Instruction
Dr. Gupta: On Becoming A Golfing God
You have had those days before. You speak of them still.
It matters not your age. Or your level of skill. You know exactly the days that I am speaking of. The days where you could do no wrong. The days in which golf felt effortless. The days in which the ball seemed to gravitate toward the hole. The days in which you marveled at your own possibilities.
Those rare and treasured days in which you tasted The Zone.
It is at once mythical, mystical and mysterious. It is the subject of legend and lore. But you have lived the legend. And you have craved it ever since.
How could you have it one day and lose it the next? Is it not possible to bottle it? Or to tease it out of hiding?
Like all things, the first step is to understand it. And in this journey to understand what it is, we must first understand what it is not.
Much of what you are about to read will surprise you. For it will likely be the antithesis of what you have heard.
The zone has more to do with the mind than it does with the brain. The fascination with electrodes and brain signals and imaging reflecting glucose uptake is simply an example of scientists playing with their toys. Its real world application takes place only in the pages of reference-laden journals, rather than in the day-to-day experience of the human being that is the golfer.
What do I mean?
When a golfer is in the zone, do you think he cares which of his brain hemispheres was more active or what his heart rate was or which parts of his brains lit up on the scan?
And can the scientists who disseminate all of this impressive jargon take a golfer and put him into the zone using all of their fancy toys?
Forget the electrodes and the scans and the myelination and the motor patterns. Let’s talk about the reality that YOU the golfer knows. And what YOU the golfer experiences on any given day.
Let us move on to the mind.
Perhaps the most ubiquitous phrase in the lexicon of sport psychology is Mental Toughness. Sport psychologists love this phrase. Let me ask you a question. When you are not playing well is it because your mind is your friend or your enemy? And if it is your enemy, why would you want your enemy to be tough? If it is your mind that gets in the way of your performance, would you rather it be a tough adversary or a weak one?
The zone has nothing to do with mental toughness.
What about all the talk about positive self-talk? You have surely tried to tell yourself that you CAN DO IT and that YOU WILL PREVAIL. And when you did, did the mind not whisper back? Which voice had the greater effect? Your self-talk? Or the mind’s response?
What about thinking positive thoughts? You have likely tried this as well. When you had a positive thought it made you feel better, right? But how many seconds did it take for the negative thoughts to return?
You have perhaps even tried breathing, yoga, meditation, positive imagery, visualization, aphorisms, exercise and diet modification. Did any of these do the trick?
If you agree to suspend all of this ill logic. If you can abandon for a few minutes this bag of colorful potions, perhaps we can have a serious conversation.
Are you ready?
The side effects of the zone may be detected in the brain, but the zone itself is not found there. The zone has nothing to do with mental toughness. The zone is not about calming the mind, controlling the mind, appeasing the mind, or taming the mind.
In case you have not noticed, the mind cannot be tamed. It was never meant to be tamed. The mind is a tempest. A wild beast. Frenzy is its very nature. And if you stand in the way of this storm, you will be devoured.
The zone is not a state of a strong mind, a quiet mind, or a calm mind.
The zone is a state of No Mind.
When you experienced those tranquil, effortless days in which you accessed the zenith of your skill, it was because you had transcended the mind. Purely by accident. You did not have positive thoughts or happy thoughts. You had NO THOUGHTS. When there is no mind there is no thought. And when there is no thought, you have access to the full sum of your skill.
Can we get into the zone at will? Certainly. But it will cost you something that you may not be willing to pay: Your intelligence. The deep-seated belief which says that YOU KNOW.
Understanding the state of no mind will be more about unlearning rather than learning. It will require you to abandon all that you have been told. It will require you to admit a certain degree of ignorance. In accepting ignorance, you will begin to clear your mind of the cobwebs of thoughts. And you will begin the road toward clarity.
Can you do it? Can you make yourself available to existence? Can you let go of the knowledge of which you are so proud? Can you allow yourself Just To Be? Can you allow yourself to regress into childhood? Wholly new and innocent?
If you are willing, you will have started the journey. The journey toward No Mind. The journey toward clarity.
The journey toward becoming A Golfing God.
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My golf learning began with this simple fact – if you don’t have a fundamentally sound hold on the golf club, it is practically impossible for your body to execute a fundamentally sound golf swing. I’m still a big believer that the golf swing is much easier to execute if you begin with the proper hold on the club.
As you might imagine, I come into contact with hundreds of golfers of all skill levels. And it is very rare to see a good player with a bad hold on the golf club. There are some exceptions, for sure, but they are very few and very far between, and they typically have beat so many balls with their poor grip that they’ve found a way to work around it.
The reality of biophysics is that the body moves only in certain ways – and the particulars of the way you hold the golf club can totally prevent a sound swing motion that allows the club to release properly through the impact zone. The wonderful thing is that anyone can learn how to put a fundamentally sound hold on the golf club, and you can practice it anywhere your hands are not otherwise engaged, like watching TV or just sitting and relaxing.
Whether you prefer an overlap, interlock or full-finger (not baseball!) grip on the club, the same fundamentals apply. Here are the major grip faults I see most often, in the order of the frequency:
Mis-aligned hands
By this I mean that the palms of the two hands are not parallel to each other. Too many golfers have a weak left hand and strong right, or vice versa. The easiest way to learn how to hold the club with your palms aligned properly is to grip a plain wooden ruler or yardstick. It forces the hands to align properly and shows you how that feels. If you grip and re-grip a yardstick several times, then grip a club, you’ll see that the learning curve is almost immediate.
The position of the grip in the upper/left hand
I also observe many golfers who have the butt of the grip too far into the heel pad of the upper hand (the left hand for right-handed players). It’s amazing how much easier it is to release the club through the ball if even 1/4-1/2″ of the butt is beyond the left heel pad. Try this yourself to see what I mean. Swing the club freely with just your left hand and notice the difference in its release from when you hold it at the end of the grip, versus gripping down even a half inch.
To help you really understand how this works, go to the range and hit shots with your five-iron gripped down a full inch to make the club the same length as your seven-iron. You will probably see an amazing shot shape difference, and likely not see as much distance loss as you would expect.
Too much lower (right) hand on the club
It seems like almost all golfers of 8-10 handicap or higher have the club too far into the palm of the lower hand, because that feels “good” if you are trying to control the path of the clubhead to the ball. But the golf swing is not an effort to hit at the ball – it is a swing of the club. The proper hold on the club has the grip underneath the pad at the base of the fingers. This will likely feel “weak” to you — like you cannot control the club like that. EXACTLY. You should not be trying to control the club with your lower/master hand.
Gripping too tightly
Nearly all golfers hold the club too tightly, which tenses up the forearms and prevents a proper release of the club through impact. In order for the club to move back and through properly, you must feel that the club is controlled by the last three fingers of the upper hand, and the middle two fingers of the lower hand. If you engage your thumbs and forefingers in “holding” the club, the result will almost always be a grip that is too tight. Try this for yourself. Hold the club in your upper hand only, and squeeze firmly with just the last three fingers, with the forefinger and thumb off the club entirely. You have good control, but your forearms are not tense. Then begin to squeeze down with your thumb and forefinger and observe the tensing of the entire forearm. This is the way we are made, so the key to preventing tenseness in the arms is to hold the club very lightly with the “pinchers” — the thumbs and forefingers.
So, those are what I believe are the four fundamentals of a good grip. Anyone can learn them in their home or office very quickly. There is no easier way to improve your ball striking consistency and add distance than giving more attention to the way you hold the golf club.
More from the Wedge Guy
- The Wedge Guy: Golf mastery begins with your wedge game
- The Wedge Guy: Why golf is 20 times harder than brain surgery
- The Wedge Guy: Musings on the golf ball rollback
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Not the dreaded headcover under the armpit drill! As if your body is defective and can’t function by itself! Have you seen how incredible the human machine is with all the incredible feats of agility all kinds of athletes are accomplishing? You think your body is so defective (the good Lord is laughing his head off at you) that it needs a headcover tucked under the armpit so you can swing like T-Rex?
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This is a classic drill that has been used for decades. However, the world of marketed training aids has grown so much during that time that this simple practice has been virtually forgotten. Because why teach people how to play golf using everyday items when you can create and sell a product that reinforces the same thing? Nevertheless, I am here to give you helpful advice without running to the nearest Edwin Watts or adding something to your Amazon cart.
For the “scoring clubs,” having a solid connection between the arms and body during the swing, especially through impact, is paramount to creating long-lasting consistency. And keeping that connection throughout the swing helps rotate the shoulders more to generate more power to help you hit it farther. So, how does this drill work, and what will your game benefit from it? Well, let’s get into it.
Setup
You can use this for basic chip shots up to complete swings. I use this with every club in my bag, up to a 9 or 8-iron. It’s natural to create incrementally more separation between the arms and body as you progress up the set. So doing this with a high iron or a wood is not recommended.
While you set up to hit a ball, simply tuck the towel underneath both armpits. The length of the towel will determine how tight it will be across your chest but don’t make it so loose that it gets in the way of your vision. After both sides are tucked, make some focused swings, keeping both arms firmly connected to the body during the backswing and follow through. (Note: It’s normal to lose connection on your lead arm during your finishing pose.) When you’re ready, put a ball in the way of those swings and get to work.
Get a Better Shoulder Turn
Many of us struggle to have proper shoulder rotation in our golf swing, especially during long layoffs. Making a swing that is all arms and no shoulders is a surefire way to have less control with wedges and less distance with full swings. Notice how I can get in a similar-looking position in both 60° wedge photos. However, one is weak and uncontrollable, while the other is strong and connected. One allows me to use my larger muscles to create my swing, and one doesn’t. The follow-through is another critical point where having a good connection, as well as solid shoulder rotation, is a must. This drill is great for those who tend to have a “chicken wing” form in their lead arm, which happens when it becomes separated from the body through impact.
In full swings, getting your shoulders to rotate in your golf swing is a great way to reinforce proper weight distribution. If your swing is all arms, it’s much harder to get your weight to naturally shift to the inside part of your trail foot in the backswing. Sure, you could make the mistake of “sliding” to get weight on your back foot, but that doesn’t fix the issue. You must turn into your trial leg to generate power. Additionally, look at the difference in separation between my hands and my head in the 8-iron examples. The green picture has more separation and has my hands lower. This will help me lessen my angle of attack and make it easier to hit the inside part of the golf ball, rather than the over-the-top move that the other picture produces.
Stay Better Connected in the Backswing
When you don’t keep everything in your upper body working as one, getting to a good spot at the top of your swing is very hard to do. It would take impeccable timing along with great hand-eye coordination to hit quality shots with any sort of regularity if the arms are working separately from the body.
Notice in the red pictures of both my 60-degree wedge and 8-iron how high my hands are and the fact you can clearly see my shoulder through the gap in my arms. That has happened because the right arm, just above my elbow, has become totally disconnected from my body. That separation causes me to lift my hands as well as lose some of the extension in my left arm. This has been corrected in the green pictures by using this drill to reinforce that connection. It will also make you focus on keeping the lead arm close to your body as well. Because the moment either one loses that relationship, the towel falls.
Conclusion
I have been diligent this year in finding a few drills that target some of the issues that plague my golf game; either by simply forgetting fundamental things or by coming to terms with the faults that have bitten me my whole career. I have found that having a few drills to fall back on to reinforce certain feelings helps me find my game a little easier, and the “towel drill” is most definitely one of them.
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Michael Holmstrom
Jan 6, 2015 at 10:00 pm
Great Article. Basically similar to other things i’ve read from Bob Rotella, etc. I was excited to go out today and play, doing my best to eliminate conscious swing thoughts I normally use during setup and swing, i.e. kick left hip out, Flare the left foot, lower right shoulder, blah blah. Instead I just tried to “feel” the setup in my body and adjust setup based on tee. Old thoughts still creep in on the tee, or on the putting green, but i’d say i was successful about 80% of the shots. I play to a 9.5 index and shot a 74 today with 4 birdies. My second best round of my life. This stuff works….just saying!!
other paul
Jan 4, 2015 at 8:01 pm
Golf is thinking followed by focused thoughts directing an action. Not thinking and then no thinking.
other paul
Jan 4, 2015 at 7:57 pm
I was playing Virtual golf (36 holes in one hour) one night and found the zone for 1 shot. What I felt was a overwhelming focus and confidence (not an empty mind) in the task at hand. I knew exactly what I was going to do and how to do it. I then stepped up to the ball and thought “right at the pin” and hit it. Landed 10′ past from 194yards and almost hit the stick. I disagree with empty mind, an empty mind is not a focused mind. I also have found the zone in martial arts as well a single time while fighting. It was a amazing, felt like Jet Li for 30 seconds.
Philip
Jan 4, 2015 at 9:39 pm
Depends on the individual and how one defines an empty mind. For myself, my mind is constantly full of thoughts. My best golf is when I focus on my objective, visualize the result, step up to the ball and execute. To me that is an empty mind – not thinking about and being distracted by the wind, that golfer who won’t shut up, the traffic, the office, what am I having for supper, and the pain in my left leg, etc.
For myself, being in the zone is a form of walking meditation. So for me, I agree with the concept of an empty mind where I hardly notice the golfers I am playing with when I approach my ball. What I still find difficult is switching this state of mind off and on so that I can still enjoy the company of those I play a round of golf with. It is easy to switch off, not so easy to get back to it.
Mike Belkin
Jan 4, 2015 at 10:18 am
Great piece, and totally agree on the “unlearning” component in that we have to remove our preconceived notions and “let go” to help get in the zone.
Kapil Gupta MD
Jan 4, 2015 at 12:53 pm
Much appreciated, Mike. Glad you enjoyed it.
Craig T Nelson
Jan 3, 2015 at 8:21 pm
More WRX. Scam material
jon
Jan 3, 2015 at 9:58 pm
Scam? Why you hate to hate. You be trollin.
Beacher50
Jan 2, 2015 at 6:38 pm
What did Chevy Chase say in Caddyshack…NA NA NA…NU NU NU…NH NH NH
Toby Smith
Jan 2, 2015 at 8:42 am
Really interesting article, but leaves out the key info….how do you achieve it! I struggle to keep my mind quiet, would love more info about how to achieve this.
Barry S.
Jan 2, 2015 at 11:48 pm
Visualize the shot with your third eye and you’re pretty much there.
David
Jan 3, 2015 at 9:28 am
Didn’t you read? You must unlearn what you have learned. Go watch Star Wars – The Empire Strikes Back. If you are still asking this question, you have completely missed the point of the Force and need to watch again.
Yoda
Jan 3, 2015 at 3:49 pm
true dat
Anon
Jan 10, 2015 at 1:35 am
For the low price of 399.95 he be willing to show you the secrets of the no-mind!
???
Jan 2, 2015 at 4:56 am
Great piece,
Pleasure to see a golf related subject not covered in launch monitor data, or every golf psychology terminology under the sun. Golf was played well, by more skilful players than the modern day tour pro long before these two over subscribed genres ever came into prominence, so all aspiring players please take note. Play the game as it should be, which is ‘a game’, with the best results often found when simply mucking around or experimenting, it’s all in the dirt so to speak, and having lots of lessons will not give you the answer. Only you can find the answer from within, by trying a variety of styles/techniques that suit your own individual awareness and feel proprioception. Mimicking others will not help, as that is there journey and you need to follow your own, Furyk/Watson/Kuchar don’t stand on the range wishing they looked like some text book swing, when they are laughing their way to majors and top ten finishes. If they had been told they must follow the norm be that technical or mental they would never have made it to the top!
Kapil Gupta, MD
Jan 2, 2015 at 11:32 am
Amen, friend. Your wisdom shines through.
Armisen
Jan 3, 2015 at 12:40 pm
Sorry, I don’t buy it.
MANY people ‘muck around’, without help, and get stuck in an endless pattern of experimentation and a constantly changing swing that never allows them to progress as a player (this coming from a creative-type, avid golf experimenter).
Surely there is a middle ground where one can learn the game with the help of someone who encourages experimentation within some guidelines.
And players of old were more skillful than their modern-day counterparts? I’d like to know how you measure that. Smacks of bias to me.
Philip
Jan 3, 2015 at 5:45 pm
I guess it depends on how they “muck” around. If they just try different things then I totally agree as I did exactly that a few years ago and did nothing but go in circles. However, if they are starting to listen to their body (i.e. instincts) while experimenting (paying attention to cause and effect) then they can open up a large door to improvement if they try to simplify what they are doing.
Can people accelerate in their game with outside help – for sure (videos, books, golfing partners, etc.) I personally have found it difficult to find a golf coach who was on my page or was able to get me to their page – tricky for sure, but I will be trying again with another course pro this spring. I learn so much from other golfers each time I play (both better and worse than myself) so why not from a teacher of golf. Every little bit helps.
I agree with your third point – players of long ago are not more skillful than yesterday, today, or tomorrow. Each independent era had the most skillful players of that time based on the then current course conditions, equipment and knowledge available. If you took anyone from two era’s at their prime and they competed together they would both get better as a result of learning from each other.
Fred
Jan 2, 2015 at 12:30 am
I wonder if the author even golfs….
Bla bla
Jan 1, 2015 at 9:25 pm
Booooring! To long didn’t even start reading it!
Brad Ingarfield
Jan 1, 2015 at 8:58 pm
Very interesting. I’ll give it a shot. – Brad Ingarfield
KK
Jan 1, 2015 at 7:40 pm
Is this really an article on GolfWRX about how to be a god or gain superhuman abilities by using something that is beyond my mind?
J
Jan 1, 2015 at 6:41 pm
Irreverent and offensive title for an article and a statement.
Equating to some ability to focus on a task to Godliness however unintentional or not intended is despicable.
Choose better words next time.
Philip
Jan 1, 2015 at 10:42 pm
Very relevant and non-offensive. Definitely not despicable as many individuals often blame their success on some “God” and not themselves. Not religious in any shape or form as “Gods” have existed in human affairs for thousands of years and numerous “Gods” still do to this day.
J
Jan 2, 2015 at 7:12 pm
Irreverent… Not irrelevant.
Philip
Jan 2, 2015 at 11:08 pm
Gotcha, missed that. However, I do not think there is any disrespect here. Beside, I personally would not want to be a golfing god, how boring – takes all the fun out of golf. That being said, there is no disrespect in accepting that our bodies and senses, as designed, know more how to play golf than our intellectual minds. If anything, it is a sign of respect that we know so little within our minds.
As was said a long time ago, our hands know more on how to play golf than our minds will ever know.
Scooter McGavin
Jan 2, 2015 at 10:34 pm
Which of the hundreds of gods is he being offensive to? Take your sermons elsewhere, please.
Splatgirl
Jan 3, 2015 at 11:57 am
Get over yourself.
Splatgirl
Jan 3, 2015 at 11:59 am
This was in reply to J, not you, Scooter.
Philip
Jan 1, 2015 at 5:09 pm
That has been my journey over the last two years with my swing, setup and execution on the course. No thoughts – just let my body determine what is required based on what my eyes see, my senses feel, and the visualization of the ball flight in my mind.
The more i try to control with my thoughts what has to happen and how, the more I mess up. The more I allow my thoughts to evaporate and trust my senses the more amazing the results.
I accepted this through an experiment 2 years ago at a driving range. My 7i was 150 yards at the time and I setup to three targets. 150 yard target at centre, 130 yard target 30 yards to the right, and 170 yrs target 30 yards to the left. I always faced the 150 yard target and then would visualize which target I wanted the ball to go to and allow my body to determine my grip and setup while always facing the target in front of me.
I then proceeded to watch myself take the one 7i and hit it straight to 150, cut it to 130, and turn it to 170 yards repeatedly while landing less than 10 yards of each target. I had no idea on how to make those shots with precision, but my body did based on what I visualized in my mind. Thus began my journey to simplify everything about golf, including my thoughts which where an unnecessary burden.
Every year since has been an improvement – this one looking to be the best yet.
Kapil Gupta MD
Jan 1, 2015 at 6:07 pm
Truly fantastic, Philip. You are indeed on the right track, my friend.
Best,
Armisen
Jan 3, 2015 at 12:42 pm
This is all fine and dandy, but in no way are you ‘letting your body determine what is required’ when you swing. It’s all in your brain, man.
Philip
Jan 3, 2015 at 5:31 pm
Yes and no – I guess a better way is to say I was letting my unconscious mind control my body. In regards to this experiment, I set-up to the ball without looking at my hands or my stance. I walked up to the ball and focused on the target with my eyes, seeing the ball flight and once my hands and body felt comfortable I made the swing.
I didn’t walk up the ball and start thinking – okay, I need to open the club face a bit, open my stance and come over the top just a bit to cut the ball and take off yardage. I would be lucky to hit the ball.
Yes, my brain is being used but at the instinct level, not intellectual level. No different than if someone tosses you a baseball. You’re not calculating the speed of the ball, the angle of flight, where your feet are located, are you in balance and how far you have to outstretch your arm to catch the ball. You just move in front of the ball path, stick out your arm and catch the ball without conscious thought (or as little as possible for you).
My goal is to make my game of golf as close as possible to catching a baseball, or running though the woods at dusk – instinct.
Bill
Jan 6, 2015 at 3:30 pm
curious to know your handicap Philip… the amount of body control and unconscious mind connection you have achieved, does not just happen. I would venture to guess you are near scratch, and you have done extensive *conscious* work on grooving a fundamentally sound setup from your consistent pre-shot routine for your body type/ability level, before you were able to let your unconscious take over and actually produce the shots you visualized. You want to swing instinctively as we do in other sports, but Golf is not like other sports where we reacti to a moving object. The ball just sits there, which makes it very difficult to use the same unconscious reaction instincts of high-motion activities. You haven’t just tapped in to the same instincts you had in baseball, you have put a lot of hard work and effort in to developing your golf-specific skills. Well done!
Bill
Jan 6, 2015 at 3:41 pm
*caveat – I do agree that if the conscious mind gives a ball flight visualization to the unconscious mind to ‘react’ to, the unconscious mind will produce the shot, BUT the set-up has to be good, too. which is material for a whoooole nuther post.
AJ Jensen
Jan 1, 2015 at 2:26 pm
Great article. You’ve pinned down what I’ve struggled to explain to myself, about how to recapture the often-elusive Zone and the way I feel whenever a window opens and I find myself in it. This season maybe I will focus myself on a ‘just play’ kind of approach, abandon the active thought thing and let my hands and body do what they already know how to do with a golf club.
Gloover
Jan 1, 2015 at 1:25 pm
Eh, I’m going to trust Daniel Dennett: “all varieties of perception—indeed all varieties of thought or mental activity—are accomplished in the brain by parallel, multitrack processes of interpretation and elaboration of sensory inputs. Information entering the nervous system is under continuous ‘editorial revision.'” “These yield, over the course of time, something rather like a narrative stream or sequence, which can be thought of as subject to continual editing by many processes distributed around the brain, …”
Armisen
Jan 3, 2015 at 12:43 pm
Yes. Mind=Brain.
Nick
Jan 1, 2015 at 12:32 pm
Great article. Really makes me realize how much I overthink the game at times. I just need to sometimes let it go…