Your Golf Swing Is Good Enough
If you watch the Golf Channel or read any of the magazines and books on golf, it will be
very hard for you to miss the basic theme that "There is a perfect swing and you will do the
most for your game by trying to get it". Even when you watch a tournament on TV, you see the
commentators participate in this conspiracy by showing us frame-by-frame analysis of the pro
and critiquing his/her every move. Now, maybe we can give the TV guys a break because they are
just trying for some entertainment value and let's face it, most of us are interested in the
details of the swing because we've been brainwashed by years of this theme.
For many
years, I too was a "swing zombie" in my quest to improve my golf game. I even participated
with a group of golfers that all had our swings videotaped and then we critiqued each other
in a classroom setting. The feedback I received from all of us watching my swing ran from
"very smooth" to "way off-kilter". Everybody had a differing opinion of many of the swings
that we watched and at least for me, it only confused me more.
In my younger years, I
had a typical amateur slice swing that obviously came out of my years of playing baseball and
softball. In those days, I would just aim for the left edge of any fairway and I could count
on the ball moving left to right, at worst ending up in the right rough but usually hitting
the fairway. I enjoyed playing golf those days but I always felt that something was missing.
So when I could finally afford it,I decided to take a set of lessons from a pro. Of course I
told him that I wanted to get rid of my slice swing and he asked me back "are you sure?". This
answer kind of shocked me but he was a very good instructor and by the end of the lessons, I
was able to hit the ball out of bounds both ways, left and right. I figured that it would just
be a matter of time until I "dialed" in to hitting it straight. To make the story short, 5
years later and I was still "dialing" and getting wrong numbers (ob, jail, water,no score
improvement, etc.).
Looking back, I honestly believe now that if I had stuck with my old
left to right swing and just used the rest of what I learned from the pro, that I would have
improved significantly. Why? Because I was a typical golfer and not a 12 handicapper trying to
become a single-digiter (a good golfer trying to become a great one). Studies have shown that
the overwhelming majority of amateur golfers shoot in the 90's or above for men and it's over
100 for women. If you are in that group, then you really should be working on parts of your
game that will give you far more efficient score improvement for the time and effort spent.
This would primarily be in the area of the short game and the mental game.
This is
absolutely true for the average golfer but it may be true for all golfers as well. There is
loads of evidence on the pro tours that the ones making the money are those best at chipping
and putting. The golf research guru himself, Dave Pelz, actually followed tour players around
for years taking detailed statistics and he proved it (see his book, My Short Game Bible). In
addition to that, there are too many pros to list that admit that their swing is not
"technically correct" or maybe not even very good...BUT THEY WIN TOURNAMENTS! Look at Jim
Furyk, 2003 U.S. Open winner. He actually has a big loop in his backswing. Lee Trevino always
told people that they should not copy his swing. Even Jack Nicklaus says in his books that he
wasn't a very good ball striker. Bruce Lietzke has won tournaments on the PGA and Senior tours
playing his left-to-right shot his whole career - And he says he rarely practices! On top of
that, the tours are littered with past champions that totally lost their game AFTER they tried
to change it for the better. And now they are begging their sports psychologist to help them
"find" their old swing.
I have talked to PGA golf instructors that say it's their
clients that want the swing advice (just like I did) even when they recommend working some
other part of their game first. So maybe it's our own fault in creating the current situation
where average scores of amateurs have not dropped one stroke in the last 50 years despite the
advances in equipment technology. Now don't get me wrong, if you are a total beginner, maybe
you should start out with learning the basics of the golf swing with a lesson. But if you're
hitting it solid most of the time, you are good to go for a real scoring quest as more swing
advice is not the quickest way for you to drop your score. There is just so much more that you
can do, on and off the course, that will pay you back in saved strokes for far less time spent
than "fixing" your swing. Most of us have precious little free time that we can work to
improve our games so why not work on that which will give us the greatest bang for our (time)
buck?
And so, let me be the first to make a pledge to the golf spirit inside me (I
always thought that golf is like religion): "I for one, do solemnly swear that I will not pay
attention to any swing advice of any sort until I can score in the 70's consistently with the
swing I have (and maybe not even then)".
