The Perfect Swing Doctor

Article date: 3/6/2012 -Perfect Swing Newsletter

From The Coaching tee

By

Bob Comstock, PGA

Director of Instruction

Is Your Swing a Jig Saw Puzzle?

Ben Hogan said in his much read golf instruction book Five Fundamentals that, “ the average golfers problem is not so much a lack of ability as it is a lack of knowledge about what he should be doing.” After giving over 25,000 golf lessons during the past 30 years; I couldn’t agree more with Mr. Hogan’s assessment.

Golf is a mind/body game. The way we swing the golf club is solely based on our perception or understanding of the golf motion. We have all hit those memorable shots or played that career round but, we do not understand what we did differently on those occasions, so we can not repeat the performance. Sound swings do not create understanding but rather understanding creates sound swings.

Confidence comes from knowledge and understanding. When we understand what it is we are attempting to do, how we have to do it and why we have to do it that way and then we execute the swing properly and get the desired result; we then know what to repeat to get it to happen again and we know we are capable of doing it, we have confidence in our ability to repeat the proper motion again. Over time with proper practice we learn to trust that with proper execution of the motion, the results will take care of themselves.

Your golf swing is governed by the laws of force and motion (physics). Sound golf swings create power and control through centripetal force and momentum. At its simplest unsound golf swings either interrupt centripetal force before impact with the ball or do not create any in the first place. This is due largely to a faulty mental perception of what it is we have to do and how we have to do it.

  Our body copies pictures of physical motion which occur in our subconscious mind. We don’t learn a golf swing by memorizing the how to, but rather by creating a picture in our “minds eye” of ourselves making the proper motion. This picture in our mind includes the proper fundamentals or the how to. This is true for every physical movement we make not just our golf swing. Everything happens in the brain first. The mind controls the body, the body controls the club and the club controls the ball (mind, body, and club). With the proper understanding and supervision, we can teach our body how to make the proper motion and produce consistent, predicable results.

Visit one of your Perfect Swing PGA Professionals to gain the knowledge you need to maximize your potential to play and enjoy the game of a life time. For trying to make a golf swing without the proper perception is like trying to put a 2,000 piece jig saw puzzle together without the cover of the box; which leads to a lot of trail and error, frustration and anxiety, physical strain and pain, as well as slow to non-existent improvement.

See you on the coaching tee!

Article date 4/2/2012

From the Coaching Tee

By

Bob Comstock, PGA

Director of Instruction

The Mental Game

Golf can not be taught but it can be learned. So calling me a golf teacher is a bit of a misnomer. I do not teach golf, I help people learn how to play golf. Golf is a psycho-physical game, or a mind- body game.

Our brain has two sides, right and left. The left side of our brain stores and uses verbal information. This is the side that we used to study history where we memorized important facts and dates. The right side of our brain stores and uses visual information. Thus, we often hear the statement that, a picture is worth a thousand words and they are.

Golf is learned through the right side of the brain, which deals with concepts, pictures, feelings which are more useful than words. Learning golf is not memorizing the “how to” of the swing; it is incorporating the “how to” into a picture or visualization in your mind’s eye that your body can learn to copy. My job as your coach is to create the right picture in your mind so you can practice properly and teach your body to copy the picture which should include the proper fundamentals of the golf swing. Thus, the mantra I often give to students, “get out of your head and into your body”, feel your body copy the picture do not tell your body how to copy the picture.

 We have three types of physical movements; reflexive, anticipatory and command performances. We use the first two in most of those eye-hand co-ordination games we play such as tennis, baseball, football and the like. The golf swing is a command performance, because we start from a static position, our body does not know what to do until we give it a visualization (picture) of the golf swing to copy. The picture will be the result of a sound perception (mental understanding) of the golf swing fundamentals. Other examples of command performances would be a serve in tennis, free throw in basketball, bowling, tying your shoe, driving your car, writing your signature or shaving in the morning. When was the last time you had to think about the last four mentioned? At one time you had to think about all these motor movements but now the last four are habits because we have given our body a very consistent picture to copy for years and we trust our body to execute these movements without conscious thought. We need to do the same with our golf swing motion.

 Why don’t golfers play up to their potential? They either have a faulty perception of the golf swing or they suffer from self interference, using the left side of the brain to order their body to execute the golf swing, no visualization or target awareness. This

is what’s commonly called “getting in your own way”. If you’re thinking about the ball and the club head and trying to make a result happen, then you’re playing golf with the wrong side of your brain.

 Did you ever wonder why your practice swings feel so balance and effortless and your real swing feels quite the opposite? I’ll bet you didn’t tell your body how to make the practice swing but you told it how to make the swing that counts. If we never “get out of our own way” how will we be able to trust that we can do so?

 A couple of years ago a student asked me a very profound question, “Where does your swing go when you lose it?” My answer was;” Not very far, it goes from the subconscious mind to the conscious mind or from the right side of your brain to the left side.”

 Golf is not an eye-hand hit the ball game but rather a motion game. Our swing motion is made away from the target and back to the target utilizing centripetal force for a maximum transfer of power to the golf ball. The golf ball is not our target or our focus point, where we want the ball to land and stop should be our focus (target).  I have helped two blind people learn how to play golf. There is a national blind golfer tournament every year and the winner usually comes close to breaking 125.

 Become target aware and see yourself making your swing motion away from the target and back to the target. The golf ball is in the middle of your swing motion not at the end of it. By swing to the target we give direction to the power we create                     (assuming good alignment) and even your “misses” will be better. Misses we can find, play and still score with because they went toward our target.

See you on the Coaching Tee!