just tried something that ive been talking about

check this out http://www.golf.com/instruction/old-school-vs-new-school-one-student-compares-instruction-philosophies i think it will help my game as well as yours. in fact, one of my more recent posts was on distance and i was hitting the ball farther in just a few shots with what this guy says. try it. i think it might help.

Thank you for your concern and i thank you all for your patience and you responses.

no probelem mate.

i just tried hitting the ball with less worry. without worrying about my swing or trying to get more distance. and it works. i was hitting the ball solidly and far. straight and accurate as well as the fact that the swing felt more natural. i wasnt constrained. it was freedom. it felt better than trying to learn some crazy complicated swing that would take years to come up with. now im hitting my 7 iron 160 again and its a nice feeling. heres my advice for those who struggle like i was just recently: dont think too much about the swing. at least not on the course. worry about that on the range then make you course time getting the ball into the hole in the fewest strokes possible.

Note: im a 21 handicap because ive only ever played 10 rounds in my entire two years of playing. i usually just hit at the range. and yes i have broken 100 on my 5th try. followed the rules perfectly. counted penalty strokes as well. won a junior tounament a while back. so does golf really mean learning a golf swing? or does all that really matters is getting a little ball into a hole? think about it before posting. use your logic. what was golf invented for? did the scots really think about their swing? or were they worried more about getting a ball in the hole they creted? why are there so many different swings in the past by great palyers that did so well? think about it.

You can have a technically sound swing that's not complicated. It doesn't have to be "unnatural", either. A swing feels natural if it's what you're used to; I could use a technique that feels totally natural to you and it might feel terrible to me.

What does a "natural" swing entail? Do you have to give a bunch of chimpanzees some sticks and copy how they swing them? Maybe you have to look at ultrasounds of Tiger Woods as a fetus, before Haney got to him. Or maybe you take a bunch of peyote and wander the desert for 3 days until you hallucinate and see Ben Hogan instead of a cactus.

I've heard a lot of success stories like this, but the hokey "swing without worry" people seem to be thrilled with breaking 100 while the "I finally got a lesson" people are usually breaking 90 or 80. Just an observation.

I'd also add that the more technically sound your swing is, the less complicated it is to execute. Fewer compensations = more natural, or less complicated.

the pros and great players didnt think about their swing. they just hit the dang ball. you wonder why jim furyk shot 59 moe norman was the best ball striker and nicklaus with 18 majors. people have succeeded with many different swing styles. arnold palmer had a strange swing. went against everything taught today. but he was a great player. mike austin actually criticized the modern swing and taught a natural move that made him the longest hitter in the world. eamon darcy was successful and hios swing was weird. most of the really good golfers i see have really strange swings. you wonder if all that matters is impact? thats why i say that the main goal in golf is to get the ball into the hole. swinging correctly doesnt matter. if you can hit a golf ball in the air youre doing fine. if you hit your target even better. naturally in my opinion (not saying you have to agree with any of this) is that the main goal is to get the ball into the hole in the fewest strokes possible. think about this before you respond please. thank you for your concern.

really, the simplest motion in the golf swing is a backswing and a trhough swing. it doesnt matter how you do them because none of them hit the ball. in the backswing you dont hit the ball. nor after the balls long gone do you hit the ball. impact is all thats left. and that lasts only a millionth of a second so no one can possibly teach it. if we just hit the dang thing like i do and i DO get very good results then we will all be better golfers by the end of the year. you dont have to agree but i would like your opinion and i would like it to remain positive please.

Moe Norman and Mike Austin should not be mentioned in the same breath as the likes of Nicklaus. Both of their stories are used to sell crackpot swing advice and have a cult following but no real credibility. Look up Kim Jong Il's golf achievements, they read similarly to the tall tales about Norman hitting his ball into someone's pocket from 250 yards out. Nicklaus won 18 majors and several amateur titles. There are also many players who won multiple majors who were extremely technical and deliberate in their approach, such as Faldo, Woods, and arguably Ben Hogan.

Strange looking swings like Furyk's still need to be fundamentally sound to work. Being pretty isn't a fundamental. You don't see Furyk leading the tour in total driving though, because even though he's accurate he's not very efficient. To say there aren't a hundred guys on tour with better swings than Furyk because he shot 59 is foolish. You don't need to have a great swing if you can scramble and putt like him, though. My full swing is my greatest weapon and I do treat it fairly technically when working on it. And I also treat my course management a bit more deeply than "just hit the dang ball".

You'd like my opinion, unless it differs from your own? So you want me to agree with you.

I don't. Maybe if you have severe full swing yips this kind of psychology can improve one's play. Personally I don't believe you can do much to help the average golfer with advice like this. Bad golfers use an incorrect movement to swing the club, and the only thing that can fix that is to make them do a more correct motion. Seems to me that none of them have a clue what's correct and many have bad fundamentals, not a psychological problem. I'll give you Charles Barkley. Maybe a guy like him could use this sort of advice, but if that sort of player makes up much of the playing public, that's frightening.

From personal experience, all of the unsolicited advice I have received in person, whether from the guy driving the range picker, my friends, and my dad, has been disastrously terrible for my swing. 99% of the advice I have received from other sources including the internet has been either useless or actively bad for my swing. But filtering through all the crap and learning from my mistakes made me better than I ever thought I could be in my first few months. I have found that the suckiest golfers tend to give the most advice. Perhaps because the more accomplished ones realize it's not worth trying to sum up the golf swing into a single nugget of wisdom because all their hard work was mainly what made them good.

You may not know enough to argue ... I may not know enough to argue ---- about the golf swing.

I made the comment because of what I've learned on this DB from the various professional instructors who inhabit this site and a couple who own it - iacas and MVMAC.

I will agree with you, that while on the course, one must minimize the thinking about the swing and positions, and play golf. If that's your point, it is a good one.

that is my point. the range is for your swing. not the course.

Read the article -- there is another middle ground because what the article gave you is two extremes - old school is what you do on a golf course, "don't think, hit your shot, swing your swing, hit the flag." New school was on a monitor wrapped in a jacket.

I was not impressed with either instructor.

There is another way... video, swing patterns, and drills to get one to certain positions so there are less compensations during the swing. That comes from a knowledgeable instructor. It's easy to say "these are your issues," it's take another notch up the level to find the guy to give you the drills to assist you with those issues.

And that takes range time.

On the course, it's hit the flag...

I read the article and rather enjoyed the story, but I agree with Mr. Desmond that it really isn't what I would call an expose on "Old School" vs "New School" as billed.  Mr. Higgins seems to me to be an extreme case, as is the instruction provided at the TaylorMade Performance Lab, and most golf instruction is going to fall somewhere in between, even if you go the high tech route.

I love Golf Magazine and Golf Digest, subscribe to both and look forward to my monthly copies.  Their web sites are chock full of interesting articles and videos.  But it soon struck me that from one issue to the next the "major revelations" from various articles often either contradict last month's or at least don't exactly compliment them!  Interesting articles need to show clear differentiations; the author's take on what is right and what is wrong.  There are probably a hundred articles each year from various people suggesting the "easy fix" for common swing problems.  But the fix isn't always the same.  How many articles have most of us seen on how to cure your slice forever?

Last year as I was getting excited about golf I spent a lot of time on both of those web sites trying to soak everything up.  I am NOT saying it didn't do me any good, but I quickly came to the above stated conclusion and have really started being selective about which advice articles I give much attention to.  (On this and other web sites too!)

For me, golf is a lot about feel; what I am feeling during the swing.  So, I guess I'm a fan of old school, don't just tell me I need to close my club face another 3.5 degrees, I want to know what doing that will feel like.  I think the real benefit of all the various articles is that once in a while someone will write one that really "clicks" for me and gives me something I feel like I can actually take to the range and work on, with MY swing, on MY range.  Sadly, to that extent I didn't find any benefit from this particular article that I hadn't already gleaned from Harvey Penick's Little Red Book.

Reading Golf Digest and Golf will rot your golfing mind. I stopped reading them in 2005 - last one I picked up was at an airport for the pics of Holly to "read" on the airplane.

Holly, Lauren, Wynn - just put them in a Golf Magazine in bikinis - forget the golf tips...

Feel and Seeing ... that's what it is all about...

Oh, we're talking golf!

Forget the mags ... feel-based players need feels, technique based need positions - the instructor must give them drills to feel or how to get "there" without compensations.

I still get some free copies of Golf Magazine with a letter asking me to sign up. I think, "Why should I when they keep sending me a free copy." That and I have the internet. I am shocked they still print Magazines. Soon they will be like pay phones, non-existent.

As for the article, you can find all that stuff here on the forum. Fix Fundamentals = 5 Keys. Get out of your head when you play = Be a Stupid Monkey Thread.

There you have it, easy right