Big Tourney next week...

so, I cant hit my woods except into the woods, so I will employ the straight left arm, use the 'body swing' single plane technique, I learnt from here... Cant hit my irons so gonna use the get a stronger grip, 'straighten my left leg as the first move down' or the secret X factor as some here call it. I chunk / shank all my chips, so I am gonna keep my weight closer towards my heel & my right arm closer to my side, this I hear is the miracle cure for shank-a-chunker like me & finally i hear a saddle style putting gives you tunnel vision....goodbye 4 putts! looking forward to the event & with this forums help, should score in the 80's easily ! Have I forgotten anything else???

You forgot 1 thing.

Before a tournament, you need to forget all that. Unless you have practiced all that and are able to perform all that as your natural swing, you will not not play worth a lick when the pressure is on...and all that...

I am trying to figure out if you are being serious or not...you sounded a bit facetious.

Regardless, this may help others to know that when making changes to anything you will go through 3 stages.

1) "Oh my god" stage: This is when you hear and try something for the first time. It may or may not work, that doesn't matter. What happens to your body is that is just received a new set of instructions from your brain telling it to do something very different from what it was used to. So your body tells you brain, "Oh my god!, you want me to do what now?" This can last anywhere from 1 minute to 1 week. Your abililty to adapt to change will affect this time.

2) "Maintenance" stage. Every new attempted swing will be faced with some sort of resistance from your old swing. I like to think of it as "taking out the trash". The old swing is something you need to remove from your natural, without thinking about it, action. The new swing will only be able to be that natural action when all the old swings are forgotten, to the point where if someone was to ask you to swing like you did before the new swing changes, that you would not be able to. So, the old trash has to be taken out. Every new swing will help take a little bit of the trash out every time. Depending on how bad the old swing was, how diligant you are at taking out the trash, and how much of the trash you can take out at one time, is all up to you, and everyone is different. This can easilly take up to a year, and even 3 years if you had some really big piles of stinking-rotten trash built up.

3) "La-La-Land" stage. This is where everything is right. Nothing gets in your way and every swing is natural and correct. It is as if you can't do anything wrong even when you try. This is the state you want to be in when you play for money, or pressure tournaments.

Your swing does not have to be perfect, but your brain has to think that what you brought to the course, is perfect. And that is the idea I'm trying to say. Play under a state of emotional grace, and you will be your best. Play under a maintenance, or worse the OMG state, and you will play your worst.

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I'm a golfaholic, no question about that. Counseling wouldn't help me. They'd have to put me in prison, and then I'd talk the warden into building a hole or two and teach him how to play. ~Lee Trevino

Hey Greg, I was 99% serious as I have been practising some of the tips from here and your webpage (fabulous job by the way).

yes, i do put most of my tee shots in the woods & am a chunkshankermulligantaker

I was NOT serious about scoring in the 80's......

cheers

Ok then, and thanks!

Does the "not taking all those thoughts with you to a tournament" make sense?

Yes , it makes sense, thus been practising the tips from you & the rest of the members at the range, hopefully muscle memory will take over come the tournament! I have been trying to combine your wrist action & eurocop's leg leg action and it's been very good thus far but still need to get the timing right.

Folks, try to find the above 2 mentioned tips and give it a shot.