Learning Golf The Proper Way

The common approach to improving your golf game is to improve your technique. But there is the right way and the wrong way of learning golf technique.

Analysis

When I look at students swings and the technique is roughly there but something is not right I might get into small technical details and try to correct their knee bend, have them add more body, add more wrist snap, have a looser grip, etc.

Yet even if the student would succeed that would again produce mechanical, uncoordinated movement that would give no extra power - as they would consciously move parts WITHOUT the connection to the rest of the body.

Our conscious mind CANNOT coordinate our body.

The movements happen to fast and there are over 600 muscles in our body - where most of them are used in a movement like the golf swing.

Are you able to consciously fire 600 muscles in the exact right sequence in about 2 seconds?

Definitely not. Therefore you shouldn't even try.

It is the job of the cerebellum. It's a part of the brain responsible for motor control and motor learning.

The Best Way Of Learning A Golf Swing

So how do we learn a golf swing for example? Do we just think about the throwing of the club and the golf technique will magically appear?

Not exactly.

Although talented people have developed great swings simply by focusing on the end result - hitting the ball fast towards the target - and allowing their body to adapt to that.

But in most cases we need to learn some technique - which is a series of movements.

Where most club players go WRONG is that they SACRIFICE their natural ways of generating force for the sake of correct technique.

A technique is nothing else as the most efficient way to generate controlled force into the ball.

It's a (controlled) force that you're looking for which will project the ball towards the target. And it's not a set of mechanical movements that are supposed to be "correct".

So what we need to do is to COMBINE the movements we learn with the natural way of generating force.

And not only that, the natural way needs to be more dominant while you're learning.

So you need to keep the natural way of generating force and only GENTLY introduce certain new learned movements into it.

Two Reasons Why Club Players' Swings Are Not Fast

There are two main reasons why your swing is not as fast as you're actually capable of.

1. You're learning technique and consciously controlling your movements
2. You're trying to hit the greens.

These two points stifle your swing motion so that eventually you're probably swinging with 40-50% of what you're actually capable of.

Both problems are solved with one solution: swing as if you're throwing the golf club at the ball without any target. Your only goal is to hit the ball fast and far.

Back to swinging and how we need to learn it the natural way...

Your swing may lack some technical elements that would help you hit the ball faster, with more control and less effort.

So while you're taking lessons or you're using golf instruction videos (DVDs or online), you need to COMBINE the conscious part of learning the swing mechanics with your natural way of accelerating the club head.

The worst thing you can do is to try to consciously perform the mechanical (learned) movements AND at the same time try to hit at a target.

That's a guaranteed way to completely stifle your swing and lose all natural ways of generating force.

A Three Step Process Of Learning To Swing Fast And Effortless

Most of you reading this article already have some swing technique and the following three drills apply exactly to you.

The purpose of these three drills is to release the natural way of generating force that you've had for many years but you've sacrificed it for "correct" swing technique.

Here's what you need to do to improve your swing speed and swing with less effort:

Step 1: Find a safe place (a lawn) to throw the club. Simply throw the club far. Keep doing that for about 20-30 throws.

Step 2: Go back to the range and with the same feel simply "throw" the club head into the ball.

So you're not thinking about swing technique but you're trying to keep the feel of throwing the club while you're hitting the ball.

Keep doing that for a few minutes until you can feel that you're not performing swing technique but rather throwing the club at the ball and allowing it to go whenever it wants to go.

The key is to let go of control. Control is what slows down your swing.

Step 3: Keep feeling the "throw" into the ball and now simply aim at a steeper angle towards the target. Do not try to control the swing and make it go at the target.

At this stage you simply need to get lucky here and there when you hit the target. Most shots should miss - as you're not really controlling the club head and you're still freely letting go and throwing the club head at the ball.

You're only aiming in your mind - wishing that the ball goes , but you don't sacrifice the "effortless throwing motion" for the result.

If you keep doing that you'll notice that you hit the target more and more times.

By now you should already feel that this is the right way to swing as you will feel lots of energy transfer into the ball and how effortless it is compared to your previous swing.

With practice you'll start hitting your target regularly.