Are you a feel or mechanical golfer?

[kw purp]

Originally Posted by David in FL

Grab stick, hit ball.

Thinking about mechanics only makes my head hurt and reminds me how little I actually understand about the golf swing.

co-sign 1000% percent. The overanalysis I see on here is crazy. People with 25 handicaps talking about ball flight laws, smh and they wonder why they struggle so much

[Spyder]

Originally Posted by kw purp

co-sign 1000% percent. The overanalysis I see on here is crazy. People with 25 handicaps talking about ball flight laws, smh and they wonder why they struggle so much

I wouldn't say that discussing, researching, or understanding the ball flight laws would impact somebody's game negatively. Over thinking the mechanics of the swing and trying to compensate for swing flaws is a totally different monster.

[TJBam]

Originally Posted by kw purp

co-sign 1000% percent. The overanalysis I see on here is crazy. People with 25 handicaps talking about ball flight laws, smh and they wonder why they struggle so much

It is important to a degree.  I know a guy who slices miserably off the tee and always comes up with some whacky excuse like "opened my club face."  After his ball sails right down the middle but then dips right hard into OB.

If he understood that the slice is a product of his outside-inside swing it might help him adjust it better than thinking that his club face is open (which would result in a push, not a slice).

But the argument over what boils down to simple semantics in this thread has got me yawning..

[kw purp]

Originally Posted by Spyder

I wouldn't say that discussing, researching, or understanding the ball flight laws would impact somebody's game negatively. Over thinking the mechanics of the swing and trying to compensate for swing flaws is a totally different monster.

if you struggle to break 100, I wouldn't be worrying about controlling your ball flight. Just keep your head down and actually make contact

[Spyder]

Originally Posted by kw purp

if you struggle to break 100, I wouldn't be worrying about controlling your ball flight. Just keep your head down and actually make contact

I disagree. I think that if you take two players who struggle to break 100 and you educate one of them on the ball flight laws, they will begin to learn different feels on good shots and immediately know how to assess a bad shot. Whereas the golfer that you're telling to keep their down, shut up and make contact will continue to be clueless and not know what is causing the ball to do what it is doing after it leaves their club (whether good or bad). In my opinion, the golfer that knows the general ball flight concepts/laws will have an advantage when it comes to improving their consistency and playability.

Stressing on it is not necessarily a good thing, but having an understanding can only help in my opinion. As TJBam described in his example, many players who slice immediately think things like "Aw man, I opened the damn face..." or "The club spun in my hand", rather than immediately knowing that they are coming OTT and/or swinging out-to-in.

If you meant that they should not try to work the ball, I agree. But, if they want to learn about the ball flight laws to improve their consistency and accuracy, that's totally different.

[Andrew123vl]

Originally Posted by kw purp

if you struggle to break 100, I wouldn't be worrying about controlling your ball flight. Just keep your head down and actually make contact

Good advice!

[dfreuter415]

I think that most of us will agree that you need good swing mechanics to score well, but you also need to have a sense of feel.

When my mechanics are off, I screw up.  When my sense of feel is off, I screw up.  When mechanics and feel come together, life is splendiferous.

I can usually go back to some drills at the range to help my mechanics.

To improve my sense of feel is a little more difficult. I actually listen to Strauss waltzes for tempo, play bocci or horseshoes for distance control, or read Bob Rotella to get my head straight. Sounds goofy, but if it works....

I love this game!

[kw purp]

Originally Posted by Spyder

I disagree. I think that if you take two players who struggle to break 100 and you educate one of them on the ball flight laws, they will begin to learn different feels on good shots and immediately know how to assess a bad shot. Whereas the golfer that you're telling to keep their down, shut up and make contact will continue to be clueless and not know what is causing the ball to do what it is doing after it leaves their club (whether good or bad). In my opinion, the golfer that knows the general ball flight concepts/laws will have an advantage when it comes to improving their consistency and playability.

Stressing on it is not necessarily a good thing, but having an understanding can only help in my opinion. As TJBam described in his example, many players who slice immediately think things like "Aw man, I opened the damn face..." or "The club spun in my hand", rather than immediately knowing that they are coming OTT and/or swinging out-to-in.

If you meant that they should not try to work the ball, I agree. But, if they want to learn about the ball flight laws to improve their consistency and accuracy, that's totally different.

The problem is they read all these stuff, then they try to apply it and get confused/are not skilled enough to apply it and they lose it mentally.

I would recommend just working on making consistent contact whether you slice or hook and then once you actually have some semblance of control over your swing then making tweaks to it. Not the other way around

[rehmwa]

Originally Posted by Spyder

I disagree. I think that if you take two players who struggle to break 100 and you educate one of them on the ball flight laws, they will begin to learn different feels on good shots and immediately know how to assess a bad shot. Whereas the golfer that you're telling to keep their down, shut up and make contact will continue to be clueless and not know what is causing the ball to do what it is doing after it leaves their club (whether good or bad). In my opinion, the golfer that knows the general ball flight concepts/laws will have an advantage when it comes to improving their consistency and playability.

Stressing on it is not necessarily a good thing,

The simple truth is that top professional coaches/pros teach proper mechanics and ball flight laws.  (it's how we learn the proper feel)

Stressing out on feel or mechanics, frankly, excessively claiming to follow one to the exclusion of the other is a bit silly and a recipe for disaster for anyone.

It's great to get it worked out to the point where we can just walk up and rip it without a lot of thought.  Those mechanics really pay off once the proper feel is ingrained in muscle memory.