The secret to golf: Lessons from Jim Furyk

[bunkerputt]

I was driving to the range today and thinking about a couple of completely contradictory things I heard in my time learning golf.  It started out by thinking about Jim Furyk....as a golfer.  He basically tops the charts on every club-ball contact measurement both in terms of quality and in terms of consistency.  He is by far the most consistent player ever measured in the age of modern technology.  Then, I thought of his backswing.  I remember about three years ago when the one vs. two-plane debate was still raging.  The claim was that by taking your hands high above the plane, it requires timing to bring them down back onto the plane, which no one can do consistently, day-in and day-out, especially under pressure.  I still hear that to this day and wonder, "If that's true, why is Jim Furyk so freaking consistent?"  I think the biggest secrets to his success as a ball striker are things we don't even see as obvious:

1.  Develop decent downswing mechanics.  They don't need to be absolutely biomechanically perfect, but get the club approaching the ball in the right way.

2.  Stop monkeying with your new swing.  Trust it and use it.  Hit lots and lots of balls every single day and give your brain a chance to really groove it.

3.  Have a great attitude when you step up to every shot.  Really trust the work you've done and stay positive.  Try to stay in the zone and don't be discouraged by results.  Don't even think about results, just think of your plan and focus on execution.

Jim Furyk, I've noticed, does all three of these things well.  Why do we spend so much time as golfers looking at swings, when we could work on the mental side and make much bigger improvements?

[walk18]

Furyk's a freak of nature in a good way. I think the question to ask is why are there a million other pros who swing on plane? There's gotta be something to it.

[rossvanwyk]

Totally agree. I've always said people get way too stuck on mechanics. Find what works for you consistently and practice it. You don't have to have a robot swing to be consistent.

Furyk and Fowler are two proofs of this in my book.

[saevel25]

Also they found out that his hands are close to his body through impact, which they found its similar to most excellent ball strikers. Not sure if its something i would copy, just a trend..

He's a machine in the downswing.

[iacas]

Originally Posted by bunkerputt

2.  Stop monkeying with your new swing.  Trust it and use it.  Hit lots and lots of balls every single day and give your brain a chance to really groove it.

Sounds like a great way to continue to be lousy at golf.

Originally Posted by rossvanwyk

Totally agree. I've always said people get way too stuck on mechanics. Find what works for you consistently and practice it. You don't have to have a robot swing to be consistent.

Define "what works for you consistently." Because for most people it's a swing that won't ever have them breaking 90.

Someone else said it, but there are unique swings in the game of golf, but that doesn't mean everyone's natural swing is one of the unique ones. I can tell you exactly why Jim Furyk hits the ball solidly so often, and his downswing IS good...

But your (general golfing population) downswings aren't good. They won't ever be good if you just practice "grooving" that. Everyone who plays even a little golf has an incredibly "consistent" swing - you can't tell one apart from the next on video. They all look virtually identical.

Jim Furyk's downswing is good. The average golfer's ain't.

[LankyLefty]

Some people are just talented. I don't know what they have or how they got it but It simply can't be taught or emulated you either have it or you don't.

Jim Furyk is one of those guys he can take the ugliest backswing in the world from the weirdest lie, and most uncomfortable stance but once he starts his downswing he has the ability to put the club on a good path to the ball.

You cant emulate it, hes just talented. Their are others like that. I dont buy into Phil Mickleson's short game "secrets" too much. There is certainly some valuable info in there but hes another one of those guys who is simply talented. He has the ability to map out a shot in his head and have his body find a way to make it happen.

In statistics people like this are called outliers, meaning they fall outside the statistical norm by so far that they are not of much statistical value or in the case of golf they are not good people to measure your swing against.

[bunkerputt]

Originally Posted by iacas

Sounds like a great way to continue to be lousy at golf.

Unless you read a little more into #1.....

If you skip over it, your post is fine. What I'm saying is, once you've developed the right downswing mechanics, and Jim Furyk is a great example of excellent downswing mechanics, don't neglect practice and concentration.  The guys who are getting it done, with whatever swing they've worked on up to that point, aren't deciding to overhaul their swings.

[rossvanwyk]

Iacas are appreciate what good instructors are able to bring to people's golf games. However, I have discussed this topic before and I gues I need to stick the same disclaimer in.

I'm talking about people with decent sporting ability. An athletic type swing. Who already have a feel for what a good shot feels like.

I stand by the fact that I think a lot of people get so caught up in their 20 point checklist on their swing that their heads are spinning when standing over the ball. So without getting intensely technical, I firmly believe you can develop your own swing and make it consistently good. Hitting a 6i 170y on a good ball flight consistenly for instance. if you can do that with your own swing that you've developed, you're doing something right. Again, this won't work for everyone and certainly some people need instruction before anything else to get on the right track.

[LankyLefty]

The entire idea of golf is to develop a good downswing. That is all a golf swing is. Everything you do from setup to grip to backswing.. everything is just to set up for speeding the club into impact.

So saying that you first develop a good downswing and then stick with it is basically just saying

"Hey go get good at golf then never change anything and you'll still be good at golf."

[bunkerputt]

Originally Posted by LankyLefty

...

"Hey go get good at golf then never change anything and you'll still be good at golf."

No.  It's saying go get a good swing, then commit to it, and then work on being in the moment for every shot.  We spend so much time building swings that we neglect the mental part of the golf swing.  There seems to be some confusion.  Here are the things I'm NOT saying:

"If you're a 30 handicapper with a terrible swing, just focus and keep hitting balls.  Eventually, you'll get it and you'll be a great golfer, and you certainly won't get frustrated at the process."

"Mechanics don't matter.  They just clutter your mind with technical details, when all you need is range time."

I'm saying, if you want to have machine-like consistency, you can't stop at getting a good swing.  You have to commit to the way you are swinging and then focus and concentrate hitting lots and lots of balls so that your mind can groove it.  At some point, this just has to happen.  The camp who says you are fine just working on technical stuff is just as wrong as the camp who says technical stuff is garbage and you just need to swing free and repeat.  They are both needed.

[bunkerputt]

Maybe someone else can comment on Jim Furyk with something other than "He's an anomaly".  If his downswing requires timing, as 99% of golf swing instructors say, why is he so consistent?

He claimed, in his own words, to feel like he is taking it back on the same plane he takes it down.  What he is feeling is simplicity of motion.  This feeling comes from simplified and optimized neural activity in the brain.  That neural activity is only developed through repetition, studies show.

[jamo]

Originally Posted by bunkerputt

If his downswing requires timing, as 99% of golf swing instructors say, why is he so consistent?

Because, ahem, he's an anomaly. He might be the only person on earth who could swing like that and produce great results. He was born with an amazing talent for golf, and someone with lesser talent wouldn't be able to make that "octopus falling out of a tree" win the FedEx Cup.

[walk18]

Maybe someone else can comment on Jim Furyk with something other than "He's an anomaly". If his downswing requires timing, as 99% of golf swing instructors say, why is he so consistent?

nothing else needs to be said about him. If you want to swing like Jim Furyk, no one's stopping you. Let us know how it goes.

[sean_miller]

Originally Posted by bunkerputt

Maybe someone else can comment on Jim Furyk with something other than "He's an anomaly".  If his downswing requires timing, as 99% of golf swing instructors say, why is he so consistent?

He claimed, in his own words, to feel like he is taking it back on the same plane he takes it down.  What he is feeling is simplicity of motion.  This feeling comes from simplified and optimized neural activity in the brain.  That neural activity is only developed through repetition, studies show.

All his movements before the downswing have put his club and body in a position to be returned to the ball powerfully and consistently. If a move like Furyk's is natural for someone, it would do that person a disservice to "correct" it, but it would take a creative instructor to discover that particular swing was natural for a new player. It would take a very trusting student to stick with it.  Kudos to Jim, his father, and his coach for their contributions to his swing and his game.

My swing used to look a bit like that, in the sense that a very vertical backswing led to dropping the club down on the downswing. My focus was on generating clubhead speed and delivering the club to the ball, not on overall mechanics. I was down to an 8 index but was too inconsistent to play to it under pressure. I saw my swing on video and worked to get rid of that move. Eventually I went too far the other way. My backswing was unnaturally flat (on plane but not natural for me). I'd raise my hands up at the top then fight an OTT move. I took a couple lessons and my instructor was amazed how good my impact position was "in spite of my mechanics on the backswing". Once he got my takeaway and move to the top on more natural planes (and a couple other slight changes) my whole game became more consistent, but since I'm a weekend warrior and in my 40s I'll never be scratch (or will I?!?).

[Open-Faced Club Sandwedge]

Originally Posted by iacas

Everyone who plays even a little golf has an incredibly "consistent" swing - you can't tell one apart from the next on video. They all look virtually identical.

Can you explain this more?

Observations about me, based on watching the ball and knowing the ball flight laws:

Most of the time I swing slightly in-to-out, but quite often I do something wrong in my swing and it goes out-to-in, and sometimes quite severely.

Much of the time I hit the ball and then the ground, but quite often I hit the ground first, and sometimes I hit the ground several inches before the ball.

Sometimes I hit the ball with the face square to the path, but quite often it's either quite closed or wide open.

.... etc. ....

How am I doing these things if my swing is identical from one to the next?  I'm not trying to be argumentative; I just want to understand what you're actually trying to say, and how it relates to improving at golf.

-Andrew

[B-Con]

Can you explain this more?

I'm not answering for him, just sharing a little of my experience: I've tried to start videoing my swing lately. I go out and video my swing a couple times, spend a few weeks working on making changes, then go back out and video again. In the beginning I was in an iron-striking rut and not doing well. After I videoed myself, I watched a 9-iron swing side-by-side with an 8-iron swing just for fun to see how similar my swings were. It turned out that they were almost perfectly identical. Two different swings with slightly different irons and put side-by-side there was almost no difference. As a 20 HDCP with bad iron play I was expecting inconsistent movements, alignment, timing, etc. But I could practically overlay my swings with almost no difference. At impact one clubface was slightly aligned differently (by maybe a couple degrees, it was almost impossible to tell on the video) and one bottomed out a bit sooner (I hit fat), but they were very subtle differences. Given both videos up to the point of impact, I honestly couldn't have told you which one was which. That said, I'm an inconsistent ball-striker. So when I saw the videos side-by-side, I realized that it wasn't a search for any consistency in my swing, but for good consistency that still had a good result when I made a minor error. I think repeated inconsistency comes from the consistency of a bad swing. The bad swing just happens to deviate a little here and there and produce different results. Those who tend to slice have a swing that practically guarantees every swing will produce a slice. Those who hit fat have a swing that practically guarantees every swing will produce a fat shot. Occasionally they won't, though, due to a minor deviation by the golfer. Or occasionally a major one. If we have an out-of-balance swing, sometimes we actually lose our balance and have to step forward after the shot, etc.

[iacas]

Originally Posted by rossvanwyk

I'm talking about people with decent sporting ability. An athletic type swing. Who already have a feel for what a good shot feels like.

The point is you have to get to the point where you know what a "good shot feels like."

I'm going to go way out on a limb here - 90% of golfers have never felt a good impact position on a full swing (with any club). Some might hit the sweet spot now and then, but with their bodies in anything close to a correct position, with a clubhead on the proper angle of attack, the ball being appropriately compressed with fairly small spin loft (horizontal direction too), etc.

Originally Posted by rossvanwyk

So without getting intensely technical, I firmly believe you can develop your own swing and make it consistently good. Hitting a 6i 170y on a good ball flight consistenly for instance. if you can do that with your own swing that you've developed, you're doing something right. Again, this won't work for everyone and certainly some people need instruction before anything else to get on the right track.

90% of golfers can't consistently hit a 6I 170 yards "on a good ball flight." Again, you're kind of saying what someone else said above: "get good, then practice staying good, and you'll be okay."

Oh, here it was:

Originally Posted by LankyLefty

"Hey go get good at golf then never change anything and you'll still be good at golf."

Originally Posted by Open-Faced Club Sandwedge

Can you explain this more?

B-Con did pretty well. My answers will be shorter.

Originally Posted by Open-Faced Club Sandwedge

Observations about me, based on watching the ball and knowing the ball flight laws:

Most of the time I swing slightly in-to-out, but quite often I do something wrong in my swing and it goes out-to-in, and sometimes quite severely.

Highly unlikely, but perhaps. On occasion someone can swing the driver very different than their irons.

Originally Posted by Open-Faced Club Sandwedge

Much of the time I hit the ball and then the ground, but quite often I hit the ground first, and sometimes I hit the ground several inches before the ball.

Fat and thin shots are the same cause - low point is behind the ball.

Originally Posted by Open-Faced Club Sandwedge

How am I doing these things if my swing is identical from one to the next?  I'm not trying to be argumentative; I just want to understand what you're actually trying to say, and how it relates to improving at golf.

Video tape it, and you'll see as B-Con suggests: they're incredibly similar.

[hero12]

Here's a story most of you won't care about.

I played many sports in high school and was always decent at golf purely because of my athleticism. After high school I started to focus more on golf and really worked on my mechanics. I've been comfortable with my basic mechanics for a couple years now. This year a started out with major slice issues, but because I had decent basic mechanics, I knew it wasn't my swing that was the problem. Turns out I was simply standing too upright at address. One week to the next was a 16 stroke difference, and I have been happy with my scores since then.

Moral:  Having solid fundamentals will allow you to trust your swing. You can't trust fundamentals that will continue to deliver bad results.  Practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect.