Perpetual Tweaking

[Festus]

Thinking a lot about my swing lately as I am struggling to regain my mid summer form. At that time, I broke 80 for the first time followed by 2 more with a low of 76. Been downhill ever since and I'm back to mid 80's mediocrity.

Ever since I can remember, I am always tweaking some body part trying to find the ever elusive "it". A little flatter or steeper, grip, right elbow, weight movement, axis tilt, blah, blah, blah. Always trying to meld just the right components together that finally arrives as my finished golf swing. The one that is consistent, produces reasonable golf shots and is unchanging. I have now realized either this quest is futile (at least for me) or I'm going about it wrong. Should I be more focused on the discipline of proper execution? Maybe this seems like semantics but when I do it right, it works. This may sound kind of like "well, duh!" but my mind set has been finding a series of movements that's easy to do and the execution will take care of itself. But maybe I need to really concentrate on performing what I know to do and master it. If at some point one wants to make a change, then fine. But try to build a repeating golf swing through repitition and focus, not the "tip of the day" approach.

Does this make sense? Are you guys always tinkering with something too? Is the search for your "finished" golf swing just a pipe dream? Or is a better approach to find a pattern that suits, then hone it without messing with it?

 

[softconsult]

Trust me you aren't the Lone Ranger on this subject. The Pro's are doing the same thing, just to a lesser degree and at a much higher skill level. They go through up and down cycles.

I am smiling because at some point in my last round, probably just after I had blown the Drive for two successive holes, I said something like this to one of my playing partners. "You know Lewis, I will bet that when I am on
life support ready to kick, I will still be trying to solve the golf riddle!" He understood.

This stuff is slightly different as you improve, but on the other hand it's possibly more irritating. The reason is that
as you, let's say regularly break 80, the only reason for shooting 86 is probably blowups. Blowups are generally a failure to execute a shot you know well and can pull off most of the time. However, you don't switch techniques based on the tip of the week.

That's different than constantly searching to several different things that only work for a short while, and then
going on to something different. That is a never ending search. That's where seeking professional help comes in.

And it is different from Dave's situation. Who the hell is this Dave guy? He's I guy I met a few months ago on our
local practice range (Shag range, quite nice actually). When I first met him he was over by the practice chipping/pitching green intently watching the Mickelson DVD on a player attached to his pull cart. I showed him
a couple of things and we worked on them for about an hour. He is serious about improving, but he is athletically
challenged and sort of a nerdy type guy.

So yesterday, I'm out there, and here comes Dave. Says he is going to work on hitting 70 yard shots uphill to the
green. I'm sort of watching him on the periphery. Disaster. No pivot. All arms. Huge flip. Balls short. Balls flying the green into the woods. Has no clue what he is actually doing.

So we worked some more. I was remembering that his answer to my originally asking him whether he had ever played any sports, was a firm No, never. He is about 65 - 70 years old and really has no idea about
how about the movements of throwing or hitting. My point is that he is on the extreme bad golfer end of the spectrum, but is searching pretty hard to figure it out. He still likes it, even though I'm sure he can't break 100.
I'm betting that the next time I run into him he will not have succeeded in implementing the two things we settled
on for him to work on.

Also when someone says they are working on finding the right combination of things which will consistently produce repeatable results, I focus on what the words "working on" really mean. This game requires much more practice time than most people have to dedicate. Pretty satisfying when you then get to experience the results on the course.

Last year my chipping and pitching were really not good. A lesson with Brian helped. Following Utley's approach helped. Practicing those things 4 hours a week from last October through the end of March this year has really paid off. It meant freezing my ass off during some of the winter months. But I have gotten back to my skill level of
decades ago, as best I can remember it. All the really good players I know have, at some point, put in a whole lot of practice time.

 

[birly-shirly]

Festus - You're making sense to me. It's not unusual for me to find the best rounds of the year from a ball-striking perspective early on the year and go backwards from there. I'm definitely inclined to tinker for the sake of it, but I'm getting (a little) better at exercising a bit of self-discipline.

A couple of thoughts though. Look at your stats. Can you remember what got you into the '70s, and what's got worse since? That might yield something for you to focus on. Also, try and assess the real state of your game and swing. If you find persistent faults that show up in your ball-flight - like always fighting a big slice - then maybe it's worth addressing that first. On the other hand, if you feel like your average swing is fairly neutral - although maybe consistency isn't as strong as you'd like - then maybe defer the major overhaul of your swing and work on grooving the move you have.

I think there's quite a lot of mileage in playing very results oriented games on the range. Forget about mechanics or new swing thoughts - just think target and how you want to get there. I like the idea just now of trying to hit 3 shots in a row where my objective is to hit a certain shape, or landing area, before I move on to another club. I take maybe 4 or 5 clubs to the range and try to see how many times I can complete a full cycle within, say, 100 balls. When you've hit 2 good shots in a row, there's even a bit of pressure to make the third so that you can move on.

 

[Bigwill]

I say find a pattern that suits, then work on making it better. What we have to remember is that when we've found that pattern, we then have to work on THAT pattern until it becomes natural. The problem is identifying that pattern, so that when it hits a snag, you can tell yourself, "I know I'm doing the right thing; I just have to stick it out." For tinkerers like us, that is extremely difficult.