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keygolf

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About keygolf

  • Birthday 11/30/1928

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    Mini-Golfer

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  • Index: 78 yrs
  • Plays: Righty

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  1. Might be worth a late input to ask, "What if it was not choking or bad judgment or sudden pressure, and nothing more than serious energy loss and inability on that basis to finish strong (Jason)?" We studied scorecards from several clubs in back in the 90s and found that, on average, the holes 15 thru 18 were the worst scored holes across all levels of playing ability. After seeing that, we also found that energy loss should be added to the cause and effect of how games regularly conclude. Could be any of what has been noted here, plus the energy factor, which recent research has shown to be a much greater issue than was once thought - and this is not just physical energy, but the whole bag - mental, physical, emotional, and intellectual (cognative). And none of that touches what appears as (arguably) the most vital moment in the game that accompanies one's ability to manage the instantaneous pressure that always accompanies golf-shot execution. You will find it very difficult to find anyone who knows how to manage that one.
  2. It may not decrease the time for the average round, but it will likely keep it from slowing down even more. The game has become so cerebral that players cannot simply play. They have to examine everything they are doing to a fault, so they get outside themselves and get lost in stuff that is foreign to their normal selves and start acting unlike their normal styles. 70% of the world's population is low assertive and slower in motion. Only 30 % are high and fast. So what we hear always is the complaint coming from the 30%. That means that putting the tees forward is only half the battle. Still have to make it clear to all that most golfers are playing so far outside their given styles that this issue will still be in force in another hundred years. (That's also a factor in why even most pro golfers cannot sustain a win streak). The forward tee idea is a good one, but better finish the sentence.
  3. Almost anything new will work temporarily, and there are sound reasons for that. But what the others are saying needs to be attended. (Change your grip. Get a new putter. Vary your stance, etc). Change works because it temporarily distracts your attention from the mechanics of the action. It will allow problems later on, however, and then you'll wonder what happened. There are reasons for that, too.
  4. Very interesting gathering of stats. To respond to your question (bold added): Denny Shute did that. Went over once, won, and never went back owing to his dedication to the club were he was pro.
  5. Either you are finding instructors who struggle with their teaching, or you are not understanding what they are saying or the skills eay are recommending for you to develop, or you aren't sure how to practice after you have your lessons. Check out the following location
  6. Almost decided not to post any comment after reading through the posts, since it isn't clear whether anyone is wanting to dig deeply or just go for the bandaid route. I will assume your concern is a real one. "Less angry" does not have a measurement. Anger is on a continuum always and there are as many at the "less," "more" or "most" points on that continuum as there are people. So I am thinking that your real concern lies in how to manage anger while playing the game. First, anger is a natural, normal emotion that instantly appears whenever anyone experiences pain, so we cannot expect not to have any. Nature does not opt out on that one. It is there for a purpose and cannot be erased, no matter that some may think they can make that happen with will power or brain control or just thinking happy thoughts. (To begin with, our internal non conscious systems do not know and don't care whether any demand presented is viewed by you as positive or negative. Your non conscious, non discriminatory system will treat both the same way. Consciously you may be happy with winning the lottery and sad with a tragic accident, but your system will be stressed by both, and that could be more for the lottery than for the accident, BTW. So how can we manage anger, if it is going to occur with any or every missed shot, and it is (though some will say that they have beat that rap with "positive thinking." Positive thinking only attaches conscious thought. That, of course, is better than negative thinking, but is only 3% of the deal with thinking that is conscious. Anger occupies the 97% that is non conscious, which positive thinking cannot offset, no matter what you conscious thought is telling you). So a couple of the posters mentioned something like "shake it off after 3 seconds, or so." That's close. The objective here is to "manage" the anger, not avoid it. What happens is that if we wait till the anger is there, it is too late to manage it. It will manage us instead. So at some time when you are in your easy chair, at rest and not angry, make a COVENANT with yourself in the following way: agree to recognize your anger when it comes along, set a time limit on how long you will allow it to be there and then determine to blow it off and go the the next shot. (I use a 30 second limit, myself, but others use whatever they choose). COVENANT is in caps for one reason. It is stronger than a promise and we make that with ourselves, so that it is much harder to break. We break promises all the time, especially around New Year. Now you have placed yourself in command of your anger and it is no longer in command of you. BTW, I recognize that we do not usually speak in such ways on forums since they are supposed to be for opinion (I have heard). But the matter that you raise is much too important to skirt and treat lightly. If that is offensive to anyone, I will apologize to that person.
  7. A few issues: 1. One cannot "not think." Try not to think and you will think about that. 2. The body will try to do what the mind tells it to do. Problem there is that the body and mind do not work at the same speeds. The mismatch causes a variety of glitches, accounting for the majority of shots one does not usually hit (in other words, major or minor misses). 3. To prevent mismatches in thinking, do not use action oriented thoughts, but remember you will be thinking something, so guide those thoughts to neutral territory where there is no action stated or implied. 4. Use your swing key only in pre-shot, then switch your thoughts to non-action territory. Say something like Bobby Brue used to say - "Legalized bingo'll keep grandma off the street," while you are executing your shot. Yes, while you are executing your shot. Otherwise you will get all kinds of dopey information thrown at you by both your conscious and non conscious mental systems, which will simply not take "sitting still," which is why you must have something going on in your mind, called thinking. So make sure it is guided thinking and not haphazard. If you hack in your head, you will hack in your hands. BTW, your Dad is right. As kids, we just went out and played. Older, we got smart and started trying to figure it all out. It's called thinking too much. Use Ringer's suggestion relating to the finish of the swing. Makes a great swing key in pre-shot. And if you think this is nonsense, I'll give you the name of a student who does this with commitment, won 6 straight tournaments and finished second in the seventh, losing to another who does the same thing. There is a lot available to help if one looks around a bit.
  8. There are only two ways a player can compromise effective execution of a golf shot, assuming that he has some skill in the first place (I believe Tiger does). One is to persist in trying to make shots that are only native to traits he does not own and the other is to either restrict or over-extend traits he does own. Tiger suffers more often on the first count (players of his style all tend to hit strangely off-the-map-shots more than others). He occasionaly gets caught in the second stretch. The saving feature in both instances is his hightly unusual and extraordinary talent, which bails him out where others wind up completely off the radar. It's hard to beat that combination.
  9. First time you just did what came "naturally." Then you started to "think" about it. That will do it every time. There's more, but that ought to get it (something) started.
  10. HI Cris: I thought it was rather thoughful post. You raise some very formidible questions that may take some time to answer, but good ones. The matter of contributions will probably have to wait for the historians, but both Tiger and Jack will have many credits, though likely in rather different realms.
  11. Actually, we have. It's just that written communication can be deceptive when it comes to making things as clear as possible. Sometimes, even the most innocent words can sound like an unredeemable accusation when that was never the intention. I pledge to be more careful. Thanks
  12. Ringer has covered very well the physical/mechanical arena. It's well designed and well stated. Since this thread began on the "mental game," let's add that part. On #1 when you get fitted, unless you have some well honed skills (and, hopefully, habits) you will need to ask your fitter to make sure that you are fitted to the way you swing naturally, not to some "ideal" like which s/he thinks you ought to swing like. If you are a novice, don't try to force yourself to be like what you think you should become. Just do what comes naturally. You can have your clubs adjusted later, if need be, assuming you get reasonably good ones. (If you know about clear keys, use them when being fitted, since that will guarantee getting only what you own). On #2 get your "grip, stance, posture, alignment, ball position, balance, stance width.. etc etc." built into habit so you don't have to give conscious thought to those areas when setting up. The first part, fine, that's all in pre-shot (and that means PRE, not during). On #3 that is so very important that you need to learn to think in terms of the finish when you consider your swing. That should become part of the way you think, not just something you think about. On #4 and #5 those are together in this way: They are both part of the automatic principle. If you work from that premise, you will never be out of balance when you set up. And if you understand how to manage anxiety, you will not have tension for the time it takes to make your shots. Anxiety (psychological) produces tension (physiological). Once you have tension you have to know how to drain it, and that is done with breathing and over-gripping (more to it than that implies, however), but you still must have a means to keep further tension out while you execute your shot. That goes back to the mental game and the automatic principle. In summary. These two forces are inseparable. They either work together or - look out - the result may not be what you wanted, no matter how clear it is in your conscious mind. Make no mistake. There needs to be a balance between the mechanical and mental parts of the game. They feed from the same trough and require active participation from both arenas. You cannot fully complete the mechanical part without the mental part and if you don't have the mechanical you don't need the mental either.
  13. You'd have to ask him that question. But the question was "What could be the purpose of that?"
  14. True words in this post. Though there is one more step. and that wraps around the question "How does one develop self-control and kinesthetic ownership?" And that's where the mental management comes into full play. The cerebral part that Ringer mentions is very real, but that's only about 3% of what goes on mentally. To learn the kinesthetic part, one needs to understand how motor learning takes place and that is different from cerebral learning. Learning research shows that if you do something once, you lose 50% of that immediately and 25% more within 48 hours. Doing the same thing (repetition) twice or three times gives the same retention factors. But if you do something 4 times in succession (repetition) you get 90% retention. Add to that the principle that we learn best in short doses with small rest periods in between. Those two basics put together indicate that if you keep repeating after the first four, the retention factor is not gaining you anything more than the first four did - unless you give yourself a mini-break. So we use what has come to be known as the 32 swing drill. That's where the mental part becomes very important in the learning process. One must carry accurate thoughts about what is to be done and what is desired as a result. There must also be an appreciation of the role of the conscious mind for manual issues and the non conscious mind (the other 97%) for issues that players love to claim as "automatic" (and they may not really be automatic, unless one knows how the automatic principle works and how to implement it, though we do not hear a lot about that one, do we?) That's another reason what Ringer is saying needs heeding, because golfers tend to spend 99% of their time on cerebral matters and logical conclusions and that will not get you to a finished product. I was hoping Ringer would say that the swing needs to have the objective of going to a desired finish (hopefully fitting the shot one wanted to hit), and everything that precedes that is in one continuous motion. Then use the 32 swing drill to build that into habit as needed for playing, so you can move your game from manual to automatic when you play your shots.
  15. I wondered, too, but if you go to the following, you'll see that it is, among many other uses, recommended as a cleaning agent for golf clubs. http://www.wd40.com/Brands/wd40_faqs.html
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