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Why I can’t tell a 15-handicap he’s thinking too much

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You’re thinking too much. Just hit it. Stop thinking about it. Paralysis by analysis. 

Does any of this sound familiar? If you’ve ever been to a driving range or played at your local course, I’ll bet you’ve heard it. The spirit of the message is always the same: that too many golfers are caught up in mechanics and thoughts to be able to swing and play golf freely. And it’s a great idea for the maximum enjoyment of golf, so long as you are not concerned with results.

If your goal in playing golf is to enjoy your time with friends, the fresh air, the bucolic setting and all the rest, I suggest you:

  1. Hit the ball.
  2. Go find it.
  3. Repeat steps one and two.

If your golf goals have to do with improving your shot quality, shooting lower scores or competing against your peers, however, you may not have the liberty of not thinking. That is, you may have to focus on certain motions UNTIL they become ingrained enough to be executed instinctively. 

This can be Pandora’s box of golf if one is not careful. Any experienced teacher would agree that too much thinking is not a good thing, however, to get to the point of non-thinking — the Zen of golf if you will — you will likely have to think. There may very well come a point when the body begins to act intuitively, but it has been my experience that the time and point where this occurs is sometimes later in one’s development.

There are many examples of this. 

Let’s start with the grip. When we hand a golf clubs to people who have never played golf, they rarely hold it “correctly,” by which I mean functionally. So we show them how it should be held, and at first, it appears quite strange. They practice it over and over again until it feels natural, until they do it without thinking. I have been playing golf for some 55 years so I grip the club instinctively, but I you that at one time I had to think about how to do it.

Now ask the same people to make a backswing. Again, they won’t make anything resembling getting to the top of the swing in a favorable position to start down. I teach them the sequence, and then they practice it (and think about it) until it becomes more natural. And on it goes.

I can remember my early days of driving a car. Hands at 10 and 2, clutch in, shift, brake, etc. It was all quite confusing, to the point where I’d have to pull off the road, gather my thoughts and start again. I had to learn to drive the car. I did this by thinking about how to do it, practicing it and then executing it. Now I drive home and have no idea how I even got there, or where my hands or feet were. The point is this: muscles, tendons, joints, etc., do not act on their own. They need to be programmed — told what to do by the brain — at least for a period of time, which brings me to my role as teacher.

I cannot tell someone with a terrible grip to just go play or stop thinking so much. I cannot teach the art of mindless golf to someone standing at the golf ball in such a way as to not allow them to make anything resembling a swing. I MUST correct the grip and the posture if they wish to improve; it’s as simple as that. If you’re a regular reader of my work, you know that everyone is quite different in their method, but the commonality is at some point all golfers will need to focus (think) about making a new move if the one they’re making is not getting the desired results they want or expect.

I also teach professional golfers and highly skilled amateurs who have reached the point of instinctive golf. And yes, it’s true that at times they do get in their own road by thinking too much. It’s an entirely different animal and is worthy of a whole other discussion. The vast majority of golfers, however, especially those who took up the game later in life, may have to accept the fact that some processing — some thinking about how to do certain things — will always be a part of their routine. They do not have the liberty of mindless golf, at least not to the degree that those more accomplished players who have played since a very young age (and often with good guidance) do. But once a move or position has become instinctive, swing away.

One more point on this. The setup and the swing, although quite closely related, are separate parts of a golf game. So let’s say you take a lesson and the instructor recommends a grip change, a ball position change and re-routes your back swing. After you learn the new grip and ball position, you can free your mind. You are fully operative at that point, and free to practice the new takeaway until it becomes instinctive.

Questions? Concerns? Post your comments below. If you’re interested in my online swing analysis program you can contact me at [email protected]

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Dennis Clark is a PGA Master Professional. Clark has taught the game of golf for more than 30 years to golfers all across the country, and is recognized as one of the leading teachers in the country by all the major golf publications. He is also is a seven-time PGA award winner who has earned the following distinctions: -- Teacher of the Year, Philadelphia Section PGA -- Teacher of the Year, Golfers Journal -- Top Teacher in Pennsylvania, Golf Magazine -- Top Teacher in Mid Atlantic Region, Golf Digest -- Earned PGA Advanced Specialty certification in Teaching/Coaching Golf -- Achieved Master Professional Status (held by less than 2 percent of PGA members) -- PGA Merchandiser of the Year, Tri State Section PGA -- Golf Professional of the Year, Tri State Section PGA -- Presidents Plaque Award for Promotion and Growth of the Game of Golf -- Junior Golf Leader, Tri State section PGA -- Served on Tri State PGA Board of Directors. Clark is also former Director of Golf and Instruction at Nemacolin Woodlands Resort. Dennis now teaches at Bobby Clampett's Impact Zone Golf Indoor Performance Center in Naples, FL. .

31 Comments

31 Comments

  1. Steven

    Nov 16, 2016 at 1:39 pm

    Great advice Dennis. I am a little biased because I tend to think a ton about the swing. When people say a golfer is overthinking, my guess is the golfer is trying to think about too many different things at once. Incremental improvement with focused thinking on a limited number of changes is necessary to make changes. If it takes 21 days of conscious choices to break a habit, then changing a small thing in a rapid golf swing would take similar conscious thoughts over a significant amount of time.

  2. Mongoose

    Nov 15, 2016 at 1:41 pm

    Also watching the golf channel for instruction, geez what a joke…

  3. Grizz01

    Nov 14, 2016 at 4:32 pm

    I’ve been playing golf for 47 years. The more I watch/read the instructions from professionals, the more I see them actually making the game harder/difficult. A person only has so much talent/ability. These guy just keep pushing it… they just an’t look at a student and say… “That’s the best its going to get for you.” They got to keep them coming back to pay the bills. The game is not as difficult as you all make it out to be.

    • Dennis Clark

      Nov 16, 2016 at 9:23 am

      Actually, I appreciate your cynicism, but having done this work for 35+ years I’ve got a long line of people who want to see me for help with their game. The LAST THING I want is for anyone to come back; one and done! Point them in the right direction — now go tell someone else I’ve helped you. That’s my marketing model. A good teaching pro’s day has fresh faces every day and a new problem to solve every hour. Thanks.

    • RCCM

      Nov 17, 2016 at 10:27 am

      Caveat, I’m not an instructor. So many people who throw shade at instructors are the same ones who are unable to accept any new movement or setup position in their golf game. You can give golfers the correct instruction but you can’t give them the mental fortitude to put it into practice. I see it with my friends, and I’ve been through it myself.

      The real battle is not finding and getting the correct instruction, the real battle is getting the student to accept the instruction and practice new and uncomfortable feelings. The difference between those who will get better and those who will not is between the ears.

      If you’re not willing to be uncomfortable, you will not get better.

  4. Martin Chuck

    Nov 14, 2016 at 12:44 pm

    Dennis, great article. I’ve been teaching for 30 years, and when I hear somebody with a high handicap tell me they’re thinking too much, I say “good, now I have you right where I want you.” With my golf school students, I will ask the group if any of them have played a musical instrument. I find those that have suffered through the learning and skill development of a musical instrument understand the process of learning. That can apply to golf really nicely. On the other hand, The “athlete” just expects to do something because of their physical skills in other areas. That’s problematic 🙂

    • Dennis Clark

      Nov 14, 2016 at 4:09 pm

      Hi Martin, as a 20-handicap guitar player and singer I can soooo relate to that. Patience is a learned skill and one of ther few times we get to practice it is when challenging ourselves with learning a new task. Ive worked with some of the greatest athletes ever, Dr. J. MJ, (taught in AC New jersey for some time and many of them would come on casino outings) and they can’t believe they cant hit that little white ball just sitting still in front of them! The less physically talented, as you mentioned, are not as shocked by slices and and ground balls!

  5. Modog

    Nov 14, 2016 at 11:14 am

    tried to tell a 22 h/cap to keep it simple. pick the club, 1 practice swing and hit it, no overthinking. he said how do you turn off your brain. couldn’t answer.

    • Dennis Clark

      Nov 14, 2016 at 4:00 pm

      Mo…”brain dead” bodies do not move. For obvious reasons. Every movement we make has to start in the brain. It can become instinct but needs programming first! So as much as i would prefer non-thought it wouldn’t help me learn a skill! Thx for reading.

  6. Bob Jones

    Nov 14, 2016 at 10:52 am

    What this means to me is to set up feeling the shot, not the stroke. I don’t know if a recreational golfer can ever have enough repetitions to get to that point. I’m not there, and I’ve been playing for almost 60 years.

  7. Cap

    Nov 14, 2016 at 10:46 am

    So much truth here. I recently read an article about how ones fondness for pseudo-intellectual quotes (‘By blossoming, we dream.’ or ‘You and I are dreamweavers of the quantum soup’ etc.) is inversely proportional to their IQ. Well, golf has it’s own lexicon of bollocks babble–golfisms, if you will. We’ve all heard them: ‘keep your head down’, ‘hold the club like a baby bird’, ‘take 2 weeks off then quit the game’ (actually, this is pretty solid). Much like psycho-babble quotes, golfisms are appealing because they are concise and have an element of truth. In fact, they might even work for you provided you don’t spend too much time thinking about ‘buts’ and ‘ifs’. But an effective golf swing is a shape-shifting beast. People are built differently both mentally and physically and even a layman who sees Arnie’s swing next to Hogan’s can tell you that there may very well be more than one way to play the game. The reality is, there are precious few blanket statements when it comes to the golf swing and if you read the time-worn clichés as gospel, you’ll probably never see the light.

    • Double Mocha Man

      Nov 14, 2016 at 11:48 am

      Good post. If I ever hear the phrases again, “Keep your head down, you’re hitting behind the ball, swing easy…” I will hurl. Both my stomach contents and the club I happen to be holding at the time.

      • Dennis Clark

        Nov 14, 2016 at 4:20 pm

        Mocha, LOL. here’s one for ya…In over 35 years of teaching I have NEVER seen a student “pick up their head”. They come to the tee swearing that’s the problem, then look at the video and are SHOCKED that their head is down and they are looking right at the golf ball! John Jacobs used to tell me that he heard so much about keeping the head down, he thought the object of the game was to kick the ball.

    • Dennis Clark

      Nov 14, 2016 at 3:54 pm

      Very true Cap. If you hear keep your down, keep your left arm straight, slow your swing down, walk away. A lot of the psycho babble is because that person knows nothing else to say…There are NO, as in ZERO things that apply to every single golfer other than the ballistics of impact! How to get there is a highly individual matter! Thx for reading.

  8. Gary

    Nov 14, 2016 at 9:52 am

    Don’t expect so much of yourself no matter what level of player you are. Yes, you can visualize your shots but don’t fantasize about them. Play to a level that is within EASY reach, not a level that is far beyond your ability. The one thing you can focus your attention on is balance…you should strive to keep your balance no matter how good or bad the contact with the ball might be. By keeping your balance, you will become more consistent with your quality of hits.

  9. 4Right

    Nov 13, 2016 at 8:10 pm

    Tell them to stop reading Golf Digest, and Golf magazine. Taking the cookie cutter lessons and thinking their way to 115…

  10. Egor

    Nov 13, 2016 at 4:43 pm

    Thanks for the unstoppable autoplay videos on mobile devices.

    ¯\_(?)_/¯

  11. SOL

    Nov 12, 2016 at 10:48 pm

    Stages of Learning:
    1. Unconscious Incompetence – you don’t know what you don’t know
    2. Conscious Incompetence – you don’t know how to do what you know about
    3. Conscious Competence – you know what to do and can do it, but you have to think about it consciously
    4. Unconscious Competence – you have fully ingrained the correct movements and can execute without consciously thinking about them

  12. Double Mocha Man

    Nov 12, 2016 at 8:44 pm

    I play with 15 handicappers and they always have swing keys but they are the wrong ones. One guy, bless his heart, is an attorney so his swing keys are absolutely right. You can’t even question them.

  13. J.

    Nov 12, 2016 at 7:32 pm

    This even rings true when someone is custom fit for clubs.. You can pay for golf equipment, but if you have a horrible swing.. then.. go see an instructor with a Trackman.

  14. Hugh

    Nov 12, 2016 at 4:44 pm

    Even just one thought that is easily repeated to give you focus and commitment to each shot has worked for me. Very good article and rings true to all of my customers that use our driving range.

  15. Rors

    Nov 12, 2016 at 1:23 pm

    I think with the evolution of flight scope, swing instruction has become more a science now. Instructors have a vast amount of information based on different numbers they see on data they collect. So in my opinion students gets intimidated with information, thus think swing not golf. Instructors need to be very creative when teaching, getting to know the student and theirs goals. I would never teach a recreational golfer the same as a top junior, or college player. My lesson plan would be more around him correcting mistakes made on the course, plus not trying to transform their swing other than to enhance it… Great article and it brings up many opinions, which this is mine… Thanks for reading, and would love to read yours…

    • Dennis Clark

      Nov 12, 2016 at 5:53 pm

      swings and students are like fingerprints,with no two alike…over nearly 40 years and 30K lessons, I never plan a day or lesson. I react to what i see instinctively and correct (or not) from there. The principles of instruction are finite, the methods of presentation infinite. Thx for your interest.

  16. Smokin' Gun

    Nov 12, 2016 at 1:06 pm

    Caveman golf… Hit ball, find ball, hit ball again…

    • Shanker

      Nov 14, 2016 at 12:21 pm

      Sometimes the 2nd part is the hardest to achieve!!!

  17. Pingback: Why I can’t tell a 15-handicap he’s thinking too much – Swing Update

  18. acemandrake

    Nov 12, 2016 at 11:41 am

    Correct. I started playing at 9 (I’m now 59) with good instruction.

    The more you play the more “natural” and instinctive the game becomes (playing golf NOT golf swing).

    Now if I can just get out of my own way…:)

    • Dennis Clark

      Nov 12, 2016 at 5:47 pm

      Thats the point, you can play “golf not golf swing” from 50 years of playing not everyone can. Thx

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Instruction

Clement: Stop ripping off your swing with this drill!

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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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How a towel can fix your golf swing

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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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Instruction

Clement: Why your practice swing never sucks

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You hear that one all the time; I wish I could put my practice swing on the ball! We explain the huge importance of what to focus on to allow the ball to be perfectly in the way of your practice swing. Enjoy!

 

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