead of identifying the feels of the different positions, this time identify the feels of the transitions from position to position.

Slo-Mo Drill
This drill is to be done once you are confident that the feels for the positions and transitions have been identified and that you are ready to incorporate it into the full swing.

Again, assuming an integration of positions 1 and 2; start directly from startup to 1 and then 2 and then to impact with a ball. Disregard the quality of the strike at the start. When your body learns the correct motion, impact quality will come.

The principle here is Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demand or SAID. Its useless trying to groove your practice swing as you are not going to practice swing your way around the golf course!

What we are doing here is imposing on your body a specific demand to build neuromuscular pathways for a certain move – slowly but surely.

The Real Secret of Golf

Most golfers eschew good, hard and correct practice and instead indulge themselves in the age old quest for the Holy Grail – the secret of golf.

People thought that Ben Hogan – revered as the greatest ball striker of all time – had a secret that explained his phenomenal striking ability. Much has been debated about this. Some claim that it was his cupped left wrist at the top that allowed Mr. Hogan to “release” his hands as hard as he wanted without hooking the ball.

Still others claim that it was his unusual hip action on his backswing that resembled a reverse pivot that allowed him to make a strong move into the ball on his downswing.

Mr. Hogan was not the only one whom the masses thought were hiding a secret. Scores have also been written about Tiger Woods’ whiplash hip action as the key to smashing 300 yard drives. Sergio Garcia’s “buggy whip” swing action was the key to increasing distance. Homer Kelley said the secret was “clubhead lag”. They may all be true.

If you are the prototypical average golfer who watches The Golf Channel and reads Golf Digest occasionally, then you can testify to seeing at least one article which claims to have finally unlocked the secret code to better golf.

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” – Alvin Toffler, Futurist

The real secret to golf in my opinion is the ability to learn, unlearn and relearn.
There can be no progress in one’s golf swing without the ability to do these three things.
These three things are truly the key to learning the secrets of golf, now that’s some food for thought.

[HungryBear]

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” – Alvin Toffler, Futurist

The real secret to golf in my opinion is the ability to learn, unlearn and relearn.
There can be no progress in one’s golf swing without the ability to do these three things.
These three things are truly the key to learning the secrets of golf, now that’s some food for thought.

You have just touched the "third rail" .

Those simple truths can be both the greatest motivator and the greatest impediment in all of golf.

I may return with comment but first I have to reason its shareable value.

The Bear

[KevCarter]

WOW Justin. Thank you for such wonderful posts. I have seen your name in older posts, and I'm excited that you are back. Looking forward to getting to know you!

Kevin

[O.B.Left]

Originally Posted by comdpa
“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” – Alvin Toffler, Futurist

The real secret to golf in my opinion is the ability to learn, unlearn and relearn.
There can be no progress in one’s golf swing without the ability to do these three things.
These three things are truly the key to learning the secrets of golf, now that’s some food for thought.

I agree Bear. Nice find.

Its why I highly recommend a full day lesson with Yoda at some point , maybe make it the first day. I did. He's got to wear you out , make you lose control , break you like a wild horse before you give way to a new way, a new motion. A motion much like the lambada , no just kidding.

I personally think the way he does this is perhaps outside of TGM. Or prior to TGM in its origin at the very least. Not sure if it originated with Melhourne or McDonald or Vardon or a Scottish sheppard swinging a crook ....but its old, old, old and it works, works, works... Im talking MOTION.

Oh Homer for sure understood it, dont get me wrong. The book is all about Motion (and Alignments).

"Let the Motion make the shot".

.

The first sentences of 12-5 alludes to it;

"Use a slow, smooth motion up-and-back, down-and-out and up-and-in the same distance in both directions and as continously as possible.

Make no adjustment during the Stroke , for --or because of Impact . NEVER EVER. That is "Hacking at the Ball" and produces only "Hackers".

Indeed TGM ultimates in its own simplification , the Star System Triad which it self culminates in the Three Stations. Impact, Top , Finish .....of which Impact does not rank.

Another way of thinking about that ......swing like the ball doesnt lie in front of you. Make the ball disappear. Which gets us back to Homer and his dandelions again. Steering.

Dance like no ones watching, swing like the ball aint there. Brush brush, left , right , left , right, brush , brush.........."First without a ball then with a ball". As an aside Ive read that some of Paul Bertholy's ( another of Lynns golf mentors) students would go for two years without hitting a single golf ball. Now that is some serious training. Not sure I could stick with that one.

[innercityteacher]

Get the first Alignment Golf. You'll be glad you did. I have no idea what will be in the new glitzy HD treatmeant, but I am sure it will complement and add to the first one.
Kind of like how I probably wouldn't spend a lot of time in the New Testament without putting in my time with the Old Testament first.

You little zealot! And here I was cursing a blue-streak in MN just to help you feel like you were back in the army!


ICT

[comdpa]

WOW Justin. Thank you for such wonderful posts. I have seen your name in older posts, and I'm excited that you are back. Looking forward to getting to know you!

Kevin

Anytime my friend!

[JerryG]

You little zealot! And here I was cursing a blue-streak in MN just to help you feel like you were back in the army!


ICT

Ahhh, the good old days. I mean August when you were here, not the 60's and being in the Army.
Just think how much better at this stuff we are going to be when you return. Maybe Kevin can come out and play.

[KevCarter]

Ahhh, the good old days. I mean August when you were here, not the 60's and being in the Army.
Just think how much better at this stuff we are going to be when you return. Maybe Kevin can come out and play.

I'll be back!