Thoughts About The Science Of High Handicappers

Warning: Deeper Thoughts On Higher Handicappers

1. Thought: Free your mind from being consistent.

Here's an abstract:

Percept Mot Skills. 2005 Oct;101(2):365-72.


An analysis of players' consistency among professional golfers: a longitudinal study.


This study followed the performance of individual professional golfers who played from 1997 to 2000 on the Professional Golfers Association Tour (PGA Tour, N=35), ...evidence suggests that variability in player performance is more the rule than the exception for players on the three American professional tours.

So what does this say? It says even the pros have variations.

Since so much of the game is "lucky bounces, unlucky bounces, unfortunate or fortunate days" hoping for a truly consistent game is not realistic.

2. How to break 100

Dave Pelz Putting Bible and Short Game Bible describes where the most strokes are taken, it 100 yards and under. So focus here.

3. I've given up the scoring game

If you are going to ignore your short game, you probably are going to go backwards on your ability to lower your scores.


4. The Power Swing

What is the power swing? This is the full swing off the tee or outside 100 yards to the green. I am a video tape junky. Now, I have always tried to put a little effort into the power swing, but my power swing when I started, would make grown men cry. To make myself feel better, I would video tape my friends (90-120 range), and even the better of them would have serious swing problems. Even the ones with coaches.

5. Why Are My Friend's Powerswings Not All That Good?

I believe that there has been way too little looking at the "average" golfer and their problems. Since I have a sample size of 10 friends on video tape, I am seeing two possible segments:

a. Friends that have a good powerswing but a really bad short game. (1 friend).

b. Friends with a poor powerswing, and a mediocre short game. (9 friends).


6. What is a poor Power Swing?

If you have never read "Extraordinary Golf," you are missing one of the most important golf book to ever come out for describing the habits of poor golfers.

To distill Shoemaker down into words that I believe are better than his own. There are two types of swings:

a. The throwing swing--pretend that you are throwing the club down the fairway. This is the swing all good professional use.

b. The hitting swing--what we do when we have a golf ball in front of us and we try to hit it. This swing is death and is the bain of us high handicap golfers.

To prove this Shoemaker shows pictures of high handicap golfers hitting a ball, then throwing the club down the fairway. Guess what, horrible swings go to beautiful swings when you are throwing the club!

I went down to the local liquidator, bought 10 clubs, went to the local soccer field and video taped myself throwing a club. Bingo. My swing is brilliant. However, as with most of Shoemaker’s students, put the ball on the ground, and the problems all come back.

It is the act of hitting that causes so many problems. The secret is that some of us are genetically wired to use a throwing swing and some a hitting swing. You need to find out where you fit. You need video tape to do this. I would suggest that you tape your swing. Tape the act of throwing a club. Compare.

So what is the problem with a "hitting swing?" The problem is inconsistent contact. The beautiful thing about a throwing swing is that it is a shallow arc (at the bottom of the swing) so your chunks and your thinned shots go down tremendously.

7. How To Program The Mind

VS Ramachandran is a world famous neurologist. In Phantoms in the Brain, he describes that the best athletes must allow themselves to unplug the conscious and allow the subconscious to take over. We call this "muscle memory" in golf, but it is really brain memory. He has shown that visual simulation is very important for this task. Therfore, just the act of watching good swings compared with your own may be helpful. Another reason to get Cswing software and/or V1 Home.

I would move this to your Journal section. It's great stuff!

Greg,

Are you saying that I should JUST put it in the journal section, or having in both places?

There are a couple things here, which I was thinking that maybe a couple people might benefit, but I'm glad to remove it!

Theo

I'm thinking Greg is suggesting it's good journal material. But as not everyone reads the journals, I understand posting it here.

As I carry a journal here, I read everyone else's, too. But if I didn't, I probably wouldn't.

Dual post. It's more fun!

I gave up halfway through

Yeah, okay, guiltly as charged.

1. It is now shortened
2. The end is a little better as I pulled some stuff from VS Ramachandran.
3. Made it less personal

Theo

here are my thoughts on the science of high handicappers.

99% of them have a bad set up which will not allow them to make a good swing on the full swing or chips as well. Go to the range and look at everyones set up, the people hitting it best are usually the ones set up the best.

about the throwing and hitting swing, there are two distinct types of swings one is swinging the other is hitting. most people have some understanding of swinging, hitting is different. I can do both and hitting is actually more accurate for me with a six iron but not a driver. hitting is controlled by the right arm. For me all I do is pull the right arm back and push the heal pad of the palm at the ball. No conscious body turn back or through. You would do yourself well by going to BRIAN MANZELLA's or LYNNE BlAKE's forums, BY FAR the two most informative golf forums I have been to, with the exception of talking to G1 who is also very knowladgeable.

set up you mean as in posture? if so then i do not agree. the problems with nearly all high handicap golfers is the grip. people seem to always fall into the same bad habit with the grip by holding their hand too far behind the club. this usually incurs a hook and nearly all high handicappers have problems with the grip. posture on the otherhand i believe makes little difference as you could have the worst swing and having a good posture will not help.

I'll remind your one more time of Shoemakes experiment:

1. He took high handicappers
2. He asked them to throw the golf club
3. Their swing straighten out

I would have not believed it, unless I had gone down and bought clubs at the local liquidaters and did it myself.

Guaranteed, there is zero effort in the setup for the changes that he (and myself) saw. I changed computers, so I don't have my video at hand, but here is a short snip from Shoemakers book, which should be okay to post under Fair Use.

The top picture is throwing a club down the fairway.
The bottom picture is a 10 handicapper hitting a ball.

Note the two differences:

a. Hands leading ball. No casting.
b. When throwing, he is focused down the fairway, NOT the ball.

Both swings were subconconciously controlled. The difference was the focus.

Already have a logon to Brian's site as Theologic.

Theo

Attached Images

Sample.JPG (142.8 KB, 6 views)

for me set up is grip, posture, stance, weight position, foot flare, right elbow bend, etc