chipandcharge

I play in a group from time to time where some walk and some ride. The ones who walk tee off first and immediately start walking towards their balls, taking a wide route, looking back so that they can take cover when someone is about to hit from the tee box. Our course has a lot of trees, and they walk among the trees. At first, it affected me, not wanting to hit near them, but as I played more rounds with them, I got used to it and even began to appreciate their actions. By the time the players in carts got to their next shots, the walkers were already at their next shots.

Left hand low or right hand low--in case you're curious about which you should use. I went to a putting clinic, and the pro had us putt one handed, check to see which hand was more stable. He recommended that they more stable one should be low and active, and the less stable one should be high and passive. I'm right handed, and my right handed putting was full of twitching, but my left handed putting was smooth as silk. I changed to left hand low immediately, and I'm happy I converted. There were others in the clinic whose right hand was smoother and left hand twitched.

It is clear to me from observing athletes in action that some are helped by seeing the glass half full (positive) and some are helped by seeing the glass half empty (negative). It probably depends on the person's history of managing situations where call for improvement. One of the best reasons for thinking positively that I have seen came from self-help guru Depak Chopra. He said that if you can manage a problem by either seeing the glass half full or half empty, seeing it half full will lead to a better quality solution to the problem. At first, I thought, "what difference does it make if you can manage it either way?" Then I realized that simply managing it doesn't mean equal quality of the final solution. The implication of seeing it half full is that (1) your muscles will be more relaxed, (2) you won't have to divert any mental energy to managing any stress that might result from seeing the glass half empty, and (3) you will have more of your mental capacity to devote to the task at hand. The above advice was based on a person's ability to see it either way. If a person is unable to see it half full, then the improvement he/she can get by seeing it half empty may surpass what he/she can gain by trying to see it half full. One of those zero-sum games in life, but even zero sum games can be overcome by adding resources. Twenty years ago, I would have considered this as psychology mumbo jumbo, but I gained some wisdom in those twenty years. My career was in one where the ability to see the glass half empty was important.

My eagle was from 100 yards out on a short par 4 hole, about a year after I started playing golf.. It was a shot over a little stream with bunkers on the left and a pond on the right . The ball rolled around 30 yards. None of us saw it after it rolled around 10 yards after it hit the ground. When we got to the green, we couldn't find my ball until someone looked in the cup and found a ball. They couldn't believe that it was mine, so the guy who found it made me identify it before he showed it to me. We had a good laugh.

Same here--problem with the manager. One day, I noticed that someone had gouged out a piece of the grass around the edge of the cup with the end of the flag pole. Being the last one one the course, I reported it to the manager to give him a heads up to prepare for the next day. He said, "You didn't have to tell me that." Second case was when I saw a guy drive his cart so that the front wheels were on the green. I took a picture and reported it to the manager, who was working on something at the register. He didn't look up or say anything, which I guess is equivalent to saying "You didn't have to tell me that." I know his boss but haven't said a word about this yet.

I didn't see anyone peeking at his watch, but I was playing with guys 70 to 72 years of age. One might have taken a short snooze. Actually, the long pause might not be as long as it feels--I asked if anyone noticed a difference in my swing, and they mentioned other things, but not the long pause.

My most important "ahhh" occurred three weeks ago. It cured a problem I had with making bad contact with the ball around 12 to 15 times a round. The "cure" was accidental. I watched a video on starting the swing with the club already at the top. One day at the driving range, I tried it and made good contact. And then another, and another, and another. It felt different. The ball looked bigger and brighter, and the shadow under the ball looked darker, and my depth perception improved. The shadow of the ball clearly looked like it was tangent to the bottom of the ball instead of just down there somewhere. On the course, I emulated this by inserting a long pause at the top, almost a complete stop. My number of bad contacts almost immediately dropped to four to five a round, and my scores dropped from 100-102 to 90-91. I think that what was happening was that my head was turning to the right (right handed) with the backswing, and the long pause at the top allowed me to stop my head/eyes, allowing me to sight the ball better and locate it in 3-D space.

Earlier on, I wrote that my goal is to make good contact. After weeks of trying different swing tips, I finally found one that made a majorhe improvement in ball contact after modifying it somewhat. The tip was to take practice swings where you stop the downswing half way down, return the club back to the top, and repeat this several times. The purpose of this drill was to develop a better feel for where the club was at the top, but when I did this drill, I noticed that doing this allowed me more time to sight the location of the ball. In order to incorporate this into my playing swing, I simply held the club at the top longer, essentially coming to a complete stop. I've been told that this is a bad thing to do, but I'm guessing this improved my eye-hand coordination, which is rather poor to begin with since I have a little problem with double vision. It is probably my imagination, but the ball looked bigger, but I think that this is probably due to it being more prominent in my vision than without. I experimented with several situations that gave me a lot of trouble, such as ball above feet, ball below feet, feet in bunker with ball on grass, and I was able to make good contact on these situations that I hardly practice.

How people learn a skill is something I know since it is in my field of research. Golf--I know little about. So, I'll keep my comments focused on how people learn , and with some interpretation for golf. Yes, some people learn to play a musical instrument as Erik wrote in his original post, starting slowly, hitting the correct notes, and picking the tempo until they get up to speed. Their emphasis is on the correct notes first; correct tempo/rhythm second. They are said to focus on details first; holism second. When looking at a painting, their eyes zoom in on the details first, and the overall overview second. Others, though, have an opposite learning style--they look at the holistic image first, like stepping back and getting an an overall impression of the painting before looking at the details. When playing a musical instrument, because of the necessity of hitting the correct notes, they may start of being concerned about the notes, but they quickly transfer their attention to the correct tempo. If you talk to professional musicians at the symphony level, they will probably tell you that someone at that level needs to have a desire to play at the right tempo, with correct notes second (but they have to be able to play the right notes also). The reason for for the importance of having a tempo preference is that concert level musicians need to be able to read several measures beyond the note to be played--they cannot read the music in sync with the note being played. If they are willing to slow it down in order to hit the right note, they will not be able develop the ability to sight read fast. Here's what little I know about the relationship between these two learning styles and the golf swing. The first group (note preference) wants to know all of the details--position of the various parts of the body at different points in the swing, often to an extreme. They can look very mechanical, but the talented ones can also look very smooth. This smoothness can come for coaching, or it could come from talent. The second group would prefer to focus more on tempo and rhythm first and the correct details second, but traditional coaching is based on details, so they see the details quickly. When you hear a competent musician you can't tell which came first--a desire to hit the right notes or a desire to play a the right tempo and rhythm with artistry. When you see a competent golf swing, you can't tell which came first, the details (positions) or the tempo and rhythm.

booglelicious--your educational and career backgrounds and mine are a close match. Six years in engineering grad school and 36 years in engineering. However, I also did almost three decades in educational and sports psychology and coaching volleyball and tennis. I hope you have been reading and viewing videos on turning off the analytical side of the brain. Everything I've seen will work, but some things more for one person than other. The difficult is that you don't know which will work for you most effectively, so you have to give them all a try. The instructions usually tell you what to do, but they usually don't teach you how to make the instructions work. It is like trying to curb test anxiety in school--many techniques offered, but you have to find the one that works for you. I think there is a private channel for communication on this web site. If we can make use of it, I could go into more detail on how to make the instructions on toning down the analytical mind work.

boogielicious--I'm writing this as someone who worked in sports psychologist and how people learn biomechanical movements for three decades, not as an experienced golfer, but I know enough to address your post. When you read articles or watch videos from sports psychologist, I'm sure you received a lot of tips. Basically, in the context of the left-brain/right-brain hemispherical model, they are essentially saying that you have to find a way to tone down the left brain, which is the analytical side where analytical reason resides, and turn on the right brain, which is the holistic side, where feel and rhythm reside. Some people who are highly left brained have difficulty toning it down. To be fair, there are people who are highly right brained, and they may have difficulty turning on the left brain and may thus not have the patience to learn about the physics of the swing. When I studied accomplished tennis players and volleyball players, I often could not tell if they were left brained or right brained. The left brained athletes were able to incorporate the right brain into their performance, and the right brained athletes were able to incorporate the left brain into their performance. I can tell you about a pro basketball player who looked right brained in his performance but turned out to be left brained. When he took up tennis, you could then see that he was learning it in a left brained process, but quickly brought his right brain into this learning process. Long story short--when you try to use what sports psychologists teach for your situation, they are trying to get you to tone down the left brain and turn on the right brain.

phan52--I understand your point quite clearly. I used to do consulting in sports psychology and goal setting. I understand how important it is for people (some people or most people) to set achievable, intermediate goals. I also understand the "live in the moment" and not reflect on past errors. However, as someone who has been playing other sports at a very high level against athletes far more athletic than me, I was only able to compete at those levels by setting and pursuing high goals and being able to manage the psychology. Thanks for your posts.

Very well stated, dak4n6. I would not have been quick enough to come up with that insight, even though it is reflective of my realities. Furthermore, to Phan52, I use "goal" in the sense that it is what I want to do (zero contact errors), even if it would be virtually impossible. Anything less than "goal" would be too weak a motivating factor for me. Simply saying "I hope to" or "I would like to" make zero contact errors has not been enough impetus.

My goal is to play a full round with zero contact errors, without sacrificing any basic fundamentals. It seems that my scores are related to the number of bad contacts. What confirmed the validity of this strategy was an article in one of the golf magazines that on average, each bad contact costs a high handicap player 1.4 strokes. Seems to be about right for me.